“You’re cut.”

          Jinah glanced at her right shoulder. The arrow had left a little mark, but it didn’t hurt at all. “Yeah, but it’s no big deal,” she told Sehun, putting her prized team jacket (which fortunately was not on her when the arrow incident happened) on her bed.

          “Lay can heal that in about two seconds,” Sehun remarked blandly. Although his sentence may seem like he was concerned, his tone monotonously screamed indifference.

          “It’s fine, really.”

          Luhan looked at her right shoulder intently. She frowned at him, but he continued to stare. She looked at the wound, then to Luhan, then back at the wound. It didn’t seem like a big deal. She wasn’t trying to act tough, it just really didn’t hurt. He came up to her and gingerly poked the injury. Jinah didn’t feel a thing, and when Luhan asked if it hurt, Jinah shook her head honestly, making Luhan sigh. “You need to go to Lay,” he said.

          Jinah rolled her eyes. She didn’t want the gang to think that she needed healing for a little cut. It would sting in the shower, but it would be bearable. A whole lot better than breaking ribs, Jinah thought to herself before insisting, “I told you, I’m fine. I can’t even feel it.”

          “That’s the problem.”

          “What?”

          “It’s a paralysis poison,” Luhan explained. “PREV-1174, most likely. If you leave it like that, you’ll die in your sleep. Painless at first, but wait till it reaches your respiratory system. Your heart will stop and you’ll die. Go to Lay now.”

          Jinah glanced at her tiny cut. It seemed like nothing. “How can you tell it’s PREV-1174 just by looking at it?” she asked out of curiosity. “Are you a poison expert or something?”

          “If you can’t feel it, it means it’s numb in that area. Whatever the case is, the fact that there’s a possibility of it being a paralysis poison exists, which means you need to go. PREV-1174 is the only possibility, assuming they used a legalized poison.”

          “What if it’s not?”

          “All the more you should go to Lay.”

          “But—”

          Luhan spun her around and grabbed her shoulders, careful not to touch the wound. He opened the door for her and pushed her forward, kicking her out of her own room. Even though it was just his hands on her shoulders and they weren’t that close together in terms of physical proximity, the interaction still set Jinah’s insides on mild fire. Holy crap, calm down, she told herself. He thinks nothing of it, so you should too.

          Outside, Lay was talking to Aheun, and Xiumin, Tao, D.O, and Baekhyun were all there too. When they heard Luhan and Jinah come out, they turned to look. Aheun’s smile faded a little and Xiumin looked irate. Baekhyun was holding in laughter while Tao and D.O had no reaction. Lay blinked once, but he quickly regained his smile. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

          “PREV-1174,” Luhan said simply. “I think. Minor, but this stubborn girl insists she’s fine.” At ‘girl’ Luhan poked Jinah’s head, making her glare at him and smack his hand. Then Luhan leaned in and muttered, “Let Lay explain to you all about poisons.”

          “Wha—”

          Xiumin cleared his throat. “You’re getting awfully touchy, leader. Surely it’s not to arouse jealousy on purpose?”

          Aheun lightened a little bit. Jealousy… for me? Would Luhan really think that much of me?

          Jinah, who was too dense to notice the slight change in emotions in Aheun, or to realize that Luhan was being a little more that than out of the ordinary, bluntly stated, “What do you mean jealousy? Who would be jealous of this pr—I mean,” Jinah racked her brain for the almost-forgotten, familiar word, “juck.” When Jinah first came to the base, the language was hard to adapt to. Hopefully dwelling slang might help her, Jinah thought.

          Aheun bit her lip. She had never really confessed to Luhan, although she made it very obvious. Jinah saying that no one liked Luhan made things harder for her, because then Luhan would use this as an excuse to act completely ignorant of her feelings, and Xiumin knew that too. Xiumin clenched his fists tightly, feeling a dangerous urge to break Jinah’s neck. However, Aheun didn’t hate Jinah. For the sake of harmony within the gang, she would peacefully find a way to confess to Luhan without conflicting anyone. But that would have to come later. For now, she had to focus on adjusting to the gang.

          “Lay, she’s poisoned,” Baekhyun reminded him. “You should go.”

          Lay nodded. He took her shoulders from Luhan. Although Lay was gentle, Jinah felt like a toy being tossed around, making her frown a little. While Lay took Jinah from Luhan, Luhan slipped a piece of paper into Lay’s hand furtively. Lay acted as if nothing had happened, despite feeling the note in his hand. He opened up the infirmary after inserting the password. Aheun gasped at the hidden room. She seemed a little more excited than Jinah when Jinah first saw the infirmary, but the gang didn’t respond to it. The thrill of seeing a Prix’s reaction was long gone. They had already seen Jinah’s subtle but definite fascination of the infirmary, the Headquarters, the training grounds, and others. They were lazy to even be careful with their language, as Chanyeol swore loudly at the TV.

          Lay closed the infirmary room up, leaving just him and Jinah inside. Jinah had seen the infirmary when she first came here, when Luhan was taken inside, but she had never actually been inside it. Now that she was, she felt a little cold in the gray room. “Is this where you do your healing?”

          “At ease, yes,” he said. “I can heal anywhere, really, including the training grounds, but I like it here best. I can stay focused. Calm. That’s when I do my healing best and happiest.”

          “Healing makes you happy?” Jinah asked as she got on the hard rock-bed, which Lay motioned her to get on. “Don’t you feel tired after? Why does doing something that makes you tired, happy?”

          “Sometimes. it’s just worth it,” he said simply as he gestured her to turn around. “I’m going to just rip the right shoulder part of your shirt, okay? We’ll buy you a new white shirt, but you know… I have to see the injury. Please don’t think badly of me. May I?”

          Ripping a shirt of hers to intentionally reveal skin to a male? Definitely not on Jinah’s to-do list, but neither was dying in her sleep knowingly. Besides, Lay wasn’t a shallow ert. She nodded in consent.

          “Sorry,” he apologized as he swiftly ripped the shirt, with much less thought than what his tone implied. “So,” he said, washing his hands in a nearby sink. “What do you like to do?”

          “Read,” Jinah replied without hesitation.

          “Ah, I heard Taeyeon’s voice message on the telephone. You took out books at one in the morning, and you probably read some of it after you returned to the base. Isn’t that tiring? Why do you read?”

          Jinah thought about it. She was tired, but she didn’t do it because she wanted to or to be happy; she read that late because she had to. She had no choice. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep—but she didn’t tell Lay this, because she didn’t think he’d understand the desperation to read, to learn. Not every Callidum girl seemed to realize the beauty of words, the enchanting stringing of them together to create meaning, an image—series of them together—while maintaining quality content, yet leaving just enough room for unique interpretations of every single reader. No one seemed to understand her love for reading, but she didn’t care.

          “I believe you had six records. One of them was from reading, was it not?”

          Suddenly, one particular memory popped into her head. ‘It doesn’t matter how much makeup you put on your face; you can’t attain true beauty unless you possess a loving, kind heart.’ She still remembered that quote. She risked a record for reading that, but then again, she never cared about being recorded, right?

          “Someday, you’ll learn that doing something good for others means so much that exhaustion is nothing but a little side-effect,” Lay told her. He dried his hands. “Though I am still learning that myself, to be frank. Anyways, I was wondering, at Callidum… did you have a lot of friends?”

          Friends? “No,” Jinah answered truthfully. “It wasn’t as big as Pacem or Caritatis, so everyone kind of knew each other, but I wasn’t close with many.”

          “Just Minjung?” Lay asked. Jinah nodded in response. “I see,” he said while starting up a healing circle.

           “Why?”

           Lay gave her a small smile. “Just wondering.”

          Before she could ask another question, she flinched as the healing circle invaded her shoulder area.

          “Huh, it actually is PREV-1174.” Lay glanced up at her for a moment to say: “Paralysis poison.” Then, his healing circle disappeared and he turned around to open one of the cabinets. He took out a swab and dipped it in some rubbing alcohol. Then he opened another and examined the several bottles of liquid inside it. “It works slow, but that also makes it dangerous. It’s unnoticeable. Fortunately they used a legal poison. If it wasn’t, I don’t know if I’d have the antidote…” he took out a small, clear bottle. “This works for most paralysis poison, especially PREV-1174. Chanyeol gets hit by it the most. He probably used half the bottle.”

          Jinah frowned at the little glass bottle. “That’s tiny. Don’t you run out really quickly?”

          Lay laughed. “Antidotes in DE are stronger than poison. A drop of this can remedy a whole bottle of paralysis poison,” he explained as he walked over to her. He cleansed the wound, and Jinah flinched at the stinging pain.

          “Wait a second,” Jinah said, coming up with a theory that she hoped wasn’t true. “You know the saying ‘too much of a good thing is never good,’ right? If a drop of that antidote can cleanly heal a whole bottle of paralysis poison, and my wound probably had very little poison, wouldn’t that mean—”

          Jinah bit her lip, but a cry escaped anyway. She shivered at the strange sensation. She felt chilled but really hot at the same time, and her feelings were in so much conflict. She gasped for breath. “Jack, Lay, what the—?!”

          “Sorry, I tried to put as little as possible,” Lay said sheepishly. “It’ll go away after five minutes. Let me bandage you up—you wouldn’t want to go out there like that, would you?”

          “Give me—a minute…”

          During the one minute break, Lay put all the supplies back and prepared the bandage. Jinah shook her head to bring her mental state back into control. She nodded at Lay, who bandaged up the wound.

          “I didn’t close it yet because the antidote needs to breathe. If it doesn’t, it’ll release the gaseous bubbles inside you, which could make you immune to the antidote, and that would be really bad.”

          Jinah frowned. “Then shouldn’t you not bandage me?”

          “Well you’re going to go shower, right? You’ll have to take it off then.”

          Jinah nodded in agreement. “Right.”

          “Go on first,” Lay told Jinah, opening the wall for her. “I think Aheun made something,” he concluded after sniffing the air once. Jinah thanked him with a smile as she walked out.

          As soon as she left, Lay closed the wall up again and took out the note from Luhan in the isolated room. “Tell Chen to bring the fingerprint identifier. Prix threat. No Jinah,” Lay murmured the note aloud to himself. He sighed. Haneul, he thought immediately. What a nostalgic name…

-----------------------------------------

A/N:

   One cliffhanger after another T_T sorry!! Hope you liked it anyway <3

-deardeerhan