The instant Sojin extended her arm, the man let out another growl and then, without warning, lunged towards her. She fell back, her head colliding with the wooden floor. Before she could get back up, he was on top of her, snarling like a wild animal. Sojin let out a sharp gasp and attempted to squirm away from him, but he quickly pinned her arms to her sides and continued with his snarls, grunts, and growls.

Sojin tried her best to free herself—by thrashing her body, kicking her legs in every direction possible, screaming for him to let her go—but her attempts ultimately failed and she was left devoid of energy and motivation. She slowed her movements to a gradual halt, expecting the man to realize she no longer wished to fight and release her arms, but he did the complete opposite and actually tightened his grip. She realized then that she needed to try something different, because all of her past attempts to reason with him failed miserably.

“I’m sorry.” Sojin managed to slip out after a while, deciding that she would try to talk it out, though she doubted it would work. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Nothing changed.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

Silence.

“I just wanted to help you.”

Upon hearing these words, the man’s facial expression softened slightly and she felt his grip on her wrists ease. She couldn’t believe that words, out of everything else, had actually worked.

“I want to help you.” She inhaled sharply, scanning her eyes over his face to see his drastic change in expression. This gave her motivation to continue speaking.  “Let me help you.”

The man released his grip on her wrists and slowly, hesitantly, crawled in reverse back into the corner where she originally found him. He seemed much less threatening now, and he’d ceased his animal-like behavior, which meant that her tactic worked; she’d managed to tame the beast-like man with words rather than violence.

After taking a moment to relax and compose her emotions, Sojin carefully sat up, rubbing her sore, reddened wrists. She hesitantly raised her head to gaze at the man, who, once again, huddled in the corner, knees tucked to his chest. This time, however, he did not cover his face and instead stared at her with a look of confusion, bewilderment, and awe. It broke her heart to think about how badly the man had been treated to be so shocked to have someone help him.

With much hesitation, so she didn't startle him again, she scooted closer, stopping when she could easily reach out and touch him. She scanned his face for any sign of aggression before raising her arm and slowly moving it towards his closest arm. Checking once more for any change of expression or emotions, she then wrapped her hand around his wrist. He tried to pull away at first, but after Sojin reassured she wouldn't hurt him, he relaxed. She then, ever so slowly and cautiously, brought it closer for inspection.

"You're lucky none of these shards happened to sever any arteries." She commented. "I could remove them myself, but I really think it should take you to the hospital."

He gave her a sudden look of desperation and shook his head rapidly.

"No? Why?"

He said nothing.

"Why don't you want to go? Are you scared?"

Nothing.

"Can't you talk?"

Again, nothing.

"You can't?" She asked with a single eyebrow raised. It seemed strange that a man of his age was unable to speak. "You can't, or you won't?"

She waited for him to shake or nod his head, but instead he simply looked to the floor, as if it'd answer for him.

"Okay, okay. So you can't talk..." She mumbled, realizing that the situation would be much harder than she originally thought. "But you can understand me, right?"

He nodded hesitantly.

"Okay... I can work with that." She mumbled in response before speaking directly to him. "If I were to ask you 'yes' or 'no' questions, would you be willing to shake or nod your head in response?"

He did nothing for a moment, as if he was pondering how to answer, before he raised and lowered his shoulders in a slight shrug.

"I'm going to assume that was a yes." Sojin commented and then returned her attention to the wounded arm that she held. "We're you in an accident? Is that where you got these injuries?"

He shook his head.

"Did you break a window?"

He hesitated for a moment, likely pondering the question, but eventually shook his head again.

"Were you trapped somewhere and broke glass in an attempt to escape?" She went out on a limb for her last question, expecting the answer to be the same as the previous two. However, when she saw his head slowly nod, she was dumbfounded. That was the most outrageous scenario she could think of, and yet it was the one that he’d chosen to be correct.

“Really? I wasn’t even being serious though…” Her voice trailed off towards the end of her statement, and she slowly began to piece together the situation: the man was trapped somewhere by something or someone, and he broke something made of glass in order to escape. She didn’t know whether he succeeded, but from how old the wounds were she assumed that he did not escape right away.

She cleared and, once again, refocused on his injuries. “Even though you should really go to the hospital, I won’t force you. I think I’ve got everything at hand to clean your wounds here.” She paused, took a deep breath, put on her serious face, and then continued. “But first, I should ask you some questions: Have you lost, or are you beginning to lose feeling in either arm?”

He shook his head.

“When you move your arms, is there any intense pain? Does it throb?”

The same answer; no.

“If you touch around the wound, is it unusually warm? Have you noticed any swelling around the wounds? Or any fluid, aside from blood, leaking from the wound?”

Another no. She was relieved, as that meant his wounds were not infected, nor would she have to perform surgery. All she’d have to do was remove the shards, clean it thoroughly, and stitch it if necessary.

“These look old, and yet there are no infections. You’re lucky.” Sojin commented, and then dropped his arm, quickly standing to gather the items she needed: gauze, her stitching kit, a towel or two, antiseptic, antibiotic cream, tweezers and bandages.

Once she gathered those things, she hurried to the man’s side, and set everything up on the floor next to him. She grasped the tweezers with one hand, and with the other she gently grasped his wrist, once again bringing it closer. Sojin then warned the man that he would feel pain when she pulled the glass out of his arm, but that he should refrain from making any sudden movements or trying to pull his arm away, as that could result in more damage to the wounds.

After removing the glass from both arms, she disinfected the wounds, dabbed a bit of antiseptic ointment on each, and then wrapped each arm, from his wrist to his elbow, with a roller gauze.

“All done~” Sojin cooed as she let go of his arm. As she brought her eyes up towards his face, she noticed his eyes on her, and she inadvertently met his stare. She didn’t notice him staring at her before, but that was likely because all her focus was on properly dressing his wounds. He’d stared at her before, but his expression was radically different this time; she did not feel intimidated, nor even the slightest bit afraid. His expression was that of awe, shock, confusion, and admiration combined. It seemed that he hadn’t been exposed to compassion or kindness in a very long time, and, once again, the thought broke Sojin’s heart.

After a while, she broke the thick silence as she cleared . “By the way... I meant to ask this before, but how did you get in here? I didn’t hear you break anything.”

A few moments passed before he slowly raised his arm, his index finger outstretched, pointing forward through the dining room and into the front hall. She looked in the direction he pointed and realized that her front door was wide open, the deadbolt completely in tact. It took her a moment to piece everything together, and when she did a loud gasp escaped her lips.

“I left the door unlocked!” She turned her head once again in his direction. “And you… you just let yourself in.” Sojin let out of sigh of frustration, smacking the palm of her hand against her forehead in disbelief. “Of course I, of all people, would do something like that. It’s just like me, you know. I’m a scatterbrain, always--” After watching his change of expression, she cut her statement short. He looked like he was having a hard time keeping up with her fast-paced way of speaking, so she decided it would be best to stop while she was ahead, rather than having to repeat herself.

Clearing once more, Sojin abruptly stood and exited the room to shut, and lock, the front door. After doing so, she re-entered, first glancing at her wrist, which usually wore a watch, before trailing her eyes around the room, in search for anything that would tell her the time. In the end, she found nothing; not even a single clock. Therefore, she brought her eyes back to the man in the corner and announced, “I’ll be right back,” before she scurried out of the room, and dashed up to her bedroom where her phone laid, charging, on the nightstand. She tapped the screen lightly to wake it up, and then read the time displayed: 3:30 in the morning. The woman let out a sigh, knowing that she wouldn’t be sleeping any more that night and even though she really needed to go to work later on that morning, she would call in sick, for obvious reasons.

Reluctantly, Sojin made her way back to the dining room, where the man continued to sit, unmoved. At first it didn’t seem he noticed when she entered the room, but he soon raised his head to gaze at her, his face bearing a slightly more eager expression, thought it was overall the same as the one she remembered.

“You don’t have anywhere else to go, right?”

He nodded his head.

Sojin sighed. “You can stay here tonight, in my brother’s room. I’ll find somewhere else for you to go tomorrow.” With that, she her heels and expected him to follow as she made her way, but she heard nothing. Therefore, she ce more, only to find that he hadn’t moved a muscle. Whether he hadn’t heard her, or he chose to ignore her, she was unsure, nor did she care. She approached him once again, kneeling before him as she originally had. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. Just follow me and I’ll show you where you can sleep tonight.” She took a deep breath and met his gaze, her eyes hopefully expressed the same sincerity as in her voice. “You can trust me. I’m not a bad person; I’ll protect you.”