Chapter Three

met·a·mor·phic

/ˌmedəˈmôrfik/

adjective

denoting rock that has undergone transformation by heat, pressure, or other natural agencies, e.g., in the folding of strata or the nearby intrusion of igneous rocks.

            “You just got us killed. Junhong, they’re going to literally kill us!”

            “Well, I’m sorry for having morals!”

            Himchan raised an eyebrow at him. “Then I suppose I’m sorry for trying to take care of you?”

            “I didn’t ask you to take care of me.”

            “Could you be any more childish?” Himchan hissed at him.

            “Why are you ignoring the fact that I was right?” Junhong gestured in the direction of his bed, where the unnamed man slept. “He was being hurt! They were killing him!”

            Himchan sighed. “Look. I understand that, but what you did was just reckless. We can’t––we can’t be here anymore, Junhong.”

            There was a pause before Junhong spoke again. “We?”

            “Well, now that you’ve dragged me into this operation, yes, it’s a we.”

            “I didn’t drag you––”

            “You brought him into our home! Into our bedroom! That involves me, Junhong!”

            Junhong’s shoulders dropped in defeat. “I’m sorry.”

            “Look, we can talk about this later. There’s not much time.” Himchan slid off the bed and made his way to his dresser, pulling open the top drawer.

            “What do we do?” Junhong bit his lip, turning to watch the man sleeping soundly in his bed.

            “Well, since I’m not going to heartlessly toss him out into the street, we’re gonna get out of here,” Himchan answered, pulling a pair of socks on and digging around for a long-sleeved shirt. He shook his head. “We should have gone with Yongguk.”

            Junhong swallowed hard, throat going a bit dry. “Yeah,” he agreed. It was too late for that. And Yongguk had had a car. He sat down beside the man on his bed, brow creased with worry. He switched on the bedside lamp, and gazed at his face. He looked peaceful, then. His expression was relaxed, and his breathing had fallen steady. Junhong let his eyes fall back down to his neck. He reached for the bandage that stretched across the front of his throat, and let his fingers run across the gauze. The man shifted, and Junhong drew his hand back quickly.

            “Junhong.”

            He turned around quickly at the sound of his name, just in time to stand up and catch the backpack Himchan threw at him before ducking into the kitchen.

            “Get your necessities together.”

            Junhong nodded and stood. He made his way to the closet quietly, and gathered up his few toiletries. “The trains,” he said suddenly.

            “Trains?” Himchan echoed. Junhong heard the pantry’s doors fall shut.

            “We can sneak onto one of the night trains,” he said. “At the loading station on the edge of the city parameters.”

            “That might be our best option, actually,” Himchan said from the other room, a tone of surprise taking his voice.

            As Himchan came back into the room, Junhong turned to him.

“But what are we going to do about him?” he asked, nodded his head back toward his bed.

            Himchan frowned. “Well we can’t do anything if he doesn’t wake up soon, but if he does, and if he can walk, then I guess…” he shrugged and nodded.

            “Should I try to wake him up?” Junhong asked, finished stuffing things into the first pouch of his pack and zipping it up.

            Himchan eyed the clock on the dresser. “Yeah. I’m sure it won’t be long until they notice he’s missing. Maintenance starts routine checks at five.”

            “Okay, so we have half an hour.”

            Himchan nodded an affirmative.

            Junhong made a noise of panic before rushing back over to his bed.

            “I’ve got all of our leftover rations packed up,” Himchan called as he left the room. “But I don’t think it’ll last us very long, so we’ll need to make plans for when it inevitably runs out. Which will happen more quickly with him around.”

            Junhong frowned, and sat down carefully next to the man in his bed. For a moment, he let himself just watch the way the light fell on his skin, over the dips in his collarbones and casting shadows on his cheek. Those little spots all over his face really had him fascinated, and, not usually one to think twice, Junhong reached out and poked the man’s cheek.

            Almost immediately, the man twitched away from the touch, and Junhong jerked his hand back as he slowly blinked his eyes open. He held his breath as the man seemed to be trying to focus his vision, just staring, blinking, and squinting at the ceiling. It felt like time froze when he looked at Junhong. Half of him wanted to ease the panicked look he was getting, while the other half wanted to lean closer and inspect the man’s eyes, which were somehow colored so lightly.

            The man gasped and tried to sit up, only to wince at the movement when his torso flexed.

            “Hey, easy, there,” Junhong held his hands awkwardly in front of him, not quite sure if he should touch him or not. The man moved away from him frantically, though it was obvious that moving cause him immense pain. He pressed his back into the corner of the wall where the bed was pressed, and hugged his knees to his chest, burying his head in his lap. He was shaking, and Junhong felt his heart fracture just a bit.

            “I want to help you,” he offered quietly. “My name is Junhong. I’m not going to hurt you. I took you away from them.”

            The man lifted his head. He stretched his arms out in front of him, only just then realizing that he was no longer hooked up to anything. He also blushed and covered his chest when he realized that he was mostly , so Junhong rummaged through Himchan’s drawers for a shirt. (His own would have been far too large for him.)

            The shirt still practically consumed the man, but he seemed more comfortable. Junhong even noticed him periodically sniffing the fabric, and he figured he must be able to smell Himchan’s cologne on it.

            “Are you, um…” Junhong hesitated for a moment. “How are you feeling?”

            Junhong has seen a lot of things that made him feel sad. Even devastated. When he had to leave his family after graduation, when his mother’s friend lost a baby… but, he decided, right then and there, within the following few moments, that the saddest thing he had ever seen in his entire life was the moment in which the man on his bed realized he couldn’t speak. He watched as the man’s lips moved silently for a second, before stopping in confusion, and pain. His eyebrows creased, and he reached up, pressing a shaky hand to his throat, over the bandage secured there. His eyes widened, terrified, as he looked down and then back up at Junhong. His fingers traced the bandage down his throat, but he flinched in pain and dropped his hand into his lap.

            “You,” Junhong hesitated, “you can’t talk,” he stated, disbelief evident in his voice. The man shook his head frantically, as if denying the situation. His lips moved more, but Junhong couldn’t read them. Suddenly anger rose within him, as he watched the man’s eyes well with tears. “They did this, didn’t they? Who am I kidding, of course they did!” He threw his hands up and stood, pacing the length of the room, back and forth. “God, I–– those bastards.” He looked up suddenly, back at the man. The gaze was returned, but only weakly. “The man with the medic bag. He must’ve done it. What was his name, what was his name?” Junhong walked in circles for a minute before stopping suddenly, a finger in the air. “Daehyun!” he proclaimed. “If only I hadn’t waited so long…”

            The door to the bedroom creaked open, and Himchan poked his head inside. “What are you doing?” he asked incredulously. “I told you to—oh.”

            Junhong watched Himchan as he entered the room and shut the door behind him, carefully. He made his way over to Junhong’s bed, where the man still sat, shaking with tears on his cheeks. Rather than sitting, he knelt beside it, and offered his hand.

            “Hello,” he murmured, looking the man up and down.

            The man rose his gaze a fraction, and blinked at the hand in front of him, tilting his head before reaching out to touch it, hesitantly. Himchan chuckled at his obvious unfamiliarity with handshakes, and the man rose his entire head at the sound before freezing. He sat perfectly still, just staring at Himchan as he introduced himself.

            “I guess you’ve already met Junhong,” he said. “I’m Himchan. We live together, and we worked at the factory they… had you at.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “What’s your name?”

            Junhong cringed at the question, and the man pointed the bandage on his throat, shaking his head and blinking like he was trying to stop tears from forming.

            “Oh.” Himchan bit his lip awkwardly.

The man mimed a pen and paper, a request to which Himchan did not hesitate to cater to. He stood and rummaged around in the drawer of Junhong’s bedside table for a minute, before coming up with a battery-powered tablet and stylus.

            He placed them on the bed in front of the man, who glanced between him and the tablet cautiously. He picked up the stylus, first, turning it in his hands to inspect it. He rubbed the tip of his index finger against the end, and blinked widely when it came away clean. He looked up at Himchan questioningly, seeming bewildered. Himchan sighed, and sat down next to him, picking up the tablet and taking the stylus from his hand.

            “Look,” he said, pressing the power button. The screen lit up bright white, and the man immediately brought a hand up to shield his eyes. Himchan laughed and turned the brightness down. “Here, look,” he pulled the man’s hands away from his face gently, and watched as he blinked at the device in front of him, eyes going wide with fascination. He took it from Himchan, who handed the stylus back, too.

            It took a few tries for him to write something out successfully, and once he was satisfied he turned the tablet around to face Himchan.

            Himchan studied the writing with a frown. “I don’t know these characters,” he mumbled. The symbols looked foreign to him. Only a few lines here and there clicked in his head. The man’s shoulders immediately drooped even further than they already had, and he pulled his knees to his chest again. Himchan eyed him carefully, a frown on his face. He hadn’t even noticed before––the man looked just as unfamiliar as the symbols on the screen before him; his hair was a shocking, silvery platinum, and his skin made Himchan look deathly pale next to him, so rich and tanned. Himchan shook his head. “Junhong,” he called, waving him over. “Look at this.”

            Having paced off much of his initial anger towards that man, Daehyun, Junhong turned away from his mumblings of revenge, and joined them at the side of the bed. Himchan slid the tablet to him, and he looked down at it. Immediately one of his eyebrows perked upwards.

            “These are traditional characters,” he said, sounding almost excited. “Oh, wow.” He leaned closer. “Nobody’s used these for centuries.”

            Himchan blinked, then nodded his head at the man curled in on himself in Junhong’s bed, side against the wall with his face buried in his drawn-up knees. “He does.”

            Junhong’s nose scrunched in confusion, and he ran his fingers just above the writing, as if it would help him understand.

            “Can you read them?” Himchan asked.

            Junhong nodded slowly. “They’re way more confusing than what we use now, and, not to mention, super outdated, but I studied them in primary school for a while. I’m not perfect, but I know that this is a name. A really old-fashioned one.” He glanced at the man still hugging himself on his bed. “Is it his?”

            Himchan nodded and leaned over to look back at the glowing screen, still trying to make sense of the characters, despite knowing that he would never understand them.

            Junhong brought his eyes back up to the man on his bed, whose gaze was directed forward, then. Junhong followed his line of vision to find Himchan, who was still staring at the tablet between them. The man still had tears in his eyes, but he was staring at Himchan as if he had never seen a man before, eyes were wide and clear. Still pained, but, in the light, Junhong could make out the light brown of his irises. Was that green mixed in?

            “Jongup,” Junhong said.

            That snapped him out of his trance. The man––Jongup––jumped at the sound of his name, and broke his gaze away from Himchan and back to Junhong, with the most relieved smile Junhong thought he had ever seen. Jongup lunged forward, suddenly, and wrapped his arms around him.

            “Um,” Junhong stammered awkwardly, not sure what to do. He was standing, so Jongup’s face rested against his stomach as he nuzzled up against him, seeming very relieved with his partial-fluency in the alphabet. Junhong could feel tears soaking into his shirt just before Jongup pulled back, his face suddenly red.

           "Where are you from?" Junhong asked. "You… uh, the spots on your face. I've never seen somebody with birth marks like that. And your hair," he blurted without thinking.

            Jongup seemed taken aback.

            "Sorry, that was a dumb thing to say." Junhong could feel his cheeks flushing.

            Suddenly Jongup pointed up, at the ceiling.

            Junhong cocked his head. "What?" Jongup only moved his hand up and down, emphasizing where he was pointing. "I don't understand," Junhong said. "Write it out?" He snatched the tablet back from Himchan, and gave it to Jongup, who wrote quickly.

            "Sur… face?" Junhong asked slowly, uncertainly, and Jongup nodded. He was about to ask for a more elaborate answer, but Himchan spoke before he had the chance. They could save this conversation for later, anyway.

            “Jongup,” Himchan parroted Junhong, and Jongup looked at him. “I know you must be tired, but we’re going to have to leave soon, because those people we took you from will want you back. Can you walk on your own?”

            Jongup’s eyes widened for a second when Himchan mentioned his captors, but he shook his head and just shrugged, blinking tiredly again. He unfolded his legs from beneath him and stretched them out carefully. Junhong put a hand on his shoulder as he slid his bare feet to touch the ground.

            “Can you go get him some food and water?” he asked Himchan, who had given up on trying to read Jongup’s name. He nodded and left the room, but not before mouthing “be quick” to him, silently.

            Jongup exhaled forcefully as he pushed himself to his feet. Junhong kept a firm grip on his shoulder as he swayed a little bit, and until he seemed to have stabilized himself. He could see that Jongup’s legs were trembling, but only barely, so he decided to let go of him. On the first step forward, his knees gave out, and he would have collapsed to the ground if Junhong hadn’t caught him.

            “Maybe we should wait until after you’ve eaten something,” he suggested.

            Jongup frowned, but he let Junhong push him gently back to sit on the bed again. He sighed and stared at the floor for a few seconds, before lifting his head and turning to face Junhong, slowly, almost shyly. A shine caught Junhong’s eye as he moved, and he realized that Jongup had multiple hoops of metal through his ears. He found the jewelry strange, no doubt, but he was easily distracted again when his eyes caught the spots on Jongup’s face he had seen before. They didn’t seem to have a pattern of any sort, and they were faint in the dim light of the room, but he let his eyes follow their path over the bridge of his nose and around his cheeks.

            The two markings on his neck––Junhong had forgotten about them––were only half-visible, blocked by the thick gauze across Jongup’s throat. He raised a finger to point at them, wincing when Jongup flinched at the sudden movement.

            “What are those?” he asked.

            Jongup looked confused for a moment, before reaching up and smoothing a hand over the side of his neck, careful around the bandage. His lips formed an o, and he picked up the tablet and stylus again. It took him longer that time, and Junhong peered over his shoulder to see a small paragraph being written. Himchan returned, and placed a plate and a glass on the bedside table before sitting down beside them again.

Jongup the tablet back into Junhong’s hands, and immediately reached for the food. Himchan handed him the water, first, making sure he drank slowly. A few sips and a lot of worrying coughing later, he had the plate in his lap, but was staring at it with distrust. He pointed at it and looked at Himchan accusatively. In the middle sat a single slice of stale bread, its gray color not especially appealing, but also not abnormal. For them.

            “It’s bread,” Himchan explained, deadpan. Jongup didn’t seem to buy that, shaking his head and poking the food suspiciously, his eyes narrowed.

            Himchan rolled his eyes and bounced his leg impatiently. “Junhong,” he called.

            But Junhong wasn’t listening. He had sat down on Himchan’s bed, across from them, and was staring hard at the words Jongup had written. There were many characters he was completely unfamiliar with, but a few stuck out that he could put together.

            “Hunt, person… hunter…” he muttered to himself. “Ink, magic… wait, magic?” He looked up as he spoke the last words, raising his voice. Jongup turned away from Himchan, who appeared to have ended up hand-feeding him little pieces of bread like some sort of mother badger with her young, at Junhong’s voice. He nodded quickly, but his face was twisted in pain as he swallowed the food in his mouth.

            Junhong frowned. “It hurts?” he asked, pointing at his own throat.

            Jongup only shrugged, and jerked back when Himchan’s hand appeared in front of his mouth again, a piece of bread between his fingers. Jongup smacked it away and took the food to put it in his own mouth, only to fall into a fit of painful-sounding, dry coughing. Himchan and Junhong watched him, not sure what to do, until it faded away. When he looked up, Junhong could see tears pooled in the corners of his eyes and tracks running down his cheeks. Himchan handed him a tissue.

            “Well,” Himchan began, “I’ve got all our remaining rations and water packed up, so…” He gestured to Junhong. “Whenever you’re ready.” He stood up, Jongup watching him carefully.

            Junhong sighed. "Right."

          “Sooner than later,” Himchan patted his shoulder as he passed him. “If you’re not ready in fifteen… you understand; I’ll have to go without you.”

Junhong nodded. It was his fault, anyway. Himchan shouldn’t even be waiting.

But those thoughts would have to wait. For now, “Jongup.”

He was already watching Junhong, no doubt having overheard every word out of Himchan’s mouth.

“You ready to try walking again?” Junhong asked, forcing a smile. Jongup saw right through it.

With a deep frown on his face, he motioned Junhong over, and took the tablet back from him. After erasing the paragraph Junhong had been laboring over, he replaced it with a short sentence, and returned it, fiddling awkwardly with the blanket beneath him and avoiding Junhong’s eye.

“’Not you, me’,” he read aloud. “What?” When he looked back up, Jongup was pointing at himself. When he caught his gaze, that finger moved toward the door.

“The… kitchen?”

Jongup rolled his eyes and shook his head, then grabbed the tablet back. He scribbled something down and turned the screen around.

“’You stay, I go’,” Junhong muttered. “No,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “I’m not going to just abandon you. You’ll,” he trailed off, hands motioning uselessly. Jongup raised his eyebrows. “They’ll find you,” he said slowly. “They’ll take you back. You’ll… die.”

Jongup shook his head, and Junhong pretended not to notice when he opened his mouth as if to object, only to wince in pain and close it, turning the tablet back around.

“They saw me, anyway,” he said, averting his gaze. “Those two who came in. I’ve seen them once or twice, but Yongguk knew them. They’ll tell him it was me. I’ll be killed. Yongguk, too, if they find him.”

Jongup tilted his head, obviously not knowing what he was talking about. Probably due to his recent unconsciousness.

Junhong shook his head, expression hardening. Jongup wrote something else down.

“Himchan can’t stay, either,” Junhong said when the screen was turned to him again. “They’ll take him. Arrest him. They’ll suspect he was involved. And I… I can’t let that happen to him. God, I was so stupid,” he muttered, bringing a hand to his face and rubbing it over his eyes. He was so tired. When he opened them again, Jongup was standing next to him, nearly a head shorter, and pointing to his feet. Junhong smiled at him. “Right. Pants.”

Daehyun woke up slowly. His arms were cramped, and his ears were ringing. He blinked bleariness from his eyes and lifted his head dazedly, the lights around him foggy and blinking. It took him a minute to realize that something heavy was on top of him. Someone. Youngjae. What was Youngjae doing on top of him? But, oh, he wasn’t in his bed. The floor was cold, and the air was stale, as always. He squeezed his eyes shut and wiggled his arms out from where they were pressed to Youngjae’s stomach. He braced his hands on the floor and pushed himself up to sit, letting Youngjae slide limply into his lap and immediately bringing a hand to his head with a groan when the room spun around him. As everything settled back into place, he became aware of a horrible throbbing on the back of his head. He rubbed it and made it worse, of course, before turning back to Youngjae. He knew immediately that his nose was broken. Whether he had been hit or fallen on it, Daehyun didn’t know, but there were lines of dried blood streaked over his upper lip and down his chin. Daehyun looked down and, sure enough, there was a large, dark red stain on the front of his shirt.

“Oh, God,” Daehyun said to the empty room. Wait, room? The generator room, right. Wait, the generator room? He whipped his head around quickly as the memories came back to him. Right, they were coming back to check on the boy in the glass case after cleaning up from the procedure. Daehyun winced quite visibly when he remembered what he had done. But, then… what had happened after that?

He looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Except for the fact that the glass case in the middle of the room was left slid open. Had they forgotten to close it after the surgery? He nudged Youngjae gently over until he was laying on his side, and stood up, wobbling on his legs. His bag was on the floor next to him, open, and the boy was gone. .

“.” Daehyun heard a low groan, and a hand tugged on his pant leg. “Daehyun. I think,” Youngjae’s voice sounded oddly nasally. “I think my nose is broken.”

Daehyun knelt next to him, and smacked his hand away from where it was poking at his face. “It most definitely is,” he confirmed. “But, there’s another, probably-worse problem.” He could hear the panic rising in his own voice, and it was obvious Youngjae could sense it, too.

“What? What is it? What’s wrong? What happened? Oh, God, the blood on your shirt, did you get shot!” Youngjae had his hands on Daehyun’s shoulders within an instant, looking him over.

“Calm down, it’s from your dumb nose,” Daehyun said pushing his hands away, and Youngjae retreated to poke his philtrum carefully, wincing when his finger came back bloodied.

“Sorry.”

“Youngjae, he’s gone.”

“What? Who?”

“The, um––” but he didn’t have to finish his sentence before Youngjae was on his feet.

“Oh, no, no no no, this is bad. Oh, this is so bad. .” Tripping over himself a couple times on the way, he rushed to the side of the glass container, looking around frantically. There were wires strewn all over the place, the top carelessly left open, and the needle from the IV dangled freely in the air, hanging from the bag on the rack it was attached to. “Yongguk…”

“Yes, Yongguk,” Daehyun agreed, joining Youngjae where he stood and balancing himself with a hand on the glass beside him. “What do we do? Do we call someone? Should we just leave? I––”

“Daehyun, listen to me,” Youngjae interrupted, still staring hard at the empty container. “I need you to stay here.”

Daehyun opened his mouth to protest, only for Youngjae to cut him off again. “Yongguk can’t get in here on his own. Neither could you have,” he said. “I’m one of the only two people who can open this case, and the other is Kim.”

“They’ll suspect you,” Daehyun concluded.

Youngjae nodded. “Yongguk has access to all of our security. Well, he did. I have no doubts he busted the cameras to get up here undetected. But he left tracks, and those tracks are from me, because––”

“He set you up,” Daehyun hissed. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t think that was his intention. Whatever, it doesn’t matter now.”

They were both quiet for a moment, until Daehyun spoke again. “What are you going to do?” he asked softly, already knowing the answer. There was only one, after all.

Youngjae heaved a sigh. “I’m going to leave. Right now,” he said. “We’re running on the reserves from him right now, and when the plant switches to backup they’ll notice right away. I’d say we have a couple hours, tops.”

“I’m––”

“You are not coming with me,” Youngjae cut him off.

“Youngjae! I can’t just let you leave; not alone! We never split up. We can’t,” Daehyun reasoned. “Look, I know it looks like you did this, but you’ll make it worse if you run! They’ll just testify you, and you plead not guilty. I can vouch for you.”

But Youngjae was already shaking his head. “It doesn’t work like that and you know it, Dae. They’ll just throw me in prison, probably end up having me executed for treason against the government.”

“That’s not––”

“Fair, I know.” Youngjae ruffled his hair. “It’s not fair.”

“Well, I’m not letting you go by yourself.” Daehyun followed Youngjae as he moved back across the room and bent down to pick up Daehyun’s medical bag. He slung it over his shoulder and turned back to him.

“Daehyun, look. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to risk imprisonment, because I know it’s inevitable. We don’t have a justice system here. But I’m also not going to let you waste your job. You’ll never get a chance like this again.”

“Youngjae.”

“It’s my fingerprint on that scanner’s history,” Youngjae said. “Not yours.”

“But––” This time Daehyun was cut off by Youngjae wrapping his arms around him, and pulling him into a hug.

“Don’t worry,” Youngjae said, his voice quiet. “I’m not gonna disappear. You’ll find me.” He stepped back, hands holding Daehyun’s elbows. “I’m sorry about this.”

“Wait,” Daehyun said, and then Youngjae punched him in the face, and he fell for the second time that night.