Marked For Her

Min was no stranger to combat. Even before his blindness, he had been taught how to defend himself from an early age, and even after becoming blind, he still practised continually, eventually adapting a style any blind person could use. However, it went without saying that while blindness wasn't an automatic loss in a fight, being able to see was still a critical advantage. Without using visual cues, it was difficult to know where he was, where he could find safety, and how to get between those two points without accumulating more damage in the process.

It was, in essence, the difference between knowing he was stumbling towards the exit and not; the difference between knowing he was leading himself unwittingly to a dead-end or not; the ability, or lack thereof, to get away from attackers with some quick thinking and situation awareness—but this was his reality, his life, and he had to deal with it. 

Sniffling quietly, he forced his clenched muscles to relax and, as he complied with the shouted, accented order to stand, he took deep calming breaths. In and out, in and out, until his heartbeat returned to its normal pace, or as normal as it can be in this situation. Then, as a daring idea began to take shape in his mind, he ignored the other shouted, accented order for no funny business (or else)—finding slight humour in imagining that foreign man was a manlet overcompensating for his short height by raising his voice—and slowly turned around. 

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" 

As the gun was jabbed roughly to his chest in three quick successions, Min's carefully neutral expression fell in favour of a grimace as he did his best to stifle the instinctual urge to flinch each impact warranted, even as he was sent staggering back. 

The man continued hotly, "You are lucky the boss wants you in one piece fucker, or else—"

"Or else what?" Min channelled the anger he felt at the situation, at himself, at the foreign man, and it came out far harsher than expected. "You will leave a blind man within an inch of his life?"

There was a silver lining to every cloud. Blindness was no different. 

Although human nature was stripped of ambiguity—precise body language and expressions were lost to him—he was opened to a world of empathy. People could easily imagine themselves suffering from it, sometimes even getting an idea of how it felt when stumbling through a darkened house at night, so it wasn't a surprise to hear the man voice his shock, though the gun was still pressed against his front. 

"What—do you take me for a fool? Your eyes look perfectly fine!"

A slap to Min's face emphasised the man's disbelief, but the former bore the pain with not-so-insignificant effort and, before the man could intimidate him further, he continued undeterred.

"Cortical blindness, man." He kept his pose open, vulnerable, and intentional or not, shit like that in situations like this raised eyebrows. "I can still respond to light enough to differentiate between day and night, sometimes, but that's all." It was a hassle to speak through a bleeding, aching mouth but he managed.

"That can't be true." The hesitation was obvious, even though the man tried to hide it with a scoff. "Why would we be sent after a blind man?"

Before Min retorted, he spat out red-tinted saliva to the side. "I won't be surprised if your boss doesn't know I'm blind. He just knows I'm important to Death." 

"H-how did you…?"

"Become blind?"

"Yeah."

The abrupt change of subject, coupled with the quake in the man's voice, made his uncertainty about what to do known, and Min was willing and ready to take advantage of that vulnerability—but, first, he needed to disorient the man further.

"Traumatic head injury," he replied. "Took too many hits to the head, and now I'm disabled." 

The scenario he painted was anything but funny, yet Min couldn't help but laugh at his own words.

"You don't seem cranky about it."

"Cranky?" His face was scrunched up in confusion, even as he cautiously took a few steps towards the man. To his relief, said man didn't move back, choosing instead to stand his ground. Admirable, but ultimately foolish; though his words were true, the man didn't know and couldn't verify. Trust, even the little shown here, was ill-advised. "I'm helpless, man. I can't be cranky—who would that help?"

No response, but Min expected it—though what he didn't expect was for the gun to leave his chest. However, he made no show of his surprise as he shook his head (as if to somehow dissuade the man of his thoughts) and bent his lower body slightly. "Crankiness won't persuade people to treat me thoughtfully."

"Yeah, but…" The man trailed off, but the unspoken statement was heard loud and clear. 

"Sure, some days I hate it—hate not being able to enjoy the little things I did, the little things I didn't even pay attention to—but I can't change my situation anymore than you can raise the dead, and as such, I have to make my peace with it." Another bout of laughter, though this was a little strained from the topic, the mention of death specifically. 

"As a great man once said, blindness is enforced passivity," Min added, the atmosphere between them descending into silence, and knowing there was no better time to act (when the man was still digesting the trauma dump) he surged forward. Thankfully, because the gun hung on the man's side rather than levelled at him, Min was able to move with comparable swiftness to quite literally bow the man over—but it seemed said man was no slouch himself because, in the split second they were airborne for, the trigger was squeezed and a bullet wheezed by his neck, accompanied by a noise as loud as thunder in his ear. 

They both screamed, though for reasons other than the rough tumble to the floor, as they were ill-prepared for the wave of vertigo that hit. The world wavered, but Min forced himself to focus, to push past the ringing in his ear, to ignore the pain and nausea bubbling in his throat (threatening to leak through clenched teeth) and continue his assault.

Finding the gun after a bit of groping, he tried to twist it out of the man's grip but resistance was met, and chaos followed as they began rolling and flopping. Min would surface on top only to be dragged back into the whirlpool of limbs. He didn't know what was going on, only that the gun should never leave his hands or seem to point in his direction—and the man had the same idea, except he didn't stop attacking. Punches, scratches, bites, and other moves he couldn't tell struck out during the mad scramble. All he could do was hold out slowly as, due to his wavering concentration as a result of his ordeal, he placed his mark on the floor and prepared to enact plan b.