Since the first visit Key had seen his donor once more. It had felt like an eternity since their last meeting, but only because the solidarity was messing with him. Without TaeMin in the room he had nothing to pass the time; there was nothing to keep his interest. Every second wasted in his bed was consumed by thoughts of the past and the boy with the blonde hair and green eyes.
The other guy, MinHo, he’d told him to be patient. Patient for what, though? The two had been so silent that Key had given up on speaking. Their presence was welcomed nonetheless, but he hated how questions were still left unanswered. They were acting exactly like the workers would when they took them out of their rooms on the rare occasion.
Key tried to change sides so he wouldn’t have to stare at TaeMin’s empty bed again. No one had even bothered to change the sheets yet. The skin on Key’s back was so tender, though, that the slightest movement irritated it. He could almost feel a chunk of his body being gouged out of him. So many days confined to a bed, it was only normal that he have the disfiguring abrasions. It smelled almost as rotten as he felt.
Someone had said – from what he could remember anyway – something about a third degree something… He hadn’t been able to hold on to the terminology they’d used.
Everything was sluggish in his body. Ever since he’d come back from his examination…
JongHyun… During the check up he’d thought of him, wishing that he was there with him. It didn’t matter that they were strangers. He was lucky enough to have found another boy in the institution. Key wanted to keep JongHyun as much as he wanted to keep his career. Both were situated at opposite sides of the spectrum he was thinking of, but none of that mattered… Not in here.
He wanted to hear his donor speak, touch his skin, examine his behaviours. He craved to figure out the story behind the face. MinHo said he didn’t talk… Key knew better. At one time in his life he had uttered words and he promised himself to get those words spoken again. Somehow… If only for his selfish needs.
When would they next come…?
Key wished he knew. As he raised hi bottom away from the mattress, taking extra care to not knock any of the red spots on his body, and rolled to his side, he imagined their future interactions with each other.
Half way through the fantasy, between a fit of coughing and a dramatized conversation with his donor, MinHo slipped out of the equation. He vanished from the ex-super model’s mind. Only JongHyun survived his selection process, sticking around like a puppy desperate to play with its new friend…
When would he come back…?
Questions, questions, and no answers. Frustrating as it was it unconsciously ravished enough of Key’s energy to him to tumble into a nap. The burning in his calves and lower back hibernated in his thought chamber and he fell… Into a pile of pillows drizzled in sleeping powder, awaking only when a hand brushed stray strands of hair from his clammy face.
Air tickled his forehead, the caressing touch continuing its business on his neck… The padded urface of someone’s thumb stroking his skin and urging goose bumps to come out.
The sensations were so pleasant and compassionate that he didn’t discern the fantasy and reality of it until the touch left and he opened his eyes.
Like they had been for the past two times they’d come, MinHo was at the foot of the bed leering at Key with an impassive expression and JongHyun was less daunting, his short frame hunched over. He stretched for Key while sitting on the edge of TaeMin’s bed. His hand hadn’t left completely but chose to rest in front of Key rather than on him. And despite him having that indifferent expression plastered on him like a permanent mask there was a spark of… Wonder? Respect? Care?
Elated at not having to be alone any more, Key forgot about his debilitating condition and prepared to sit up. Regret berated him immediately as the non-existent tearing sound confirmed that he’d opened something that had been trying to heal. Thanks to that he cringed and flopped like a fish out of water. It was safer to lay still than to try and seek revenge on his body’s condition.
“Are you okay?” MinHo asked.
“Yeah…” Key assured. A sigh rasped out of his throat. There was a twitch in JongHyun’s hand as it came into contact with the carrier’s breath. “What are you doing back?” Key asked. “You’re going to get caught…” His eyes followed a trail of veins riding up JongHyun’s arms. They crossed over his collarbone where one disappeared and the other one climbed his neck to pulse at a spot beneath his jaw line. It was there that he focused as MinHo spoke to keep an anchor on real life where the edges were beginning to blue again.
In the corner of his eye he saw MinHo shrug, focused again on the place where TaeMin should have been. Maybe if Key had placed his attention on him instead of the beauty mark in the dip between JongHyun’s clavicles he would have noticed how his face muscles tightened… Or how his Adam’s apple bobbed as he threatened the tears to stay at bay. Alas, he had always had a selfish streak in him that kept him from handling certain things.
He did notice the absence of noise, however. He wasn’t a fool; he could sense the secret words balancing on the tip of MinHo’s tongue.
“MinHo?” he coaxed, finally tearing away from JongHyun.
The boy returned Key’s prompt with a flame of charisma that unnerved him slightly. JongHyun shuffled slightly, edging closer to his partner as he paced a short distance in front of them. Key had noted it to be a habit of the donor’s. Within the few times they’d shared he’d always fit in pacing.
Thankfully, MinHo didn’t keep up with it for long. He whipped forwards, pulling knobby fingers through dishevelled curls and reigning in the anxiety evident in his body language.
“We… Came up with a plan,” he said finally.
Key perked up, wondering what they’d devised together.
“What do you mean?” he questioned.
Between them, JongHyun locked eyes with Key, as if trying to say it was something huge.
Talk to me… Key pleaded mentally.
It would take more than the introducing of Key to change JongHyun’s old habits… That he knew. As MinHo perched by TaeMin’s bed he kept wishing for his donor to at least make a noise.
“A plan to break out,” said MinHo.
Key’s eyes nearly popped out of his sockets. Some air he’d been breathing whizzed down the wrong tube and he found himself hacking out his lungs. Desperate for oxygen his body acted of its own accord, ignoring the lesions connection on his back. He flailed with his knees forcing through an invisible barrier at his waist to tuck into his chest.
JongHyun acted swiftly, diving in to resuscitate Key if need be. One hand poised on his forearm, gripping tightly in a way that kept him from leaving into a dark land.
“A-a plan?” Key rasped.
Seeing that he was able to speak again, his donor pulled back. He sat down once more while folding his hands in his lap.
It was MinHo’s queue to speak again.
“A plan to break out…” he repeated. “JongHyun came up with it.”
“But you said JongHyun didn’t talk,” Key exclaimed, feeling a bit hurt at the idea of JongHyun sharing his voice with someone else before him.
“Sometimes you don’t need words to understand someone…” MinHo rubbed his tail bone as he stared off into space. Key swore there was a glimmer of amusement in JongHyun’s face that disappeared as soon as MinHo started speaking again. He laid out the plan, going step by step, back tracking when his roommate eyed him for missing a detail. But ever since his bout of coughing Key had found it difficult to concentrate. He caught most of what they were saying, but things about their time map he had a hard time storing.
They wanted out and JongHyun wanted to take him along, that was about all he needed to know.
They had figured out a way to extinguish the hell fires.