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Everything is too fucking bright. Donald can barely open his eyes before closing them again, holding back a hiss at the pain. The fluorescent lights burn worse than the sun, worse than the White Mamba’s trick with the generator, worse than even the headlights of the truck.
So. He’s alive, then.
Donald’s not stupid, he’s spent enough time in the hospital to recognize where he is from the sharp tang of bleach and alcohol under his tongue, the steady sound of a heart monitor piercing his ears. Nothing hurts, which doesn’t make sense, even from his hazy recollection of the fight. Must be the painkillers.
He opens his eyes again, just slow enough that he can handle the searing light this time. There’s the tall poles of machinery rising all around him, something wrapped tightly around his chest, stiff legs and arms. He sees the clear artery of an IV rising from his wrist, and then it’s just an expanse of red on white blanket.
There’s a dark lump in the blurry corner of his vision, slumped near his feet. Donald tries to raise his head for a better look, falls back with a thump. The shadow stirs, looks up.
It’s Kingsley.
“Donald?” he says, quietly, like he’s testing, and then when Donald blinks, his second is leaning directly over him, eyes wide and gathering tears. “Holy shit. Holy shit, you're awake. You’re alive.”
“Where?” Donald manages to croak. His voice sounds like someone took his throat apart and put it back together — it’s not an impossibility, he’ll have to ask someone later. He survived a collision head-on with a truck. No amount of damage is out of the question.
Hell, looking into the headlights, he thought he'd be dead. It hadn’t been an unpleasant expectation.
“We’re in the Yeouido hospital. The ambulance took you to the local clinic, but I got you transferred here.” He stops, swipes the back of his hand across his eyes. Swallows heavily. “I had to dip into the emergency funds. I think you’d agree that this qualifies.”
The emergency fund, the millions of won they’ve set aside in case something drastic happens. Something like the Union falling apart, its business plans failing. Something like the leader being hospitalized, being severely injured. Something like this. The result of some of their earliest successes, the only way high school half-dropouts like them can afford decent treatment.
As always, Kingsley made the right choice. One he shouldn’t have had to.
“You died,” he says after a moment, when Donald doesn’t say anything else about the money. The tears collect in his eyes again. “They — In the ambulance, you died. Your heart stopped. Three minutes, twenty-four seconds. They had you in surgery for over eight hours. I thought — Fuck. You died.”
And yet, here Donald is. Alive. That’s what he does, after all, what he’s always done. Stay alive at any cost, against every injury. It’s almost unsurprising he’s still here the one time he hadn’t even tried. He hums, in lieu of saying any of that. The blurriness winding through his veins doesn’t seem keen on letting him speak. His eyes draw themselves shut without permission.
“I’ve taken care of the paperwork for the hospital stay,” Kingsley continues, clear through the fog, “so everything should be in order for however long it takes. And I’ll be here. So you can — you can go back to sleep, if you need. Whatever you need. I’m in the room.”
In the room. Always in the room. Always hovering beside Donald’s desk, helping keep him on track, finding new viewpoints, dealing with the less important Union members, turning off the lights. “Thank you,” he says, his eyes still closed.
“One last thing,” Kingsley starts, sounding far underwater now. “Some of the guys have been asking to see you. I’ve been keeping them out, but should — ”
“No.” Not like this, not when he’s a mangled shadow of a man who can’t even breathe without needing painkillers. “Don’t.”
Kingsley snaps his fingers sharply, ever the reliable second-in-command. “Got it.”
And Donald trusts that he does, and sleeps.
The first week is just this, a haze of nurses and doctors and grim prognosis after grim prognosis as Donald struggles to feel his feet, stares at the new stain-wide scar on his chest, doesn't look at what’s left of his hands. He had raised them on instinct, they tell him, when the truck ran him over, and they took the glass and the wheels and the worst of it.
Kingsley says, “The truck driver is okay. I haven’t had time to press charges yet.” He means, he’s been too busy taking care of this, Donald, the hospital. Too busy sleeping in the chairs, snarling at anyone who implies that the term “visiting hours” is applicable to him.
“That’s fine,” Donald tells him, and means thanks. Kingsley doesn’t need to do this, any of it. He’s the most powerful man in the Union now, and here regardless.
He wakes up for more doctors, more tests. Kingsley is shouting at someone in the hallway to stay the fuck out of here. Someone cleans his stitches. Someone else tells him, “You’re lucky to be more than a splatter on the sidewalk.” He fades in and out and thinks for all the use he is here, he might as well be a fucking splatter.
At some point, they start to give him real food instead of an IV. It’s disgusting. He still can’t get up to use the bathroom. Kingsley stays slumped in the plastic chair, using his backpack as a pillow, the sleeves of his clothes stained dark and wrinkled. The nurses stop scolding him and start giving him odd looks.
Eventually, Donald is awake more often than unconscious, able to listen to the doctors and take stock of what they’re saying. He’ll start PT when they’re satisfied it won’t worsen his current recovery. “You’ll be free to go back to school in a few weeks,” one of the cheeriest day-shift nurses adds, because he’s paying enough money for them to ignore the fact that he’s got tattoos and piercings and clearly doesn’t go to school.
“You should go back, though,” he says to Kingsley, when they’re the only ones in the room again. “You’ve been here for too long, the students have probably started to run wild without us to keep order. Take a shower, change out of those clothes, dress clean when you’re sorting everything out. Maintain authority.”
“That’s not easy for everyone like it is for you,” Kingsley complains, but he picks up his backpack, tries to smooth out the wrinkles in his shirt. “What if someone tries to come in here when I’m gone?”
Donald barks a laugh. “You don't think I could take them?” When Kingsley raises an eyebrow, he tries again. “It’ll be fine. I’m awake enough to press the emergency call button if any non-Union visitors decide to try and kill me. Or Union ones, for that matter.”
Kingsley hesitates, and then deflates completely. “Fine. I will come back though, school or not. Whenever Mr. Yeom starts being too much of a pain in the ass.”
“That’s all the time,” Donald says dryly. “But don’t worry. No one would dream of keeping you from wasting your time in this hospital room instead of doing something worthwhile. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Kingsley promises, that goddamn loyalty of his, and hesitates again before he leaves.
His first visitors other than Kingsley are not the one he’s expecting. Donald has a silent wager with himself that it’s going to be Jimmy, desperate to hear about the state of the Union, to know what he needs to do. He’s never been able to direct himself. It’s pathetic, uniquely childish.
Instead, it’s Ben Park.
When Donald sees him in the hallway, his weaker half in tow, he expects them to continue right past his room. Their friend is on this floor, he knows from the nurses’ chatter, the wimpy one. Donald had given the orders to put him here. They’ve walked by plenty of times, along with the rest of their gang. Even the White Mamba has been here sometimes, small and unimposing in the endless white of the hallways.
Instead, Ben checks each room number and patient name before coming to a halt in front of Donald’s. “Here it is,” he announces, so loud it’s audible through the thin walls, his smile unreasonably wide. Alex Go stops as well, frowning. It’s like the expressions are stuck to them, and they’re stuck to each other. Comedy and tragedy masks. It reminds Donald in some odd way of the Mok-Ha duo.
Briefly, he wonders if pretending to be asleep will deter them, but Ben is already opening the door and bringing the loudspeaker he calls a voice with him. “Hey, looks like you’re alive!”
“Looks like it,” Donald agrees flatly, pushing himself upright. “Not your preferred outcome, I’m sure.”
Ben opens his mouth to say something, but Alex beats him to it. “No, not really.”
“Gogo, c’mon — ”
“No, I’m not going to lie and say I’m happy about it!” Alex looks about two seconds away from planting his fist in either the wall or Donald’s face. Neither of them can take that sort of damage. “Look, there’s not a lot of people I want dead, okay? But you — what you did — you ruined my fucking life. You nearly killed my friends, and you know what? You’ve done it to so many people you probably don’t even remember.”
His breathing is ragged now, his knuckles gone so white they’re just his bones. “Fuck you, Donald Na. You survived? Fucking good for you. The next time you try shit, I’ll run you over properly.”
Donald didn’t even know hospital doors could slam that loudly.
There’s a stretched out silence, long and awkward, before Ben clears his throat, his smile sheepish. “Sorry about him. He wouldn’t let me come alone, but that wasn’t — I didn’t know he was going to say all that.”
“I’ve had worse,” Donald says. “Anyway, he’s wrong. I didn’t survive.”
“You what?” Ben jumps up comically, starts looking around the room. “I don’t know, man, you look pretty alive to me. I’ve never seen a dead guy this talkative before. Are you a zombie?”
And this is why Ben Park might be a good fighter, but he could never run something like the Union. He’s a fucking moron. “I mean that the truck did actually kill me. Three minutes of flatline. You should tell your friend, he’d be happy to hear it.”
Ben’s grin doesn’t falter, but it takes on a strange edge. “Yeah, he probably would, huh? Sometimes he’s a real asshole. Thinks it’s on my behalf.”
“Kingsley is the same,” Donald says. “You already know that, though. He arranged to have you kidnapped.”
“Friends, man. A real pain in the ass.”
There’s nothing he can say to that. “Anyway. Your sidekick came to tear me a new one. What did you come here for?”
“Oh, me?” A shrug, nonchalant. Simple. “I think I just wanted to see how you are.”
“You’ve seen it.”
Ben laughs, getting up from the chair. Outside the window, Alex is pacing back and forth, waiting for him to leave. “Guess so. I’ll see you around, then.”
Donald has a sudden thought. “Hey. Ben Park.”
Ben turns back around, still with that stupid wide smile on his face. “Hm?”
“Can you ask the White Mamba — ” and as if it’s the name, he’s suddenly out of air, coughing, trying not to choke on the feeling of his shattered ribs as the heart monitor screeches. “Ask him,” Donald rasps, when he can breathe again, “how he solved the proof. The last one.”
“Sure,” Ben agrees easily. “Man, you two are the same kind of freak. Thinking about math problems when you’re in the hospital.”
Donald tries to shrug, and then regrets it when his shoulder pulses with pain. “Not much else to think about.”
“No, I guess not.” Ben laughs, looking around the room. “This place is fucking depressing. Maybe next time I’ll bring you some Ttosikki Chicken or something.”
There’s not going to be a next time, Donald doesn’t say, because if Ben Park wants to do something he’s never been able to stop him before, and he certainly can’t now from his hospital bed.
Plus, the food here is dogshit. Anything would be an improvement.
Ben Park does come back, with four packs of Ttosikki Chicken and the entirety of his gang. Well, the entirety apart from Gray Yeon, which means his room is now filled with both more annoying Eunjang students than he ever wants to see in one place, and more noise than his pounding skull can deal with.
The fried chicken is a small mercy.
Like last time, the scowl is affixed to Alex Go’s face. He makes to leave the room again, but Ben first pleads with him — “Dude, don’t be that way!” — and then blackmails him — “You’re not getting any chicken if you stand outside!” — until he takes a seat in the corner, still glaring in the direction of Donald’s steadily beeping heart monitor, the oxygen tube.
Go ahead, Donald thinks. Rip it out. Finish the job. Kill me. He’s lying face up in a hospital bed, his body a mess of stitches and shattered bones. It would be so easy. They have all the reason in the world.
Instead, Ben lays out the boxes of chicken by the side of Donald’s bed. “Alright, man, you get first pick. Which flavour?”
“Not onion, don’t let him take the onion,” says the green one. Gerard Jin. The red-hair — what did they call him, Super Elbow? Some idiotic epithet for sure — makes a loud shushing noise, glancing around nervously, as if Donald is going to kill him for daring to speak.
Well, now Donald wants to deck him for being annoying. “Give me the onion,” he says to Ben instead. Since it’s somehow Ben fucking Park who’s the most tolerable person here, the only one who doesn’t seem either terrified or actively hostile.
“Sure,” Ben says, handing over the correct pack, and now Gerard has joined Alex in looking murderous. The blond guy looks slowly between them and Donald. This is starting to feel like some sort of farce.
“I saw a vending machine earlier,” he says after a second, “I’ll go get us some drinks? Rowan, come with me.”
Elbow follows him out of the room in a hurry. Gerard calls after them, “Don’t forget the coke!” Teddy half jumps out of his skin. Everyone laughs, even Alex.
Donald fiddles with the top of the fried chicken carton and tries to ignore them.
Eventually Ben notices him struggling with the packaging, opens it easily for him. “Onion’s the best, it’s why everyone was hoping you didn’t pick it.”
“That’s why I did,” Donald says, and Ben grins like he’s just told the funniest joke in the world. “Tell me, though. Why are you here?”
“To bring you chicken,” says Ben, like it’s obvious.
Does he really think that’s an answer, or is he being deliberately obtuse? “Don’t give me that bullshit. We just fought a war . What do you actually want?”
“To bring you chicken,” Ben repeats. “Dude, I don’t know what else to tell you. Yeah, we fought a war. And, man, some of what happened was way overboard. I don’t know why we took it to that level. You escalated it that far, for sure. But it’s — we’re not, like, mortal enemies because we didn’t know when to stop fighting. That’s not how that works.”
Donald stares, swallows, tries to think of something to say. That is more words in reasonable order than he ever expected to hear from Ben Park. It doesn’t make sense. The other two walk back in with their arms full of soda and start to argue over the remaining food.
“Thanks for the chicken,” he says, finally.
The room is still dark when the door creaks open and Donald blinks awake. For a second he expects to see his father there, like a sick joke, that same sound so many times. Instead he sees a flash of silver, a ghost-white uniform in the early light.
Gray Yeon.
He doesn’t come over to the bed, and Donald doesn’t turn to look at him, and his voice is so soft it sounds like a hallucination. “You asked about the math problem.”
I did, Donald thinks, but can’t find his tongue to say it. Like sleep paralysis. Like Gray Yeon is his own personal demon, come to grace his death in this hospital room.
For someone who’s known for violence, his voice is quiet. “I didn’t solve it. You did. You gave me the solution, right there in the problem. You did all the work yourself.”
Of course. Of course he had just given it away, obsessed as he had been with creating the perfect challenge, with planning the perfect war. He’d given Gray the answer right along with the question and had been foolish enough to expect he wouldn’t find it.
How many different ways can he fuck up? Donald wants to laugh if it wouldn't hurt too much.
Gray sighs, stands up. “I’m sorry, by the way.”
For what? Donald wants to ask. Gray wasn’t the one driving the truck that killed him, wasn’t the paramedic that brought him back to life. But he doesn’t get the chance, because Eunjang’s White Mamba is gone again, the room eerie and silent with the rising sun, as if no one had even been there.
Jimmy does inevitably show up, pacing in sharp turns outside the door. Kingsley, typing something up on his laptop near the window, looks over at him. “Should I let him in?”
“I’ve been expecting him,” Donald says. “Go ahead. And wait outside while he’s here.”
“Got it.” He opens the door to face their restless visitor, jerks a thumb towards the chair in the corner. “Sit down and stay sitting. And for fuck’s sake be careful and don’t step on my backpack. I’ll be out in front of the door when you’re done.”
“Fucking jackass,” Jimmy mumbles, but he’s careful when he makes his way over to take his seat. “Donald, can you tell your guard dog I’m not the goddamn enemy?”
Kingsley closes the door before he can finish the sentence, and Donald stifles a laugh. Kingsley has become increasingly on edge ever since learning that the real enemies from Eunjang had come by, and more than once at that. Even the leftover Ttosikki chicken hadn’t appeased him then.
“I hoped you’d be here,” he says instead. Implied compliments have always worked best on Jimmy. “The rest of the Union hasn’t bothered stopping by.”
“That's what I wanted to ask about,” says Jimmy, words crashing together with his usual adrenaline-rush speed. “If there’s any jobs or anything we need done, that I can do. The Union presence hasn’t been felt strongly in the district since the war.”
“Well,” Donald says, an eyebrow raised, “there was a war. I don’t believe we’ll need to ramp up our activities until the aftermath has settled fully.”
Jimmy nods, considers, and shakes his head. “Right, but if we stay silent for too long, it’s giving others a chance to try and claim our territory, and if that happens I don’t know if the forces we currently have — ”
Donald cuts him off before he can get any further. “Jimmy. I know you're willing, and able. If anything needs to be done, I’ll tell you.”
That seems to be satisfactory because Jimmy gives another nod, a lazy half-salute. “Right. Understood. Thank you.” He leans halfway out the door and exchanges a few inaudible words with Kingsley before disappearing down the hall in the opposite direction he’d come from.
“What was that about?” Kingsley asks, propping the door open with his foot as he continues typing. Finishes something, slams the enter key as he sits down.
Donald doesn’t really know, actually. “It’s Jimmy. He said he wanted to know if there was any Union business he could help with.”
“Did you give him any?”
“We don’t have any. And I didn’t need him going feral on a fake mission, so, no.”
Kingsley huffs a relieved sigh. “He’s always so goddamn desperate to pick a fight, and half the time with people far stronger than him. I really don’t get it.”
“I think he just wants to prove himself.” Donald laughs, short and bitter. “To a guy who got hit by a truck, no less. He could destroy me in a heartbeat.”
“You’re an idiot,” says Kingsley, starting to type again. “Right about him, sure, but also an idiot.”
“Fuck off. And find something for him to do soon.”
Physical therapy is hell.
It’s not unbearable, not even close. Donald has faced much worse, and then trained himself to face even worse than that, so it’s not the insurmountable threshold of pain that it is for other patients. He performs, excels, like in everything else. The doctors are impressed with his progress, say he might even be able to walk unassisted someday. It’s amazing, they tell him, it’s a miracle.
Donald fucking hates it. Every time his nurse says he must be superhuman, he wants to punch her teeth in like he would have before his fingers became too twisted to form a fist. No, he fucking isn’t. Not anymore, compared to what he used to be. Running the Union, making deals, making money. Undefeated. No bruises on him, except from winning fights. No blood, except others’ on his knuckles. That was superhuman. What he is now is just pathetic.
Group physical therapy is even worse. It’s supposed to be encouraging, seeing others struggle through the same exercises you are, but really all it does is remind Donald how painfully weak he is now. Even Eugene Gale is doing better than he is, walking easily on crutches while Donald struggles to take a step. He has to admit, he’s at least a little interested in the kid. How does a nobody wreck an entire empire’s business plan, with one science project? How does someone so seemingly useless nearly defeat Donald — twice?
“What are the rankings now?” he asks the next time they’re in the PT room together.
“Huh?” Eugene looks up and then around almost comically, his wide glasses flashing. “Sorry, are — are you talking to me?”
“You’re familiar with Shuttle Patch,” Donald says without answering. He sees the guy browsing the website often during their breaks. “Tell me, what are the new rankings?”
Eugene stammers his way through something about the final results during the fight being difficult to keep track of and that it may not be totally reflective of current strength before saying, “Gray is ranked one now.”
“Makes sense.” Donald thinks about almost losing, thinks about the look in Gray’s eyes when Donald had screamed up towards the roof begging to be defeated. “He didn’t get hit by a truck, after all.”
“Um, yeah. Yeah, but — here, wait — ” Eugene scrolls back through the rankings to the top, tilting his phone so that Donald can see, and then clicks a little icon in the top corner. Donald’s own face fills the page suddenly, his own distant smirk and a graphic with his stats, ZERO in bold at the bottom of the page. “You’re, uh, you’re the permanent number zero now. Because no one defeated you. Even if you’re not the best fighter anymore.”
That’s an understatement, Donald thinks. He’ll be lucky to be able to walk into another fight, and he sure as hell won’t ever walk out of one. Zero, though. It’s not as though the Shuttle Patch rankings have ever meant anything to him, but it’s — it’s something.
“I wish I could be that strong,” Eugene is muttering now, mostly to himself. Which answers the question of why he’s so obsessed with Shuttle Patch, but brings up another.
“What business does a wimp like you have idolizing the district’s best bullies?”
That sets him off stuttering again, something about bread and textbooks, but then he cuts himself off. “Actually, it’s. Um. We’re still in high school, you know? And, uh, some things are just cool. Like guys who can fight.”
We’re still in high school. Donald laughs, it seems so ridiculous. All of this, all of the blood and money and ashes, and in the real world people would think it doesn’t even matter. High school. It’s not even a fourth of your life. It doesn't matter if your math problems are graduate level, if your business connections are nationwide. Some things are just cool. Some guys just seem immortal.
Phillip Kim had texted a couple of days ago, I quit smoking. Early death shit finally got to me I guess. Donald hadn’t seen how that was his problem, but he does now.
“It doesn’t matter if they can fight or not,” he says aloud. “They die just as easy as you.” And then, because Eugene is starting to look alarmed, “I know the guy who made Shuttle Patch. I can introduce you.”
It’s amazing how easy it is, to give away that sort of power. Yejun Lee is one of the most promising college students, on track to graduate early after finishing high school in two years. Donald had kept close contact with him because of how much of an asset he had the potential to be, and now he’s giving up the one favour he’s owed. Maybe just because he’ll never be able to need it.
“Oh.” Eugene’s eyes are wide behind his wire frames. “Oh, um, that would — that would be amazing.”
“Give me your phone,” Donald says, holding his hand out. His fingers are too fucked up for a lot of things, but not this. Eugene hesitates, then hands it over and watches as Donald inputs a new contact. “Tell him you want to collaborate with him, or research, or something. Up to you.”
Eugene grins, genuine and missing teeth. “Thank you!” It hardly makes up for what the Union did, Donald thinks, but then he isn’t doing this to make amends. Any action is fair in war.
PT isn’t done yet. Eugene limps over to his nurse, and Donald resumes trying to stand up on his own.
When he gets back to his room, Gray Yeon is waiting for him, arms crossed and leaning back in one of the shitty plastic chairs like he rules the damn place. Donald, meanwhile, is half-slumped from exhaustion and getting wheeled around by the nurse. He supposes there’s no real point in trying to save face here.
“What do you want.”
The nurse seems taken aback by his tone. She probably doesn’t see many juvenile delinquents in a hospital this high-end. Whatever. Donald hauls himself onto the bed, arms shaking, and waits for her to clip back whatever wires and tubes she needs to.
“Eugene told me about your conversation today,” Gray says once the nurse leaves, which, okay, that makes sense. More sense than the White Mamba deciding to pay him a second visit out of whatever misplaced guilt he’d been carrying around the first time. Donald knows the two of them are friends, had fought Gray in the war because of Eugene. He should have calculated it would translate to things like this as well.
“Only good things, I hope.”
“Surprisingly, yes.” Gray’s tone is even-keeled as always, but the words match Donald’s sarcasm, and he has to laugh. So the White Mamba has a sense of humour. “I didn’t expect to hear that the Union leader is helping my friend with his business connections.”
Donald shrugs, still cautious with his left shoulder. “Any problems with it?”
“None. I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, as you can see — ” Donald makes a theatrical gesture, sweeping his arm across the hospital room, cuts it short when his arm twinges and locks — “I’m not going anywhere. So. Talk.”
Gray seems surprised at how casual he’s acting, but what did he think? Donald doesn’t have the energy to be hostile, doesn’t have anything better to do. Doesn’t even have a math problem to demand the solution to, although maybe he could come up with one, if this is going to become a regular thing.
He doesn’t really want to. He’s tired of problems.
“I was just curious,” starts Gray, still cautious. “How do you know the creator of Shuttle Patch?”
“Yejun? He was well-known at school. Top of his class.” Donald hates the way that makes him sound, like a schoolteacher getting all dramatic about their prize winner. “Sticks for limbs, constantly bullied. Said he wanted to make a website to warn students across the district about which delinquents to look out for.”
“And yet he keeps in touch with the absolute worst of them.”
Donald chuckles again, grating. Like one of those assholes who had lectured about how great his old students were as he threw a rag into Donald’s hands and told him to clean the chewing gum. “He was smart. Not like us, but still. Once I met him I got him protection, treated him as an asset. Still owes me for it.”
Gray stays quiet for a minute. Then he says, “I met an old friend again today.”
This is like Phillip Kim’s text all over again. Donald spares a moment to wonder why there’s an epidemic of people telling him things he has no reason to care about before Gray continues, “He — he was the reason I survived middle school, basically.”
“Good for you,” Donald says. The lights are getting too bright again, spots in his vision. Post PT exhaustion hitting, finally. He closes his eyes and leans back. “I assume something happened.”
“He died.”
Well. Donald didn’t expect that. “You’ve started talking to ghosts, then?”
“I thought he died,” Gray amends. “But he’s still alive. Doing well. Doing better than before, even. It was really good to see.”
“What a stroke of luck,” says Donald flatly.
Gray smiles a little, standing up. “Yeah. And you know what’s nice? He’s not the only one.”
The statement is cryptic, but not enough that Donald can’t decipher it, and it makes him want to punch the little bastard, ranked first or otherwise. Better? What a fucking joke. What part of this is better?
He doesn’t get the chance to say it. Gray slips out the room door, quiet as he came in, and turns off the lights.
For a hospital in such an affluent district, with such absurdly high fees, Donald would think they would be able to afford better smoke detectors.
Evidently not, since Wolf Keum is standing outside with his back to the room window, and smoking.
Hell, maybe he just punched out the detectors so he could sit there in peace. Nothing’s past him, and three seconds of beeping would have been more than enough to set him off. Donald hopes none of the hospital staff come by while he’s there. If Wolf wants to smoke, there’s no helping the poor bastard who tries to stop him.
Doctor Baek finally let him have his phone back two days ago, after he determined that it wasn’t the concussion causing his leftover light sensitivity. Donald can’t quite type now, but his tone is steady as if nothing happened when he sends voice messages. “You can come inside, you know.”
Through the window he sees Wolf take his phone out of his pocket with the same hand as his cigarette, start typing something as he takes another long drag. The notification shows up on Donald's screen seconds later.
No thanks.
“Suit yourself,” says Donald wryly, “You've made it pretty clear I’m not your boss.” He thinks about telling Wolf it doesn’t matter who he fought for in the end, he can come in anyway, take a seat instead of leaning on the frosted glass. It probably won’t make a difference — Wolf doesn’t care what Donald thinks, and never has. He does what he wants. What he wants is to slouch outside and pretend he’s not here for something.
“Phillip quit, by the way,” he sends, when there’s no response after a minute or two. “I don’t know why he’s decided his vices are my problem, but he made a point of telling me.”
Don’t worry, Wolf sends back, and Donald sees a smoke ring rise up over his head. I don’t plan on being your problem. Or quitting.
“No, I’d imagine not.” Donald can’t imagine Wolf without his cigarettes, his lighter that’s half tool and half weapon. “You are my problem right now, though, standing there and smoking. I’m going to have to pay whatever fines you rack up.”
Wolf looks up for a moment. Right, he definitely fucked with the detector. You can afford it.
Donald closes his eyes, tries not to get frustrated. Wolf has always been a headache and a half to deal with. “If you want something, come in. Otherwise, leave.”
There’s no response to that. After a second, Wolf slides his phone back into his pocket and pulls out another cigarette to light on the end of the first. He stays there, smoking in silence, until the second cigarette burns to ash. Then he stubs it out on the bench, blows the residue off his fingers, and leaves.
The next time Ben visits, he comes alone. Donald raises an eyebrow when he doesn’t see anyone else follow him in — he’d thought Alex Go was permanently attached to the guy’s shadow. Kingsley isn’t here to keep an eye on him, either. Just Ben, alone.
“The guys didn’t really want me to visit,” Ben says when Donald asks him about it. “They told me I should stop blowing all my money buying chicken for an asshole like you.” The words are harsh, but his tone is amiable, his smile easy as he hands over the box.
Donald reaches for it with his more fucked up hand, so he can use the good one to eat. Chilli chicken today, he hasn’t tried that one before, but Ben pulls it back out of reach.
“Actually,” he says, still with that fucking grin, “I agree. I’m pretty broke, and you’re the one with the criminal empire, man. You really need to start buying your own damn chicken.”
And then he starts eating.
The only reason Donald doesn’t flip him off is that his middle finger is too twisted to raise on its own.
When Ben is done eating he drops the bone back in, closes the box ceremoniously, and basketball tosses it into the room’s trash can. “Show-off.”
“Damn right I am.” He grins even wider, somehow. This is why the nurses don’t even bat an eye when they see him walking through the hallways with fried chicken anymore. “Anyway, nice to see you, Donald. The chicken was really good today.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Donald says, and then feels like an idiot. Really, he can’t come up with anything better? Ben Park’s moronic attitude is turning him stupid as well.
Ben laughs, standing up from the visitors’ chair. “No thanks, man, you’re not my type. But hey.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper with a flourish. “Maybe this will make up for it.”
Donald doubts it, but he takes it anyway. It looks like a Ttosikki Chicken business card, and on the front he sees ten circles, all covered in stamps. The stamps are, aptly, shaped like legs of chicken. “Claim your free bucket today?”
“It’s a stamp card!” Ben tells him cheerily, as if that isn’t obvious. “I got it filled out with how much of this shit I bought you, so you can get it for free next time.”
“Oh.”
“You should go, man,” Ben says, and he’s serious all of a sudden, expression solemn. The absence of his smile is uncanny. “Whenever you get out of the hospital. Come buy some, pay back what you owe me. It’d be cool to see you out there.”
Donald turns over the stamp card in his hands, running his fingers over the worn edges. “Sure, why not? It’s damn good chicken.”
“Right? Fucking amazing.” Ben laughs, the levity back immediately. “Alright, man, I’ll catch you later.”
Jake Ji calls him ahead of time to schedule a visit, and Donald nearly starts laughing. It’s as if he’s trying to make a business appointment. “I’m hardly the busiest man alive right now. Yeouido Hospital is not the World Trade Center. If you need to talk, come talk.”
“Yeah, right. Sorry.”
He arrives at the hospital two hours later, as if he’d been stalling. In two minds. Jake is so often indecisive, but never when it doesn't matter. Kingsley steps out without being asked. He already knows what this is about, as they all do. It’s only final if Jake says it now.
“Have a seat,” Donald offers, but Jake remains standing. His hands are sunk deep in his pockets, and he’s looking down. Looking away.
Finally he looks up, forces a slight smile. “Sorry I haven’t come by. How are you doing?”
“As well as can be expected,” Donald says. “Not dead. You didn’t come for this. Don’t waste my time. I may not be busy, but I’m not interested in small talk.”
He is, actually. If Jake really did come here to chat about the weather and school and sports scores, Donald would listen. It’s not that this isn’t what he wants, but this isn’t why Jake called ahead. His health will not go anywhere. Jake’s conviction can disappear fast.
“Right. So. We talked about this,” Jake starts, still hesitant. “And I think there’s even more reason to do it now, so. Ah, fucking shit, it’s so hard to say.”
“It’s three words,” Donald says, deliberately mocking. “I know you haven’t forgotten the basics of speech.”
“Fuck off,” Jake snaps. “You want to hear it? Fine. I’m leaving the Union.”
There it is. No surprise in it for any of them, not after that meeting. This is just a confirmation. Donald holds his hand out, mangled and shaking. “As I said, you are free to go. I understand that Union membership isn’t a benefit for you right now. You’ll receive your severance pay from Kingsley as promised.”
Jake doesn’t say anything, eyes wide. Donald doesn’t know why. They agreed on these terms even before the war, and he always closes a deal. The Union is for the good of its members. When it stops being that way, there's no need for them to continue. It doesn’t even benefit Donald anymore, and hasn’t for a long time now.
“I’ll be around if needed,” Jake says, as if the agreement is still conditional. He reaches out to complete the handshake, his smooth fingers wrapping around scar tissue. “I owe a lot to the Union. Just say the word.”
“There’s no need,” Donald tells him, trying to find the gravity that used to be so easy. Trying to make the words sound final. “Good luck with whatever comes next. You still have my number. Use it.”
“To make business appointments?” Jake jokes, but it falls flat, humourless. “It — it really has been nice. These few years have been a lot of fun, and I learned a lot, just from being a part of everything. So, thank you. For all of it.” Then he laughs. “Shit, I really have to leave now, I think. Before I change my mind remembering how good it was. I’ll see you around.”
And with that, Jake Ji walks out of the Yeongdeungpo Union, smiling.
It’s been three weeks and four days of a hospital stay that feels much longer when Doctor Baek walks through the door with a stack of papers.
Finally. Donald snatches at them, managing to angle his fingers around the pen well enough that he can write a scratchy approximation of his old, fluent signature. The same one that sealed so many contracts, kept him in deals with so many businesses.
“Congrats, Mr. Na,” the doctor says, taking the papers back. “Your discharge will get processed, and you’ll be free to leave tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Donald says, polite as ice, and calls Kingsley as soon as they’re gone.
Kingsley picks up before the phone rings even twice. “Donald? Is everything alright? I can be at the hospital in fifteen minutes if you need.”
“Everything is fine,” Donald tells him, nearly laughs at the concern. More than likely, Kingsley simply wants a reason to leave class. That, at least, he can give. “I just got notice of my discharge. Can you go somewhere quiet for this conversation?”
“Of course.” There’s the sound of a chair scraping, some shuffling, a couple of doors. Then, “What is it?”
“I need you to call a Union meeting tomorrow. At the park.” The same location as the first one. Donald has never cared much for poetic justice but it seems fitting.
Kingsley’s relief is audible. “Everyone? Are you going to address them?”
“Everyone,” he confirms. “But no. You are. And you’re going to tell them that the Yeongdeungpo Union is being brought to an end.”
“What?”
The word is so loud it’s nearly deafening. Donald moves the phone away from his ear. "You heard what I said."
“Yeah,” Kingsley says, "right," but he still sounds hesitant. “It’s just — we’ve worked so hard for this, for so long. It seems like a waste to throw it all away so quickly.”
A waste. Isn’t it? But it’s not quick, not at all, it’s something he’s wanted for so long now. Something he keeps thinking about. “Do you know why I was upset when you had Ben Park abducted?”
“Because you wanted to face him fairly.”
“Because I wanted to lose,” Donald corrects, and listens to the beats of shocked silence that follow. “I wanted him to stop me. Then, afterward, I wanted the White Mamba to do the same.”
Kingsley’s voice is strained, shocked. “Why?”
“I couldn’t stop myself,” says Donald. The words echo in the surgical white of his room. “I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t, because the only way I could think of stopping was if I died. And I have survived too long, and worked too hard, and gained too much power — but I’m sick of it. Of gathering power and looking over my shoulder and fighting every day to get more because there is no such thing as enough.”
The other end of the phone is silent.
“I didn’t avoid the truck,” Donald adds. The words spill from his tongue on their own. “I thought, maybe, if Ben Park couldn’t do it and Gray Yeon couldn’t do it, then that could. And then I survived that, too, and, Kingsley, I'm tired of living like this. I want it to end.”
“I’m not — you can’t just die. I’m not going to, if you’re dissolving the Union so you can go jump off a bridge or something, Donald, I’m not fucking doing that.” Kingsley’s tone is sharp, suddenly. “I’m not letting you.”
“That’s not what I’m asking for,” Donald says, forcing his voice to steady. “I’m asking you to end the Union, and that’s it. That’s all I want. I want a life that isn’t fighting for every minute with no end in sight. That’s all.”
“Without the Union, though — ”
“Kingsley.”
He cuts himself off, clears his throat. “Sorry.”
“Right now,” Donald says, “I am still the leader of the Union, and you are still my second in command. If you respect that in any way, you will carry out what I’m asking of you. Afterwards, there won’t be any Union. And we’ll just be friends. But right now, either you do what I tell you, or I do it myself.”
Kingsley exhales, long and harsh, and then clicks his tongue. “Fine. Consider it taken care of.”
“Thank you,” Donald tells him, “I appreciate it,” and then hangs up. Once Kingsley confirms that something will be done, there’s nothing else he needs to say. He’s always been reliable when it comes carrying out the business of the Union. Even the business of disbanding it.
He stares at the call ended screen for a moment, and then dials a number he doesn’t have saved — one last thing to take care of tomorrow morning.
When Donald steps out of the hospital doors, fully free, Gray is leaning on the wall near the bottom of the stairs. Clearly waiting, but pointedly not looking up. Donald forces himself to let the crutches take most of his weight as he limps over. “Gray.”
“Donald.” Gray finally glances at him, most of his face still hidden. “Why did you call me here?”
He says it the way the Union guys have said it so many times, Jimmy’s desperate frustration or Wolf’s uncaring drawl. He could have been, Donald thinks, lets himself imagine it. Eunjang’s White Mamba, a member of the Union, his gang as allies. Gerard Jin, Alex Go, even Ben Park. It would have been the perfect victory, the perfect world, one in which nothing could have stopped Donald. In which he would have gone on gathering power forever, all acceleration and no brakes.
“I wanted to inform you of new developments,” he says aloud. This isn’t that world. In the end, it had been Gray who stopped him even for a moment. “As of today, the Yeongdeungpo Union is dissolved.”
Gray doesn’t react, but his eyes widen. Good. Donald has always been able to make an unexpected move. He continues, “Kingsley is gathering the members to hand out their severance pay.”
“How professional,” Gray notes, a slight edge to his always soft voice. “Will you be paying for punitive damages to others as well?”
That startles a laugh out of Donald. There’s no need to answer such a clearly pointed question. “I gave you the problem,” he says instead, echoing Gray’s own words from that haze of hospital, the start of a second lifetime ago. “So I’m giving you the solution. It’s over now.”
“I see,” says Gray after a long moment. He still looks unsettled, but not surprised like he was earlier. As if he understands what that means. What stopping means. “And what are you going to do after all this?”
That’s the question, isn't it?
Donald turns away without answering.
His crutches thump out a rhythm as he walks towards the street. He can catch a taxi and go back to his apartment. Look at what’s left of his finances, and then evaluate. Go get fried chicken, maybe. There was life before the Union, unpleasant as it was. There will be life after. It can hardly be worse.
It’s been a long year, a long run, a long time coming.
It’s over now.