He stares at his phone where it lies abandoned out of his reach, almost as if mid-topple into a drain.

Everything hurts too much for him to move.

Pain jolts up his backbone whenever he tries to, and the only way it stops hurting is if he presses his body into the floor.

Like grovelling. Like begging for water. Like animal.

At first he considers waiting, but its not long after that he realizes no one even passes by the alley. He’s not quite sure if it’s a blessing or a curse. The fiery pain takes over his entire consciousness, and time passes like slowly-leaking water.

Sanghyuk starts crawling towards his phone, because it’s at least more valuable than he is, and it hurts so much he can’t breathe. The ground is wickedly slick with black water and loose gravel so he can’t get a proper grip with his shoes. It might be ten, fifteen minutes, before he gets to his phone.

But by the time he gets there, the survival instinct kicks in and the pain ebbs away. There is a horrible pain in his stomach still, but he can straighten up enough to get himself on his feet. He knows there are times when the pain gets so excruciating that your body shuts down. After all, he’s pretty damned close to passing out. His thumb hovers over his contact button and he’s on the verge of calling someone – anyone, when he looks down at himself.

His white jacket stained black, his denim jeans wearing thin at the knees; he doesn’t want anyone to see him like this. Not when he’s spent so much time asking for help. It’s important to him.

This time, he’s going to get himself home.        

***

He tenses every muscle in his body throughout the twenty minute walk. Realistically it should have taken him five – but every two minutes he has to catch his breath on the sidewalk, cowardly dodging everyone else trying to make their own way home in small flinches. His throat gets more sore increasingly, and the coughing to get the blood out of his throat makes him want to give up every single time.

But slowly, no matter how unsurely, he finds himself in the corridor outside the house, teeth clenching on his tongue to keep himself from screaming out with every step.

The adrenaline has completely wore off, leaving only a powerful cramping in all of his limbs, his stomach, his throat. His fingers almost shake hard enough that he can’t key the combination on the lock. He doesn’t even care anymore that Jaehwan might be behind him, or maybe some other hoodlum looking to take advantage of how beaten down he looks right now – blood running down his face, coughing his lungs dry. He’s just exhausted. He’s too tired to bother. After a while, every injury mixes together anyway.

But the fear doesn’t hit him until the door is closed.

His mind hadn’t even known how much fear his heart had been in until he collapses onto the floor. Sanghyuk peels off his jacket, fingers running down his torso to see if he has broken anything. There’s a spot in his right side that feels tender.

The words carved into his left hipbone are graced by a new background of blue, as if it wasn’t already ugly enough to begin with. His whole body is blooming with bruises by the time he gets himself to the bathroom to wipe off the blood. The panic shakes through him like a storm and his sweaty, trembling palms manage to knock off a few bottles from the sink shelf. Sanghyuk tries to clean up the mess but he physically can’t, he’s in so much pain. When he bends down to try and pick a bottle up, his stomach heaves and he doubles over, hands useless to try and stop his own fall.

The sun is almost setting outside when Sanghyuk assumes a foetal position on the bathroom tiles, hands hugging his stomach and his face finding some refuge against the cool floor. Then at some point, because there’s no one to watch how scared he can be, the tears come.

***                                                                                     

It’s 6pm when Hongbin returns home.

“Hyuk?” Hongbin puts his things down on the kitchen table – Sanghyuk wakes up to the thud of camera on wood. “Sanghyuk-ah.”

When Sanghyuk doesn’t reply, Hongbin starts to look through the rooms. It feels like an eternity by the time Hongbin finds him in the bathroom.

“Oh my god.” Hongbin crouches down, saying in a worry-laced voice. “Are you okay?”

Sanghyuk nods weakly and as he blinks, a stray tear falls onto the floor even though he thought he had already stopped crying.

“Oh no, oh no, please don’t cry. What was it? Was it – Was it a flashback? Or, or, what was it?” Hongbin sits down next to him, fingers taking on an anxious twitch.  “Hey, are you okay?”

Sanghyuk curls up even tighter and whimpers.

“Please talk to me. Please.” Hongbin says softly, firmly placing a hand on Sanghyuk’s ankle. “Or should we get out of here first so we can talk properly?”

Sanghyuk nods and Hongbin gets to his feet, turning to walk out of the bathroom. But when Sanghyuk doesn’t follow, instead replaced by a cry, Hongbin stops in his tracks.

“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” Hongbin bends down again. “Are you in pain?”

Sanghyuk moves to get to his feet again but everything is so sore that he can’t sit up right.

“Okay, okay,” Hongbin gets closer to him. “I’m going to help you up, okay? Don’t panic.”

The next thing Sanghyuk knows, he’s being picked up, and the sudden movement of everything moving at once makes him scream. Hongbin quickly looks at him, to tell him to bear with it for a bit more, to hang in there – but the bruises on Sanghyuk’s neck are so prominent that Hongbin comes to a still, eyes wide.  

“What in the hell happened?”                                       

Sanghyuk doesn’t open his eyes that are screwed shut, but can’t bring himself to brace the pain of tumbling out of Hongbin’s arms. He feels himself getting put gently down on the couch, his hands pushed away by Hongbin’s when he moves to cover his neck. He hasn’t seen it since an hour ago when he was washing his face, but he reckons it must look pretty disgusting.

“What happened?” Hongbin doesn’t sound like he’s angry at Sanghyuk even though his voice is. “Who did this?”

Sanghyuk tightens his grip on the hem of his shirt as the pain dulls again into a soft throb.

“Sorry, I –” His voice comes out as a croak. “Water, first. Please?”                      

Hongbin gives a curt nod and returns from the kitchen with a whole bottle of cold water.

The ice in the bottle ring out against the plastic as Sanghyuk chugs it down despite the fire. It feels like there are literal open wounds on the inside of his throat.

“Is it painful to talk?” Hongbin asks worriedly, brows furrowed.                      

Sanghyuk shakes his head, then nods, then shakes his head again. “Does it look bad?”

“Does it look bad?” Hongbin says incredulously. “What the , it looks like someone tried to murder you, Hyuk-ah. How did you –”

“I’m okay,” Sanghyuk bites the inside of his cheek. “I’ve been strangled worse. I think.”

“That’s not comforting at all. And it’s not even funny.” Hongbin deadpans. “Who did this?”

Sanghyuk’s mind races. He doesn’t want to rat Jaehwan out – Jaehwan’s already having a really hard time; but Hongbin will ask, and he will keep asking until Sanghyuk has to tell him. Then things will be messy. And Sanghyuk doesn’t want to lie: not to someone who has provided him with everything he could have possibly needed. But to protect Jaehwan –

“I –” Sanghyuk stutters. “I don’t know. I didn’t see his face.”             

“Why would someone do this to you?” Hongbin turns Sanghyuk’s face slightly to get a better view of his neck. “What kind of psycho –”

“I’m okay, hyung. I just – I just maybe need some painkillers. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“And your face, oh my god – Did he hit you?” Hongbin frowns with his whole face. “You know what, we should take this to the police.”

“No.” Sanghyuk protests. “No, no I don’t want to do that – Please, hyung, no, we really shouldn’t. I really don’t want to do that.”

“Okay, okay,” Hongbin interrupts. “Just don’t move for now, okay? I’ll get you some ice.”

Hongbin gets back with a pack of frozen peas and an icepack.

Then Sanghyuk says, “I think I might need a little bit more than that.”, and lifts up his shirt.

“What the mother–” Hongbin’s fists tighten.

Sanghyuk winces. “And I maybe, may have, not sure, broke a rib.”