Protecting What We Have: A Tale Of Friendship

Who's to blame?

Daeshim was internally freaking out, the sight of Daehyun hurt and bleeding was nauseating, to say the least, but he knew he had to snap out of it. He'll break and panic at some point, that is for sure! But... he'll postpone it until after making sure their Dae had the proper care he needed. Everything else will be dealt with later on!

He was thankful for every Deity and God he's ever believed in when his voice didn't waver, and when he could formulate his instructions clearly and think rationally in a situation like that! He needed to let his feelings and the growing pain in his guts at bay until he figured out what was going to happen. And that was exactly what he did. With Hajoon's help, he managed to remove the hook thing from the ceiling, noticing that even when unconscious and unmoving Daehyun felt light, too light for his liking. An observation which their maknae didn't hesitate to express vocally when he caught the boy's falling figure.

Next, they proceeded to lay him on his back. Hoon had a hard time keeping down the bile rising up to his throat from making it out of his mouth when he saw the horrific amount of blood painting an ever-growing pool on the floor.

Seeing Daehyun's face up close made them freak out even more. He was deathly pale, tear tracks drying on his hollowed cheeks, mixing with blood and painting a disgustingly glistening picture of red and purple hues.

What was more alarming though, was the fact that he was still unconscious, so just to be on the safe side, Chin (whom Daeshim didn't even notice coming back to the room) checked the younger's pulse, stating out loud that it was weak but it was there. That resulted in relieved sighs from the others in the room. He decided to start dressing the wounds on the boy's front after confirming the things on his chest were indeed words; WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE YOU LIARS carved with a sharp object in ugly angry bloody lines.

Just who did this? Who's capable of this? And why Dae? Daeshim thought to himself.

Now that most of the blood was cleaned up...Daehyun didn't look any better!

Daeshim noticed square marks all over his dongsaeng's skin and wondered where had they come from? That was what got him to actually, really, look around the room: bloodied knives, some kinds of needles, whips, and belts turning red and Daeshim didn't even want to picture how they were used, and then this weird big machine with wires intertwined, square sticky patches at their ends.

Daeshim heard Hoon's low groan, 'Oh my God! He was electrocuted!' And he suddenly felt sicker.

Chin spoke again, 'His head injury looks bad, Hoon, where is the freaking ambulance?'

'Two minutes hyung, they said they'll be here in two minutes,' the leader answered, feeling sorry for the hyung who had to see those injuries up close.

At that point, nothing else could be done aside from cutting the tightly knotted ropes on Daehyun's limbs and waiting. Hajoon kept trying to wake him up, drawing shapes and forms in his scarred shaking hands as if to soothe his pain and Hoon scanned the room full of bats and sticks and tools probably responsible for the biggest damage to the kid's body...

And that's when Hoon spotted it, Daehyun's phone lying lifelessly on the floor, blood all over the screen.

The uncharacteristic silence was almost suffocating until the sounds of the sirens were heard and all the scurrying and hurrying started back up!

Hoon guided the paramedics to the basement. Daeshim was the only one who had enough composure to answer their questions, ones he found totally useless:

'How long has he been unconscious for?'

'We don't know. He was already unconscious when we found him'

'Did he respond to you? To the movements maybe?'