Release From Hell

Anticipation

The nurses came rushing out of the double doors behind the front desk with a stretcher. They steered it over to Seungbae, who laid the boy down softly on it. One nurse strapped an oxygen mask to his face while another checked his vital signs. After making some notes and whispering hurriedly to each other, they turned the gurney around and began pushing it back to the doors. Seungbae tried to follow but one of the nurses stopped him.
"I'm sorry, sir, you can't come back here. We need to have the doctor look at him and determine what we need to do. If you want, you can stay here. I'll come back out when I know what's going to happen and get you up to speed, okay?"
Seungbae nodded. He knew he wouldn't be allowed, but in the moment he hadn't been able to think of anything but continuing to protect him. The nurse patted him consolingly on the shoulder and he shuffled off to the waiting room to sit. For the longest time, Seungbae sat in the waiting room. He had nothing to do to keep his mind off worrying, so he distracted himself with mindless tasks. He counted the panels in the ceiling, reorganized the magazine shelf, and traced the pattern in the carpet. After what felt like eons, the nurse from before exited the double doors. Seungbae stood up so fast his chair almost fell over. The nurse beckoned him over and he speedwalked over, illiciting strange looks from the other patients. He leaned over so the nurse could whisper to him and crossed his arms nervously. She placed a hand on his shoulder and began to speak:
"He's in pretty bad condition, but he'll definitely live."
Seungbae sighed in relief at her words, but couldn't help but continue to worry. If the nurse said he was in bad condition, he could only imagine what was wrong. 
"He had substantial injuries to both his lower legs and one knee. Both legs were broken although one of them was partially healed. It seems one of his legs was recently re broken. It also looks like at one point his throat was cut with a serrated  the carpet. Eventually, after what seemed like eons, the nursed exited from the double doors. Seungbae stood up so fast his chair almost tipped over, and speed walked over, eliciting strange looks from the other patients. She beckoned him to lean in so he could hear her, then, placing a hand on his shoulder, she began to speak.
"First things first, I can say he'll definitely live."
Seungbae sighed in relief, but was still hesitant to stop worrying completely. It seemed like there was more to the story.
"Both his legs and one knee had been broken, one of them had started to heal, and the x ray looks okay, so we'll just put a cast on that one. The other leg seems to have been broken twice. They're going to have to perform surgery to remove some of the bone fragments from his leg. It's going to be a long recovery process, but he'll be able to walk again. It looks like his neck was cut using a dull serrated object: the scar was covered in gauze, but we still had to stitch it back up. As long as it keeps clean, it'll be fine. His head sustained a pretty bad blow, so that needed some stitches as well, though luckily there wasn't any damage to the skull. He'll have a bad concussion, but nothing permanent. Otherwise, his whole body is covered in cuts and bruises and I can only assume he's undergone horrible mental trauma. Do you know what happened to him?"
Seungbae shook his head sadly, hardly believing everything he had heard. Once again he marvelled at how the broken boy he had seen could have made it through this.
"All I know was that he escaped from somewhere. He gave us a name, but we're still looking into that. Is there... anything else you know? Anything at all?  I mean hell, I don't even know his name."
The nurse looked shocked and removed her hand from Seungbae's shoulder.
"Really? My goodness, I thought you two were together!"
Now it was Seungbae's turn to look shocked. He stared dumbfounded at the nurse, wondering how she had come to such a conclusion. She seemed to read his thoughts on his face.
"Well I mean with the way you were so worried about him... and you looked nothing alike so I just assumed. I'm sorry if I offended you, I was just surprised."
"No... no offense taken," said Seungbae, shaking his head, "but nevermind that. Did you learn anything?"
" Yes but not much. Before the anesthesiologist put him under for surgery, he woke up. He told us his name was Yoonbum and he was twenty years old. That's about all we got out of him. He kept rambling about some man who was going to be angry with him, but we got him calmed down."
Yoonbum, Seungbae thought. He was much older than he had expected. He looked so small he hadn't seemed more than sixteen or seventeen. He couldn't come to any conclusions about the case, but that hardly seemed to matter now.
"When can I see him?"