In spirit of keeping a running commentary on the layout and the site functioning: the inch signs used for dialogue punctuation are because of a site-wide change to the side encoding. I cannot change their appearance to inverted quotation marks. To confirm the estimate from Chapter 5: Intimate Rivals will conclude at fifteen chapters. Thanks for joining in!

Chapter 12: In the Hospital

Baek stood beside the hospital bed wearily. Hwoarang had lasted through the night, but as the hours passed and he still hadn't woken, the hospital staff had started going over the patient files and looking for those who should be notified. Baek had wondered about that—about how they had known to contact him. Something new was revealed, then, and a paralyzing feeling of anxiety settled in Baek's gut.

"The number was wrong, of course, but we were lucky to locate you from the same tournament—"

"Why was I listed as the emergency contact?"

Papers were shuffled. "The information is the same on all tournament records we have, since The King of Iron Fist Tournament 3..."

As the year came with sickening certainty, all else lost meaning to Baek. He had been thought dead at the time, and Hwoarang had to have known this for a fact. Hwoarang had deliberately given his name and the number where no one would answer the calls, only to provide the information to sign himself in. Baek supported himself on the bed rail and felt weak. After all this time, Hwoarang still had not forgiven his kith and kin for what had driven him to the streets. There was no one he would have notified if the worst came true. Not one. Baek was gaining in years, and he believed the old were better suited to take pain than the young, but his heart was breaking.

His affection had been concealed more poorly than he had thought; the voice asking if he had questions was kinder now, almost sympathetic.

"Is he in a coma?" Baek asked numbly.

"No..." The hesitation was marked. "We don't know what it is. By all reason, he should be awake. We can't find—" The explanation was detailed, but in the end, all that supposed medical expertise amounted to nothing. The collegium of doctors had no idea what was causing the unconsciousness; it wasn't a coma, as such; they didn't think the patient had brain damage, but hedged and refused to rule out the possibility. Hwoarang was simply not waking up. They could only tell what they did not know, but that was of no use. They did, however, give a timeline for the head injury: if the time of spontaneous unconsciousness exceeded 48 hours, the chances of recovery would diminish rapidly. If Hwoarang didn't wake up by then, he was not likely to wake up again.

Baek nodded at the number. He gave his consent for the suggested treatment and waited outside, while medical procedures were carried out. Upon returning, he found a seat in the room and sat down to wait.

Baek didn't yet know fully what had happened: Hwoarang had been in a scheduled fight that had spun out of control, but the data was insufficient, and the cause, in Baek's eyes, unimportant. The fight had been too difficult, and had he stepped up in time, Hwoarang wouldn't have gone there. It had been two years, but he wanted to believe that Hwoarang would listen to him as he had in the past. It was like Hwoarang's street gambling: he had never approved of it, but he sure as hell had sanctioned it. Had he taught Hwoarang adequately, this would not have happened. "I have failed you."

Hwoarang didn't hear his words. He remained just as lifeless despite the silent plea, without responding to the quick squeeze Baek gave his hand.

The visiting hours came and passed; Baek remained. He kept out of the staff's way and only left briefly to take care of necessities: find accommodation as near as possible and change into fresh attire, take a quick meal. The time that progressed in running steps slowed to crawling as he returned to the room, but he was determined to stay in his rightful place, waiting.

Twelve hours passed, and then a full day. The second day canted to dusk. Baek knew it was only a statistical probability, and the count had started from an arbitrary point zero, but as the hour neared, he kept looking at the time at more frequent intervals. He had stayed by Hwoarang's side and spoken some, hoping the familiar language and voice could draw Hwoarang back into the world, but nothing had happened. There was no turn for the worse, either, a nightmare that would come to him on many a night yet.

As the forty-eighth hour struck and the count turned into the third day, Hwoarang still hadn't woken up. Baek, in turn, buried his head in his hands. What had he done?

Hwoarang woke to a world of blindness and signal noise. The headache pounding with a vengeance was his first coherent perception, but something was blocking his vision. His right arm wouldn't bend to his will, but the left one still worked. He brought it to his face and tore the bandages off. Through persistent and painful observation, an image of his too-white surroundings began to form. He was in a hospital, and he knew what had brought him there.

His arm gave a stab of pain as he struggled up. The new discovery fouled his mood further: they had stuck tubes in him. Hwoarang looked at the IV in the bend of his arm and tore it off. Only when he started to pull his leg free from the sling did the noise alert the nurse and Baek, who had retreated to discuss outside the room. The nurse moved to intervene.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!"

Not only did the nurse draw back; Baek listened on in the back, stunned. Hwoarang had never shouted like that. Hwoarang launched for the second attack, and the nurse was headed to an ill fate, when Baek spoke, "Hwoarang."

Hwoarang stopped. He stared at Baek like there was no one else present. His breathing was heavy, but he held on, visibly battling fatigue and pain and passing out. Then, he averted his eyes and released the sling. He dropped back on the bed and curled to himself as blood stained the sheets. Baek, on the other hand, cleared the room, pulled up a chair on the other side of the bed, and started talking.

It was night, and Hwoarang was finally alone, after Baek had agreed to leave him be. The master would be back in the morning.

The moon glowed through the blinds, left cracked open on request, and he could only stare at the sky. It was over. Nothing that Baek could tell him about the match had been news to him; he remembered vividly how Jin had humiliated him and held him up to ridicule for all public to see. Even the defeat to the matchless fiend he could live with, but not the other degradation: he had never been so frightened.

He tried to tell him not to hate Jin, not to let this better him, but the humiliation only he knew of was burning at his chest. He had been nothing to Jin from the start: he had been some kind of a toy to amuse him and romance, while Kazama had kept his true nature a secret and laughed up his sleeve. He had fallen for it headfirst, and he had shamed himself. Hwoarang tried to tell himself that the shame was more Jin's, for allowing him to do what he had, but he knew it was just as much his.

He would not hate Jin... Yet, he knew it was a hope he wouldn't live up to. He kept staring out the window, as tears burned a trail down. It was all over.

On the third day, Hwoarang received a visitor. He was no longer as trapped into the bed; in a fit of epiphany, it had been decided that he did not need the cast on his leg or arm, and had replaced the former with an ankle support and the latter with an intricate splint. Baek's mood had darkened past any reasonable terms at the announcement of the news, as he deduced rightly that the care had been inadequate from the beginning and the diagnosis haphazard. He had gone to discuss the matter further.

That was when someone who stood out a smile away arrived in a blond breeze.

"Hey... You're looking better already," Steve tried. Pale and drawn, still sporting visible red marks on his forehead, Hwoarang took his arrival with shocking lack of enthusiasm, but Steve was resolved to keep an upbeat mood. He went by the bedside and squeezed Hwoarang's good foot in greeting. "How're you doing?"

Hwoarang smiled without much humor and did a shrug of sorts.

"I didn't know what to bring. I guess chocolate or magazines or flowers would be the usual thing, but they seemed kind of girly, and I wasn't sure what you like," Steve said lightly, and Hwoarang rewarded him with an incomprehensible utterance and shake of his head that told him that the trouble wasn't necessary. "That's it for me. I'm out."

"That so?"

"Yeah, I'm out. I'm going home—just came to see you first, before I start looking for flights. Didn't figure I was going to leave so soon... Tried to call here first to make sure you were here, but these folks don't speak much English, do they?"

The welcome break from the heavy silence came when Steve scouted for a chair and finally settled in a seat.

"I saw the match. I mean, a snapshot of it, afterward. What do you do against something like that?" Steve looked at Hwoarang under his brow and said a little quieter, but all the more decidedly, "You were lucky you got knocked out so quickly."

Lucky? That wasn't how he remembered it. The humiliation had been drawn out endlessly in the scene that kept playing in his head. "What do you mean, quickly?"

"He got you a good one early on, after... He knocked your lights out. Looked like it hurt, too."

Steve wasn't playing jokes. He spoke evenly, and his nonjudgmental tone undid any need for a backlash. Only the tone kept Hwoarang from jumping from his skin, as Steve continued:

"You know, about Jin. That thing...," Steve gestured around his chest and motioned like he was picking something from his hair as he tried to find words for something that defied comprehension. "He's got everyone freaked out. Everyone's scared of him, and no one wants to get in his way. I don't think he even stays in the house anymore."

The anxiety was back. It was like being trapped, cornered, and netted all at once, and it was unbearable. It stopped breathing and thinking, and it ignited the instinct to flee.

"I'm leaving here." Hwoarang said suddenly and jumped up. To Steve's amazement, he started hurling his feet over the bedside and looking for the support of the ground. "Get my clothes."

"What are you doing?"

"Where are my clothes?"

"No, don't! Where are you going?" Steve was alarmed.

Where was he going to go? He had stowed his stuff away in storage before entering military service, and he had come to the tournament straight from the army. The only place he had had was the shared room with Jin back at the tournament. He had nowhere to go. Hwoarang's knees buckled.

Steve caught Hwoarang by the arm first and then gathered the rest of him, as the redhead slumped against him. "Whoa. Whoa! Lie down. Please. You got to rest." He was worried out of his head, but then Hwoarang finally allowed himself be pushed back into the bed and tucked in.

Steve stayed on a while and made chitchat, but eventually, he had to give in and acknowledge that it was time to leave. He had never seen Hwoarang lacking so much energy; hadn't even thought the vibrant man could be so drained and down.

"I should get going. The flights aren't going to book themselves, and it's a long way home," he said and flashed a grin, even though Hwoarang could only give a wan smile. Steve snuck a hand into the bed and curled a fist around Hwoarang's fingers. "Take care of yourself."

On the fifth day, Hwoarang left the hospital with a slight limp, supported by Baek.

Elsewhere, wondering what had gotten the woman receding in a huff so angry, Jin Kazama rose from the ground, as the fanfare started playing.

Hearty thanks to Gypsie for the proofreading!

Published March 30, 2010.