Harsh (Hyunin)

♡ trente-deux ♡

Things seemed to get better when Jeongin started kangaroo care. Sonmi was still on her ventilator, but the nurse told them she would probably only be on it for a week more or so. Seongmin, on the other hand, was only continuing to improve. They had gotten him started on trying to adjust to Jeongin's milk, so if Jeongin wasn't with the babies he was attempting to use the pump so he could start producing for his baby boy.

Even better, the CPS had received a more urgent case and had put there's on hold for a week or two, which proved that perhaps maybe they wouldn't take Hyunjin and Jeongin's babies after all. For three more days after Jeongin had started kangaroo care they stayed at the hospital, but when the babies were a week old, the nurses began pushing Jeongin and Hyunjin's departure.

The sub was moving rather well, was easily and efficiently using the restroom in both forms, and had gotten his stitches, which was actually more of one long stitch with a bead at the end, removed on his sixth day of being at the hospital. It was the afternoon of day seven that the nurses brought in a clipboard with paperwork. "You're good to sign out, Mr. Yang!" the nurse told him. "Hwang," he corrected softly. "And what do you mean sign out?" The nurse slipped the clipboard to Hyunjin instead, and the man realized what was happening. They had already stayed a few days over from when Jeongin would normally have gone home.

Hyunjin had noticed that the NICU was unfortunately gaining at least one or two babies each day, and he figured that the hall they were in must have been fairly full, perhaps with mothers who needed it a little more. "I figured you would be sick of the hospital by now," the nurse chuckled. "You can go home, sleep in your own bed, you don't have to live off of hospital food-" Jeongin shook his head slowly,

"My babies are here. I'm perfectly content..." "We kind of need to free the room up though," the nurse finally pressed, and normally Hyunjin would be irritated, but the woman genuinely sounded apologetic. "As a mother I can't even imagine what it would feel like to have to leave one of my babies in the hospital while I went home, but we've had an increase in preemies in the NICU and so we kind of need the space for mothers with sicker babies." Like always when Jeongin was beginning to panic, his eyes flashed to Hyunjin's for support.

But the Dom was at a loss. As much as he wanted to stay with the babies too, he knew that if when Jeongin had first come into the hospital and they hadn't been allowed to stay with their babies because the rooms were full of people who didn't need to stay, he'd be fairly upset. It felt as if he were being torn in two, but he nodded to the nurse, "I'll talk to him." A look of betrayal flashed across Jeongin's face, and Hyunjin wanted so badly to take it back, to tell the nurse that they'd be staying, but the nurse had already left the room.

"I don't want to leave them," Jeongin, who had been looking through some baby clothes that Chan had brought for something that they could possibly put Seongmin in, shakily reached for the recliner so he could sit. "I can't leave my babies-" "Pet..." Hyunjin said softly. "We have to go home. You heard the nurse, other people need this room. We're lucky, our babies are okay. What if someone who has a baby a lot sicker than ours needs this room but they can't stay in it because we're here? How would you feel leaving the hospital if our babies were still sick?"

"Sonmi is still having problems!" Jeongin tried. "Just the other day t-they had to give her more medicine in her IV because her blood pressure was low and she's still on the ventilator." "I don't want to leave her either," the Dom said sadly. "Or Seongmin. Not our baby girl or our baby boy, if the hospital wasn't full I'd make the nurses let us stay. But... we've been here a week. It's time for us to leave."

Jeongin pulled the tiny onesie he held in his hands up to his face, hiding from Hyunjin as a choked sob escaped him, and then his shoulders were heaving as he broke down in despair. "No..." he wailed. "Please, Hyunjin, I don't want to, please talk to them-" Hyunjin couldn't even bring himself to scold Jeongin for saying his real name anymore. Even though it had once been one of Hyunjin's most important rules, it didn't seem as important anymore. He preferred his real name coming from Jeongin's lips, it proved just how much Jeongin trusted him.