Jaemin the Icy Prince and Me - Na Jaemin NCT

37. It's Not Funny

It's a moonless night.

The streetlamps are all lit up. They look like bobbing oranges in a sea of black.

"Careful," Jaemin says, as a car passes too close to me.

"Let's switch," he says, and he walks over to the outer edge near the street.

I see the car first before him.

"Jaemin," I whisper.

A car is zig-zagging towards us.

How strange.

It's not supposed to be coming from that direction.

This is a one-way street.

Vehicles are supposed to be coming up behind us.

Cars are honking madly, and swerving to avoid it.

I catch a glimpse of a white face in the driver's seat and then, I'm being shoved aside so hard, I'm falling.

I hear the sharp squeal of brakes, the dull crunching of tyres on gravel.

A thud.

Screams.

A jolt of agonizing pain in my shoulder.

A wave of dizziness.

Dimly, I see someone lying next to me.

Jaemin. 

He's lying very still, to his side.

I can't see his face.

"Jaemin," I whisper dully. "Jaemin, wake up..."

I try to crawl over to him.

Hands reaching out to me. Kind hands, holding me back, the low babble of voices.

"Don't move..."

"An ambulance's coming..."

"Hold on..."

And gasps, amidst the comforting murmurs.

"Is he dead?"

"I don't know."

"He's so still."

"I think he's dead."

"Why's that ambulance so slow?"

"It's coming."

"There it is."

"Sure took its time, didn't it?"

Sirens screaming in my head.

Red lights flashing, blinking, hurting my eyes, my head.

Jaemin on a stretcher, being lifted into an ambulance.

Jaemin lying so still, like a wooden dummy, his head in a brace, his face so white it looks like paper, like parchment.

I'm screaming so loud in my head.

"Jaemin, Jaemin...get up now, it's not funny..."

"Jaemin, do you hear me? Get up now, it's not funny, you're scaring me..."

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out, just a mere breath, a whisper upon the wind, dissipated almost as once in the cold night air.

I'm being lifted.

Jaemin's ambulance doors are closing. Someone in white bangs it shut with a loud clang, and it's off, sirens flashing, screaming into the night.

"Jaemin," I whisper.

"You'll be fine. We're sending you to hospital now."

I feel something painful prick my arm.

And then the blackness swallows me.