I thought I was dead. I honestly thought the second I was thrown through the windscreen of the car, I’d be dead. I mean, nobody can survive a car flipping at top speed. I was positive I was gone, and Donghae too. That people would hear our names on the news, with footage of our car, crashing and burning on a highway out of Mokpo. This would have been the most extraordinary thing to have happened in such a wholesome city of Mokpo. Donghae would have been labeled my kidnapper, and I would have been the helpless hostage to have died in our hopeless attempt of a getaway. The morning news would have showed footage of ambulance workers, pulling our mangled bodies from the remains of our vehicle. And if we hadn’t have died then, then by the time we would have made it out of the wreck, the cops would have been all over us. We would have been so mortally wounded that escape was futile. I would have never been able to even make sense of the situation, or even heard it from Donghae himself. The second Donghae had lost control of the car, we were doomed.

Which is why I was so surprised to wake up in a bed, with stale smelling sheets pulled over my aching body. I slowly sat up, easing my eyes open. My head pounded, and every bone and joint in my body felt heavy with pain. I winced, scanning my environment.

Am I in hospital?

Surely I was in intensive care from the accident and had just woken up from a year long coma. But as I continued to notice things, a dresser, a small cheap TV, a bedside lamp, the more I realised I was anywhere but a hospital.

Where am I?

All I knew was that I was terribly thirsty.

The room was dimly lit by he morning sunlight streaming through the blinds against the window.

My mind rushed with memories of what happened, the high-speed chase, the wheels being shot and the car flipping. I swallowed hard, closing my eyes at the sound of Donghae’s loud scream, echoing through my head.

Where is Donghae?

I was in a single bed, in a small room which smelt like expired milk. I wanted to call out for him, but my throat was dry and raspy.

“D-Donghae?” I managed, barely able to keep my head off the pillow. “Donghae?!”

I was scared. Once again, I was scared. The familiar feeling of not being able to breathe arose. It was the same feeling that brought me dangerously close to an asthma attack. Sort of the same horrible feeling when you have to sneeze and cough at the same time, but you… Can’t.

“Donghae?!” I called desperately.

I wave of relief flooded my entire body when I saw a head of dark brown hair through the doorway.

“Hyukjae!” He said, limping to sit on the edge of my bed. Donghae was wearing an open bathrobe and pyjama shorts. He rested his hand on my face, which burnt with pain. I winced and he withdrew his hand with an apologetic look.

“Sorry.” He muttered. “Are you feeling better? You‘ve been out for almost three days!”

His words were distant to me. I gazed as his face as if everything were a dream. His bottom lip was cut and swollen quite badly, and nasty looking cuts remained on his face. Above his left eyebrow, there was a bandage, covering another wound, and his cheek was heavily grazed and his eye slightly bruised. He was in very bad shape, but he still managed to smile through the pain.

“I-I’m fine.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Are you okay? What happened? Where are we?”
“It’s all okay.” He said, gently running his fingers through my hair. My eyes fluttered shut at his warm touch. I didn’t care what he’d done, why people were after him, I was just glad he was still here with me, alive.

“After the crash on the highway, you were knocked out. It’s okay though. You were hurt pretty badly. I was so worried.”

“What about you?” I asked, grabbing his hand and entwining his fingers with mine. “Are you okay?”

“My injuries were minimal. Like I said, you seemed to cop the worst of it. I only cracked my rib and took a blow to the head. I wasn’t even knocked out.”

Donghae stared down at me lovingly.

“B-but the police.” I said. “How did we get away?”

Donghae sighed, shooting me a somewhat smile. He got up from the bed, flicking on the dodgy looking TV across the room. He turned over to a news station, causing my jaw to drop.

There were overhead images of our car, speeding down the highway under a spotlight, followed by almost five police cars.

“Lee Donghae, wanted white-collar criminal, made an extraordinary escape from Korean police units last Wednesday night at eleven pm. The investigation into Lee’s involvement with a large scale banking fraud operation, run internationally, had been investigated for almost three years by a task force set up by the American FBI. Special Agent Choi Seunghyun, has been the head of the Lee case for the entire time, stating that they only had enough evidence to make an arrest on Lee after gathering newly accessible overseas account information, leading to several billion dollars missing from international bank firms, as a world wide scam operated by the individual.”

I sat there, wide eyed as Donghae carefully sat beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. I watched more footage of Donghae’s house, our house, up in flames with a reporter standing outside. The clip flashed to the chase again, followed by the crash. Everything looked like it was out of a movie.

It is believed Lee Hyukjae, a man living with Donghae, was involved in this incident. Police reported seeing Hyukjae taken hostage by Lee Donghae, before being forcibly thrown from three storeys through a window by the criminal. He was then held at gunpoint, being forced into the vehicle. Donghae made an attempt to outrun police cars, before an officer managed to shoot out the cars tire, after a chase of almost half an hour.”

It certainly didn’t seem like that long, but seeing the footage of the car flipping, made me turn away. I relived the horror, watching the news chopper capture it all.

“Once the car was thrown from the road, a shocking event followed, as what police believed be an accomplice in the crimes appeared on the scene, piloting an illegally owned chopper.”

“Oh my god…” I breathed. I watched the footage, wide eyed. Donghae pulled me from the wreck, right as a helicopter had shown up on the outskirts of the highway. Dropping to only a few metres above the ground, Donghae loaded what appeared to be my unconscious body onto the deck of the aircraft. Police continued to fire, hitting Donghae in the leg right as he jumped on. It made me feel sick watching the footage.

“It remains unknown who was piloting the chopper, but police are continuing their investigation into the whereabouts of Lee Donghae and Lee Hyukjae.”

“Your leg!” I said, turning to Donghae who shushed me, telling me to keep on watching.

“It grazed the skin.” He mumbled. “I’m fine.”

My eyes darted to his shin, which was wrapped in a clean white bandage.

“If you have any information on the whereabouts of either of the Korean males, please contact authorities immediately.”

 The photo on my ID was shown over the screen, right next to Donghae’s, making my stomach churn.

“Lee Donghae is believed to be armed, and dangerous. We’ll keep you updated on this story as it unravels.”

The reporter signed out, right as Donghae flicked off the TV once again, leaving me speechless.

I stared at him, a million