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His body hurt.
His face hurt and throbbed, and his arm felt as if it was torn in two. He hated the pain, and so he kept his eyes squeezed shut, trying desperately to fall back into the sweet, sweet lull of unconsciousness so he would no longer have to feel anything.
A voice spoke over him. “He’s awake, Dongmin.”
Jinwoo had heard that voice before. When?
Oh. Right. The robot.
He opened his eyes and winced when light hit them.
“You’re awake,” the android said to him, looking very much impassive.
Jinwoo glanced around the room wildly. He had no clue where he was. Had they captured him? Had he really been captured by a crazy scientist and his evil robot? This wasn’t the fate he wanted.
He sat up, but the robot shoved him right back down.
“You have to stay here,” the robot informed him, “until Dongmin says you can leave.”
“No,” Jinwoo growled. He tried again to sit up, but he was weak after his ordeal, and the robot was much stronger. He was pushed back into bed.
“I have mostly fixed your arm,” the robot stated, ignoring Jinwoo’s struggle to leave. “See? It is in a stint. That will help it heal faster. I’m better than any hospital.”
Jinwoo highly doubted that. “Let me go!” he snapped.
The robot didn’t budge. “I won’t hesitate to knock you out again if you keep trying to leave,” it said. “Dongmin might care for human life, but I do not, since you are an evil man.”
Jinwoo decided against explaining that he wasn’t evil, that he was a man doing his job, that the robot was the evil one. He didn’t want to explain anything to some nasty android.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asked, narrowing his eyes in anger. “Is that why you’re keeping me here?”
The robot shook its head. “No,” it replied, “though I would like to kill you. Dongmin is going to let you go.”
Jinwoo blinked. They were letting him go? But why? Why go through the trouble of breaking his arm and knocking him out if they would spend the time to heal him and release him?
There was a catch. There had to be a catch.
Dongmin stepped into the room then, anxiety clearly present on his expression. “Oh, good,” he mumbled, “you’re up.”
“He’s trying to escape,” the robot told Dongmin.
“Well, keep him down.”
Jinwoo decided he wouldn’t allow these two to ruin his life. He thrashed in the robot’s hold.
The robot looked exasperated.
“Give me back my weapon!” he yelled at Dongmin. “I’ll shoot this fucking thing!”
“That’s why you don’t deserve your weapon,” the robot stated. “My body was dented where you shot me.”
Jinwoo didn’t care. He was only upset he had missed the parts of vital importance when shooting the robot. He wanted it destroyed.
But thrashing about was tiring. He still hurt too much from the manhandling he had been through, and so after a minute, he had to stop.
“Are you done?” the robot asked.
Jinwoo chose not to answer. He turned his glare over to Dongmin, who was gnawing on his bottom lip. “So, what?” he snapped. Dongmin looked at him. “What will kidnapping me accomplish?”
He could see Dongmin wince. Weird. For a guy clearly capable of breaking the law, he seemed to balk at such an accusation.
“We are not kidnapping you,” the robot answered.
“Don’t,” Dongmin muttered, shaking his head, and the robot fell silent.
Jinwoo looked back and forth between them. Something was going on. “Don’t what?” he asked. “If you’re not kidnapping me, then...then what are you doing?”
Were they going to kill him? That didn’t make sense. Why would they take the time to fix his arm if they were just going to kill him? And if they weren’t kidnapping him, then what was the purpose of keeping him around?
Dongmin took a deep breath. “Well,” he muttered, “because you found us, I’ve...been in a bit of a predicament. I do not want Minhyuk taken from me.”
“You’ve named the robot?”
“He’s an android. And yes.”
Jinwoo wrinkled his nose. He glanced over at the robot, who gazed back unwaveringly.
“I’m very sorry we hurt you,” Dongmin continued.
“I’m not,” the robot countered, and Dongmin rolled his eyes.
“Minhyuk, please let me finish,” he whispered.
Jinwoo was trained to spot small, miniscule details. He was tuned into the emotional state of humans, for his own career purposes. He could figure out when someone was lying or hiding the truth. He could tell when people were attached to objects or other people.
He noticed the way Dongmin looked at the robot. He noticed the lingering gaze, the longing, the love .
His stomach turned. There was definitely something up with the two of them. There was likely a reason Dongmin had stolen the robot away.
Before he could express contempt for Dongmin’s infatuation with a piece of machinery, Dongmin said, “I do not want him taken from me, but I’m not a murderer so I will not kill you. I just ask that you return to Korea and say nothing of us.”
Jinwoo scoffed. “No. You’re a freak. I know you like it. I’m not an idiot. You like that robot. Do you fuck it?”
“Yes,” Minhyuk said.
Dongmin turned red and clenched his hands into fists. “We’re not discussing... that ,” he fussed. Jinwoo wanted to gag. He closed his eyes again to escape the mental images that were intruding on his thoughts.
“I’m going to tell everyone ,” Jinwoo snapped, opening his eyes again and glaring up at Dongmin. “I’ll tell them where you are. I’ll tell them what you did to me. And I’ll tell them what you’re doing to that...that thing. ” With his good hand, he pointed at Minhyuk, who only stared back in return.
“I have incentive for you not to breathe a word of this,” Dongmin said. He took a phone from his pocket; Jinwoo’s phone.
“Give that to me,” Jinwoo demanded.
Dongmin hesitated. “There’s a message from an unknown number. In that message is...incentive for you to keep quiet about me and Minhyuk.”
He still didn’t hand the phone over, though. He swallowed thickly and muttered, “I didn’t ask for this to happen, alright? So...don’t blame me. It’s not my doing.”
Jinwoo was confused at first, but then Dongmin held the phone out. He looked nervous. He looked scared . What could possibly be scaring Dongmin that much?
He took the phone from Dongmin’s hand and unlocked it.
The message was the first thing he noticed.
“Myungjun,” he breathed, staring at the picture displayed wide on his screen. His boyfriend, bound and gagged and being used as an incentive for him to shut up.
His eyes were wide and his hand trembled. He couldn’t look away. He could tear himself from that image.
He was going to murder Dongmin for this.