far from you | oneus

eighteen. 30-08-20

Everything was moving so fast his vision froze into frames.

The gun, barrel pressed into Leedo's head. Park Jihwan's face, sweaty from the exertion.

He wasn't going to lose another member to that man.

Within five seconds he'd taken off across the room, grappling for the gun, distracting Park Jihwan for just long enough for Leedo to slip out from his chokehold.

And in the next five seconds, all he registered was the residual ringing left in his ears from the echoing bang of a fired gun.

"Seoho hyung!"

He was falling, without knowing why he was falling. Then, there was nothing.

─

"Press the bell, quick! Get the doctor here," Ravn nudged Keonhee, pointing to the call bell. "The nurse said to get them in here the minute he wakes up."

"Is he alive?" Xion asked, sitting up from his bed about a metre away.

"No shit he's alive his eyes are open?"

"I can't see his eyes, you're blocking me genius-"

Seoho's eyes opened, fluttering softly like his consciousness wasn't complete yet. It had been almost 48 hours since his surgery.

Dr Ju opened the door softly, coming over to Seoho's bedside to check on his heart monitor. "Condition stable, vitals are normal. Has he spoken since he awoke?"

"He has not," Seoho interjected softly, his throat raw after the intubation they'd had to do on the ambulance journey after he'd stopped breathing. "But he's speaking now, if that helps."

Dr Ju smiled, noting something down on his tablet before looking back up. "I'll have the nurse in to change your dressings soon, avoid moving too much if you don't have to, okay? Let's give your wounds a while to heal up properly."

The doctor left quietly afterwards, having already checked on Xion earlier in the day.

"How long has it been?" Seoho asked, rubbing at his eyes with his right hand, after realising his left hand was still tethered to an IV drip. "Since everything happened, I mean."

"It's been two days, give or take," Ravn answered. "How was your nap?"

"Interesting, that's for sure. You don't usually wake up from naps with an extra hole in your body."

The atmosphere in the room lightened as they broke into soft laughter. And with that, the last worry the boys had hanging over them was dissolved. Seoho was going to be okay, and Xion was already recovering. Everything would be fine in the end, despite whatever had happened.

Park Jihwan had been discharged from the hospital after he'd sufficiently recovered from the bullet wound in his leg from the police. Immediately after, he'd been taken into police custody, where he'd be kept until the time came for his trial, where, with the top dog of Seoul's best law firm representing Xion and his mother's case against him, he would surely be sealed away in the darkest prisons where even the birds couldn't drop their feathers on him.

"I was afraid," she said, Xion's hand in hers, her shoulders shaking from the effort of keeping her sobs silent. "I was always afraid. I let you down for so many years, Dongju, your mother's very sorry for everything..."

"Mom, don't do this," he said quickly, siting up in his hospital bed. "I'll never blame you, you know that. You saw what he did to us. If you tried to escape, he would have killed us both. Don't be sorry."

"But I have to be," she said, not pitifully, but simply as if she was speaking the truth. "Your birth father was a beautiful person. Jihwan was a monster. I should never have married him. It's still my fault you and Dongmyeong ever had to live through this hell."

"You wouldn't have known, Mom. Stop blaming yourself for his mistakes. You don't need to take responsibility for him being a shit person."

"I know, Dongju. I love you so much."

"I love you, Mom. Don't cry anymore, okay? I'm here."

"There's only one thing in this world I ever did against his wishes and got away with, you know," she continued, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "Other than you, it is the thing I am most proud of in this world."

"What is it?"

"When you're out of the hospital, I'll take you there."

─

happy ending?

he deserves it.