“H-he’s not coming back. He’s left us.” Kyungsoo manages to choke out a sob, muffling his face into Luhan’s shirt. Luhan winced at the hurt younger boy and patted his back, his hair afterwards to sooth him. He held onto the smaller boy tighter, nuzzling his hair in a friendly way.

 

“He didn’t leave us, Soo…” Luhan reassures him.

 

Kyungsoo shakes his head. “No, he did. He went to China and is not coming back and-”

 

“No. He didn’t leave us. No matter what, he’ll come back. It could be ten years from now, but he didn’t leave us.” 

 

Kyungsoo understands where Luhan’s direction is going and tries to believe him. If only he had evidence of his statement that would back Luhan up. It’ll make him feel less pressured and more satisfied.

 

“Just give him time. And space.” Luhan Kyungsoo’s spine gently, careful to not harm him, even though his actions were not capable of doing so. “As much as it hurts, he needs our support right now.” 

 

Luhan had to admit, he was hurt that Tao didn’t even say bye and come to them first before taking off. It was selfish of him to think so, but it didn’t stop his heart from aching when he found out his best friend had left. He guessed Kyungsoo was in the same condition, considering how hurt he looked.

 

“I miss him.”

 

Luhan nods his head in agreement with the younger, already missing the third one who was a North Korea away from the two.

 

“Luhan-”

 

“Ahem.”

 

The two swerve their heads to the side and met Sehun at the door. 

 

“Sorry to break a moment, but could you please get out?” Sehun jerks his thumb outwards, indicating for Kyungsoo to leave. Feeling intimidated from the youngest of the household, Kyungsoo walks out trying to be nonchalant, followed by Luhan who had a worried look.

 

Luhan was about to chase after the boy, but he felt something tugging at his wrist and instantly felt butterflies flutter around his tummy from the warmth. 

 

“Where do you think you’re going? I’m expecting something from you, Xiaoling.” 

 

“He’s going to get lost.” Luhan argues back, trying to ignore the warmth crawling up from his wrist and the beating heart that suddenly sped up in the last second. “Kai can take care of that.” Sehun says. As much as Luhan wanted to follow Kyungsoo and at least see him off, he reluctantly stayed due to his master’s command.

 

Finally facing him, Luhan slowly looks down at their locked wrists. Upon seeing this, Sehun suddenly let’s go and turns to blush secretly.

 

“Where is it?”

 

Luhan cocked an eyebrow in confusion. “Where is what?”

 

Sehun rolls his eyes. “The razors…”

 

Widening his eyes, Luhan doesn’t bother to answer and walks in his room and feels Sehun follow him. “Yah! I’m talking to you. Don’t make me tell father to cut off your pay for three months!”

 

Luhan scoffs secretly at the useless threat.

 

“Go ahead,” He watches Sehun gasp before maddening a gaze towards the maid. “I’d rather you not pay me than seeing you get hurt.” With a wide mouth, Sehun is shocked to hear the older say something like this again. He then attempts to search around the room and when he spots a small convenient store bag that he had told Xiaoling to get his “tool” from, he walks towards it with a smirk.

 

Seeing his attempt, Luhan also speed walks to the bag. He manages to get there before Sehun, having an advantage from being so close. His small hands grab a hold of the bag he threw on his bed when he had brought Kyungsoo up earlier. 

 

Sehun frowns.

 

“I’ll make father cut off for five months.”

 

“I don’t care.”

 

“Fine, I’ll tell him a year!”

 

Luhan fumbles with the threat, scrunching his face into the hard situation he got himself into. Sighing, he stepped backwards letting his stance loosen. “Fine. It could be years. I don’t care. I’m not giving you something that would harm you.”

 

Sehun feels his mind blow from Xiaoling’s words and tries not to sink in what he had just heard. “You’re so stupid.” he shakes his head. “How could you say something like that when we hardly know each other.” Sehun steps out of the room, annoyed he didn’t get what he wanted. 

 

I’ll just get it tonight when she’s sleeping.

 

He trudges his body back into his room where he was before and plopped his body on the bed with a groan from nothing but annoyance with the girl next door.

 

Slowly, his eyelids drooped down with exhaustion powering over him. Almost in dreamland, he suddenly felt his bed dip down and groaned when Kai wrapped an arm around him, squeezing him as if it was the end of the world. Scoffing at the tan boy, Sehun struggled and wiggled under him, wanting the already annoying presence to go away.

 

“Stop.” Kai says.

 

Sehun doesn’t listen and tries to free himself from the sudden touchy brother.

 

“Stop” Kai said again.

 

Rolling his eyes, Sehun gave up lifelessly. 

 

He let Kai wrap an arm around his body.

 

“Stop.” 

 

“Kai! I already did!”

 

Silence.

 

Even after Sehun had totally stopped struggling and continue to be molested by his brother. It’s as if Kai had finally shut his mouth for once.

 

“Stop…” He barely spoke again, whispering lightly into Sehun’s neck.

 

Kai turned and held his wrist, tracing the scars that could be seen faintly. The pad of his fingers smoothly passed each scar. Sehun’s eyes are as wide as a deer’s now, stunned at what his brother was doing.

 

“What are you doin-,”

 

“Stop. Just stop Sehun.” Kai interrupts.

 

It took some deep breaths, but Sehun finally grasped the meaning of Kai’s stops. 

 

Kai remembers the first time he found out what Sehun had been doing to himself. It was probably four or five months after he first started. He remembers it clearly, how he broke down and yelled at the younger with pain and anger.

 

He had walked in on him when Sehun forgot to lock the door, claiming he wanted a quick “shower”, so he the water, but never got in. Instead, Kai had opened the door, wanting to find toothpaste, only to be surprised when his eyes spotted Sehun’s body draped against the wall, back hunching. Blood stained the tiles and trails of blood appeared on his wrist, a razor blade clinked the ground as soon as Kai stepped in.

 

It was that moment when Kai screamed at him. He yelled too loud for Sehun’s liking, causing the younger to break down into tears. He let his anger and pain out on the boy, being drilled with pain he couldn‘t keep to himself.

 

After the whole mess, Kai cleaned him up and comforted him with “I’m sorry” and “please forgive me”, feeling drained.

 

Sehun let Kai trace his scars and sometimes even adding a couple of kisses to his wrist. It was comforting, but he wanted to kick him out of his room as soon as possible, now wanting to totally alone. It was after an hour (he guessed?) when he felt Kai leave and his exhaustion flowed in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“What’s up?”

 

Kai didn’t bother any greetings and pushed passed Lay from the doorway, almost tripping on a couple of shoes that aren’t naturally there.

 

As usual, three girls were sitting comfortably on Lay’s white sofa.

 

He ignored them and went through Lay’s fridge, feeling thirsty.

 

“Is something wrong?” Lay interrupted Kai’s gulps on a bottle of water. Eyeing his strange behavior, Lay followed the younger and thought that Kai looked a bit… off. Usually Lay won’t mind his friend coming over, considering how Kai always interrupted Lay’s plans for a day. In fact, he always invited Kai to join in on the fun and today wasn’t any different.

 

“Kai, slow down or you’ll choke.”

 

Kai glared at the boy. “Like you care,” he barked back.

 

Lay smirked. “You’re right, I won’t.”

 

Attempting at ignoring the older male, he made his way to an empty sofa and the volume on the TV, with the show Pororo currently running, drowning out the background noises of Lay’s sudden kissing with the three females.

 

“Why don’t you join us? Hmm?” Lay suggests.

 

He ignores him again and turns the volume even louder, probably disturbing the neighbors in the apartment building.

 

“C’mon. You always say yes.”

 

Still ignoring him, Kai concentrates on the little penguin on TV. He hears Lay sigh behind him and a sentence of, “Suit yourself,” before continuing on with his session.

 

Kai isn’t usually like this. Most of the time, he’d join Lay and get all the fun being reckless and all, but it didn’t feel right this time, as if there’s someone else for him and he knows it too. As if he met someone that could have already changed him.

 

~

 

Back at the big house, Sehun opened Xiaoling’s door slightly, peeking through the small crack illuminating light into her room. Her body was slumped into the bundles of blankets and from where he was, Sehun could see a string hanging from under a pillow that her head rested on.

 

Sehun pushed the door wider, slipping his skinny body into the room before shutting it quietly. He carefully tiptoed his way to the sleeping figure, bending down to reach for the bag that had his razors in.

 

His hands were two inches away from reaching the bag when Xiaoling groaned. Sehun stopped carefully, fully making sure she wasn’t awake. When the coast was clear, he reached for it again, this time stopping for a different reason.

 

He examines over her appearance.

 

Short hair.

 

His fingers instinctively reached to stray some hair, feeling the softness underneath his skin. When did she cut her hair?

 

That’s when her eyelids opened suddenly that Sehun had to jump back.

 

He stands on the ground, locking eyes with those big round eyes and felt his heart beat stop. Both of them did nothing but look at each other in utter confusion, but then she sat up.

 

Sehun snapped out of his trance and quickly reached for the bag before disappearing out the door. The bag was light in his hands, which was odd but he dealt with it anyway. What was strange was that Xiaoling didn’t chase after him. He didn’t give a care too much though, only shutting the door of his bathroom with a slam before locking it.

 

Quickly and excitingly, Sehun ripped the bag open with bubbles already forming in his stomach and grabbed the thing in the bag, only too feel something totally different.

 

“What is this…” Sehun says to himself and takes out the suppose-to-be razors but came out empty handed when candy dropped out. In irritation and impatience, he dumped the whole bag on the ground and more candy sprawled out in display.

 

“Argh!” The young boy stormed out of the bathroom brewing with anger that showed on his face with obvious examination. He noticed Xiaoling at the doorway, looking stiff and innocent but scared at the same time.

 

“What the hell is this?” Sehun demanded an answer stomping his angry way towards the girl now with short hair and dressed in pajama bottoms and a big t-shirt.

 

“It’s candy…” Xiaoling trails and Sehun nods his head in frustration. It was obvious it was candy, but he wanted a different response.

 

“Where are the razors?”

 

Xiaoling frowns.

 

“You think I’d buy them for you? I won’t even let you harm yourself and you’re here thinking I’d do something like this.” Xiaoling gestures.

 

Sehun glares coldly at her.

 

“You stupid girl,” he shakes his head, “why do females care so much? It’s not your problem and all I asked was for a simple task-“

 

“This task affects me! If I’m involved then it is my problem!”

 

Sehun is shocked that Xiaoling would dare interrupt him.

“Just- you know what, just get out of here. Get out of my room and don’t show your face in front of me ever again. I’m telling Father to cut off your pay. You deserve it so much.” Sehun shakes his head sending the girl away.

 

Before she left, Xiaoling stopped midway and turned around.

 

“I won’t let you harm yourself. I may deserve this, but you don’t deserve feeling the pain.”

 

Sehun is left utterly shocked and confused feeling something flip inside his stomach.

 

- - - -

 

I really hope this makes up for the past three months that we haven't updated. We've been really busy and hope this update didn't disappoint you guys. Sorry for the wait!   -hoyourho

Oh and by the way, I don't know why this has such big spacing because I typed this on a Macbook and I usually do it on my regular laptop, so it may appear different.