Hyunsoo’s father was on his back, looking up at Jungkook with a surprised expression. Hyunsoo too was on the floor looking up at the panting Jungkook. What had just happened? It was too much to register into her head.

“What the hell did I just see? Are you her dad? What are you doing to your daughter?!” Jungkook looked crazy, angry and scary at the same time. He was looking from Hyunsoo to her father and back.

By this time, Hyunsoo’s father had regained his senses from being pushed so suddenly, and was getting back on his feet even more angrier and intimidating than he was before.

“Who are you?” he growled.

Hyunsoo took this as a cue for her to jump in. She stood up quickly and looked at Jungkook before turning to face her father. “This is just someone I know from school. He isn’t, uhm, from the social services…”

Jungkook stared at Hyunsoo. “What?”

Hyunsoo ignored him and instead kept her eyes on her father. One wrong move and he will start hitting both of them – maybe even end up killing Jungkook to keep things quiet. He’d never done anything like that before, but Hyunsoo wouldn’t put it past him.

It was all quiet for a minute. Hyunsoo still couldn’t believe Jungkook was here and had saved her, even though she now had to save him to be able to walk out of this freely. No one outside this house had ever witnessed her father hitting Hyunsoo. Jimin was extremely close, but Hyunsoo had managed to talk her father out of getting to Jimin by making him think that Jimin only saw an angry father for something Hyunsoo might have done. The grabbing and pulling part was hard to explain, but she managed her spiral of lies and her father – whilst hitting her – let Jimin be. And now, it was Jungkook’s turn. It was going to be hard… Hyunsoo could feel it.

Jungkook was looking around at the room, Hyunsoo, her father and then back at the stairs where he came from. The silence continued on and Hyunsoo began to fidget, which Jungkook must have noticed because then he started talking again.

“I saw Hyunsoo through the window. I was about to look away, but then she got pulled back with so much force, I knew something was wrong immediately…” he trailed away, now looking nervous.

Hyunsoo was staring at him. She had never seen Jungkook look nervous before. It was the smug and cold looks she was used to. Being nervous didn’t look as good on him… what was she thinking? At a time like this!

“Are you stalking us?” Hyunsoo’s father suddenly asked in a loud voice, “How much do you know?”

“Enough,” Jungkook replied, and went to Hyunsoo’s side, “The police are on their way.”

At this, her father’s eyes widened and he took fast steps towards Jungkook and Hyunsoo, who both reacted instantly by holding each other’s hands and dragging the other backwards. Their backs hit the wall.

Hyunsoo’s father laughed, just like those villains from Disney movies, “There’s no point. I’m no saint to my family,” he said smiling now, “The woman and the kid have tried enough to know that this won’t work.”

Jungkook looked at Hyunsoo. He was learning more about Hyunsoo’s dark past than he realised and had hoped for. He looked back at her father and smiled the way you smile at people who work too hard to be s. “Well, we will find out once my dad hears about this case. Did I mention he’s the Chief Superintendent General? I will personally make sure he hears of this.”

Not only did her father’s expression worsen, but also the veins on his neck were now clearly visible with anger, as were the blood vessels in his eyes. This time, he raised his arm and grabbed Jungkook by his collar.

Everyone froze, and then… sirens…

Everyone reacted at once. Jungkook coughed as Hyunsoo’s father threw him aside and sprinted to the back door from the kitchen. Hyunsoo sighed in relief but then panicked when she saw Jungkook being thrown against a table. She panicked even more when she saw blood trickling down Jungkook’s forehead. She bent down to take a closer look when–

“What is that?” Jungkook sat up, despite the immense pain he was feeling, and moved Hyunsoo’s dark hair out of the way.

She felt it burn as soon as Jungkook put a finger on it. She hadn’t realised it was even there. There was a wound on her shoulder, nearly the size of a fist. Jungkook was staring at it like that day during sports.

“That bruise…” he was remembering the same day, “It was your dad…”

“I–”

But Jungkook interrupted her. “How long has this been going on for?”

Hyunsoo was just about to answer, not to worry and that it was all fine now, when the police suddenly came busting in.

“That way!” Jungkook jumped up and pointed at the back door, then grimaced in pain and sank down.

“You need to go to the hospital,” Hyunsoo said, as she watched a group of police officers run towards the back door.

“So do you.”

Something else jumped into Hyunsoo’s brain. “Did you… really see me through the window? What were you, uh, doing?”

However, this time Jungkook was interrupted by another police officer that had bent down to help Jungkook up. He had managed to get out “Tell them everything,” before he was out of earshot.

“Miss,” someone tapped Hyunsoo’s shoulder, “Would you come with me? We need a full statement of what happened.”

Hyunsoo felt everyone sink in then. The police were here, they were looking for her father, Jungkook was here, he know knew her family situation, her mother wasn’t going to be home just yet and she was all alone for now.

Feeling different emotions hit her so unexpectedly, she felt like she wanted to go upstairs to her room and cry to sleep. The way she would have if Jungkook hadn’t come. Did she really want that though? Did she really want to cry to sleep every night? This was different… something was happening… someone was paying attention to her story. So she did exactly as Jungkook had said: she told them everything from as far back as she remembered, and they listened to her.

She was just going to go get a drink of water to refresh herself, when she walked past Jungkook who was telling his side of what had happened.

“… So when Grandma told me to take the trash out, I thought I could get a closer look. It happened just when I walked all the way to the front of my porch. I saw Hyunsoo being pulled away from the window really violently, so I reacted on my instincts and went to climb up to her window. She always seems to leave it open…”

Hyunsoo walked on. For some reason, she didn’t want to hear anymore. It made her feel exposed. Jungkook knows more than he should about me. Jungkook knows stuff about me… stuff I would never even have revealed to Jimin if he hadn’t witnessed her father that day… and then, another thought hit her. That old woman was his Grandma.