A/N: Thanks to kyoko194, Juli, and Ghosty-No.7 and Alec for your kind comments! I am happy to present… the next chapter.
Apologies and warnings once again for some violence/physical abuse. Don't worry! I'm gonna make up for it later ;)
CHAPTER 2
His captors must have a sense of decency, because they don't kick him when he's down. By the next time he can form coherent thoughts, he notices a strip of cloth wound around his head and a matching one bandaging his thigh. The one round his leg looks like it used to be blue but now it's mottled brown and red.
That's when he realizes that his eyes are working again, and his head isn't screaming in protest beyond a dull ache that he can almost ignore.
He lifts his chin— and his eyes meet the intense gaze of another.
The man is armoured, muscular— probably around Hak's size, although he doesn't share the Thunder Beast's good looks. He's got a jagged scar running from eye to chin (it could've been fixed with a needle and thread by any competent doctor if he'd gotten treated in time, Yoon notes distantly, but maybe the man likes the look of it. Yoon finds it intimidating enough).
"Feeling better?" the man questions. His voice is a smooth baritone. Yoon just stares, without replying.
"I apologize for before." The man waves a thick, scarred hand. "My men were instructed to keep you alive... I should have specified the condition I needed you in exactly."
Yoon's eyes drop to the ground, and he works to quell the trembling of his fingers. It's never a good idea to let your enemy see how afraid you are.
"You see—" The man pauses, then rough fingers are at Yoon's chin, yanking his face up so their eyes meet once again. "There are some questions I need to ask you."
Yoon breathes. In. Out. Hak, Yona, and the others— they'll be here soon. He'll just do whatever it takes to keep breathing until then, or Yona might kill him herself.
It shouldn't be too hard for a handsome boy genius such as himself to outwit the likes of this mercenary man. He just has to play his cards right.
With that thought, he opens his mouth, and after acting out (what he privately thinks is) a very realistic impression of a person struggling to speak for the dryness of their throat, breaks into a prolonged coughing session that ends only after the man has caved and given him water. He gulps it down, smooth and cool and lovely— not to forget nourishing— and wipes his mouth.
"I have no idea why I'm here," he says. A half-truth.
The interrogation commences.
—
Day Five and the Happy Hungry Bunch plus Dark Dragon still haven't showed up to rescue him.
To make things worse, Scar-face is no longer amused by Yoon's stalling antics. He's stopped smiling every morning when he greets Yoon, stopped bringing water and bread scraps to bribe and reward him with, stopped playing the "nice guy" act. Now, he's quick to threaten, quicker to yell and quicker still to punch. And Yoon has run out of clever bluffs.
He's still got enough brain cells working to understand that things are going to take a turn for the worse if he doesn't receive proper care soon. His stomach stopped grumbling yesterday, but he still feels that gnawing ache inside and the light-headed shakiness that comes from being nutritionally deprived.
Please don't forget about me, he pleads silently, curled in the fetal position on the stone floor, starless night above him. Yona… Hak… Jae-Ha— Please.
It's Day Seven when something in him snaps.
What is he thinking, waiting for rescue? The Yoon of times past would never have done something so stupid. He had always looked out for himself, because who else would bother? Even with Ik-Soo, he still had to take care of himself, plus that helpless priest.
So why had he thought things had changed? Why stupidly rely on others to do what must be done yourself? Hak, Yona, Jae-Ha, Zeno, Shin-Ah, Kija— all of them. They aren't coming. He's alone, just like he's always been, and he's been an idiot for thinking otherwise.
Side effect of the concussion, Yoon says to himself. He also tells himself that the painful twinge he feels in his stomach is simply hunger.
From that point on, through the pounding of his skull, the fire in his festering leg, the unexplained ache in his chest, Yoon begins to plot his escape.
—
He— he fails.
How is that, a small part of his mind wonders. The majority of it is too busy experiencing the pain of being crushed by Scar-face's boot.
He'd managed to chew off the ropes binding his arms— and no, he was not Ao, but after he'd convinced Scar-face (in one of the earliest days of their acquaintance, when the man was halfway reasonable) to allow his hands to be tied in front of him, he'd spent two nights gnawing on the ropes. It was one of the most frustrating and disgusting processes he'd ever been through— but ultimately successful. And he paid attention to the guards they placed on him, when they switched, when they dozed off— he'd calculated it all, weighed the outcomes, and put his plan into motion on Day Ten.
Only for Scar-face to decide that a sudden night-time visit would be conducive to getting him to cough up that ever-elusive information about the bandits and their red-haired leader.
A whimper escapes him unbidden as Scar-face's boot grinds harder into his cheek. His head wound has reopened; he can feel warm sticky blood dribbling down his forehead.
Scar-face enjoys poking at old wounds: for punishment, he bets the leg will be next. As much as the coolly logical part of his brain can predict this unflinchingly, another part of him, the scared, reactionary part, twitches and pulls the leg towards himself, to protect it somehow.
As if he could. Sensing the movement, and reading the suppressed fear in Yoon's body language as if he were an open book, Scar-face lifts his boot from Yoon's head only to plunge the steel-toed monstrosity into his thigh with a brutal kick.
Yoon has no chance of holding back the scream, so he doesn't try. There's no one to see him like this anyway, weak and snivelling, shirtless, pale and bruised and sickly thin—
He realizes he's embarrassed. Here, as agony spreads from his leg and head to envelop his entire being, as the logical part of his mind swiftly calculates the amount of hours he has left to live (if that), he's feeling ashamed.
Sorry I wasn't good enough to escape, Yona, he thinks. Sorry, Thunder Beast. Sorry for not being strong like you— sorry for not being able to look after myself. I'm sorry, Ik-Soo— you'll have to find someone else to look after you— someone capable— someone strong— someone not like me—
"Please," he vaguely hears his own voice choking out words. "Please stop. I swear I— I won't try again— just— please!"
Scar-face lands another vicious kick. Yoon cries out, recoils.
"Damn brat."
"Give me a chance— I'll tell you what you want to know," he forces out. He's not sure he can concoct a suitable story at this point, but even if Scar-face doesn't believe it, gets mad again— at least the pain will stop right now, just for a moment.
"Need to teach you a lesson first."
Then Yoon's hair is yanked by the roots— he's pulled up 'til his feet barely touch the ground; he dangles, a pathetic, quivering whelp helpless before a savage predator.
He closes his eyes, as if it will lesson the pain somehow.
That's why he doesn't see the arrow embed itself in Scar-face's broad hand— he only feels the sudden release of his hair and the stone ground as he falls hard onto it.
He doesn't see the next two arrows, immobilizing the closest guards before they can jump to their master's aid. And he doesn't see the silver gleam of the shuriken flying from an outstretched hand before they pin the three men to the ground.
All he feels is the icy-cold breeze against his bare skin, sharp contrast against the fire enveloping his bones.
He doesn't see the running approach of a tall figure, the expressions of horror, fury, deep and painful concern—sharp and poignant fear.
What he feels is a cloth wrapped loose around his body— soft-as-silk, he thinks— and large, warm hands underneath his knees and shoulders. Then the ground at his back is replaced by empty air, and his face and side come to rest against something solid and warm.
He feels something else: against his ear, the steady pounding of a heartbeat.
And then he hears a voice, and feels the gentle rumble of it through the chest he's leaning on.
"Hang in there, kid."
Hak.
A delicate yet calloused hand brushes the bangs from his forehead.
"You're safe now, Yoon. You're safe, we've got you, it's all gonna be okay now."
Yona.
He's not sure how much of the words' meaning truly processes, but their gentle and familiar timbre, accompanied by the featherlight touch on his forehead, provide enough comfort.
They came. It's enough to stupefy him. The relief spreading from his core is sufficient to make him melt, relax into the arms of his rescuer, slide into blissful unconsciousness— but there's something he's forgetting— some uncomfortable feeling nagging at his pain-wrung-out mind that spoils the pure relief he should be experiencing.
But before he can figure what exactly it is, or what's causing it, exhaustion has claimed him, and he drifts into blackness.
.
.
A/N: To be continued…
Also I've been wondering, what do people prefer for the spelling of Yoon's name? I've been reading the manga (hence why I spell it Yoon) but in the FF archive they have it as Yun. Is there a general fan consensus or do people just go for either? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
À la prochaine ;)
