196 BPM: Elude
Title: 196 BPM: Elude
Pairing: Suho/Kris, Suho/Luhan, Chen/Luhan, Suho/Kai
Word Count: 8,829
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, usage of firearms, brief instances of crossdressing, references to sex and violence, non-consensual usage of sedatives.
Summary: International fugitive Kim Joonmyun lives on the rush of running from FBI agent Kevin Wu and it's so good he can’t stop.
Originally posted on universexo.
196 BPM: Elude
A very blond and pale Asian boy ran swiftly past New York’s cloudy, barren blocks; quiet sneakers crunching against concrete and cigarette butts, pairs of leather shoes clicking after his footsteps. He looked back and saw the small squad of men in suit and tie running towards him. He looked at their lanky leader in the eye, gave him his best smile, and slid easily through the pack of people in the bustling streets.
To his dismay, the crowd split like the red sea a minute later for the group of men behind him, leaving him in bright spotlight.
He ran faster, looked around, and ran to an unsuspecting stairway leading underground. He was glad this crowded terrain made it impossible for the cops to whip out a gun. He made it to the subway entrance, grabbed the bar over his head and used the momentum to jump over the turnstile. He let out a satisfied laughter as he ran down the second flight of stairs to the platform. Far behind him, the tacky men yelled out to have the wheelchair gate opened for them.
Johnny Kim, 22, blond and careless, boarded the subway after running in the alleys from Kevin Wu, 27, the one person in the FBI who was so into catching the elusive conman. Johnny had been MIA since he was 16, casually milking money from big companies using fraudulent checks and false identities. His impressive track record made him the badge of honor to Kevin Wu; the agent's door to instant, skyrocketing promotion.
The train announced its departure and its doors closed. The men came just in time to see the train leaving with Johnny waving them a mischievous goodbye.
÷
Johnny Kim had always liked sitting alone by the window, wondering what kind of person would be seated beside him. He watched as a lost boy walked towards him in the slim airplane aisle. The boy stopped, looked down to his ticket, then to the row number above Johnny’s head. He put his bag in the overhead cabin, and smiled a hello as he sat down.
“Is your mom supposed to sit here? I’m sorry.” Johnny asked out of courtesy and stood up.
The boy scrunched at the bluntness. “Excuse me?” He laughed. “I’m what, twenty five? And you expect that seat beside me to be my mom’s?”
Johnny couldn’t help his baffled expressions.
“I’m Luhan. A singer hopeful.”
“No way,” Johnny laughed. The little boy was older than him. “I’m really sorry.”
“What’s your name?” Luhan asked, right hand waiting for a replying shake.
Johnny wondered what to reply. Johnny, James, Joongshin, Jarod, Jaemin…
“Joonmyun. Twenty seven. A traveler, I guess?” He shook the hand firmly. “I’m sorry again.” He had gone all over the world on the same passport, introducing himself proudly to strangers under pseudonyms he made up on the spot. He had never introduced himself using his real name before.
“It’s cool. I get that all the time,” Luhan smiled. “You got cool hair, by the way. I would love to do my hair like that when I’m singing on national TV.”
“T-thanks.” Joonmyun looked shocked and touched his hair cautiously. “What’s with my hair..?”
“It’s-you know. Ombre.” Luhan touched the ends of his own hair to emphasize his point. “It’s like brown but all blonde-ish at the bottom edges.”
Joonmyun’s eyes widened. He didn’t get to look at the mirror when he hurriedly sprayed the temporary brown dye over his blond hair in JFK’s men’s bathroom. It seemed like he wasn’t that good at self-disguise after all.
÷
“Present, Dr. Kim Jongin.”
“Mr. Kim Minseok, age 35. Has malnutrition due to bowel perforation. Patient has a history of inflammatory bowel disease and is currently receiving parenteral nutrition to substitute solid food.”
“Other causes of bowel perforation?”
“Ulcer, obtrusion by foreign objects, and ulcerative colitis.”
“What do you do?”
“Uh,” the new kid stuttered. He sifted through piling memories and jumbled Latin vocabulary. “We can…” The boy stifled a jaw-cracking yawn, trying his best to sound fresh after just barely two hours of sleep.
“Are you too sleepy to impress me now, Kim Jongin-ssi?”
“Um, no, Sir.” He shook himself awake. He kept thinking, his eyes unconsciously glued to Doctor Byun’s. “We do a CT to see if there is any internal bleeding.”
Byun Baekhyun, 32, was tending to Kim Minseok, 35, a thin young man with thin bowed lips. He was scheduled a surgery in a little over 24 hours because his intestines couldn’t absorb. His excrement was food puree. His skin was paper white and his muscles nonexistent. Kim Jongin, 26, wanted to go to sleep.
“Get him an x-ray and a CT as soon as possible. Let's go check Mr. Zhang.” Doctor Byun said and turned around. He batted away the green curtain separating the two patients and disappeared behind it.
“That sounds so cool,” Mr. Kim Minseok whispered hoarsely. Jongin looked back at Mr. Kim Minseok and his heart wrenched when he imagined the patient's hollow smile being as full as it could have, “I get to get a body scan and a surgery.”
Jongin’s fingers meddled slowly with the seams of Mr. Kim Minseok’s chart. They would have to take out the gaping holes in Mr. Kim Minseok's stomach, sow back his guts before his body could freak out from a puke flood. Jongin couldn’t give sweet enough a reply.
On the other side of the curtain, a patient watched with solemn eyes as Doctor Byun entered his space, face tainted with fatigue. “Good morning, Mr. Zhang. Did you get a good night’s sleep?”
“I did,” Zhang Yixing, 30, smiled under his oxygen mask. He let Doctor Byun take his right arm for BP, the grip on his arm as confident as the doctor himself. The curtain whisked open with Jongin scurrying in as the sphygmomanometer deflated with a funny hiss.
“I’m sorry,” Jongin panted. He took his place by Doctor Byun’s side.
“90 over 55,” Doctor Byun said bitterly at Jongin’s lateness, peeling the Velcro loudly off Mr. Zhang’s arm. Jongin hurriedly flipped through Mr. Zhang’s records to jot the numbers down.
“Is Kim Minseok-ssi going to be okay?” Mr. Zhang asked in a hoarse whisper. Although depressing, this room was Doctor Byun’s favorite room. Calm, positive patients that could always cool his bad day with how softly they speak.
“You two made friends,” Doctor Byun noted. He looked at the green curtain, then back at Mr. Zhang. “He’s going to be fine.” Doctor Byun then yanked Doctor Kim Jongin forward by the arm with a toxic smile. “Doctor Kim Jongin here is going to help me take the fluid out of your lungs so that you can breathe more freely now.”
Mr. Zhang nodded at the request. Unlike Mr. Kim Minseok, Mr. Zhang Yixing was not flat out gray and skinny-although equally as sick. His sensitive lungs were slit and battered, puddled with blood and pus from infections by microscopic industrial smog particles.
Doctor Byun Baekhyun gripped Doctor Kim Jongin’s arm tightly and whispered, “If you fail a task this simple, I will have your ass served medium-rare on a silver platter,” before pushing Doctor Kim Jongin to take his place. Doctor Kim Jongin gulped, but he took a deep breath and put on a big smile.
“Hello, Mr. Zhang. How are you today?” Doctor Kim Jongin smiled kindly, being the sweet little intern he always was. He took the catheter from the little cart. “I’m going to make a little cut on the side of your chest, slide this plastic tube in, and let the blood in your lungs flow out into this bag. I promise you,” he peeked a glance at Doctor Byun, “that you won’t feel any pain.”
They left the shared room with a polite smile. The hallway wasn’t bustling with people, but it was alive enough for any public place at 6 AM. They separated ways: Kim Jongin dragged his way to the records table and Doctor Byun took the staircase down to the doctors’ cafeteria.
“One whole wheat veggie sandwich and one unsweetened power smoothie are on the way," Doctor Byun heard, only seconds after he showed up in front of the cash register.
"Seriously, Kyungsoo."
Do Kyungsoo, 33, was responsible for the home foods section at the doctors' cafeteria. Doctor Byun's order would be his first one for the day.
Kyungsoo slid the plastic cup of smoothie and the plate of sandwich onto a tray. He took Baekhyun's card between his fingers.
"You. Are a doctor, Baekhyun. Stop eating spicy ramen for goodness’ sake." Kyungsoo slid the card and gave Baekhyun his tray.
Baekhyun scowled. “Fine. You noodle blob.”
÷
“Hi. Can I book a vocal practice room, please?” A man with catlike lips asked with a weird American accent.
“Your JYP ID please.”
What’s a JYP ID? “I. I’m a police,” he said in his awkward Korean, despite being Korean alright. He fished his wallet and showed the woman his police ID. “One of your students is a criminal.” He took a picture from his breast pocket he’d been holding on to for the past year. “I would like to see him, please.”
The woman couldn’t help but give a freaked out face, and she slowly took her desk phone to ask for help from her immediate superior. It wasn’t the first time they had freaky fans trying to gain entrance to the building. She greeted her boss on the phone and covered its mouthpiece. “What’s your name, Sir?”
“Chen Kim.”
“Chen Kim,” the woman repeated to her boss, suspicious eyes still glued to the guest. She listened to her boss and nodded along, answering ‘police’ while glancing at him with scrutiny. She hung up the phone and stood up from her seat.
“Follow me, Sir.”
She led Chen Kim through a series of white, modern hallways with wooden floors. Chen Kim looked at his surroundings. The interior designer must’ve been told to save on the tiles and put the same wooden flooring all around.
She opened a door to a cramped space, containing only a keyboard and a seat, although decorated with colorful sound absorbers and posters of successful label artists on one side. He thanked her, sat on the keyboard seat, and let her close the door.
The desk attendant closed the door behind her and walked to a dance class three doors away to call Luhan, 19, a Chinese trainee freshly scouted from the states. The class door opened, stealing attention from the panting students. The instructor came up to the door.
The desk attendant whispered to the instructor. The instructor nodded promptly and stuck his head back to the room.
“Luhan,” the instructor called. He turned his head and walked to the door.
“Hello,” Luhan closed the door behind him and bowed as soon as he was outside, something he picked up after a week in Seoul. The hallway was silent, tinted with the soft pounding of bass cranked up too loud.
“You have vocal practice from eleven to two. The teacher called for you.” She said. Luhan looked at his rubber wristwatch. He did not remember having vocal until three in the afternoon.
“I understand.” He bowed. The woman left and Luhan went back to the classroom to take his bag. He changed his sweaty clothes and went to the room he was assigned to.
“Hello,” he said as he entered the vocal practice room. “Please forgive my unpunctuality.” The teacher kept silent, too engrossed in playing the cheap black keyboard. Luhan put his bag in the corner and sat there waiting for the teacher to finish the song he was playing.
The teacher finished his song and lifted his head to greet a friendly, “Hello, Luhan,” and Luhan immediately stood up, knocking the stool he was sitting on. “How do you like Seoul so far?” The teacher, Chen Kim, asked in perfect English with a sly smile.
Luhan didn’t think any further when he ran out the door, out the white hallways, out the building, to save his dear life, as fast as his feet could carry him.
÷
“This is your pager,” the nurse said, showing a small, rectangular clip-on device. “You press this for incoming pages,” she demonstrated, “then this button over here is the back button. You can go back,” she pressed the button, “and page people if you need assistance,” fingers and words faster than her sole audience could digest at once. Kim Joonmyun, 24, now Go Jaehan, 32, regretted picking up Jongin’s identity right off the bat.
The nurse kept walking quickly, showing everything in the most comprehensive manner she could. “You punch in here, patient records are here, front desk..." She looked around, trying to find what else she could show and mention. "Vending machine only for visitors... I think that's all. You'll get used to it. It gets busy, but the hours aren't that bad," she added. "Your boss asked you to meet him again once you're done with me."
"I understand. I'll do my best," he said, ending the orientation session with the nurse. He was to meet Doctor Park, the head of the emergency department. Doctor Go, eight years younger than he claimed to be, went to the office and knocked on the white door.
“Come in,” a coarse and muffled voice answered. Doctor Go opened the door.
“Did you have fun going around the hospital?” Head Doctor Park Chanyeol, 39, asked from behind his desk.
“Yes, Doctor Park.”
“Have a seat,” he said, telling Doctor Go to move from his awkward place sticking by the door. Doctor Go walked towards the desk, and Doctor Park stood up, brooding, despite his warm attitude. “I’m glad we have a brilliant addition to our great staff. The pit’s always busier after midnight-you know, when people drunk-drive, sleep-drive, do impulsive mistakes.”
“I understand, Sir.” Doctor Go smiled confidently. He had come home from the stationery store with a stack of ivory paper and blue stamps to paint a convincing 3.95 grade point average on his homemade certificate from Seoul National University’s College of Medicine. If he wanted to stay, he at least had to convince his boss.
“There you go then. Get on it. Once again, welcome.”
“Thank you, Sir.” He smiled, and stepped back. “If you would excuse me.”
Doctor Go closed the door behind him and walked his way to the elevator.
“Joonmyun Hyung!”
Doctor Go froze. He didn’t know whether he should run or wait, but before he could decide, a warm arm curled around the shoulders of his pristine white coat. He turned his head carefully.
“You work here?” Jongin asked excitedly.
Doctor Go immediately shook away from Jongin before putting his finger on his lips with threatening eyes. He pointed the nametag on his coat, looking around cautiously. “Jongin, what’s the pit?” Joonmyun whispered through gritted teeth.
Kim Joonmyun, 24, then still Johnny, 22, had met Kim Jongin for the very first time in a music store, a week after Joonmyun had dyed the rest of his blond hair a subtle dark brown. They bonded immediately over Tchaikovsky and Dragon Ball Z on the seater of the store's grand piano. Jongin was the only person Joonmyun had told everything to, including how he became Johnny in New York, how he managed all his different IDs, and how he became a judge at the tender age of sixteen. In turn, Jongin told Joonmyun everything, including how he got into Seoul General Hospital and how he learned to stay up for twenty three hours every day.
“Go… Jae… Han…” Jongin spelled out, then he looked at Joonmyun’s eyes, confused.
“OH,” Jongin exclaimed, and hurriedly covered his mouth. “Oh.” Jongin said. “Okay, Doctor… Go.”
“Hello,” a voice greeted proudly, making Joonmyun jump again. Joonmyun turned around to see a man his height trying to play it kind and low-key. “I’m Doctor Byun Baekhyun,” he said, extending his hand. “This here is my intern, Doctor Kim Jongin.”
“I’m Doctor Go Jaehan,” Joonmyun said, taking Doctor Byun’s hand, then Jongin’s (with a quick, worried wink), and shaking it convincingly. "It is a pleasure to meet you."
“Everyone’s been talking about you. Fresh from New York, graduated top of the class from Seouldae’s program I heard?” Doctor Byun smirked politely. “I will definitely need your help on some cases I’m handling.”
÷
Running, running, and running from the confinements of his music company had led Luhan, 19, to a clogging street with blinking lights and wailing sirens. That day, he was glad to look back and see his captor, Chen Kim, running a league behind. Luhan had squeezed his way through Seoul General Hospital’s crowded parking lot, slipped into the closest storage room, and hid in the furthest corner from the door. He woke up the next day to cover himself in a set of fresh peach-colored scrubs.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” a voice called as soon as Luhan walked out the closet in the uniform. He froze. “Go back to the pharmacy.”
Luhan sighed in relief. He didn't pay the voice any apologetic bows, but he smiled to himself and walked slightly faster. He went to the pharmacy as asked, opened the employee door, and was relieved to see everyone in the same colored uniform.
Luhan learned to alternate between the cash register and the pharmacy, and soon enough, he found himself walking comfortably around the hospital complex. Crushing tablets into pink dirt was new, liberating. No wooden floors, no scrutinizing mirrored walls, no one breathing down his neck in expectation. One day on lunch break, he patted his same-shift buddy on the back, walked outside, and decided that he would have a quick bento from the convenience store on the other side of the block.
Luhan entered the convenience store, picked a roll of kimbap, and waited in line. He absently looked past the cash register without expecting to see Chen Kim and his team partner, Kevin Wu, sitting in suit and tie with coffee at one of the round tables outside. His heart jumped, and he immediately looked down to his kimbap to hide his face. His panicked brain tried making a quick plan before he looked up again to see Chen Kim turning his head towards him. Chen Kim stared for a good while, as if recognizing Luhan, before finally looking back at Kevin Wu, his comrade, laughing. Luhan did not know whether Chen Kim did recognize him, but at least the man didn’t scramble to catch and cuff him on the spot. He couldn’t avert his eyes.
“Next in line,” the cashier called.
÷
“What-what on earth was that, Jongin,” Joonmyun gasped as soon as Baekhyun finally left them alone in the surgical theatre, three hours after their first encounter. Guessing that Hyung was shocked white and clueless, Jongin had to peel the latex gloves off of Joonmyun’s shaking hands.
“That was a broken kidney, Hyung. Byun likes you,” Jongin answered, rubbing the pads of Joonmyun hyung’s fingers affectionately under the disinfected water. He applied more soap, rinsed, and tapped the blue cloth lightly around Joonmyun hyung’s hands. He yawned as he washed his own hands. “Ngh, I’m sleepy.”
“I need to quit this hellhole.”
“I mean. If you could survive working in a court, why not a hospital?” Jongin commented naively and dried his hands. He opened the door for them. He cracked open and chugged down his third bottle of Bacchus since 2 in the morning.
They walked the staircase to the doctors’ cafeteria in the basement.
“People at the court eat bullshit all the time they can’t even smell it, Jongin. Byun can. He can find out about me anytime. I’m dead meat, Jongin. Help me.”
“Eat, Hyung.” Jongin looked at the overhead menu of the noodle parlor.
On the other side of the cafeteria was Doctor Byun standing by the home-foods cashier counter.
“How was Handsome New Guy?” Kyungsoo asked Baekhyun over the hissing vegetables. He was preparing another tray of bok choi for the doctors’ eternal lunch hour.
“You heard about him? I took him on my nephrectomy procedure just now.”
“You took him to your what?” Kyungsoo stopped and took the gigantic wok to the front tray.
“Taking out a dead kidney. He didn’t know shit. They said he was the top graduate on the year before mine, and if he were, I definitely would have heard of him! Seouldae my ass. He's got to be a fucking fraud.”
“Don’t curse in front of my food, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo warned.
A phone vibrated in Doctor Go’s pocket on the other side of the cafeteria.
“I thought no one knew your number,” Jongin commented as Joonmyun stared at his pixelated screen. On their table was two bowls of good old ramyeon.
“I know,” Joonmyun replied. He looked at his cheap phone, weighing too long whether he should answer the stranger before flipping the phone open. “Hello?”
“Hey Johnny,” the caller greeted, the name filthy in his ears. “How’s life going with you?”
Joonmyun stared in panic at Jongin, as if asking for help. “Excuse me?”
“Your new apartment is in Seongnam, am I right? Close enough for you to go to work, cheap enough for you to lay low. Smart choice. If I were you, I would’ve bought myself a condo with that stash of money you got in Switzerland.”
“Who is this?” Joonmyun asked in controlled fear, his tone firm.
“Kevin Wu,” the voice answered casually. “I believe you're doing well.” Joonmyun’s eyes widened. Jongin watched in anticipation.
Joonmyun slowly put his phone away from his ear, eyes blank. Jongin watched, chopsticks dipping idly in his bowl. Jongin started, very carefully. “...Who was that, Hyung?”
Joonmyun watched the call timer tick by, Kevin Wu’s voice seeping through the speaker. He shut his phone to kill the conversation.
"You don't have to answer," Jongin said.
"It’s Kevin."
Jongin stopped meddling with his noodles. “The FBI Kevin guy you were always talking about?”
Jongin waited for a reply, but he didn’t get any. “He… he caught up pretty fast,” Jongin commented a beat later.
Joonmyun didn’t say anything. He pushed his tray and left Jongin to eat alone.
A dead kidney on his first day, Kevin Wu finding his whereabouts. It was getting too much for Joonmyun and he thought he could use a little break. Joonmyun lodged his weight to the pharmacy’s checking counter and, “Hey, can I have some aspirin billed to my name? I have a ridiculously bad headache-“ his eyes widened and his tongue spontaneously switched to English, “-what are you doing here?!”
“What are you doing here?!” Luhan, 25, the boy-man from the airplane, asked back.
Doctor Go could only look puzzled. “I thought you were an idol band trainee.”
“I thought so, too, but life happened.” Luhan turned his back to the unlimited shelves of pills. “Here’s your aspirin, Johnny-ssi,” Luhan muttered, scribbled the prescription, and gave the pack with a note stapled.
Stranger-On-The-Plane couldn’t possibly know Joonmyun’s most notorious alias. “What?”
“They used to call me Little Lu back in the day. The two of us kind of do the same monkey business, you know, that’s why I decided to flee New York for freakin’ Seoul. Let me see,” Luhan looked down to his pants pocket to check his pager. Joonmyun’s pager beeped. “God bless these Paleozoic pagers.”
Joonmyun looked down to see the message he just received. Luhan leaned closer. “I saw Chen Kim and Kevin Wu earlier today. That shit of a pager better keep you alive.”
÷
“So, what did he say?” The square-jawed comrade asked as soon as Kevin Wu turned off his phone screen scoffing.
“Nothing. At least silence always means confirmation,” Kevin Wu smiled lightly. He put the big phone in his bottomless dress pants pocket. “Come on, let’s get rolling. What about your guy?”
“Little Lu’s surprisingly in the same premises as Johnny-Joonmyun, whatever. Been skipping dance practice for two weeks now. Probably can’t face the idea of having me spotting him immediately on national TV.” The man followed his friend’s lead standing up from his seat. Chen Kim, 27, threw his can of latte and walked confidently away from the convenience store. Neither of them saw Little Lu in a blue raincoat and peach scrub pants carefully walking past by.
They walked to the subway station efficiently. They scanned their cards and only talked after reaching the platform.
“You know,” Kevin Wu started, “back in New York, I promised Johnny Kim when he climbed up the vent in that theatre, that I would get him, whatever it takes. I promised him, I promised myself, and I’m not going back. I’m on my word.”
It was not the first time Kevin Wu said something along those lines. Multiple verbal self-affirmation was always a sign of doubt. Chen Kim scoffed dismissively. “Cool.”
The bell dinged and the automated voice politely announced that the inbound train was approaching. The train hissed behind the transparent doors, and it stopped, letting an influx of people out before Kevin Wu and Chen Kim could hop in. The electronic woman’s voice announced the train’s departure.
÷
“Hi, Doctor Byun Baekhyun. Hi, Doctor Kim Jongin.” Mr. Zhang greeted with a smile under his fogging oxygen mask later in the afternoon. He was the one sleeping by the door, always the first one to see the doctors entering the room.
“Hello again Mr. Zhang,” Doctor Byun greeted back-small, canine-like teeth lined up in a professional smile. “We’ll get to you in a minute.”
When Doctor Byun and Doctor Kim Jongin got to Mr. Kim Minseok’s side of the room, a nurse was wiping his pale face and reddish lips with wet cloth. He looked like Snow White, only male, in a hospital gown, and without dwarf friends. The nurse stepped back, put down the cloth, and reported to Doctor Byun and Doctor Kim, “He’s been vomiting blood and breaking cold sweat the past hour.”
Doctor Kim Jongin jotted down the nurse’s report on Mr. Kim Minseok’s charts, while Doctor Byun dismissed the nurse. She nodded and stepped back, still hanging around in case Doctor Byun needed another set of hands. Doctor Byun was just about to tell Mr. Kim Minseok that he planned to move up the surgery, hoping to have arrived before this could happen.
“Kim Minseok-ssi,” Doctor Byun began.
“Please help me,” he cried. He tried to hold the heaving, hastily trying to grab his puke bowl. The nurse rushed to him and let him vomit, blood a fresh red. His heaves were mixed with cries and pained whines.
“Jongin, move up our operating slot immediately,” Doctor Byun said. “I’ll check Mr. Zhang and prep Mr. Kim with the nurse.” Jongin nodded to the order and sprinted out the door.
He patted the nurse softly on the shoulder and whispered, “Can you prep him for surgery? I’ll update the other patient real quick.”
Doctor Byun turned on his heels and went to Mr. Zhang’s side of the room. “Hi, Mr. Zhang.”
“Will Kim Minseok-ssi be okay? He doesn’t sound okay,” Mr. Zhang commented. Doctor Byun stuck the stethoscope to his chest, fast and efficient. His breathing was still coarse and weak. “Will I need surgery?”
“It would pose more harm to perform surgery on your lungs, Mr. Zhang. In fact, we are going to discharge you once you get strong enough. Thing is, you’ve been exposing yourself to the many air pollutants back home that you’re sensitive to, and it’s been accumulating over time.”
Mr. Zhang nodded, but did not comment anything about his status. He breathed a slow, nasty croak. “Kim Minseok-ssi can have my intestines if he wants,” Mr. Zhang said.
“It’s okay, Yixing-ssi-“ barf-cough, “-I’m okay, thank you.” Mr. Kim Minseok called from the other side of the curtain.
“We can run tests to find if the both of you match, but I believe you need your bowel more,” Doctor Byun smiled kindly. “We appreciate your noble offer, Sir.”
Jongin ran back to the room and gave a panting nod to Doctor Byun. The three of them took Minseok-ssi’s bed, and amidst the weak whines, Kim Minseok-ssi managed to say a clear, loud, “Bye, Yixing-ssi. Don’t die on me-” He vomited again into his vomit bowl before they rolled the bed away, and in the blink of an eye, Mr. Zhang was left all alone in the big, empty room.
÷
Mr. Kim Minseok kept writhing and whining on the surgical table despite the dose of morphine.
“Kim Minseok-ssi, we need you to stay still. I’ll put you to sleep so you don’t feel it anymore, okay?” Doctor Kim Jongin said softly from behind his mask. Minseok-ssi slowly straightened his feet from his fetal position, and he bit his lips hard to divert his attention. Jongin took the anesthesia mask closer to Minseok-ssi’s face. “Everything is going to be okay.” Minseok-ssi nodded and breathed the ether, finally at ease.
The insides of Mr. Kim Minseok was a bleeding mess when Byun slit him open. If malnutrition didn't kill this man, blood poisoning would. All Byun needed to do was take out the perforated parts of Mr. Kim Minseok's bowel and stitch up the damage it left, but he was racing with time.
Jongin didn't know he was holding his breath, watching Mr. Kim Minseok's heart rate on the monitor constantly surfing near danger lines, and watching Byun's hands skillfully navigate through living blood and human guts, as if following a beat to the beeping. Doctor Byun’s focus did not falter a bit throughout the procedure, making Jongin look up to him even more.
"Doctor Kim Jongin," Byun called from under his mask. Jongin stepped up to see multiple rows of stitches staring at him. "Would you close him up for me?"
Jongin nodded and stepped forward. He took a deep breath, looked at Minseok-ssi's cloth-covered face, and asked for the suture kit, carefully sowing the kind man’s skin back together.
"Good," Doctor Byun praised.
Doctor Byun congratulated everyone for the successful surgery and left the OR to let the scrub nurses clean after him. Jongin waited until the scrub room was empty before he washed his own hands in silence. Jongin took off his mask and went over his moments of victory as he washed his hands. He dried his hands with the provided cloth and left the scrub room.
Just when Jongin left the sterile area, a doctor whooshed past him, followed by a lanky, handsome man whose face he managed to look at long enough. For that kind of height, Jongin would have thought the man was Head Doctor Park, if it weren’t for the black suits, ginger hair, and brash attitude. The characteristics (tall, handsome, ginger hair) really reminded Jongin of Joonmyun hyung’s unique descriptions of the FBI Kevin Guy-
FBI Kevin Guy.
“-Joonmyun hyung!” Jongin called then ran behind them.
The men disappeared on a turn and when Jongin followed, FBI Kevin Guy stopped in his tracks and was panting, mussing up his own hair in desperation. Jongin watched, but FBI Kevin Guy turned around and cornered him against the wall instead. "Where is Johnny!" He barked.
"I-I don't know. I-" Jongin stuttered. The man made him feel very, very small. Jongin whimpered when Kevin Wu yanked the front of his scrub.
"Please do not lay hands on my staff," Head Doctor Park's booming voice warned from the end of the hall. Every pair of eyes was watching the scene, but Head Doctor Park remained serene as he walked closer to Jongin and Kevin Wu. Kevin Wu sighed and let Jongin be. As Head Doctor Park stopped, one foot in front of FBI Kevin Guy, the fear-stricken Jongin was awed to see a person physically looking down at Doctor Park.
“This is a hospital. We have sick people, expensive equipment, and dangerous chemicals lying around. Please do not run around making a scene, Sir.” Head Doctor Park sternly warned. He moved his gaze to the awestruck intern. “Good work today, Doctor Kim Jongin. You may leave.”
Doctor Kim Jongin nodded quickly at Head Doctor Park and stole a scared glance at FBI Kevin Guy before sprinting away. With Head Doctor Park's eyes boring into his, FBI Kevin Guy sighed and took his ID wallet to show. “With all due respect, two of your staff are criminals, Sir.”
÷
A hand swiftly pulled Joonmyun into the storage room when he turned left in the hallway. Joonmyun saved himself from crashing into the racks and when he turned around, Luhan was glaring at him. He couldn’t look away because he was too intent on catching his breath, heartbeat drumming in his ears.
Luhan huffed in irritation when he broke the gaze to bend down and take stuff from an expensive-looking shopping bag. He gave Joonmyun a set of casual clothes, then he gave Joonmyun instructions by sticking his pointer on the shirt, then on Joonmyun’s shoulder. Joonmyun nodded. They were aware of the bickering and shuffling over them outside.
Luhan, already clad in a suspicious blouse and tight jeans, proceeded to take other things from the bag. He looked at Joonmyun with angry eyes and hissed, “Hurry!”
They dressed up in silence as efficiently as they could. Joonmyun was zipping up the borrowed jeans when he looked up to see an obnoxiously pretty woman combing her hair with her fingers. “Luhan,” he hissed.
Luhan turned around, still with a sour face, then continued fixing his wig, as if dressing up as a woman was never a big deal. Joonmyun never knew how dumb he looked when he ogled. He forgot what he was in the middle of doing.
“They went in here, I believe,” a muffled voice said from outside.
The both of them flinched. They could hear footsteps coming closer. Joonmyun didn’t see the door handle turning behind him, but Luhan slammed him to the door and started hissing and moaning like a girl over his shoulder, sticking lips to the door. He kept making lewd noises when he suddenly pulled Joonmyun’s ear to make Joonmyun cry out in pain.
“Goodness gracious! People nowadays,” the voice said in disgust, exactly behind the door, and the mob behind him broke into gossiping murmurs as they left. Luhan peeled himself-herself-off Joonmyun, professionally, and dusted his feminine outfit.
“You are so gross,” Joonmyun panted after holding out his breath.
“I am so staying alive,” Luhan defended. He dusted his blouse and put their old scrubs in his boutique bag.
“Thanks,” Joonmyun whispered. Luhan reached down to give Joonmyun a black cap to wear. He made both their outfits look halfheartedly worn before holding the door handle.
“Let’s go,” Luhan the Girl said, then opened the storage room door.
Luhan, 19, a freshly screwed woman, had her walk of shame down the East Surgical Wing of Seoul General Hospital. Joonmyun, face hidden under a cap, followed her out the closet not too far behind. They made long enough a walk, took one flight of stairs, walked their way to the elevator, and got off on the first floor. They turned on a corner to the main entrance.
“Hyung,” Doctor Kim Jongin called. The wheelchair he was pushing squeaked as it rolled. It was Mr. Zhang Yixing smiling under his oxygen mask.
Joonmyun and his camouflage girlfriend Luhan turned.
Jongin looked into his eyes with a mix of disbelief, affection, and betrayal.
“What are you gonna do now?” Jongin asked him softly.
Joonmyun fell mute. His eyes were brimming with guilt.
“Hyung,” Jongin demanded.
“Doctor Kim Jongin,” a voice broke together with approaching footsteps. Jongin turned. “Can you check on Mr. Kim Minseok every hour and make sure he goes through the night?” Jongin took the chart Doctor Byun handed, and Doctor Byun moved his gaze past Jongin’s shoulders. "My, my, my. Look who’s here," Doctor Byun leered at the two people Doctor Kim Jongin was talking to. “Doctor Go,” Byun saluted.
The girl in tow hooked a possessive arm around Joonmyun's and politely bowed, tugging Joonmyun at the elbow. Joonmyun bowed with her and answered. "It was nice working with you. I will see you soon," he said politely, and hurriedly turned to leave.
÷
“Take it off, you’re freaking me out,” Joonmyun complained. They were descending underground, sitting in a subway train car heading as far as they could wish. They were nearing the end of the line.
Luhan stood up and waited for the train to arrive at its final destination. “I will still be a girl-your girl-until Chen’s arrival forces me not to be.” Luhan retaliated. They stepped out of the train. “In the meantime,” Luhan leaned his head on Joonmyun’s shoulder and took his hand.
“Good lord,” Joonmyun groaned, trying to shake Luhan off of him although Luhan wouldn’t budge. They took the elevator up to a crowded shopping street, grateful that they could at least be anonymous in a crowd before finding a place to hide.
There was a police car and a sealed building not too far ahead. Joonmyun seemed to catch the same sight. “Sweet,” Luhan grumbled.
“Do you want to try my place? Or yours?” Joonmyun asked.
“No. They probably sealed it, too,” Luhan said. “Now let’s just walk away slowly…”
They walked away from the scene as if they had nothing to fear about yellow tapes or the police. It was a good hundred, two hundred meters from the site before they suddenly heard a siren wail on their right, and being afraid, they jumped out of their skin and ran as fast as they could.
A phone rang loudly in one of their pockets. Joonmyun and Luhan looked at each other.
Joonmyun took out his phone from his jeans pocket, still running, and half-yelled, “It’s a stranger’s number. It’s Kevin. He knows that we’re here.” He flipped the phone open to throw it away. A passing businessman looked at him in much surprise. “Throw away your phone!”
While running, Luhan immediately nodded and prodded her own jeans pocket. She threw his phone away.
Another siren went off on their left.
“Throw your pager, too!” Joonmyun cried.
Another siren rang in front of them, and they stopped before finding another path to turn to.
“We’re trapped!” Luhan called out. Another siren rang.
“I know,” Joonmyun yelled.
As they ran, Luhan peeled off his wig and shimmied out of his floral blouse. He was a manly man; he did not want to be caught dead wearing drag.
More and more sirens started wailing on top of each other. They did not know where to go.
They turned to an alley without knowing that it was a dead-end. The sirens ringing together were starting to grow confusing in their ears.
They stopped in their tracks when they saw Kevin Wu in front of a wall, pointing a gun.
They froze and lifted their hands. Deep down, they knew they were not afraid, despite their knees shaking underneath their jeans.
Kevin Wu took slow steps forward, and they slowly retreated, not wanting to be killed. Luhan peeked a glance at Joonmyun. Joonmyun subtly nodded.
“Run!” Luhan yelped. Just when they turned around on their heels, a car screeched to halt before their eyes. A man hopped off the driver’s seat and pointed his gun at them. They raised their hands, now in utter defeat.
Chen Kim smirked with his gun pointed at the two them and called, “Freeze.”
÷
Kim Joonmyun, 22, hated prison to his guts. His fingers squeezed the seams of his hideous blue overall, making the fabric rustle noisily. He stopped looking at the ceiling and moved his gaze to the cell across. Luhan, 19, was scribbling on paper with a short pencil.
Feeling the gaze bore on him, Luhan looked up and saw Joonmyun's eyes. He flashed a smile and continued scribbling.
Joonmyun sighed and wiped his face, his palms still not used to the facial hair he hadn't shaved for over a week. They would not give inmates the liberty of using a razor. He envied Luhan for having a pencil and a shave-free face.
“Whaccha doing?” Joonmyun asked from across the aisle, happy to have his conversation encrypted in English.
“Finding a way to get out of this shithole,” Luhan stopped scribbling and gave another flat smile at Joonmyun. His expressions changed as he went into deeper thought. “You look pretty damn good with that beard going on.”
“We're not friends.”
“Oh shut up. We're literally stuck with each other for all I know.” Luhan quit the conversation and returned to scribbling an escape plan.
Joonmyun looked at the barred window on the other side of his cell. He wanted to just get out there and pick up a new name already. He could hear metal rattling slowly outside and he couldn't care less, until a paper plane hit his arm and dropped to the cement ground.
Bye, loser! it read.
He jumped awake and dashed to his cell bars, and without surprise, Luhan's cell door was wide open. He could hear the overall uniform rustling loudly and the pair of feet running away, and there Luhan was at the end of the aisle, fighting his way through pissed off guards.
Joonmyun scoffed and slumped against the wall on his metal bed. He listened solemnly to the guards wrestling Luhan only to let him slip away. He moved his gaze on the wall to the upside down paper plane on the floor to find that there was a drawing on its underside.
The alarms started wailing, but Joonmyun could not care less as his attention was fully directed at Luhan’s paper plane. Joonmyun took the paper plane and when he unfolded it, a small hairclip fell out. He held the hairclip and read Luhan’s scrawny but perfectly drawn master plan.
÷
“Everyone's been talking about you since Doctor Go left,” Doctor Byun said, then he took a sip of his soup. “Is it fun being infamous?”
He was never the type to talk back, but two weeks of Doctor Byun had drawn him thin real fast. Jongin sulked. “If I weren't in-famous, you wouldn't have made me eat lunch with you for over a week, Sir.”
Two tables down was where he belonged, with fellow intern Oh Sehun and young nurse Huang Zitao. Ever since Doctor Go had been discovered as Kim Joonmyun, an internationally searched impostor on the run, Doctor Byun had made Jongin stick with him like a sloth on a tree.
“Mr. Kim Minseok is coming at two for post-op checkups. Take care of that for me,” Byun said.
“Yes, Sir.”
Jongin continued eating. Behind him at the food bar, cafeteria cook Do Kyungsoo was busy sautéing sticky beans.
“Does Doctor Go really mean that much you?”
Jongin looked up from his bowl.
“He's my friend. I live next door from his sealed apartment and he used to treat me noodles and tell me his fugitive stories. He might not understand surgery, he might be an international fugitive, but I know very well that he’s teaching me about life more than many of my seniors in this hospital. So I guess, yes, he means that much to me.”
÷
Joonmyun watched the ugly blotches of mold on his cell’s ceiling. He missed eating chicken with little Jonginnie.
He pulled himself up to sit, and across the aisle was an officer and two handymen trying to fix the bars Luhan wrecked.
He really wanted to go. After all, he had to prove time and again that he was the world renowned master of flight.
So Joonmyun decided to fake a coughing fit. In one minute, his coughing grew coarser and deeper, as if he had a century’s worth of wet boogers sitting deep in his lungs. The officer and handymen turned their heads, because it started to really look like the inmate was dying.
“H-help,” Joonmyun croaked nastily, and the officer scurried away to find help, while the handymen went closer to his cell cautiously, in fear that his cough was contagious.
This was the cough that had saved his life a million times over.
He knew to keep coughing and croaking, until he could hear pairs of leather shoes running his way.
“Johnny,” Kevin Wu’s voice called. They both knew the drill. This cough had always started their cat and mouse game for over six years now. The hallway guard opened Joonmyun's cell door. “Johnny,” Kevin Wu reassured.
Joonmyun panted from coughing too much, then he coughed again, before Kevin Wu helped him up.
Joonmyun looked into Kevin Wu’s eyes with suspicion before accepting his help. Kevin Wu grinned and handcuffed both Joonmyun’s hands behind Joonmyun’s back, before handcuffing those hands to his own wrist. The cuffs made it very awkward for them to walk together, but Kevin Wu really knew better than to lose Joonmyun for the nth time.
“Come,” Kevin Wu beckoned. Joonmyun kept coughing and panting coarsely, while Kevin Wu had his hand dragged behind Joonmyun as if holding the small of Joonmyun’s back.
“You little shit,” Kevin Wu hissed as he led Joonmyun through the open hallways to the Care Unit. "You're not going anywhere this time."
In response, Joonmyun dragged his cough even longer.
As soon as they reached the big room with a dozen empty gurneys, Kevin Wu made the both of them sit at the closest bed possible while waiting for a physician to come. Joonmyun made his breathing croak, only coughing once every minute or two.
“SCREW YOU ALL. GET OFF ME.” Luhan-unmistakably Luhan-yelped from the end of the hall, accompanied by more than a pair of struggling footsteps. Joonmyun straightened up and snapped out of his thoughts to see Luhan, uniform pants a blue muddy mess, kicking and thrashing to hurt the guards with what little free limbs he had left. The guards were holding the elongated sleeves of his unbound straitjacket, trying their best to tie him down without breaking his arms. Chen Kim was walking behind him trying to find something in his suit pockets.
Chen Kim found what he wanted, so he lifted it-a loaded syringe-high in the air and aimed for the back of Luhan’s neck. Joonmyun gasped, and Kevin Wu took his free hand to cover Joonmyun’s sight. “You don’t want to see this part,” he warned, but Joonmyun tried his best to shake his head away from Kevin’s hand.
Joonmyun fought Kevin Wu even harder when heard a soft thud and a series of quick shuffling, but Kevin Wu would only let go after it was all silent. Joonmyun shivered when Kevin Wu removed his hand from his sight to reveal Luhan lolling unconsciously in Chen Kim's arms, cocooned snugly in the bound straitjacket. He was barefooted; his feet tied, bloody and dirty. Joonmyun had never seen Luhan's face being this peaceful. It pained him to think about how much sedative Chen Kim forced into Luhan's bloodstream.
As Joonmyun waited, he painfully watched Sleeping Luhan being carried onto the gurney beside his. Watching Luhan being taken down had made him forget to breathe. It was such a shame that a fox like Luhan wasn’t cunning enough to find the way out.
"What are they going to do with him?” Kim Joonmyun asked Kevin Wu in pity.
“Inmate Kim Joonmyun,” the physician, a woman, called. Joonmyun and Kevin Wu turned their heads. The woman continued. “I will have to draw your blood, and then I’ll give you a shot of vitamins, and you’ll be good as new.”
Both Kevin and Joonmyun knew about the vitamin: it was real and it really could pump up the recipient, but only Kevin and the physician knew that she was lying this time around. Joonmyun was elated. Prison doctors hated their jobs too much to want to lie.
“I will need your arm,” she said.
“Can’t you just shoot it from behind him?” Kevin Wu protested.
“No, I won’t be able to see his veins.”
Kevin Wu sighed and freed Joonmyun’s left wrist. The cuff linking the both of them dangled awkwardly.
The woman did her job and inserted needles into Joonmyun’s arm. Joonmyun did not flinch the slightest bit.
When she was done, she looked at Kevin Wu, asking to speak in private. Kevin Wu protested.
“I can’t leave him alone.”
“One minute? I need a word.”
Kevin Wu sighed again and cuffed Joonmyun’s wrists back together before swiftly replacing his left wrist with the metal bedframe.
Joonmyun felt slightly drowsy as he watched the both of them walk away, but it was expected from the injected vitamins. He produced the hairclip from Luhan from under his sleeve and probed the cuffs blind trying to get himself out of there.
Soon enough, he managed to free his wrists. He fled the closest door possible and ran like the wind.
Kevin Wu turned around to check the gurney when he heard metal rattling. “Damn it.”
÷
Joonmyun felt his heartbeat racing way faster than it should. He was panting hard, his vision spinning. He looked back and knew he needed to run now before Kevin could get him. He referred to Luhan's little map. The sewer opening by the back gate was a few turns away.
A good distance behind Joonmyun, Kevin Wu traced Joonmyun's steps, because he had other plans for Joonmyun. Everyone knew Joonmyun was worth more than rotting in a Korean prison. He pushed open the door to the sewer.
Joonmyun heard the echoing creak of the sewer door a distance behind him, so he immediately ran to his original destination.
When he reached the ladder, he was panting very hard. It felt like he could faint anytime soon and that moment he knew, the woman did not inject goddamned vitamins into his body.
Joonmyun composed himself. He held his pounding head tight, took a deep breath, and climbed his way to the opening.
When he opened the sewer seal, five masked officers were pointing freaking snipers at his head. He sighed.
"Johnny," Kevin Wu called from his feet. Joonmyun's eyes grew wide.
"Johnny. I come alone and I will drop my gun. You can trust me, or you can climb up there and go straight back to your cell."
Joonmyun thought about it.
"Surrender," one of the masked men ordered from the ground above.
Joonmyun looked down at Kevin Wu, then he looked up at the cops.
"This is Kevin Wu from the FBI speaking. Mister Kim Joonmyun is in good hands," he called up, hoping that the cops would understand with the meager English they had. Joonmyun decided to close the sewer door and climb down the ladder.
"This is not a trap," Joonmyun asked.
"No. This is not a trap," Kevin Wu reassured. He took the gun out of his pocket and put it on the ground. He looked straight into Joonmyun's eyes.
"What do you want?" Joonmyun pointed out.
"I want you to get out of here. You know you're more than this."
"This is a trap. You’re setting me up." Joonmyun accused.
"You live on the rush of the chase, Johnny. Admit it." Kevin Wu grinned. Joonmyun was still on pins and needles. "Get out of here. Find a new name. Edward. Michael. Or hell, Guardian."
Joonmyun kept silent.
"The safest exit is three doors down. No one on duty really watches that exit, but stay alert. Remember to take the gate right ahead of you; there's a small dog hole you can pass through."
Joonmyun could not trust Kevin Wu, despite the very wealth of information he just spewed.
"If you're done running, you can work for me. Go back to the states and detect forged documents for the FBI. Good pay, free rent. No charges."
He still did not trust Kevin Wu's words.
“But now run, while I'm at it. No one's chasing you.”
Joonmyun looked at the empty sewers. They’re treating Luhan like he's crazy and now he was let go without a fight.
“I said run, Johnny.”
Joonmyun looked at Kevin Wu, and back at the empty hallways.
“RUN!” Kevin Wu yelled.
And Joonmyun ran. Long strides, short steps. He looked back as he waited for the sirens to ring for him, and Kevin Wu stared coldly at him.
They say a man's maximum heart rate decreases one beat from 220 per minute for every year he spent living.
Kevin Wu picked up his gun and pointed it at Joonmyun as if he would fire, and Joonmyun ran, ran, as fast as he could.
"See you, Johnny!" Kevin Wu yelled. He shot the sewer door above him, making the policemen reply with an echo storm of boom-pop-clanks.
One hundred and ninety six heartbeats per minute.
÷÷÷
a/n: To those of you who are med students or practicing fans, I hope I’m not messing up too much of the medical stuff. Forgive the tacky aliasing; I hope it doesn't put you off too bad. I humbly thank Kim Kibum of SHINee and Leonardo DiCaprio for playing in Catch Me If You Can. My utmost gratitude to Alfi and Aufa for their inputs, those smart people. Events in the story are not by purpose extrapolative or reflective to the idol group EXO. Seoul General Hospital is fictive and there are no intents of defamation or promotion in any brands, names, occupations, or other copyrighted items mentioned in this story.
Pairing: Suho/Kris, Suho/Luhan, Chen/Luhan, Suho/Kai
Word Count: 8,829
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, usage of firearms, brief instances of crossdressing, references to sex and violence, non-consensual usage of sedatives.
Summary: International fugitive Kim Joonmyun lives on the rush of running from FBI agent Kevin Wu and it's so good he can’t stop.
Originally posted on universexo.
196 BPM: Elude
A very blond and pale Asian boy ran swiftly past New York’s cloudy, barren blocks; quiet sneakers crunching against concrete and cigarette butts, pairs of leather shoes clicking after his footsteps. He looked back and saw the small squad of men in suit and tie running towards him. He looked at their lanky leader in the eye, gave him his best smile, and slid easily through the pack of people in the bustling streets.
To his dismay, the crowd split like the red sea a minute later for the group of men behind him, leaving him in bright spotlight.
He ran faster, looked around, and ran to an unsuspecting stairway leading underground. He was glad this crowded terrain made it impossible for the cops to whip out a gun. He made it to the subway entrance, grabbed the bar over his head and used the momentum to jump over the turnstile. He let out a satisfied laughter as he ran down the second flight of stairs to the platform. Far behind him, the tacky men yelled out to have the wheelchair gate opened for them.
Johnny Kim, 22, blond and careless, boarded the subway after running in the alleys from Kevin Wu, 27, the one person in the FBI who was so into catching the elusive conman. Johnny had been MIA since he was 16, casually milking money from big companies using fraudulent checks and false identities. His impressive track record made him the badge of honor to Kevin Wu; the agent's door to instant, skyrocketing promotion.
The train announced its departure and its doors closed. The men came just in time to see the train leaving with Johnny waving them a mischievous goodbye.
÷
Johnny Kim had always liked sitting alone by the window, wondering what kind of person would be seated beside him. He watched as a lost boy walked towards him in the slim airplane aisle. The boy stopped, looked down to his ticket, then to the row number above Johnny’s head. He put his bag in the overhead cabin, and smiled a hello as he sat down.
“Is your mom supposed to sit here? I’m sorry.” Johnny asked out of courtesy and stood up.
The boy scrunched at the bluntness. “Excuse me?” He laughed. “I’m what, twenty five? And you expect that seat beside me to be my mom’s?”
Johnny couldn’t help his baffled expressions.
“I’m Luhan. A singer hopeful.”
“No way,” Johnny laughed. The little boy was older than him. “I’m really sorry.”
“What’s your name?” Luhan asked, right hand waiting for a replying shake.
Johnny wondered what to reply. Johnny, James, Joongshin, Jarod, Jaemin…
“Joonmyun. Twenty seven. A traveler, I guess?” He shook the hand firmly. “I’m sorry again.” He had gone all over the world on the same passport, introducing himself proudly to strangers under pseudonyms he made up on the spot. He had never introduced himself using his real name before.
“It’s cool. I get that all the time,” Luhan smiled. “You got cool hair, by the way. I would love to do my hair like that when I’m singing on national TV.”
“T-thanks.” Joonmyun looked shocked and touched his hair cautiously. “What’s with my hair..?”
“It’s-you know. Ombre.” Luhan touched the ends of his own hair to emphasize his point. “It’s like brown but all blonde-ish at the bottom edges.”
Joonmyun’s eyes widened. He didn’t get to look at the mirror when he hurriedly sprayed the temporary brown dye over his blond hair in JFK’s men’s bathroom. It seemed like he wasn’t that good at self-disguise after all.
÷
“Present, Dr. Kim Jongin.”
“Mr. Kim Minseok, age 35. Has malnutrition due to bowel perforation. Patient has a history of inflammatory bowel disease and is currently receiving parenteral nutrition to substitute solid food.”
“Other causes of bowel perforation?”
“Ulcer, obtrusion by foreign objects, and ulcerative colitis.”
“What do you do?”
“Uh,” the new kid stuttered. He sifted through piling memories and jumbled Latin vocabulary. “We can…” The boy stifled a jaw-cracking yawn, trying his best to sound fresh after just barely two hours of sleep.
“Are you too sleepy to impress me now, Kim Jongin-ssi?”
“Um, no, Sir.” He shook himself awake. He kept thinking, his eyes unconsciously glued to Doctor Byun’s. “We do a CT to see if there is any internal bleeding.”
Byun Baekhyun, 32, was tending to Kim Minseok, 35, a thin young man with thin bowed lips. He was scheduled a surgery in a little over 24 hours because his intestines couldn’t absorb. His excrement was food puree. His skin was paper white and his muscles nonexistent. Kim Jongin, 26, wanted to go to sleep.
“Get him an x-ray and a CT as soon as possible. Let's go check Mr. Zhang.” Doctor Byun said and turned around. He batted away the green curtain separating the two patients and disappeared behind it.
“That sounds so cool,” Mr. Kim Minseok whispered hoarsely. Jongin looked back at Mr. Kim Minseok and his heart wrenched when he imagined the patient's hollow smile being as full as it could have, “I get to get a body scan and a surgery.”
Jongin’s fingers meddled slowly with the seams of Mr. Kim Minseok’s chart. They would have to take out the gaping holes in Mr. Kim Minseok's stomach, sow back his guts before his body could freak out from a puke flood. Jongin couldn’t give sweet enough a reply.
On the other side of the curtain, a patient watched with solemn eyes as Doctor Byun entered his space, face tainted with fatigue. “Good morning, Mr. Zhang. Did you get a good night’s sleep?”
“I did,” Zhang Yixing, 30, smiled under his oxygen mask. He let Doctor Byun take his right arm for BP, the grip on his arm as confident as the doctor himself. The curtain whisked open with Jongin scurrying in as the sphygmomanometer deflated with a funny hiss.
“I’m sorry,” Jongin panted. He took his place by Doctor Byun’s side.
“90 over 55,” Doctor Byun said bitterly at Jongin’s lateness, peeling the Velcro loudly off Mr. Zhang’s arm. Jongin hurriedly flipped through Mr. Zhang’s records to jot the numbers down.
“Is Kim Minseok-ssi going to be okay?” Mr. Zhang asked in a hoarse whisper. Although depressing, this room was Doctor Byun’s favorite room. Calm, positive patients that could always cool his bad day with how softly they speak.
“You two made friends,” Doctor Byun noted. He looked at the green curtain, then back at Mr. Zhang. “He’s going to be fine.” Doctor Byun then yanked Doctor Kim Jongin forward by the arm with a toxic smile. “Doctor Kim Jongin here is going to help me take the fluid out of your lungs so that you can breathe more freely now.”
Mr. Zhang nodded at the request. Unlike Mr. Kim Minseok, Mr. Zhang Yixing was not flat out gray and skinny-although equally as sick. His sensitive lungs were slit and battered, puddled with blood and pus from infections by microscopic industrial smog particles.
Doctor Byun Baekhyun gripped Doctor Kim Jongin’s arm tightly and whispered, “If you fail a task this simple, I will have your ass served medium-rare on a silver platter,” before pushing Doctor Kim Jongin to take his place. Doctor Kim Jongin gulped, but he took a deep breath and put on a big smile.
“Hello, Mr. Zhang. How are you today?” Doctor Kim Jongin smiled kindly, being the sweet little intern he always was. He took the catheter from the little cart. “I’m going to make a little cut on the side of your chest, slide this plastic tube in, and let the blood in your lungs flow out into this bag. I promise you,” he peeked a glance at Doctor Byun, “that you won’t feel any pain.”
They left the shared room with a polite smile. The hallway wasn’t bustling with people, but it was alive enough for any public place at 6 AM. They separated ways: Kim Jongin dragged his way to the records table and Doctor Byun took the staircase down to the doctors’ cafeteria.
“One whole wheat veggie sandwich and one unsweetened power smoothie are on the way," Doctor Byun heard, only seconds after he showed up in front of the cash register.
"Seriously, Kyungsoo."
Do Kyungsoo, 33, was responsible for the home foods section at the doctors' cafeteria. Doctor Byun's order would be his first one for the day.
Kyungsoo slid the plastic cup of smoothie and the plate of sandwich onto a tray. He took Baekhyun's card between his fingers.
"You. Are a doctor, Baekhyun. Stop eating spicy ramen for goodness’ sake." Kyungsoo slid the card and gave Baekhyun his tray.
Baekhyun scowled. “Fine. You noodle blob.”
÷
“Hi. Can I book a vocal practice room, please?” A man with catlike lips asked with a weird American accent.
“Your JYP ID please.”
What’s a JYP ID? “I. I’m a police,” he said in his awkward Korean, despite being Korean alright. He fished his wallet and showed the woman his police ID. “One of your students is a criminal.” He took a picture from his breast pocket he’d been holding on to for the past year. “I would like to see him, please.”
The woman couldn’t help but give a freaked out face, and she slowly took her desk phone to ask for help from her immediate superior. It wasn’t the first time they had freaky fans trying to gain entrance to the building. She greeted her boss on the phone and covered its mouthpiece. “What’s your name, Sir?”
“Chen Kim.”
“Chen Kim,” the woman repeated to her boss, suspicious eyes still glued to the guest. She listened to her boss and nodded along, answering ‘police’ while glancing at him with scrutiny. She hung up the phone and stood up from her seat.
“Follow me, Sir.”
She led Chen Kim through a series of white, modern hallways with wooden floors. Chen Kim looked at his surroundings. The interior designer must’ve been told to save on the tiles and put the same wooden flooring all around.
She opened a door to a cramped space, containing only a keyboard and a seat, although decorated with colorful sound absorbers and posters of successful label artists on one side. He thanked her, sat on the keyboard seat, and let her close the door.
The desk attendant closed the door behind her and walked to a dance class three doors away to call Luhan, 19, a Chinese trainee freshly scouted from the states. The class door opened, stealing attention from the panting students. The instructor came up to the door.
The desk attendant whispered to the instructor. The instructor nodded promptly and stuck his head back to the room.
“Luhan,” the instructor called. He turned his head and walked to the door.
“Hello,” Luhan closed the door behind him and bowed as soon as he was outside, something he picked up after a week in Seoul. The hallway was silent, tinted with the soft pounding of bass cranked up too loud.
“You have vocal practice from eleven to two. The teacher called for you.” She said. Luhan looked at his rubber wristwatch. He did not remember having vocal until three in the afternoon.
“I understand.” He bowed. The woman left and Luhan went back to the classroom to take his bag. He changed his sweaty clothes and went to the room he was assigned to.
“Hello,” he said as he entered the vocal practice room. “Please forgive my unpunctuality.” The teacher kept silent, too engrossed in playing the cheap black keyboard. Luhan put his bag in the corner and sat there waiting for the teacher to finish the song he was playing.
The teacher finished his song and lifted his head to greet a friendly, “Hello, Luhan,” and Luhan immediately stood up, knocking the stool he was sitting on. “How do you like Seoul so far?” The teacher, Chen Kim, asked in perfect English with a sly smile.
Luhan didn’t think any further when he ran out the door, out the white hallways, out the building, to save his dear life, as fast as his feet could carry him.
÷
“This is your pager,” the nurse said, showing a small, rectangular clip-on device. “You press this for incoming pages,” she demonstrated, “then this button over here is the back button. You can go back,” she pressed the button, “and page people if you need assistance,” fingers and words faster than her sole audience could digest at once. Kim Joonmyun, 24, now Go Jaehan, 32, regretted picking up Jongin’s identity right off the bat.
The nurse kept walking quickly, showing everything in the most comprehensive manner she could. “You punch in here, patient records are here, front desk..." She looked around, trying to find what else she could show and mention. "Vending machine only for visitors... I think that's all. You'll get used to it. It gets busy, but the hours aren't that bad," she added. "Your boss asked you to meet him again once you're done with me."
"I understand. I'll do my best," he said, ending the orientation session with the nurse. He was to meet Doctor Park, the head of the emergency department. Doctor Go, eight years younger than he claimed to be, went to the office and knocked on the white door.
“Come in,” a coarse and muffled voice answered. Doctor Go opened the door.
“Did you have fun going around the hospital?” Head Doctor Park Chanyeol, 39, asked from behind his desk.
“Yes, Doctor Park.”
“Have a seat,” he said, telling Doctor Go to move from his awkward place sticking by the door. Doctor Go walked towards the desk, and Doctor Park stood up, brooding, despite his warm attitude. “I’m glad we have a brilliant addition to our great staff. The pit’s always busier after midnight-you know, when people drunk-drive, sleep-drive, do impulsive mistakes.”
“I understand, Sir.” Doctor Go smiled confidently. He had come home from the stationery store with a stack of ivory paper and blue stamps to paint a convincing 3.95 grade point average on his homemade certificate from Seoul National University’s College of Medicine. If he wanted to stay, he at least had to convince his boss.
“There you go then. Get on it. Once again, welcome.”
“Thank you, Sir.” He smiled, and stepped back. “If you would excuse me.”
Doctor Go closed the door behind him and walked his way to the elevator.
“Joonmyun Hyung!”
Doctor Go froze. He didn’t know whether he should run or wait, but before he could decide, a warm arm curled around the shoulders of his pristine white coat. He turned his head carefully.
“You work here?” Jongin asked excitedly.
Doctor Go immediately shook away from Jongin before putting his finger on his lips with threatening eyes. He pointed the nametag on his coat, looking around cautiously. “Jongin, what’s the pit?” Joonmyun whispered through gritted teeth.
Kim Joonmyun, 24, then still Johnny, 22, had met Kim Jongin for the very first time in a music store, a week after Joonmyun had dyed the rest of his blond hair a subtle dark brown. They bonded immediately over Tchaikovsky and Dragon Ball Z on the seater of the store's grand piano. Jongin was the only person Joonmyun had told everything to, including how he became Johnny in New York, how he managed all his different IDs, and how he became a judge at the tender age of sixteen. In turn, Jongin told Joonmyun everything, including how he got into Seoul General Hospital and how he learned to stay up for twenty three hours every day.
“Go… Jae… Han…” Jongin spelled out, then he looked at Joonmyun’s eyes, confused.
“OH,” Jongin exclaimed, and hurriedly covered his mouth. “Oh.” Jongin said. “Okay, Doctor… Go.”
“Hello,” a voice greeted proudly, making Joonmyun jump again. Joonmyun turned around to see a man his height trying to play it kind and low-key. “I’m Doctor Byun Baekhyun,” he said, extending his hand. “This here is my intern, Doctor Kim Jongin.”
“I’m Doctor Go Jaehan,” Joonmyun said, taking Doctor Byun’s hand, then Jongin’s (with a quick, worried wink), and shaking it convincingly. "It is a pleasure to meet you."
“Everyone’s been talking about you. Fresh from New York, graduated top of the class from Seouldae’s program I heard?” Doctor Byun smirked politely. “I will definitely need your help on some cases I’m handling.”
÷
Running, running, and running from the confinements of his music company had led Luhan, 19, to a clogging street with blinking lights and wailing sirens. That day, he was glad to look back and see his captor, Chen Kim, running a league behind. Luhan had squeezed his way through Seoul General Hospital’s crowded parking lot, slipped into the closest storage room, and hid in the furthest corner from the door. He woke up the next day to cover himself in a set of fresh peach-colored scrubs.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” a voice called as soon as Luhan walked out the closet in the uniform. He froze. “Go back to the pharmacy.”
Luhan sighed in relief. He didn't pay the voice any apologetic bows, but he smiled to himself and walked slightly faster. He went to the pharmacy as asked, opened the employee door, and was relieved to see everyone in the same colored uniform.
Luhan learned to alternate between the cash register and the pharmacy, and soon enough, he found himself walking comfortably around the hospital complex. Crushing tablets into pink dirt was new, liberating. No wooden floors, no scrutinizing mirrored walls, no one breathing down his neck in expectation. One day on lunch break, he patted his same-shift buddy on the back, walked outside, and decided that he would have a quick bento from the convenience store on the other side of the block.
Luhan entered the convenience store, picked a roll of kimbap, and waited in line. He absently looked past the cash register without expecting to see Chen Kim and his team partner, Kevin Wu, sitting in suit and tie with coffee at one of the round tables outside. His heart jumped, and he immediately looked down to his kimbap to hide his face. His panicked brain tried making a quick plan before he looked up again to see Chen Kim turning his head towards him. Chen Kim stared for a good while, as if recognizing Luhan, before finally looking back at Kevin Wu, his comrade, laughing. Luhan did not know whether Chen Kim did recognize him, but at least the man didn’t scramble to catch and cuff him on the spot. He couldn’t avert his eyes.
“Next in line,” the cashier called.
÷
“What-what on earth was that, Jongin,” Joonmyun gasped as soon as Baekhyun finally left them alone in the surgical theatre, three hours after their first encounter. Guessing that Hyung was shocked white and clueless, Jongin had to peel the latex gloves off of Joonmyun’s shaking hands.
“That was a broken kidney, Hyung. Byun likes you,” Jongin answered, rubbing the pads of Joonmyun hyung’s fingers affectionately under the disinfected water. He applied more soap, rinsed, and tapped the blue cloth lightly around Joonmyun hyung’s hands. He yawned as he washed his own hands. “Ngh, I’m sleepy.”
“I need to quit this hellhole.”
“I mean. If you could survive working in a court, why not a hospital?” Jongin commented naively and dried his hands. He opened the door for them. He cracked open and chugged down his third bottle of Bacchus since 2 in the morning.
They walked the staircase to the doctors’ cafeteria in the basement.
“People at the court eat bullshit all the time they can’t even smell it, Jongin. Byun can. He can find out about me anytime. I’m dead meat, Jongin. Help me.”
“Eat, Hyung.” Jongin looked at the overhead menu of the noodle parlor.
On the other side of the cafeteria was Doctor Byun standing by the home-foods cashier counter.
“How was Handsome New Guy?” Kyungsoo asked Baekhyun over the hissing vegetables. He was preparing another tray of bok choi for the doctors’ eternal lunch hour.
“You heard about him? I took him on my nephrectomy procedure just now.”
“You took him to your what?” Kyungsoo stopped and took the gigantic wok to the front tray.
“Taking out a dead kidney. He didn’t know shit. They said he was the top graduate on the year before mine, and if he were, I definitely would have heard of him! Seouldae my ass. He's got to be a fucking fraud.”
“Don’t curse in front of my food, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo warned.
A phone vibrated in Doctor Go’s pocket on the other side of the cafeteria.
“I thought no one knew your number,” Jongin commented as Joonmyun stared at his pixelated screen. On their table was two bowls of good old ramyeon.
“I know,” Joonmyun replied. He looked at his cheap phone, weighing too long whether he should answer the stranger before flipping the phone open. “Hello?”
“Hey Johnny,” the caller greeted, the name filthy in his ears. “How’s life going with you?”
Joonmyun stared in panic at Jongin, as if asking for help. “Excuse me?”
“Your new apartment is in Seongnam, am I right? Close enough for you to go to work, cheap enough for you to lay low. Smart choice. If I were you, I would’ve bought myself a condo with that stash of money you got in Switzerland.”
“Who is this?” Joonmyun asked in controlled fear, his tone firm.
“Kevin Wu,” the voice answered casually. “I believe you're doing well.” Joonmyun’s eyes widened. Jongin watched in anticipation.
Joonmyun slowly put his phone away from his ear, eyes blank. Jongin watched, chopsticks dipping idly in his bowl. Jongin started, very carefully. “...Who was that, Hyung?”
Joonmyun watched the call timer tick by, Kevin Wu’s voice seeping through the speaker. He shut his phone to kill the conversation.
"You don't have to answer," Jongin said.
"It’s Kevin."
Jongin stopped meddling with his noodles. “The FBI Kevin guy you were always talking about?”
Jongin waited for a reply, but he didn’t get any. “He… he caught up pretty fast,” Jongin commented a beat later.
Joonmyun didn’t say anything. He pushed his tray and left Jongin to eat alone.
A dead kidney on his first day, Kevin Wu finding his whereabouts. It was getting too much for Joonmyun and he thought he could use a little break. Joonmyun lodged his weight to the pharmacy’s checking counter and, “Hey, can I have some aspirin billed to my name? I have a ridiculously bad headache-“ his eyes widened and his tongue spontaneously switched to English, “-what are you doing here?!”
“What are you doing here?!” Luhan, 25, the boy-man from the airplane, asked back.
Doctor Go could only look puzzled. “I thought you were an idol band trainee.”
“I thought so, too, but life happened.” Luhan turned his back to the unlimited shelves of pills. “Here’s your aspirin, Johnny-ssi,” Luhan muttered, scribbled the prescription, and gave the pack with a note stapled.
Stranger-On-The-Plane couldn’t possibly know Joonmyun’s most notorious alias. “What?”
“They used to call me Little Lu back in the day. The two of us kind of do the same monkey business, you know, that’s why I decided to flee New York for freakin’ Seoul. Let me see,” Luhan looked down to his pants pocket to check his pager. Joonmyun’s pager beeped. “God bless these Paleozoic pagers.”
Joonmyun looked down to see the message he just received. Luhan leaned closer. “I saw Chen Kim and Kevin Wu earlier today. That shit of a pager better keep you alive.”
÷
“So, what did he say?” The square-jawed comrade asked as soon as Kevin Wu turned off his phone screen scoffing.
“Nothing. At least silence always means confirmation,” Kevin Wu smiled lightly. He put the big phone in his bottomless dress pants pocket. “Come on, let’s get rolling. What about your guy?”
“Little Lu’s surprisingly in the same premises as Johnny-Joonmyun, whatever. Been skipping dance practice for two weeks now. Probably can’t face the idea of having me spotting him immediately on national TV.” The man followed his friend’s lead standing up from his seat. Chen Kim, 27, threw his can of latte and walked confidently away from the convenience store. Neither of them saw Little Lu in a blue raincoat and peach scrub pants carefully walking past by.
They walked to the subway station efficiently. They scanned their cards and only talked after reaching the platform.
“You know,” Kevin Wu started, “back in New York, I promised Johnny Kim when he climbed up the vent in that theatre, that I would get him, whatever it takes. I promised him, I promised myself, and I’m not going back. I’m on my word.”
It was not the first time Kevin Wu said something along those lines. Multiple verbal self-affirmation was always a sign of doubt. Chen Kim scoffed dismissively. “Cool.”
The bell dinged and the automated voice politely announced that the inbound train was approaching. The train hissed behind the transparent doors, and it stopped, letting an influx of people out before Kevin Wu and Chen Kim could hop in. The electronic woman’s voice announced the train’s departure.
÷
“Hi, Doctor Byun Baekhyun. Hi, Doctor Kim Jongin.” Mr. Zhang greeted with a smile under his fogging oxygen mask later in the afternoon. He was the one sleeping by the door, always the first one to see the doctors entering the room.
“Hello again Mr. Zhang,” Doctor Byun greeted back-small, canine-like teeth lined up in a professional smile. “We’ll get to you in a minute.”
When Doctor Byun and Doctor Kim Jongin got to Mr. Kim Minseok’s side of the room, a nurse was wiping his pale face and reddish lips with wet cloth. He looked like Snow White, only male, in a hospital gown, and without dwarf friends. The nurse stepped back, put down the cloth, and reported to Doctor Byun and Doctor Kim, “He’s been vomiting blood and breaking cold sweat the past hour.”
Doctor Kim Jongin jotted down the nurse’s report on Mr. Kim Minseok’s charts, while Doctor Byun dismissed the nurse. She nodded and stepped back, still hanging around in case Doctor Byun needed another set of hands. Doctor Byun was just about to tell Mr. Kim Minseok that he planned to move up the surgery, hoping to have arrived before this could happen.
“Kim Minseok-ssi,” Doctor Byun began.
“Please help me,” he cried. He tried to hold the heaving, hastily trying to grab his puke bowl. The nurse rushed to him and let him vomit, blood a fresh red. His heaves were mixed with cries and pained whines.
“Jongin, move up our operating slot immediately,” Doctor Byun said. “I’ll check Mr. Zhang and prep Mr. Kim with the nurse.” Jongin nodded to the order and sprinted out the door.
He patted the nurse softly on the shoulder and whispered, “Can you prep him for surgery? I’ll update the other patient real quick.”
Doctor Byun turned on his heels and went to Mr. Zhang’s side of the room. “Hi, Mr. Zhang.”
“Will Kim Minseok-ssi be okay? He doesn’t sound okay,” Mr. Zhang commented. Doctor Byun stuck the stethoscope to his chest, fast and efficient. His breathing was still coarse and weak. “Will I need surgery?”
“It would pose more harm to perform surgery on your lungs, Mr. Zhang. In fact, we are going to discharge you once you get strong enough. Thing is, you’ve been exposing yourself to the many air pollutants back home that you’re sensitive to, and it’s been accumulating over time.”
Mr. Zhang nodded, but did not comment anything about his status. He breathed a slow, nasty croak. “Kim Minseok-ssi can have my intestines if he wants,” Mr. Zhang said.
“It’s okay, Yixing-ssi-“ barf-cough, “-I’m okay, thank you.” Mr. Kim Minseok called from the other side of the curtain.
“We can run tests to find if the both of you match, but I believe you need your bowel more,” Doctor Byun smiled kindly. “We appreciate your noble offer, Sir.”
Jongin ran back to the room and gave a panting nod to Doctor Byun. The three of them took Minseok-ssi’s bed, and amidst the weak whines, Kim Minseok-ssi managed to say a clear, loud, “Bye, Yixing-ssi. Don’t die on me-” He vomited again into his vomit bowl before they rolled the bed away, and in the blink of an eye, Mr. Zhang was left all alone in the big, empty room.
÷
Mr. Kim Minseok kept writhing and whining on the surgical table despite the dose of morphine.
“Kim Minseok-ssi, we need you to stay still. I’ll put you to sleep so you don’t feel it anymore, okay?” Doctor Kim Jongin said softly from behind his mask. Minseok-ssi slowly straightened his feet from his fetal position, and he bit his lips hard to divert his attention. Jongin took the anesthesia mask closer to Minseok-ssi’s face. “Everything is going to be okay.” Minseok-ssi nodded and breathed the ether, finally at ease.
The insides of Mr. Kim Minseok was a bleeding mess when Byun slit him open. If malnutrition didn't kill this man, blood poisoning would. All Byun needed to do was take out the perforated parts of Mr. Kim Minseok's bowel and stitch up the damage it left, but he was racing with time.
Jongin didn't know he was holding his breath, watching Mr. Kim Minseok's heart rate on the monitor constantly surfing near danger lines, and watching Byun's hands skillfully navigate through living blood and human guts, as if following a beat to the beeping. Doctor Byun’s focus did not falter a bit throughout the procedure, making Jongin look up to him even more.
"Doctor Kim Jongin," Byun called from under his mask. Jongin stepped up to see multiple rows of stitches staring at him. "Would you close him up for me?"
Jongin nodded and stepped forward. He took a deep breath, looked at Minseok-ssi's cloth-covered face, and asked for the suture kit, carefully sowing the kind man’s skin back together.
"Good," Doctor Byun praised.
Doctor Byun congratulated everyone for the successful surgery and left the OR to let the scrub nurses clean after him. Jongin waited until the scrub room was empty before he washed his own hands in silence. Jongin took off his mask and went over his moments of victory as he washed his hands. He dried his hands with the provided cloth and left the scrub room.
Just when Jongin left the sterile area, a doctor whooshed past him, followed by a lanky, handsome man whose face he managed to look at long enough. For that kind of height, Jongin would have thought the man was Head Doctor Park, if it weren’t for the black suits, ginger hair, and brash attitude. The characteristics (tall, handsome, ginger hair) really reminded Jongin of Joonmyun hyung’s unique descriptions of the FBI Kevin Guy-
FBI Kevin Guy.
“-Joonmyun hyung!” Jongin called then ran behind them.
The men disappeared on a turn and when Jongin followed, FBI Kevin Guy stopped in his tracks and was panting, mussing up his own hair in desperation. Jongin watched, but FBI Kevin Guy turned around and cornered him against the wall instead. "Where is Johnny!" He barked.
"I-I don't know. I-" Jongin stuttered. The man made him feel very, very small. Jongin whimpered when Kevin Wu yanked the front of his scrub.
"Please do not lay hands on my staff," Head Doctor Park's booming voice warned from the end of the hall. Every pair of eyes was watching the scene, but Head Doctor Park remained serene as he walked closer to Jongin and Kevin Wu. Kevin Wu sighed and let Jongin be. As Head Doctor Park stopped, one foot in front of FBI Kevin Guy, the fear-stricken Jongin was awed to see a person physically looking down at Doctor Park.
“This is a hospital. We have sick people, expensive equipment, and dangerous chemicals lying around. Please do not run around making a scene, Sir.” Head Doctor Park sternly warned. He moved his gaze to the awestruck intern. “Good work today, Doctor Kim Jongin. You may leave.”
Doctor Kim Jongin nodded quickly at Head Doctor Park and stole a scared glance at FBI Kevin Guy before sprinting away. With Head Doctor Park's eyes boring into his, FBI Kevin Guy sighed and took his ID wallet to show. “With all due respect, two of your staff are criminals, Sir.”
÷
A hand swiftly pulled Joonmyun into the storage room when he turned left in the hallway. Joonmyun saved himself from crashing into the racks and when he turned around, Luhan was glaring at him. He couldn’t look away because he was too intent on catching his breath, heartbeat drumming in his ears.
Luhan huffed in irritation when he broke the gaze to bend down and take stuff from an expensive-looking shopping bag. He gave Joonmyun a set of casual clothes, then he gave Joonmyun instructions by sticking his pointer on the shirt, then on Joonmyun’s shoulder. Joonmyun nodded. They were aware of the bickering and shuffling over them outside.
Luhan, already clad in a suspicious blouse and tight jeans, proceeded to take other things from the bag. He looked at Joonmyun with angry eyes and hissed, “Hurry!”
They dressed up in silence as efficiently as they could. Joonmyun was zipping up the borrowed jeans when he looked up to see an obnoxiously pretty woman combing her hair with her fingers. “Luhan,” he hissed.
Luhan turned around, still with a sour face, then continued fixing his wig, as if dressing up as a woman was never a big deal. Joonmyun never knew how dumb he looked when he ogled. He forgot what he was in the middle of doing.
“They went in here, I believe,” a muffled voice said from outside.
The both of them flinched. They could hear footsteps coming closer. Joonmyun didn’t see the door handle turning behind him, but Luhan slammed him to the door and started hissing and moaning like a girl over his shoulder, sticking lips to the door. He kept making lewd noises when he suddenly pulled Joonmyun’s ear to make Joonmyun cry out in pain.
“Goodness gracious! People nowadays,” the voice said in disgust, exactly behind the door, and the mob behind him broke into gossiping murmurs as they left. Luhan peeled himself-herself-off Joonmyun, professionally, and dusted his feminine outfit.
“You are so gross,” Joonmyun panted after holding out his breath.
“I am so staying alive,” Luhan defended. He dusted his blouse and put their old scrubs in his boutique bag.
“Thanks,” Joonmyun whispered. Luhan reached down to give Joonmyun a black cap to wear. He made both their outfits look halfheartedly worn before holding the door handle.
“Let’s go,” Luhan the Girl said, then opened the storage room door.
Luhan, 19, a freshly screwed woman, had her walk of shame down the East Surgical Wing of Seoul General Hospital. Joonmyun, face hidden under a cap, followed her out the closet not too far behind. They made long enough a walk, took one flight of stairs, walked their way to the elevator, and got off on the first floor. They turned on a corner to the main entrance.
“Hyung,” Doctor Kim Jongin called. The wheelchair he was pushing squeaked as it rolled. It was Mr. Zhang Yixing smiling under his oxygen mask.
Joonmyun and his camouflage girlfriend Luhan turned.
Jongin looked into his eyes with a mix of disbelief, affection, and betrayal.
“What are you gonna do now?” Jongin asked him softly.
Joonmyun fell mute. His eyes were brimming with guilt.
“Hyung,” Jongin demanded.
“Doctor Kim Jongin,” a voice broke together with approaching footsteps. Jongin turned. “Can you check on Mr. Kim Minseok every hour and make sure he goes through the night?” Jongin took the chart Doctor Byun handed, and Doctor Byun moved his gaze past Jongin’s shoulders. "My, my, my. Look who’s here," Doctor Byun leered at the two people Doctor Kim Jongin was talking to. “Doctor Go,” Byun saluted.
The girl in tow hooked a possessive arm around Joonmyun's and politely bowed, tugging Joonmyun at the elbow. Joonmyun bowed with her and answered. "It was nice working with you. I will see you soon," he said politely, and hurriedly turned to leave.
÷
“Take it off, you’re freaking me out,” Joonmyun complained. They were descending underground, sitting in a subway train car heading as far as they could wish. They were nearing the end of the line.
Luhan stood up and waited for the train to arrive at its final destination. “I will still be a girl-your girl-until Chen’s arrival forces me not to be.” Luhan retaliated. They stepped out of the train. “In the meantime,” Luhan leaned his head on Joonmyun’s shoulder and took his hand.
“Good lord,” Joonmyun groaned, trying to shake Luhan off of him although Luhan wouldn’t budge. They took the elevator up to a crowded shopping street, grateful that they could at least be anonymous in a crowd before finding a place to hide.
There was a police car and a sealed building not too far ahead. Joonmyun seemed to catch the same sight. “Sweet,” Luhan grumbled.
“Do you want to try my place? Or yours?” Joonmyun asked.
“No. They probably sealed it, too,” Luhan said. “Now let’s just walk away slowly…”
They walked away from the scene as if they had nothing to fear about yellow tapes or the police. It was a good hundred, two hundred meters from the site before they suddenly heard a siren wail on their right, and being afraid, they jumped out of their skin and ran as fast as they could.
A phone rang loudly in one of their pockets. Joonmyun and Luhan looked at each other.
Joonmyun took out his phone from his jeans pocket, still running, and half-yelled, “It’s a stranger’s number. It’s Kevin. He knows that we’re here.” He flipped the phone open to throw it away. A passing businessman looked at him in much surprise. “Throw away your phone!”
While running, Luhan immediately nodded and prodded her own jeans pocket. She threw his phone away.
Another siren went off on their left.
“Throw your pager, too!” Joonmyun cried.
Another siren rang in front of them, and they stopped before finding another path to turn to.
“We’re trapped!” Luhan called out. Another siren rang.
“I know,” Joonmyun yelled.
As they ran, Luhan peeled off his wig and shimmied out of his floral blouse. He was a manly man; he did not want to be caught dead wearing drag.
More and more sirens started wailing on top of each other. They did not know where to go.
They turned to an alley without knowing that it was a dead-end. The sirens ringing together were starting to grow confusing in their ears.
They stopped in their tracks when they saw Kevin Wu in front of a wall, pointing a gun.
They froze and lifted their hands. Deep down, they knew they were not afraid, despite their knees shaking underneath their jeans.
Kevin Wu took slow steps forward, and they slowly retreated, not wanting to be killed. Luhan peeked a glance at Joonmyun. Joonmyun subtly nodded.
“Run!” Luhan yelped. Just when they turned around on their heels, a car screeched to halt before their eyes. A man hopped off the driver’s seat and pointed his gun at them. They raised their hands, now in utter defeat.
Chen Kim smirked with his gun pointed at the two them and called, “Freeze.”
÷
Kim Joonmyun, 22, hated prison to his guts. His fingers squeezed the seams of his hideous blue overall, making the fabric rustle noisily. He stopped looking at the ceiling and moved his gaze to the cell across. Luhan, 19, was scribbling on paper with a short pencil.
Feeling the gaze bore on him, Luhan looked up and saw Joonmyun's eyes. He flashed a smile and continued scribbling.
Joonmyun sighed and wiped his face, his palms still not used to the facial hair he hadn't shaved for over a week. They would not give inmates the liberty of using a razor. He envied Luhan for having a pencil and a shave-free face.
“Whaccha doing?” Joonmyun asked from across the aisle, happy to have his conversation encrypted in English.
“Finding a way to get out of this shithole,” Luhan stopped scribbling and gave another flat smile at Joonmyun. His expressions changed as he went into deeper thought. “You look pretty damn good with that beard going on.”
“We're not friends.”
“Oh shut up. We're literally stuck with each other for all I know.” Luhan quit the conversation and returned to scribbling an escape plan.
Joonmyun looked at the barred window on the other side of his cell. He wanted to just get out there and pick up a new name already. He could hear metal rattling slowly outside and he couldn't care less, until a paper plane hit his arm and dropped to the cement ground.
Bye, loser! it read.
He jumped awake and dashed to his cell bars, and without surprise, Luhan's cell door was wide open. He could hear the overall uniform rustling loudly and the pair of feet running away, and there Luhan was at the end of the aisle, fighting his way through pissed off guards.
Joonmyun scoffed and slumped against the wall on his metal bed. He listened solemnly to the guards wrestling Luhan only to let him slip away. He moved his gaze on the wall to the upside down paper plane on the floor to find that there was a drawing on its underside.
The alarms started wailing, but Joonmyun could not care less as his attention was fully directed at Luhan’s paper plane. Joonmyun took the paper plane and when he unfolded it, a small hairclip fell out. He held the hairclip and read Luhan’s scrawny but perfectly drawn master plan.
÷
“Everyone's been talking about you since Doctor Go left,” Doctor Byun said, then he took a sip of his soup. “Is it fun being infamous?”
He was never the type to talk back, but two weeks of Doctor Byun had drawn him thin real fast. Jongin sulked. “If I weren't in-famous, you wouldn't have made me eat lunch with you for over a week, Sir.”
Two tables down was where he belonged, with fellow intern Oh Sehun and young nurse Huang Zitao. Ever since Doctor Go had been discovered as Kim Joonmyun, an internationally searched impostor on the run, Doctor Byun had made Jongin stick with him like a sloth on a tree.
“Mr. Kim Minseok is coming at two for post-op checkups. Take care of that for me,” Byun said.
“Yes, Sir.”
Jongin continued eating. Behind him at the food bar, cafeteria cook Do Kyungsoo was busy sautéing sticky beans.
“Does Doctor Go really mean that much you?”
Jongin looked up from his bowl.
“He's my friend. I live next door from his sealed apartment and he used to treat me noodles and tell me his fugitive stories. He might not understand surgery, he might be an international fugitive, but I know very well that he’s teaching me about life more than many of my seniors in this hospital. So I guess, yes, he means that much to me.”
÷
Joonmyun watched the ugly blotches of mold on his cell’s ceiling. He missed eating chicken with little Jonginnie.
He pulled himself up to sit, and across the aisle was an officer and two handymen trying to fix the bars Luhan wrecked.
He really wanted to go. After all, he had to prove time and again that he was the world renowned master of flight.
So Joonmyun decided to fake a coughing fit. In one minute, his coughing grew coarser and deeper, as if he had a century’s worth of wet boogers sitting deep in his lungs. The officer and handymen turned their heads, because it started to really look like the inmate was dying.
“H-help,” Joonmyun croaked nastily, and the officer scurried away to find help, while the handymen went closer to his cell cautiously, in fear that his cough was contagious.
This was the cough that had saved his life a million times over.
He knew to keep coughing and croaking, until he could hear pairs of leather shoes running his way.
“Johnny,” Kevin Wu’s voice called. They both knew the drill. This cough had always started their cat and mouse game for over six years now. The hallway guard opened Joonmyun's cell door. “Johnny,” Kevin Wu reassured.
Joonmyun panted from coughing too much, then he coughed again, before Kevin Wu helped him up.
Joonmyun looked into Kevin Wu’s eyes with suspicion before accepting his help. Kevin Wu grinned and handcuffed both Joonmyun’s hands behind Joonmyun’s back, before handcuffing those hands to his own wrist. The cuffs made it very awkward for them to walk together, but Kevin Wu really knew better than to lose Joonmyun for the nth time.
“Come,” Kevin Wu beckoned. Joonmyun kept coughing and panting coarsely, while Kevin Wu had his hand dragged behind Joonmyun as if holding the small of Joonmyun’s back.
“You little shit,” Kevin Wu hissed as he led Joonmyun through the open hallways to the Care Unit. "You're not going anywhere this time."
In response, Joonmyun dragged his cough even longer.
As soon as they reached the big room with a dozen empty gurneys, Kevin Wu made the both of them sit at the closest bed possible while waiting for a physician to come. Joonmyun made his breathing croak, only coughing once every minute or two.
“SCREW YOU ALL. GET OFF ME.” Luhan-unmistakably Luhan-yelped from the end of the hall, accompanied by more than a pair of struggling footsteps. Joonmyun straightened up and snapped out of his thoughts to see Luhan, uniform pants a blue muddy mess, kicking and thrashing to hurt the guards with what little free limbs he had left. The guards were holding the elongated sleeves of his unbound straitjacket, trying their best to tie him down without breaking his arms. Chen Kim was walking behind him trying to find something in his suit pockets.
Chen Kim found what he wanted, so he lifted it-a loaded syringe-high in the air and aimed for the back of Luhan’s neck. Joonmyun gasped, and Kevin Wu took his free hand to cover Joonmyun’s sight. “You don’t want to see this part,” he warned, but Joonmyun tried his best to shake his head away from Kevin’s hand.
Joonmyun fought Kevin Wu even harder when heard a soft thud and a series of quick shuffling, but Kevin Wu would only let go after it was all silent. Joonmyun shivered when Kevin Wu removed his hand from his sight to reveal Luhan lolling unconsciously in Chen Kim's arms, cocooned snugly in the bound straitjacket. He was barefooted; his feet tied, bloody and dirty. Joonmyun had never seen Luhan's face being this peaceful. It pained him to think about how much sedative Chen Kim forced into Luhan's bloodstream.
As Joonmyun waited, he painfully watched Sleeping Luhan being carried onto the gurney beside his. Watching Luhan being taken down had made him forget to breathe. It was such a shame that a fox like Luhan wasn’t cunning enough to find the way out.
"What are they going to do with him?” Kim Joonmyun asked Kevin Wu in pity.
“Inmate Kim Joonmyun,” the physician, a woman, called. Joonmyun and Kevin Wu turned their heads. The woman continued. “I will have to draw your blood, and then I’ll give you a shot of vitamins, and you’ll be good as new.”
Both Kevin and Joonmyun knew about the vitamin: it was real and it really could pump up the recipient, but only Kevin and the physician knew that she was lying this time around. Joonmyun was elated. Prison doctors hated their jobs too much to want to lie.
“I will need your arm,” she said.
“Can’t you just shoot it from behind him?” Kevin Wu protested.
“No, I won’t be able to see his veins.”
Kevin Wu sighed and freed Joonmyun’s left wrist. The cuff linking the both of them dangled awkwardly.
The woman did her job and inserted needles into Joonmyun’s arm. Joonmyun did not flinch the slightest bit.
When she was done, she looked at Kevin Wu, asking to speak in private. Kevin Wu protested.
“I can’t leave him alone.”
“One minute? I need a word.”
Kevin Wu sighed again and cuffed Joonmyun’s wrists back together before swiftly replacing his left wrist with the metal bedframe.
Joonmyun felt slightly drowsy as he watched the both of them walk away, but it was expected from the injected vitamins. He produced the hairclip from Luhan from under his sleeve and probed the cuffs blind trying to get himself out of there.
Soon enough, he managed to free his wrists. He fled the closest door possible and ran like the wind.
Kevin Wu turned around to check the gurney when he heard metal rattling. “Damn it.”
÷
Joonmyun felt his heartbeat racing way faster than it should. He was panting hard, his vision spinning. He looked back and knew he needed to run now before Kevin could get him. He referred to Luhan's little map. The sewer opening by the back gate was a few turns away.
A good distance behind Joonmyun, Kevin Wu traced Joonmyun's steps, because he had other plans for Joonmyun. Everyone knew Joonmyun was worth more than rotting in a Korean prison. He pushed open the door to the sewer.
Joonmyun heard the echoing creak of the sewer door a distance behind him, so he immediately ran to his original destination.
When he reached the ladder, he was panting very hard. It felt like he could faint anytime soon and that moment he knew, the woman did not inject goddamned vitamins into his body.
Joonmyun composed himself. He held his pounding head tight, took a deep breath, and climbed his way to the opening.
When he opened the sewer seal, five masked officers were pointing freaking snipers at his head. He sighed.
"Johnny," Kevin Wu called from his feet. Joonmyun's eyes grew wide.
"Johnny. I come alone and I will drop my gun. You can trust me, or you can climb up there and go straight back to your cell."
Joonmyun thought about it.
"Surrender," one of the masked men ordered from the ground above.
Joonmyun looked down at Kevin Wu, then he looked up at the cops.
"This is Kevin Wu from the FBI speaking. Mister Kim Joonmyun is in good hands," he called up, hoping that the cops would understand with the meager English they had. Joonmyun decided to close the sewer door and climb down the ladder.
"This is not a trap," Joonmyun asked.
"No. This is not a trap," Kevin Wu reassured. He took the gun out of his pocket and put it on the ground. He looked straight into Joonmyun's eyes.
"What do you want?" Joonmyun pointed out.
"I want you to get out of here. You know you're more than this."
"This is a trap. You’re setting me up." Joonmyun accused.
"You live on the rush of the chase, Johnny. Admit it." Kevin Wu grinned. Joonmyun was still on pins and needles. "Get out of here. Find a new name. Edward. Michael. Or hell, Guardian."
Joonmyun kept silent.
"The safest exit is three doors down. No one on duty really watches that exit, but stay alert. Remember to take the gate right ahead of you; there's a small dog hole you can pass through."
Joonmyun could not trust Kevin Wu, despite the very wealth of information he just spewed.
"If you're done running, you can work for me. Go back to the states and detect forged documents for the FBI. Good pay, free rent. No charges."
He still did not trust Kevin Wu's words.
“But now run, while I'm at it. No one's chasing you.”
Joonmyun looked at the empty sewers. They’re treating Luhan like he's crazy and now he was let go without a fight.
“I said run, Johnny.”
Joonmyun looked at Kevin Wu, and back at the empty hallways.
“RUN!” Kevin Wu yelled.
And Joonmyun ran. Long strides, short steps. He looked back as he waited for the sirens to ring for him, and Kevin Wu stared coldly at him.
They say a man's maximum heart rate decreases one beat from 220 per minute for every year he spent living.
Kevin Wu picked up his gun and pointed it at Joonmyun as if he would fire, and Joonmyun ran, ran, as fast as he could.
"See you, Johnny!" Kevin Wu yelled. He shot the sewer door above him, making the policemen reply with an echo storm of boom-pop-clanks.
One hundred and ninety six heartbeats per minute.
÷÷÷
a/n: To those of you who are med students or practicing fans, I hope I’m not messing up too much of the medical stuff. Forgive the tacky aliasing; I hope it doesn't put you off too bad. I humbly thank Kim Kibum of SHINee and Leonardo DiCaprio for playing in Catch Me If You Can. My utmost gratitude to Alfi and Aufa for their inputs, those smart people. Events in the story are not by purpose extrapolative or reflective to the idol group EXO. Seoul General Hospital is fictive and there are no intents of defamation or promotion in any brands, names, occupations, or other copyrighted items mentioned in this story.