One.

The constant moans and shrill screams could be heard from the small television. One guy cringes. And the other covers his ears.

“Hyung, turn it off! Make it stop!” the tense boy crouched in the corner shouted out to his comrade. He was frightened, no doubt about that. But he didn’t really mean what he said. He just wanted the noise to stop, the noise coming from the torturous cries and his own fleeting heartbeat.

The older boy whipped his head around instinctively, glaring at his scared friend.

“What did you say?” he snarled, enunciating each word carefully. He made his way to the corner of the room and grabbed the boy’s collar, dragging him forcefully up from the ground with his right hand.

“That’s her in there, Sehun. Our girl—your friend and my girlfriend. You want me to shut the damn thing off? Not a chance kid. If you can’t handle it, go home. I don’t need you here. And she obviously doesn’t either.” He released the collar and threw the whimpering boy back on the floor.

Another bloodcurdling shriek from the completely black screen. He took three long strides towards the television and stood firmly in front of it.

“Don’t touch her!” he growled, eyes red due to lack of sleep. “What do you want and why are you doing this?” he continued. She screeched again. He dropped on his knees. This time he was going to plead.

“Please stop. Don’t hurt her. I’ll give you anything, everything you want. Just please. Spare her life,” he begged, hanging his head helplessly with tears threatening to cascade down his face. Kim Jongin never cried.

“Hyung!” Sehun crawled his way to the front of the room. “Get up! What are you doing? How can you be on the floor beg-”

Jongin interrupted him midway. “Shut up kid! You don’t know anything. All you did was hide in that dark corner of yours. You’re a useless coward that doesn’t even deserve to be her friend! How can you even call yourself her best friend?”

Sehun stood there, stunned. His eyes wide-open, looking down at the son of one of the most powerful politicians in all of South Korea, down on his knees in front of a television, unaware if there was even a real person behind all this cruelty.

But what shocked him even more was that all the things Jongin had said