Work Text:
Regret was the only thing going through Seungmin’s mind as he drove faster on the road.
All rational thought was gone from his mind, any semblance of being the responsible driver he was out the literal window. The only thing on his mind was Jisung.
“Seungmin, what has gotten into you?”
Honestly? He had no idea. Seungmin was having a shit day, his finals were stressing him out to no end, and he just wanted to come home to his partner after the horrible time that was his day. He wanted to cuddle with Jisung on the couch, put on a shitty show that neither of them cared about, and ultimately forget about anything that had ever happened.
But as soon as he walked in the door, all he could focus on was everything wrong. A bad habit that Seungmin knew he had was zoning in on things based on his emotions. If he was happy? All he could focus on was the positives. If he was mad? Everything he saw would be turned negative, colored red by the glasses over his eyes.
Seungmin wasn’t even really mad about the cleaning; he knew Jisung ran a bit messier than most. His brain ran a mile a minute, constantly having thousands of things to do all at once. Finals season always made this ten times worse, Jisung running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
His grip on the steering wheel tightened. Seungmin knew Jisung was just as distracted and busy as he himself was, that his partner had his own fair share of bad moments.
So why? Why did he come home and immediately choose to start an argument? He spent more energy arguing with Jisung and driving this car than he would’ve spent cleaning up the mess that he complained about in the first place.
“I’m sorry I’m so awful to you. That loving me is such a mistake.”
But maybe he wasn’t completely reacting in anger the entire time. Seungmin knew he could be overbearing sometimes, that he didn’t always react to things the way Jisung needed. Maybe Jisung deserved better than him, someone who could support him better than Seungmin ever did.
He tried rationalizing with himself as he stared blankly at the red light in front of him. Tried to tell himself that he didn’t treat Jisung that badly; any of their friends would’ve clocked that shit a mile away if he had. Joengin would’ve personally slapped him over the back of his head if he found out Seungmin was treating Jisung badly.
But as he pressed the gas once more, the light changing to green in front of him, he just couldn’t find it in himself to reason that he wasn’t actually as bad a partner as he was feeling like, that he had been lying or hiding these parts of himself from everyone for so long, and they were finally coming out to play.
A single tear started to fall from his eyes as he spiraled further into his brain, but before he could swipe it away, there was a heavy force slamming into his car.
And then his world went black.
༻ꕤ♥︎ꕤ༺
Jisung blearily opened his eyes against the harsh rays of the morning sun coming in through the window. He didn’t want to open them because of the sun alone, but adding the endless crying he had done the night before, they wanted to stay glued shut.
Right. Last night.
Jisung immediately opened his eyes and looked to his right. Instead of finding Seungmin in his usual spot like Jisung hoped he would, all he saw was empty space and an almost pristine bed, the way Seungmin would’ve liked it to be.
That thought alone almost sends a fresh wave of tears to Jisung’s eyes, the only thing stopping him is the lack of tears he has to spare. If he searched the pillow lying carelessly behind him, he could probably find some of them dried up, but he didn’t bother.
“I don’t fucking know, maybe because I love you?”
And wasn’t that the truth? Jisung did love Seungmin. So much. With every fiber of his being. Sometimes, he worried he loved Seungmin a little bit too much.
He didn’t mean to annoy Seungmin so much, to call him such rude things, hell, he didn’t even mean to forget to clean that day. He was going to do it, but he got so distracted with his final that he just forgot.
Trying to calm himself down, he grabbed his phone, hoping to find a message from Seungmin he had missed explaining where he was. An irrational part of him hoped that maybe he would have a message that indicated he just had a nightmare, and none of this was real.
Instead, he was faced with twenty-five missed calls from Jeongin, followed by sixty text messages. Panic immediately flooded him, his once bleary eyes now wide open in fear, heart pounding in his chest as he read one of the first messages.
“Get your ass to the hospital now, Seungmin is hurt.”
Jeongin was never one for long text messages, even less likely to send a bunch of them at once. So for him to have tried to contact Jisung sixty times is worrying enough, but what he said? That’s even worse.
What did he mean, get to the hospital? What did he mean Seungmin was hurt? What happened in the few hours that had passed since Jisung had seen his fiance last? Was Seungmin going to be okay?
“Heaven forbid I care about you. But maybe I shouldn’t.”
That was one of the last things Jisung had said to Seungmin. One of the many mistakes he had made in the past twenty-four hours. He couldn’t let those be the last words his partner heard him say. Loving Seungmin was no mistake; he always treated him the best he could and nothing less.
He had to be okay. He just had to be. Jisung wouldn’t be able to live with himself knowing that his Seungmin, his Min, was hurting in a hospital alone, thinking that he was an awful person. That he sat there doing who knows what, with whatever injuries he had, thinking that Jisung hated him. Thinking that Jisung regretted ever being with him in the first place. The idea alone made him want to throw up.
He pushed those thoughts aside, jumping up out of bed and running for the front door. With absolutely no time to waste, he wasted enough already. Slipping on the first pair of shoes he found, which were unfortunately his well-worn house slippers, he grabbed his keys and ran out the front door.
Any thoughts of looking socially acceptable were the last thought on his mind, any thoughts of cleaning, his finals, anything other than Seungmin, were lost to the void of panic in his mind. He was so worried about the state of his fiance, he almost couldn’t spiral into self-doubt and insecurity.
He just hoped that Seungmin was okay and that everything would be fine. That he was only minorly injured, nothing that they couldn’t handle. Jisung also secretly hoped he would make it there in time if it was worse than he wanted it to be.
༻ꕤ♥︎ꕤ༺
Ringing.
All Seungmin could hear was this horribly high-pitched ringing, raising his arms to try and stop it by covering his ears. Only, when he opened his eyes, he realized his arms weren’t moving at all. In fact, they were glued to his sides, barely liftable, as if they were made of lead.
Actually, after a moment of his eyes adjusting, Seungmin realized his arms weren’t glued to him the way they were supposed to be. They were hanging above his head, and he couldn’t lift them because they were already lifted.
Seungmin was hanging upside down in his car, which was also flipped over, surrounded by a bunch of glass shards. The airbag that had deployed during the crash sat deflated on the steering wheel, hanging in the air.
With much strain and effort, he lifted (lowered?) his arms to his ears, which he noticed felt wet for some reason. Lowering (raising?) his hands back, they came back red, blood staining his hands. Confused, he let his arms hang back up, too tired to try and lift them anymore.
Looking around, he tried to wrap his head around what just happened, where exactly he was. He doesn’t remember getting into the car exactly, doesn’t even remember where he was going. Squinting against the brightness of the headlights in front of him, which was seriously starting to hurt his head, he faintly recalled something.
Jisung. He was on his way home to see Jisung. Surely that was right.
Seungmin groaned as he remembered the shit show that was his mock trials, and how all he wanted was to go home to Jisung. To cuddle with him on the couch, put on a shitty show that neither of them cared about, and ultimately forget about anything that had ever happened.
Something in Seungmin’s gut told him he was forgetting a very important detail, but he shoved that aside to try and find his phone. Clearly, he was in a car crash – that much was obvious – and he needed to call for help, call Jisung, someone. He can’t let Jisung worry about him, and can’t just wither away on the side of the street. He refused to die in such a shitty way as that.
Before he could look for his phone, he heard the blaring noise of sirens come through the ringing in his ears. The sound was almost deafening in his probably busted eardrums, causing a sense of dizziness to wash over him completely.
Unable to do anything to stop the noise or the vertigo washing over him, Seungmin closed his eyes in an attempt to find some sort of peace. With thoughts of Jisung and the faint sound of music playing in the background, he passes back out.
༻ꕤ♥︎ꕤ༺
Jisung has never driven to a hospital that fast in his life.
He doesn’t know what happened, doesn’t know why. All he knows is that something happened, and it happened to Seungmin. Sweet, insufferable, infuriating Seungmin, who hadn’t come home. Seungmin, who is in the hospital, and Jisung has no idea why.
The parking lot was a nightmare. He barely remembered pulling in, only that he bolted across it, slippers slapping against the pavement, not stopping until he reached the front desk. He looked as much of a wreck as he felt; still in his pajamas, hair sticking out in every direction, hands trembling.
Jisung wishes he left as soon as he got the first call. Or the twenty-five that followed immediately after. That he had been there to hear the resulting voice messages in the moment, instead of when he woke up hours later. Blearily checking his notifications to find close to sixty panicked messages.
He barely had a moment to fully process what he was reading before he fell out of bed and slid his slippers on. A moment too late if you had asked him, since he was hours behind.
He shouldn’t have gone to bed when Seungmin hadn’t shown up, as Jisung was doing his nightly routine. Hell, he shouldn’t have gone to bed when Seungmin hadn’t shown up afterwards, too. But he was a little preoccupied with the sobs that were wracking his body and rendering him useless, but fuck that. He should’ve at least stayed up after that.
But no, not only did he miss the first call, he missed the twenty-five afterwards, too. And now his fiance is in the hospital, has been for who knows how long, and Jisung had been sleeping through most of it.
Why did they have to have that fight? Why didn’t he go after him? Why didn’t he wake up in time? Why was the last thing he said so cruel?
There were so many different questions and not a single answer to any of them. Just an agonizing loop of what ifs. Everything is just so fucked up.
“Kim Seungmin– what room?” Jisung blurts when he finally makes it to the front desk.
The woman behind it looks up slowly, her expression blank enough to rival Seungmin’s on a bad day. Jisung briefly wonders how many people she has to deal with like this on a regular basis for her to be so unaffected. But most importantly, where the hell is Seungmin?
“What is your relationship to the patient?” she asks, fingers moving unhurriedly over the keyboard.
“I’m his fiancé,” Jisung says immediately. “Can you just – can you please tell me where he is?”
She glances at the screen. “Room 325. Visiting hours will be ending soon, so you’ll need to leave eventually.”
“Yup. Got it, thanks.” Jisung was already turning away, tapping his fingers against the desk as if that might make him move faster.
There are too many fucking rooms.
He passes door after door, each one a fresh kind of torture. Families reuniting, hands held too tightly, quiet laughter, quiet tears. Someone saying goodbye, someone saying it’s going to be okay. And Jisung feels like such a fucking asshole because all he can think about is how those families, those loved ones, none of them were him.
He still doesn't know what happened or where Seungmin is, and the only thoughts that were looping in his fucked up head were why wasn’t that him? Why do they get their happy ending, and he didn't? Why do they get to say goodbye when he’s still searching, hoping he can at least get the chance to even say goodbye if Seungmin wasn’t going to make it? Because for fuck’s sake, he still didn’t even know why Seungmin was here.
Why is Seungmin stuck lying alone in this sterile fucking hospital while somewhere else people were having date night, living their stupid, normal lives?
Three floors up – because of course they’d put him up three flights of stairs – Jisung nearly runs past room 325.
He skids to a stop and doubles back, breath catching in his throat where it had just previously been running ragged.
There.
Through the small window of the door, Jisung can see where Seungmin sits on the hospital bed, staring down at his arms. He wasn't in perfect conditions; he had plenty of cuts and bruises mottling his skin, far too many of them, angry and unmistakably real. He has bandages that were peeking out from beneath the gown they had put him in, the most notable one wrapping across his head, that stark contrast of white against his dark brown hair.
But he’s there. He’s breathing and functioning just as a normal person would. Jisung can’t help the way his vision blurs. He could’ve cried from relief alone.
“You made it.”
Jisung startles so hard he nearly jumps out of his skin. “Jesus christ, man,” he breathes. “How long have you been sitting there?”
“Since I found out he was in the fucking hospital and called you,” Jeongin says dryly from where he sits in the chairs along the hallway wall, running a hand through his hair. “Where else would I be, hyung?”
“Well– yeah, but I didn’t see you.” Jisung turns back to the small window that shows the inside of the room, his chest tight. Seungmin frowns at his own arms, eyebrow furrowed the same way it always looked when he’d get confused. “What happened, Innie?”
“If you had listened to any of the voice mails I left, I wouldn’t have to repeat myself.” he snarks.
“I’m sorry, okay? But you don’t know what happened last night. It’s not like I went out of my way to ignore you; I wasn’t awake.”
“I shouldn’t have said that, but fuck, hyung, I didn’t exactly have the best night either. I’ve been sitting in this hallway for I don’t even know how long because I was too scared to walk in there by myself, and it be something I couldn’t handle. You guys might be Fiance’s, but that’s still my brother. He’s just as important to me.”
Jisung tugs at his hair, “I know that, Innie,” he scoffs, “I’m not trying to make it seem like you don’t care. You know I would never imply something like that.”
“But yes, I didn’t check your fucking voicemails because I was too busy trying to get here in time– which, hell, I’m already hours late. But regardless, once again, I don’t know what happened. And I’ve been walking past all these families saying goodbye to their loved ones so fucking scared that it’s going to be me next. So for the love of all that’s good and healthy, could you please just tell me what happened?”
Jeongin didn’t speak for a moment. “He got into a car crash. A bad one, too.”
Jisung whips his head around, but Jeongin doesn't explain any further. He isn’t nonchalant with the way he says the words; in fact, he’s uncharacteristically quiet, but he doesn't elaborate either.
“What? No– no, that doesn’t make sense. Seungmin wouldn’t– he’s a very good driver. He’s the most responsible out of all of us, and way too careful, he wouldn’t just–”
He cuts himself off. Seungmin might be a good driver, but if he is emotional, if he isn’t thinking straight or is distracted–
Jisung’s legs carry him back and forth down the hallway, pacing too loud, too frantic. “This is my fault,” he says hoarsely. “I shouldn’t have let him storm out. I should’ve shut up, I should’ve just bitten my tongue instead of making it worse. This is all my fault.”
His breath comes sharp, turning back toward the door. Fuck it, he needs to apologize, to tell Seungmin he didn’t mean it, before he decides Jisung hates him forever.
“Jisung hyung, wait–”
Jisung ignores him, pushing open the door despite Jeongin’s protests.
When the door swings open, Seungmin’s head snaps up instantly, but something is wrong. There’s no anger in his eyes. No hurt, no resentment, no lingering affection. No flicker of recognition at all. Not even the cold distance Jisung braced himself for.
There isn’t anything that would suggest anything had even happened between them in the first place. Just pure, utter confusion.
As if Jisung were nothing more than a stranger who had wandered into the wrong room; as if whatever had once existed between had never happened at all.
“Who are you?”