JR scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain pounding inside his skull as he gained purchase on the ruined carpet. Even as he turned he knew he would be too late, though, and he was right. The Bandit was gone, nowhere to be seen, already having made his escape. If JR could get outside, he might be able to see which direction he had gone and catch up to him...

But he took a shuffling step and fell, his head spinning in circles and making it impossible to walk. He briefly considered crawling but he knew that his neighbors would call the cops if they saw him, bloody faced with a broken nose and healing jaw, crawling down the stairs. Besides, he would never reach the ground floor in time to see which direction the Bandit had taken.

And so he lay there, feeling the pain in his face flare and subside with each bone or piece of cartilage that pushed itself back into place. He cried, he was sure of it, but he couldn't say if it was because it hurt so much or because he had put Aron into danger. His fingers dug his cell phone out of his pocket, but the screen was cracked and with his eyesight still blurry from the beating, he couldn't make out the words on it. He took a chance and activated voice dial, but then the stupid thing wouldn't accept his words and kept trying to google 'Carl the minion'. He finally tossed the phone down amongst the rest of the rubbish.

The landline, then. He tried to stand and found that he could, this time, though he still couldn't walk in a straight line. He made it to where the phone should hang and found, to his frustration, that it wasn't there. Aron must have tried to grab it when-

No! He couldn't think about that, not right now. He couldn't afford to think of his cousin, beat up just as badly as he but unable to heal himself. His anger rose inside of him and he tried his best to batten it down, though he could feel it like some sort of entity trying to take him over. If the Bandit thought that taking Aron as a hostage was going to keep JR down, then he had another thing coming. Aron was all he had left, and he would be damned if he didn't try to get him back!

Then his cell phone rang with a text notification, that same annoying ringtone piercing through his pain and anger and drawing him back to the living room like a beacon. He scooped up his phone and slid his finger across the unlock bar, gaining a few shards of glass in the fingertip for his effort. He couldn't quite make out anything in the text itself, but he didn't exactly give out his number left and right. There were only two people who ever texted him, and since one was currently missing, he made out the little white phone icon in the top right corner and tapped it. Several times. It finally registered through the broken mess and placed his call.

"Um hi?" Minhyun's voice came over the receiver, crackled and sounding like he was speaking from underwater. "I didn't mean for you to call m-"

"I need you," JR interrupted. Minhyun must have heard the gravity in his voice, because he only paused for the briefest moment before agreeing and hanging up. JR stuffed the broken phone back into his pocket and looked around the living room with dismay. He didn't even know where to start!

The broken window would have to be fixed first, he supposed, but he knew that the landlord was going to have a fit when he realized that it had broken. Likely it was going to cause their eviction. But to get the window fixed, he had to clean the rest of the mess first. And to clean the mess, he needed to be able to see clearly and move without his head throbbing. He could start there, he figured, and moved to the kitchen sink to try and wash his face. It hurt, though, like someone poured fresh alcohol into his wounds, so he gave up and took the only unbroken chair in their house from Aron's room. To his surprise he found that the Bandit had only ransacked the front room and had left both bedrooms alone; it must have been for the statement only.

When the knock came at the door signalling Minhyun's arrival, JR didn't bother getting up from his chair. "Come in," he called, happy to find that his words were no longer so jumbled. Minhyun pushed the door open and paused to take in the view, his eyes widening in shock that grew exponentially when he saw JR sitting in the desk chair.

"Oh," was all he said as he closed the door behind him, leaving his shoes on as he crossed the glass littered floor to stand in front of JR. A few sharp words in Korean slipped from his lips as he surveyed the damage to JR's face, then he moved away into the kitchen itself.

JR didn't follow him, not even with his eyes. He wasn't sure if his numbness was from his anger or from the pain, but he felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The press of a cold cloth to his face was like a shock back into reality, and he gave a slight yelp as he flinched away from Minhyun. The taller man grabbed JR's head, though, and held it steady as he pressed a wad of wet paper towels to the mess of JR's left cheek. "Be still," he said softly, and JR relaxed to let him work.

He did so in silence, carefully cleaning the wounds with the cool towels. Though the water occasionally stung, JR did his best to sit still and let him work. Minhyun's f