Dark Matter | JJK

22. Waging Peace

Although they weren't able to meet Dr. Jung, the lady nurse was just fine.

Despite the fact that Seoul National University Hospital was, at this apocalyptic hour, teeming with workers bustling hither and thither, patients on stretchers being carried from one room to another and the unending line of injured awaiting treatment, the nurse managed to calmly take Petra by the arm and lead her to a room where she was made to lie on a bed under an X-ray machine.

After the scan, the nurse held the X-ray sheet underneath the light and squinted at the image of Petra's cervical vertebrae. "The X-ray shows no internal damage, so that's good news," she said, nodding. "I'll just have to prescribe you some medicines to attenuate the pain." She scribbled a few names on her prescription in typical, shorthand doctor's handwriting, handing it to her. "Get them from the pharmacy outside. You're good to go."

Rising from the bed, Petra staggered for a moment as her head spun. The nurse noticed, holding her arm and slowly guiding her wobbling form towards the exit. When they reached the waiting area, Jungkook who had been previously bobbing his knee while seated, stood up at the sight of her. He met her halfway, putting a steady arm around her shoulders to guide her to the chairs. The nurse turned to leave.

"What did she say?" Jungkook asked, taking the prescription from her and running his eyes across the words albeit knowing he would not understand. "Is it something serious?"

"No, just bruises." Petra leaned back against the metal chair, her nose twitching at the overwhelming smell of antiseptic blanketing the air.

"Now that's a relief," he said, then looked up at her through his veil of charcoal bangs. "We'll get your meds in a while, but before that, I have some work to do. Do you need anything?"

She shook her head but latched her fingers onto his wrist the moment he made to turn away. Jungkook glanced at her hand and back at her, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Are you hurt, too?"

She couldn't quite comprehend why, but fear prodded its claws at her heart at the thought of him having hurt himself in the pursuit of saving her. He was the last person she had expected to see, when the life was slowly being sucked from her soul. For a prolonged moment, hanging helpless in the Aenigmuus's strangled hold, she had deemed him a mere figment of her imagination, a ghoul who had come to haunt her the same way the few people she could call her own had in the minutes before her eyes closed forever. She had expected him to jeer at her. Mock her cowardliness.

But he was real. He was oh so real in the moments that her held her, stayed by her, ushered the air back into her gasping lungs and opened her eyes to the light still left in the world. He was real when he apologized, real when he looked at her like she was the only being who mattered in that one moment they were together, his emotions laid bare before her like knots on a string he wanted her own hands to untie, one by one.

He was real now.

Jungkook shook his head. "No, don't worry. I just need to get my bandages changed." He rolled up the left sleeve of his sweatshirt for her to see.

"It hasn't healed yet?" she asked.

"Apparently not," he said, glancing at the dull red blood stains on the bandage. "This isn't any normal wound, is it?"

She shook her head, only watching as he slid his sleeve back down and smiled at her. "Stay here. I'll be back soon."

A moment after his figure had retreated into a nearby room, Petra caught a sudden flailing movement from the corner of her eye. She turned to see none other than Hyun Seunghee, running through the cramped hospital corridor past half annoyed, half confused nurses, almost crashing into a medicine trolley as she thundered towards her friend - who could do nothing but brace herself.