YOUTH. | JK | COMPLETE

drained

"No, baby. You've gotta stay awake, okay?" She says, voice soft but stern.

"But I'm...I'm so tired." He whines, and Haneul shakes her head, more tears escaping her eyes.

"Jeongguk, no. Stay with me." She said, voice louder now. Turning to Seokjin, she asked desperately, "Are we almost there?"

"Yeah, just a few more minutes." He answered, and in the rear view mirror, Haneul can see Seokjin's own waterline brimming with tears. She doesn't know what changed his mind on Jeongguk, but she is so grateful he did.

The few minutes it takes them to arrive at the hospital feel like hours. Getting Jeongguk out of the car proved to be more difficult than it was to get him in, due to his semi-conscious state, but with the help of Seokjin and Taehyung, they snuck him in through the back. They each jumped when a woman in scrubs rounded the corner, a nurse from the circulation desk, but with hushing from Haneul, she kept her concern to herself—especially after realizing she recognized Jeongguk from bringing Haneul muffins after her night shifts. The nurse helped them into the back room, and after Seokjin provided a brief explanation of why they needed to do the procedure, she insisted on getting trustworthy anesthesiologists, nurses and other surgeons to help.

Taehyung and Seokjin had been shooed to the back empty back hallways of the surgical wing to wait, and in the interim period, they were joined by a frantic Hoseok, who had been in the middle of a dance intensive when he had seen Seokjin's messages about Jeongguk. After four long hours of waiting, Haneul emerged, blood on her gloved hands, looking exhausted and emotionally drained but relieved nevertheless. He was going to be okay, but they still needed to travel. Haneul sat in the back of Seokjin's car with Hoseok, Jeongguk passed out across their laps with Taehyung in the passenger seat. The hours dragged on, Seokjin driving straight through the night with the only sound being Jeongguk's ragged breathing until they reached an inconspicuous motel outside of Busan. Carefully purchasing some rooms, for which Seokjin insisted to pay, they sneakily carried Jeongguk upstairs and laid him on the bed.

And that's where they've been for the past three days. Jeongguk's condition improved considerably, despite the unavoidable pain, so much to the point that he could sit up—and to the point that they were leaving. Not just leaving the shitty motel, or leaving Busan—but leaving the country. Too many people know him here, too many people hate him, want to hurt him. While Jeongguk had been deliriously high off pain medication for the past days, they had decided to book a flight through one of Hoseok's many connections who owed him a favor. How Hoseok's seemingly never ending list of people indebted to him came about, Jeongguk didn't know, but this one had gotten them on a flight to Italy, where Jeongguk and Haneul would stay until they figured out what to do next.

But what was there to do next? Jeongguk's near brush with death this time was one time too many for his friends and his lover, so he didn't want to argue with their executive decision to uproot his life. Yet, he wondered what good it would do. He wondered if he was worth going to all this trouble for.

Now, Haneul's tender hands change the bandages on Jeongguk's wounds. He sits on the bed of their motel room shirtless before her, jeans hugging his thighs, mouth pulled taut into a expression of pain despite Haneul's efforts to be gentle. She murmurs apologies for each wince, each flinch, each ripple of agony across his handsome face. He grips the covers so hard his knuckles turn white, but finally, Haneul withdraws her hands from his bandages to unclench his fists and slip her fingers into the void space.

Jeongguk looks up at her for the first time in a while, as he had been opting for a random place on the floor during the unpleasant experience of her tending to his wounds. He can see the concern on her face, the same pure worry that has been radiating off her for the past three days. Eyebrows knit, plump bottom lip tucked between her teeth. Consistent touches that are meant to be comforting to him, ones conceived with the best of intentions, ones that are meant to make him feel loved and safe and special—