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Bad things happen in bathrooms. Bad things always happen in bathrooms.
Moaning Myrtle died. Hermione Grainger was attacked by a troll. Kids had their heads shoved down the toilet at school. Bullies had daubed threats and insults on stall walls in permanent marker pen. A girl at his school had once slit her wrists.
Bad things happen in bathrooms. But no one ever thinks about it. People just walk in, do what they need to do and walk out again without a care in the world, without even thinking about it, without expecting their lives to flash before their eyes as bright and brilliant as the blade of a knife.
Bad things happen in bathrooms. Kihyun found that out the hard way.
Their manager had given him two minutes to slip into the private lounge washrooms, relieve himself and get back out before they were due to board the plane for Hong Kong. He had never liked being rushed, particularly in a moment that was supposed to be private, but he understood the urgency to get them out of the public eye and safely aboard the vehicle as soon as possible.
The space was empty when he entered but nevertheless he slid silently into one of the stalls. They always used stalls, just in case any freak decided to snap a photo of a great and powerful idol standing at the urinal.
He had barely drawn the bolt across the lock when he heard the door burst open, cringing at the unnecessary force with which it bounced off the wall. Footsteps stomped across the floor, the darkened shadows of heavy boots flashed across Kihyun’s limited view and there was something there – something wrong – that had him backing against the wall with his breath held.
Bad things happen in bathrooms.
“I told you to bring it,” the first voice growled, gruff and gravelly from years of intoxication. “Don’t tell me you slipped up again.”
“And I told you that you were asking too much,” the other hissed back, his tone laden with spite and loathing that had Kihyun’s entire body pricked with goosebumps.
He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t like the sound of those tones that screamed ‘dangerous’. These people were bad people. Kihyun didn’t even need to see their faces to realise that, and they were barely two sentences into this very hostile conversation but he already felt like he knew what this was about.
“I have to get on a plane in less than an hour,” the first one shot back, voice rising in decibel as his temper bubbled worryingly close to the edge. “And I have a guy waiting outside right now who thinks that I have eight pounds of crack ready to hand over to him.”
Drugs. Of course, it was about drugs. It had to be about drugs.
“So I’m asking you for the second – and the last – time, Lee. Do you have the dust?”
Kihyun screwed his eyes shut, clamping a hand over his mouth as his panicked mind managed to convince him that he was breathing too loud. There were iron bands around his chest, tightening and crushing the air out of his lungs, and he could feel the panic attack approaching but he could not afford to have it. Not here. Not now.
All he had to do was stay silent. That’s it. Stay silent and hidden and wait for them to leave. They didn’t know he was here. They couldn’t know he was here. Because if they did … He didn’t even want to think about it.
“This place is crawling with pigs. You really think I was going to bring half a dozen bags of snow into an airport? You should have known better, Huang.”
There was a thump, a grunt and the sound of a head smacking against porcelain as one of the men went flying into a wall. Kihyun barely stifled his squeak of fright, taking advantage of the outside noise to climb onto the toilet seat, squatting there with his shoulders heaving, praying that they wouldn’t find him.
“I will end you,” that first voice promised. It was low and deadly and it meant business. “I tell you to jump, you jump. I tell you to beg, you beg. I tell you to bring the dust, you bring the fucking dust, Lee. Now we’re both fucked.”
Kihyun’s foot slipped.
He threw out an arm to catch himself but his body slammed into the side of the stall with a loud thump and his shoe caught on a trashcan beside the toilet, the bucket toppling over and making a catastrophic crash on the floor.
His heart was in his throat. His skin was leaking sweat. The tears had not yet fallen but he knew they were about to, because now he’d been caught.
“The fuck was that?”
“You fucking prick, there’s somebody in here!”
Doors started banging, the dealers or the addicts – or whatever the hell they were – making their way down the line of stalls, exposing their contents one by one. And Kihyun knew there was no escape. The catch was bolted but all it would need was one good kick and it would give.
There was no way out. There was no chance of survival. There was nothing.
Bad things always happen in bathrooms.
Kihyun watched, salted pearls streaming down his nose as his hand continued to muffle his whimpers, as the door in front of him wavered. The lock gave a metallic rattle, the footsteps stopped and two studded boots were just visible beneath the pale blue slab of wood that was the only thing standing between a sobbing boy and certain death.
“This one,” the voice grunted, closer than a metre away from him. “He’s in this one.”
Kihyun prayed for the first time in his life. He prayed for someone to burst through that door and save him. And when his last protective barrier was destroyed with a well-aimed kick, he prayed for a quick and painless death.
“Peekaboo.”
A hammy hand shot out of nowhere and fisted in his hair, dragging him from his perch on the toilet seat and out into the open. His head was held back, his throat exposed, and his eyes burning with unshed tears even with the cascade that continued to waterfall down his face.
He saw piercings. Tattoos. Leather jackets. Nails that were yellowing from tobacco poisoning. These people were textbook thugs – stereotypical and terrifying – and the one who wasn’t holding him in a death grip that felt as though it was going to rip his scalp clean off his head was curled into a snarl of lethal fury.
“What did you hear?” the discoloured teeth spat in his face, flecks of saliva splattering Kihyun’s neck. “What did you hear, you brat?”
“Nothing!” Kihyun choked back, reaching up to try and loosen the grip on his hair but failing due to the strength of his captor. “I didn’t hear anything! Please! I didn’t hear anything!”
That face got closer. So close that he could smell the breath that stank of cigarettes and other repulsive odours. There was a spark in those eyes, a spark that said clear as the fury on that face that Kihyun was about to die.
“Now why don’t I believe you?” came the whisper in his ear, and by now Kihyun was sobbing so vigorously that he could barely draw breath. “Hey, Lee, you got a shank? Had to leave mine behind.”
Shank. As in … as in … a knife? No. Not a knife. Anything but a knife. He didn’t want to feel cold metal piercing his body and poisoning his blood with its filthy razor edge. He didn’t want to bleed out on a bathroom floor without having a chance to call his mother or tell his members he loved them one last time.
“No!” he screamed, bucking and twisting in the grip that held him, but that hand only tightened on his hair and elicited another pained whimper. “Please, don’t! I didn’t hear anything! I swear, I didn’t hear anything!”
A hand clamped over his mouth, smoked fingers digging into his lips to silence his cries, and he fell still at once. He didn’t want to give them anymore ammunition to hurt him. As if they didn’t already have enough.
“You’re not going to kill him, right?” came the voice of the one that held him, unsure and uncertain from its place behind his ear. “He’s just a kid.”
Yes, Kihyun wanted to scream. Yes, I am just a kid. I have my whole life ahead of me. Please don’t take it away. I still have so much more to do.
“Always knew you were a coward, Lee. Just hand it over. I’ll do it if you don’t have the sto …”
The door opened.
It was merely a crack in the portal between hell and freedom and so Lee’s arm was able to throw itself out sideways, slamming it closed again before whoever was on the other end could get a good look at what was happening.
All three men inside fell absolutely silent. Lee relinquished his hold on Kihyun, shoving the terrified boy towards Huang so he could be restrained once more in a vice even tighter as an arm wrapped around his neck and put painful pressure on his windpipe.
“Don’t make a sound,” came the whisper in his ear. “Or I’ll slit your throat.”
There was a flash of silver in the corner of his vision and Kihyun nodded frantically, desperate to appease. This man was holding a knife in hands that were trembling from some kind of withdrawal. He was unhinged, he was vengeful and he wasn’t afraid to spill another human being’s blood all over his shoes.
“Hey, Kihyun? Why won’t the door open?”
Kihyun closed his eyes, another wave of tears making their sturdy trek down his cheeks as he recognised the voice calling out to him.
Hyunwoo. Hyunwoo was on the other side of that door, so close and yet blissfully unaware of the horrors that lay beyond. Some gigantic part of him pleaded for his hyung to make another attempt at entry, to find him and to save him from a slow and agonising demise. But the rest of him wanted his leader to run, to find help, to not put himself in harm’s way.
“Kihyun, are you in there?”
“Shit … shit … shit,” Lee was muttering under his breath, still holding the room’s only exit closed.
They were afraid, Kihyun realised for the first time. Maybe just as afraid as he was. Because even though he was the one with the tip of a knife ghosting dangerously close to his carotid, they were the ones holding the ammunition. They were the ones facing jail time. They were the ones who were trapped like caged animals.
Hyunwoo gave the door another shove, his sheer strength causing Lee’s entire body to flinch as it struggled to withstand such an attack. And by now, the leader was getting panicked. Kihyun could tell from the way he was shouting, trying again and again to eradicate the final barrier between him and his little brother.
“Kihyun, are you alright?”
What Kihyun did next could have either gone in a column marked ‘the bravest thing anybody has ever done’ or ‘the most stupid act that has ever been committed on this planet’.
The knife left his throat, just for a split second, and he took his chance. His head snapped back, connecting with a nose and feeling the bones give beneath his skull. The man behind him howled in pain and Kihyun lunged for the nearest stall.
“HYUNG!” he screamed as he scrambled into the confined space and slammed the door shut, trying to barricade it with his body as he felt Huang hammering against it. “HYUNG, PLEASE HELP ME!”
“You bitch!” Huang was screeching, but Kihyun’s hearing had cut off along with his sight and his ability to stand.
He slid down the wall to rest on the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest, clamping his hands over his ears and sobbing into his thigh.
There was noise everywhere. Banging, screams of bloody murder, swearing, cursing, crashes and thumps, voices he recognised and voices he didn’t, the stomps of feet on floors and the thump of bodies on tiles.
And then there was silence.
Kihyun didn’t move. He couldn’t open his eyes in case he saw blood seeping underneath the door, reaching its scarlet tentacles out towards him. He couldn’t stand in case his legs gave out again and his head collided with a porcelain rim or a wooden wall. He couldn’t call out because he didn’t know who would respond.
He didn’t know who had survived the slaughter.
And then:
“Kihyun?”
It was Hyunwoo’s voice. Kihyun knew it was Hyunwoo’s voice and yet still he couldn’t stop crying, gently rocking back and forth from where he was curled in a ball in the space between the toilet and the wall.
What if it was a trick? What if they were holding Hyunwoo in an attempt to draw him out so they could kill the both of them? What if he was imagining things and it wasn’t really Hyunwoo’s voice he was hearing? What if? What if? What if?
“Kihyun?”
“No …” Kihyun wailed, shaking his head even though he knew the owner of that gentle voice couldn’t see him. “No, no, no, no.”
“Kihyun, it’s just me.”
“No, no, no, no.”
He could see shoes without a body. Feet without legs. But they weren’t black boots studded with silver. They were converse, filthy and worn out and repulsive-looking. They were Hyunwoo’s. But it still wasn’t real.
“Kihyun, I’m going to stay right here.”
A body lowered itself to the floor, leaning against the door as it came to rest with a heavy thump. It was exhausted, Kihyun could hear its shallow breaths. But it still wasn’t real.
“I’ll stay here and as soon as you’re ready, all you have to do is open the door.”
He couldn’t. They were going to get him. They were waiting right outside and the second he stepped into the expanse of exposure, he would feel a blade burrowing into his body. He couldn’t open the door because he would die if he did.
“It’s just you and me, Kihyun,” that voice continued to soothe, words soft and tone gentle. No gruffness, no growls, no hissing or spitting. Just kindness. And love. “Those guys are gone. Security took them. I’ve asked everyone to leave us alone for a little bit so that it’s just you and me.”
Security had them? Security had come in, overpowered those guys and dragged them out and he hadn’t even noticed? It couldn’t be true. He would have noticed. He couldn’t have been that far gone that he hadn’t noticed.
“No one is going to hurt you, Kihyun. I won’t let them. I promise.”
When Kihyun’s voice finally found itself, it was tinny and timid and barely even audible as it slipped from between his trembling lips with tears laden in every letter.
“Promise?”
There was an audible gasp of relief, an entire body deflating before the reply came almost immediately. “Yes, Kihyun. Hyung promises. Hyung promises never to let anyone hurt you. Hyung promises they’ll have to hurt him first.”
Kihyun didn’t trust himself to stand. His legs were still too shaky, his muscles still too unreliable, so instead he crawled towards that voice and reached up a quivering hand to slowly slide the bolt home.
The door was thrown open at once and Kihyun almost screamed, but then there were arms around his waist, lifting him up off the floor and he had never felt safer or more relieved to be held. He clung to Hyunwoo’s neck with his fingers digging into the fabric of his sweater and he wrapped his legs around his leader’s waist without a single regard for how pathetic and childlike he must look as he sobbed into his shoulder.
“Hyung’s got you,” came the whisper in his hair, lips brushing over his ear. “Hyung’s never going to let you go.”
Kihyun nodded, his face still buried in the crook of Hyunwoo’s neck as his leader held his entire weight in his tree-branch arms. He didn’t even sound strained. He didn’t even sound tired. And Kihyun knew then and there that Hyunwoo would carry him forever without even breaking a sweat if it meant that the younger boy would feel safe again.
“I’m going to take you outside, Ki,” the leader hushed, securing one arm around Kihyun’s back and another around his thigh to keep him in place. “There are some people who are going to check you over and make sure you’re okay. Is that alright, Ki? As long as I stay with you, is that alright?”
Kihyun nodded once more, wanting nothing more than to be out of this place and never have to look at porcelain walls and polished tiles ever again. He tightened his koala grip as Hyunwoo pushed open the door and stepped into the freezing airport lounge.
There were soft questions in all directions but he didn’t look up. He was safe in these arms and he always would be. When they tried to pry his hands from his hyung’s shirt, he refused with hysterical desperation and so they let him sit in Hyunwoo’s lap, face still concealed from view, as they took his blood pressure and asked him how he was feeling.
It was scary and invasive and the last thing he wanted was to be touched, but Hyunwoo was there the entire time to stroke his hair and whisper words of comfort in his ear and press butterfly kisses into his scalp.
Hyunwoo was there. Hyunwoo would always be there. Hyunwoo would always be ready to fight the bad things that happened in the bathroom.