Kandace awoke the next morning with her head pounding. She looked around confused. She was in her room and...there was an ice pack on the pillow under her head. She could feel it. It was mildly cool even now.

How had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered was being in the hallway with her dad yelling at her.

So that must mean that he had carried her to her room. Either that or one of the boys had found her and taken her to her room...

She really hoped it had been the former. She wanted to shield her siblings from that side of their father. He had really frightened her the night before. His eyes had been clouded and wild and there had been a slight slur to his words...all those things pointed to the fact that he must have went drinking before coming home. There had been dozens of times in the last four years when he had come home drunk and staggering. Many times he had yelled, but he had never physically hurt her. Until last night, that is. That was the first time he had ever done that. She hoped last night would also be the last.

Somehow, she had always been the one who was awake when he had stumbled through the door. She desperately wanted to keep it that way. Even though her brothers and sisters seemed to hate her, she loved them with all her heart and wanted to protect them.

She pushed herself up slowly to avoid making her bruises hurt, but she groaned anyway. Her entire body felt like it'd been hit by a Mack truck.

She grabbed her school clothes and headed to the bathroom to shower. Afterwards, she peered in the mirror at her reflection.

A pale, pinched face looked back at her. Her neck was pale too, except for a red handprint covering the expanse of . That would be in thanks to her father's hard hand pushing her against the wall last night.

She glanced down at her stomach and saw a multitude of bruises decorating it and trailing around her sides like spiderweb tattoos. Those were the side effects of that mafia kid's kicks. Fantastic. Just absolutely fantastic.

She dressed, wincing as the movements caused twinges of pain in her wrists. She shoved aside the urge to cry, and went to wake up her siblings.

She'd felt worse from workouts. This was nothing. She just had to ignore the pain and get done what she needed to do.

Mind over matter

~~~~~~~~

At school she looked around for Baro or Gongchan and any other friends of his that might be lurking nearby. None of them seemed to be lying in wait for her, though. She breathed a sigh of relief and made her way to her classroom.

She took her seat and pulled her phone from her pocket. No texts from anyone, either. Another good thing.

The homeroom teacher came in and all the students stood. He clapped his hands. "Students, today let's welcome our new transfer student." He motioned to someone in the hallway and a boy sporting blonde hair walked in and stood next to the teacher. Mr. Byun waved his hand at the class as he said, "Go ahead. Introduce yourself."

The boy looked out at the class and bowed. "Hello, met name is Min Yoongi and I just moved here from Daegu. Please take care of me."

Some students clapped and others called out 'naes' while she heard several girls sitting nearby whisper about how cute they thought he was. She felt like rolling her eyes at them, but her neck hurt and any slight movements made it hurt worse. She settled for letting out a mostly silent sigh.

"Yoongi," Mr Byun started, as he looked over the room. "Please go and sit by Yeon Seulbi and Nam Jian." He pointed. "There is a seat open between them."

Seulbi and Jian shared awestruck looks and then turned back to watch as Yoongi made his way between the rows and sank into his seat between the two girls. That seat put him in the same row as Kandace, except he was two rows over.

Most everyone in the class seemed to be staring at him: the girls with their mouths hanging open and the boys with fierce scowls because of how the girls were staring ploughed at him. Even the girls who Kandace was pretty sure already had boyfriends