It's been two days since his escape and he thinks he can't go on for much longer. What little money he had was spent on two loaves of bread and a bottle of water, all of which are dwindling in supply by the minute. All the walking around made him hungry and he didn't think about saving some until he was down to half a loaf and a third of his bottled water on the fourth hour of his first day.

It didn't help that he's been hiding from the police since school let out the day he left. He regrets not riding the bus and going to some far off village where no one would be able to recognize him before he was reported missing. Now he had to be wary of policemen searching the whole town looking for a missing seven year old.

He found shelter that night in an abandoned building in the darker side of town. There were cobwebs near the entrance so he guesses it's safe to say that no one has been there for a while. He spots a single thin mattress on the far corner in the basement of the building and heads straight for it. Not caring about how dusty it must have been from maybe months of unuse because a bed is a bed and it's better than sleeping on the hard concrete he slept on the night before.

He lifts up one side so that it's on it's side and hits it a few times while holding his breath, letting all the dust particles fly about in the more or less empty basement.

He takes his blazer off first before removing his sweater vest. The former is used as a makeshift blanket and the latter was folded and was used a pillow. Looking up, he spots a small window with bars on it. The moon was visible from a certain angle and he thinks he knows why this mattress was placed on that particular area. it was a beautiful sight afterall.

He sleeps with a smile on his face that night.

-----

The first thing he feels when he wakes up is a weight on his stomach and a hand around his small neck. He opens his eyes and is met with another pair of angry looking ones.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" the teen questions.

"What—," he begins but is cut off by other boy tightening his grip around his neck. Tears start flowing out of his eyes and he whimpers, confusion and fear written all over his face.

The other boy lets go then and gets off him at once when he notices how scared and confused he was. It was only then that the teen noticed how small the other boy was. He couldn't have been anything over nine years old he guesses.

"Hey, hey. I'm sorry. Stop crying now. I'm not going to hurt you." the teen says, hugging the small boy against his chest and rubbing circles on his back to calm him down. "Shh it's alright. I'm sorry I scared you."

The little boy calms down after a while, his sobs slowly fading until all that's left were sniffles from his runny nose. The teen was running his hand through his hair, sometimes petting him on the head lightly until he felt the younger calm down completely. He uses his hand to lift the smaller boy's chin up and looks him straight in the eye. All the anger replaced by gentleness and the little boy smiles a little.

"Sorry," he says again, wiping a stray tear off the younger boy's cheek. "I thought you were a burglar or something. I panicked when I saw you and didn’t notice your uniform. How on earth did you get here anyway little one?"

The little boy tries to speak but hiccups instead. The tears are back but this time he doesn't know why.

The teen hugs him again, muttering sweet nothings and apologies in the younger boy's ear. He pulls him to sit on his lap, until he fell into a dreamless slumber.

-----

This time he woke up to the sun shining down on his face. He blinks his sleepy eyes open, thinking it was all just a dream but the arms protectively wrapped around his waist suggests otherwise.

He stares at the older boy's sleeping face. His lips are pursed, eyebrows knotted and he looks as if he was having a bad dream. He wishes he could help the older but the only thing he could think of at the moment was waking the older boy up. He didn't think that would be the best solution. He was still pretty scared of the older boy. Who wouldn't be when he was almost strangled to death just a few hours beforehand?

It’s when the older boy starts whimpering that he decides to heck with it. He doesn’t care anymore. The teen nearly killed him yes, but he also lulled him to sleep and kept him safe. Waking him up and letting him escape the nightmare he was having is the least he could do to repay the older.

He shakes him lightly at first, “Hey wake up,” and as time progressed, so did the force in his shoves. It was only after the fifth or sixth one did the older boy finally open his eyes.

“Huh? Who—oh. Good morning,” the older boy says, grinning as if he didn’t just have a nightmare a few seconds prior, “Sorry again about last night. I’m Hyukjae by the way.”

“Hyukjae-hyung. Well…er…I should get going now. Thanks for letting me stay the night and sorry for disturbing.” he bows quickly before running out. He can hear the older boy shouting at him to wait! come back but he pays no mind to it and instead tries his best to run away as fast as possible. He shouldn’t have stayed. He should have just left the moment he woke up. But he knows he’d feel guilty if he didn’t at least thank the older boy for his kindness. He wasn’t raised without proper manners afterall.

A hand grips his wrist and pulls him back, arms wrapping around his waist quickly (instinctively). “Did you really think I’d let you go that easily?” the teen whispers in his ears, voice low as if he was afraid someone might hear him. The younger boy shivers.

Hyukjae’s grip tightens, “You do know your face is all over town right?” he nods, not even bothering to deny it because there was nothing he can do. Might as well make this as painless as possible.

He feels the older’s grip around his waist loosening but a hand grips his wrist before he could slip away. Maybe those karate lessons his father was offering him a few months back wouldn’t have been so useless after all.

He’s being pulled back into the room they slept in. The light coming from the small window near the ceiling making it brighter and somehow livelier than it was when he found it the night before. He looks longingly at it, wishing he could escape.

“Here. Wear this,” he looks away from the window and down at the jacket Hyukjae had in his hand. He looks up at the older, confused.

Hyukjae chuckles at the cute expression before kneeling down and helping the younger put it on. He pulls the hood up, the material blocking the little boy’s sight. The jacket in general is too big on the seven year old’s too small body and the hood was no exception.

“If you put the hood up and keep your head down, no one will notice. The people around here know how I am so they won’t find it weird that I’m dragging some little kid home,” he says in the gentlest voice, fixing the hood and the jacket to better fit the smaller. “Then you can explain to me why on earth someone as young as you would run away from a household as rich and famous as yours.”

Hyukjae gets up and walks towards the door, leaving the little boy standing in the middle of the room, still slightly in shock that the teen wasn’t going to turn him in. He’s seen the reward money on the posters after all.

“Aren’t you coming?” the older asks, tilting his head to the side. The younger nods and rushes over to the teen.

“Ah that’s right, I almost forgot,” Hyukjae halts and exclaims suddenly as they were making their way out of the building. “What’s your name again kid?”

The older boy’s smile is infectious and the younger can’t help but smile back, pink tinting his cheeks.

“Sehun. My name is Sehun.”