Among the Dead

Junnosuke had been snatched out of the van and slung over someone's shoulders, and after a few moments he realized who had grabbed him. 
     Ramon was running away from the police with Junnosuke.
     He didn't know what to feel; minutes ago, he'd been hoping that somebody would save him from Ramon, but after being bound, gagged, and thrown into a van, he realized that he wanted somebody to save him from the police. 
     He could smell blood. At first, he thought it was his own, but he soon realized he didn't feel any particular pain anywhere on his body. Once he spared a glance downward, he realized that Ramon was bleeding from a wound in his lower left abdomen. 
     He smiled at the sight. It felt good to see the man who'd hurt him bleeding and wounded. 
     He shook his head rapidly as he came to his senses and realized that if Ramon bled out and fell over, the police would take him back into custody and he would never get to go home. He now understood, with great clarity, that Ramon was his only hope of returning home.
     The two of them ran through a few small alleys, then took a sharp left turn, before doubling back and making a hard right. After a few more seconds of leaving false trails, they jumped into a large dumpster behind a funeral home and dug themselves a burrow into the trash. 
     Once they were fully submerged in garbage bags and broken furniture, Ramon untied Junnosuke. Before he could say anything, his mouth was covered by Ramon and he was wordlessly told to remain quiet.
     They waited, in that dumpster, for nearly an hour. After that time had passed, the sound of police sirens faded away. While still buried under trash, Ramon spoke.
     "How are you doing?" He whispered.
     Junnosuke was surprised by the casual nature of the question.
     "I'm okay."
     "Good. They didn't hurt you too much? You were out of my sight for two minutes, at least."
     "I'm fine." Junnosuke shifted in the trash uncomfortably. "How are you? You were bleeding earlier."
     "It's a flesh wound, no big deal. All this trash pressing down on me has been applying some good pressure, so it should stop bleeding soon enough. Otherwise I'll bandage it by tearing off my sleeves and tying them around my waist.
     "Anyway, my friend Percy probably won't meet up with us in the city, so we're going to keep moving west until we hit the edge of Tokyo. I'm not sure how long that'll take, but it's our best bet right now. Are you ready to keep going?"
     Junnosuke nodded.
     "Good." Ramon began shimmying out from under the trash, and once he was free he helped Junnosuke out of the dumpster as well. 
     Ramon offered his shoulders to Junnosuke, but the kid didn't jump on.
     "What, do you want to walk?"
     Junnosuke was staring at the blood staining the front and back of Ramon's shirt.
     "Too bad; you'll only slow me down." He scooped up Junnosuke and his blanket again. "We need to get you some real... wait a minute." 
     Junnosuke kept staring at the blood slowly oozing out of Ramon as the old man dug through the dumpster. Moments later, he swiveled to the kid holding a trash bag full of old clothes. 
     "They're too big, but I'll cut them and tie them so that they fit. Hold still."
     Junnosuke did as he was told without a fuss as Ramon took out an old suit and roughly cut it and tightened it around his body until it stayed on his body. Having accomplished that, he took the rest of the old rags and fashioned himself a bandage, hiding the bleeding wound from Junnosuke's view. 
     "Let's get moving again."
     Junnosuke was put back into Ramon's arms, and they started running through back alleys again.
     He felt bad about enjoying Ramon's pain earlier. While Ramon ran past the back of an antiques store, Junnosuke spoke up.
     "Why didn't you run away?"
     Ramon ducked past a CCTV camera in a parking lot.
     "I told you; I don't want to kill you, and I can't let you die."
     "That's not good enough." 
     Ramon stumbled, but said nothing. After a few more minutes of running, as they went behind another ramen restaurant, he spoke.
     "How does a spoiled brat like you know what 'good enough' means?"
     "It means I want to know that you're not going to hand me over to people who are even worse than the policemen and their van!" Junnosuke replied, a little too loudly. Ramon sprinted out of the alley they were in and hid for a minute, before returning to his normal pace.
     "I'm basically working alone. The only guy on my side is my friend Percy. He's technically my boss, but we're really coworkers. Nobody else that I know would take my side in this, and we already know the police want you captured and me dead. All I can tell you is that I am sick and tired of young kids like you dying because of Twist, so I kidnapped you to try and force the surgery on you to save your life."
     Junnosuke swallowed.
     "Is that where we're going?"
     Ramon ran behind a record store.
     "No. I gave up on that when I turned myself in to the police."
     "Why?"
     "Because it was wrong. Everything's different from how it was when I was a kid."
     "What do you mean?"
     "I thought the ends justified the means. I drugged you, carried you around, and kinda treated you like crap, in order to save your life." 
     "Aren't you doing that right now?"
     "Almost. You're pretty perceptive for a kid." 
     They ran past a pair of hair and nail salons.
     "The difference now is that you are actively under threat that could kill you, right now, and there's no question of that; plus, it wouldn't really be your choice to get experimented on by the government, whereas whether or not you get the Twist surgery is up to you."
     Junnosuke breathed deeply.
     "You should definitely get the surgery though; if it was up to me, it would still be required by law. Seriously, all the studies show Twist being literally only detrimental to a person's health. Any supposed benefits of Twist are severely outweighed by the whole, 'using Twist melts your brain stem' argument."
     Junnosuke bit his lip.
     "Is it really so bad, to have Twist?"
     Ramon sighed.
     The two of them dashed across another bridge as silently as they could, and once they were in an alleyway behind several housing units, he spoke.
     "Let me tell you a story about where I'm from."