Leeteuk’s POV~

During dinner, I watched Uki the entire time, but she made sure she didn’t look my direction whatsoever. I noticed she had a tight hold of her sleeves covering her wrists. Finally—thank God for watchful people—Yesung says, “Did you hurt yourself or something, Uki? You have some cuts on your wrist.”

Siwon stopped his forkful of stir-fried noodles halfway to his mouth and looked at Uki. “Uki, what’s he talking about?”

Uki was silent, looking at the members, her cheeks flushed pink. Truth be told, this was the first time I had ever known Uki to not have something to say back. She was actually flustered when asked a question as all the members stopped eating to look at her for her answer. I looked at Alex, who I noticed snuck a glance at me.

“Uki, answer me,” Siwon demanded.

“I-I,” she stammered.

“Uki…Please don’t tell me you’re cutting yourself,” Siwon said.

“Okay, now you guys are just being ridiculous!” she exclaimed, slamming her fork down. Now there was the old Uki we all knew. “Where did this cutting nonsense coming from, huh?! They’re not even blade wounds, they’re tape wounds.”

“…Tape?” Siwon asked, a skeptical look on his face.

She let out a breath. “Yes, tape, Siwon. Like, you know when you do MMA? That’s what I hurt myself doing.”

“YOU’RE DOING MIXED MARTIAL ARTS?!” Siwon exclaimed, a shocked look on his face.

His face wasn’t the only one that was shocked, either.

The entire table stared at her with mouths agape. Uki?! Delicate little Uki doing mixed martial arts?! She’s gonna get hurt! She’s ALREADY hurt!

Uki rolled her eyes and scoffed. “You act as if I’ve never done any of this before.”

“That’s because you haven’t!” Siwon exclaimed. “You always did the girly sports when you were younger.”

“Girly?!” she retaliated. “If gymnastics were girly, they’d call it tae kwon do!”

“Excuse me?!” Siwon defended. “Tae kwon do is one of the hardest sports out there.”

“And so is gymnastics! Do you see people in tae kwon doing back flip after back flip after back flip on a balance beam that’s barely six inches wide and almost three feet off the ground? Do you see them doing stunts on uneven bars? I don’t think so. And ballet! Do you guys support a hundred pounds on just your toes? And then manage to do pirouettes at the same time? Pfsht, yeah, totally, right?  Don’t even get me started on figure skating with trying to use a toe pick right before doing a triple Lutz without breaking your face in the process. Yeah, I’d love to see you to try to get out on the ice and do that.”

“Okay, we’re off track. Tell me why you’re doing mixed martial arts and how you managed to hurt yourself with just tape,” Siwon demanded.

She let out a sigh. “Okay, so I wasn’t gonna say anything about it for the rest of the time that I was here, but then Alex and Leeteuk started making assumptions that I was cutting myself and then you came out with that ridiculous idea as well, so I might as well explain everything. Anyway, yeah, I used to do every single type of martial arts when I was younger. Appa pretty much made me, but that’s beside the point. The point is, I actually used to be really good at all of it. And then as school and SM and life just began getting more and more overbearing, I had to quit for awhile. And then Henry of all people managed to take me down and I began thinking how pathetic I’d gotten if I couldn’t get him off of me—no offense, Henry, I love you and all; it’s just I used to be able to take down opponents three times my size without a struggle.”

Henry let a small laugh slip. “Oh it’s okay. No offense taken.”

“Any who,” she continued after a reassuring glance exchange with Henry, “I decided I wanted to start taking up classes again while I was here. And the only one I could find that was actually worth my time was this MMA class taught every evening. But I’ve been able to make it to the past four classes, and I’d never done MMA the way they taught it. Apparently they taught a certain way of taping up your hands, but the person that did it for me was apparently doing it wrong all this time, so this was the result.”

She pulled her sleeves up. I noticed everyone slightly cringed and grimaced at the sight of her torn and raw wrists. Siwon shook his head and cursed under his breath.

“But don’t worry, I’ve been taking care of them, so they’re gonna heal just fine. No infections, no scarring, and no harm done,” Uki assured everyone. “And rest assured. I’m not cutting myself nor do I ever plan on doing so. I have no need for self mutilation, that’s just gross.”

I let out a small sigh of relief, a smile spreading across my face. I thanked the Lord that Uki hadn’t been destroying her body like that. Oh Alex, you were so stupid. You turned me into a stupid idiot, too, for listening to you. Stupid Leeteuk. Go with your first instinct next time.