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There's blood in Mingi's mouth. Metallic, he can taste it on his tongue. Filling up, flooding in from the river source; a gap so wide in his mouth where an incisor and canine once touched. Now it's just blood.
Everything tastes like blood.
He can't feel the pain that should be there - can't pinpoint where the numbness stops and where the ache begins. There's no pain in his mouth because he hurts too much elsewhere. A searing, hot pain in his hands, his knuckles already becoming caked with dried blood. His left eye is swelling, the lower lid twitching erratically forcing out tears. He's not crying - Mingi wouldn't cry. There's no pain in his mouth, there's not enough pain in his body to spread to every limb or sinew knitting his muscles together close to the bone, instead all of it culminates in his ribs. They're broken, cracked, shattered by an impact - Mingi can't feel which rib causes the most pain as he doubles over to the floor, all he knows is that it hurts.
Mingi focuses on his mouth. It feels more real to him. The gap between his teeth, the taste, the corner of his mouth that spluttered out blood with every staggered breath. Broken ribs aren't his main concern. It didn't happen - couldn't happen - to him, no one would actually kick in his chest that violently. Losing teeth was more reasonable: people had always wanted to punch Mingi in the face, and this guy had gotten round to throwing his fist.
Another guy lies on the floor. A few feet from where Mingi is making eye contact with only soil, sharp rocks, and sandy debris is a guy curled up with his hands clutching at his face.
“You broke his fucking nose!” Another person says, they're trying to pull the other guy up onto his feet.
Like a chorus, more voices chime in. Shouting, borderline screaming at one another. Mingi thinks he hears Wooyoung's sharp bite - an insult everyone knows he doesn't truly believe, and yet the words taste more familiar than his mother tongue. The other voices blend. There's a pitched ringing in his ears that won't fade out. God, Mingi would give anything to hear one of Wooyoung's stupid jokes right now. Even those crude, inappropriate jibes would sound much sweeter to Mingi at this moment.
There's blood in Mingi's mouth, and a hand grabbing his jaw.
Yunho pulls Mingi's face into his view, yanks it up so that his good eye can watch the panic in Yunho's gaze. Crowding. This felt like a crowd. He doesn't move, or even try to mutter, as Yunho inspects the swelling and the cut to Mingi's cheek. This time the pain is salient; blood, so much blood, a visible torment of teeth clashing with the skin of his lips. Mingi knew it was blood spilling out, but it was only now as Yunho watched that Mingi realised why.
“Fucking asshole punched you-” Mingi catches a few of Yunho's angered words.
“I hit him back though…” Mingi slurs.
When Yunho's grip on Mingi's jaw falls loose, Mingi lets his head fall forward into Yunho's clavicle, expecting - hoping - for his friend to hold him closer to ease away the pain. Only instead of the warmth of arms curling around him, Mingi is hauled up much like the other guy had been. Manhandled and dragged up by hands on his biceps, lifting him up to stand on unsteady feet. Mingi feels like one of those newborn cows, or a deer they show on Animal Planet; weak, vulnerable, only just learning to stand for the first time.
“You hit him first, Mingi. That's the fucking problem.”
Was Yunho mad at him? That's the wrong question. It'd be easier to ask when Yunho wasn't mad at Mingi. His friend had every right to be pissed off, to want to push away Mingi's attempt at a familiar touch. Throwing the first punch meant the other guy - Jihoon, no, Jihan, some name that was irrelevant to remember - could press charges neither could afford. Seonghwa wouldn't bail him out. Not again at least. These days it seemed as if Mingi was always in trouble, always needing to be saved by one of his friends right at the last minute and to be greeted by that disappointed look on everyone's face. His mother couldn't look at him that way ever since he moved away for university, and nor could his coach since he was kicked from the football team. It was only really Yunho left that cared enough to scrutinise Mingi with a soft look etched on his face.
There's blood in Mingi's mouth. He coughs it out, spitting it onto the ground as he stands.
It would be a lie to say this was the worst fight Mingi had ever wrapped himself up in. He'd be lying like an insolent child if he claimed this was the first ‘bad’ ending to a fight. Those school years were marred with the memories of being shoved to the ground, the feeling of grit embedding itself into the skin of his palms, his knees. Those fights where Yunho wasn't even a concept in his mind yet, let alone an actual person to come pick him up to run away with.
“Guys, we should really go.” San says.
“No.” Mingi's foot trips, he stumbles only for Yunho to wrap an arm around his waist. “No, I need to-”
Mingi fell forward, trying to pull himself free from Yunho's grip to lunge forward at Jihan. To throw another punch, maybe this time landing one on the guy's snarky friend. Mingi couldn't remember why he wanted to fight - couldn't pinpoint the moment or the word that spurred this on, which caused the first blow. In his mind there were these jumbled up, threaded together, excuses and lies justifying hurting someone else. ‘To protect my friends’ or worse, ‘so Yunho will look at me.’ Neither seemed appropriate to voice.
“I don't care. I'm getting you out of here.”
There's blood in Mingi's mouth, he wipes specks of it away with the back of his hand. He watches as Yunho tries to fish out car keys from his jacket pocket.
He must've blacked out, lost the will to keep processing information through his eyes, because Mingi comes to with the sound of a melodic pop song filling his ears. Yunho's car is old, a model no longer viable for new parts, and it skips notes in whatever the radio spits out. The dials are so worn that no one could change the song even if they were paying attention to it. The car hums. Wooyoung hums almost in tune with it.
And San laughs. A loud, guttural laugh, akin almost to a chesty cough that's hard to shake off. At first Mingi thought the sound was the car - breaking down, possibly, to strand the four of them on a dark country road - but he catches the glint in San's eyes. He's laughing. And then Wooyoung laughs too: the youngest member of their getaway group is barking out a joke, commenting on how Mingi's face is torn up, how he looks like a character from a manhwa. Smiling puts pressure in his swollen eye, his cheek pushing it in so that he's even more blind to the world, but Mingi laughs alongside the two in the backseats. It's stupid, really, how Mingi still involves himself with petty disputes. His friends have all the right to laugh.
Another song comes on the radio. The first line is cracked, the singer's voice static and barely harmonious anymore. San names the singer, Wooyoung names the song.
“Where're we going?” Mingi asked. He wasn't sure the words had been heard.
Yunho's hands wrap around the steering wheel. It's a deadlock grip. It feels like he's speeding - he's not, Yunho wouldn't, he's not careless like that - and Mingi can't comprehend the blur of trees passing in the car window.
“The hospital.” Yunho responds, his eyes leaving the road for a moment. He looks at Mingi, at the blood on his jaw.
He's worried. Mingi watches the crease in Yunho's brow, focusing on how Yunho's eyes flash between worry and anger and stress. He swerves on the road but Mingi doesn't care how the jolt of movement emphasises the sting in his broken ribs. Yunho's hand shoots out to land on Mingi's elbow, holding him in place in the front seat of a shitty car. It looked like an instinct. It felt like an instinct.
“Does it hurt?”
Yunho's voice is quiet; it's private, soft, not intended to be heard by their friends in the back seats. It's a question meant for Mingi only. He can't understand why Yunho would ask it. He can't understand why only Yunho would ever ask.
“Mingi? Does it hurt?”
Mingi nods. A short, curt nod that tells Yunho nothing.
There's blood in Mingi's mouth. There's an ebbing of violent pain in his ribs. None of it hurts. Looking at Yunho hurts.
There's blood in Mingi's mouth. It's always been there. The blood tastes fresh whenever Yunho looks at him.
“It hurts.” Mingi whispers.
It always hurts when it's you. The sentiment goes unspoken, instead it remains trapped inside Mingi's mouth. It's metallic. It tastes like blood.