JongHyun had ants in his pants the whole ride to the hospital. Onew kept glancing at him during red lights and stop signs to check up on him. From his seat in the back Key didn’t know how to act. He was torn between comforting JongHyun and just silently disappearing out of his life.
Everything was just so screwed up. He didn’t even know why they were going to the hospital. JongHyun had secluded himself from the outside world ever since that phone call.
“Is everything all right, JongHyun?” Onew finally asked with a cautious attitude to his words.
Key praised him for asking the words he’d been afraid to.
It took a while for the zombie-like boy to offer an answer. He temporarily tore his gaze away from the world zipping by him to look at Onew.
His eyes are so sad, Key thought.
“TaeMin had another episode…” he whispered.
“He’s sick again?”
“Yeah… Really, really sick…” His body slumped down in his seat, seemingly unable to hold up the weight of his head. The fight seeped out of his feet and down through the floor of the car.
“What do you mean really, really sick?” Key asked. He received no answer much to his disappointment.
The hospital came into view from up ahead. JongHyun nearly launched himself from the car in his haste to get inside the building. Parking was taking so long that he was tempted to just jump out of the car, or at least ask Onew to let him out. But he chose to wait in order to stay polit. Onew had given him a ride after all. Even if TaeMin was…
He couldn’t think like that… He couldn’t give up hope. TaeMin would get better.
JongHyun tried hard not to sprint off to the hospital. Unfortunately, in his panic he wasn’t able to stop himself from bolting across the parking lot and through the automatic doors to the warm interior. From the sounds of heavy footsteps thudding behind him he knew Onew and Key were hot on his tail anyways.
“I’m looking for someone,” JongHyun panted to the first nurse he could locate behind the counter. “His name is TaeMin, Lee TaeMin.”
“He’s on the third floor… In the ICU,” the nurse said. Her voice was so full of sympathy is sickened JongHyun. It wasn’t her best friend hanging on to the last threads of his life.
That was one of the reasons he didn’t even bother thanking her for her help or reprimanding her for the tone of her voice. He sped off like the road runner in a cloud of dust and spinning legs. Despite having been here several times before he was having difficulty pinning down the location of the elevator and had to stop to do a couple of circles.
“JongHyun… This way…” Onew ushered gently. He placed his hand on the younger’s shoulder and led him in the direction of the metal box.
The three boys piled into one elevator together. The tension in the air was so thick it could be cut with a knife. JongHyun leaned against the cool metal wall, taking a deep breath through his nose to try and relieve himself of said tension and let his panic escape. His eyes closed and pictures of all the previous times he’d been in one of these elevators came rushing back to him.
TaeMin’s mother’s words came back to haunt him.
How could such an innocent boy have such a horrible life?
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A Sparkly Encounter (A JongKey Fanfic)
FanfictionJongHyun is a college student struggling to live on his own and keep up with his studies. When he meets Key in a chance encounter he thinks that there's no one more annoying than him. However, after finding Key beatened badly on a return trip to the...
