Chapter Text
The ambulance was a blur for them both. Si-mok tried to stay close without getting in the way of the paramedics. He watched as they pulled Dong-jae's shirt open, exposing a myriad of bruises and injuries, some bruises a week old and some so fresh they probably hadn't started to color yet. Disturbingly, there was a deceptively small line of bright red on Dong-jae's stomach. About the width of a knife. It just above and the right of his navel. The flesh pulled open as Dong-jae tried to sit up, and it was still leaking red. Si-mok felt a jolt he didn' recognize go through him, and for a second he could only image a knife plunging in to Dong-jae over and over again.
Then Dong-jae was calling Si-mok's name, fighting the paramedic who was trying to put a mask over his face. Si-mok shifted so he was kneeling close to Dong-jae's head, letting the paramedics apply pressure to the newly discovered wound.
"Dong-jae," Si-mok said to him, and when Dong-jae reached out to grab desperately at Si-mok he let him. "Dong-jae, stay still. Let the paramedics work."
Dong-jae's eyes were open but Si-mok didn't know how much he was seeing. There were tears welling up now, starting to trail down his cheeks.
"Si-mok? Fuck, that hurts," Dong-jae shuddered as the paramedics pressed something against the little stab wound, soaking up blood. He tried to sit up again, but Si-mok helped the medic press him back into the bed. The medical worker had a syringe now and asked Si-mok if there were drugs in his system; no, Si-mok shook his head, he didn't think so.
Dong-jae hissed as the needle sank into his arm, but he started to calm immediately. The fight went out of him, his body relaxed. But he did not relinquish his vice grip on Si-mok's hand.
"Don't-" Dong-jae whispered, and Si-mok had to lean closer to hear him properly. "I want to be awake." He didn't want to succumb to the darkness again, damn it, but his eyelids were getting heavy, his breathing was slowing down.
Si-mok knew it was better for him to be out of it, if he was going to keep fighting the medics. But Dong-jae's voice was wavering, full of anxiety and pain. Si-mok flipped through his mental catalogue of comforting gestures, wanting to give Dong-jae something to hold on to as he faded out. He settled on grasping both of Dong-jae's hands, as the paramedic was trying to slip the oxygen mask onto him again, and this would prevent Dong-jae from trying to pull it off.
"Si-mok," Dong-jae pleaded, his voice further muffled by the plastic over his face.
"I am here," Si-mok replied, squeezing the man's hands tightly.
"You... said. To stay."
"Yes."
"Stay close."
"I am."
"Please don't... leave again..."
Dong-jae was barely keeping his eyes open now. The sedative wasn't going to knock him out totally, they needed to scan him for brain injuries awake if possible, but the exhaustion of the past week was crashing down now. Dong-jae couldn't follow what was happening around him, he couldn't make sense of the things he saw and heard, just the pain. Someone pressed on his stomach and it hurt- someone pressed on his chest and it hurt even worse. Someone put something over his face and he was certain this was it, they'd finally decided to kill him, suffocate him, and he fought back with the strength he could muster until Si-mok had grabbed his hands.
Si-mok. If Si-mok was here, it didn't matter if the void was closing in. They wouldn't hurt him if Si-mok was there. He forced his eyes open, trying to fight the sudden heaviness in his limbs and his head, but he was getting so tired.
"You're safe now," Si-mok's voice, straight and even as ever, cut through the darkness. Dong-jae wasn't sure if he managed to say thank you out loud in response before finally giving in to his exhaustion and let all his awareness fade to a dull hum.
---
Si-mok visited Dong-jae in the hospital just once, during an afternoon between meetings, but Dong-jae was asleep. The nurse explained he slept a lot during the day, especially when he had just received pain medication. She went over Dong-jae's list of injuries very thoroughly with Si-mok, taking time to explain all of the things the scans had and hadn't found. Multiple mild concussions hadn't led to brain bleeding, he was very lucky, but he was still foggy and occasionally confused, especially when in pain. Some of this was likely psychological. He had multiple rib fractures, and the muscles in the area were badly bruised and damaged, but his lungs hadn't been pierced. Because of the multiple fractures, they'd gone ahead and fixed up his ribs with some surgery. They'd heal fast (four weeks instead of six or eight, if he took care of himself) but the pain would be bad for at least two weeks, and while he should get some exercise by walking once he was feeling up to it, he was forbidden from lifting, pulling, pushing, or doing any kind of heavy exercise for several weeks. The stab wound had been concerning and caused significant blood loss, but hadn't been deep. Si-mok suspected they'd stabbed him with the intention of letting him bleed out slowly wherever they dumped him, hiding the time and location of death to cover their trail. This seemed to check out with what the nurse told him.
All of this together meant Dong-jae was likely to make a full physical recovery in about six weeks, but under no circumstances should he be alone for the first two. If he even so much as bumps his head he needs to come in for another MRI immediately, she said, as they take multiple head wounds very seriously.
Si-mok thought he would come back after another couple days. He wanted to ask Dong-jae about that third visit- about what he'd said. He wondered if Dong-jae would even remember it.
But when Si-mok came in two days later, Dong-jae had already checked himself out. Si-mok had missed him by four hours.
---
They'd wanted to keep him longer, but with consciousness and lucidity, Dong-jae had also regained his anxiety. He imagined the working girl from years ago, moved from hospital to hospital, receiving visitors at all hours who threatened her, even he himself had gone to pressure her into silence. It was obviously karma, that now he could be thrust into a similar situation. He half-expected a masked figure to come out of the shadows each night, inject something into his IV or put a pillow over his face. Even a teen girl could forcibly smother him in his current state. He was a sitting duck. As his mind grew sharper and he became more and more aware of his aching body, the worry frayed at his nerves until he couldn't avoid it. He had to leave. He couldn't be caught here in such a vulnerable state.
Fortunately, he'd been of sound enough mind to check himself out after four days of scans and surgery. What others might call paranoia was simply him being sensical, he reassured himself. The nurses and doctors were pissed at him, but he couldn't handle it any longer, and once he'd gotten them to confirm he was going to recover, and even gave them a day for "observation" which he spent full of anxiety, as soon as he'd been able to stand up and get a hold of some halfway decent clothes, he'd checked himself out.
Room 302, the prosecutor's dormitories. Tiny and familiar, it allowed him some relief from the paranoia, but still he felt strung out. He was begging himself to sleep- he'd gotten no sleep during the night and almost none the day before, his last day in the hospital. Now he was laying down on his little cot, looking at the sunlight that bounced from his phone screen where it sat in the direct sun of the window. He liked how bright it was. How he could feel his pupils contract if he looked away and then back at it quickly. It felt good. The rest of his body didn't feel so good, so he took what he could get.
The light moved across the cieling as the day wore on- he'd lose it soon as the sun shifted to the other side of the building, and that made him nervous. If the sun was out he wasn't worried. If he could see sunlight it meant he wasn't tied up in a basement somewhere. If he could see sunlight he could relax. Or try to. Without the constant drip of pain medication he was feeling strung out, but even that was tolerable in the daylight hours.
Everything still hurt- they told him his chest would hurt for three weeks at the minimum, his head would take a week to feel normal, his arm and shoulder throbbed despite the cast and sling and the joints would take six weeks to heal, and he couldn't even remember if they'd given him an ETA on when his knee would stop hurting. The nurse made a point to tell him that with so many injuries at once his body would likely take an extra long time to heal itself, and he needed to avoid stress and get lots of rest. He used this as another excuse when he checked himself out; he'd feel less stress being out of the hospital as soon as possible. He wished he didn't need to breathe, as each breath was still anywhere between extremely sore and complete agony, depending on what position he was in. Doing things like sitting up or sitting down, leaning forward or back, twisting in a chair, driving, and a plethora of other activities sent pain through him from so many different places he couldn't keep track.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. Dong-jae's hairs stood up on the back of his neck, a little burst of adrenaline going through him. He ignored the knock, like he'd ignored the last three calls coming in on his cell phone. He couldn't make himself turn it off; the sound itself was comforting, it felt very normal, but listening to someone talk over the phone hurt his head, looking at the screen hurt his head, talking for too long hurt his ribs, and nobody seemed to have anything good to say. Nobody was calling to offer him a job to make up for this ordeal or even give him some reassurance his current post in juevenille incidents was still his long term. It was likely just his lawyer, or possibly a prosecutor on the case, who should be going through his lawyer anyway instead of calling him directly. Nobody had called to check on him, or give him a "feel better" gift basket, so what was the point? He'd listen to voicemails later.
The knock on the door came again- he'd forgotten about it totally, thinking about his cell phone. Someone was persisting. And then came a familiar voice, and the sound of the door opening.
--
Si-mok expected the man to look rough, but was it possible he looked even worse than he had at the hospital? When Si-mok had seen him last, Dong-jae had at least been sleeping, if not peacefully than at least deeply. Now Dong-jae was laying on the cot in his tiny dorm, in a white button-up shirt that wasn't fully buttoned (did he know it wasn't fully buttoned?) and some black slacks, and he looked like he had not slept for three days straight. Dark circles haunted his eyes, his hair was combed back but not as pristine as usual, nothing holding it in place. He was pale and looking too thin. Several healing cuts and gashes just barely visible before disappearing into his hairline, and a spatter of tiny healing cuts sprinkled his face like disturbing freckles. He was mottled with a plethora of colorful bruises. Purple marks ran along the left side of Dong-jae's face, and there was a dark mark around his neck where he'd been dragged. At least it seemed like it was fading. Beyond the two undone buttons on his shirt, Si-mok could see more bruising. Seeing the hint of extensive bruising hiding beneath the fabric gave Si-mok a blast of memory, trying to assess Dong-jae's injuries while he was tied up in the warehouse.
"Si-mok?" Dong-jae said in surprise, his response delayed. He held one hand over his face and looked up at the other man with just one eye uncovered. "What are you doing here?" He looked down now at the floor, noticing for the first time a large gift basket wrapped in plastic. "Did you bring that?"
"The door was unlocked." Si-mok looked down at the basket, which had been sitting outside the door before he had arrived. He gave a bow of greeting and shook his head. "Uh, no, it was outside the door when I got here. I think it's from your assistants and your junior investigator..."
Dong-jae didn't have words or thoughts to process the gift sitting there- that it was for him, from people who actually knew him, from work? From his underlings? He kept getting distracted by Si-mok's intense, analyzing stare. He felt vulnerable and embarrassed to just be laying there, but he knew his sitting-up process would be just as embarrassing, and the indecision stalled him into inaction.
"Are you sleeping here?" Si-mok asked, taking in his surroundings. Desk, bookcase filled with papers and documents, a cot against the wall, blanket and pillow looking jumbled. A doorway to a shared bathroom- Si-mok tried to remember if the door to that side looked occupied or vacant. He had to assume it was occupied, knowing how competitive these types of dorms for prosecutors were.
He was staying in the dorms, yes. His wife had come to visit him as soon as he was awake and lucid in the hospital. Sobbing, she'd held on to him like she actually wanted to, touched him without hesitation for the first time in years. She even kissed him. And she'd begged him to not come home until he was looking healthier, to not disturb their children. They'd seen him in the hospital while he was unconscious, and he'd frightened them.
He couldn't blame her. It still stung, just as bad as her touching the bruises, but he knew deserved it. He had spent years ignoring if not actively mistreating her. He'd left bruises on her wrists like he had on Eun-soo. And while he'd made an effort these past two years, it wasn't like he was around more often. The kids were so used to him being away it probably would be easier on them to have him absent than for him to be at the house looking like he'd been stapled back together. So he couldn't blame her. He would do whatever she asked of him, because he'd failed to be there for her in her darkest times, darkest times he himself had caused, and so he couldn't ask her to be there for him now.
He could not say any of this out loud to Si-mok, or to anyone really. Dong-jae had wondered in the past if he'd been born without the normal ability to feel shame, but after these two years of trying to fix things and looking at how he'd wrecked so much of his own personal life, he had taken a crash course in guilt and shame. He felt it now, felt his personal life and professional life colliding in such a terrible way and spinning wildly out of his control. So he just gave a vague sound in the affirmative, not saying anything.
"They didn't get you a hotel room..." Si-mok said, this time not a question but almost to himself. He was surprised and not surprised at the same time. They, the higher-ups of the prosecution, had bought Si-mok a hotel room, as one of the stars of the kidnapped prosecutor case couldn't be seen going in and out of some random dormitory like a wet-behind-the-ears junior. Perhaps they hadn't thought Dong-jae was going to be out of the hospital so soon- certainly Si-mok expected him to be there much longer. But either way it sent little sparks of anger through Si-mok. Dong-jae had almost died, and now that the prosecution and police were eager to let the public forget the whole debacle, they were content to leave Dong-jae high and dry.
Dong-jae watched Si-mok, curious but also feeling too tired to inquire further. Ah, he'd gotten a hotel room- a nice one, doubtless. That would surely be better than having to stay in the dormitories where everyone knew him on sight.
Si-mok glanced at his watch and mentally rearranged his day. It would work, if he called in some help. "Pack your things," Si-mok told him. Then his eyes flicked down to Dong-jaes left arm in a sling and cast. "No- I will send someone to help you. At five-thirty. Please rest until then."
------
A knock on the door startled Dong-jae out of his not-sleep haze once again. He'd lost the sunlight and his anxiety was slowly increasing. He was going to have to resort to taking that medicine after all, the stuff that made him totally out of it, if he really couldn't sleep for another night. After several days of this, the nighttime seeming to bring a terrible mania worse than the fear and intense nervous energy he had experienced during the most stressful times at work. It was like he'd developed some inner light-sensitive mechanism that, sensing the sun going down, started a timed release of adrenaline into his system every thirty minutes until the sun rose again.
His non-sleep had still been hazy and unfocused; the sky was still blue outside, though it was starting to dim at last. But it was still blue, so he could force himself off the cot- the pain that shot through his ribs made him wish briefly for death- and shuffle to the door.
Yeo-jin's curious face was waiting for him on the other side. At the sight of her he couldn't help but grimace a little, though it was mostly from the residual pain.
"Hello!" She gave a polite bow and a cautious wave. "I am here to take you to the hotel. Do you have anything you need to pack? I will do it for you. There is a car waiting for us." She looked at him expectantly.
He recognized the tactics she was using, padding her sudden appearance with friendly and polite gestures and giving him so much information at once, talking continuously without giving him the chance to interject, stalling him long enough to gain entrance while he processed. He did not have the energy to argue, question or dismiss her, and truly, a nice hotel sounded... peaceful. Maybe people would leave him alone there while he got his head on straight. And the constant pain made it hard to argue. He opened the door and stood back, letting her in.
"Excellent," she said, "Tell me where all your things are and I will pack them for you."
------
How is he?
Yeo-jin considered the man sleeping on the little hotel couch. Years of experience with altercations and victims of violent crimes led her to automatically calculate the age of the various bruises that still colored Dong-jae's face. Most of the visible bruising was purple- disturbingly fresh- but they were showing signs of fading to green around the edges. A week old. Healing. She would guess his ribs looked much worse, and were probably still blueish purple and swollen, especially around his surgery sites. But she figured they must have given him something at the hospital to reduce swelling, right?
He'd taken some medication on the car ride over and promptly passed out. She wondered if she should ask about it when he was awake again or if that was going too far. She had just been roped in to deliver him to the hotel room. But the place was spacious; they'd sprung for one of the suites with two bedrooms and a small kitchen area. It was really nice. And her place was so far away. She made the call to reheat her dinner here instead of taking it all the way home. She had to be back in the city the next morning and had been thinking of getting a hotel room herself- maybe Si-mok wouldn't mind if she stayed here? He was not really using it.
She stared at Dong-jae as she slurped up her noodles and considered the text on her phone screen. How is he? She thought back to picking him up from the dorms, and how bad he looked for someone supposedly willingly released from the hospital. Had he seemed to sway on his feet as he considered opening the door for her? She was sure she could push him over with just a gentle shove. He'd been fidgety the whole time, nervous, much like he'd been several years ago when they first met and he'd been truly awful to her. He hadn't had that weird manic feeling when she'd seen him at the prison before he'd been taken. It felt more like the old Dong-jae and it had put her off, and she found herself feeling less cheerful. Between the bad memories and having to watch him move around in such obvious pain despite her best efforts to carry everything for him, she was starting to feel her own tension rise. She rubbed her eyes and willed herself to take a deep breath. They'd spent so much time searching for him, believing him dead through most of it, that she felt warring feelings within her; she wanted to protect him, and also lock him away like an irresponsible child. She supposed setting him up in Si-mok's free hotel room was a good enough compromise to both feelings for now. He was safe here in the room, and the world was safe from him, at least while he recovered.
He'd been blissfully quiet on the uber ride over, where she watched as he dry-swallowed some kind of medication despite the driver seeing. He must have been truly distracted.
Sleeping now, seems fine, she finally typed back. Well, it was a brief report, but she'd decided to stay the evening anyway, so she would be here in case anything happened. It didn't seem like Si-mok was going to be using his complementary/bribery hotel room himself, so why not put both rooms to good use and save herself the driving?
I am using the 2nd bedroom, she sent next. I am stuck in the city for a while. Will buy some food for fridge tomorrow.
He's a man of few words she thought as Si-mok's single word response of Okay popped up on her screen.
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