Chapter Text
Yoo Joonghyuk stared directly forward as he drove, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. Rain was coming down heavily on the windshield, and the lights of the night cityscape view was blurred into smears of colour before the wipers periodically cleared the view.
The lights turned red, and the luxury car slid to a stop, skidding slightly on the wet pavement. Yoo Joonghyuk let out a deep breath and ran his fingers through his dark hair, pushing strands out of his eyes in an irritated way.
Anyone would be tense in such driving conditions, but they were not the cause for his awful mood. There was someone that he was heading to see right now, and his emotions could not be more complicated towards them.
What could he even do, in this situation?
.
.
.
The darkened view of the ceiling greeted him as he opened his eyes blearily. He blinked to clear his blurry vision.
What was…
He winced. It hurt to think.
Without giving himself any more time to collect himself, the young man pushed himself up into a sitting position with weak arms. He vaguely registered the sharp stabbing pains near his abdomen as he moved, and although he was simply sitting up, a wave of vertigo hit him and he instinctively touched a hand to his head. His fingertips found the texture of rough gauze. His head was bandaged?
He lifted up the corner of his shirt, a thin hospital gown. His stomach was also bandaged. From the amount of pain he was feeling from all over his body, he could tell that there were stitches in both his abdomen and head, probably broken ribs, and awful bruises all over his body. What the hell happened to him?
The man stiffly moved to sit at the side of the soft hospital bed, kicking the sheets aside and swinging his legs over the side. The tiny bit of sky that he could still see from behind the drawn curtains was dark. Tall buildings peeked out at him, windows dimly lit. He was in a luxurious, private hospital room, maybe. A quick look around at the refined and spacious room… with the expensive-looking furnishing and tasteful decor, as well as the IV drips and medical machinery connected to his arm, his guess probably wasn’t far off from the truth.
He looked down at his hands, bandaged and bruised. He doesn’t remember anything. Not even his own name.
Why am I alive?
He had this completely unexplainable feeling that he had forgotten something important. Something had gone down right before all this. Something had happened…and he had been prepared to die.
A distant noise startled him out of his thoughts. His head snapped up, and he stared at the door. There was someone coming. He could hear distant, muffled sounds of fighting.
Suddenly alert, he moved without thinking. Instinct made him rip out the IVs in his arm, and he silently hid behind the door and out of view, grabbing the nearest vase on the table to use as a weapon. His heartbeat felt thunderous in his chest – despite his memories, there was only one thought in his mind.
Survive.
The doorknob rattled, and the door opened with a soft creak.
Silence, and then someone stepped forwards into the room. “Fuck,” A low voice said. “That slimy bastard ran awa-”
As soon as the figure stepped into view, he swung the vase directly at the back of their head with all the strength he could muster. With the sickening crack of ceramic meeting flesh and the earsplitting sound of the vase shattering, the figure stumbled forwards while letting out a strangled cry of pain. The young man instantly sidestepped the man clutching his blood-covered head, and was out the door in a flash.
The hallway was dark and deserted, aside from some dark shapes lying crumpled in the distance. Ignoring them, he glanced upwards and then raced in the direction of the exit sign lit up in green, gritting his teeth in suppressed agony as pain flared in his entire body from his movement. The emergency stairwell wasn’t far away. He wasn’t sure where he would go exactly, but anywhere is better than here, with a furious armed attacker. And yes, he had seen the silenced, black .22LR handgun clutched in the intruder's gloved hand.
Upon reaching the emergency stairwell, he yanked the door open and darted inside. The stairwell was cold and unfurnished, a stark contrast to the warm hallways and rooms on the floor. Here, the stairs and landings were roughly made, and completely constructed by cement. He winced. His bare feet vividly felt the drastic change in temperature as he ran down the stairs.
After two flights, he started to slow down. His head was pounding, and his injuries hurt like hell. Reaching out to lean against the wall for support, he breathed in with a shudder and shut his eyes. It would be fine to take a breather, right?
Suddenly, the door in front of him burst open with a crash. Before he even had time to react, he was thrown to the ground and pinned to the wall by his throat.
“Gh…! You…Get off of me!” He struggled, voice strangled by the tightening force around his neck, and kicked out at his attacker. The same masked man from before was squeezing the life out of him, his eyes wild and murderous as blood dripped down his face and neck.
“Think you won, huh?” The man gave a cruel laugh at his futile attempts to fight back. Of course, he was completely overpowered; he was already severely injured, and this was a trained assassin fully prepared to take his life.
“You’re a slippery one. That little stunt you pulled back there will only make this more painful for you.” Pulling out the gun with one hand, the assassin strangled him with his other hand with enough force to make his vision blur at the edges. He struggled to breathe. The assassin grinned at his visible agony and shoved the gun so his head snapped back and hit the cement wall painfully. “But lucky for you, I’m out of time. And since I’m so, kind,” The assassin punctuated each word with grinding the gun into his head wound, earning strangled gasps in return. “Are there any last words from our dearest Salvation?”
“Haah…ha…” White dots swam in his view, and the edges of his vision were starting to darken. He could hardly breathe, but still managed to squeeze out his words through gritted teeth.
“Go… fuck yourself!”
With that, he bent the assassin’s index finger backwards in one sudden movement. When the grip loosened with a grunt of pain, he tore the hand away, scrambling to the side and to his feet. Holding his bruised throat with a trembling hand, he yelled as he tried to flee.
“HELP! Anyone, Someone h…agh!”
He didn’t even get two steps away before he was dragged back by his hair. He was once again slammed against the wall, and this time, the assassin’s hand was tight around his mouth, pinning him down and preventing him from crying out again.
“Fucking bastard. Shut the fuck up!” He couldn’t see the full expression of his masked attacker, but what bit he could see of the assassin’s face was twisted in rage. The cold barrel of the gun met his temple, and he could hear the telltale, subtle click of a finger tightening on the trigger. It was over. He squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation for the gunshot.
The thunderous bang echoed in the stairwell, amplified a thousand times by the cold cement. For a second, nothing moved, but then the gun digging into his temple fell away and clattered to the floor. An unknown weight fell slowly and collapsed onto him.
His eyes flew open. He wasn’t dead.
He stared down in shock. There was a bullet wound dripping blood on the side of the assassin’s head, and the lifeless body had collapsed over his own. The gunshot had not been from the assassin’s gun, but rather, someone else’s.
Polished dress shoes entered his vision, footsteps echoing firmly in the narrow stairwell, and stopped before him.
“You’ve gotten soft, Salvation.” A deep voice said from above him.
His heart gave an unexplained pang of emotion, of pain, regret…and something more. He trained his gaze on the ground, eyes shaking as he forced himself not to look up. He probably wouldn’t remember the man standing before him, but his heart told him to run. To get as far as he could from this man. Because……he couldn’t help himself. He looked up.
A towering figure met his eyes, gazing at him with cold eyes from above. The handsome man gave a mirthless chuckle at the look on his face, and knelt down before him. In one smooth movement, the man had grabbed the collar of the dead body on top of him and tossed it aside like a sack of dirt.
“Kim Dokja.”
Was that his name? It was clear that they had known each other for a long time by the tone and way that he had spoken to him.
“Did you think I’d just let someone else kill you?”
“I…” He wasn’t sure what to say. His head was pounding, his heart was racing, and as the adrenaline slowly wore off, the agony in his body came back with a vengeance. He could hardly think. In the end, Kim Dokja found that he could only apologize.
“…Sorry.”
“I should have locked you up.”
The insanity of the statement was lost on Kim Dokja as he struggled to catch his bearings. So much happened in the mere span of minutes, and it was finally taking a toll on him. Wincing, he touched a hand gingerly to his head wound, where the assassin had repeatedly hurt him. His fingers came back red. The blood had soaked through the gauze.
He realized that the man was still staring at him intently. With considerable effort, Kim Dokja looked up again with the most polite expression he could muster. His throat felt dry as he finally said, “Thank you for helping me… sorry, do I know you?”
Silence.
The man’s eyes widened slightly, but then furrowed his brows in anger. “Kim Dokja. Do you really think I’d fall for that?”
It wasn’t a trick, Kim Dokja thought miserably. From the second he woke up in that hospital bed, he had been thrown into one awful situation after another. He wouldn’t even have had time to come up with any lies, dammit…
His confusion and helplessness must have been evident in his expression. When Kim Dokja didn’t answer, the man seemed to read something from his face. In a second, the handsome man’s demeanor went from quiet fury to a stunned look of silence.
A strange atmosphere settled over the cold stairwell. Kim Dokja looked into the dark eyes of the man, and saw a flicker of emotion in those cold eyes. As if in a trance, the man’s hand reached out as if to touch his face, and then stopped in midair. Kim Dokja looked at him with wide, confused eyes. What’s up with this guy?
“Do you really not remember me?” The man asked, voice quiet.
“No,” Kim Dokja said with an air of defeat. “I don’t remember anything. I woke up in that hospital room and this guy broke in and tried to kill me, so I hit him with a vase and ran away. I have no memory of whatever happened before that.” He was rambling. Kim Dokja knew this, but couldn’t really stop himself from wanting to fill the heavy silence. This just…made him feel exposed. Almost vulnerable.
“I don’t remember my name either but, well, I think it’s Kim Dokja? You’ve been calling me that, so I would assume…unless my name is Salv-”
“No.” The man’s voice had suddenly dropped several degrees in temperature. “Your name is Kim Dokja. Forget about whatever happened earlier.”
He nodded, mind feeling hazy. Honestly, it was hard to convince himself to trust anyone, but despite everything, Kim Dokja wanted to trust this man. He had no memory of him, either, but since this guy killed the guy who wanted to kill him, he must be some kind of ally, right?
Kim Dokja opened his mouth and was about to say something more, but a distant sound of a door slamming came drifting up to them from levels below, echoing in the empty stairwell. Alert, the man quieted Kim Dokja, and the two listened in silence for any other indication of commotion. After a few seconds, the man turns to Kim Dokja again.
“We can speak in more detail once we get you back to your room.”
Without even giving him a chance to reply, the man scooped him up in a bridal carry. Caught off guard, Kim Dokja made a noise of surprise and held on to the man instinctively. His arms looped around his neck naturally, as if this hadn’t been the first time that they had been through this, he thought in sudden realization. Suddenly nervous, Kim Dokja let go like he was burned, and then instantly grabbed on again for balance as the man started moving. He seemed almost…happy, Kim Dokja thought. Something about his mood had completely changed. He stared up at his rescuer, studying his features and expression.
Dark, wavy, styled hair. A chiseled jaw that was surely the envy of all of mankind, sculpted features, and a high nose bridge. His furrowed brow exuded an imposing aura, but that only made him all the more handsome. Thick eyebrows, and black eyes that– ah, he noticed Kim Dokja looking at him.
The man’s dark eyes looking directly at him made Kim Dokja feel at a loss for what to do. He suddenly didn’t know where to look and dropped his gaze awkwardly, as if there was something extremely interesting on the front of the man’s expensive-looking suit. The man gave a low laugh, and his hold on Kim Dokja tightened almost imperceivably.
The man carried Kim Dokja through the door of the 20th floor, and walked through a long, winding hallway. This place felt like a maze. Kim Dokja didn’t really want to think too much for fear of making his headache worse, so he settled with looking around at his surroundings. They passed by numerous white doors with curtained windows, and Kim Dokja noticed the little signs beside them indicating the room number. Definitely a hospital.
With a few more flights of stairs, Kim Dokja started to recognize the area. He had run through here before, right? The rooms on this floor seemed to be VIP, with more expensive-looking decorations and a more homely and high-end feel compared to the white, medicinal, and monotone rooms that they had passed by.
The hallway had long since been cleared. The black shapes of the…bodies(?) on the floor that he had caught a glimpse of during his flee were gone, and Kim Dokja noticed the numerous bodyguards standing near one door. “This doesn’t look like the room I was in.” Kim Dokja noted, and looked at the man questioningly. The man spoke with a patient tone, as if Kim Dokja was but a foolish child. “We’re on a different floor. Do you think I’d put you in the same room? That’s where you were just attacked, remember?”
Ah, right. He did remember. There were probably still shards of ceramic and pools of blood in there, Kim Dokja thought, cringing. The chaos of the night did not go forgotten…but for his exhaustion and his injuries, he found that he didn’t really want to think about anything. It was easier, this way. Someone else to take care of everything for him, and all he had to do was follow.
Supporting Kim Dokja simply with one hand under his legs, the man opened the door and walked in. Feeling the muscles of the man’s flexing arm, Kim Dokja had to appreciate his strength. Not even breaking a sweat after carrying another man up multiple flights of stairs and then being able to open a door with one hand while carrying him with the other was pretty impressive.
The man set him down on the bed with surprising gentleness. Kim Dokja looked up at him, and the man stared back with an odd look on his face. After a moment of silence, he opened his mouth. “I’ll get a doctor to come take a look at you again. In the meantime, rest.” He turned away from Kim Dokja and towards the door.
“Wait. Before you go…” Kim Dokja couldn’t stop himself, and called out. The man turned around and watched him with dark eyes, waiting for his next words. Kim Dokja swallowed, feeling a strange sense of nervousness. “Can you, uh, tell me a little more about this situation? Who am I? What is our relationship?”
When the man didn’t answer immediately, Kim Dokja backtracked and changed his question. Coughing lightly to mask his uneasiness, he rephrased his question. “Sorry…I meant, who are you?”
A brief, tense second later, the man’s deep, low voice broke the silence of the room.
“Your name is Kim Dokja. You’re 24 years old, and you were brought to the hospital after being injured in a horrible accident. As for me…”
A smile creeps onto his handsome face, but for some reason, Kim Dokja feels a shiver go down his spine. Footsteps echoing in the silent room, the man approached the bed slowly and stopped before him.
“I’m Yoo Joonghyuk, your husband.”