Triggers : heavy graphic violance
Note : /.../ - refers to indirect text (video)
/ - … you don't know your place. Boys, it seems we'll have to teach him a lesson.
- NO! STOP!
- Hold him!
- GO AWAY FROM ME!
...
- Please… S..sto-op!/
…"
Cries.
Laughs.
Gasps.
Hits.
Screams.
Blows.
Chocking.
And screams again.
Time had stopped. Its seconds became years or even decades circling around the same moment like an infinite loop and in its center was a person, who couldn't escape that loop no matter how many times they tried.
How much they begged.
How long they cried.
Silence.
/ - Out already? Wake him!…/
Then screams again.
Trapped in a place worse than hell, worse than anything one would imagine with that one word, worse, because there was no exit. No help.
No hope.
And he was alone.
He, who even in heaven could still break to pieces.
He, with a mind tortured and wounded above all by himself.
He was being strangled in sheer pain ripping his body like a living monster. Raw instinctive fright took over him as he teared his voice, screaming for them to stop.
Crying… for help.
He, Han Jiwook.
…
Screams were getting weaker.
The breaks in between longer.
The struggle to free himself ceased almost completely.
The gasps and heavy breaths mixed together, as every breath Jiwook was making was a sounding projection of his utmost pain.
/– What now wrench? Finally got a hang of it? Say the right thing or we get to part two.
- ... I…I am so-orry… Si-…won./
Taemin teared his eyes away from the screen, trembling so much, his legs were giving out, he propped his hands on the edge of the table not to fall. He felt nauseous and about to faint altogether after he heard Jiwook's shattered words. Beside him Woojin was paler than a ghost, looking maybe worse than him, still with his eyes frozen wide, fixed on the screen like watching a living terror unfold before him.
Among all the living (or half living) persons in that room, cemented in a forced or shocking numbness with the quite, distorted sound of the speakers hovering over them in that air so heavy that if felt filled with ashes - there was one who felt more dead than alive.
He wasn't breathing. He wasn't moving.
Yet his presence was an absolute. In that moment, in that place, it was devouring everything around him including himself.
He was still.
Watching. Listening.
He always did that wasn't he?
Lee Joohoon.
He heard many screams, crying and begging in his life and he only watched and listened to it, maybe smiled at it, however not even once did any of it reach him really. It always felt like watching a movie and he was only that, a viewer.
Nothing could ever come close enough for him to feel it real.
/ - H-help…/
Joohoon reached his shivering hand to him, yet it had nothing to touch.
It couldn't reach Jiwook.
Though he was right before him, he couldn't help him.
/ - ple-ase …any-…one/
His hand couldn't wipe his tears.
His arms couldn't hug him.
Joohoon was thrown in a merciless trap of time. Seeing, hearing, having Jiwook right in front of his eyes, and him, bound by time, nailed in place to only hopelessly watch… and change nothing.
Forced to stay still.
Punished to kneel before the irreversibility of time.
Helpless. Useless. Powerless.
Knowing he can't change what was happening before his eyes.
Knowing it already happened.
Aware that he nor anyone and anything in that world could change what Jiwook had already lived through.
To know that, was in itself his worst punishment.
/ - hel…p…/
Maybe if he would have heard his name, if Jiwook would have called out Joohoon's name, he would have got his final verdict then.
Either his sanity or life, or he would have lost both of it.
…
/ - Is that him?/
A new voice entered the stage and the leader of the group, that didn't dare to say anything until then, spoke rashly.
- That's him. He is the one who ordered Han Siwon's abduction.
He sounded somewhat strained and rushing. As though he didn't want to let them watch further, and better switch their attention to him, give him questions instead.
/ - Give me that./
In the video, the man in a white suit turned to his right and they could distinguish his profile.
- Yes. Do you see his face? Pause to see better.
Woojin moved his hand to do just that, but Joohoon stopped him letting the video roll further without interrupting it.
The chained man, whose already second plan was close to falling part, started to fidget nervously and babble everything to catch their attention off the screen. He felt something was about to go wrong.
He checked that footage, that moment was the only one where that bastard's face was caught, so there wasn't any gain in watching further. Of course, since he knew what came next.
- As you can see he's young, late twenties. Over 6 feet tall, black hair, right-handed, has-
- SHUT UP!
For the first time Joohoon's voice rang in that dead space since they watched the video, and the rumbling sound of it made everyone flinch and shiver reflexively.
Shit. He fucked it. The leader of the group couldn't understand why his plan didn't work. Why for fuck's sake Han Siwon stood there, not saying anything, watching everything like he saw it for the first time. He expected him to make a scene, cry, scream, throw himself to him or at least Min Siwoon, he was sure he could take on the both of them. Maneuver the black-haired boy would be a piece of cake, with luck, he could even take him hostage and he'd make them play by his rules then.
However, it crumbled. His plan. The three barely moved, yet he could feel the dangerous tension throbbing from the youths' side, especially the tall one, that man was too unpredictable and he couldn't read him at all. One thing that he was sure about, was that he cared and damn it, if only a joke about raping Han Siwon made him squash someone's cock, they were done for.
Shit. Shit.
/ - So now listen Han Siwon, I'm not gonna repeat myself. Break up […] /
The man in white swung the baseball bat in his hand, approaching Jiwook, then hit it thrice on the ground near the younger, making him bend in fright and tremble.
Joohoon shifted.
/ - W-why m..e?
- Oh it's not about you. You see, every fly around Min Siwoon should be snapped before it gets annoying./
- Fucking asshole, I'll kill him!, shouted breathlessly Woojin at the psycho's words, unable to restrain his anger anymore.
/ - […] You're just too close to him. Screw off, before you'll regret it. I'm not that patient.
The bat was thrown inches away from Jiwook, the younger paled and froze in horror.
Joohoon's breathing was rushed, getting unstable.
/ - W-who ar..e you?
- Shit! This fucker thinks I'm joking here…/
The man laughed. He poked Jiwook's stomach with the bat and then swiftly turned to sit in the chair, which wasn't caught in the camera. He was looking at Jiwook, so his face couldn't be seen clearly.
/ - … I don't think you need your limbs to speak, do you?
- N-NO! WAIT! PLEASE!/
Jiwook's tearing voice screamed in helpless struggle as two men held him down on the ground, the third swung the bat in his hand.
- NO!
Joohoon threw his fist on the table, that cracked under the strong impact.
A second later he heard it. Saw it. How Jiwook's bones cracked and the most painful and wrenching scream he ever heard, which the computer's speakers distorted too much due to its loudness.
Joohoon saw Jiwook's limp body falling and his eyes closed.
Then, it was him that screamed.
The loud sharp howl rang like a physical blow to everyone in that room. Taemin and Woojiin jumped away from him, instinctively, and the three tied men sprung back; glued themselves to the wall.
/ - Wake him up!/
Joowook's heavy, shaking breathing was now the loudest and most frightening sound in that room beside the computer.
/ - I don't care! Give him a drug, two if needed. I want him awake right now!/
Jiwook was injected with drugs, and in a second jerked awake, falling in cold sweat, his eyes open wide shivered and he looked like he couldn't get enough air.
Joohoon couldn't either.
He gripped the table from both sides, with force enough to bend the wood, his hands trembling.
Jiwook's previously limp body was now contracting in abrupt moves as if he was electrocuted.
/ - Let's end this quickly. Answer my question-
- Why…*huff should I? If you want to *huff make a deal with me, *huff say your fucking name!/
Jiwook almost choke with his rushing breaths and words.
/ - You deaf? I asked what is your fucking name?/
The man in front of Jiwook burst in a loud mess of laughing, almost hysterical even.
/- Did you hear that? […] You want to know my name? Sure why not! But you'll have to pay the price for it… How fun! … He's begging so desperately, we'll have to fulfill his little wish […]. His face is not half bad. So it shouldn't feel that bad doing it, right?/
Joohoon flinched. He's sunken eyes, his pale face, his trembling limbs betrayed how frightened he felt that moment for Jiwook.
And the younger, just seeing the younger desperately crawling away from them, with his broken leg, with all his might trying to escape from that hell – was crushing Joohoon inside and out.
/ - NO! Go away! NO!/
- JIWOOK!
Joohoon fell on his knees, calling out Jiwook's name again and again until his voice started to break.
Jiwook was raped brutally right in front of him and he could just cry out his name and watch everything. Jiwook's voice's snapping and muted gasps following.
Joohoon's mind played Han Siwon's assault, then him forcing himself on the younger on his and Jiwook's first night, everything blended together yet in the middle was Jiwook, raped and abused, not even being able to scream out the unbearable pain he was tormented with.
Blood bursting.
Bones breaking.
Flesh tearing.
And no more screams.
Joohoon's mind, whipped and blasted with infernal sights of Jiwook's suffering and torture, was crumbling beyond his grasp with every passing second. He would have ripped his eyes off to not see it anymore, he would have slayed his ears to cease that mass of racking sounds, would have crushed that screen to end the unbearable torment. Anything.
Yet he continued to watch unable to do so.
For he still wanted to see, to know it. Everything Jiwook felt and endured.
All of it.
/ - N-name…
- […] Now that I think of it, you're completely different from that one, how was his name... Yoon ... Yoon- Oh! Exactly Yoon Taemin.../
Taemin froze upon hearing his name and Woojin stepped heavily closer to the table, his expression broken between horror and outrage.
Joohoon's eyes thrown solely on Jiwook's face, registered the sheer shock and the immense impact those words had on him.
/ - but how lucky, he died last spring before I could even do something. Though, I went to see him once […] he knew how to fight. At least he had that fierce look on him... hm I guess with him, it would have been more fun. What a shame... That aside, you're nothing compared to him, what did Min Siwoon find in a weakling like you? .../
Jiwook broke in a sort of laughing, dry and jerky, more cough than laugh actually, as if an absurd realization hit him and he could only laugh at it out loud.
His eyes though, wept.
/ - Bro…ther…/
Joohoon knew then, in that moment the younger realized the truth about his brother and… his death. He looked at the teared expression on Jiwook's face contorted in pure agony as if all the pain until now couldn't match what he felt right then.
/ - My …bro-ther… /
Jiwook cried then, so broken, so intensely, with unseen abandon and grief so deep, like someone just tore his heart and smashed it to pieces, like he lost a part of his body, half his soul, forever, with no possibility to ever return it back.
No chance to say sorry.
/ - So..rry… s-sorry… Siwon, I'm…so sorry… Siwon…/
The video stopped, as it seemed they took Jiwook's wrenching cry as him agreeing with their demands and their job was done.
Joohoon looked at the Jiwook's image frozen on the screen, the sight of the younger, still and unmoving on the hospital bed, overlapping it.
Tears fell. Joohoon's tears.
His hand still slightly trembled. This time he reached slowly with his finger and brushed Jiwook's crying face on the screen, as if to wipe away his tears.
Of course, he couldn't do that.
But he wanted that so much… so much.
After moments that passed like ages, Joohoon suddenly spoke quietly.
- Send it.
Woojin got the message, he turned the screen to himself and proceed to send the data quickly to the hacker for him to search on that person, even with only his profile or his voice, it should be a enough for a trail.
Joohoon rose slowly on his feet, though it was barely noticeable, his legs shivered a bit, like it would give out.
It didn't.
Though his legs, his hands, his whole body actually, didn't cease to tremble.
Taemin looked at him worriedly, thinking that it might be because of the great psychological shock he received upon watching the video. However, he was wrong.
In a split second Joohoon was in front of one of the men, on the opposite wall, the third person, after the leader and the injured other. The one that threw the bat on Jiwook and broke his leg.
Joohoon grabbed his neck with one hand, pressing on it heavily and squeezing as if it was an empty bottle of water and not a human neck. The shocked man started to dig his nails in Joohoon's hand, chocking on air already, desperate to free himself from the death's grasp.
At the crucial moment when the man was a step away to get strangled, Joohoon pulled that jolting body to him slightly, then with unimaginable force and momentum, he threw the man head straight to the stone wall in an impending blow.
Bone cracked. It must have been his skull.
The impact was so strong that the wall itself had now a thin crack, blood exploded in the immediate radius, part of it on Joohoon's face. The body fell to the opposite side, struck by immediate convulses and violent short shackings – an horrifying dreary sign for all in that room, with the splattered blood ominously parading Joohoon's inner state at that moment.
Taemin was wrong. It wasn't shock that made Joohoon's body shiver uncontrollably.
It was rage.