The light burble of Kyungsoo’s ringtone roused him from a deep sleep, and it took several moments of blindly patting his bedside table to find his phone. Still groggy, he thumbed the call button and flopped back down on the bed, sandwiching the phone between his head and the pillow.

“Y’bseyo,” he mumbled, voice gritty, already drifting back to sleep.

“Did I dial wrong?” At the sound of a familiar voice, Kyungsoo’s eyes peeled open. “No…whooaa. Soo! Wake up, buddy. It’s Yoondae.”

Jongdae’s brother slept like a corpse and barely even breathed until the sun was at least two fingers above horizon. Kyungsoo always teased that he was solar powered, but it was still hours until dawn.

“What’s wrong?” Kyungsoo fought down a yawn and sat up in his bed, shivering in his thin t-shirt as his thick quilt fell away. “Is Jongdae okay?”

“He’s fine,” Yoondae assured him. “I’m calling from Nambu. An inmate here was injured pretty badly in a fight last night. The guards were investigating the fight, and he called some number over twenty times yesterday. I dialed it and got you. Weird?”

Kyungsoo blinked slowly, brain still waking up. “I never got any calls.”

“I just redialed the number he called, and you answered.”

Kyungsoo squinted at the bright display of his phone, then put it back to his ear. “You’re calling me from your cell. Try with the prison phone.”

He let loose with the yawn he’d been fighting while he listened to Yoondae bustle about on the other line.

His voice was a bit breathless when he spoke again. “Hey, Soo, you didn’t answer again.”

Kyungsoo looked down at his phone. “That’s…strange. It didn’t tell me there was an incoming call.” He frowned at the phone for a moment, then checked his settings. There was a number in his auto-reject list that he hadn’t put there, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

“Who was the inmate?” he demanded. “Was it Yeol?”

“Uh, hold on…” There was muffled conversation at the other end. When he returned, Yoondae’s voice was panicky “Get over here.”

Kyungsoo punched his headboard in frustration, and scrambled out of bed. “ I gave my number to the prison because he said he was going to call!” He started flinging on clothes. “ Why is his number in my reject list!? What happened to him?”

“I don’t know anything, yet. I didn’t even know it was him,” Yoondae said. “The doctor hasn’t come out of the infirmary yet. I can ask—”

“I’ll be there in ten,” Kyungsoo interrupted, grabbing his jacket and keys. “Don’t let anybody see him before I do, understand?”

He hung up without hearing Yoondae’s reply, knowing his friend would do as he asked.

  —

Yoondae was sitting awkwardly in a too-small chair outside of the infirmary, his leg jiggling nervously, tearing his cuticles to shreds. He jumped up when he spotted Kyungsoo approaching, but Kyungsoo waved it away.

“Where’s the doctor?” he asked, breathless from running all the way from the parking lot and impatient for an update.

“You just missed her,” Yoondae looked down the hallway opposite of the way Kyungsoo entered. “Srihe left about ten minutes ago, but she said she was coming right back, oh, wait,” he trailed off as a woman in a silver ponytail and billowing white coat rounded the corner and marched briskly in their direction.

As she drew closer, both young men bowed respectfully.

“Good morning, Doctor,” Kyungsoo greeted her first. “I’m Do Kyungsoo from the Seoul Police Department.”

“Dr. Lee, Kyungsoo is the one Yeol tried to call,” Yoondae added helpfully when the doctor eyed Kyungsoo doubtfully. “He should know what happened.”

“What did happen?” Kyungsoo pressed, anxiously looking from the lawyer to the doctor for answers. Dr. Lee’s mouth tightened, and she gestured curtly for them to follow as she swiped them into the infirmary with her ID badge. Kyungsoo sneezed at the sharp tang of antiseptic as she led them to a curtained off bed in the furthest corner of the infirmary and pulled aside the gauzy curtains surrounding a bed. Kyungsoo gasped out loud at the state of the patient inside.

“Who did this?” Kyungsoo asked in horror, involuntarily reaching out to the unconscious man. Yeol’s face was bruised and swollen beyond recognition, and angry red splotches covered his entire body where it wasn’t already wrapped in bloody gauze.

Dr. Lee caught his hand gently and pushed him a step away from the bed, and Kyungsoo fumbled his hands into his pockets. “How did this happen?”

“I was leaving late after a consult in a different wing, and I dropped my phone,” Yoondae said softly. “On my way back to look for it, I heard screaming. They were in one of the service areas, the kind you need a ID card to access.” Yoondae’s voice stayed hushed, but his fists balled as he recounted the story. “There were at least eight of them, and they had pipes and crowbars.”

“Gaeseki,” Dr. Lee swore, her eyes fiery. “I found a needle mark in the back of his neck, too. All those men with pipes for one boy, and the cowards still poisoned him first. I don’t have the equipment to identify the drug, but there’s no sign he even fought back.”

Kyungsoo’s throat went tight, and he had to turn away from the bed, dragging in deep breaths to shove down the rage boiling in his gut. Yoondae gripped his shoulder in solidarity, silently waiting until he had calmed down enough to resume the conversation.

When he turned back, Kyungsoo avoided looking at the battered body on the bed. “So this was premeditated,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “Access to a restricted area, weapons, a drug—this was no prison fight.”

Dr. Lee was nodding in agreement, but Yoondae looked troubled. “You think they had help from a guard?” he wondered.

“Worse than that,” Dr. Lee said darkly, worry deepening the wrinkles around her eyes. “I checked my prescription cabinet, just in case, and nothing’s missing, not even a syringe. That means someone from outside the prison with access to controlled substances is involved.”

Kyungsoo ran his fingers through his hair in aggravation. “Someone paid off a guard and hired a bunch of thugs with nothing to lose to drug Yeol and beat him up?” This was too well planned for there to be any other explanation, but it made no sense. “He’s in jail. Why go through all this trouble?”

“They were definitely trying to kill him,” Yoondae said, conviction heating his voice. “They scattered when I got there, but I saw enough.”

“He’s lucky,” Dr. Lee concurred. “It should have been impossible defend himself with all those drugs in his system, but he’s got a hell of a survival instinct. Look,” she gestured to the seeping gauzed wrapped loosely around Yeol’s arms. Kyungsoo swallowed queasily when he realized they weren’t really the right shape. “He was protecting his head, so they completely pulverized the bones trying to bash his skull in. He managed to protect his left side too- they couldn’t crush his heart, so they destroyed everything else. If he doesn’t spend the rest of his life living out of a tube, it’ll be a modern day miracle.”

“Why is he still here?!” Kyungsoo was aghast. “He should be in a real hospital!”

Dr. Lee swatted the bedside irritably, her frown deepening even further. “One of my other patients had a heart attack late last night, so the prison ambulance is gone. I called the Seoul National University Hospital--they’re the closest place that has even a prayer of saving his life and maybe his limbs. All of their ambulances were out on an highway accident, but they promised to send the next one available to us. That was an hour ago.”

Kyungsoo tapped his fingers against the bed rails, thinking. He could call in an officer-down, but the entire precinct would be right on the heels of that ambulance, and the cops had precious little love for Yeol. They might let him die out of spite and call it good riddance. He bowed his head, racking his brain for alternatives, coming up empty. “Can we use my car?”

“Only if you want to finish the job those bastards started,” Dr. Lee said drily.

Yoondae grimaced.”If whoever ordered this wants Yeol dead- they won’t leave him alone once they know he’s alive.”

Kyungsoo swore under his breath. Another thing to worry about.

“Here’s what I suggest.” Dr. Lee held up both hands to still any further conversation. “Yeol is stable for now. I don’t know why he’s not dead yet — maybe he’s just a strong kid, maybe all those demon-worshipping rumors were true. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Eventually, the ambulance will get here, and I’ll go with him personally to the hospital. The only thing we can do now is wait and watch over him.”

“I can’t stay,” Yoondae told them apologetically, shoulders slumping. “I took off two days this week already to come here and help out a couple of inmates. If I neglect my paying clients, my boss won’t let me come here at all.”

It was Kyungsoo’s turn to clap Yoondae on the back. “It’s okay. You were here when you needed to be. There’s not much you can do now anyway.”

Dr. Lee stifled a yawn. “If you’re staying, Mr. Do, I’m going to take a nap. Keeping this boy alive is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.” Without waiting for Kyungsoo’s reply, the older woman vanished into a small curtained-off area that filled the other corner of the infirmary. After a moment, the two men she left behind could hear the creaking of cot springs as she settled into bed.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Yoondae said, turning to face Kyungsoo. “Something feels off about all ths, but I feel better about leaving knowing you’re staying with Yeol.”

“I’m surprised you’re so concerned,” Kyungsoo’s lips quirked up, his black sense of humor firing up. “If he dies, you’ll be my only friend. Think of the benefits.”

Yoondae chuckled tiredly as he shrugged on his jacket. “I want to be able to leave you behind when I become rich and powerful. I can’t do that and keep my soul if I’m your only friend.” His face grew serious again as he looked into Kyungsoo’s eyes. “You’re the only one Yeol trusts. Don’t abandon him. No matter what happens.”

  —

Yoondae slyly scheduled a meeting with a rich money launderer claiming innocence, giving him an excuse to return to the prison after a couple of hours. But their fortune ended there. In the late morning, a burst water main in the next neighborhood stranded the promised ambulance when it was just minutes away, then a building demolition gone wrong on the other side of the city forced them to leave. As Dr. Lee argued with the emergency dispatchers on the phone, Kyungsoo packed up his things.

“This is ridiculous,” he told Yoondae. “I’m going to the precinct. Let me know if anything happens.”

Kyungsoo took a long pull from his coffee, black, as he strode into the airy top floor office where the property crimes squad was housed. He collapsed heavily into his chair at his desk, looking blearily at the stack of paperwork the file clerk had left in his inbox. It had taken some armtwisting, but he’d finally convinced dispatch to send another ambulance to the prison. He was exhausted, and it wasn’t even noon. Jongdae, looking fresh and well-rested at his own desk, cocked his head quizzically when he saw Kyungsoo’s condition.

“You should lay off the soju bombs on worknights.” he quipped. “It ages you.”

“Yoondae called,” Kyungsoo said sourly, gratified at the astonishment that flashed across his partner’s face. “I was at the prison all night.”

Jongdae’s expression darkened. “The prison?” he repeated.

Too late Kyungsoo remembered how much Jongdae disliked Yoondae’s choice of charities. Finding out his partner and his brother had been hovering by Yeol’s bedside all night would not go over well, especially after yesterday’s confrontation.

“Someone paid one of the prison gangs to beat another inmate to death.” Kyungsoo told him, opting for a sanitized version of the truth. ”He survived, but there’s evidence that he tried to call the police first. So Yoondae called me for advice.”

“Why didn’t he call me?” Jongdae asked, a little peeved. “I outrank you.”

“Would you have gone up to Nambu at three in the morning?” Kyungsoo challenged.

Jongdae rolled his eyes. “Of course not.”

“Well then.”

Jongdae tossed a scrunched up ball of paper at his face. “Why did the convict try to call the police. Was he an informant?”

Kyungsoo unfolded the scrunched paper and began smoothing it back out into a usable sheet. “It’s not your case. Why do you care?” That earned him two more rapid fire balls of paper to the face. “Okay okay!” he surrendered, shielding his eyes. “I’ll tell you!”

“Cheeky little squid,” Jongdae muttered, putting down the half formed ball in his hands. “Spill.”

Kyungsoo pulled out the small notebook he carried in his back pocket and flipped it open the musings he’d scrawled while watching over Yeol. “It was a well-planned hit,” he told Jongdae, counting down the points on his fingers. “First, the gang had weapons that weren’t easy to get but still untraceable. Secondly, access to an restricted area where they wouldn’t be recorded. Third, a sedative from outside of the prison. Plus, I’m pretty sure someone paid off at least one guard. Beating someone to death is loud. Whoever ordered the hit wouldn’t put in this much effort just to have it interrupted by scheduled patrol.”

Jongdae tapped a finger to his lips. “It was a probably a gang hit. The inmate pissed off someone powerful on the outside, so they got their lackeys on the inside to take care of him. Happens all the time.”

Kyungsoo wrinkled his nose at the suggestion. “There’s no previous affiliation to gangs or organized crime of any kind. He’s a lone wolf.”

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t step on somebody’s toes,” Jongdae said absently, his attention drifting back to his paperwork. “Your perp could be anyone. Waste of time.”

Kyungsoo leaned over his desk and snagged the page Jongdae was working on. “If somebody went through this much trouble to kill him, they’ll try again once they realize he’s not dead,” he insisted. “We need to figure out who they are so we can protect the inmate.”

Jongdae snatched the form back, his brows knitting in annoyance. “Tell them to put the guy in solitary confinement where nobody can get to him. It’s not our problem.”

“How can you not care? Someone might get murdered, and we could’ve prevented it.”

“You and Yoondae are so concerned about the trash society has literally thrown away that you’re neglecting the real citizens who are innocent and law-abiding.”

Kyungsoo was struck speechless, the word trash rattling around in his skull, bashing apart any coherent thoughts. Trash. He looked down at his phone, heart pounding, staring at that number in the call-reject list. The number he hadn’t put there.

“You think criminals are trash?” His own voice sounded strange and far away.

Jongdae set down his pen with a sigh. “Look, when people throw away empty beer cans, they expect them to be mashed up, cleaned, and recycled into something new and better. But until those empty cans come out the other other side of the processing plant as shiny new aluminum, they’re just piles of garbage.”

Nose flaring, Kyungsoo held up his phone, his fingers shaking a little with the force of his heartbeat. “Did you put the prison’s number in my reject list?” he asked, his voice cracking a little with the effort of not yelling.

Jongdae grimaced, then jumped as Kyungsoo slammed the phone down on the table, the screen crunching with the force of the impact.

“Aiish,” Jongdae muttered. “It was for your own good.”

Kyungsoo had a stapler cocked and ready to throw in his hand before his conscious brain could process the act, but an earsplitting siren shrieked through the station, startling him into dropping it. He clapped his hands over his ears as the deafening alarm wailed, meeting Jongdae’s equally confused gaze. The alarm cut out abruptly, and Kyungsoo tilted out of his chair as a high-pitched ringing and rolling vertigo replaced the horrible sound. He dabbed his fingers to his throbbing ears, surprised when they came away dry instead of covered in blood.

A patrol cop burst into the office, breathless. “The prison just blew up in a giant fireball!” he shouted, his voice high-pitched with hysteria. “Dispatch wants all available hands on scene to evacuate any survivors.” His message delivered, the man dashed out of the door to pass on the information.

Kyunsoo reeled with the news. He’d been there less than an hour ago. What if he’d stayed. A hand twisted in his collar and pulled him upright, until he was staring into a pair of eyes gone wild with emotion.

“Tell me Yoondae wasn’t there,” Jongdae begged, tears thickening his voice.

“Oh, no,” Kyungsoo breathed, and staggered against his desk as Jongdae pushed him away, running for the door. Kyungsoo followed as quickly as he could, careering from surface to surface as world spun around him.