Bittersweet | Meanie | Minwon | 18+

Seventy Two ○ Discharge

Mingyu’s discharge from the hospital was quieter than expected. There was no grand farewell, no flood of emotions. Just a lingering heaviness in the air as he stepped outside for the first time in weeks.

Jihoon and Chan walked on either side of him, very careful. The bruises on Mingyu's body still ached, his movements slower than usual, but his sight was way better than before even though it wasn't completely healed, but he didn’t complain. He barely said anything at all.

The sun was too bright. The world outside the hospital felt distant, like he wasn’t fully a part of it yet.

Jihoon glanced at him, studying his face. “You okay?”

Mingyu blinked. “Yeah.” A lie. But Jihoon didn’t push him to speak.

Sensing the dull atmosphere, Chan said, “We should get food first. Something that’s not hospital soup.” Mingyu only nodded, letting them lead the way.

---

The tension in the room was suffocating. Jihoon sat on the edge of the couch, his fingers gripping his phone so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Chan was pacing, his hands restless at his sides, his expression pulled tight with frustration.

Mingyu sat in silence, his mind still foggy from everything he’d learned. Min had been involved in things none of them had fully grasped until now. And now, they were trying to find him.

Mr. Lee exhaled sharply before he pressed his phone to his ear. The call connected, and an unfamiliar voice answered.

"Hello?"

"This is Lee Sanghyun. I need to speak with Min’s grandmother. Is she available?"

A pause. Then, the voice on the other end spoke again, slower this time.

"I'm sorry, but she isn't here. She left a few days ago. There’s no one at this house anymore."

Jihoon's head snapped up. Chan stopped pacing.

Mr. Lee’s expression darkened. "Left? What do you mean? Where did she go?"

"She moved out. I believe she mentioned something about staying with distant relatives. She didn’t say much. The house has been empty since."

Jihoon shot up from his seat, his frustration boiling over. "What about Min? He was staying there, wasn't he?"

There was hesitation on the other end of the call. "I... I don't know. He left first, about a week ago. He didn’t say where he was going, just that he wouldn’t be coming back."

A cold silence settled over the room.

"He knew," Chan murmured, barely above a whisper. "He knew we'd come looking for him."

Jihoon’s hands clenched into fists.

Mr. Lee ended the call, pinching the bridge of his nose. "He's gone," he confirmed grimly. "And there’s no telling where he went."

Mingyu, who had been quiet until now, felt a strange sense of unease settled in his chest. Even if he didn’t remember everything, he could tell... this wasn’t over. Min had disappeared too perfectly, like he had been planning this escape for a while.

And that meant he wasn’t just running away. He was hiding.

Days passed, slipping into a routine that felt eerily normal. Almost too normal. Min didn't show up.

Mingyu settled back into the house, back into daily life. His vision was getting better gradually. But there was something missing... something he couldn’t put his finger on.

The days stretched on, and the emptiness lingered. Jihoon and Chan weren’t the same either. He caught them exchanging glances when they thought he wasn’t looking, their voices turned to whispers whenever he entered the room.

At first, he ignored it. But then, late one night, he heard them. He was supposed to be asleep, but a faint murmur of voices carried through the hallway.

Mingyu frowned, slipping out of bed, his steps silent as he approached Jihoon’s room. The door wasn’t closed all the way, leaving a thin gap for him to listen.

“…he doesn’t remember at all,” Chan was saying. “It’s been weeks.”

Jihoon sighed. “That’s not a bad thing, Chan.”

“But what if...”

“He’s in pain.” Jihoon’s voice was firmer now. “Every time something reminds him, he looks like he can’t breathe. Do you really want him to go through that again?”

A beat of silence. Chan exhaled, frustrated. “But what if he needs to remember?”

“He doesn’t,” Jihoon said, quieter this time. “Not if it’s going to break him.”

Mingyu’s breath hitched. They were hiding something. Something about him. Something he had forgotten. His chest tightened, the uneasiness from before sinking deeper in him.

And then...

A sharp pain stabbed through his skull, sudden and unbearable. His vision blurred, breath catching in his throat as the room around him wavered.

And then- Darkness. Shattered glass. Blood. A name. Wonu.

Mingyu gasped awake, his hands shaking as he clutched his chest. His heart was pounding, a cold sweat running down his spine. The nightmare had been brief, fragmented but it left behind a terror he couldn’t understand.

The next morning, Jihoon noticed.

“You didn’t sleep.” It wasn’t a question.

Mingyu pressed a hand against his temple. “It was nothing.”

Another lie but Jihoon didn’t push, but his gaze darkened. Later that day, when Mingyu wasn’t paying attention, Jihoon made a call.

“The nightmares are getting worse,” he said quietly. “We need to stop his memories from coming back.”

The voice on the other end hesitated. “That’s not exactly how it works, Jihoon.”

“I don’t care.” Jihoon’s grip on the phone tightened. “I won’t let him suffer more than he already has.”

A pause.

“…I’ll see what I can do.”