Standing on the brink of death is an odd experience.

Dying is a topic Asami had never deemed immediate enough to overthink or fear. But in the few situations she's let death cross her mind, never before did she consider that it'd be at the hands of a random person crushing between bony fingers. From the second he pounded her head into the brick behind her and sent stars flying into her vision, she accepted the sensation of literal breathlessness.

"Leave her out of this!" She can hear Baekhyun yelling, but it's distorted and sounds like she's hearing it from underwater. There's an urge in her to tell him that it's okay, please get to safety, don't get hurt anymore. If only she weren't being strangled.

Her eyelids droop as her head becomes lighter and the feeling she once had in her limbs has weakened to the point of numbness. It hurts. A lot. She doesn't know how she's still able to feel it, but she does. The hands she had unknowingly used to feebly pry the man's hands off fall to her sides and, in that moment, whiteness enters her vision. Not the whiteness of her subconscious, but the whiteness of a shining light.

Oxygen enters Asami's lungs as she falls to the floor in a heap, gasping and coughing and clawing at anything to regain herself. The light makes every particle of the floor in front of her face visible and she hears the struggle between heavy inhales. She assumes the man had been pried off her, but she cannot discern how from anything except that brightness.

At a grunt that sounds too deep to be Baekhyun, she lifts her head gingerly - still fighting for her breath - and frowns when the light extinguishes just as she views him looming over the man. It's hard to tell without the light, but the stranger appears to be writhing on the floor with his palms pressed firmly to his face.

"My eyes!" he's screaming. "What the did you do, you freak!?"

Although he's visibly weak from the bleeding, Baekhyun scoffs at the poor state of his attacker. He gives him one final kick to the ribs before whirling around and tending to the wide-eyed girl on the floor near the adjacent wall. She's visibly trembling and cannot seem to tear her attention away from the groaning male.

"What are you doing here, Asami?" he questions as he crouches beside her hunched over figure. She jolts back, pressing herself against the wall to create distance between them. All she can do is shake her head frantically at him and he furrows his eyebrows, running a finger along the bruises decorating her neck. It hurts him somewhere deep when she cringes. "Don't be scared of me, please don't."

"N-No, I-I—" she's cut off by a fit of coughs that deny her ability to talk through her damaged windpipes. Her voice sounds like it has never been used: raspy and dry. 

He shushes her, nausea hitting him as he tries to calm her frantic tears. "I'm sorry you had to see that. I'm sorry you're hurt because of me. I'm so sorry."

Asami looks down at her lap, letting water droplets fall on the fabric of her jeans. The only thing she had been afraid of was losing her life. It hadn't hit her until she was finally able to breathe that she was almost about to never do it again. Moreso than that, her acceptance of her seemingly inevitable fate irked her to no end. How could she be so okay with something like that? With dying? Did she really have no reason to survive?

"I'm going to get you out of here," Baekhyun states, holding his arms out cautiously toward her. "Is it okay if I...?

She takes initiative and wraps her arm around his neck. She doesn't know what she's doing, but she needs to be anchored back to earth. She needs to feel alive. She needs him. He rubs the small of her back comfortingly before gathering her smaller form into his arms and pulling her head into the space between his neck and shoulder.

"Do you trust me?" The question lingers in the air.

She slowly opens to respond, but quickly shuts it when he gives her a stern look. A reluctant nod. A smile. And he begins walking towards the exit of the bar.

The immediate response she gave to his inquiry baffles her although she doesn't express it. For all intents and purposes, she knows nothing about him. He's as much of a stranger as the person who tried to kill the two of them, and yet (she blames that irritating, warm feeling he gives her) trusting him comes too easily.

He's barely holding himself together and she can tell through his wavering hold on her legs and lower back, the stumble in his step, and the way his lip is trapped under his teeth to trap any noises of weakness. It doesn't help that the bar is still packed, but Asami takes note that Jaehwan and the others are nowhere to be found. It's both disheartening and the least of her concerns. 

By some miracle, he makes it without passing out. The sun has long dipped below the horizon, but his steps are resolute to signal his familiarity with the area. Something tells her that it's a long walk, and she buries her face into his shoulder as some sort of apology.

"Don't worry. We'll be there soon," he chuckles warmly. Truthfully, it's not as soon as he'd like, but at this point he's trying to convi