“Tell me what to do… Tell me what to do oh~”
Sae woke to the ringtone of his phone blasting next to his ear. He groaned and pawed along the table’s surface without opening his eyes.
“Tell me what to do...”
By the time he fully opened his eyes, the phone had gone silent.
Sae slowly blinked, staring at the yellow glow of his desk lamp illuminating his monochrome walls. He felt disoriented. He hadn’t gone to bed yet when he passed out over a geography book. Tomorrow would be the second day of the midterm examinations.
Looking at the clock, Sae realised it was already past ten at night. He knew his mum wouldn’t be back for a while; the restaurant got reserved for a 70th birthday celebration event.
He stood up and opened a window, stretching as he did so. He left his room to wash up then drank a glass of water.
Once he returned, his head was clear; even the last drop of sleep had disappeared from his eyes. The phone on the desk started to emit noises again.
Sae looked at the screen but did not recognise the number on it. He answered with a non-committal sound, to which hard panting assaulted his ear from the other end of the line.
Sae tore the phone from his ear and looked at the numbers flashing across the screen.
“Who is this?” He asked, not sure what to make of the situation.
The only reply was the faint noise of rummaging and laboured breathing. Sae waited for a few seconds, holding the phone away from his person.
No one said anything.
“What do you want?” he asked in an even tone.
A grunt – guttural, yet breathy – made goosebumps rise all over Sae’s skin. That sound was definitely male.
“Sae,” it panted, “….help me.”
“What the fuck?” Sae almost threw the phone away. He wanted to curse more but cut back on it and warned, “Don’t call again. I will report you.”
“Deil––” There was a dull thump, followed by more noises. “I’m Shum Deil.”
Sae’s eyes widened. He looked at his phone screen in disbelief.
Shum Deil.
Was he perverted?
“How do you know this number?”
“You are in the English club’s group chat.”
“Oh.”
Of course, they were both part of the club’s group chat.
Following Sae’s utterance, there were no more incredulous noises on the line. Still, the knowledge that it was Shum Deil, coupled with the dubious nature of this call, made Sae feel pretty skeeved out.
“What do you want?” he asked again.
“I need…help. I fell off the path.”
After a bout of silence, Sae asked, “Are we speaking literally or figuratively?”
Because that would explain just how depraved this phone call sounded.
Just then, Deil groaned. His voice cracked, the word broken into bits, “Literal –– ly.”
Sae could feel all his hair standing on end. His heart sped up. He had had enough. “I’m hanging up.”
“Wai––”
Sae ended the call.
He stood at his table and looked down at the phone with a complicated expression. Not a minute later, he got a message from the same number.
The message contained a rather glum picture of Deil sitting outside, giving the camera the middle finger. The background indicated that he was somewhere akin to a ditch. Seeing that brashness of his, Sae almost laughed out loud.
A call came in from that number, so Sae answered it, “Why are you calling me? Can’t you call someone else?”
Deil asked back, “You think, in case I could call anyone better, I’d call you?”
“...” Sae let out a sigh and contemplated for a moment. “Why do you need me there? Are you injured?”
“No kidding.”
“How bad is it?”
As a reply, Deil gave a laugh without any mirth.
Thinking things through, Sae looked for his glasses. Objectively speaking, he could help; it wasn’t like he was heartless. But he definitely felt unhappy about this proposition; tonight was right before another round of exams.
A moment later, he said, “Send me your location.”
After they hung up, Sae spent three minutes staring at his bedroom wall. He knew something was really not right if the other boy had to resort to calling him, but he still felt like walking into a trap. Before he could change his mind, he grabbed a thin jacket and a baseball cap and left the house. The hallways were dark as he walked out of the apartment complex.
The address Shum Deil sent him wasn’t that far away. It was along the rows of apartment complexes following the river on the east side of town, where twisting bike lanes and wide walkways lead to the designated in-town park area.
That place was nothing like the small plaza they frequented – where mostly youths idled or distracted parents tried to tire out their kids.
During mornings right after the sun came out, joggers scaled the park, taking over the shared training facilities. In the daytime, the elderly exercised here and there or played cards and chess at one of the public tables. Children jumped on the jungle gyms while animal friends sipped organic coffee in one of the pet cafes popular in the area. The park had management. With the change of seasons, flowers were planted to raise the overall aesthetic of the place.
The little blue dot on the map indicating Shum Deil’s position was right there, somewhere.
When Sae arrived, he called the upmost number on his call logs list. The line went through, connecting after the first ring.
“Where are you exactly?” he asked, and oddly enough, he realised his voice sounded a little winded.
Deil listened to the voice and checked the time. Not long passed since they had last spoken. Did Saering run to get here so fast?
“I tried to crawl out of a ditch. Fucking shit! Why are there ditches in a family-park zone?” Deil grumbled. Through the pain and wooziness, he could still find the heart in himself to grumble.
Around him, long shadows leaned from one side of the road to the other. Scattered lamplight shone on the shrubs, but they were also few and far between.
“Shum Deil,” Saering said at his ear. His tone sounded exasperated. “The exact location, if you could share it, please.”
“Uh, it’s near the water.” Deil had been on his way home when all of a sudden, he tripped, and the world turned with him. He looked around, trying to find something as a base point that both of them could see. “The bicycle-renting place isn’t far. I just passed it when I fell.”
Who would’ve thought a person could fall into a ditch in a park constructed for children’s safety?
Sae started walking in the direction of the rental store. “Will I see you? Like how deep did you fall?”
“Almost into the water,” Deil chuckled self-mockingly. “I think my ankle is dislocated. I–– I’ll wave with my phone’s flashlight.”
“Okay, but don’t hang up.” Sae scanned the trail leading to the water’s edge.
“Can you see?” Deil’s question came out fuzzy. “I put the phone on speaker mode and am waving like an idiot.” There was the sound of a crash. “Fuck. Okay, I’m kind of out of the ditch. Look at ground level.”
Sae spotted a figure on the grass illuminated by a phone’s flashlight. Deil was lying on his back, staring at the starless inky sky. He probably heard the echo of footsteps but didn’t twist his neck for a look.
Sae stopped next to him and peered down. He said into his phone, “You look like you crawled out of a hole.”
He phrased it mildly. The other boy’s clothes were filthy, his bag was squished under him, and the side of his neck had mud on it. The position of his legs appeared to be stiff.
Deil cracked a smile. He hung up the call and said, “I just crawled out of a ditch.”
“Yeah.” Sae pocketed his phone. “Looking like shit.”
Saering, on the other hand, was clad in a white t-shirt under a name-brand tracksuit jacket while sweats and sneakers bound his lower limbs. He looked like he just rolled out of bed, warm and cosy.
Deil rarely saw Saering in something other than his school uniform. And Saering looked good, even with half of his face covered by a mask.
Deil had solved practice papers at Little Mo’s until he turned silly, visualising numbers even on his way home. He made a tumble in the middle of the night, painfully landing on his ankle, making his brain even dizzier. All that had happened before he crawled back up.
Now, looking at the other boy, he couldn’t shut up. “Were you sleeping? Early night?”
Saering narrowed his eyes at him. “Let me help you roll back down.”
They both knew that wasn’t just an empty threat.
Actually, Deil had deliberated for a long time before calling Saering but didn’t have anyone else he could voluntarily ask for help. He didn’t want to disturb Little Mo.
Deil left Little Mo’s house not long ago. What would it look like if he called back saying, Yeah, I’m in a ditch. Come, help me? Besides, Little Mo was still studying; there was no need to drag him out.
Deil realised that there was no other decent enough person he could think of to call and ask to fetch him. He didn’t want to answer stupid questions and didn’t need anyone laughing in his face. If one thing he was sure of, it was that Saering wouldn’t talk shit about him behind his back. That, in itself, had reassured him, even though it was the worst time to call Saering out.
Saering jutted out his chin and asked, “Which leg?”
“Won’t you ask me what happened?” Deil propped himself up on his elbows.
“You’re saying... maybe I should start caring about it?” Saering deadpanned. He squatted and tugged his mask down to his chin. “Which leg?”
“Left,” Deil replied.
The feeling of Saering’s hand was cold, first through the material of his pants, then on his skin.
Sae tugged at Deil’s pant leg and pushed his shoe off. Deil didn’t wear shoes the normal way; he simply slipped them on his feet with the back folded down.
“Shine your phone’s flashlight here.” Sae looked at the ankle in question, gently holding it. He could feel Deil’s eyes on himself.
This position felt a little weird but Deil stayed still and helped with the lighting. “Is it bad?”
After making sure the light from the phone shone on the problematic area, Sae prodded it, instructing, “Relax your muscles.”
“Hm? Oka––motherfucking!” Deil roared. He breathed in through his mouth, and the light in his hand wobbled.
“What the fuck!” Deil whipped his head up, glaring at Sae. “What the actual fuck?”
“It’s probably not broken.” Just now, Sae tried to rotate Deil’s ankle, which was a success, sans the yelling he received for it. He sat back on the grass. “Good as new.”
“What?” Deil’s voice was loud. He seemed ready to pass out.
“I just relocated your ankle,” Sae told him with a blank expression. “You’re welcome.”
“You’re psychotic!” Deil cussed for a while. He was drenched in sweat yet shivered. The area of his injury throbbed with pain. He dug through his pockets for a cigarette and lit it.
“Come on, Deil. Where’s your intelligence?” Sae raised his eyebrows. “You’d need medical treatment for relocating a joint. How could I actually do that here?”
He stared at the smoking stick tremble in Deil’s hand. “Calm down. It’s probably nothing but a sprain. Try to sit up and move your leg a bit. Have you never sprained your ankle?”
“Piss off.” Deil struggled with the cigarette and leaned forward to look at his leg. The skin appeared bruised and swollen even in the dark. “What if you made it worse? It hurts like hell.”
“I didn’t,” Sae said with conviction. He grabbed Deil’s wrist and took the phone out of his hand. “It wasn’t my first time.”
“Well, fuck you, it was mine.” Deil blew smoke through his nostrils. “Couldn’t you say something before maiming me?”
Sae shone the flashlight on Deil, who covered his eyes with his arm. “Right,” he agreed, “That would’ve helped you relax, for sure. All I did was move it a bit.”
Deil pushed Sae’s hand away so the phone cast its light on their legs. They were in a park in the dead of night with no one around. Sae felt that if Deil could stand on his own, he would punch him and leave. He leaned forward. “Where do you live? You cannot walk home like this.”
Deil finished his cigarette before answering, “There’s a clinic near the industrial park, opposite the university. I want to go get a check-up for my leg.”
Sae gave Deil’s phone back. He could feel hostility radiating off of the boy.
Inwardly, he asked himself, just why was he here? What Sae hated more than bothersome situations were meaningless confrontations. He never let himself get pulled into them, or all his energy would be sucked dry. That was why he never engaged in such behaviours, but Shum Deil always knew how to play him.
“I told you it’s not that bad.” Sae’s expression was mild, not offended at all. “Try and see if you can move it.”
Deil moved his ankle the teeniest tiny bit. His body obeyed him, and he didn’t cry out again.
“See?” Sae said, “I’ve seen dislocated joints a few times before in the basketball team; this isn’t one.”
Deil moved his ankle again. “Was it yours or someone else’s?”
Sae hesitated before replying. “Both. You won’t feel worse because of what I did.”
Deil was still apprehensive but shut up.
“Can you stand?” Sae asked to which Deil shook his head. He placed his weight onto his other side and tried to stand up, only to fall back on the grass with a hiss of pain.
Sae crouched before him. The cap covered most of his face, his expression unreadable from that angle. Twisting his neck to the side, he said over his shoulder. “Lean on me. I’ll help you up.”
From the corner of his eye, he could see Deil looking at him like he suddenly grew two more heads.
Deil asked, “What are you doing?”
Sae patted his own shoulder. “Get on. You can’t stand up. I’m baffled that you’ve crawled up here when it hurts so much. You said you fell to the edge of the water?”
Both of them looked down into the dark. There wasn’t much light, but they could hear the soft sounds of water in the riverbank.
Sae turned back so that he could see Deil’s face. He carried on in a softer tone. "Don’t move it for now. Keep it cold-pressed once you’re back home. Go to the doctor. They’ll tell you to wear a splint.”
In the night, eyes met, unreadable. Sae readjusted his position and glanced at the road before looking back at Deil. “You won’t be able to hop along on one leg for so long. Why did you call me here if you won’t let me help?”
Objectively, they both knew this was all true, but it looked like Deil’s stubborn streak wanted to act up.
As their staring passed the line of awkward into almost unbearable, Deil flopped onto Sae’s back. The ache in his leg had to be too much, occupying most of his sensory capabilities.
Sae straightened up and huffed. Deil looked much scrawnier than he actually was. At almost the same height, it wasn’t as easy to carry a big boy as it was carrying someone small like Emi. He was unprepared for the toll of it.
“Don’t drop me,” Deil said, to which Sae grunted.
They made their way along the riverbed in silence. Deil threw his arm over Sae’s back, leaving a few centimetres between their upper bodies. He propped one of his elbows on Sae’s shoulder, prodding or sometimes even grinding the hard bone into Sae’s back.
“You sure you want to go to the clinic?” Sae asked after he shoved down his fury. He felt tempted to end this for all and drop the nuisance off his back. “Are they even open this time?”
“There must be emergency care,” Deil’s voice wavered.
Sae could feel him trembling. Something inexplicable made him stop next to a bench, where he carefully put Deil down.
“What is it?” the boy asked, ready to light on again.
“You’re shaking.” Sae pulled his tracksuit off and put the thing in Deil’s hands. “Wear it.”
After a bit of hesitation, Deil put the clothing on and zipped it up to his neck. Sae looked on in silence, gauging how the item looked at Deil. It wasn’t half bad.
