Baekhyun was curled up on the floor in the bathroom. A thin, white plastic rope was wrapped around his neck tightly, one of his hands still clasping onto Tao, who was standing beside him, tightly.
Baekhyun lay on the floor; his breathing ceased.
Chanyeol crouched down, staring at the white plastic rope, and seemed as if he was trying to focus on his sight and hearing sense.
“What happened?” Jongin glowered at Tao coldly. Tao, face pale, avoided his gaze; Luhan leant against the wall, silent.
“Luhan…” Chanyeol picked up the length of white plastic rope, turning towards Luhan, “Was this the bundle of rope you took from the safe?”
Glancing at Chanyeol, Luhan wanted to help him up from the floor, but he got shoved away, “Why didn’t you discuss anything with us beforehand?!!” Chanyeol roared, choking in tears.
The hand which was shoved away dangled mid-air, Luhan lowered his eyes, and withdrew his hand.
“What is this?” Jongin stood up, walked towards the mirror dubiously.
“Mandarin?” He turned his head back slowly, looking in the direction of the 4 of us.
“You only kill us Koreans and not the Chinese… Is this some secret between you Chinese?!” He glared at us menacingly, exerted all his strength and shoved against Tao’s chest. Tao did not retaliate.
“You’ve misunderstood.” I held back his hand that he used to push Tao.
“Right… How could I have forgotten?! You, and him,” Jongin pointed a finger at Yixing, “You two were just next door, how could you two have arrived later than the rest of us?!”
“I told him not to come near.” Tao narrowed his eyes at Jongin provocatively.
The next second, the only memory I had was of Jongin and Tao grappling each other in a wrestle.
The screaming and wailing Jongin was a rare sight, “Without my permission, how could you kill Baekhyun!”
Trampling and crushing Jongin underneath his foot beside the door in a few moments, Tao spoke in Mandarin, “Fuck, don’t think that only you, have the guts!”
“Ah!!!” Jongin pounced towards Tao, who was much taller than him, in a craze, his eyes burning with pure insanity.
Tao wrestled him all the way till the living room, and sent a blow to his face, his elbow sending another blow to his knee. Jongin knelt forward; Tao pounded Jongin’s waist beneath his foot and Jongin revealed an excruciating expression.
“Stop fighting!” Luhan desperately pulled Tao away from behind, but Tao seemed as if he couldn’t control himself anymore. He didn’t stop, only until I exerted all my strength to shove him hard from the back.
Within those seconds of quietness, Luhan released his hand that was grasping onto Tao tightly. Tao turned his back around, Chanyeol walked towards the injured Jongin, but I saw the red-eyed Jongin sit up and extended his hand towards a bottle of alcohol on the tea table. He staggered in the direction of Tao’s back.
Time seemed to have slowed down in my memory, “Tao!” Yixing screamed in Tao’s direction, utterly horrified. Tao turned around to look at Yixing and momentarily noticed Jongin’s figure smashing the wine bottle towards him.
He used his arm to defend himself instinctively; the bottle smashed onto his arm, the strong liquor splashing onto his hair. When Tao used his hands to cover his alcohol stained eyes, when he used his hands to cover his eyes…
The clock on the wall ticked away…
Tao widened his eyes in Jongin’s direction, traumatized. He lowered his head again, his eyes boring at the broken wine bottle stabbing through his abdomen. His entire body was held by the broken glass bottle all the way till he crashed into the wall behind.
At that instant, everything seemed inaudible, my instincts shattered inside me; there was only Tao’s helpless and overwhelmed expression, and his abdomen which was bleeding profusely.
Yixing seemed to have run over, desperately pushing away the stunned Jongin; Tao slid down the wall, leaving a streak of dark red blood on the wall. I stumbled over; I think I fell down twice in the process, Tao’s head tilted to the side, his eyes identical to those I saw for the first time.
“Leader… I’m hurting…” He said, his words intermittent.
Did I say something, or did I not? I can’t remember anymore. That memory was just a streak of white, maybe my immune system crossed it out.
After that, Tao fell asleep. He didn’t move at all, turning colder by the second.
Black spots covered my sight and my hearing became muffled. I stood up and picked up a bottle of alcohol, smashed it against the side of the tea table, and staggered over to Kim Jongin at the corner of the room.
He was still standing there, completely stunned. Beside him was Chanyeol, who was trying his best to pull him away, but it was all too late. You see, your neck seems very vulnerable, everything will end very quickly.
Does Chanyeol wish to come over to speak to me? I held him by the collar and hurled him onto the ground.
You seemed possessed; you didn’t wish to retaliate at all, was it because it was the first time murdering someone? You’re too inferior, just look at you; you’re going to be killed by another very soon. I held up the broken glass bottle slightly, turned the bottle around smoothly; Kim Jongin, accompany your Huang Zitao!
Luhan’s face appeared in front of me before I could lower my arm.
An alarm sounded in my head, my hand stopped for a second. I lowered my head, I saw Luhan slotted in between me and Kim Jongin.
“What are you doing?” My eyes asked.
“Let me extricate myself first.” His head drooped, his hair dangling before his eyes.
My brain stopped working for a few seconds, not understanding what he meant.
My eyes wandered till Kim Jongin, who was being dragged upstairs by Chanyeol. I bypassed Luhan and pursued the direction to the stairs. Once again, he blocked my view, his body blocking the stairs, his palms pressing against the wall.
It seemed as if my intelligence had deteriorated, how could I have forgotten that Luhan belonged to the other team?
“Do you think that I wouldn’t dare to kill you?” I asked him.
“Kill me then.” He glowered.
How shameless; I backed 2 steps. How could I have forgotten that this was a friendship meeting between the Chinese and Koreans? Moreover, Luhan was always the most professional friendship mascot.
But too bad I wasn’t Zhang Yixing; I was always resistant towards a warm friendship. Don’t try to take advantage of my endurance; you’ve overestimated my kindness and your own emotional intelligence.
However, he was suddenly given a painful blow on the face, his nose bleeding. He fell onto the floor. “Get out of here!” I glanced back and saw Zhang Yixing roaring at him.
Luhan scrambled onto his feet quickly up the stairs and didn’t glance back again.
I thought that our many years of friendship had been ruined on that fateful day, but I had neither authority nor right to reproach him.
I should be like him, the perfect survivor, taking advantage of everything and everyone else; and take the initiative to survive. If we look at it from this point of view, we were all less feminine as compared to him.
