SCENE XII : ACT II — WORDS

"get out of the way!"

jeongguk was in a run.

heart hammering inside his chest, eyes prickling with treacherous tears, the man was breathless as he ran like his life depended on it.

please, please, let me make it on time.

thoughts in a disarray, jeongguk had only one thing inside his mind —the hospital, i must reach the hospital as soon as possible. hurry, hurry jeon jeongguk!

lips quivering with fright, jeongguk had wanted to grow invisible wings just so he could fly and reach the hospital — the hospital where jiho was being revived.

revived? yes, being revived.

what happened? why? why?

don't die on me, please.

no, why? you were alright just yesterday. you were alright this morning when i carried you.

you were breathing and alive! you were freaking alive, jiho.

what happened?

legs hurting from all the running, jeongguk's thoughts ate his mind as he desperately ran in the highway as he marched his way to the hospital — being caught up in the traffic was the least thing he wanted but, things weren't going the way he wanted it to be and now, here he was, running in the road as he had left his car on its own.

every sane man who would catch a glimpse of jeongguk would think he's crazy.

why? please, please let me make it.

at 12:51 everything crumbled into pieces. jeongguk was in his fourth meeting in the day and the only thing he wanted was a decent lunch in some takeout and he was even considering to eat at the cafeteria — the least thing he had wanted was to have more stress but, shit was about to go down.

"let me hear about the details of the—"

words coming into a halt, the whole meeting room suddenly went silent and the icy aura that radiated inside the vicinity turned even paler the moment jeongguk's assistant secretary — yugyeom, whose eyes and face crumpled into grief and panic, broke the news for all ears.

"gguk! jiho — god, jeongguk! j– jiho — jiho is in the hospital and she is being revived! they said she suddenly—suddenly stopped breathing!" tears falling on the trembling man's lips, jeongguk had to process everything he had heard.

stopped – stopped breathing? what — what— "jeongguk!" snapping out of his thoughts, jeongguk's confused eyes was met with yugyeom's and the next thing he knew he was running with his dear life to get to the woman he thought he was done loving, ignoring lilia's protests of letting him go and forgetting the way his stomach grumbled.

"w—what room is kim jiho?" panting, breathless and sweaty, jeongguk finally managed to arrive at the said hospital where jiho was admitted unto.

"yes?" jeongguk's patience was thin as a string, red flashed in his eyes the moment the receptionist nonchalantly answered him without even giving any interest in his question.

"i said, where is the patient named kim jiho. where is kim jiho's room located?" gritting his teeth and patience slipping, he wasn't up for games.

"what?" the moment those words escaped from the female receptionist, jeongguk couldn't help himself anymore as he clutched the nurse's collar and made his point clear.

"fucking tell me where and what room does my wife, kim jiho's room located before i make blood drip off of you! my wife is in a critical condition and i don't really mind you slacking off and i'm not the one paying for your fucking job but a life is on the line and if you don't give me a shit of attention and tell me where my wife is, the moment something happens to her before i get there, i'll fucking make you pay even if you're a woman!!" jeongguk snapped, clearly terrifying the receptionist as the moment he let the woman go, she hastily typed away with her teary eyes.

"s—she's i—in the 4th floor, room 408 and—"

even before the woman finished speaking, jeongguk was already on his way as he caught an elevator.

relief ran down on jeongguk's system as his eyes finally let out a hot stream of tears, the moment he found out that jiho was inside a ward, no longer in critical condition. he viewed his wife, sleeping peacefully in a comfy bed, through the little glass of the door he was currently standing infront of. the man tightly clutched the door's knob as he slowly turned it — the urge to hold her in his arms ate his heart, wanting to feel jiho's skin against him.

someone just had to stop him, "what—what the fucking hell are you doing here?" a whisper of curse words hit jeongguk's ears before he suddenly found himself being clutched on the collar and pinned on the wall. the brunette's eyes immediately caught sight of a platinum blonde man, red flashing on its veins as an angered and tired taehyung gritted his teeth infront of him.

what the hell?

"you have the audacity to show up in here after everything you made jiho feel and suffer to! how fucking dare you. you fucking man-slut,"

jeongguk flickered with anger as he realized that this was the second time taehyung had called him that putrid name "get off of me, kim taehyung or else—"

"or else, what? man-slut"

jeongguk wasn't having fun at all and doesn't gives two shit, "i need to see my wife and—"

taehyung scoffed before sarcastically laughing, "wife? ha, really funny, you must be a joker, jeon. wife?! fucking don't make me laugh, that's bullshit" the blonde mocked and applied even more force on the brunette's collar before glaring with such intensity and towering over him. "what the fucking hell are you doing here?"

"i am jiho's husband and you're not. i'm the top contact for emergency and not you, keep that in mind you freaking fucking kim taehyung."

taehyung snapped, "keep this in mind — if it weren't for jiho, i would've dropped the fucking partnership and you would be out in the streets begging for money. i'm only waiting for the moment you two separate and i'll fucking give what a man-slut like you deserves"

jeongguk was beyond maddened. how dare you. the brunette could not bear the feeling anymore and despite what taehyung spoke, he wasn't threatened at all. grabbing the older's arm, he shoved the blonde's frame off of him before getting back and clutching taehyung's collar.

"who are you to tell me that? you could drop the partnership for all i care, go ahead prick. and, what the fucking hell are you anyway? you're nothing to jiho, you're just his boss. a helpless romantic who loves my wife. mine, my wife, get that to your fucking head because jiho is my wif—"

pain shooting through jeongguk's forehead, he suddenly stumbled and dropped on his knees, hand immediately caressing his hurting head and realized that taehyung just made his forehead bleed — a headbutt.

what— what the fuck?

grabbing jeongguk's hair, taehyung wasn't done. the blonde got in his knees to make sure that the two of them were eye level, giving him his point as he uttered his words. "i'm that someone who'll catch jiho the moment you let go off her. i may be nothing to her right now, but i'll make sure to always stay right by her side unlike you. you, the man who calls himself as jiho's fucking husband, is also the one who only cared about the warmth of body and not the passionate love of being appreciated. you, fucking hurt the woman who deserves the whole world and hearing you call yourself as jiho's husband is such an idiotic thing to speak off"

jeongguk's lips shut tight, finding no capability to formulate the right words to counter the blonde's determined words. "i - "

"i'm kim taehyung and i'm going to catch the woman you would let go. i'm going to protect the woman you hurt, wounded and fucking scarred. i'll treasure her and make sure that she gets the love she deserved to have, unlike a putrid and disgusting man like you who treated her like a trash – a fucking monster"

"i—"

"i'm going to be jiho's arthur because her romeo was a good for nothing man"