Chapter Forty-Three

The bathroom was empty. There really wasn’t anyone in there! She felt her heart thump in . Had she seen it wrong? Had the ‘woman’ gone into another room? She bit her lip and tried to fight back the tears that were b behind her eyelids.

“Oh, I thought that I had to sit in that small thing forever.” She heard the rather deep voice from the cupboard and turned around in surprise.

“I should thank Hannie for making me bent in impossible way, sometimes…” Anne watched as the cupboard opened and revealed the male with the Chinese dress.

“Oh…” She squeaked out while she quickly wiped her tears. And a genuine smile broke through for the first time in days.

Heechul grinned at her and held out his hand which she eagerly took: “My name is Kim Heechul. I’m from the Chinese mafia and a friend of both Eunhyuk and Daniel.”

“I’m Lee Anne. And I already figured that you were Daniel’s friend.” They both smiled at each other before Heechul got serious.

“We’re going to get you out of here but first we need to know where Donghae is. Do you have any idea?” He desperately looked at her while she thought about something that could help them find. Somebody had to slip up somewhere right? She just needed to find it…

“Wait a minute…,” she suddenly uttered and Heechul perked up, just like the people who were listening along through his earpiece, “I heard some people talking about how annoying it was to bring Donghae food every time because the key wasn’t downstairs by the others but upstairs…” She dreadfully looked for other things she could remember but in the end she muttered, “that’s all I can remember for now.”

Heechul grinned though as he patted her back: “Don’t worry, you made our search a lot easier.”

***

“Wait a minute…,” Eunhyuk heard Anne’s voice in his earpiece and he stopped with aimlessly running around, “I heard some people talking about how annoying it was to bring Donghae food every time because the key wasn’t downstairs by the others but upstairs…”

Eunhyuk grinned and turned around to run back upstairs, this was what he needed. This information told him that Donghae was downstairs, and probably in the basement while the key was somewhere upstairs…  Gosh, this house was huge, how could he ever find something so little in such a big house?

He held his earpiece and pressed on it: “Anne, don’t you remember anything specifically about it? We need a bit more help…” He called out for her and after a few minutes of nervously waiting, she answered:

‘I don’t remember much… but I know Kato.” It became a bit quiet on the other side as if she had to brace herself for whatever she was going to tell next about him. “Do you think it would help if I give you a character description of him?’

Eunhyuk wanted to nod at first but remembered that she couldn’t see that. “Sure, but hurry we don’t have much time!” His heart nervously thumped in his ribcage, he was scared for the first time in a long time, he was indeed scared. Not for himself but for the life of another that had become dear to him in such a short time.

‘When I first met him, Kato was undeniably charming. He always knew  which buttons to push on a person so that that person would do what he wanted, just later I figured that that wasn’t charming but manipulative. Actually his real personality came later: he was bossy, like all the mafia leaders I know,’ Eunhyuk scoffed when he heard her say that but let her continue, ‘but he was worse, you could call him controlling, he wanted everything to go as he wanted. If that didn’t happen, then he would either shout really loud or hit you, but that was all under a layer of charisma so the outside world almost never saw that. He liked show off how good he was, especially if he had gotten there because of his own leadership. And lastly he was also very keen, a really cunning man that would never choose the obvious.’

Eunhyuk smiled bitterly, this had actually helped. Kato was a man that was controlling so he would place it somewhere were only his trusted people came, where he could show his dear possessions but not somewhere as his office but…

Eunhyuk smiled triumphantly, he knew where the key was. Now he only had to find the key as soon as possible. He ran to the corner of the hallway, back to the ballroom. It would be easier to search from there.

He almost slammed into a waiter when he turned around the corner and as he held his heart to recover from the shock the waiter bowed and hastily tried to apologize in Japanese. Eunhyuk bowed too, letting the waiter know that it was alright, that nothing bad happened and suddenly he realized that the quickest way to find the room was to just ask it.

The waiter was so happy that Eunhyuk wasn’t mad that he kindly told him (in very bad English) that the room was around the corner and at the end of the hallway. Eunhyuk thanked him and ran further to the end of the hallway and opened the door to:

The dining room. Eunhyuk quickly looked around and on the middle of the side table he saw a with stones invested key. That was the one he needed. He grabbed the key but in his haste, he knocked a picture frame over.

He crouched beside it and picked it up. His eyes widened and he gritted his teeth in disbelieve and in anger. He couldn’t believe it! The man that he trusted all these years was actually a traitor!

His first thought was to rip to picture into a million pieces but he rethought his decision and put the picture into his pocket. It could be evidence for the others to see…

He quickly turned around and ran out of the dining room without bothering to close the door behind him, he raced downstairs. He needed to get to Donghae before the… traitor. He rammed doors, not caring if he was subtle or not.

The only two things that were in his mind, were Donghae and his traitorous friend. As Eunhyuk descended lower and lower into the building, everything became greyer and more ominous. Eunhyuk was afraid to know what such an environment had done to someone as delicate as Donghae. With his fists clenched in anger, he reached the basement and he quickly ran along every cell quickly trying if his key was the right one but none of them fit.

His heart thumped louder every time he couldn’t open the cell door. Until he noticed that there was one open cell door. He grabbed his gun out of his holster and carefully walked to that cell door. He was silent enough to approach it without the people inside noticing it.

As Eunhyuk stood in the doorpost he saw Donghae laying on the ground, completely and seemingly unconscious. He felt his blood boil when he saw how the boy’s condition was. He was painfully thin and everywhere on his pale skin were bruises that were ten times the size of Anne’s. But Eunhyuk couldn’t see everything of Donghae’s body as there was another figure that was crouching in front of him with a huge, thick blanket in his hands.

The boiling blood tended to explode inside of him when he recognised that person too. He was tempted to shoot him right there but he didn’t. He wasn’t a coward who would take someone’s life without that person knowing who took it. But he wasn’t so stupid that he would risk his own life by letting the traitor know he was there and an additional worry was that Donghae also could be wounded in that fight

So he grabbed his gun and with its backside he hit the traitor hard on his temple, knocking the male unconscious.

He then hit the male with his foot, so that he could take a bit of revenge for now but he remembered his first priority immediately afterwards. He took the blanket from the traitor's hands and wrapped it around the cold body of his Donghae. He wanted to cry and throw a fit because of the younger one’s state and because of his traitorous friend but he also thanked the Gods for letting him save Donghae before the traitor could’ve taken him away.

He lifted Donghae up in his arms and walked with him out of the cell, he was scared for the younger male because of his shallow breathing and the almost unnoticeable soft thumping of his heart.

He pressed his earpiece and said: “Yesung, join the party.” And within a second he heard on the other line: ‘Roger that.’

Then he softly lay Donghae on the side as he closed the cell door and locked his former friend inside it. He took Donghae in his arms again and softly pressed his lips on the younger one’s front head while promising the boy that he would protect him.

In the now closed cell, there laid a delicate male unconscious. Blood was dripping from his strawberry blonde hair...

Oh my... who saw that coming? Well I did, just like few others of you! And now everyone is happy, because I gave Donghae back! Well almost everyone I guess as I took someone from you too... You know what? I ain't gonna to tell you where the hints were yet! Try to find them on your own first, I'll give you the answers in the next update!

Next up: continuation of this chapter... ( I can hardly wait :))

So if you liked this turn of events or something else, please let me know by subscribing, commenting or upvoting (like mahymiroz and peptoo ^^)

And here is a hint for the people that now want to unsubscribe because of the traitor and the author: when did I make things simple? Yeah that's a difficult hint but please stay, you won't regret it!