Band Aids || Mark Lee

C5

Just as the men began to edge closer a chorus loud laughs echoed through the lobby. The waiter who had been followed her backed up a bit, pretending as if nothing had happened as the group entered. Recognising them immediately relief followed through Eunbi's mind. It was Jaemin and the boys from the badminton team.

As some walked up to the counter to get a room the boy caught sight of the shaking girl, his smile dropping for a moment before he strolled over. "Eunbi!"

When she gave a smile back he sparked up a conversation. "I didn't know you'd be here, are you with friends?"

"I am" her reply came mindlessly as she wasn't really paying attention, instead she was planning her escape in her head. She needed to get out of here, but seeing as the waiters eyes were still locked on her she was guessing simply slipping out the door was off the list. She needed to get in contact with either Haechan or Mark but her phone was in the room. Suddenly an idea popped to mind. Jaemin was close with Haechan, surely he had his number.

Cutting Jaemin off halfway into his sentence on why the school should give badminton a better budget she quickly spoke. "Can I borrow your phone for a second, I need to call my brother"

A puzzled look crossed Jaemin's face but none the less he still handed it to her. Quickly pulling up his contacts she saw him start a conversation with someone else. Perfect. Finally finding Haechan's contact, which was called Pet Snake by the way, she pressed the call button praying he would answer. Sure enough he picked up rather quickly.

"Jae? We're kinda busy right now" His voice did sound rushed and he was breathing rather heavy.

"It's not Jaemin, its Eunbi"

"What? Why the hell are you calling me from Jae's phone?"

"No time, I'm kinda getting followed by a creepy guy and I don't know what to do"

"Shit" a sudden silence followed and Eunbi momentarily thought he had hung up on her. "You're with Jaemin right now right? Just stay with him as long as you can. We are just a little busy but we'll come as soon as we can"

"Okay, thank you" the beeping of the phone rung out and Eunbi quickly erased the call from the call log to avoid suspicion. "Thank you Jaemin"

"You're brother okay?" He smiled at her as he took his phone back.

"Yeah, he's working late tonight though, so he can't pick me up for a little while" It had slipped out of her mouth before she had even realised what she had said, luckily it did make sense.

"You can come with us if you want? It is a badminton outing after all, and you are on the team" A lifesaver. He had speared her the awkwardness of asking herself.

"I would love to" And with that she went to yet another karaoke room, in which Jaemin had even somehow read her mind and let her sit furthest away from the door as well. It was about 20 minutes later when there was a knock on the door. When it opened it revealed Mark who politely greeted the boys before doing some sort of handshake with Jaemin.

He shot me a look before saying something to Jaemin which made him laugh and had him something from his bag. "Sorry, totally forgot to give that to you earlier Mark" As Mark walked out I quickly pretended to check my watch before standing up.

"My brother should be arriving any minute now so I better go wait in the lobby" with a series of good byes Eunbi went out, almost walking straight into Mark.

"Are you okay? Where's the creepy waiter? Did you get hurt?" Mark seemed genuinely concerned as he took a hold of her shoulders gently, scanning her up and down for injuries.

"I'm fine, just a little spooked" She mustered up a small smile before she began to walk down the corridor. "And eager to leave"

"Fair enough" As they turned round the corridor an unpleasant sight. At the end was the waiter who had been following Eunbi, though this time he was aiming a gun at them.

"Fuck" it was a small, angered whisper before Mark pulled Eunbi behind him. Reaching into his waistband of his jeans he suddenly pulled out gun. The cold metal of its barrel brushed against Eunbis wrist, which was still clung to Marks arm from when he had ushered back. "Close your eyes"

Following Marks instructions with pleasure, Eunbi squeezed her eyes shut as the ringing noise on gunshots filled the corridor. A loud scream came from across the hall so she took that as a sign he had been hit.

When Mark turned to her he could easily tell she was scared by her shaking body. A sad smile met his lips as he gently wrapped his arms around her, whispering in her ear ever so gently. "You can open your eyes now, it's okay"

The shock of his embrace was quite big to Eunbi, but none the less it made her feel at ease. Carefully opening her eyes as to avoid catching sight of what would surely be a corpse. "What are we going to do with that?"

"Ah, Yeah. Good point" Marks eyebrows furrowed as he began to think. "I don't know, Taeyong usually deals with it"

"I thought covering stuff up was Jaehyun's job" His name came out hesitantly as she couldn't quite remember if that was actually it.

"It is, but he can only do so much, the cops in this area don't accept bribes" Mark lifted his hands away from the small of Eunbi's back before running them through his hair. "Ah I'm gonna get killed"

Eunbi's eyes widening. It wouldn't usually be that bad, but she couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. He was in a gang, so it wouldn't come as a shock if he actually might. Seeing Eunbi's worry he quickly elaborated.

"Not literally! Just like, expression -ally?" His made up word probably wouldn't made the girl laugh, but seeing as there was currently a corpse in the room, it didn't.

"So we need to get rid of it?" A small nod from the older boy and Eunbi launched into thinking of any way to do so. She didn't quite know why she was helping him, but he saved her life twice now, so maybe she had a slight debt to pay back. Suddenly she thought of something that might just work.

"I think there's an incinerator around here, behind the book store I do believe?" It came out a lot more questionably than she hoped, but that was okay because she wasn't actually sure if it was true.

"How the hell do you know that?" When she meet his eyes, an bewildered look was covering his face. You would think a professional killer would have better expression control really.

"I heard my brother talking about it on the phone the other day, but that's not relevant, let's just get him there" Finally Eunbi mustered up the courage to look at the corpse, his blood stained short catching her attention instantly. "How the hell do we do that?"

And that's hows they ended up carrying the man, who's shirt was covered by Marks jacket, like he was drunk. His arms slung limply across their shoulders and his feet dragging on the ground. They were getting weird looks, but at least it wasn't screams.

Mark still felt extremely bad for the small girl, tears were welled in his eyes as the walked. It wasn't unreasonable, going from an innocent schoolgirl on week to carrying a dead man through the main road the next had to be rather upsetting. As they finally made it to behind the bookstore they quite quickly dropped him, Mark letting out a small cheer. There was an incinerator.

"You wait around the corner for a second while I do this, you don't have to look" She complied and Mark quickly attended to the job. After the smoke began to rise Mark rounded the corner only to see Eunbi's body curled up wracking with sobs. He quickly crouched down just as she was, patting her back in attempted comfort.

"I'm so sorry Eunbi" He spoke with extreme sincerity as he really did get it. Death wasn't easy, whether it be of someone you know or someone you killed, it wasn't just something you could shrug away. The pain of it will always haunt you. The difference between them was clear though. Mark chose to see these things, Eunbi was forced.

"How bout I buy you dinner sometime to make up for this?"

And that earned him a small laugh through her tears.