Step Brothers || TXT X READER

🦋 Chapter 오십팔 🦋

Yeonjun's POV

My stomach lurches as I feel the vent give way beneath me.

We fell through the floor, and my shoulder collided with something hard. I couldn't even grip the surface to brace myself before I found myself on a downward angle, falling down a slide of some sort.

I held back my grunts of pain as we fell, the slide randomly taking sharp turns and growing steeper each time it resets as Soobin, and I were forced to succumb to its pattern.

"Yeonjun!" I heard Soobin shout, but the rushing air quickly swallowed the sound as we plunged into darkness.

Every collision hurt, each one more than the last; I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart raced in my chest as I did.

With a jarring thud, I land in a heap of something lumpy and wet.

I no longer was falling, but the world kept spinning as if I was still on my downwards descent.

I try to shake my head to gather my bearings and wince at the throbbing that immediately replaces my dizziness.

I try to sit up, but my body screams in protest at the sudden movement.

"Shit," I hiss as I force myself up despite the pain, sucking in jagged breaths of air through gritted teeth.

The smell of something acrid floods my senses and burns my nostrils.

"It smells like shit in here," I mutter to myself, bringing my arm up to bury my nose in my sleeve but then ripping it away with bewildered disgust when it's damp and reeks of decay.

I sit up entirely now, coughing and spitting out whatever I just inhaled while wiping furiously at my nose with my bare arm. Light filters through a vent of the opposite wall, revealing a grimy, cavernous space that looks like a garbage dump.

"where are we?" I mutter:

"Yeonjun?". Soobin's shaky voice cuts through the haze, and I turn to see him climbing out of a pile of junk, looking equally dishevelled and — dirty.

"I think we're in some kind of... garbage room?" I question, brushing debris off my clothes and sliding down from the heap I landed on.

He looks around the room and wrinkles his nose as the smell finally hits. "How lovely," he deadpans, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Isn't it? At least we're not dead," I reply back.

He dusts some debris off and tries to wipe something slimy out of his pants. "Yeah, but I'd prefer to be somewhere less...", he trails off and looks around the room, taking in its moist walls, sticky floors and bacteria-riddled air. "Unsanitary ."

I scoff and roll my eyes. "Well, we're in a literal garbage dump full of shit and grime, so I'm not really sure what level of sanitation you were expecting." I say it rudely, a biting tone coating my words, my anger misplaced.

"I'm not complaining," he frowns.

I ignore him and turn my attention back to the room, scanning for our exit.

There's a wall on the opposite door. I step towards it and immediately wince as pain explodes in my ankle. I drop to it and roll my pants leg up to look at it.

"Damn it! "I grit out, looking at the red and swollen joint.

"What's wrong?" Soobin asks, quickly coming to my side and dropping low to check on me.

I shake my head at him. "It's not a crazy injury, but it's definitely twisted, maybe even sprained," I grimace. I try to roll it and wince at how it throbs.

Soobin moves so that he's standing in front of me before he squats down with his hands behind him. "Do you want me to carry you?" he asks, wiggling his finger to show his readiness.

"Yah!" I yell, as I slap him in the back. He lets out a surprised and pained sound as he falls forward on his hands and knees.

"When did I say I couldn't walk? "I protest, but my ears warm, feeling weirdly embarrassed by the gesture.

He sits back in his heels and looks at me with big eyes. Why did you hit me!" He shouts indignantly. He wiggles and squirms awkardly as he tries to reach the spot of injury.

"That really hurt you know!".

I scoff and stand up before hobbling the first step over to the door.

"There's a door across from us; let's try it."

He cusses and grumbles about his breath and about something being unfair but follows after me.

As I approach the door, I hear Soobin muttering softly behind me, "You could've just said 'no thanks'."

I roll my eyes and focus my attention on the door. It looked heavy and grimy, but it looked like it might lead us somewhere better than this shit hole. I give it a firm push, lean my entire body weight on it when it doesnt't move.

I plant my feet and push agaisnt it until i feel the door move slowly with a loud creak.

A small hum comes from the door, and it begins to move, assisting me in opening it like an automatic door to reveal a dimly lit hallway.

Soobin comes to stand next to me and huffs when he looks down through the door. "Great, another dark corridor," he says sarcastically.

I take a step into the room, and one by one down the hall, white fluorescent lights flicker on and illuminate the hall.

"Motion-censored lights," I say aloud as I step into the room fully. The walls, ceiling, and floors were white. Surprisingly, the floors looked glossy, like they were polished until they shone, a stark contrast from the filthy, sticky floor a step back. It has a clinical atmosphere, and I could swear that I smelt rubbing alcohol.

"It looks like a backroom scene, but at least we actually have light," I say, relief flooding me.

"Yeah, but what if we run into something worse?" Soobin quips, shifting from foot to foot anxiously as he stares into the hall like he can see the danger 100 miles ahead. "Like, I don't know, another rabid human?"

Chills shoot down my spine when I recall the old man we fought, and I shake my head to avoid any images of him returning.

"I think the likelihood of us running into another one is higher in this dump than in this brightly lit hall."

Soobin looks back at the heaps of garbage and then back towards the hall. He lets out a whiny, miserable groan. "Why is this happening to me". He drags his hands over his face and massages his temples. "We don't even know where this hall leads."

I let out a sigh of my own and began down the hall. "There's only one way we will".

To be continued...

Super short but I guess I've returned lol