Jihan's car had barely cleared the estate gates before he realized his mistake.
"The doctor," he muttered, already reaching for his phone. "I forgot to call the doctor."
"There's no time," Tae-hyun said from the back seat, voice tight, both arms wrapped around Min-woo's shoulders to keep him upright against the door's motion. "Just get us to the hospital. Now."
Jihan didn't argue. He gave the driver the nearest hospital's name and told him to move.
The ride felt endless despite how short it actually was—red lights blurring past, the city outside reduced to smeared color while Tae-hyun held on tight, Min-woo's head lolling weakly against his shoulder, skin burning through the thin fabric of his shirt.
"Hey. Hey, stay with me." Tae-hyun's voice cracked slightly on the last word, one hand pressed flat against Min-woo's chest like he could physically hold him together through sheer force of will. "You hear me? Stay with me."
Min-woo's eyes fluttered, unfocused, a weak, incoherent sound slipping out that wasn't quite words.
"That's it. Just—just stay awake. We're almost there."
Jihan glanced back once, watching his brother's face—pale, terrified, more openly frightened than Jihan had seen him in years—and said nothing, because there was nothing useful to say that wouldn't slow them down.
The hospital doors came into view a few minutes later. The car had barely stopped before Tae-hyun was already out, half-carrying, half-dragging Min-woo toward the entrance with a strength that seemed to come from somewhere far past his own limits, shouting for help before the automatic doors had even fully opened.
Staff moved fast once they saw him. A gurney appeared. Voices layered over each other—vitals, temperature, questions Tae-hyun answered as best he could with information he barely had, his hand still gripping Min-woo's until someone gently pried it loose to wheel him back through the doors.
Jihan stood beside his brother in the waiting room after that, watching him pace a tight line across the floor, hands dragging through his hair over and over.
It took nearly forty minutes before a doctor finally came out to tell them Min-woo was stable—a severe fever, likely from exhaustion combined with getting caught in last night's rain, nothing that wouldn't resolve with fluids and rest, but serious enough that they'd be keeping him overnight for observation.
Only once he'd heard that did Jihan check his watch and swear under his breath.
"I have to go," he said. "The board meeting."
Tae-hyun didn't even look at him. "Go."
"You should come too. There's nothing more you can do here."
"I'm staying."
"Tae-hyun—"
"I'm staying, hyung." Tae-hyun's voice was flat, final, still fixed on the closed doors down the hall where Min-woo had disappeared. "Go to your meeting."
Jihan studied him for a moment longer, something unreadable passing behind his eyes, then nodded once and left without pushing further.
---
Jae-min had checked both apartments twice by the time worry curdled into something closer to panic.
Min-woo's place was exactly as he'd left it that morning—dishes stacked by the sink, the spare key still missing from the flowerpot because Jae-min had brought it inside with him. His own apartment was empty too, quiet in a way that felt wrong now, every text he'd sent since morning sitting unread, unanswered, the little clock beside them ticking further and further past reasonable.
He tried calling. Straight to voicemail, three times in a row.
By early afternoon, sitting alone in Min-woo's apartment with his knee bouncing and his stomach in knots, Jae-min stopped caring about the plan entirely.
*I don't care if it exposes anything,* he thought, already pulling up Jihan's contact. *I need to know he's okay.*
He was halfway through dialing when the doorbell rang.
Jae-min nearly dropped the phone crossing the room to answer it.
Jihan stood on the other side, a paper bag from some restaurant hanging from one hand, tie loosened, exhaustion written plainly across a face that usually gave nothing away at all.
"Sorry," Jihan said, stepping past him without waiting to be invited in, which Jae-min was beginning to realize was simply how he operated. "I brought lunch. I meant to be back earlier."
"...You look terrible."
Jihan huffed something that wasn't quite a laugh. "Thank you."
"I mean it." Jae-min shut the door and followed him toward the kitchen table, watching as Jihan set the bag down and started pulling out containers with hands that moved a fraction slower than they had the night before. "What happened?"
"Long day." Jihan pulled out a chair and sat, rubbing briefly at his temple. "Stressful."
"That's not an answer."
Jihan glanced up at him, something almost surprised flickering across his face at the directness. Then, slowly, some of the tension in his shoulders eased, like he'd been waiting for someone to actually ask instead of accepting the deflection.
"Our house help," he said. "One of the newer staff. She came down with a bad cold a few days back—or so I thought. Turned out to be much worse than that. She collapsed this morning. High fever, barely conscious." He exhaled, dragging a hand down his face. "My brother panicked. We ended up driving her to the hospital ourselves rather than wait for an ambulance."
Jae-min's stomach dropped for reasons that had nothing to do with the story itself and everything to do with the word *she*, which didn't line up with anything, and the sudden cold, creeping sense that something about this was about to matter far more than he wanted it to.
"...Is she okay?"
"Stable. They're keeping her overnight." Jihan reached for one of the containers, popping the lid without much enthusiasm. "Tae-hyun refused to leave. He's still there."
Jae-min sat very still.
*He.* Tae-hyun. The spare room. The rain. Min-woo, who hadn't answered a single text since morning, who was supposed to be back hours ago, who Jae-min had personally sent to Jihan's house the night before because it seemed safer than letting him walk in on this exact conversation.
His pulse had started climbing before his mind had even fully caught up to the shape of what he was afraid of.
"What's her name?" he asked, voice carefully even.
Jihan blinked, clearly not expecting the question, chopsticks paused halfway to the container.
"...I don't actually know," he admitted, brow furrowing slightly as he thought about it. "I wasn't paying close attention. Tae-hyun was the one who—" He stopped, something shifting behind his eyes as the memory surfaced properly this time, unprompted. The car. Tae-hyun's voice, cracking, repeating the same name over and over the entire ride, sharp and desperate against the sound of traffic.
*Hey. Stay with me. Min-woo—stay with me.*
Jihan's expression went carefully blank.
"...It wasn't a she," he said slowly, more to himself than to Jae-min now, the pieces sliding into place one at a time. "It was one of the staff my brother's gotten close with recently. New hire. Younger than I realized."
Jae-min didn't breathe.
Jihan looked up, and whatever had been vague and unfocused in his expression a moment ago sharpened now into something closer to certainty, the name finally surfacing whole from where it had been sitting, half-buried, since the ride to the hospital.
"Min-woo," he said.