Pirate King - Ateez x original female character

Chp 9: Answer

TW: mentions of violence, descriptions of violence and torture

"Hongjoong... will you help me with her, please...?" Wooyoung wasn't the most mentally strong out of us, but he was the only doctor. That meant that there were times he had to keep it together, even when he felt like falling apart. The desperate look in his eye, and the way his voice cracked at the end of his words told me this was one of those times. But we needed him. Seonghwa needed him.

"I can but... I don't think she'll want me to be there..." I said softly. I didn't particularly want to see her either. However, after what we went through to save her, I wasn't going to let her rot. Which is what she had been doing for the last three days. She had been curled up in the corner of her quarters, unmoving. She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't drink, and would barely let anyone touch her. We had no idea if she was injured, or what the extent of her injuries would be.

Wooyoung shook his head softly, "I don't think that will be a problem anymore... She's basically catatonic. I just need you there for me really... I can't do all of this alone," his voice cracked again., "I couldn't ask any of the others..."

I knew what he meant without him saying. The rest of the crew was a wreck. Barely functional. Wooyoung and I functioned out of necessity, "Okay Woo... tell me what you need."

He led me to the room she was holed up in. i hadn't seen her since the day we went back for her. I smelled her before I saw her. The sharp metallic smell of blood mixed with the sickly sweet smell of rot hung in the air. It was honestly nauseating. She was sat in the corner, legs pulled up to her chest. She was covered in old, dry blood. On her face, her hair, her hands, caked under her nails. I had no idea how much of it was hers, Seonghwa's, or otherwise. She was generally just dirty as well, I assumed from her imprisonment. Her eyes were unfocused as she stared through the walls. Her eyes and nose were red, her lips cracked and bloody.

"We need to get her to the bathroom... before i can treat any injuries she might have i need her clean, she's begging for an infection like this, if she doesn't already have one..." wooyoung trailed off.

I put a hand on his shoulder and approached her slowly, when I realized how out of it she was I scooped her up in my arms. There was no worry about her freaking out because she recognized me. I set her gently down on the counter in the bathroom. Wooyoung, as respectfully as possible, began peeling her filthy clothes off of her.

"Will you run the water in the bath... to warm it up," he asked me, his hands gently moving her to find any open wounds. I think he quickly realized that to see the extent of anything she would need to be clean. So shortly after I had the water at just above lukewarm he moved her under the stream, setting her down in the bath. The water that ran off on her was so dark it was almost black. I turned around, I didn't want to know. I stayed in the room however, for Wooyoung's sake.

—

I felt sick. Watching the water run black off of her made me sick. I turned to find Hongjoong facing the door. Most likely for her privacy, and the fact that he probably felt as sick as I did. The guilt pressed into me. I hadn't had time to fight with her to treat her so I let her sit in that corner and rot. I had been so busy keeping seonghwa alive I let her get like this, I forgot about her, ignored her. I don't know when i had started crying exactly, just that my vision got blurry. A choked sob found itself out of my throat.

"Wooyoung.. Stop it, you are just one person. One of the others-I should have handled her... this isn't your fault." Hongjoong always knew when I was getting in my head, and always knew the right thing to say.

"Thank you..."

Once she was clean I was able to assess the damage. She still hadn't spoken or even really acknowledged my presence. There were no life threatening wounds on her, most of the blood wasn't hers. It was clear however that her 'interrogation' as the paper had called it was probably more like torture. Her back was bruised in thin strips, some splitting and scabbing, she was whipped or caned. She had bruises around both wrists and ankles. On her right hand she was missing three fingernails. I felt sick again.