❝ Lay me down ❞

[bagelbites]

{ let the only sound be the overflow }
🌸 dal 🌸 minsu 🌸

Comments

cw: mentions of attempted murder and implied sexual assault

[bagelbites]

The fluorescent lights of the emergency department are harsh. Everything is so bright and white... a lot like the place Dal just came from. One dangerous, sterile place for another. Here, Dal can breathe. Every breath feels like razors in his throat, like he's trying to gasp at air around a brick. Or around a lungful of water.

His hair is still wet, still dripping occasionally down his pale face. He's in a hospital gown and one of those warming blankets, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. Doctors, nurses, police all coming and going. All asking questions his addled mind could barely understand. His head hurt, a dull throb just behind his eyes.

Someone told him a social worker would be by. He's met a few of them before out on the street. They come out to the meat market a lot. They're at the shelters a lot. Trying to get the homeless kids and the sex workers off the street. There are times when his very limited English comes in handy. He can pretend he doesn't understand. Just like he does with the cops and nurses and the doctors.

Hospitals are dangerous for a guy without papers. Dal never comes to them unless he actually thinks he's dying. He didn't come here on his own. He was brought here after... After some lunatic who's been hunting hookers tried to drown him. That's why his chest burns and his throat aches. Now that he's not in any immediate danger, they're gathering evidence off him. Swabbing his mouth, scraping under his ragged nails... ragged from scratching desperately at the side of a bathtub.

He's got that thousand yard stare when the social worker walks in. Whatever he's saying. Dal doesn't hear it at first. Please repeat yourself, social worker.

[constantia]

Minsu was given all of the information the police could find on the young man, and all they knew of the situation he'd just been pulled out of. The lunatic and the likelihood that he'll try to track Dal down so he can finish the job as well as what measures they'll be putting in place to prevent that. Of course they outline what's expected of him while he's working with Dal.

While all of that is incredibly important and he listens with the attention it deserves, it's Dal's condition that he's concerned about. And it isn't until he's finished with the police that he finally gets to speak with the doctors. Not that there's much to tell. Physically, he'll heal. Mentally and emotionally, it's hard to say. It's not easy to assess his mental state when it's not speaking to anyone. He doesn't understand, it seems. They're waiting for their interpreter to get there.

Minsu clutches tightly the file he's been given on Dal. All of the information he already has in written form. Something to reference, if need be. A deep breath before he steps into the room and put on a kind expression. "Dal? My name is Minsu. I'm a social worker who's here to help. It's nice to meet you." He says it first in English, and then repeats it in Korean.

[bagelbites]

Dal hears him when he speaks, the English just running over him like water. But the sound of Korean? That gets Dal to blink, to turn his face to look at the person speaking to him. For the first time in the last few hours, something finally feels familiar, like it isn't completely alien and detached from him.

But other than that, Dal doesn't move. He sits on the edge of the hospital bed, hands folded in his lap, legs crossed at the ankle. Generally trying to make himself as compact as possible. If not for the bruising around his throat and a few additional on his arm from flailing in the bathtub, there'd be no indication of why he's in the hospital.

He swallows hard, wincing at such a simple thing (god, but his throat hurts!). Then, in a small voice, in Korean, "Can I go now?"