their smiles alone could stop a war
that's just my opinion but I stand by it
⊷ 37
At night, it got quiet. Even inside the hospital halls, the world seemed to be moving slower. As if death offered the people a moment to breathe while life pretended to be endless just for a while.
Calm were also the steps of the doctors and nurses that moved slowly through the halls. Their tired feet could only carry them so fast and so far, creating unison with a leisurely spinning planet.
Suddenly, between that sterile floor and those plain walls, appeared an oddly idyllic scene. It was filled with the fleeting glimpses one would occasionally catch when passing by one of the windows. Filled with the late-night conversations the staff was having and the snores that crept through some of the doors as one passed them.
Even at this hour, the lights inside the halls shone brightly, while the rooms lay in darkness. Of course, sometimes the nightly patient room's silence would get interrupted as well. Maybe because a patient couldn't sleep or because a nurse would kindly offer them a reminder to take their medicine.
Or perhaps, as dreaded as it was, there would be an emergency. Some patients would get woken up by it. It would create anxious turmoil until it was dealt with - one way or another.
It was odd though.
Because no one thought that at a calm night like today's, the ones to be the cause for that emergency would be the two young boys that were recovering so well.
Who could have guessed that only ten minutes past midnight, Jeno and Shotaro would be taking their last breaths?
Dressed in a black suit, hands in front of his torso, fingers interlocked loosely. The security guard was leaning against the wall next to the door that led to the boys' room.
As an unfamiliar doctor approached him, he straightened his back and took a step to the side, placing himself between the doctor and the door.
With an awkward smile, the doctor presented him his ID. It looked just like all the others. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to worry about. Just someone the security guard hadn't come across yet. And so he took a step to the side, bowed his head politely and allowed the doctor to enter the room.
Inside, it was quiet. The room lay in darkness, with only the little light that entered through the open curtains of the big windows guiding the doctor to the boys' beds. He didn't know who occupied which bed. He didn't even know what the boys looked like.
Not that it mattered.
He didn't need that to take out the two small ampoules that he had hidden in his white coat or to find the syringe that was carefully tugged away in the back pocket of his trousers.
As he walked up to the first bed, his eyes fell onto the sleeping boy. He couldn't make out any of his features. All he heard was soft snoring, steady breathing.
Breaths that didn't sound like they were his last, as the man filled the syringe and then injected the liquid into the first boy's IV bag. He hurried over to the other one, well aware that time was of the essence here.
The ampoules clinked as he put them back into his white coat, then safely hid the syringe in his pocket again before swiftly leaving the room.
As he passed the security guard he gave him a curt nod, then made his way over to the elevators. He waited a few tense seconds and blankly stared at the metal before his eyes, ere a ding sounded through the hallway and the door slid open. He stepped inside right away and watched as the doors closed.
As it was about to shut completely, he heard a loud beeping sound. It sounded like it was nearby - only a few steps to the side, where the boys' room was located and where a doctor was rushing to as a nurse urgently shouted,
"Code Blue!"
Then, silence.
As the elevator door was finally closed, the man in the doctor's outfit leaned back and took out his phone. He smirked, satisfied as he dialled a number.
"Done," was all he said.
"Good. Now get out of there," was what Changbin said in return before hanging up. He sighed as he put his phone down and glimpsed at Felix who was looking at him. "It's done."
Satisfied, the younger just nodded before leaning his head against the headrest and focusing on the hospital's entrance. It was late, both of them were tired. They had had a long day - and it was only going to get longer.
Since they weren't very occupied for quite a while, Felix had time to ponder over things and accidentally get lost in his thoughts. So, after a few minutes passed and the turmoil in the upper level of the building had probably already ended, Felix let his head tumble to the side.
"Hyung."
Changbin sat on the driver's seat, head leaned back. He took deep breaths as he tried hard to keep his eyes open. That he had to watch the hospital's main entrance and make sure everything was going according to plan was all thanks to JYP's growing paranoia. Still, he didn't complain. He accepted the work he was instructed to do.
"Hm?"
He was just curious, so Felix' words came out a little clumsily when he asked,
"What did Juno really do?"
Confused, Changbin looked at the younger boy. "What do you mean?"
"You were weird today," he merely said. "You are usually not that aggressive and insistent with your ideas."
Since JYP was the one that helped Changbin and his family, he had always been rather obedient. Following orders, not allowing himself or others to question him. Although Changbin wasn't shy and didn't hold back from voicing his opinion, he would usually not keep pushing once JYP had made his aversion to a plan or idea evident.
So Felix was curious.
What changed this time?
Changbin, however, was unsure what to say. "I was angry," he admitted eventually. "CEO Park is the one that stood by my family. I couldn't accept that that girl just barged into my house and told me that that was all a lie."
"And?" Felix asked carefully. "Was it a lie?"
Changbin took a deep breath before laughing to himself. He didn't sound amused nor did he sound like laughing was what he wanted to do.
He just couldn't express his disbelief in any other way.
Because the way in which Felix asked that, almost made it sound as if he had already made up his mind.
"What do you think?" he asked in return. "That he betrayed me for years? That all his attempts to help my family were just for show?"
His hostile reply made Felix reluctant to speak. He knew this was a sensitive topic. He knew that his past, present and future were all somehow linked to JYP - whether he liked it or not.
Actually, that was why he had to ask.
Changbin and he had been friends ever since he could remember. Wherever Changbin was, was where Felix wanted to be too. All he wanted was to stay by his side.
"I don't think you have the most unbiased view on this. I just wanted to ask." He hummed, then looked away since he felt how reluctant his friend was to listen to him. "But I also said I would always be next to you, so I don't care. As long as you are okay, so am I."
His words sounded sweet because they were, yet next to Changbin's hostility they felt even warmer and gentler. Needless to say that confronted with such a reply, the older regretted the tone he chose. He took a deep breath, tried to calm down and find the right words to say.
He didn't want Felix to misunderstand, so he wanted to explain that,
"Actually, I don't--"
"Wait," Felix interrupted him, rather by accident than anything else. He leaned forward, hands on the dashboard to support his torso as he focused on a man that was hastily approaching the hospital. "Isn't that mayor Kang?"
What?
Following his friend's gaze, Changbin quickly found the mayor as he hurried over to the building's entrance.
"You said Juno was a girl, right?" Felix inquired which the other only replied to by nodding. "The timing is weird. What is he doing here?"
"Must be a coincidence," Changbin mumbled and glimpsed to Felix for reassurance who, however, wasn't of much help.
"That's a weird coincidence," he pointed out as he watched Kang disappear inside the building.
Emergency ⊶
Don't get mad at me for sacrificing Jeno and Shotaro please thank you <3