22: HOLD ON, WE'LL MAKE IT THROUGH

"Take Care of You," by Giriboy

                Naeil wasn’t sure what she expected Taehyung to do if she found him behind the school. She certainly didn’t expect him to throw back his head and let loose an ear-splitting scream rivaling anything she could ever produce. Next, without a moment of hesitation, he dove into the crowd of iljin and blindly began throwing punches. He was severely outnumbered, but this obviously didn’t matter to him.

                Distracted by Taehyung’s attack, the grip of the two boys holding Naeil’s arms loosened. She pulled away just enough to shove some of them down and get away from the crowd. To her surprise, no one followed her. They were too busy piling onto Taehyung. He was quickly drowning in the fray.

                “Taehyung-ah!” she shouted. “Stop it! Taehyung-ah!” She was practically bent over from the effort of screaming his name loud enough for him to hear it. Naeil knew he couldn’t fight off all of Bul-ui Agma by themselves, but she couldn’t get Taehyung to calm down enough to follow her and just run away.

                Some of the iljin had begun to approach Naeil, and she was just sizing them up and wondering how much of a fight she could put up in her condition, when the doors to the school opened up and people began pouring out.

                At least half the school had heard Taehyung’s scream. First, some students rushed to the windows, then more ran out to the hallways, and finally, the faculty recognized the situation and began scrambling around to try and get outside first.

                The brawl went on regardless, although the crowd of onlookers caused some iljin to shy away or hide their faces.

                “WHAT’S GOING ON OUT HERE?” thundered the school principal, marching out past the crowd of new onlookers. He was flanked by a couple teachers and the P.E. coordinator.

                The iljin’s brawl slowly came to a halt, but Taehyung continued to lash out as if he hadn’t heard anything. Naeil ran up and grabbed the boy by the arm. He jerked around almost punched her too, until he looked up and saw her face.

                “Noona…” he murmured. His bottom lip was trembling. He looked so confused. “I’m sorry, I’m—”

                “Calm down,” said Naeil, pulling him into a hug. Part of her felt uncertain about the physical contact, but her beating heart told her it was the right thing to do. When Taehyung wrapped his arms around her, she felt affirmed. Naeil awkwardly pat Taehyung’s head until she felt his tense body relax.

                Looking up to try and locate Juyoung, she caught sight of him at the head of his group, looking straight forward. Naeil craned her head to see where his eyes were focused. He was looking at the principal, who, for some reason, looked pale.

                Just a few steps away was Naeil’s teacher, hand over , as if in shock. She ran toward Naeil, gasping and crying, “Omo, omo, omo!” over and over again. “Are you hurt?” The teacher reached out to touch Naeil’s face.

                Naeil moved before she could stop herself: she slapped her teacher’s hand away. At the sight of Naeil’s glare, her teacher took a few steps back.

                The principal approached Naeil finally, his eyes still glancing nervously at the place where Juyoung stood. He bent down and leaned toward her, doing his best to avoid Taehyung’s trembling head. His nose upturned slightly at a closeup look of Naeil’s bloodied face.

                “Naeil-ssi,” he whispered, “Please come with me. I’ll have the nurse take a look at you in my office.”

                At this, Taehyung’s head shot up, red-rimmed eyes narrowing. “Nurse? You should have called for an ambulance…ten minutes ago…” He sniffed and pulled his arms away from Naeil. “You should have…you should have kept those bastards away from Naeil from the beginning…” He started to struggle up. “You…you…”

                “It’s fine, Taehyung-ah.” Naeil bit out the words. Her jaw was so tight she thought it might crack. She forced open again. “I’ll just go. It’s fine.”

                “Where is she?!”

                Naeil and Taehyung turned to see Hoseok pushing past the crowd of onlookers, ignoring the ones he accidentally knocked to the ground.

                “Where is Nae—” Hoseok’s jaw dropped when he saw Naeil. His eyes turned dark.

                Before anyone could stop him, he ran past the principal, Naeil, Taehyung—and punched Juyoung smack in the face.

                The blow made him stumble backwards. “Bastard!”

                “Who are you?!” demanded the principal. “How dare you—”

                “How dare I?!” shouted Hoseok. “How dare you! Do you even care about your students at all? How can you not know that a pack of worthless iljin were out here beating up a girl?! How can you not know that?! She could have died, you know?! She could have died, and it would have been your fault for ignoring it!”

                Naeil reached out for Hoseok’s arm, only managing to brush her fingertips against his forearm. He turned around, chest still heaving.

                “I’m tired,” she said, an even look in her eyes now. Somehow, Hoseok’s rant had satisfied something in her, and the pain had rushed back all at once.

                Hoseok sighed, his breath shaky. “Help me, Taehyung-ah,” Hoseok said, motioning to Naeil.

                Taehyung hurried to wrap an arm around Naeil’s shoulder, while Hoseok helped her up by the arm.

                “Be careful,” Naeil said to Taehyung. “You’re hurt too.”

                Taehyung chuckled softly. “You’re being too much, noona.”

                “Where—where are you going?” demanded the principal, pointing a shaky finger in their direction.

                Hoseok turned to him. “We’re taking her to the ER.”

                “Don’t—”

                “Don’t what?”

                “Don’t…you know…get any ideas…”

                “Like what? Actually taking good care of her?”

                The principal bit his tongue.

                Hoseok turned around. “Let’s go.”

-------------------

                “Hyung. Hyung.”

                Namjoon was poking Yoongi’s back, drawing him out of his long and much-needed nap. Yoongi groaned and turned his head, squinting. There was a familiar melody coming from somewhere.

                “What is it?”

                Namjoon shoved a cellphone into Yoongi’s hands.

                “Your phone’s been ringing for the past three minutes. It’s Hoseok.”

                Yoongi looked down at the screen, finally processing the fact that he was hearing his own ringtone. He put the phone to his ear.

                “Hello?”

                “Hyung! Is that you?”

                “Yeah, what’s the big deal?”

                “You haven’t heard from Jungkook today, have you?”

                Yoongi struggled to sit up. “Jungkook? Why? Is he o—”

                “No, it’s not him, it’s Naeil. Those iljin punks beat her up at school today. Taehyung and I took her to the hospital, and she’s okay…but man, she looked pretty bad earlier. I don’t know what to do about those kids. I mean, what are we supposed to do? I don’t think they’re going to stop. I got this nasty feeling that they were…you know, actually going to kill her or something…”

                Silence.

                “Hyung? Hyung? Are you—?”

                “I’ll call you later,” Yoongi said curtly. He hung up.

                Namjoon was looking at Yoongi intently, his brow furrowed. “Did I hear right? About Naeil?”

                “Idiot,” Yoongi spat out.

                “Yah, why me?!”

                “No. Not you. Me. I knew something like this was going to happen. Aish, I’m such an idiot.”

                “We all knew, but she…well…”

                “We need to get her out of that place. And we need to do it now.”

Author’s Note

I feel like I should clarify that I don’t have a vendetta against Korean high schools (I know too little of Korean high schools), but you know, plot has to happen.

Although, try looking up news articles about Korean bullying one day, it’s kind of depressing. There’s some pretty nasty stuff out there. Just not as much in Seoul as other cities.

I’m posting early(ish) today because a friendo is coming over and I’m guessing I won’t get to write later today. Happy Friday everypeeps ^^

Hahahahahaha I almost marked this chapter as rated M before I posted it everyone would've freaked hahaha