The Heroes We Weren't

Chapter 35 - The Better And The Worse

Cacophony. Noun.
A loud, bad mixture of sounds - ones that I would gladly get away from.

The noise that echoed through Johnson's home was much like a bad mixture of different species of birds, all with their individual cries; although birds knew how to communicate with one another – a skill that the now screaming guests of Johnson's ball seemed not to have acquired.

Everywhere, people were now stepping on each other's toes while elbowing their way to the already packed exit.

"Are you okay?!" Hyun-Soo blurted out the dumbest of dumb questions as he had come rushing over. "I mean you're obviously not but are you okay?!"

I flinched from his touch as the immense burn continuously traveled down my arm. I closed my eyes tightly and laid down on my side, to rest my head against the floor.

"I'm not! I'm not okay!" I called out. "I've been shot, I'm dying, oh my god am I dying? B-but I still haven't told you how much I love you and-"

Incoherent blabbering – a side effect of shock.

"And-" I continued, "I really do, you know, I really-" Cue the 'I surely am dying but let's make this a ten-minute-last-speech' kind of scene.

"It's not that bad." He interrupted my dramatic monologue, and placed his fingers on my wounded arm.

"Not that bad?! I'm dying!"

"It only graced your arm."

Huh?

Wait. Hold up.

I blinked slowly. Placed my hand against the floor to push myself up, and so I viewed the barely noticeable scratch from where a bullet had merely graced my arm.

Now I didn't lie, there was blood. And it had in fact splattered over my white dress, but the amount of it was, well, debatable.

"Oh." I cleared my throat. "I- I knew it wasn't that bad." I lied.

He grinned.

"Now what's that about you loving me?"

Nothing could come in the way of how much I loved that very moment, of just quietly enjoying his company - Not the cacophony, not the potential risk of being shot by god knows who – nothing.

"Are you okay?!" Nothing, except Mister Gucci and his how-to-interrupt-101.

Adam had rushed over and before I knew it, he was hurriedly helping me up from the floor. The detective went on and on about some kind of police training which he had gone through years and years ago.

"We need to get at least half of them out the back door to avoid any further panic-" he went on, "and we need to get you to safety as you appear to be the main target of-"

"Adam."

"-not to panic because I will keep you at a safe distance from-"

"Adam."

"-and to further alarm the police, as taught in training which-"

"Adam, you're panicking."

Now don't get me wrong, Adam Adair was an admirable detective and former police officer; he had all the skills to locate just about anyone at any time and he was indeed very talented when it came to analyzing books, but he had little to no experience of working in the center of a disastrous scene.

Yet I do believe, and I say this judging from the spark of excitement in his eyes, that he had since long dreamed of acting out on his double-o-seven genes (that he for sure would claim to have).