Jisung pulled his hand away from Minho as fast as he could when the door to the hospital room opened.
"Has it been fourty minutes already?" Minho whispered with a smile to Jisung. The younger boy looked at the opening door and blushed.
"I got you clean clothes and some snacks." Lewis smiled when he entered the room. "The nurse said she would come soon to check up on you again. If everything's alright, which I think should be possible, you can come back to the dorms with us again."
"Thank you, Lewis. I don't know what I would do without you. Thank you for bringing me here." Minho shortly embraced Lewis before he sat down.
"No problem at all. Here, have some sugar." Lewis had brought some sweet candy.
"Minho likes sour candy." Jisung said before he could even realise it came out of his mouth.
"I guess he does," Lewis stated, "how do you know though?"
Jisung froze and remembered the time he was getting candy with Sam for their film night. "I just do, I don't know. I'm going to get something to drink."
But before Jisung could even get up, Lewis said, "I got you. I brought water and soda, just choose anything."
Jisung slumped into his seat again and took a soda can from Lewis.
"Thank you for making Jisung stay with me." Minho thanked Lewis, but also indirectly Jisung. "It means a lot to me."
Jisung was thinking about how to explain all of this to Sam. He then suddenly remembered he left Sam hanging without any explanation.
"I'm going to step outside for a bit, I need to call Sam. I left him hanging today and he has no idea where I am right now."
Lewis nodded. Minho grabbed Jisung's wrist before he walked away, "tell him everything, he deserves to know."
Lewis frowned but let it slide, he was just glad his friend was okay.
Jisung stepped outside and dialed Sam's number.
"Hey Sam, sorry I wasn't able to call you earlier." Jisung spoke.
"Jisung? My god, Jisung! Where have you been?" Sam said on the other side.
"Actually, I'm in the hospital. Not for me though!" Jisung quickly stated. "It's for... it's for Minho."
"And you are there because?" Sam sounded annoyed. Jisung knew he had the right to be, lately Jisung had been caught in all kinds of bullshit with Minho. But right now all Jisung wanted to do, was explain to Sam what all went down.
"Just listen to me please. I don't think I can explain all of it right now, but you have to believe me when I tell you Minho's not a bad person." Jisung said nervously.
"Jisung, are you being brainwashed by him again? He's literally the worst!" Sam exclaimed. "Why is he at the hospital anyway?"
"His homophobic dad beat him up because he was seeing guys, apparently it isn't the first time either."
"Oh." That was all that Sam said on the other side of the line.
"Yeah, oh." Jisung said. "Today he told me that his dad practically keeps beating him back into the closet everytime he tries to explore his options."
Sam stayed silent, so Jisung just continued.
"And it was going alright for a while, but apparently we helped him realise he's no good staying in the closet. But he was so confused and hurt and brainwashed by his own dad, that he ended up exploring in a really, really dumb way. He apologised for everything to me, he felt extremely apologetic towards you too."
"I'm not accepting that apology." Sam said sternly.
"That's okay, I'm not expecting you to accept his apology or understand his situation. I'm just asking for you to hear me out." Jisung practically begged, he wasn't too sure why.
"He can explain it to me directly, we'll see then." Sam said and hung up without even saying goodbye.
Jisung sighed and entered the room again. He saw that the nurse had come to check up on Minho.
"He looks alright, I think his wounds will be healed soon." The nurse stated before turning to Minho again, "Don't get yourself into situations where you'll experience extreme stress, you might feel fatigued and faint again. But besides that, you'll be like new soon enough."
"Ma'am, I go to college. I'm afraid I'll be extremely stressed everyday." Minho joked. The nurse laughed and told them to pick up some forms at the front desk on their way out.
"What did he say?" Minho asked Jisung, referring to Sam.
"He can't accept your apology, but he wants you to tell him personally. He'll re-evaluate then." Jisung answered. "But I wouldn't hope for the best, Sam's pissed."
Minho thought for a moment, "I understand. I'll try to apologise to him personally again."
"What's going on here?" Lewis asked, feeling totally removed from the situation.
"I told him, all of it." Minho said, "About mom, about dad, about me... He knows. I told him he should tell Sam too, I had hoped he would try to understand me."
"Maybe he will when you tell him personally." Jisung tried to comfort Minho.
Minho nodded, "let's get out of here and settle this, I don't want to have bad blood with anyone. I feel so horrible."
Jisung reached out to Minho, but Lewis had already wrapped his arm around the older boy.
They took care of the last bits of paperwork and headed back to campus.
"Are you sure you should do this right now? The nurse said not to stress too much." Lewis checked in with his friend.
"I'm sure, it needs to be done as soon as possible. Though I'm very nervous." Minho admitted.
"Okay, you'll know where to find me." Lewis said and headed back to his own dorm.
Minho and Jisung walked to Sam's dorm together. They mostly stayed silent, until Minho grabbed Jisung's hand. Jisung stopped walking and turned to Minho.
"I'm sorry," Minho said, "I feel anxious."
Jisung smiled and grabbed Minho's hand tighter, "You'll be okay."
Before entering Sam's dorm, they both took a big breath. Jisung knew how stupid it must look to Sam, suddenly siding with Minho.
Jisung let go of Minho's hand and knocked on Sam's door.
"Hm, come in." Sam said on the other side of the door.
Jisung cracked open the door just enough for Sam to only see him.
"Jisung, there you are! I'm so confused about what you said on the phone, I must have been hallucinating or somthing. Come in." Sam sounded relieved, which made Jisung feel even more nervous. He was right to feel nervous, because when he opened the door all the way, he saw Sam freeze.
"If it's okay with you," Minho started carefully, "I would like to explain myself. You don't have to forgive me or understand me, it's okay to just listen."
Minho sat down in front of Sam and Jisung sat next to Minho.
"Alright, I'll try to listen. But why did you come anyway? You could've just left it alone and just not talk to us anymore." Sam said indifferently.
"Because I hurt you. Jisung too." Minho's throat had never felt drier. "And by hurting you, I once again hurt Jisung. Which is the last thing I want to do."
Sam couldn't see, but behind their backs, Minho and Jisung were secretly holding hands again. Jisung told himself he only did it so Minho wouldn't feel so anxious, he didn't want Minho to pass out again.
But he couldn't fool himself, he knew why he held his hand.