The Art of the Con (???xMReader)

Chapter XVIII - At Rest

Jeongyeon and Dahyun stood silently outside in the hospital hallway. It's barely been 12 hours since they've last seen Y/N but the two of them were not as ship-shape as they once were. Jeongyeon was draped in gray and black clothing, her eyes lackluster from shock. Her hair was tucked back underneath a small gray beanie that topped her head.

Dahyun no longer wore her typical bright outfits; a light gray hoodie covered her head, her rich, brunette hair continued to flow down her front. Her stomach let out a pained grumble, but she paid it no mind. Her heart weighed down painfully in her chest.

Eyes still blotchy from the previous night's events, she continued to rock back and forth in comfort, fidgety as she watched a man dressed in a white lab coat, presumably the doctor, walk down the hallways.

Please let him be alright. Please let him be alright...

The doctor stopped in front of them. "Friends of Y/N?"

Dahyun's fidgeting stopped and she let out a shaky breath.

"Would you like to see him now?"

With a sniffle, Dahyun blankly nodded and reached out to hold Jeongyeon's trembling hand.

Head lowered, Jeongyeon followed Dahyun and the doctor to a white-tiled room. In the center of the room was a metal table, on it, laid a long black bag with a zipper running down the center.

The two girls stood on one side of the table as the doctor wrapped around to the other side. Jeongyeon seemed to have recognized the bag and immediately pointed her head up to the wall behind the doctor, refusing to look down. Dahyun recognized it too. A body bag. This man wasn't just a doctor. He's a mortician.

Pinching the top of the body bag, the mortician slowly pulled the zipper down to the midway point, revealing Y/N's cold, pale body with a bullet hole in the middle of his chest. Suddenly, the air left Dahyun's chest. The air around her cooled and the cold nipped at her fingertips. It was almost as if the world had gone cold. 

"I'll give you two some time alone." The doctor silently made his exit, closing the door behind him as he left. Jeongyeon continued to look away. 

"No." Jeongyeon set her gaze on the wall behind it. "No, it's not possible. This isn't him. This isn't Y/N."

Dahyun continued to look at the peaceful face of Y/N. A tear rolled down her face and fell onto his body.

"It's, uh, like JFK. The decoy hearse." Jeongyeon closed her eyes to stop her from looking down. "They took his body out of his casket and―"

"Stop it, Jeongyeon!" yelled Dahyun as she slammed her fist against the metal table. Her throat clenched and burned as she struggled to hold back her tears. "Please stop it! He's gone."

"No, no." Her head was still turned upward in denial, eyes still clenched tightly. "It's Y/N... He can't be gone."

"Jeongyeon, you need to look down. He's right there. You need to look at him." Dahyun turned back and rested her hand on Jeongyeon's shoulder. "You've gotta look, Jeongyeon."

The next words Dahyun barely croaked out.

"He's dead..."

Jeongyeon's tenacity was impressive, struggling to hold onto her blank face, lips trembling as hot, wet tears rolled down her eyes and into her mouth. Slowly but surely, Jeongyeon's red eyelids cracked open and slowly rested on his corpse.

"But it can't be him, Dahyun," retorted Jeongyeon. Her voice hitched as her swollen throat tightened, resulting in a short intake of air. "Y/N always had it figured out. He always found a way out. No matter how tight the scrape, Y/N could always make it out. He could always get away!"

Jeongyeon had begun to chew her lower lip as a drop of grief formed in the corner of her eye. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve but it continued to reform there. Dahyun leaned over and gently rubbed Jeongyeon's shoulder. A brief memory of Y/N giving her a comforting pat on the head filled her mind for a moment. "Not this time..."

Jeongyeon shook her head.

"No..."

At this point, she could hold the heartbreak no longer. A great tremor overtook her as she collapsed to the floor in a disheveled heap, her grief pouring out in a flood. Gut-wrenching sobs tore through her chest as her body was wracked with an onslaught of tears. Face covered with shaking hands, a great sob escaped her. A flood of tears gushed down her taut, red cheeks. Hot torrents of anguish coursed down her face as loud moans tore through her lips through suppressed hiccups. Hand still on Jeongyeon's shoulder, Dahyun continued to stare emptily at Y/N's body as the sounds of Jeongyeon's wailing and suffering echoed throughout the metal room.

Dahyun decided to give Jeongyeon the room to mourn freely and slowly ambled to the door, silently closing it behind her on her way out.

Seated outside, the mortician hopped up with a manila envelope in hand. "Ma'am, the belongings of the deceased."

Dahyun froze. "Ah, yes." She blinked back into focus. "Of course."

The mortician's hand slid inside the envelope before pulling out different items.

Dahyun paid no mind to any of the words coming out of his mouth nor the items placed in her open hands. She had said her goodbyes but her heart was still locked on to the image of his cold body in the morgue. If only I'd move more carefully, maybe I wouldn't have been caught... and Y/N would still be alright, she thought.

"...pocket square, .45 bullet from evidence, a key, and a chain necklace."

"Thank you," she mumbled as the key and the necklace slowly captured her vision. The mortician silently walked away with the folder as Dahyun continued to stare at the objects, the items present at his death.

The necklace...

She sniffled quietly before turning around to watch the doctor walk away down the hospital hallway. Y/N...

She sat down on a hallway bench and stared back at the key and the necklace. A tear rolled down her face and was absorbed by the pocket square. A tear... Am I still not over his death?

Tears welled from deep within and began to accumulate in the corners of her eyes. She buried her face into her hands as the tears spilled over and flowed down her face like a river escaping a dam.

"Y/N―"

She barely mumbled several more incoherent words through her hands before choking on her sobs. As much as she tried to hold it in, the pain came out like an uproar from her throat in the form of a silent scream. The beads of briny water fell one after another from her bloodshot eyes without a sign of stopping, smearing her face with wet blotches. Her shoulders heaved with emotion as her muffled sobs wracked against her chest.

The world turned into a blur, and so did all her senses. Sound. Taste. Smell. Everything was gone. The last painful emotion slammed against her before she lost the feeling of feeling itself. Everything slowly darkened into nothingness as she passed into the oblivion of unconsciousness.