Bullets and Coffee - Chapter Three
“You do well, Hyukkie,” Junsu commented.
“Thanks, hyung!” he said cheerily.
Sungmin suddenly tackled Eunhyuk. “Hyukkie, how do you do so well when it comes to guns?” he asked.
“Because my parents were murdered, and every time I pull this trigger, it feels like I’m trying to pull their soul back to me, to earth,” he answered, patting the hilt of the gun.
“But still!” Ryeowook chimed in. “You’re a natural! It took me years to get the aiming of a gun right, and even then, I’m still not allowed my own. How do you do it, hyung?”
Hyukjae just shrugged. Later that night, he woke up to the sound of shrieking, screaming, but not just any screaming-Ryeowook’s screaming. He rushed over to Ryeowook’s room with only his gun in hand, trying to avoid the parts of the floors that he knew would give him splinters since he forgot to put on his slippers.
“Ryeowook!!” he yelled. “Are you okay?!”
There was no reply, only sobbing. Hyukjae flung himself against the door only to find that it was locked. “Ryeowook!!!” he shouted, pulling and twisting the doorknob with all his might. Tears were already beginning to stream down his face.
Shooting the doorknob into submission, he finally burst down the door right at a time he shouldn’t have. A figure in a black coat with a gun pressed to Ryeowook’s forehead pulled the trigger. A teeth rattling bang shook the house, but the loud thump of Ryeowook’s limp body hitting the ground left a deeper imprint on Hyukjae’s heart.
Looking down at himself, Hyukjae was mortified. Blood. Everywhere. There was Ryeowook’s blood on his body, splattered from when the bullet had impaled his brain; blood from Sungmin’s throat staining the walls, his throat severed and dripping from what was probably a knife cut; Junsu’s blood smeared all over the window, his body slumped against the sill with a seeping chest wound; and his own blood pulsing throughout his body, shaking him with fear. What would become of him? Would his own blood paint the rest of the room where his friends’ didn’t?
A loud clink of metal on wood, sounding almost like glass shattering on a solid floor, echoed before…
“Shit!!” Donghae screamed.
Eunhyuk shot up, sweating and shaking, on the verge of retching right there in the bed. The spot next to him was empty, missing a certain Donghae. Where was he?
“Dammit…” Eunhyuk heard Donghae mutter from the kitchen.
Sliding out from under the covers, Eunhyuk planted his wobbly feet onto the floor and stood up slowly. He inched his way carefully to the door, his feet moving cautiously as if he were trying to avoid stepping on something. Peeking out of the room, Eunhyuk watched Donghae crouched on the floor picking up shards of what seem to be his broken coffee mug.
Donghae looked up as he heard the creak of the door opening. “Oh! Eunhyuk-ah!” he greeted. “Good morning. I didn’t mean to wake you!”
Eunhyuk was startled by how similar the sounds of a gun falling to the ground and a porcelain cup shattering were. With the memory of his vivid dream still buzzing in Eunhyuk’s mind, he could barely speak, too afraid that his voice would crack and portray his distress.
“So, Hyukkie,” Donghae began, discarding the pieces of glass into a trashcan. “What do you want to do today?”
Eunhyuk shook his head, trying to tell Donghae not to call him that name-never to call him that. He heaved in a deep breath, bowing his head to hide his flushed face from Donghae.
“Hyukkie? What’s wrong?” he asked.
Again, Eunhyuk violently shook his head. “Don’t-“ he paused, stomach churning painfully as his throat seized up.
The blonde instantly bolted into the bathroom and Donghae followed worriedly. Kneeling before the toilet, Eunhyuk heaved up everything that was in his stomach. He vomited until he was throwing up nothing but water and air, and all the while, Donghae stood shocked, not knowing what to do. What was he supposed to do when a man he’d just met and plucked off the streets was retching into his toilet for some unknown reason? And to top it off, Donghae couldn’t approach Eunhyuk and rub him calmly on the back or touch him or anything because he was pretty sure that Eunhyuk had hapteophobia and coming near him would make him even more nervous.
After Eunhyuk had calmed his breathing, he slumped against the wall, crying. Donghae, who was also tearing up, unable to take the sight and deciding to be useful, padded quickly over to his medicine cabinet and pulled out some pills that would ease Eunhyuk’s stomach and got a glass of water. When he returned to Eunhyuk, he was curled in a ball, rocking himself back and forth, sobbing his eyes out, and wailing out incoherent names.
“Hyuk-Hyukkie?” asked Donghae timidly.
Eunhyuk glared at Donghae with hard, cold eyes. “Don’t…” He coughed dryly. “Don’t… call me that.”
Donghae nodded. “Sorry… I brought you some medicine…” he said, handing out the glass of water and pills.
Eunhyuk sighed and took the medicine, swallowing the pills difficultly. He wiped stray tears and threw the glass into the bathtub, shattering the glass.
“Hey!” Donghae yelled. “What the hell!”
Eunhyuk just shook his head as more tears cascaded down his cheeks. “I can’t… I need… I need my gun…” he whispered.
Donghae frowned. “No…” he said.
Eunhyuk glared at him. “What do you mean no?” he said bitterly.
“I’m not going to give you your gun,” he said authoritatively. “You could kill yourself. What’re you thinking right now, crying and vomiting?”
“I’m thinking… I want to go kill something… someone…” he growled, making to get up.
Donghae bounced on his toes, confused at what to do. He could take Eunhyuk and tie him up, but that would involve touching him, and Donghae didn’t want the man to have a break down like before. He could also just give Eunhyuk his gun, but for what the medical student knows, he could easily kill him or kill himself with the gun. No one needed to die right now.
Eunhyuk suddenly stood up and charged at Donghae. Not quick enough to realize Eunhyuk’s movements, the blonde easily barreled past his caretaker and dashed into the bedroom. Quickly rushing after Eunhyuk, the first thing that Donghae had in mind was to tackle Eunhyuk to the ground, so that’s exactly what he did, jumping on top of the thinner male and pinning him onto the floorboards with his elbow.
Panic rose in Eunhyuk’s chest and he squirmed under Donghae’s arm, turning onto his back and punching the man right in the cheek. Jaw loose and throbbing, Donghae refused to let Eunhyuk’s go, so the smaller one punched him again. Donghae applied more pressure to keep Eunhyuk grounded, causing a groan of pain to echo out of Eunhyuk’s throat. Tensing his body, Eunhyuk focused on using as much force as he could in his leg and planted his knee firmly into Donghae’s stomach. That got Donghae to finally let go of Eunhyuk, grunting in surprise and pain and rolling onto the floor, using his left arm as support on the wood and cradling his bruised abdomen with his right arm.
Scrambling onto his knees, Eunhyuk groped blindly around for the mattress that supported his pillow, and under his pillow laid his gun. Taking a deep breath and regaining his composure, Donghae lunged at Eunhyuk just as he pulled his gun out from underneath the cushion. Donghae rammed Eunhyuk into the bed and a muffled bang went off into the pillow, feathers exploding everywhere. Neither of the pair moved for a moment, breath held, ears straining to listen for a sound, any sound.
“Are you crazy!?” Donghae snapped.
Eunhyuk froze, suddenly shaking. Shivers crawled on his skin and his heartbeat pounded hard enough to give him a migraine. Against his icy flesh, Eunhyuk could prominently feel the heat of Donghae’s arms around him. It burned him, seared him like Donghae was a fire and Eunhyuk was a cube of ice being licked at and exposed, slowly melting away his outer façade.
“Let go of me,” he breathed heavily.
“No,” Donghae said. “I can’t do that. Not with that gun still in your hand.”
“I need it!” Eunhyuk cried. He could feel the shocks jolting up his spine as he tried to struggle out of Donghae’s grasp, but the other kept pressing himself against Eunhyuk, constricting his arms tighter and tighter around his small frame.
“No, you don’t!” Donghae nearly shouted.
Eunhyuk elbowed Donghae in the stomach, resulting in Donghae’s arms tightening even more around Eunhyuk’s torso. Wriggling and kicking fiercely, Donghae finally let go of Eunhyuk, but quickly got up as soon as Eunhyuk jumped onto the bed to escape Donghae, climbing to the other side. The bigger male tackled the armed one to the ground, placing a knee on each side of Eunhyuk and practically sitting on his stomach to keep him down.
Donghae quickly ripped the gun out of Eunhyuk’s fist and the latter went ballistic, kicking and screaming as he tried to claim his weapon back from Donghae. After tossing the gun onto the bed, Donghae reached over to the discarded shopping bags full of clothes that he and Eunhyuk had bought the other day near the window.
“Dammit, where is it?” Donghae muttered, tipping over the contents of each bag, searching for a specific piece of clothing.
All the while, Eunhyuk was kick and screaming, trying to wriggle out from underneath Donghae’s butt. Tears were streaming down the man’s cheeks; his attempts to shove Donghae off of him were slowly weakening, futile against Donghae’s well built, muscled body. Donghae finally squealed in delight when he found what he was looking for-a scarf. He shoved the cloth in between his teeth and fumbled around for Eunhyuk’s hands, trying to constrain his movements.
It took about three minutes for Donghae to finally hold Eunhyuk’s wrists in one hand and wrap the black and white scarf around his thin wrists. Arching his back off the floor, Eunhyuk screamed, “Let go of me!!! Let go!!”
Donghae flinched at his loud voice full of fear and anger. He needed to shut him up before his neighbors heard and began wondering. He didn’t know what to do, so he did the one thing that his brother had done for him when he was a child. Laying down next to Eunhyuk on the floor, Donghae wrapped his arms around Eunhyuk’s torso, pulling him close, nuzzling his face into the back of Eunhyuk’s neck, and holding Eunhyuk’s thrashing legs down by intertwining his own with Eunhyuk’s.
“It’s alright, Hyukkie,” he murmured.
“Don’t fucking call me that, you sick bastard!!!!” screamed Eunhyuk.
“Eunhyuk!! Eunhyuk!!” Donghae yelled, trying to get his attention again instead of having the monkey thrash within his hold, crying tears of fear and unknown. “Calm down, please, Eunhyuk!”
The monkey shook his head violently, squirming in Donghae’s arms. “Let me go, please…” he cried. “You’ve taken enough from me…”
“Talk to me, Hyukkie,” he said calmly, rubbing his palms up and down Eunhyuk’s arms.
“I said not to fucking call me that!!” he yelled. “Only Minnie and Junsu and Wookie-ah!!”
Donghae flinched at Eunhyuk’s pitch and nodded vigorously. “Okay! Okay! I won’t call you that!” he shouted. “Just talk to me, Eunhyuk. No yelling, just talk. What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Fuck… They’re dead! You killed them all and you’re asking me what’s fucking wrong?!?!?” he screamed, chest heaving harshly and movements becoming weaker and weaker.
“Eunhyuk, I said talk. Don’t shout. Just talk in a normal voice.”
“How can I?” His voice was soft. He’d finally ceased moving and was just laying nearly motionless on the ground. “They’re all dead… My last family… killed… in front of me…”
Donghae just nuzzled his cheek against Eunhyuk’s shoulder, gasping small sobs as Eunhyuk cried a river. He couldn’t help it. So much pain this man had gone through. Even though Donghae didn’t know the whole story, he knew what Eunhyuk was going through. A few years ago, Donghae’s own father had lost his battle to cancer and passed away. Being close father and son, the event left Donghae shaken and depressed, so he moved to Seoul to attend one of the finest colleges, distracting himself in his schoolwork to forget the pain of his father’s death. He understood the loss that Eunhyuk felt, but as far as he could tell, Eunhyuk had lost even more and witnessed more gore than Donghae had.
“There was blood… everywhere,” Eunhyuk continued. “And… The smell… I just… And he-“
“Shh~” Donghae shushed him through loud tears. “Be quiet, Eunhyukkie. It’ll be alright. Don’t talk. Just be quiet.”
Eunhyuk nodded slightly, flexing his sore fingers that were tightly curled into fists, nails digging into his palms. Donghae nestled his face in the back of Eunhyuk’s nape, arms wrapped strongly around Eunhyuk’s torso. He wouldn’t let the man go, not now, not ever. He needed Donghae… And now that Donghae thought about it, he needed to get off of the floor; his and Eunhyuk’s backs weren’t going to appreciate sleeping on the wood later.