White Noise - Part 18
Notes | Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | Epilogue
Minho carefully moved Key's body off of him, and then hurried to stand, backing himself closer to Onew.
"Taemin..." Jungmo nodded to the switchblade that rested near him on the floor. "Finish him."
"What?" Taemin asked.
"No!!" Onew yelled.
"We have a chance," Jungmo said quickly, "We have to finish him now."
"He isn't yours to finish, you have no right to kill.." Onew began, and Jungmo cut him off, glaring. "We'd kill you too, vampire, if you didn't have a bond. And proof that we're justified is right here." Jungmo held his hand out to the body of the dead girl.
"You can not understand vampires, you're only a human." Onew said, scowling. "You certainly have no right to pass judgement on one of us, and that's clear to me, because the appropriate punishment for him is much worse than dying."
"Punishment?" Jungmo asked, "It isn't about punishment. It's about keeping things like this from happening any more!"
"She's only a human!!" Onew yelled, angry.
Minho looked shocked at Onew, a short gasp of surprise almost silent escaping his lips.
Onew looked at him too, but he didn't seem apologetic. He just shook his head, frowning. "You can't understand. Humans could never understand."
".. How vampires can treat us like we're nothing?" Taemin asked softly. "Like we only exist for their convenience?"
Onew scowled, looking only angered by Taemin's defense.
Jungmo shook his head, putting a hand to it. "This is exactly why we shouldn't have got involved."
Sungmin's voice was weak. He laid on the ground, broken and sweating, saying "Finish him, Taemin. He took Hongki.. he'll take one of us too if he gets the chance. He'd even kill Minho."
Taemin reached out, picking up his switchblade.
"Taemin," Onew said softly, "Regardless of what Key has done, he's a person. If you kill him, you're a murderer, just like him."
"He's a monster." Taemin said.
"Am I a monster?" Onew asked Taemin.
Taemin looked up at Onew. "Noodle.." he said, nervous. "I think you are."
Onew looked at Minho, becoming less angry and more visibly upset, a state that wasn't so easy for Minho to see. "You can not let them do this." he said.
"After what he did to you?" Minho asked, "Look at yourself.. this isn't the first time either. If they kill him, he can't put you through this any more.. or me.."
"Do not make me defend him more than this." Onew said, "Do the math yourself. He's been alive for decades, his life.. means more than you can imagine, and if you would end it here like this... you.." Onew shook his head, wrinkling his nose.
Taemin moved next to Key, lifting his blade up. Onew clenched his teeth, and Minho did too, almost telling Taemin to stop. Then, Taemin squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered, cutting into Key's skin by his eye.
"Taemin.." Minho said with a gasp.
"I-it's mercy." Taemin said, shaking. "I'll show him mercy, like.. like he never showed me, but, I want him to remember I could have killed him."
Onew cringed, feeling ever so embarrased by what should have been fierce words coming out so awkwardly.
Taemin opened an eye, whimpered, and scratched the blade a bit further down Key's cheek before he lifted it. "Besides, I owe Noodle my life, and I can't take one if he asks me not to." he looked up at Jungmo, "Please, let Key live this once." he said, bowing his head.
"Fine." Jungmo said, but he sounded a bit bitter. "We need to hurry and get Sungmin to the hospital anyway." he bent down, reaching into Key's pockets. He pulled out a deep purple cellphone, and a white leather wallet. When he opened the wallet, a silver key was stuck in the middle. "Here." he said, tossing the key towards Minho. Minho caught it.
"We're gone.." Jungmo said, standing and walking to help Sungmin up.
Minho climbed onto the bed, inserting the key into the lock in the shackle and twisting. It popped open easily. Onew rolled fast off the bed, and stretched. "Finally~~."
Taemin looked between Minho and Onew, and Jungmo and Sungmin. "Hold on, um. I.. guess we're going to the hospital.." Taemin's gaze settled on Minho. "How do I get in touch with you again?"
"I'll be at school." Minho answered.
Taemin gave a small nod, and stood up. "Okay.." he said, wiping his wet switchblade off on the bloody sheets before he closed it up and put it back in his pocket. Then he walked to Sungmin's side, touching his back, hoping to be ready for supporting him. "I'll see you.. two.."
"Hey," Onew said, "You should cut your hair."
Taemin's forced smile when he looked back at Onew was weak, and then the hunters were gone.
Onew shrugged and turned to Minho, "Well I need a shower."
Minho was staring at the small girl's lifeless body, that stared off in the distance in such a familiar way. Onew frowned and took Minho's arm, guiding him passed the body and out of the room. "Forget it happened." Onew said.
"You can kill humans.." Minho said, "But you can't allow a vampire you hate to be killed, even after all he's done."
Onew paused in the small hall that led between rooms in the house, turning fully to Minho. "You have to understand, at least better than some humans.."
"I don't, Onew." Minho said, tears gathering. "I don't understand how you can tell me to forget that what just happened happened. I don't understand how I can have these feelings for a murderer. I don't understand how any of this can be real.."
"There's something I don't understand too." Onew said, frowning.
"What?" Minho asked.
"........ Taemin." Onew said, and turned around, guiding Minho to walk along with him.
"....... What?" Minho asked as Onew stepped through a doorway into a small, but very nice and clean bathroom.
"I like you even though you're a human, which I would say is because I'm bonded to you, and yet I also tolerate him even though everything he does and is annoys me." Onew pushed back a dark red shower curtain, turning the water on to start heating it up.
"That isn't what you were going to say." Minho accused, not seeming amused.
"Right." Onew said, "I also don't understand why you'd dream of me as a human.. so early."
"So early?" Minho asked.
"It's legend. Just legend." Onew said, "Because as I told you, no vampires I know of have successfully broken a bond before. However, it's said that when a bond is going to break, it becomes much stronger at the end. So strong that the human begins to know things about the vampire's human life."
"Then.." Minho was wide eyed, "Our bond was almost broken?"
"No." Onew said, eyes narrow. "That's just.. impossible."
He started to pull off his shorts, so Minho quickly turned around. "You could warn me." Minho told him.
"I think you can handle seeing me naked." Onew responded, "Unless you're afraid of how you'll respond.."
Minho didn't turn around until he heard the shower curtain pulling closed, and the water switching from the lower faucet to the shower. "Speaking of which," Onew said from inside the shower. "Who did you have sex with?"
Minho blushed. "How would you know.."
"I know."
"It could have been.. alone.."
"It wasn't."
"It's none of your business." Minho said flatly.
Onew didn't respond. There was a long silence, before Minho decided to speak again. "Are you sure Key won't wake up while you're..."
"He was shot in the head." Onew said, "Even a vampire will take a lot of time to recover from that. The bullet has to be pushed out of his head, and then the healing will take forever... He'll probably need blood. I'll have to give him some, before I put him in that annoying chain."
"You're going to leave him there?" Minho asked.
"I'm going to torture him." Onew responded all too briefly.
Minho couldn't bring himself to be surprised. He just needed to sit, down, and he shut the toilet in order to do so. "... I hate you." he said softly.
After a pause, Onew said, "I wish you didn't.", and the emotion - the genuine hurt that Minho felt from him was enough to make him feel guilty, no matter how true his words had been.
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