Chapter Text
Do not come. Seo Dan understood after some minutes of being hunched on the floor, her initial terror-spurred adrenaline flood having left her entire body shaking, that this was a trap for Gu Seung-Jun. A few low-voiced comments in Chinese, though her fluency was limited, indicated it. So, do not come, she thrust the thought out into the world, a directive toward him and also a plea – do not let him come – at any deity who might be attending.
Not that she expected him to come, exactly. He had his literal ticket to freedom, and he’d go. She was almost sure. The small part of her soul that thought ‘maybe not’ and thrilled to the repressed idea of him caring enough to miss that trip also tremored in fear that he would.
She wanted to mean so much to him that he would come. And he meant so much to her that she wanted him to not come. She had strange clarity about herself in these tense moments with a gun to her head.
There was no one else who could possibly have come for her. No one else even knew she was in this situation. So the ratchet and the following blast sounds of a shotgun propelled her heart into her throat in both ecstasy and anguish, because he was here, because he had come for her, and because his life would surely be forfeit. The threads of her affection for him garroted in about her heart, shredding into it.
Then, while her throat closed on itself in a way it had not when she had been the only one in danger, there he was. In her line-of-sight, and Dan had never seen anyone so beautiful. He was doing it, somehow; he’d aim the gun and fire and thug after thug would go down, again and again. She’d had no idea he was so good at this!
There and surely inevitably, but horribly, she saw his torso jerking involuntarily. He’d been struck. No no but still somehow he lunged into cover, then targeted and took out another enemy; he was a bleeding avenging angel more magnificent than any celestial being she’d seen depicted in those Russian cathedrals.
But after, after he’d done the impossible, there was one more shot, and it took him down. Pain arrowed through her chest as if she had been the one struck. No, no, no … the utterly pointless denial nevertheless screamed in her head. Suddenly free to move, Dan flew, as if she could save him – as if anything she did mattered.
Later she realized that it was strange that the ambulance was on the scene immediately. Later, she realized that it should have seemed odd that the EMT did not really do anything after strapping on oxygen and applying pressure to a shoulder and a leg wound; he did nothing for the torso hits that she'd seen and which must be the most dangerous ones. He did absolutely nothing else but sit there on his bench looking at her as she sobbed over Gu Seung-Jun. Bleeding out required pressure to stop the flow, an IV to replace the fluids ... Bullet wounds required clothing to be removed. Medications should have been drawn up into syringes. The man did none of this! But in the moment there was no logical thought process in Dan’s usually cool head; there was only pain and rage, utter anguish that the person she had had to let go of once already would not have his life. That they wouldn’t have that chance he’d asked her for.
Gu Seung-Jun fainted, lying there after she tried to explain how she felt and encourage him to stay with her. She thought he was dead. But still the EMT did not move to do anything, and when after long seconds Seo Dan leaned into Seung-Jun’s chest to beg him to live she suddenly felt his chest rising and falling. In that moment, her own stopped briefly. She held herself as still as she could, yearning to feel it again, and it came; he inhaled. He exhaled.
Joy flooded in to overwhelm her despair. The threads that had been strangling her heart eased, took on a luster they hadn’t had since he'd given her the ring that she wore.
Then the ambulance failed to go to the hospital. It stopped somewhere very quiet, and when its back doors opened the person standing there was not in any type of official clothing. He climbed in and offered a name and a title of Doctor, to which the EMT nodded while Seo Dan’s tapering tears turned to questions.
When Gu Seung-Jun coughed, Seo Dan grabbed for his hand and he turned his head on the ambulance stretcher, conscious. But the new man moved between them and began flicking a light into Gu Seung-Jun’s eyes, and she was too confused to push back. Her heart thumping, she watched as the person did an assessment that seemed more oriented to Seung-Jun’s head than his chest, where he’d been shot. That made no sense to her – he’d been hit in the chest! She heard something about ‘struck his head’ and pushed her way in to look, which the two reluctantly allowed.
“No”, Gu Seung-Jun breathed out carefully, “just pain. Aish, a lot of pain.”
Just pain? What about the visible blood? However, on closer look, there wasn’t any of that to be seen from Seung-Jun’s torso, where surely the most concerning hits had been.
The man with the penlight turned his attention to Seung-Jun’s leg, then his shoulder, which were bloody. He cut clothing away, cleansed and bandaged wounds, called something a ‘through-and-through’ and just like the EMT didn’t seem concerned about Seung-Jun’s chest or abdomen or whatever had been hit. Seo Dan was confused and getting angry, and she said so, and was ignored while the doctor told Gu Seung-Jun to sit up.
“No,” Seo Dan protested – surely that would only make him bleed more!
But Seung-Jun reached for her hand. “It’s all right,” he murmured, eyelids at half-mast, and so she supported him while he tilted upright and called the new person ‘doctor’ as if he knew for sure that was what he was.
Gu Seung-Jun needed help with his buttons. Seo Dan finally gained control of her own body, and slapped the hands of the doctor away and did it herself while Seung-Jun gazed at her with eyes that she couldn’t meet, right then. On the third shirt button down, the opening revealed a vest underneath.
A tactical vest. One meant for stopping bullets. Her breath left her in a rush as suddenly, she understood. Her eyes flew up to Seung-Jun's; he was watching her, alert behind the haze of pain, soft behind his defensiveness.
Dan had no words.
He was still injured. The leg and shoulder wounds were in areas that weren’t covered by the vest. The blood was real. The beginnings of multiple nasty bruises showed across his torso once the vest was off. After his assessment, the doctor (if Seung-Jun said he was, Dan supposed he must be) cleansed and wrapped the wounds and said there were at least two cracked ribs. He cautioned about internal bleeding and said, “You really should get imaging done.”
Seung-Jun looked at him, flat. The man sighed.
After making up a pack that included dressing and antiseptic materials, antibiotics, and analgesics, the doctor pressed it into Seo Dan’s hands and seated himself on the bench where she had been riding. She stood crowded into a corner and listened to his exchange with Seung-Jun. It was enlightening, horrifying, comforting – she felt more emotions in the course of 10 minutes than she’d felt over the past week.
It was all arrangements. The bodies they’d left behind were being burned as they spoke and any remains would be buried. Other things were said that Dan didn’t really register: it was complicated. She wondered how Seung-Jun had paid for all of this.
And she also slowly realized, listening, that the identity ‘Gu Seung-Ju’ was dead. She wondered what his real name – or his birth name - was. She wondered if he would ever tell it to her.
Finally, the doctor exited the ambulance and left. Seung-Jun (for she had no other way to call him) stood, swayed; Dan slid her shoulder under his to stabilize him. He was getting out. She and the EMT helped him climb down. They were on a long dirt driveway which was screened by trees on all sides; at one end of it was a gate which opened onto a strip of dirt road. At the other end was a shack that had an uninhabited look to it. Seung-Jun moved toward it, wincing; Seo Dan stayed under his arm.
Inside was dust, a few pieces of furniture, some kitchen equipment, a cupboard and a sink. Not much else. After finding and shaking out some dusty bedding, Dan assisted Seung-Jun down onto the floor. He winced at every movement and looked exhausted.
Gentle care of others was not Seo Dan’s forte. Nevertheless, wordlessly, she covered him, then found a few tumblers in a cupboard, ran the water from the tap until it looked less rusty, and brought Seung-Jun the pain and antibiotic pills. He swallowed them. She sat at the edge of his covers and stared at him, listening to his shallow pained breaths, until he fell asleep.
Then, when he was unable to see it, she fell apart – tearfully and silently, curling into herself there on the border of the blanket under which this man she … she … cared for ... slept.
Dan was utterly spent emotionally and physically, and soon she slept too.
The light from outside was fading when Dan awoke, which she did slowly. Muscles she wasn’t generally aware of ached. She was no longer curled up at Seung-Jun’s feet, either. They had both moved in their sleep; she upward, he downward and sideways, until the crown of her head was near his chin. All his limbs were shrouded in the blanket; even with her coat, Seo Dan felt cold, and groggy. She braced her arms to rise; but as she lifted her chin Seung-Jun’s face entered her view, and he was watching her.
Awake and watching her with soft eyes.
A frisson went through her soul and she stilled. He didn’t move for long moments, either, until she felt the brush of his hand against her cheek. It stroked her unbound hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear, then lingering along the pinna and the lobe. Seo Dan swallowed, her heart suddenly thumping loudly. The space was so silent. Surely he could hear that telltale sign of her emotions.
Make that, feel it. For he pressed his floorward arm underneath her till with his other she was embraced, held gently.
“Yah,” he murmured into the ear he’d just caressed, “how can you sleep this soundly next to a conman?”
Seo Dan closed her eyes, but this only displaced the betraying tears standing on her lower lids; they tracked down alongside her nose to drip onto the bedding. “So reckless,” he sighed, and at this Seo Dan pulled back, balling a fist but at the last moment pulling what would have been a strike at his shoulder, remembering his injuries.
“Reckless?” she choked out. “Who’s the reckless one? You – you –“ flashes of recollection battered her mind’s vision, suddenly, of what he’d done. For her. To save her.
She’d done enough crying today, really, but it seemed there was more inside her and she suddenly couldn’t keep it there. It came out, as she hunched her chin down and her shoulders began to shake. She hid her face. In his chest. Carefully.
He held her, and patted her, and when after a time he spoke she heard creaking tears in his voice, too, which somehow made her feel better about her own breakdown.
“I didn’t ask,” he rasped, “But you’re OK? Completely OK?”
That sheer idiocy gave her the strength to pull away from him – gently – and sit up. She glared down at him. “You fool. I’m not the one who got hit by dozens of bullets!”
He didn’t attempt to get up, but he did offer that sideways smile that had squeezed her heart the first time she’d seen it.
Today, her heart could not take any more squeezing. She could feel those gold threads inside, wrapping around each other, finding patterns, forming a thicker weave. It felt beautiful. And scary. Because he still, as soon as possible, needed to leave. To get to safety.
“’Dozens’? Only a few, surely.” The beginnings of a laugh eked out, to stop abruptly on a wheeze of pain. Seo Dan frowned, heavily.
“I’m fine,” she told him shortly, and rose to her feet. “I’m hungry,” she realized. “And you should eat if you want to recover.”
He didn’t try to get up, a testament, she thought, to how much pain he was having even with the meds on board. “Look around,” he told her, “Doctor Woo should have left a few days’ supplies here.”
She found them quickly enough, in a corner of the cupboard, and after lighting a lantern and getting the stove fire going she fixed the simple meal. It was plain traveler’s fare but she ate it voraciously and with gratitude. Gu Seung-Jun, not so; he ate small bites, taking long to chew and swallow. He eventually pushed away the platter, which still held most of his meal.
“No,” Seo Dan said firmly, and pushed it back. “Eat it all.”
He narrowed his foggy gaze at her, seeming to judge how worthwhile a fight might be. But in the end, he finished everything.
They were in the little shack for two days and part of a third. On the first day Gu Seung-Jun slept large parts of this time. Seo Dan left twice to call her mother and make plausible excuses for not being at home. She did what she could for Seung-Jun; she would never make a good nurse, she had neither the compassion nor the patience. But she tried. When she made rice porridge this time she was careful about the salt: his wicked eyes danced at her before he took the first bite, but he just nodded thoughtfully after it.
The times he was asleep were the worst. Dan knew she was soon to lose him, so she wanted this period to stretch on and on; but also, every moment he stayed in the country he was in danger. There were few noises from outside in this secluded area but she tensed at those few. She wanted Seung-Jun to stay with her, and she wanted him away to safety, and when he was asleep those desires went around and around inside, making a mess of that inner golden tapestry of her care for him.
By the following afternoon, Gu Seung-Jun’s wounds had stopped bleeding when his dressings were changed. He was standing, walking around, and sitting, albeit slowly and with wincing. The next morning Dr. Woo returned, bringing more supplies, Gu Seung-Jun’s suitcase, and envelopes that were apparently for Gu Seung-Jun’s eyes only. There was also a change of clothing for Seo Dan; she had scrubbed what she could of the blood from what she’d been wearing, but had no way to get it completely out. She was very grateful to get it off and something clean on, no matter the cheap weave or provincial cut of the blouse and skirt. Back in the shack’s main room Seo Dan listened only enough to hear that the CEO had made arrangements, at a very high cost, to get Seung-Jun out of the country and he was scheduled for another flight.
Her chest squeezed in as this was being said and she rose to exit the little shack. She didn’t want to hear the rest. Dr. Woo was handing a second packet to Seung-Jun as she left, and watching her exit with a questioning look. He said something to the injured man; Seo Dan only heard Seung-Jun say, “tell her later.”
She wouldn’t want to hear later, either.
Outside, she built a tiny fire, ripped up her old clothes, and burned the pieces one at a time. Eventually Dr. Woo left, sending her a nod but making no attempt to speak with her. She went back indoors reluctantly, seeing Seung-Jun gathering the small suitcase and adding to it the supplies the doctor had brought. The paper packets weren’t in sight.
It was time for him to go. The gangsters were dead, but news would have reached their boss by now and likely the people who'd hired them.
Seo Dan told herself she’d sent him off once, and she could do it again.