Page 22 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 1-4 (The Residency Boys #6)

He didn’t have it. They’d only communicated via the app. And he couldn’t log into an app on this device, whatever it was. It looked like a museum piece.

He knew Yohei’s number, though, his Korean one and his Japanese one.

Let it work. Let it work. He dialed as fast as his half-frozen fingers could press.

“Sanada speaking.”

“Yohei.” Jun sagged against the desk. “I need to talk to Damian now.”

“He’s not here, but I can get him on a conference call. One moment.” Yohei’s end of the line made a couple of clicking noises, and then there was a ring.

“Sathers.”

“Damian.” Jun breathed out loudly. “I’m…I’m at a fire station on the mountains. I got away.”

“By all that’s good and pure, Jun. Are you safe? Are you okay?”

“Green, Da. Maybe a little yellow, ’cause I really need a doctor, I’m fucking cold. But I’m out.”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know exactly. Let me ask.” Jun looked up. There were several men and a woman in the office now, all in various work uniforms. He switched to Korean. “Where are we?”

“Let me talk to them,” Damian said.

“Okay.” Jun held the phone out to the most senior-looking person. A man with a few gray hairs at his temples took the phone. He spoke into it. “Hel-lo?”

Damian answered in Korean. Jun let out a long breath and slowly started to slide down the side of the desk. Hands grabbed at him. He flinched away, hitting his head. The senior guy on the phone yelled. Jun sagged, letting his eyes start to close. Gods, he was tired.

“Sir. You are hurt?”

“Hurt?” Jun blinked.

The one woman in the place was down on one knee in front of him, hands where he could see them, not trying to touch him.

“Ah, yeah. I mean, not yet. Let me talk.” He waved his hand at the phone.

They gave it back to him. “Da.” Jun forced himself to blink away the parts of himself that just wanted to lay down and sleep. He went on in English. “I think I have fingerprints on my skin. In ink. Is that important?”

“It’s collectable evidence.” Damian’s voice was measured. “But if you need medical attention, I’d rather you get it. We’ll deal with evidence later.”

“I want… I want the evidence. He’s going to go after Su-jin next.”

“I got your address. Get the highest-quality camera you can, and get someone to take photos. I’m already coming towards you. It’s going to be an hour. Maybe more.”

“Okay.”

“I can stay on the phone with you.”

“Yohei needs his phone back.”

“Yohei is fine,” Yohei answered. “But Damian needs to make some phone calls. I’ll stay on the line with you.”

“Okay.” Jun closed his eyes. “I’m going to put the phone down and tell them to get pictures.”

* * *

Damian

Damian jumped out of the SUV, holding his phone.

Just that morning, he’d woken up with Jun in his arms, but now he was walking into a small local hospital, gripping his phone in his hand, hoping Jun would be okay.

His feet and hands had been very cold. The fire station staff had transported Jun rather than wait because there was concern about internal hemorrhaging.

Someone had lent Jun a phone to call Yohei back when they were in cell service again, but then he’d had had to get off the phone again when the doctor demanded scans and X-rays to check what Jun had described as massive bruising of the liver area.

A nurse was waiting at the door. She bowed to Damian and Holden and motioned them to follow her down the hall.

It was a very small hospital. Jun was in the first room on the second floor. There were two beds, but the second one was empty. A nurse sat by Jun. She had a tray of soft foods.

Jun was sitting up in the bed, wrapped in blankets. His face was swollen on one side, and his lip had two stitches holding it together. One of his hands was wrapped in gauze.

The nurse with the food stood and stepped out, saying something softly to Jun. Damian pushed her chair aside.

“Jun.”

“Da.” Jun’s smile spread over the half of his face that still looked like him and tugged on the other. He winced.

“Can I touch you?”

“Yes, please, just not the stomach.”

Damian wrapped his arms around Jun’s shoulders, pressing his forehead against the unwounded side of Jun’s face. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m told you nearly burned this place down.”

“We were going to.”

“I—” Jun blinked and shook his head. “Thank you? Yohei says everyone else is all right?”

“Everyone but Yohei, Gigi, Richard, Holden, and Maleko flew out an hour ago. Even though we knew where you were, we thought it best. And Su-jin’s family is safe for now. He sent them on a surprise vacation.”

“Good.” Jun sagged against the bed.

Damian pulled the chair close enough that he could keep holding Jun’s hands, mindful of the gauze.

He knew the medical diagnosis. Yohei had passed everything on as Jun heard it.

Damian and Richard had put a pause on Damian’s campaign, but everything was only on ice.

They could trigger it again at any time.

And the pressure on Bak from 5N fans was going nowhere.

Mi Hi had discreetly asked Yohei if Jun would be okay with hospital pictures being published.

“We probably can’t talk here?” Jun whispered.

Damian shook his head. Without searching the room, the likelihood someone had turned on their cell phone and dropped it under a bed for a reporter was too high.

“I want to go home. And I don’t even know where that is.”

“It’s with me.” Damian wrapped both hands around Jun’s. “Once they’re sure your liver isn’t in any additional danger, you can be discharged. Yohei said the frostnip was fine now.”

Jun wiggled his toes under the blankets. “I have a couple cuts, but yeah, I can feel everything again.”

“Jun, baby. Damn it. You scared the ever-living hell out of me.”

Jun patted Damian’s back. “Same.”

There was so much Damian needed to say and to ask and so much that Jun’s eyes said he needed to hear, but there they were, holding hands, unable to trust that they could say any of it.

“You should sleep,” Damian whispered. “I’ll stay right here.”

* * *

It was the afternoon of the next day before the doctors deemed Jun out of immediate danger, but there was still some concern about his liver.

They could wait four weeks for the bruising to dissipate or fly back with medical supervision to the US.

Richard suggested and Damian readily agreed that the second option was best. émeric retained an air ambulance service out of Incheon.

Damian arranged for road ambulance service to take Jun from the small hospital straight to the airport.

Jun slept through most of it, although he wouldn’t let go of Damian’s hand even in his sleep.

Touch was everything. They couldn’t kiss and couldn’t say the things that needed to be said, not when surrounded by strangers and possible listening devices.

Touch was all they had. A few nurses murmured that they must be good friends, and one doctor asked how they came to know each other.

Damian brushed them all off with half-hearted comments about meeting at an event, knowing each other for a while, or how Jun had been through a lot and didn’t have family.

At Incheon, Yohei greeted Jun by pressing his forehead against Jun’s and whispering something in his ear, but after that, everything was business.

They passed through a less public version of customs, Yohei handling Jun’s paperwork for him and Damian pushing Jun’s wheelchair.

Richard managed everything else including Damian’s paperwork, and Holden and Maleko kept curious onlookers from getting close.

Within an hour, they boarded a small jet, the medical staff and pilot greeting them personally.

The nurse, a wiry Filipino man, whose name tag read Crisanto, took Jun’s vitals and offered him a bed. Everyone else took seats.

Damian’s phone chimed: It was a PayPal request for payment for a dollar.

“Who are you?” was the memo. He shook his head and swiped the notification away.

No way was he falling for that. The only person he used that account with was Dalia.

Who knew who she’d let get a hold of her phone.

He’d have to talk to her before he used that number to send her any more money before the next kid’s birthday.

Jun groaned and leaned on Damian as he leveraged himself down onto the bed. “How long until this stops hurting?”

“A couple of weeks until it’s gone entirely.” Damian squeezed Jun’s less injured hand. “You can do it.”

Jun grimaced and relaxed, one muscle group at a time, wincing as he let his stomach release. The nurse motioned to check the area, and Jun nodded.

“Damn, who stomped you?” Crisanto looked at the dark foot-shaped mark across Jun’s belly and ribs.

Jun’s lip curled in a sneer. “Someone, that’s for sure.”

“I hope you put his nuts in a bag and used them for football.”

Jun laughed and put a hand to his stomach to stop himself. “I—can’t — talk about it.”

“Well, my sympathy. And I hope they get what’s coming to them because, Christ Almighty, whew, that’s nasty.”

Jun pressed his gauze-wrapped hand against his mouth, trying not to laugh.

Mercifully, the hum of the jet engines lulled Jun to sleep. Yohei, who’d barely slept in forty-eight hours, crashed next to Richard, his seat tipped back, his mouth open, snoring at regular intervals.

“We should get him checked for sleep apnea,” Richard murmured to Damian at one point. Damian raised an eyebrow.

“Adopting more boys, sir?”

Richard chuckled, but he looked fondly over at Yohei. “Collin is all I need right now, but Yohei and the others are important to Jun, and Jun is…”

“Jun is…” Damian nodded. There were still too many ears about.

“Sanada has performed admirably,” Richard said, referring to Yohei properly by his surname.

Damian nodded. If Yohei hadn’t had the gutsy, blunt-faced plan to just walk in and take Jun’s passport, as well as the other three idol’s, the entire situation would have been more difficult to defuse.

As it was, distance was going to give all sides a breather.

Well, all sides except Yun’s and Mi Hi’s.

The lawyer and his office were hard at work especially now that Jun’s medical records had been turned over to them.

Jun got through the flight with no apparent distress.

They landed in O’Hare with the doctor’s full endorsement that it was safe to take him to a private residence, no check-in with a local hospital necessary, although émeric had already facilitated a doctor to visit the next day and that all Jun’s medical records would be professionally translated to English and passed on to the doctor’s office for review.

In the parking lot, Holden slid into the front seat beside the driver. Richard and Damian took the back as it was easier for Jun to sit in the middle. Maleko took a second car with the luggage.

“Now we can talk freely,” Damian announced as the doors of the SUV closed around them. “The seats turn around.” He touched a button, and Jun’s chair turned.

Jun grinned.

“Huzzah!” Yohei gave a cheer, finding his own button and joining the huddle. “Jun, spill.”

Jun shook his head. “I don’t know where to start.”

“We don’t have to start anything until we get home.”

Jun nodded his head. “Is Collin there?”

Damian frowned. “Yes.”

“Is there any news on the police chief?”

“Off grid.” Damian pressed his lips together.

Jun picked at the gauze on his hands. “I think I might have killed him.”

So be it. Damian barely felt himself blink. The rapist deserved whatever Jun had had to do to him.

At least for now, Jun was safe. It was hard to believe.

Safe. Jun was safe. It was a mantra he had to keep repeating in his head, trying to make it feel real.

Jun was here, in Damian’s city, and he was going to keep him safe.

Damian wasn’t naive enough to think it would be easy. The war wasn’t over.

But he was going to keep Jun safe.

Whatever it took.

* * *

This story continues in The Residency Boys: Damian & Jun Episodes 5-8. Available wide on July 15th, 2025.