-Chapter 20-

If Only

You stared down at your lap, silently listening to the sound of the faint squeaks emanating from the wheels as they rolled against the floors of the school hallways. You didn’t need to look up to see all of the curious and judgmental eyes staring you down and you didn’t need to listen to hear all of the whispers and chattering from each person you past by.

You were abruptly halted to a stop, shocking you out of your daze. You looked up and gazed at your older brother who was standing behind you. “Here’s your classroom.” He almost inaudibly muttered, not meeting eyes with you. Before you could even utter out a thanks, he stepped away from you and walked down the hall without even looking back. You wordlessly stared at his descending figure until he had turned the corner and was now out of sight.

“He’s still upset…” you whispered to yourself. You turned your head forward and instantly caught a glimpse of everyone inside your classroom leaning out in their desks and staring at you with identical stunned expressions across their faces. Lowering your head down, you brought your hands downward and held onto the wheels on either side of you and slid them forward to wheel yourself into the room.

You were in a wheel chair. Why?

Because both of your legs were… well… broken.

It was a serious case of dislocation in both knees. According to your doctor, your legs were incredibly battered when you first came into the hospital, appearing to have been put under a lot of stress. You’ll never forget the look your doctor gave your mother the moment she asked him how long it would take when you would be able to walk again…

And this was all because of that horrifying incident that happened to you a couple of nights ago…

You quickly waved the memory away. After only managing to go a few feet inside the classroom, you felt your arms growing weary from having to use so much strength to push the wheels forward. Even after a few days of having this wheelchair, you still weren’t quite used to it. Wrapping your fingers around the rubber wheels, you continued to push on.

“What, she can’t walk now? That’s what happens when you dabble with things on the ‘other side’.”

You paused…

“Her ‘friends’ probably did that to her.”

“She probably asked for it too. So she could be like one of them.”

You silently pushed the wheels forward, now desperately ignoring the soreness nipping at your tired arms for all you wanted to do was get to your seat as soon as possible.

“Just when I thought I could finally breathe in this classroom normally. Now I’m starting to feel sick again.”

“We were all better off when she stayed at home.”

Your eyes burned as you tried to suppress the tears that were coaxed into trickling down your cheeks. You found it a difficult to push the wheels now with your hands trembling so much.

“Can you hurry up and get to your seat. You’re being a huge inconvenience to everyone just being in the middle of the classroom like that.” One person in the room had called out. You turned your head to look at the person who spoke, but it seemed close to impossible to find that person since everyone in the room shared the same hate filled gaze on you.

…Inconvenience…?

You brought your gaze to the ground, hearing spiteful remarks about you continuing to circle around the room. You could feel tears beginning to fill and blur your eyes. You really couldn’t take this much longer- you weren’t strong enough to take in all of this hatred… Your ears perked up at the sudden sound of a chair screeching against the floor in the distance and footsteps quickly advancing towards you. You suddenly felt someone firmly grip your wheel chair handles behind you.

“Enough of the jokes guys. Class is about to start.” You tilted your head up and your eyes rounded in astonishment.

“Jongin…?” you uttered out. Jongin glanced over at you for a moment before promptly looking back up at his classmates. He managed to give each one of them a firm stare before he gently pushed you towards your desk.

You could feel everyone’s stare locked on the two of you as the sound of your wheels rolling against the floor echoed throughout the room. It was surprising how silent everyone was this whole time despite the intense glares they were all giving you.

“Jongin, you don’t have to do this…” you quietly and halfheartedly said. Truthfully though, you really were grateful for his help. Jongin didn’t reply back though and continued silently wheeling you to your seat. When you finally made it to your desk, Jongin immediately pulled away from you and sauntered back to his new seat in the front of the class.

You watched Jongin walk away and immediately noticed him walking a bit unsteadily and rubbing his head that was hanging down low. Your eyes softened at him. It must have hurt him to be so close to me… The teacher finally arrived in class and you, struggling a bit in the process, pushed yourself out of your wheelchair and into your desk.

“Class is dismissed everyone. Have a nice day.” Your teacher announced. You caught your teacher glancing over at you and your wheelchair somewhat distastefully before he left. Once he exited the room, it immediately filled with chatters as everyone got out of their seats and grouped up with their friends as usual. You slipped your notebook and pencil inside your book bag and extended a hand out to your side to grab hold of your wheelchair handle.

Just before your fingertips could make contact with the metallic handle, you snapped your hand away when your wheel chair was suddenly pushed a few feet away. Looking over, you were now face to face with another fellow female student in your class. You recognized her; Jung Krystal, wasn’t it? How could you not know her when she was one of a handful of people who first started to turn on you and influence everyone else to soon after? She stared down at you, ice in her eyes and disgust etched on her taut face. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you weren’t intimidated in some way right now. You broke your stare away from her and gazed over at your wheelchair that had rolled a couple of feet away from you and into a nearby wall. Stretching your arm out forward, you knew right away that there was no way you could reach it with it being such a great distance away.

You looked back up into her eyes. “Why did you push my wheelchair away?”

“Because I don’t like you.” Was all she said without any hesitation, crossing her arms over her chest. You blinked at her, unable to process her response. “I get annoyed just looking at you. And that stupid wheelchair of yours- where did you get it anyways? It squeaks like crazy and it’s irritating, like you.” You just sat there, silently taking in everything she was saying. Her statements were so simple yet overwhelmingly powerful in some way or another. 

You finally averted your eyes from her gaze and attempted to push yourself up in your desk to reach over for your wheelchair (which felt impossible since your legs were completely paralyzed). Faint grunts left your lips as you tried hard to extend your arm out. Embarrassment began to gradually take over you when you started to hear a couple of onlookers in the background laughing and mock you. Much to your relief though, the wheelchair handle bars were just inches away from your reach. Just before you could clamp your fingers around it, Krystal took a step forward and kicked the wheelchair forward causing it to roll away once again and you to lose your balance and collapse out of your desk and onto the floor.

You let out a small strained groan as a sharp pain shot up the few parts of your legs that you could actually feel. You helplessly looked up at Krystal, who continued staring at you unsympathetically. “You angry? Upset?” she taunted. “What are you going to do, send your ‘spirits’ to come get me?” You thought it couldn’t get any worse but Krystal had proved you wrong when she had reached over for your school bag lying on your desk and dumping all of its contents on top of you. You clenched your eyes shut when you felt all your notebooks and pencils painfully pelting into you. “Don’t make me laugh.” She added, carelessly dropping your school bag on the ground next to you.

You finally just stopped your attempt at trying to get up and stared down at the ground. You spotted small droplets of water on the floor beneath you. “Oh, you’re crying now huh?” You heard Krystal sarcastically ask. In the background, you heard a considerable amount of people prattling on as well; each of them appearing to be on Krystal’s side.

You weren’t sure when it started but tears were now flowing down your cheeks uncontrollably and you could actually hear your choked up sobs echoing around in your head. Not that you cared in the slightest anymore to hold it in… Why would you even care now anyways? You were lying on the ground with your school supplies strewn around you, unable to get up thanks to your paralyzed legs with everyone in the room laughing and mocking you. What difference would crying even do at this point?

They hate me… They all hate me, Luhan…

Everyone in school despises me…

My own brother hate me too…

And all for what? For taking the time to acknowledge a lost soul? Is that really so wrong?

I’m hated for this… I’m an… inconvenience.

I’m pretty much a nuisance aren’t I, Luhan…?

I’m sure they all think that after I brought about all these ill feelings to school.

Where do I belong then anyways? No one wants anything to do with me after all. But wait…

… There’s you, Luhan.

Isn’t that right? You love me… right? You’re the only one who’s always cared for me, even before I knew about your existence.

If only I could be with you Luhan. If only we could be together…

I would be happy just having you… and no one else…

Baekhyun, Kyungsoo and Joonmyeon’s eyes were locked intensely on Sehun who was silently drumming his fingers on the table. Almost on cue, their eyes all shifted in unison to stare at Chanyeol who sat directly on the other side of the table and poking around at his phone. The two of them were silent, both refusing to say a word or look at one another or anyone else. “Ok, this is getting out of hand. It’s been two months now, guys. Why aren’t you two talking to each other?” Joonmyeon finally asked, cutting through the thick silence in the air.

“It’s nothing.” Chanyeol simply said, slipping his phone back into his pocket. Sehun sustained his silence without even faltering a bit, almost as if he didn’t hear a word anyone was saying.

“It’s impossible to get anything out of these two…” Baekhyun sighed, leaning back in his chair and ruffling his own hair in exasperation.

“Oh, you finally made it Jongin.” Kyungsoo said, bringing everyone’s attention over to Jongin who walked over to their table and pulled out a seat, situating himself in between Sehun and Kyungsoo. “What took you so long?” Kyungsoo asked with a curious tilt of the head. Jongin was silent for a moment before answering back.

“Things… came up…” Jongin almost reluctantly replied, thereupon glancing over at Sehun with expecting eyes.

“What?” Sehun blatantly said.

“Why weren’t you there after school today to help Jaeyun get home?” he asked. Sehun felt his stomach knot up the moment your name was mentioned, but managed to keep his calm demeanor intact.

“She’s old enough to get home herself…” he muttered, averting his eyes.

“She’s in a wheelchair though.”

“She knows how to wheel herself around.” Sehun snapped back much to everyone’s surprise. “Besides, I’m sure she has other…people in mind who she’d be glad to help her out instead of me…” he bitterly added.

“Obviously that isn’t the case if you saw what had happened to her after class ended today.” Sehun suddenly became more alert and hesitantly looked back over into Jongin’s eyes.  

“What do you mean by that…?”

“Jung Krystal. She was harassing Jaeyun today after class. She pushed her wheelchair away, she made her fall to the ground, she dumped all her school stuff on her, and she humiliated her in front of everyone.” Sehun fell silent.

“You can’t be serious. That’s terrible!” Joonmyeon gasped. “Did anyone help her?”

“I was the only one who did. But I came to the scene a bit late, and the situation had already escalated to such a degree when I got there. I don’t think it could have gotten any worse at that point. I was going to bring her home but she told me not to, saying she wanted to go home alone.”

“How can you stay so silent Sehun??” Chanyeol unexpected piped up, unable to keep quiet any longer. Sehun's unresponsive silence persisted. “Didn’t you hear a word Jongin said? Jaeyun was bullied in class!!” Once again, all they were getting from him was complete silence. Chanyeol’s eyebrows knitted together in frustration as his fingers curled up into clenched fists. “Don’t you even care about her?!” he harshly questioned. “Why would you take everyone else’s side when she’s the one who’s suffering?! When she’s the one who’s in danger??!!” Sehun was yanked back into reality at Chanyeol’s last question.

“Chanyeol!” Joonmyeon intervened, looking over at Sehun uneasily. Sehun promptly stared up at Chanyeol in absolute shock and silent tension now hung in the air once more.

“W-what do you mean…?” Sehun cautiously asked. Chanyeol’s hard expression softened when he saw the concern now filling Sehun’s eyes.

“Look… the last time I was at your house when I went to go see Jaeyun, something happened to me…” There was a slight, uneasy delay when he solemnly looked away and subtly reached his hand up behind his back, allowing his fingertips to brush against the fabric covering his backside. “That day, I was attacked by…something… I woke up and found scratch marks all over my back.” Sehun felt sick to his stomach just thinking about it and regret began to wash over him. “Even now, I’m still recovering from it. That was what I was trying to tell you about that day you called me over.”

“I… I didn’t know… I had no idea…” Sehun uttered out, now a complete disorientated mess.

“I was attacked because I was with Jaeyun. Don’t you think there’s something weird about that? I don’t know the whole story here but if you ask me… there’s something evil going on in your house and Jaeyun is somehow a part of it.”

Sehun could feel a tightness suffocating his heart and a painful ball forming in his throat. He was so busy being angry at you for reasons he couldn’t even remember at the moment, that he didn’t even realize the lethal extent of the predicament you were currently in.

BBZZZT

Sehun jolted up and peered down to whip his phone out of his pants pocket. Staring down at the screen, his eyes widened. “It’s from Jaeyun…” Sehun said, everyone’s attention immediately being caught. He hastily opened up the message and read it over. His heart suddenly sank and he felt his entire world completely shatter before him.

From: Jaeyun

Sent: 5:17 PM, June 4

.SH%e iS* dE.a#D&

`Author's Corner

This isn't the last chapter so don't freak out ok!!! lol (Though, I'm sure you guys are probably freaking out for different reasons right now...lol) We're getting close to the end of the story you guys! Which is why it's getting harder for me to push out new chapters. Idk why though. Maybe it's because i've never finished a story before, so it's kind of a new experience here trying to end it!

Also, another clarification. I have nothing against Krystal from f(x), just like how I have nothing against Yoona from SNSD. I love em, but I had to portray them badly for the sake of the story!

ONE LAST THING!!!

I'm going to start a new fanfic after I finish this one, but I'm unsure of who I should use as the main love interest. Mind taking this poll and helping a sista out? Please and thank you!!! ;-*