atz seongjoong - “I’m going to ask you some questions, and I would like you to answer me honestly.”
You know what, this is what Seonghwa gets for staying late to organize the clinic's files. No one else cares! That's the whole fucking problem! And now Seonghwa is the one tied to the radiator as a bunch of wild-eyed oafs in too much jewelry crawl around his clinic, dumping medicine and supplies into plastic bags.
It's gotten late—they must have expected to find the clinic empty when they broke in—and the large one who tied Seonghwa up said they'd leave him safe if he stayed still and quiet.
Seonghwa is most afraid for the man they laid out in the center of the room.
He's on a work table, not a bed, and it doesn't fit him, but he’s not a big guy and he’s curled up in pain, so it’s holding him for now.
He’s bleeding from the head, so much blood the loss alone might be a danger. He’s trying to be brave—the other men are calling him captain—but small, awful noises keep drifting out of him, and his fingers are shaking. If he’s older than Seonghwa, Seonghwa would be shocked. Not old enough to be the captain of anything. Not old enough to die.
Seonghwa doesn’t want to get hurt, and he doesn’t want to get in trouble for the theft, but he cannot—cannot—sit here and watch a human being die.
One of the men stands over the body on the table with a fistful of gauze and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Men, Seonghwa is thinking, but he’s really a boy, with a sweet teddy bear face. He must just be the one with the steadiest hands—he definitely has no training, not only because he’s too young but because he splashes a bunch of alcohol on that gauze and Seonghwa’s stomach drops in horror.
“Just wash it,” Seonghwa says. This is not his problem—there are serious ethical and probably legal implications to making it his problem—but he can’t stop himself. “Get a bag of saline solution from the fridge and use that. You don’t dump rubbing alcohol on a head wound, fuck. And wash your fucking hands first.”
The whole crew of dirtbags stop what they’re doing to stare at him.
“Fuck,” Seonghwa says again.
“Let him help,” the captain says. His words are weak, gritted out, but Seonghwa is reluctantly impressed that he can speak at all.
The big one moves to untie Seonghwa’s hands without question. Seonghwa stands, twisting his hands around the tightness in his wrists, and a rangy, wolf-faced little guy points a knife at him. “Don’t try anything.”
“You’re very rude,” Seonghwa says. The guy looks surprised, but if Seonghwa sounds testy, well, that’s how he feels. He makes an elaborate show of washing his hands.
Another fact about the man on the table is that he is beautiful. He rallies himself to smirk through all the blood on his face.
It’s hard to imagine he could be injured any worse than that head wound, but as Seonghwa feels around his torso, he winces and groans.
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” Seonghwa says, “and I would like you to answer me honestly.”
“That seems very unlikely,” comes a deadpan voice from the shadows in one corner.
But the captain makes eye contact and nods, and Seonghwa doesn’t have any choice but to believe him.