Wooyoung looked at you with a confused look on his face. “Bullied?” he asked. When he saw that you didn’t say anything else, he started to put things together. Anger started to build up in him as the silence continued.

“Please tell me that I’m wrong. Are you being bullied?” Wooyoung said in a controlled voice. You bit your lip as you stared down at the table. You didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to feel at having to tell him what you were going through.

“Yes.” You whispered out. You didn’t want to see the look on his face. You couldn’t stand even thinking of what Wooyoung was feeling right now at you having admitted that.

When he heard your quiet answer, it felt like a volcano of emotions spewed out. For months he’d known you and he had no idea at all what you were going through. Sure he’d seen the sad looks you had on sometimes, but he chalked that up to regular teenage drama. He didn’t think you were actually being bullied. He felt ashamed at calling himself your friend and yet not knowing anything at all about your situation.

“For how long?” He managed to get out. You gulped as you forced yourself to stop the tears. Talking about the years of torture you went through was much more difficult than you thought.

“Almost four years.”

Complete blinding rage took over his body at hearing the length of time you have endured being bullied. Seeing the defeated look you had was what caused him to calm down. Right now, what you needed was a listening ear, not someone to go on a blinding rage.

Taking a deep breath he calmed himself down. “Did you tell anyone else about this?”

Playing with your fingers and still very much unwilling to look up at Wooyoung you whispered out your answer. “You’re the only one I’ve said anything to.” Gripping the tissue he had in his hands tightly, he managed to keep the emotions from freely showing on his face.

“Why?”

“I thought no one would care. No one would do anything about it anyways. No one can if the bully is the whole school.” You said bitterly. To you this was the ultimate truth. Even if you have said anything, one person could not change the way the whole school treated you.

“Why have you not told your parents? Get them to move you to a different school?” He said looking at you intently.

You smiled a little at the thought of your parents. “The last thing I would ever want is to worry my parents. They work enough as it is and I don’t want to give them any more stress.” Wooyoung leaned back and calmed down enough that he was able unclench his hand from the crumpled tissue.

“You can’t just not do anything Ji-min. Tell a teacher, do something please. Don’t just keep it to yourself.” Wooyoung said pleadingly. To hear that a sweet and lively girl like you was being put through years of bullying, he couldn’t take it.

Shrugging your shoulders you dismissed that thought. “I have only two months left anyways. What’s a few more right?” You said, trying to add a light tone to such a dark topic. Wooyoung frowned at the dismissive way you said that. He didn’t want you to just endure anymore of that.

“No. I’m serious Ji-min. If you don’t so something, I will.” He said with conviction. Shaking your head at that, you just kept quiet and decided not to argue. You didn’t believe he could do anything anyways. It’s been what you were living through and you just had a harder time today in dealing with it.

After a few minutes of silence, you finally looked up at him. Seeing the caring look on his face, the dam that you had carefully built and reinforced throughout the years cracked and suddenly everything began to flood out.

“But what I never really understood was why me? What did I ever do wrong? I asked myself this everyday and not once could I come up with an answer.” You began. The tears you have been holding in the whole conversation finally started to make their presence known as they built up on your eyes.

“I never did anything to anyone. I was nice to them, I tried befriending them, and not once did I do a single mean thing.” A teardrop slowly dripped down your face and as if a button was pushed, more and more kept making tracks down your cheeks.

“I did everything to get them to like me. I accepted every terrible thing they said about because I thought that once they got to know me, they would change their minds. But I was so wrong. So wrong. Everything just got worse and worse and I had no way of controlling it. It was as if I was trying to fight my way upstream of a raging river. And after years of trying to fight for them to see the real me, I gave up. I learned to take every single hurtful word, every hit every shove, I endure it all without a single complain.”

You looked up at him, tears steadily making their way across your cheek and piling on your chin before finally dropping down the table.

Wooyoung was shaking. His arms and were clenched so tightly in rage at hearing your confession. He needed to hit something. Take his anger out on how unfair things were for you. Punish every single one of people who have hurt you.

Sobbing, you looked at him. “I endured everything. But what did I do to deserve being treated like a pig, being told that I’m lower that a human being, worthless?”

Wooyoung couldn’t take it anymore and all his rage was put into the table. He punched it with all his might, not even caring if he managed to break it or not. Standing up, he was about to go to you and take you into his arms when suddenly a pair of arms snuck around you and pulled you up and into a warm and comforting chest.

Looking up, you were shocked at seeing Taemin holding you. He had a stony expression on his face. His jaws were clenched in anger as he glared at Wooyoung. Looking to the right of you, you saw Minho’s normally calm expression completely replaced by animosity. He had placed himself slightly in front of you, blocking you from Wooyoung.

 Next to him was Onew. The smile you could always see on his face was far gone, replaced by a emotionless mask. His eyes were burning in anger as he stared at Wooyoung. To the left was Jonghyun and Key, both with matching expressions of uncontrollable anger on their faces. Their hands were clenched on their sides and their glares were burning a hole right through Wooyoung’s face.

“Why in the ing hell would you make her cry?” Key bit out. You were shocked to hear the pure ice in his voice. There was not a trace of the warmth you could always expect to hear from him.

Pulling yourself away from the stupor that was caused by seeing the boys like this, you pulled yourself away from Taemin’s arms. You were unable to get anywhere because he just tightened his hold on you, not letting you go from his protective embrace.

Wiping the last trace of tears on your face, you looked up pleadingly at Taemin.

“Let me go. This is a misunderstanding. Wooyoung did not do anything to me.” Hearing that, the others boys turned to look at you, but still keeping an eye on Wooyoung.

“He made you cry.” Jonghyun stated as if it was a fact. You shook your head, pulling yourself away from Taemin. After a few moments of you struggling, he finally loosened his hold on you. Disentangling yourself, you stepped up to Wooyoung.

“He was not why I was crying. Wooyoung would never do anything to make me cry. He’s my trainer and an amazing friend.” You said as you looked at the boys. The anger slowly disappeared as they heard your answer.

“But why were you crying?” Onew asked. His face finally relaxed from anger as he stared at you worriedly. Looking back and forth between the five boys, you bit your lips at seeing the concern plainly written on their faces.

“I-I was just crying because my pet fish died.” You lied terribly. Wooyoung looked at you in confusion as you lied to the boys. “Ji-min what-“ he started to say before you looked at him pleadingly. He clearly knew what you were asking for and although he didn’t feel like it was the right choice, he kept his mouth shut. You have told him about the Shinee boys and he knew that they cared deeply about you. The commotion a few moments ago more than proved that and he thought they should definitely know something as important as this.

All the while the Shinee boys felt hurt. They looked at the forced smile on your face and they couldn’t help but feel a pang at the knowledge that you were lying to them. They can clearly see that you were lying. You were terrible at telling lies and not only that, but they knew you had no pet fish.

“I’m sorry if I worried you, but believe me, it is nothing you guys should concern yourself with.” You added, trying to get them to believe you. This was not something you wanted them to know. To them, you were a happy, caring girl. That was what you wanted them to see you as. Not some pitiful girl who gets bullied all the time. No. You enjoyed who you were with them. You enjoyed the fact that when you were with them, you didn’t feel sorry for yourself or feel that you are pathetic. With them, you were a regular girl.  

“Please there really is nothing wrong.” You looked at them with pleading eyes, begging them to believe you and to drop the subject. The five of them continued to stare at you. Not a single one of them believed anything you were saying, but seeing the pleading look in your eyes, they decided to drop it. For now.

Taemin smiled at you. “Aw that’s too bad! Don’t worry Ji-min! You don’t need to cry, I’ll buy you a fish. How about we go now?” He said as he pulled you to his side. Looking like a deer in the headlights at that, you came up quickly with an excuse so that you wouldn’t be caught in your lie.

“Ah, that’s alright, Wooyoung promised he would get me one! Right Wooyoung?” You once again pleaded with him with your eyes to agree with you. Narrowing his eyes at you once again, all he did was nod his head in affirmative at what you said.

Taemin frowned at that and glared a little at Wooyoung. “I can get you an even better one than what he can get you.” He did not like losing at anything, especially when it came to you. Deciding to ignore Taemin’s retort you pulled yourself away from Taemin, who frowned when you did that, and put yourself beside Wooyoung.

“Um it looks like you guys still haven’t eaten anything. We’re done so we’ll leave you to eat. I’ll see you guys soon!” You said, trying to quickly get away before they decided to ask more question. Waving good-bye, you pulled Wooyoung out with you.

When you two were safely in his car, you breathe out a sigh of relief. You turned to look at Wooyoung, about to thank him for cooperating with you. But the thanks never got out of your mouth when you saw the look on his face.

“You need to tell them.”

Staring at him, you sadly shook his head. “I won’t. I can’t. I like the me with them.”

“That won’t change if you tell them this. They need to know.”

“No. Even if I did tell them, they can’t do anything.” You stubbornly said. Turning back to stare at the window, you crossed your arms.

“Can you please take me home now.”

Wooyoung continued to stare at you before sighing and starting his engine. If you wouldn’t tell them, he will. 

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Whew here is the new chapter! Because you all are amazing and I was taken back by all the comments you guys wrote, I decided to post this up sooner than I planned. I hope you guys like this chapter and comment. I LOVE hearing what you all thought! <3