Chapter 4: True Sanity

Tao stormed out of Mei's room and started searching for her everywhere, he asked many doctors and nurses, he even went into the girl restroom, but there was no sign of Mei, he then went to the surgery rooms, only one had a bright red light coming from the sign  "undergoing surgery" Tao stopped a nurse and asked her who was being operated in that room, the nurse said:
"Oh, I'm not sure, some girl, she is in really bad condition, the doctors don't know if they will be able to save her."

Tao thanked the nurse for telling him with a smile, but inside his head he was a wreck, Tao's knees crashed to the ground, and he was on the brink of tears. Just then he heard someone running in his direction, he didn't bother to look up to see who it was, someone crashed next to his body and started shaking him, that person was almost yelling at Tao:
"Tao, are you ok? Get a hold of yourself! What's wrong?"
Tao looked up only to see one person still shaking him strongly - Mei.
Tao's tears finally fell and he hugged Mei. Tao was shocked at how someone could feel so much so emotional for a simple stranger, and even if he hadn't know nothing more than just her name, he just didn't want to lose anyone important again, but the question was, when did she become important? All those things were running thru his head as he held on to Mei. Se Hun quickly ran over to Tao as soon as he found him. After Tao had finally calmed down he sat down with Mei and Se Hun and they started talking about all the things Mei hid from him.

After Tao had heard for how long Mei was already in the hospital and what her life looked like while she was in the hospital, he finally asked her:
"How much time do you have left?"
Mei taken by surprise what she had just heard let out a sad sigh and smiled painfully at Tao:
"About 2 months...probably less."
A silence bestowed all of them, and then finally after a few moments Tao spoke:
"Do you think they would let you out of the hospital at least for a day?"
Mei looked at Tao confused but told him:
"There's no way they would, not like it matters, this has become like home, and the hospital's garden is my whole world."
Mei said all that with a smile, but it was a real smile, she really did feel at ease here, but then an idea sparked in Tao's mind, he looked at Se Hun and Mei happily and said:
"Well then we'll just have to sneak you out for a day."
Se Hun and Mei said in unison:
"WHAT?!"
There was a lot of bickering and explaining how that would be impossible after that, but Tao stuck to his word. Se Hun had to stay in the hospital a little more until he fully recovered, so they decided they would kidnap Mei for a day the day Se Hun got released. And so that did happen, they took Mei to the shopping center and bought her a lot of manhwa, went to amusement park, stopped by cafés and most importantly had a lot of fun. Mei actually felt what it was like to live again. For the end of the day Se Hun and Tao planned to have a big dinner at a fancy restaurant.

Se Hun went with Mei to buy a dress, Mei completely oblivious to what was going on followed Se Hun without a problem, while Tao went to check out the preparations, he got dressed for the dinner and sat at their table waiting for Se Hun and Mei, he actually rented out a whole room for them. He wanted to spend a wonderful time with his friends, he waited for quite some time, he was just about to call Se Hun, when he heard the door crack behind him. He was sure it was Se Hun and Mei, he wanted to glomp them right away but he kept his calm and sat their with his back facing in the direction of the person who came in, rendering him unable to see who was behind him, but that was ok since he was positive it was Mei and Se Hun, he saw a dress flutter in front of him, he was sure it was Mei, so he got up quickly to hug her, but unfortunately for Tao  he didn't stand up and rap himself into his friends loving arms but to a person holding a gun to his head. Tao didn't even flinch, since he already knew who it was, he didn't even blink. The person pulled the trigger, there was the sound of the gunshot, but nothing came out. The person threw the gun on the floor and smirked and said:
"Awww, no more bullets, that's no fun."

The person moved her hair out of her face, Tao immediately knew who it was, there was no need to see her face, that bloodstained hair, as if he would ever be able to forget it, it was imprinted in his mind. Tao grabbed Alizeé by her neck and started slowly chocking her, he lifted her frail body from the ground and still didn't let go of . Alizeé didn't struggle, she just smirked at him, she knew Tao couldn't do it, her body was like that of a little bird, if you would press it just enough you could probably break her neck like a twig. Tao let Alizeé go, he was disgusting to himself, that after all she did, not only to him but to Se Hun, that he couldn't just break her.

Alizeé started giggling, Tao looked at her and she said:
"You still haven't changed, you won't be able to save your precious friends that way."
Tao looked at her straight in the eyes, his look changed, it was cold, like ice daggers pinning to Alizeé's soul, he came closer to her and asked her:
"Where are they?! What did you do to them?!"
Alizeé just chuckled and pulled out her phone, she put it in front of Tao's face. Tao took her phone and stared at the screen in disbelief. On the screen was Se Hun, he was beaten up pretty badly, and strapped to some chair, while the chair had all kinds of cables attached to it. Tao looked at Alizeé, this time probably ready to strangle her, but Alizeé just said:
"I wouldn't do that, if you kill me now, you're friends die as well."
Tao sat down and tried to calm himself down, he looked at Alizeé, who looked like she was enjoying her self, she looked so happy, it was honestly really disturbing but then he decided to ask her:
"Where is Mei?"
Alizeé looked at him, still enjoying herself in all this, she said sadistically:
"That girl is in a different room, don't worry she's safe, she didn't even put up a fight unlike your friend there, he really did try his best even with that gunshot wound I gave him, how cute!"
Tao was on the line of going crazy, but he knew he had to keep his sanity, at least until he got them back, Alizeé walked over to the door, she opened it and through out the door Lay came in, Tao really was speechless, he charged at Lay, but Alizeé stepped in front of Lay making Tao stop. Lay told Alizeé:
"Go to those two, be on stand by if you have to murder one of them."
Alizeé had a smirk on her face that stretched from one ear to another, she quickly ran of, Lyn told Tao to sit down, he looked at Tao who looked totally desperate. He then told Tao:
"Your friends are in this building, you have 20 minutes to find them before Alizeé kills them, if you don't find one in 10 minutes one will die, that is all...GO!"
Tao didn't care that Lay was right there in front of him and that he could kill him easily, he was only worried about those 10 minutes, and so the search began.