Requested by @jungwon_fluff

The clinic door creaked open with its usual stubborn groan. Dr. Byun Euijoo or "EJ" he didn't even look up at first—he knew who it was by now. He always knew.

Nicholas Wang.

The boy—no, the man, but too young to already carry so many scars—slumped into the chair opposite the desk. His knuckles were split, blood smeared across his jaw, and his ribs were wrapped in a makeshift bandage that was already darkening.

EJ sighed, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose.

"Again, Nicholas?" His voice carried the edge of sharp steel, but beneath it was exhaustion. Worry. "Do you have a death wish, or are you just trying to make sure I never get a quiet night?"

Nicho smirked, though his lips trembled. "What can I say, doc? World's rough. Someone's gotta survive it."

"Survive," EJ muttered bitterly, standing to fetch gauze and disinfectant. "You call this surviving? You're rotting yourself from the inside out."

Nicho didn't answer, just hissed softly when EJ pressed alcohol to his wounds. EJ's hands, though practiced, shook faintly. He hated this. Hated stitching the same skin, wrapping the same bruises, every week. Hated how Nicholas laughed it off, how he made light of his own fragility.

And yet—EJ kept patching him up. Every time. Even when his chest burned with feelings he had no right to confess. What good would it do? Nicholas would laugh, maybe pull away, maybe vanish completely. Better to keep it buried.

So EJ scolded instead. It was safer that way.

"You're wasting your life," EJ murmured, tying the last knot on the bandage. "One day you'll come through those doors and I won't be able to fix you."

Nicho winked, leaning back like the pain was nothing. "Relax, doc. I'm tougher than I look."

EJ looked at him then, really looked, and his throat tightened. "That's what I'm afraid of," he whispered, too softly for Nicholas to hear.

It happened three weeks later.

The ER lights were blinding, alarms shrieking through sterile air. Nurses rushed past with bloodied gloves and pale faces. EJ froze the second he caught the name shouted across the hallway.

"Wang, Nicholas! Male, early twenties, GSW to the abdomen—"

The world tilted. EJ forced his feet to move, to follow the gurney being pushed into trauma. And then he saw him.

Nicholas. Pale, gasping, eyes fluttering like the wings of a dying moth. His shirt was soaked red, his hands twitching weakly at the sides.

"Stay with me, Nicho!" EJ barked, grabbing his wrist as the team prepped him. "You don't get to give up now. Not like this."

Nicho's gaze found him through the haze. A ghost of a smile. "Doc... knew you'd be here."

"Shut up," EJ snapped, voice breaking. His hands pressed down hard on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to hold him here, with him. "You're not allowed to talk like you're saying goodbye."

The monitors beeped frantically, and EJ's throat burned as he worked alongside the others, every second dragging like a century. All he could think was—what if I never get another chance?

Hours later, Nicholas was stabilized. Alive, but barely. Hooked to machines, unconscious, his chest rising shallowly under the weight of bandages.

EJ sat beside him, scrubs soaked in sweat and blood. His hands trembled as they clutched Nicholas's limp fingers.

The scolding that came now wasn't sharp. It wasn't irritated. It was shattered, cracked down the middle with grief.

"You stupid, reckless idiot," EJ whispered hoarsely, tears slipping down his face. "Do you have any idea—any idea—what you almost did to me? You could've died, Nicholas. You could've left me here with nothing but your blood on my hands and the memory of your smirk burned into my head. And I never even told you—" His voice broke. He pressed Nicholas's knuckles to his forehead, sobbing silently. "—never told you how much you mean to me. How much I—"

His throat closed, the words suffocating him. He couldn't finish.

So instead, he whispered the only thing that mattered, the only plea left in him:

"Don't ever do this to me again. Don't ever leave me like that. Because if you go, Nicholas... I don't think I'll survive it."

And for the first time, EJ's scolding ended not with anger, but with a broken confession only the unconscious walls of the ER could hear.

NICHOLAS POV

The hospital room was too quiet. Machines hummed their monotone lullaby, dripping life back into veins that had nearly bled dry.

Nicholas drifted in and out of dark waves, his body too heavy, his chest aching with every breath. But through the fog, he felt something—warmth. A hand clutching his own, trembling but steady enough to anchor him.

And then... a voice.

EJ's.

"You stupid, reckless idiot," it rasped, broken like glass ground underfoot. Nicholas wanted to laugh—wanted to tease him for scolding even when he was unconscious. But then EJ's words cracked, and Nicholas's sluggish heart clenched.

"...Do you have any idea what you almost did to me? ... You could've left me with nothing but your blood on my hands and the memory of your smirk burned into my head. And I never even told you..."

There was a pause, jagged with breath. Nicholas fought the heaviness pulling him under, desperate to hear.

"...never told you how much you mean to me. How much I—" The voice broke again.

Nicholas's eyes fluttered open, just barely, hazy with pain and drugs. He caught the sight of EJ, hunched forward, pressing his forehead against Nicholas's hand like a man begging for mercy.

And in that fragile moment, Nicholas finally understood.

His throat was dry, but he forced it to work. "...Doc."

EJ's head shot up, eyes wide, rimmed red. "Nicholas? God—stay still, don't—"

"I heard you." His voice was barely a whisper, a crack of sound. "Every word."

EJ froze, horror flickering across his face, like a man who'd been caught bleeding from a wound he'd kept hidden too long. "Nicho, I—"

"Don't take it back," Nicholas rasped, squeezing weakly at EJ's trembling fingers. His lips curved into the faintest, broken smile. "You waited till I was half-dead to say it. Least you can do is let me keep it."

Something in EJ shattered then—whatever wall he'd built, whatever control he clung to. Tears slipped freely down his cheeks, and he leaned closer, voice shaking.

"I thought I lost you," he whispered. "I thought you'd die without ever knowing how much I—how much I love you."

Nicholas's lashes lowered, exhaustion tugging at him again, but not before he whispered back, soft and certain:

"Then you better keep me alive, doc. 'Cause I'm not done hearing you say it."

And for the first time, EJ's scolding ended with silence—not the silence of grief, but the silence of two hearts finally speaking where words had always failed.