Deranged Love - Hanma Shuji

Chapter 11

So he stepped inside.

Of course he had to lean on me right when he shuffled in, half his weight on me while he balanced the rest himself. There was no way I could bring his heavy, bloodied body upstairs, so I sat him on my couch and while still dressed for my night out, I hurried upstairs to get a few towels, only taking time to throw my shoes and gloves on the floor of my bedroom. When I arrived back downstairs, I placed the towels on the back of the couch and hurried to the kitchen to get the safety kit from the top of the shelf; with the alcohol slowly leaving my system, I realized how much my foot hurt when I got on my toes to get the box and the pain made itself known.

The bleeding man on the couch made me forget about it after a few seconds as I made my way back to him and grabbed the towels again before moving in front of the couch. When I saw him laying down, with his head on the arm of the couch and his feet dangling at the end from how tall he was, I patted his chest, "Lift yourself, you're not bleeding on my couch." I ordered, waiting for him to move.

He didn't.

I waited a moment and he didn't even stir.

"Hanma, please sit up." I said a bit more sternly this time, a bit of despair starting to mix in with my seriousness. He did not budge at all, and if the blood pouring through his fingers from the wound on his side wasn't enough to worry me, his lack of response did.

Placing my hand under him, I lifted him enough to slide the towel under him, grunting at how heavy he was when uncooperative. Thinking he was playing with me, I scoffed, "I did it myself, you can stop being childish and open your eyes, Shuji." I tried to meet his gaze, he was bound to look at me at some point, right? A few moments passed and he didn't say anything. I let out a distressed laugh and focused back on his wound, "Fine, be stubborn. I think the pain of me digging in your wound will make you react for sure." Once more, I thought he'd make a comment, maybe rest his hand on my shoulder while mocking me but still be sort of sweet, instead there was a dead silence. I knew the man loved hearing himself talk, and suddenly being in the same room as him without any word coming from him made everything a lot more dull and morose.

I needed to take care of him, even if I was no nurse and I didn't know what I could do except get the bullet out. I let out a laugh at the thought while taking the scissors from the box and cutting his shirt to get the fabric out of the wound and out of the way. "I'm drunk and on edge, can't promise I won't throw up when the blood starts gushing from your wound, okay?" Making small talk helped me feel less opressed from the silence—even if he wasn't answering, it helped me a little bit. Blinking slowly, I felt my head spinning slightly when I knelt by the couch and moved the box from the table to the ground next to me. I took a few seconds to settle then grabbed the tweezers, ready to do the job; the dim light wasn't enough for me to see anything, so with a sigh I put it down and turned on a brighter light before going back to what I was doing.

This time I could see clearly the hole on his side and the bullet nested in the flesh. Seeing it was gruesome enough, but when I took the bottle of disinfectant and poured some on the wound, I shivered in disgust, knowing full well how much it hurt. Hanma stirred at that, but didn't open his eyes, his right arm crossed over his chest while the other tangled from the couch—which I moved to his chest quickly. "The things we do for... the things we do, huh?" I said with a short laugh. When I leaned in to get a closer look at the wound, I caught a whiff of the strong metallic stench of blood and felt nauseous, almost gagging from it. Looking up, I closed my mouth tight and paused everything to hold back from throwing up, "I think I'd rather you'd gotten stabbed than shot, I wouldn't have had to go full speleologist on you if that were the case." I truly believed making jokes would help, so I kept talking while I dug the tweezers inside the wound.