Chapter Text
Yeosang jolted awake from his shallow doze when the car bounced over a speed bump, the seatbelt pulling taut against his collarbone for a moment. He blinked rapidly out at the passing buildings before looking around, disoriented. They were still on the way to the airport, ready to start the European leg of their tour at last, but somehow it felt like the heavy exhaustion of jetlag had already sunk its claws into him.
Jongho was quiet as always in the seat in front of Yeosang, and he couldn’t tell if their youngest was asleep or just enjoying his music, but a faint smile flitted across his face at the sight of Seonghwa’s chin tucked almost against his chest as he slept. Beside Yeosang, there was no doubt that Wooyoung was out like a light, to the point of drooling on the front of his shirt no less.
Plucking a tissue from the box they always kept in the back of the car, Yeosang folded it into quarters before leaning over to place it carefully over the dark spot on Wooyoung’s shirt. He brushed gingerly at Wooyoung’s silky black bangs, trying to sweep the curling strands out of his eyes, only to freeze when Wooyoung’s eyelids fluttered for a moment, but he only sighed and sank back into sleep.
Yeosang liked doing little things like that. He didn’t get the chance to take care of the members very often, even though he thought it was only fair considering they were always babying him ridiculously and wiping his mouth whenever he ate.
With that thought, he set his head back and closed his eyes once more, allowing the familiar motions of the car to lull him back to sleep.
It felt like only a second later, however, that the long, furious wail of a car horn quite close by once more jerked him awake. Beside him, Wooyoung’s eyes were open too, a furrow between his brows as he shifted in his seat.
“What was that?” Yeosang muttered, annoyed.
Wooyoung shrugged, his movements small and restrained. “No idea,” he said faintly, and then, “I think I’m falling sick.”
Yeosang straightened immediately and cast an anxious eye over Wooyoung, who did look decidedly queasy now that he was really paying attention. “Is it your stomach?” he asked softly, reaching over to slip his hand into Wooyoung’s.
“I don’t know,” Wooyoung mumbled, his grip tightening like he thought Yeosang might be in danger of letting go.
Outside, it sounded like some sort of accident had occurred. Car horns were sounding incessantly and Yeosang thought he might even have heard the squeal of skidding tyres in the distance, but right then, all of his attention was fixed on Wooyoung’s pale face. He was just about to open his mouth and call for Seonghwa when it happened.
Wooyoung simply…faded.
It all passed so quickly that that was what it seemed like to Yeosang at first. He had barely drawn breath before Wooyoung vanished, like he had been erased carelessly from view by a higher being. In a single swipe, he was gone, and Yeosang’s hand clenched down on what felt like empty air.
He looked down, at the soft, ashy flakes fluttering out of his palm and felt nothing but bewilderment.
“Hyung,” he said blankly, still staring down at his hand, at Wooyoung’s seat that was littered with the same tattered bits of ash.
“Where’s –” he heard Seonghwa say, and then it felt like the entire world turned over onto its side in an instant.
For one single long moment, time slowed. Brown ashes drifted past Yeosang’s face even as the seatbelt locked tight against his shoulder once more. Through the opposite window, he saw San’s horrified face peering out of the other company car. It had been driving ahead of them just a minute ago, but right then it was drawing closer and closer until San seemed almost near enough to touch.
We’re going to crash into them, Yeosang realised, with a vague, dry sense of disbelief, and then he had a thought that he would only later recognise for its absurdity: At least Wooyoung will be alright.
The impact was deafening, the awful shriek of metal on metal ringing in Yeosang’s ears as time righted itself and flung his surroundings into a blur of colour. He was only aware of suddenly being upside down before pain bloomed hot and liquid against his right cheek. Whiteness exploded behind his eyes and faded just as swiftly, sending him spiralling back down into an all-encompassing darkness.
Everything was chaos.
That was the only word that came to Yeosang’s mind when he opened his eyes. Someone was having a very loud, aggressive conversation nearby, and he could hear faint sobbing from elsewhere in the room. In the distance, a woman was screaming.
He moved one of his hands, trying to take stock of his body and his surroundings, but it was strangely difficult. His face was so numb that it felt swollen to twice its usual size, and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to speak even if he tried.
“Oh – hey, oh God, he’s awake! Yeosang-ah, can you hear me? Yeosang?” San’s voice sounded right by his ear, so familiar that Yeosang instinctively breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed. It took him another laboured breath to register the raw hoarseness scraping past San’s usually light timbre, and he turned his head with some effort.
San came into view above Yeosang, leaning awkwardly over with his neck wrapped securely in a stiff brace, doing his best to look down despite his restraints. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy with the kind of tears that Yeosang had never before seen him shed, and at the sight of San’s face it all came back to him in a flash.
The pain. The crash. Wooyoung.
“Where’s Wooyoung?” he tried to ask. Slow panic crawled up his spine as he remembered the sudden emptiness of his hand, the awful sensation of holding onto nothing where something flesh and blood had once been.
His words came out garbled, a mess of syllables that Yeosang could barely even understand himself, and San patted his chest clumsily. “Don’t talk,” he whispered. “Your face – the doctor said you shouldn’t talk. And your arm – your left one – it’s broken. You have to be careful.” San sounded perilously close to tears, and Yeosang didn’t know how to respond.
“Yeosang-ah,” San repeated, his voice breaking. His hand groped for Yeosang’s and squeezed it tight, but all Yeosang could feel was bitter relief that San hadn’t taken hold of his left hand. That one was bound up in a sling and strapped tight to his body, he realised – the last part of him Wooyoung had touched.
Where was Wooyoung?
“He’s gone, Yeosang,” San said like he had read Yeosang’s mind, his voice small and shrinking further with every word. “They’re gone. A lot of people are gone. I saw Mingi turn to dust. Your driver disappeared and that’s why we crashed. They only found four of us in the wreck and – and…” San was trembling, his tears carving streaks of pale skin down a face that was still layered thinly with grime from the crash.
Yeosang stared up at him, wide-eyed and frozen, a low moaning sound of fear threading pathetically through the air that he gradually realised was coming from his own throat. He didn’t want to hear anymore.
“Seonghwa hyung didn’t make it,” San burst out at last, and he was sobbing fully now, choking and stumbling over every other word. “I’m sorry, Yeosang. He was on the side that crashed into us. He never – he was…they have Hongjoong hyung in the ICU and they don’t know if he’s going to be okay either.”
Yeosang closed his eyes. He thought he might be crying as well, even though his face was so numb that he couldn’t feel his tears. Wooyoung was gone. Yunho and Mingi and Jongho were gone. Seonghwa was dead. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t even know why San wouldn’t stop apologising.
“When you’re better – when you can talk, you should call your family. Make sure they’re okay,” San said. “I’m sorry…I can’t –” He pulled his hand from Yeosang’s and limped away, back to his own bed across the ward, and Yeosang could only watch him go in mute confusion.
He barely even knew what was real anymore.
The hospital itself was a mess. Understaffed and overcrowded even though, apparently, half the world was gone. Half the world everywhere, not just in Korea. Yeosang didn’t even know how to wrap his mind around that. How could half the world just up and vanish out of nowhere?
Yeosang had gotten off lucky, relatively speaking. He couldn’t quite breathe through his nose and he looked like a horror show, half of his face swollen and bruised patchily, and his nose slightly crooked from where someone’s phone had smashed into his face and fractured his nose and cheekbone – but he was at least alive and conscious.
Both he and San were the kind of patients the doctors couldn’t wait to discharge so that they could make room for the more serious victims of the multiple crashes and disasters that had happened the moment half the population had disappeared, leaving vehicles unmanned and stoves unwatched.
“Maybe come back in a couple of months if you still want to try surgery,” one of the doctors told San, who probably would’ve nodded if he hadn’t still had the brace around his neck. “We can’t fit in any non-critical surgeries right now, and that shouldn’t be the first course of action for a herniated cervical disc anyway. Get lots of rest – I’ll prescribe some pain relievers and muscle relaxants. I would recommend physical therapy too, and hopefully the pain will ease on its own.”
“What kind of physical therapy?” Yeosang asked, his words slurred from his own painkillers. Beside him, San was very quiet, his hand tucked into Yeosang’s the way he always liked to do nowadays. Yeosang didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wouldn’t help, that if Yeosang went the way Wooyoung had, it wouldn’t matter one bit how tightly San held onto him.
The doctor gave him a long, pensive look. “Ice and heat therapy would be good. Neck stretching and strengthening; shoulders and arms as well. You’ll have to look it up online. We don’t have much left of our physiotherapy department at the moment, unfortunately. Just don’t rush it – there’s nothing to rush for now, is there?” Her smile was wry, with only the faintest trace of bitterness in it as she stood and nodded politely to them.
Yeosang stood as well, slowly, and bowed after her retreating back, every part of his body still sore and aching. San remained staring at his lap until Yeosang pulled him gently to his feet.
“San-ah,” he said quietly. San looked very much like he needed a hug, but Yeosang’s only functioning hand was currently being held tight by San himself, and he settled for tilting his head a little, flashing a quick smile when San met his eyes.
“I heard her. I’ll do the exercises,” San assured him. Yeosang didn’t doubt him, but he couldn’t help worrying all the same.
The day Yeosang had fully regained consciousness and started speaking, San had withdrawn further into himself than ever. He drifted after Yeosang like a shadow, holding himself together only through the sheer determined stoicism that he seemed to believe would help to manage his emotions.
It was something that Yeosang was perversely grateful for right then. Looking out for San was a task he was glad to throw himself into, a welcome distraction that meant he could avoid thinking about Wooyoung and everything else he had lost in the blink of an eye.
“Let’s go and visit Hongjoong hyung before we leave,” he suggested, and San nodded, a spark of life returning to his eyes for the first time in hours.
Yeosang couldn’t stop his mind from wandering as they navigated the overflowing corridors, full of patients there weren’t enough beds for and desperate people searching for their loved ones. On every face he saw the same stark sense of loss and confusion that resounded achingly inside him.
What was he supposed to do now? Where was he supposed to go?
No matter what happens, we’ll get through it together. It was something Wooyoung had said to him once, when Yeosang had been feeling down after stumbling upon some malicious online comments. It all felt so irrelevant now, so stupidly unimportant.
Wooyoung had peppered tiny kisses on Yeosang’s nose, against the corners of his mouth and on his cheeks, nuzzling his nose affectionately into Yeosang’s neck until he’d finally managed to wring a reluctant smile into existence. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you, he’d said sweetly, exultant at his success.
Now, without Wooyoung, Yeosang didn’t know how he was going to get through anything at all.
“We’re here to visit Kim Hongjoong.” It was San’s voice that snapped Yeosang back to the present and made him realise they’d reached the counter outside the Intensive Care Unit. He loosened his hold on San’s hand; they were already familiar with the one-visitor rule.
The nurse on duty hummed in acknowledgement as she looked down at her records, and Yeosang saw the exact moment her face changed. It wasn’t obvious – she was far too professional for that – but the sudden flicker of her gaze from her clipboard to San’s face and then back down to her clipboard again was impossible to miss.
Yeosang’s fingers closed tighter around San’s hand again. “I think the doctors are busy. We shouldn’t be bothering them,” he murmured. His ears were ringing, blood rushing to his head as he stepped backwards and tried to pull San away. All he knew was that whatever the nurse had to say, he didn’t want to hear it.
“I’m so sorry,” the nurse started, and she did look sorry, terribly so. “Usually a doctor would – well, there isn’t one available now, but I suppose you should know. Your friend stopped breathing six hours ago. The doctors did everything they could but they never got a pulse. I’m very sorry.”
Yeosang took another step back, and all of a sudden San simply let go of his hand. Without that single point of contact, his legs seemed to abruptly stop working, and he folded in on himself right there and then. His knees hit the floor, and then he curled over his broken arm as he shuddered and struggled to find his breath, his mouth dry and gritty with distress.
Six hours. Hongjoong had been gone for six hours and they hadn’t even known.
“His parents?” he heard San ask weakly.
“They were here at the end,” the nurse said kindly, the best answer she could have given them. “They left shortly after, but they were both here for him.”
Yeosang wished everything that was happening made any sense at all. There was an ugly bloom of envy in his chest at the thought that Hongjoong still had both of his parents, but of course that was untrue, because now Hongjoong was gone too, just as gone as everyone else.
“Thank you,” San whispered, as unfailingly courteous as ever, and then he was stumbling to his knees beside Yeosang, gathering him up in his arms as best he could while manoeuvring around Yeosang’s cast and the unwieldy brace around his own neck. Yeosang pressed his face against San’s chest, sucking in deep, desperate gulps of air and wishing that reality could be just as easy to hide from.
“They’re all gone,” San said, and he was crying again, his shoulders heaving with the force of his sobs. “We’re the only ones left, Yeosang-ah. It’s just us now.”