Chapter Text
Your first run-in with the Bangtan boys was unremarkable, yet it would prove memorable with time. You’ve often found yourself looking back upon said encounter, as well as the ones that would follow, pondering exactly what bizarre twist of fate had sent your life tumbling down so many wrong paths.
Given the opportunity, would you undo a single one of them? Would you have made different choices?
The first year of your emergency medicine residency is kicking your ass, and not in the way you had hoped it would. EM was supposed to be a fast-paced, challenging environment in which a brilliant young doctor such as yourself could flourish and thrive. If not, you would have been somewhere else.
After what had felt like far too many years of medical school you came into this expecting challenging and engaging work, but instead you were met with boring, almost easy, repetitive routines and seemingly endless amounts of paperwork. Charts and EKG’s piling up and pushing you slowly but surely towards the end of your patience.
This was not what you wanted. This was not worth your student loans, and your ridiculous debt. And yet here you are, on a Wednesday night, staring blankly at what must be the millionth x-ray of your short career, internally screaming a prayer for caffeine while trying to determine just how severe the fracture is, and how to go about treating it.
Yes, you’ve become disenchanted with the whole ordeal, lying awake most nights despite your near perpetual state of exhaustion, the fatigue that seemed to cling to you always. Knowing it was too late, and yet somehow still too early, to change your mind about your intended career, you grew more cynical as each day passed.
And you have no social life to speak of; you were all alone in the city and most of your days off were now spent sleeping inhuman amounts and basking shamelessly in carbohydrates and bad television.
Still, ever the professional, you nod along politely to whatever smalltalk the radiologist is making about weekend plans, direct your remaining attention at the x-ray and abandon your mental mantra of ‘coffee coffee coffee’ to determine that the fracture isn’t all that bad. It looks painful enough but nothing major, four weeks in a splint should do just nicely, and the radiologist is going to visit his brother and his newborn niece this weekend, how lovely.
Having drawn a conclusion, you excuse yourself and make your way to the patient.
“Sorry about the wait.” Polite smile in place, you head directly for the chair by the bed. It may seem as though you want to be on eye level with your patient but in reality, due to a variety of substances and some unfortunate circumstances, you had to throw out a brand new pair of shoes after last night’s shift and as a result you’ve been on your feet for the past six hours in the wrong pair of shoes; your back is absolutely killing you.
“So, Mr. Park, the bad news is it’s broken,“ you don’t get much further before you’re interrupted by what can only be described as a giggle.
“Well, yeah.”
You look up from Mr. Park’s chart, brows raised, as said patient waves his hand not too far from your face, index finger at an odd angle, knuckles raw and a little bloody. His laughter is surprisingly disarming given the look of him, clothes torn and spattered with blood, hair tousled and bright red. Then again, the boy himself is admittedly quite charming. All soft angles and even softer eyes, bruise blooming along his jawline near his chin, and plump lips stretched into a smile so wide he reopens the crack in his lip with a wince.
The sight of blood shakes you out of your decaffeinated daze before you can be accused of staring, but your answering smile lingers in the following moments as you procure a piece of gauze for him to press against his lower lip.
Then the moment is brought entirely to an end as your patient suddenly receives a disciplinary smack to the back of the head by his companion, a blond man—smartly dressed and mildly disgruntled—who’s been seated on the other side of the bed.
Given their dynamic you assume he’s older. You must have missed him when you entered, nose buried in your paperwork. Either way, you give him a polite nod of acknowledgement, seeing as you had failed to do so earlier, and try not appear visibly amused by their display.
“Ah, hyung.“ Your patient all but whines, still dabbing at his split lip, but the older man has returned to his seat and seems determined to nap.
“As I was saying, Mr. Park, the b—“ You don’t get any further on your second attempt.
“—Jimum.” The boy mumbles through the gauze, and you take another glance at his chart.
“Jimin. Your finger is broken. The good news is the fracture is stable and you won’t need surgery.”
Jimin doesn’t seem at all bothered. He just smiles at you and you’ve already decided that this is the highlight of your day, but you can feel your cheeks starting to burn under the surprisingly incisive gaze of the young man, so you set about getting to work on his hand.
Certainly feeling more awake now, you start by disinfecting the scrapes on his knuckles, but only after gently removing several large rings from his fingers, now that the swelling has had a chance to go down. As you work, Jimin observes his surroundings with eager, almost childlike curiosity—you have to ask him to ‘please sit still’ at least three times—and does his best not to squirm in discomfort or flinch away from you. The resulting twitch of his impressive thighs, tensing against the dark fabric of his jeans, manages to distract you more times than you as a medical professional would like to admit. You tell yourself this is not the time to marvel at the human physique, although he is a marvel, that you’re a doctor and to keep professional.
Willing your attention elsewhere, you gesture towards his disheveled appearance, “Can you talk me through what happened?”
“He fell down the stairs. Landed on his hand.”
You perk up as a new, deeper voice joins the two of you, having almost forgotten the third party by the bed. You peek past Jimin’s shoulder towards the blond man, whose arms are folded over his chest and eyes are closed, the skepticism written across your furrowed brow entirely lost on him. He seems to have gotten quite comfortable and looks almost remarkably serene despite the simple accommodations.
“I fell down the stairs and landed on my hand.” Jimin echoes, bringing your attention back to him and your work, voice so uncharacteristically monotone you’re not sure whether he’s mocking his elder or following orders of some sort.
“Well, by the look of it, you took quite a tumble,” you muse, unable to keep the doubt from your tone; you’ve never known anyone to fall down the stairs and walk away with a split lip like the one Jimin is sporting.
He seems to have grown bored with his surroundings, shifting his attention to observe you at work instead, tilting his head as if daring you to meet his eye, to catch him staring. Meanwhile you do your best not to squirm under his scrutiny, your inquiry already forgotten as you cling to what’s left of your attention span, but this only seems to intrigue him further. Just as you begin to pull away in order to prepare the splint he leans in, as if chasing you. He stays, just on the edge of what you would consider your personal space, making eye contact inevitable.
“You should see the other guy.” Jimin lowers his voice to a murmur, and if you weren’t uncomfortable before you certainly are now, but before you have time to worry about his next move, or pray for his dozing companion to come smack him again, Jimin retreats and straightens back up with another giggle while you’re left to stare in mild disbelief, fatigued mind grasping for an appropriate reaction or a possible explanation for what on earth just happened. Jimin tongues the cut in his bottom lip with a satisfied expression, nothing short of delighted to have you at a loss for words.
Then again, as a doctor there’s little you like less than people wilfully endangering themselves, leaving you to clean up their messes. Having to listen to them brag about it too only makes your job that much worse. Not only that, but you have the distinct feeling he’s mocking you, and you simply do not have the patience, so you settle for what you hope is a stern frown, refusing to be bullied, or intimidated, or whatever else he thinks he’s doing.
You stand, and it feels a bit like gaining the upper hand, reach for your penlight, and nudge his chin to tip his head back a little.
“I’m only asking because I need to know what other injuries you may have,” you explain somewhat sternly. “Did you hit your head at all?”
He’s already been thoroughly examined, but you’re not used to this kind of behaviour from someone sober and so you can’t help but wonder if a concussion might have been overlooked. You’re the third person to shine a bright light in his eyes tonight but he lets you finish, batting his eyelashes at you patiently and keeping his eyes wide despite the laughter swelling in his cheeks and bubbling in his throat, as you watch his pupils constrict in response to the light.
“No, I’m good.” Jimin laughs lightly with something akin to glee. When you finally relent he grins until his eyes are replaced by soft crescents, and you find yourself wondering, absurdly enough, if his eyes could disappear altogether.
“Is he always like this?” Defeated, you sigh in the general direction of the other man, who appears to be in some way responsible for Jimin, not really expecting an answer, just wanting to ease the tension.
However, from the slumbering figure comes a rumble you cautiously identify as a fond chuckle, and interpret as an affirmative. You find yourself pausing very briefly to admire the soft curves of the blond man’s face—which may very well rival Jimin’s. The slight pout of his relaxed mouth—before returning to your senses and silently cursing yourself, blaming the passing daze on your low blood sugar.
Fortunately Jimin seems to have grown bored of you too now, and lets you work without further disturbances.
“There, all done.” You say as you finally fasten the bandage and make some final notes in his chart.
Jimin bounces off the bed immediately, seemingly restless and eager to get going. His lethargic companion doesn’t seem to be in as much of a hurry, although he has moved to sit upright. You glance up from your notes, meet his gaze, and realise you made a mistake when comparing him to Jimin. Even if his features are indeed soft, and in a way rounder where Jimin might seem almost square in comparison, you were initially misled by his relaxed expression. Now awake, the sharp angle of the blond man’s eyes contrast the mild slope of his nose and compliment the sharp cut of his jaw, transforming his appearance and betraying a focused sense of calm, a certain depth, and vigilance despite the exhausted tinge beneath his eyes.
You suspect you’ve caught a glimpse of his character, that there’s much more to this man than meets the eye, and from that moment you fear him.
Jimin doesn’t seem to be paying much attention as you go over the remaining details—how it’s important not to disturb the splint, to keep it clean and dry and so on—he’s much too busy peeking through the curtain separating you from the chaos outside, but a few slight nods from his blond friend assures you that the responsibility is now his.
When you reach the end of your short lecture Jimin faces you again while stretching into a yawn, a distracting glimpse of tan skin revealed to you just above his waistband, where his shirt rides up, “Can we go now?”
Given your current state you might have felt compelled to give into your fatigue and a yawn of your own, but once again you force your attention elsewhere in a desperate attempt to salvage what is left of your dignity.
“Yes,” you laugh. Friendly, if a little strained. “You can go.”
“Hyung, come on.” Jimin motions for his elder, who gets out of his chair and approaches you unexpectedly, for a handshake. You didn’t realise you had imagined his hands, until you realise you had imagined them much colder.
“Thank you.” He says, and is walking away with a waving Jimin before you have a chance to think of anything modest to say in return. You’re left with three whole seconds of calm before someone to your right is yelling for a crash cart and your reflexes kick back in.