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1.
Sometimes, Jisung wondered if the universe was out to get him. He had quite possibly the worst luck of anyone he knew, and despite his intelligence his common sense generally evaded him. He was, for lack of a better term, a hot mess at best.
Today was one of those days where nothing had gone right at work, and he couldn’t wait to get home. He had hardly slept last night either, up late producing, and since he forgot to go grocery shopping over the weekend there was nothing to eat for breakfast. He missed the train home and had to wait another thirty minutes at the station, too.
Trudging up the hill towards his house, he mentally planned his night. He would order dinner in, watch a few episodes of Singles Inferno, and then work on his latest song until he crashed. It wasn’t much, but it was a chance to relax. He needed it.
“Finally,” he breathed as he undid the latch on his front gate. The door swung open with a creak, and the tension melted off of Jisung’s shoulders as he stepped over the threshold into the courtyard. He had been lucky that his grandparents had left this house to him when they passed; it wasn’t much, but it was better than a cramped studio in the middle of downtown Seoul.
Jisung reached into his pocket, fumbling for his keys, and he swore as he came up empty. Had he left them at the office? The building would be closed by now. He checked under the big rock near the porch for the spare, but it wasn’t there. With a groan, he remembered he had been using the spare as his main key since the last time he lost the damn thing. He really didn’t have the money to call a locksmith; maybe his bedroom window would be open? There was only one problem with that, though. His room was on the second floor. Craning his neck to see how hard it would be to get up there, Jisung made his first mistake.
“Oh, I can definitely make it over there,” he told himself, hoisting himself up and into one of the old trees in his yard. The branches creaked and shuddered as he shimmied himself closer to the edge of the roof, praying he wouldn’t fall and hurt himself. Just as he caught onto the shingles, halfway onto the roof, the branch he was situated on snapped, leaving him dangling a good four metres in the air. Swearing, he heaved himself up. That window had better be open, he thought to himself as he crawled over to it. Checking the latch, he sighed in distress when it refused to budge. Now he was trapped.
“Why does this always happen to me?” he lamented, tugging his phone out of his pocket and dialling 119. This was going to be so mortifying, wasn’t it?
“119, what’s your emergency?” the operator asked.
“Hi, yeah, I’m kinda… stuck on my roof,” Jisung sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I locked myself out on accident and tried to get through the upstairs window, but that was locked too and now I can’t get down.”
“Are you injured at all?”
“Nah, just a little scraped up from climbing the tree. I just don’t know how to get off the roof.”
“And your address?”
“1221 Gaewon-ro, Gangnam District,” Jisung rattled off.
“We’ll send a fire rescue team out to you right away,” the operator assured him. “It should only take them about ten minutes to reach you.”
“Thanks,” he grumbled. “Jeez, I need to catch a break sometime...”
As he waited for the firefighters to show up, Jisung prepared himself for the sheer embarrassment that was sure to follow him. What was he thinking, really? This was a terrible idea. Eventually, he saw the fire truck pull into his neighbourhood, and he braced himself for the shame.
“You alright up there?” one of the firefighters called out as he carried a huge ladder over to the side of the house. “We’ll get you down in no time.”
“I’m okay,” Jisung called back, watching as the fireman set the ladder up. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
“Can you make it over to the ladder on your own?”
“Yeah,” Jisung nodded, carefully crawling over to the edge of the roof. “Can I come down now?”
“Yep. Take it slow.”
Jisung swallowed down his nerves as he lowered himself onto the rungs, focusing on moving his feet one by one as he clung to the rails. The ladder stayed balanced as the firefighter held it steady, for which Jisung was eternally grateful. He wasn’t afraid of heights, but he would hate to fall after all he had been through today. Once he was finally back on solid ground, he turned to the fireman and was immediately lost for words. The guy was drop-dead gorgeous, and he had just had to rescue Jisung like he was a treed cat. This was just his luck.
“Um, thank you,” Jisung bowed, flustered. “Sorry to take up your time with my stupidity. I’d say I’m not normally like this, but I’d be lying.”
“It’s my job,” the guy grinned quietly. “Besides, this isn’t even close to the dumbest call I’ve ever gone out on. You’d be surprised at the kind of stupid shit people get up to these days.”
Jisung laughed, more out of nerves than anything else. “Good to know I’m not the craziest person out there.”
“Well, we’d best be going,” the firefighter sighed. “It was a pleasure to meet you, uh…”
“Jisung,” he introduced himself. “Han Jisung. And you?”
“Lee Minho,” the fireman smiled. “Take care, Jisung-ssi.”
And before Jisung could even gather the courage to ask the guy for his number or to go to coffee with him, Minho had already left him standing alone in the courtyard. Jisung swore under his breath; he had really hoped he would get an excuse to see him again.
“Guess I’m calling a locksmith,” he grumbled, trying to keep his mind off his fumble. “Jeez…”
2.
“Fuck!” Jisung shouted as the flaming remains of his pizza belched acrid smoke into his kitchen. He could hardly see through the smog, and his lungs burned like hell. He closed the oven door once more, hoping to contain the flames until the firefighters got here. He dug his phone out of his pocket, dialling 119 with shaky hands.
“119, what’s your emergency?”
“I set my oven on fire,” Jisung stressed. “1221 Gaewon-ro, in Gangnam. Please hurry.”
“Fire rescue will be there as soon as possible,” the operator hummed. “In the meantime, please leave the house and get to a safe area. Don’t try to contain the fire yourself and make sure you’re getting fresh air.”
“Got it,” Jisung nodded as he stepped out of the house and into the courtyard. He could hear the sirens in the distance; he prayed they were for him. By the time the fire brigade arrived, smoke was beginning to billow out of the open front door. Jisung hung back as the firefighters made their way inside, cursing his bad luck.
“Oh, it’s you again,” a vaguely recognisable voice sounded from behind him. “I thought the address sounded familiar.”
Jisung turned to face the hot firefighter, face reddening in embarrassment. “Yeah, it’s me…”
“What happened?” the guy—Minho—asked as he watched his coworkers file in and out of the house. “I thought I told you to be careful last time.”
“Forgot to set a timer for my pizza and fell asleep,” Jisung admitted sheepishly. “When I woke up, the oven was smoking.”
“What about your fire alarms?”
Jisung wanted to disappear completely. “I, uh, haven’t changed the batteries yet. They’re all dead.”
Minho rolled his eyes. “You’re a walking disaster, you know that?”
Jisung laughed. “Yeah, I’m aware.”
“Well, the good news is the fire didn’t spread past the oven,” the fireman assured him. “Bad news is you’ll need a new oven, and your kitchen is now very wet.“
“At least I have home insurance,” Jisung grumbled. “This is gonna be a nightmare, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” Minho chuckled. “Now seriously, be careful. And put the batteries back in your smoke alarms, or so help me god I’ll break in and do it myself.”
Jisung laughed as Minho walked away, though in reality he was stressed to hell and back. He had to stop meeting this guy like this. It was beginning to get a little pathetic. With a sigh, he trudged back into his house to assess the damage in his kitchen.
“Fucking hell,” he groaned as he took in the scorched and waterlogged mess before him. This was going to be the death of him.
3.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Jisung swore as he took in the wasp’s nest that had appeared overnight on his front porch. The insects were buzzing around like they owned the place, and Jisung would be damned if he went outside and got stung. He had only ever been stung by a wasp once, but he had swelled up so bad he had to go to the doctor. He could not afford to get hurt again.
“119, what’s your emergency?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a wasp’s nest on my front porch that I need removed,” Jisung sighed, eyeing the swarm of bugs warily. “1221 Gaewon-ro, Gangnam.”
“The fire department will be over as soon as they can,” the operator assured him. “In the meantime, stay away from the nest and don’t do anything to bother the hive.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Jisung grumbled. This was going to be a long day.
When the fire department arrived, Jisung was both mortified by and ecstatic about the fact that his hot firefighter was back. Minho shot him a cheeky grin through the screen door, all geared up in a beekeeper’s suit and carrying a smoker.
“You’re gonna want to close the inner door,” Minho motioned. “Don’t want the smoke getting in your house.”
“If it does you can just rescue me,” Jisung teased as he reluctantly shut the main door. He had wanted to watch Minho work, enthralled by the man, but he did suppose that any additional smoke damage to his house should be avoided. After about fifteen minutes, there was a knock on the door, and Jisung opened it to find one Minho and zero wasps.
“Thank you so much,” Jisung beamed. “Do you—do you maybe want to come in for something to drink?”
Minho smiled, nodding, but just as he was about to step inside, one of his colleagues shouted something that had the firefighter sighing and looking back at Jisung apologetically. “I have to take this,” he frowned. “MVA.”
“Go,” Jisung motioned, nodding in understanding even if he was secretly disappointed that Minho had to leave. A car crash was a thousand times more important than his chances at getting a hot guy’s number.
“Who am I kidding,” he mumbled to himself as he watched the engine pull away, lights and sirens blaring. “I’ll probably have some kind of fucking emergency next week, too.”
4.
Jisung had been wrong about having another emergency next week. No, he had another emergency the next day.
“We really need to stop meeting like this,” Minho smiled wryly as he waved a hand in front of Jisung’s face. “You with me yet, Jisung-ssi?”
“Huh?” Jisung frowned, head spinning. The last thing he remembered was mixing the new varnish for his guitar… “Wha’ppened?”
“You discovered what happens when you work with chemicals and don’t use proper ventilation. Luckily you managed to call us before you went totally loopy, but yeah, this is pretty bad. You could’ve done some serious damage, Jisung-ssi.”
“Fuck,” he swore, dragging an uncoordinated hand down his face. “Fuuuuuuuuuuck.”
“You’ll be fine with some fresh air and a promise to me to never do this shit again.”
Jisung startled a little at how… concerned Minho sounded, like it wasn’t just Jisung’s life that would be ruined if he didn’t shape up. Jisung’s didn’t have time to dwell on that, though, as a pair of paramedics took over for Minho. Jisung answered all their questions and did all their tests, the whole time watching Minho speak to who Jisung assumed was his boss or something. He wanted to go thank him for saving him, again, but the medics were insisting he get on the stretcher now.
“Do I have to go?” Jisung sighed, already feeling much better. “Really, I’m fine.”
“You have chemical burns in your nose and throat and had direct, prolonged exposure to heavy-duty solvents. You can refuse treatment if you like, but we highly recommend you get seen. This isn’t something to brush off.”
“Fine,” Jisung sighed, climbing up onto the stretcher. “Do you know how long this’ll take?”
“Depends on how compliant you are, among other things.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it…”
“Guys, wait up,” Minho called out as he jogged over to the back of the rig the medics were loading Jisung into. “Jisung-ssi, are you going to the hospital?”
“Yeah,” Jisung grumbled. “They want me checked out.”
“They’re right,” Minho sighed. “You scared m—us. Scared us. Don’t do it again.”
“Copy that,” Jisung saluted as the ambulance doors were closed behind him. “Damn…”
5.
For the longest time, Jisung had no emergencies. He had no fires, or wasps, or lock-outs; nothing that would warrant him getting to call Minho. Sometimes he wished something would happen so he could see his hot firefighter again.
He really should’ve been more careful than to wish that.
He had been doing yardwork, sweeping up the courtyard and getting down cobwebs, when he hit an old awning a little too hard with the end of his broomstick. The tile crumbled, sending a huge slab of slate tumbling right on top of him.
Jisung looked around blearily; his head hurt, and the ground was uncomfortable, but he couldn’t move into a better position. His arm was trapped under something heavy, and he blinked frantically as something dark and warm dripped into his eye. He wiped at his face with his free hand, heart stopping when it came away covered in scarlet.
“Oh,” he mumbled in horror, clumsily patting down his pockets to try to find his phone. He needed to call 119, because he was trapped and bleeding and he had nobody to help him—
“There,” he muttered as he contorted to reach into his left back pocket, withdrawing his cell phone and tapping out the emergency number, wincing at the red smudges left on the screen.
“119, what’s your emergency?”
“Um,” Jisung hummed, not entirely sure what had happened. “All I know’s I’m bleeding an’ I can’t move. Don’t ‘member how.”
“Sir, what address can we find you at?”
“Uhhhh, 1221 Gaewon-ro. Mapo, I think?” Jisung rattled off. “No, no, Gangnam. 1221 Gaewon-ro, in Gangnam.”
“Are you Han Jisung, sir?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Fire and EMS will be with you in three minutes,” the operator said. “I need you to stay on the line with me, Han-ssi.”
“Hey,” Jisung slurred, feeling fatigue tug at his eyelids. “I’mma just close my eyes real quick. ‘M not sleepin’, promise.”
“Han-ssi, keep your eyes open and keep talking to me. Emergency services are almost there.”
Jisung could hear sirens growing closer, and briefly he wondered who they were for. He tried to get up again, but a sharp pain in his arm had him back on the ground immediately. “‘M fuckin’ trapped,” he started to panic, the tang of blood spreading across his tongue. “No, no, ‘m stuc—”
“—Jisung,” a familiar voice called out as an even more familiar face came into view. Where did Jisung know this guy from? He was hot as fuck. Like, way-out-of-Jisung’s-league hot. Like, how-the-fuck-would-his-life-even-intersect-with-this-guy’s hot.
“I’m glad you think I’m hot,” the guy hummed with a tense smile, and Jisung realised he had been saying all that out loud, for fuck’s sake. “Do you know where you are? Jisung, look at me. Where are you?”
“Home,” Jisung mumbled. He was really fucking tired.
“What year is it, Jisung?”
“The fuck?”
Hot guy sighed, worry written across his features. Jisung felt his heart twist in his chest; hot guy should never have to look upset. “Jisungie, please, just tell me what year it is.”
“Uh, 2024?”
“Pretty close. And who’s the president?”
Jisung laughed. “Orange fucktard.”
Hot guy blinked a few times, processing Jisung’s answer. “Wrong country, but I’ll take it.”
Jisung drifted in and out of consciousness as hot guy and a couple of other people dressed in the same black-and-orange suits worked over him. He felt whatever was crushing his arm lift away, which fucking hurt, and they wrapped his head with so many bandages he couldn’t move his eyebrows. He was cold, but wasn’t it barely October?
“—ay w—th m——sungie,” that soft voice called out to him as his eyes finally flickered shut, giving in to the exhaustion. “He—ome—n, go!”
+1
When Jisung opened his eyes, he wondered when the sun had gotten so fucking close to the earth. It was bright as fuck in here, wherever here was, and it hurt his eyes. He winced, trying to throw an arm over his face to block out the light only to smack himself in the forehead with a huge plaster cast.
“Fuck,” he cursed, feeling frustrated tears well up in his eyes. That had hurt, goddamnit, and he was confused and all alone and—
“You’re awake?” a familiar voice breathed as it entered whatever room he was in. “Hey, do you hurt anywhere? I’m going to get the nurse.”
“Wh—okay,” Jisung sighed, still confused as fuck but grateful he had someone with him. Moments later the voice returned with some little old lady who poked and prodded at him for what felt like hours. When she left, the lights dimmed, and his sigh of relief didn’t go unnoticed. “Thank god,” he breathed.
“I thought I told you to stop scaring me.”
Jisung blinked his eyes open, squinting down at the figure hovering at the foot of his hospital bed. He was in the hospital? “What—I don’t—”
“—You’re lucky to be alive, you know,” the figure started, voice strained. “Not everyone survives a ten kilogram slab of rock catching them in the temple and breaking their left arm in three places, not to mention you lost about twenty percent of your blood volume. If you hadn’t managed to call us, or if you were even a few minutes later, you would be dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Jisung murmured, looking up in surprise when he felt someone take his uninjured hand. It was Minho, his hot firefighter—and he looked like he had been crying for hours. His eyes were rimmed red, dark circles prominent and chapped lips bitten until they bled. Jisung suddenly realised Minho had been crying for him—he, who had been trying to get this guy’s attention the whole time he knew him—and it was not a good feeling knowing that this was how his feelings were revealed; in the wake of almost losing someone. “I—”
“—I swear to god I’m going to move into your house and accident-proof it so well you could throw a pigeon at the wall and it wouldn’t even lose a single brain cell,” Minho cut in. “You’re never getting hurt again. I won’t let you.”
“Uh,” Jisung stalled, a little taken aback by all this. “Y-you want to move into my house?”
“At some point, probably,” Minho nodded. “I still need to get around to asking you out. I suppose now’s as good a time as ever, seeing as you have a penchant for disaster and I have no idea when your next emergency will throw a wrench in everything again.”
“Oh,” Jisung breathed. “You want to go out with me?”
“That’s what I just said. Is that a probl—”
“—Good.”
The furrow in Minho’s brow smoothed over as Jisung squeezed his hand, offering a lopsided grin; half of his face hurt like hell to move. “Does this mean 119 isn’t the only way I can reach you now?”
“I would prefer it if you never contact me at that number again,” Minho hummed. “You can have the direct line.”
“Thank you, Minho, uh—”
“—Hyung,” he smiled. “I was born in ‘98. I also may or may not have peeked at your chart. Happy late birthday, by the way.”
Jisung was sure he went bright red in the face. “Oh, th-thanks,” he nodded, “I, um don’t know when your birthday is, but happy early or late birthday, whichever it is.”
“Early,” Minho offered. “October 25.”
“Oh, that’s coming up soon,” Jisung grinned hesitantly. “We’ll have to celebrate—I mean, if I’m out of here—if you wan—”
“—Yes, I want to see you on my birthday,” Minho chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll have been discharged already by then.”
“How long have I been here?” Jisung asked, not missing the slight pinch in Minho’s brows.
“It’s been two and a half days. You were out, out. They were concerned about brain damage from the slate.”
“Well I don’t feel any more brain damaged than I already am,” Jisung laughed, “so hopefully that counts for something.”
Minho didn’t say anything, just smiled quietly and looked down at his phone for a moment before his entire demeanour shifted. “…I have to go back to work,” Minho sighed, glaring at his phone. “Controlled burn no longer controlled, calling in pretty much all of metro for help.”
“Go,” Jisung urged, giving Minho as good of a thumbs up as he could through his cast and the tangle of sensors attached to his good hand. “The world needs a superhero.”
“Hm. Just call me Catman,” Minho chuckled before breezing out of the room, leaving Jisung alone with his thoughts and more questions than he had answers. He didn’t know if Minho was ever going to stop catching him off guard.
“…Catman?”