"Uhhh, Y/N," Clint walked up to the girl contently sitting by the fire with Newt and Chuck, a small smile on her face. Her shift at the medjack hut had ended hours ago but the patient who just wandered in needed her expertise. It wasn't that Y/N was necessarily a better medjack than Clint or Jeff, but she had a way of tending to people and calming them down that they just couldn't. The specific patient in question was also impossible to work with, so unless it was Y/N to patch them up, they would never get better.

"Hey!" She greet him back. "What's up? Everything okay?"

"Yeah, about that... No." He cringed. "We need your help."

"Why?" Newt stood up alongside Y/N with worry washing over his features. "What's going on?"

Clint began walking toward the hut in a hurry, leaving Y/N and Newt with no option other than to follow him. "It's Minho. He's hurt real bad. But, of course, is fighting everything Jeff and I do to help."

"Sounds about right." Y/N grumbled. "How bad?"

Clint looked her way and raised his brows in uncertainty. "Bad enough that this could end poorly if we don't get it under control."

Clint had been serious. There was blood everywhere. There was a trail through the dirt and grass leading straight inside the medjack hut and a worrisome amount inside. As they entered and rounded the first corner, there was Minho, laid out on the cot with cuts and bruises all over his body. The most concerning was the red, what used to be somewhat white, towel wrapped around his lower leg.

Y/N panicked. Not panicked in the sense that she lost her ability to focus and do her job, but knew that there was a small margin for error here.

"Minho?" She spoke out just loud enough for him to hear over his own groans of agony.

The boy snapped his head around to catch Y/N's eyes. He sat there a moment, breathing heavy, questioning if she was really here or it was his mind just trying to cope with the pain. "Y/N." He grunted with a small nod.

"What happened?" She asked, coming closer and scanning over his body. He was in awful shape but there wasn't anything that concerned her too much other than the wound on his leg.

Minho tried to catch his breath. "Griever. It caught me off guard while mapping and I didn't have time to get out of the way."

"Ok—" Y/N reached for a pile of new towels from the corner of the room. She removed the old ones from around his leg and tried not to let her expression show how awful this was. The griever had obviously taken a direct strike to Minho's leg with some kind of blade. It had cut straight through and deep. There was no way he'd be running for a while and it was a miracle he'd even made it back here. "This is going to hurt like hell, Minho. You ready?"

"Of course, shuckface. Get it over with!" His voice was raised now.

Y/N gave him a look of disbelief, but carried on nevertheless. She took one good look at the wound and knew what to do. "Clint, I need you to go get some salt from Frypan. Jeff, get him prepped for stitches and Newt you're gonna have to be ready to hold him down."

Newt looked a little uncertain about that, but nod regardless. He'd do whatever it took to help his friends.

When Clint returned, Y/N had everything she needed to make a dilute salt water solution to flush out the wound. "Ok, Minho. We've gotta clean it out, okay? Just hold still."

Minho laughed like it were a joke. He knew he wasn't holding still. The second Y/N started pouring it down on his leg he nearly jumped out of his own skin. How just cleaning the thing could cause so much pain, he had no clue. "WHAT THE HELL?" He hollered out.

Y/N held down his leg and Newt helped to hold his shoulders back from rocketing upwards. "I told you it was gonna hurt, shuckface."

"Never said I didn't believe you." He clarified through gnashed teeth. "Just hurry up!"

That arguing continued on for nearly half an hour. But, Y/N was quite alright with that because she knew it was keeping Minho distracted. The more she could keep him yelling out all of his pain and frustration, the less time he'd spend stuck in his own head alone and afraid. Right now, he was probably wondering if he'd ever run again. He was likely afraid for his life based on the amount of blood he'd lost. More than likely, he'd just been confronted by his own mortality for the first time and was going to be fearful of stepping back in that maze.

When it was all over, Minho let his head fall onto the cot in the now quiet medjack hut. He'd initially done it just to take a breath, but within seconds, he was asleep. Y/N sent Clint and Jeff along with everyone else to leave, letting them know she could handle things from here on out. It was far past midnight now and there was no way Y/N was sleeping with the adrenaline still coursing though her anyways.

She knew Minho would make a quick and safe recovery. That didn't stop her from worrying, though. Minho was one of her closest friends, and frankly, she cared about him more than she'd like to admit. So, while he slept, she sat there at his side. Most of her time was spent cleaning equipment, but every so often, she'd sit and wonder what went through his mind whenever he saw her. She wondered, in that moment, if he ever saw her the same way she did him. It was a thought that felt stupid to her. Yet, at the same time, she didn't wholly believe that it was.

"You didn't do anything to my face, did you?" Minho woke. Despite the unimaginable pain he was likely in, he still managed a sneaky grin. To not torment Y/N in some way would be the end of his life purpose.

The girl stopped what she was doing. She looked to the half waken Minho with his face a little bunched up on the cot and his normally perfect hair a complete disaster. It almost looked better that way. "No, why?"

Minho fought for a full inhale. His tired eyes struggled to meet Y/N's. "You won't stop staring at me." He mumbled.

Y/N rolled her eyes and leaned back in the chair, pressing her palms into her forehead, desperately trying to release some pressure. "Wow, Minho. Sorry for worrying. Maybe I'll just leave now. Y'know, since you're back to your normal, witty self." She jokily pretend to get up and leave him there all alone.

"Please don't," Minho didn't even laugh at her like he normally did. He was being serious. That comment about her staring at him wasn't meant to jab at her. "Stay."

Y/N found herself back in that chair without even telling herself to sit back down. "What?" She asked.

"I'm being serious for once in my life," His breath hitched. "Please stay. I don't want to be alone right now."

"Are you okay?" Y/N put a hand on his shoulder tried to read the expression on his face. "Minho, you're never like this."

The runner closed his eyes tight and Y/N knew he wasn't alright. Never before in all her time here had she seen Minho so exposed like this.

"I'm scared." He tried to say it confidently, but it came out more as a broken croak. "I—"

"Woah, hey." Y/N moved from the chair to the edge of the cot and ran her thumb over his brow. Minho was falling apart under her hand and she couldn't believe this was the same runner she'd known for the past couple of years. "You're going to be okay. You just need some time to heal."

Minho shift his head in discomfort and sighed. "It's not that," He admit. "What if I actually—what if one day I don't make it back to the Glade?"

The girl turned her eyes away for a moment. That was something she tried to never think about. "It won't happen. Besides, you're Minho, nothing could take you down. Nothing scares you." She tried to force a laugh but it didn't work.

"Not being able to get you out of here does." He whispered. "I want us to have a future out there—whatever out there is."

Y/N froze. "Us?"

"You and me. You're my best friend and I don't see a life without you. Whatever that might mean." Minho confessed, pouring everything he'd been hiding for nearly as long as he could remember right out onto the floor. It didn't matter to him now how any of this ended. He realized he very well could have not made it back to the Glade tonight. If that had happened, he never would have gotten to tell Y/N how he really felt. He would have died with a massive regret. Now, he wasn't going to wait until they escaped the maze to tell her.

"I like you, Y/N." He spilled. "I have for a long shucking time."

The girl didn't know how to respond. It was like in those few words, she'd been told everything she could ever want to hear from the exact person she wanted to hear it from. At the same time, it was terrifying. What was she supposed to say?

Minho filled the silence with a plea. "It doesn't matter if you feel the same, please just say something." The anxiety in his eyes and voice punched Y/N in the gut.

"I never thought you'd ever actually like me back." She said quietly, dumbfounded. "I'm just me, a medjack, I don't—"

"Oh, c'mon," Minho rolled his eyes. "You think Clint and Jeff aren't capable of fixing me up themselves? I make their lives miserable so they have to ask for your help."

"You little shank!" Y/N whacked his shoulder.

"How else was I supposed to spend time with you?" Minho tried to defend his case. Y/N had to admit, there was validity to his point. Outside of the medjack hut, when else were they supposed to spend time with one another? Their only real chance was at the odd bonfire.

"Alright, good point." Y/N admit. "But I think we can find better ways around it other than constantly injuring yourself."

"Maybe." He agreed ever so slightly against his own ego. "I think it's been worth it so far."