Heart hammering away, Juntae runs down the long staircases of Ganghak, feet skidding to a halt at the little storage room where the janitor is. He fumbles with the lock for a beat too long, his hands sweating.
Blood, there was so much blood, on Seongje’s face and on the rooftop. Finally, he opens the door, eyes immediately finding the box littered with bandages, gauzes and a medical kit. He doesn’t even think, just grabs it and rushes upstairs.
With each step he can feel his anxiety rise, the sensible part of his brain telling him stop it what are you doing but he pays it no mind, already in front of the metal door.
Welp, there’s no coming back from this. Deep breath in.
Fingers trembling, he pushes the door open, and immediately regrets it. There, a few meters away from the door is Seongje, passed out flat on the ground.
To his left sits Hakho, knees raised up and head bowed, but conscious. Blood is splattered all across the rooftop, even on the rails. Juntae can’t see Seongje’s face, but from his torn and bruised hands, he can guess it was brutal.
He hesitates. He and Seongje are…friends doesn’t exactly cover it, acquaintances feels too formal and enemies is laughable. But Juntae knows that if he closed the door right here, that it would haunt him, that the guilt would eat him up.
How does he get through Hakho? Juntae has no delusions about his abilities, but maybe if he sneaked-
“Hey. I can see you, you know.”
The box nearly falls out of his hands out of startlement, his body freezing up. Hakho side eyes him, but he doesn’t seem angry.
“Hmm. Are you here to bandage up Seongje?”
Juntae blinks, finally getting out of his stupor. Might as well commit to it. “Y-yes! Um, can I-“
“Yes, yes come in, I won’t bite,” Hakho answers wryly, huffing.
Juntae waits a beat, and then trudges forward, holding onto the cardboard box for dear life. It can’t save him from a pummeling, but he’d like to think Hakho’s not the type of guy to waste good medical equipment.
He gets sick of just standing around, so he crouches next to Seongje, deciding if he got this far, then there’s no point in holding it off any longer. He puts the cardboard box down, trying to take up as little space as possible.
He can feel Hakho’s eyes tracking his every move, and he wonders what he’s even doing here. Juntae grabs a bandage and scissors, cutting it up into a rectangle.
Surely, Hakho isn’t waiting to go for round two? Seongje is a stamina machine, but not even he-
“Eep!” He squeaks out, only now noticing Seongje’s gray eye staring at him. Juntae blinks, unsure if he’s hallucinating.
But no, Seongje lets out a grunt, hands reaching as if to go on his knees. But when he positions them to get himself up, his face immediately falls back down onto the hard pavement with a thump.
“Ah, awake already?” Hakho’s voice startles him from staring at Seongje’s face, once again planted on the ground. Seongje emits what one might classify as a growl, to which Hakho just amusedly hums.
“U-um, bandages…” Juntae mumbles, unsure if Seongje even knows where he is. Silence.
Seongje plants his hands on the ground, this time managing to pull himself into a sitting position. Juntae can’t exactly discern his expression, but he’d like to say it’s neutral. And very, very red. It’d be easier to pick out which parts of his face weren’t damaged then the ones that are.
The bandages are still in his hands, and Seongje is eyeing them. Juntae doesn’t know if this is a cue for him to begin bandaging him up or if Seongje wants to do it himself. Well, if he can even move his hands.
“How long?” His voice comes out even rougher than usual, and Juntae’s mind tries figuring out the question.
“Around…a minute, give or take,” Hakho answers, and Seongje scoffs. Oh, was he timing how long he was passed out? Juntae blinks. These guys are weird.
Seongje wordlessly takes the cut bandage, eyeing it. He sighs, lifting his gray Kenzo shirt up.
Juntae’s eyes nearly pop out of his sockets, staring at the multi colored bruises that litter over Seongje’s torso. The other boy doesn’t even flinch, grabbing some sort of ointment from the box.
Almost carefully, Seongje applies it to his whole torso, ignoring the somewhat awkward atmosphere that weighs upon the three of them. Juntae avoids eye contact with both of the other boys, instead deciding to look at the box.
There are quite a few things in there, now that he takes a closer look. A couple of creams and ointments, probably for bruises, empty ice packs, gauzes, band aids, bandages, scissors, ibuprofen and some other tablets that Juntae can’t identify. If he didn’t know that Seongje fought twelve times a day, he would’ve thought that he was a medical student with all these things.
Juntae flinches when an item lands in the box, peeking at Seongje, who finished with the ointment and has put the cut bandage on his left hip. He shuffles closer, and roughly grabs a gauze, unrolling it.
Surgically, he wraps the gauze all around his middle, familiarity evident in the movement. Juntae notices Hagho watching Seongje, his eyes fixed on the boy’s back. There is something unidentifiable in his gaze that makes Juntae a bit curious as to why they even fought. Should he ask?
He takes another look at Seongje, who’s finished tightly wrapping the gauze all around himself, and is moving to bandage his arms.
Honestly, what could go wrong?
“Um, was there a reason you two fought or…” he doesn’t finish the sentence, silenced by both of their eyes on him. Curse him and his stupid mouth, but he’s curious dammit. It’s been a hot issue in the Shuttle Patch ever since Seongje climbed to fifth place.
“Well, let’s just say it happened a bit…spontaneously,” Hagho answers, something like amusement in his tone. Seongje just grunts, completely ignoring the question and slapping a couple of bandages on his shoulder.
Right, that was probably the politest way he could have gotten told to screw off, so all in all, whatever. Juntae pretends he isn’t immensely curious and instead picks at his nails.
