Pain.

It suddenly dawned on him in that instance as he lay writhing on the wooden floor in his own sticky blood that all his life, Luhan didn’t know the true definition of pain. His shin felt ripped to shreds. The flesh was torn as if a mountain lion had taken a chunk out of the appendage and the blood that escaped the wound gushed so profusely that Luhan had no idea he even had that much within him.

His screams had subsided into pain-filled, gurgled whimpers. His fingers wrapped around the wound but the exposed tender flesh staring back at him was too painful to even touch. Every inch of the wound stung and twisted with pain that lingered despite his desperate prayer to will it away, rendering his left leg impossible to move without the searing reminder he’d been shot.

Shot by her. The woman...

Shot by M.

She watched him apathetically; her large form hovering over his crumpled one on the floor that draped against the wall like an offcut of fabric. There was a terribly cold and calculating – perhaps even disconnected – look on her face at that point that Luhan found it difficult to believe she was at all human for a brief moment.

However, just as quickly – almost like a light switch flicking on – the frighteningly blank look on her face was replaced with one of deep concern.

‘Oh, my goodness, Lu!’ she cried, tucking the gun into her coat pocket that sunk quickly to the very bottom out of sight.

‘What a mess. I told you not to do anything naughty, but did you listen to me, Lu? No. You didn’t. And now look at what you’ve done.’

A strangled moan left Luhan’s throat yet M didn’t pay it much mind. In fact, she looked at him as if he were the equivalent to something as petty and troublesome as spilt milk. She watched him writhe in pain for a moment with a disapproving pucker of the lips and creased eyebrows, and unable to stand the sight of the blood that oozed out of his wound into a larger puddle beneath him, she clapped her hands.

‘We should get that cleaned up, I suppose. Don’t move, Lu. I’ll be right back.’

She casually made her way towards the duffel bag that was still on the loveseat, however, Luhan was little to not at all aware of what she even said at that point. The pain was unbearable. It was like nothing he ever felt before. All the terrible cramps he’d acquired from dancing and days without rest were nothing compared to the sheer excruciating burning and twisting going on in the deep, fleshy red wound that made a gruesome tear through his left calf.

He was always curious what it felt like to have a bullet lodged somewhere in your body, yet the possibility of it actually happening to him never once crossed his mind… but here he was. Languishing between fits of horrendous pain and panic. If she was capable of shooting him in the limb without a second’s hesitation, she was most certainly toying with his life in her palm. He was at her mercy. The mercy of a complete maniac.

‘Here.’

He stared at her large hand for perhaps longer than he imagined. Because as he stirred mindlessly in the pain and fear that possessed his entire being; that had taken over his body completely with heavy, trance-like similarity; he suddenly felt her palm shove against his mouth and two small capsules force their way between his dry, cracked lips.

‘Don’t be naughty again, Lu. Because nothing good comes out of that, and I’m sure you’ve learnt your lesson. I expect you to swallow those or else I’ll be very angry and we don’t want that.’

She said these things with her attention solely directed at the peculiar white sheet she produced from within the duffel bag that accompanied her. If not for the unbearable pain and desperation Luhan was in he would have been more conscious of it, yet this wasn’t the case.

‘Did you swallow them?’

She stared at him blankly, searching his face for any sign of him answering her question and when he seemingly nodded – through tears and animal-like whimpering at this point – she raised her left hand. She glanced at the plastic-wrapped watch tightly fastened around the thick flesh of her wrist and looked behind her at the white cloth carefully spread out on the floor.

‘If you didn’t, there’s going to be more pain, Lu. So don’t be a naughty boy.’

Whatever she’d given him quickly started to take effect and within a span of a few minutes, the pain began to subside. Relief washed over Luhan as he felt the excruciating pain gradually become a dull, pulsing heat. He could still feel tiny pricks of discomfort, but compared to the horror he experienced moments prior, the sensation he felt now was almost blissful.

He didn’t know what painkillers she issued him, but at that point, he didn’t care. He suddenly felt better than he ever had in months—no, years. So much so that as he watched her with whirring vision, he felt incredibly disjointed from the universe altogether. He stared at the blood that continued pulsing profusely from his shin with an apathetic dullness in his eyes, completely unlike how he’d reacted just moments ago without the medication. He ought to have been thrashing around and screaming in pain, but he grew frighteningly complacent, almost…

But M was familiar with the effects of the drug. So she wasn’t at all fazed by how quiet and still Luhan suddenly grew.

‘I really didn’t want to give you that, Lu,’ she said, although she was positive he couldn’t hear a word out of because his unblinking eyes and pursed lips gave her no indication of his attention.

She uncovered a set of surgical tools from within the white cloth and reached for the long pair of scissors, carefully snipping away at his black jeans, making sure not to irritate the inflamed skin around the bullet wound as she did. Her voice became a soft whisper, as if she were speaking to a small child.

‘But you gave me no choice. You would have gone into shock before I could get it out and shortly after that, cardiac arrest… and you don’t want to die yet, do you, Lu.’

She could feel his eyes settle on her as he stared with sweat matting coppery gold hair on his forehead. She felt his hot breath on her nose as she kept it downward into her area of work, and even as M exchanged the scissors for a swab of cotton wool and tissue forceps; digging carefully into the bloody wound for the bullet that just grazed his shin; she felt her heart race and heat crawl into every plane of her body.

Even as she pulled out the dull bullet and swiftly placed a thick folding of white cloth against the bleeding wound, the intense look he held with her hadn’t faltered which sent an electric charge to every nerve ending in her body. M couldn’t help but feel an incredible thrill wi