After the Rain

For now though, he just wanted to relax. “And am I going to get to meet him anytime soon, Bry?” he smiled, pulling his brother into a one armed embrace. Fluffy the Second bounded out from her bedroom too, zipping around the other man’s feet as if her boy brush had returned from a year old voyage. Nathaniel laughed, “I think she’s happy to see you too. When you’re not around, she doesn’t get as many treats.” In fact, Nathaniel had the puppy on a strict organic diet - one that had been written by a professional veterinary dietician to ensure that Fluffy the Second had optimal health and nutrition.

“You didn’t need to get me anything, Bryan,” he pulled the other male into the living room so that they could settle into their ‘spots’ on the couch, “But I appreciate it. I missed you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t call.” Nathaniel wasn’t the best at the whole brother thing, but he rather liked having someone he could genuinely call family - the rest of his relatives in Seoul were barely even present unless money was involved.

“Tell me everything,” he said, standing as he realised, “But let me get us drinks first. Coffee? Wine?” Just as Nathaniel stood, Fluffy took his place, snuggling up against Bryan.

“If you want to meet my dad you can, he’s nice. Oh you could meet my sister and my brother too. Oh and my niece, oh Nate, she’s so cute. I love her so much.” He couldn’t believe he hadn’t told his brother about his niece. He was completely enamoured with her, god he wanted her with him now - but of course she was in the best place with her mom. “Sorry I got called away to Texas, my sister decided to tell me at the last second that she was pregnant - and that is a whole drama.” 

Bryan wasn’t much of talker, but he felt safe with his brother, this was family and he was okay to be himself. He was trying his best to be there for his brother, to be present and to be a good brother, family was everything to Bryan, without his family he’d never have survived losing Kai, and he wanted to be with his family. 

“I don’t have a kit on me right now, I just got off duty and even if I did I wouldn’t let you stitch yourself, Bryan.” Lucas looked around and took his phone out to get some light and get a better assessment of the wound. “Dude, what happened? Did you get jumped or something?” As he spoke he moved his phone over to dig through his backpack, finding some bandaids and antibiotic ointment but that wouldn’t really help much with this situation. He went back to digging and handed Bryan some napkins to help with the bleeding before pulling a full flask of water out of the pack.

“Don’t need stitches when I’m around anyway, just need to pour some water on that and work my magic. It’s not easy as some people’s healing powers but, it works on stuff like this, just sit still and I can get you fixed up enough to get checked out in the ER.” Lucas gave Bryan a reassuring smile as he put his phone away and moved to open the bottle.

Bryan was disappointed to find the other did not have his kit - he was not being carried anywhere. He straight up refused. He looked at the other and shook his head. “No, I wasn’t jumped, it was a girl - one of my patients, she was scared of losing control of her power.” He laughed a little, “But clearly I’m not as good of a doctor as I hoped.” He lent his head back and sighed. He did not want her to suffer any consequences about this, he was sure the girl already felt bad enough about the whole incident. 

He was fine, he could for sure stitch himself up. He was 100% confident that it would be okay - because he really did not want to go to the ER. He would have to explain to Krystal probably about what happened. He was already the psychiatric doctor who’d been admitted to his own ward - and it had taken him long enough to live that one down with his colleagues. 

         Yet, here he is, stranded without a doctor in the ER. Maybe he’s bound to die today but Minsung has always been the one to rebel. Slowly sitting up, he ignored several questionings of the nurses, “fuck it, I’m out,” he hisses, pressing his side as he walk out of the ER, blood dripping down from the towel slowly. Minsung just stared at the doctor that was supposed to patch him up like a few minutes ago. There’s clearly some kind of hesitance and perhaps fear written on his face as he steeled up, “hold the fuck up, I ain’t going anywhere,” yet he found himself being guided to one of the private rooms anyway.

         He just rolled his eyes, “yeah, yeah, let’s skip to the part where you’re actually stitching and less talking or else I might bleed out for real,” he grunted as he took a seat in one of the chairs instead of the bed, “forget the anesthesia, I can handle it,” he instructed–more like, ordered. With his stabber still out there, he wouldn’t want to fall asleep in an open space like the hospital.

Bryan looked at the other and sighed when the other sat in the chair rather than on the bed. Wonderful, this was going to be an interesting consult. He got the kit and brought everything over, looking up at the man as he would have to kneel down on the floor to get a decent look at the injury. “Okay I’m going to need your shirt to come off.” He said with a little smile, thanking a nurse who brought the file in. “Okay, so it says here you wouldn’t tell the nurse how it happened.” 

He could deal with difficult, but he was already feeling a bit on edge from being in the ER. “Can you also get on the bed please, it would be easier for us to get you completely stitched up.” He just wanted to get this done as quickly as possible. He wanted to be out of the ER, just as much as Minsung - which was the name he got off the profile. 

The small man wasn’t sure if this room was an exam room or if it was something else. Ryo takes a little time to look over all the medical posters, and promos of health care, reading them all carefully to pass the time before he got curious. Not that he doesn’t regularly look at his body, but after the assault, he’s been putting it off not wanting to look at the bruises. It was hard enough having to look at the bruise on his face, having been a couple days now wasn’t as ugly but the man still had to cover it up. Slowly Ryo leans back a bit, pulling up his sweater to peek at what has been bugging him all this time. A haunting purple hue stood out menacingly again his fair skin running along the right side of his rib cage. The Japanese demigod lets out a shaky breath unable to tear his eyes away from this untreated wound. His emotions he hates to confront come crashing into him like a tsunami forcing flashbacks of that night to remind him of the multiple kicks he took after the left hook to the face.

“Bastard…” he pants softly letting his sweater drop wanting to pull himself back together. “That bastard is as good as cursed..”

Ryo decides to take to some meditation in the quiet room, wanting to pull his emotions back but before he can get too far with that he hears the door open. The dark eyes the man has search over the man that walks in, taking in his features. Such a soft presence he had..no wonder he nodded off. “I’m sorry..for falling asleep like this. I..I need you to take a look at something else. It’s been keeping me up, and I didn’t know it was this bad..”

Bryan nodded as the other talked, he moved to lock the door - just to give them privacy, he did not want the other to feel like he would be bothered or disturbed while he was going to examine the other. He moved slightly to get the clipboard, looking over to check what he was admitted under. He put it back down. “Is the problem you’re talking about physical or mental?” Bryan said, knowing that it was probably a bit easier to start like this, rather than why don’t you just show me. 

밝은 태양 때문인지 몰라도 얼굴이 붉어졌을꺼야 아마도 — ♡

               thread for bryan x chuu                       thread soundtrack

IS IT TOO FORWARD TO GIVE SOMEONE A GIFT ON THE FIRST DATE? MAYBE.

   but since when has kim jiwoo ever been concerned about being too forward? besides, it’s not necessarily an intimate gift. it’s just a scarf. an indigo rectangle woven together with 98% cashmere and only 2% acrylic! nothing necessarily fancy, but something nice enough to give to someone she’s never met before. something safe. well, as safe as a scarf can be considering it’s covered with a bunch of bright stars that almost somehow clash against the shade of blue. but it gives it character. and everyone knows that kim jiwoo is all about character!

   she can hear minsung now saying that she’s really the character here. and truthfully, she might be. considering she’s arrived to the designated meeting spot outside of STOP & PAWS nothing less than twenty minutes early certainly can mark her as a character. perhaps even a clown. especially since she’s not even sure who or what she’ll be meeting with. but that’s the risk you take when you let the old man at the convenience store set you up on a date! 

   all she knows is that this is the first date she’s going to be on in ages. maybe the first date she’s ever been on. do middle school boys walking you to your next class count as a date? maybe not. huh. she’s never really thought about it. all she’s currently thinking about is if the scarf she’s made will match the person whom she’s made it for. it’s a one of a kind HAPPY BERRY BOUTIQUE SPECIAL! .. so, surely they’ll like it!

He checked his button up and smiled in the mirror - yes he was wearing cowboy boots,  but yeehaw he was a Texan. He stared at the black cowboy boots, he blamed his dad for this, his dad had gotten him back into Texan Chic. He took a small breath, eventually deciding that he had checked it enough times, pulling his coat on and picking up the flowers he had bought for his date. He smiled at his flowers, he’d picked the bouquet with prominent Lily-of-the-valley in it, their floral meaning was of happiness and luck and he really hoped that today would bring those two feelings to them both today. He wanted them to have a great time with each other. 

The walk to Stop & Paws was short - and he knew it well. As a dad to two very demanding and loving cats, he had walked it many times. He smiled when he saw a girl standing outside. He had told the person who set them up that he would be wearing black cowboy boots so his date would be able to tell it was him. He was nervous, she was pretty, she looked nice and he felt nervous. He knew that he would get nervous before a date, but it was kind of a good amount of nerves. 

for @mpbryan continued from here

Ryo only ended up at the hospital because he couldn’t take it anymore. His week off was almost over, having to go back to Babylon soon, and he still had a lot of pain in his side that didn’t seem to be going away. The raven was sleep deprived as well, head to scattered with thoughts, he had no real plan on how he wanted to deal with his issues.  It irritated him to the bone that something like this he just couldn’t simply get over. He’s been through it before, he has old scars from his life off of the island in the dark corners of Japan’s night life. 

Maybe things were only harder now that he’s had a much more easier life on Mount Phoenix. Less to worry about, less time grinding for money. Yet to the Japanese demigod he still felt like he should be able to get back up again without staying down for so long. 

Ryo’s state was a walking zombie shuffling slowly into the hospital. His eyes were heavy with sleep, he had a bare face, the petite man only had on some joggers with “Unholy” written across his groin area and an over large hoodie with some band on it. The raven doesn’t remember much of walking through the halls once his name was called.  All he does remember was a very comforting presence laying careful hands on him as he sits on the soft table; then he’s out like a light.

When the smaller comes to his head still feels heavy. Ryo looks around a little confused, even pulling the coat off if his small shoulders looking around. With the little movement in some places he feels some pull from new bandages here and there. 

He looked over at the door every so often, he wondered if the other was sleeping and honestly part of him was concerned for the other. It was not often that they had someone come in that exhausted. He worried, he wondered what he was doing. Bryan was used to sleep deprivation, doctors were made to run on basically no sleep - but the level of this boys tiredness worried him. He just wanted him to be okay - he wondered if there was something he could do. He just didn’t want to pressure him into talking about anything. 

It was easy as a psychiatric doctor to jump right to psychiatric care, but he wasn’t going to pressure the boy. He had just finished helping Krystal with a girl who was having a panic attack, he’d managed to help her calm down and had given her a referral to the psychiatric department, but she was not a risk to herself or others so she was allowed to go home. He did not believe in keeping people in when they did not need it. 

He walked towards his room and gave a small excuse to Krystal, not sure he wanted to divulge that he had a boy sleeping in his room - because he did not know what exactly the other needed, except a good night’s sleep, and he worried that just sending him home would result in the opposite of that happening. He smiled when he opened the door and saw the other was awake. 

“Has no one ever shown you how to control or interpret them? It has been my experience that those who see what others do not, see those things for a reason. Perhaps there is a deeper meaning to these visions of death that you see and that is why they persist the way they do?” He caught himself in his own musings and quickly apologized. “Forgive me if I have overstepped my bounds. I was simply thinking out loud and meant no offense to you. I sincerely apologize for any slight I may have inadvertently caused you.”

Bryan nodded, he honestly had absolutely no control of his power. He felt like it controlled him. He had a fear of water and he knew that that had everything to do with his powers and very little to do with the water itself. He wished there was a way to stop it, but as of yet he had not even found something that reduced it even just a little. 

In the end he settled on a grey v-neck and jeans as he headed to his car. It was boring and not even one of the shirts he had laid out but it was clean and it was comfortable. He wasn’t a fancy guy so why pretend? Besides Hoseok would have known that and set him up accordingly. Why his bro felt the need to set him up at all, he didn’t know but oh well. It was too late now. He really didn’t know what to expect but hey, if worst came to worst he could at least get food so that was a plus.

Noona was a chill place if a little fancy. His clothes seemed underwhelming in the place but he shrugged it off, not bothered. There was no dress code as far as he knew. He stepped in to the restaurant and was greeted at the table by Bryan. Technically they had already spoken through text but Jinseok always did prefer to talk to people face to face and he smiled as he extended his own greeting. “It’s great to meet you Bryan. And You can call me Matthew or Matt if you want. Or Jinseok. Whichever is easiest.” Introducing himself was always tricky so he just gave the other person all the options and let them decide what to call him. They took their seats on either side of the table and Jinseok regarded Bryan curiously. The other was obviously good looking but he couldn’t help but wonder what sort of personality Bryan had beyond the few texts they’d shared. “So! I’m curious, how did you wind up getting set up on a blind date? Was it your friends idea like it was mine?”

Bryan smiled, “Matt, are you also American?” he asked, wondering if he had found another person he could speak to in the island. He loved being here and he did like to speak Korean, his father had spoken to them in both as they grew up, but quite often Bryan liked to speak English, sometimes he found it easier to express himself. “I’m from Texas, Bryan to be specific, I am pretty sure my father hated me.” He said with a little shrug. He honestly, had no idea why his father gave him the name he did, he was the only person named after where he was born - and the only one named after a place in Texas. 

He nodded a little “Yeah one of the nurses I work with thought that I should meet someone, and they thought that we’d be a good match.” He said with a small smile. He wondered if they were, or if his friend was being weird. He was not really the most talkative guy, and he was just not sure he was a good date. He hoped he was but it had been a while since he’d done the whole dating thing.