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Six hundred and twenty-one seconds. Jiah managed to pull her phone out with fingers trembling, ringing 119 and holding it against her ear.
She tried her best to answer all the operator's questions, hands clasped around Taehyung's jaw as she rubbed little circles into his skin.
Her world was falling apart.
And she didn't know how else to hold onto the little bit of her universe she had as he slipped through her fingers.
Gripping tighter to him, she continued to answer the questions asked.
And finally, Jiah was told to stay on the line and bask in the silence as the paramedics were on their way.
A silence that only allowed her mind to make monsters of her thoughts.
But she deserved it.
She deserved all of this.
Taehyung didn't.
—
Three thousand five hundred and ninety-three seconds.
Jimin sprinted through the hospital doors, hot on Jiah's tail when he found her.
"What happened?" his face was so close to breaking, he was so close to crying, "Where's Taehyung? What's this about getting stabbed? What's this about life-threatening surgery?"
Jiah couldn't answer any questions. She felt so fucking dumb.
All she could do was watch Taehyung's best friend crumble into the seat next to her, eyes well with tears he would not shed, lips chewed to the point that it might have bled too. All from the pain she caused.
—
Fifteen thousand three hundred and thirty-one seconds.
The doctor had come in and out three times, each time approaching Jimin to talk about Taehyung's state while Jimin would try to explain it all to her afterwards.
A relay game in which no one really was paying attention.
Jiah didn't know what was happening with Taehyung and she just wished she could do something to help. But all she could do was listen to the doctor or Jimin feed her words she didn't understand, giving her empty promises she didn't believe.
—
Twenty-one thousand six hundred and four seconds. Jiah was tapping her toes against the tile, counting.
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.
It had been around five hours since the doctor had told Jiah that they had finished evaluating Taehyung's wound and was ready to have him in surgery.
But to her, it felt like an eternity.
He had been blabbing on about some abdominal cavity penetration, and how it just missed his diaphragm, however, everything was just background noise to her.
