Walking past the reception desk, the nurse gives him a little bow of acknowledgment. "Taehyun, did you hear?" he talks to the redhead, being on somewhat friendly grounds after having seen each other in the halls of the 5th floor for the past week. "Your boy is up." he smiles.

Taehyun feels a little bad walking past him without saying anything back but he hopes the nurse understands his rush; if the clothes are anything judged by. He only nods his head and takes a right for room number 304.

He pushes the door in slowly and it opens smoothly. Beomgyu is nowhere to be seen; to go by Taehyun's experience he's probably at 4th to get a coffee from one of the vending machines.

Taehyun looks at the bed in front of him. Kai is sat up against the wall and his knees are drawn to his chest, his head leans on them facing the side of the room.

His blanket is discarded on the floor so he sits on the bare bed with nothing but a hospital gown to cover him. Suddenly, Taehyun sees his head rise a little and he straightens up and his eyes are slowly trailing the side of the room until they set on Taehyun.

"... Hey." Taehyun gulps. He raises his arm and smiles. Seeing Kai awake makes him want to cry but he won't. "Can I sit?" he points to the bed nervously.

Kai's eyes glint with something unreadable; they move up and down, inspecting. "You are wet," he says.

"Right." Taehyun laughs briefly. "It's raining out."

Kai everts his eyes. "Don't you possess an umbrella?"

"I... Had an umbrella." Taehyun mutters as he realizes how dumb he is to have been on such a rush; he forgot to take his umbrella that was under his seat during class. "So, can I? Or... maybe, if you're worried I'll wet your sheets then- I-I can ask the nurse for a towel or-" he bites his lips.

"Sit." Kai permits. He looks down and hugs his legs close to his body.

The bed sinks down; Taehyun sits on the edge, serious about not wanting to ruin the sheets.

Kai's feet shift away from him, covered in white rolls of bandages as well as his right hand and two of the fingers on his left one. The hospital pants go down to his ankles, hiding the rest of the wraps.

"Does it hurt?"

"Of course it does," Kai huffs. "I'm not made of tin." his voice is hollow and cold. He everts his eyes from Taehyun, looking down.

Taehyun fiddles with the sheets; organizing his thoughts and words. He left class so fast that even on the way to the hospital he hadn't thought about what to say once he was there. He's not sure what to say to someone in a hospital bed.

He still has all his four grandparents and his family members were always healthy. This is a foreign territory.

Instead of saying empty words like I'm sorry or get better which does not convey what he is truly feeling. His hand reaches for Kai's dark hair, Taehyun notices a few pieces in the back that are shorter than the rest of the hair in the front.

He wonders if they burnt off in the fire.

He sinks his fingers in Kai's hair; playing with the silky locks. Kai looks up, his eyes are dazed. He tilts his head in Taehyun's direction and closes his eyes slowly, giving in to the soft touch.

Taehyun fixes a few stray hairs on Kai's forehead and their eyes lock. He gives him a sweet smile and his hand caresses his nape and trails down to his shoulder. Repeating the movement a few times. "Beomgyu-Hyung told me a-about your job." he says quietly.

Kai's head ticks up and his eyes twitch, he grabs Taehyun's hand from his wrist and pulls it away from his cheek from it rested. "What?" his mouth tightens.

"I know, Kai." Taehyun swallows.

"Leave, if you know." Kai's voice turns icy. "Why are you here?" he inhales sharply and tightens his jaw. "Out of spite? To prove a point? To worsen how I feel after lying to you?"

"Kai."

The dark-haired pulls his nose. "Leave now if you intend on doing so later, I'd rather not delay the undelayable."

"Kai, for the love of god would you knock it off?" Taehyun raises his voice. He's realizing Kai is avoiding his eyes again. "Look at me," he demands in a sulky tone; upset. "I don't care," he says with a calm resolve.

Taehyun takes Kai's bandaged hand with great delicacy.

"I don't care what you did, okay? I don't care," he repeats. This time louder. "Please, look at me." he pats Kai's hair around, the black locks curling around his fingers. With a movement so slow, Kai's eyes look up again and this time they are not just dark and vacant, but glistening with an emotion Taehyun cannot decipher.

It takes him a few moments to let Taehyun's words settle in and even then, he appears to be a tad confused and above all, perplexed. "Have you taken any pills from the nurses?" he asks and it is almost humorous the way he's 100 percent serious.

Taehyun rolls his eyes. "Kai, please. I would never."

"Then, I simply do not understand."

The redhead shrugs; smiling softly. "You exceed my morals, Kai," he answers. It sounds mad even to him but there is not a thing that is truer than that. "In fact, I don't think I had any morals to begin with. I don't care what you did, I don't care," he emphasizes; a disbelieving laugh comes softly out of his lips.

"It's absurd, Kai." he goes on. "Completely absurd. I feel like I'm losing it too, Y-you know?" he asks. It's rhetorical. He watches Kai's eyes as he listens to his tangent; speechless.

More touched than speechless, Taehyun would like to believe but he can't read Kai's face so he can only hope he's saying something right.

"But when it comes to you there is nothing you could do or say that'll make me go away. Perhaps if you were an idiotic jerk but even when you were unkind to me and rude you were never unpleasant. Perhaps you were at times- what I'm trying to say is... I love you." he takes a deep breath and pauses for a few seconds.

Kai's breath hitches in his throat and his eyes glint in surprise.

"And I guess I've never understood unconditional love because everything in life is sort of a give and take... not us, though. At least not my feelings towards you. You live beyond my moral boundaries, Kai."

"You love me?" Kai croaks out; his voice is unstable. "How could you possibly?" he asks; his eyes ran across the hospital room as if he could not process what he had heard. They finally settle on Taehyun and Kai tilts his head and swallows.

Taehyun shrugs. "You are the guy in the black coat, Kai." he smiles; endeared. "I just do."

Kai shakes his head, refusing to believe it."You are madder than I am."

"I think we're on the same level of madness." Taehyun disagrees. "You are talking like you didn't say it first." he teases as a by the way but Kai's eyes widen to hear Taehyun calling him out. "When have I?" he asks, genuinely confused.

Taehyun's eyes narrow skeptically and he blinks. The small smile on his face is gone. "You called me." he reminds the dark-eyed boy with a more serious tone to his voice.

"Right." Kai agrees. Wondering what the call had to do with anything.

"You told me that you loved me."

"No, I didn't."

Taehyun lets out an exasperated sign. "Yes, you did!" his face turns gloomy and he scoots away from Kai. "Do you regret saying it?" he whispers, trying to hide the side of him that wants Kai to reply negatively. "Is that it?"

Kai opens his mouth; utterly baffled. "I cannot regret a thing that I didn't say."

"But you did," Taehyun argues. "You did! I was doing my paper and you called me-"

"The paper that was due midnight?" Kai asks.

Taehyun is not sure how this information has any relevance to their conversation. With an annoyed roll of his eyes, he nods.

"Did you submit it on time?"

"Right before midnight, how does that have anything to do-"

Kai looks down, muttering to himself. "That's-" he cuts Taehyun off. "That makes no sense," he says. "I only called after midnight." he looks at Taehyun and his eyes are completely sincere.

The sincerest Taehyun had got to see them. He stammers for a few seconds. "You called me twice, Kai," he tells him. Now just as confused as Kai.

"I did?"

Taehyun hums. "Yes... "his voice grows quiet. "D-do you not remember?" the corners of his mouth tug down in a saddened motion.

Kai tries searching his memory but nothing of the sort comes to mind, he wishes he could remember if he did call him but he can't.

"I'm... "he presses his lips to a line. "I'm sorry, I don't."

Taehyun's face twists. "Oh." That is all he manages to say. If one good thing happened that night is that one call he got from Kai, the one thing that he could look back at and feel like everything will be alright. To come and find out that Kai has no recollection of that call whatsoever is making his heart churn.

The first time they said it and it has been taken away from them.

A bitter taste fills his mouth.

"I really am Sorry," Kai repeats.

"It's fine," Taehyun says, but he knows it is not really fine, and he is lying to Kai. He feigns looking at his watch. "I should get back to the dorms," if he stays in the hospital room for more than a few more seconds he'll end up crying and he's sure it's the last thing Kai needs. "I have class early in the morning." he finds a dumb excuse. He doesn't even have class until 1:30 pm tomorrow.

The bitter taste only increases. It is not how he pictured the first visit after Kai woke up would go and now, he's feeling bad. He's come here for different, more hopeful, cheerful reasons and now he's leaving after doing none of that.

He picks his bag from the floor and gets up from the bed; leaving the room while feeling Kai's eyes on his back as he disappears behind the walls of the hall.