“Are you okay? What on Earth happened?” the guys surrounded Nayeon and she was hit with a flurry of questions. “How am I supposed to answer all that at one go??” she snapped, eyebrows knitted together from the pain as Luhan and Xiumin helped her to sit up. “And which part of me looks like I’m okay to you?” she shot Chen a death glare as he was the first to ask her if she was alright.

 

“Just you snapping at us like that is enough to show that you are fine isn’t it?” Chanyeol muttered to himself but Baekhyun overheard and smacked his arm lightly giving him the ‘hey-that-wasn’t-nice' look.

 

“Sometimes she just makes it so hard for people to be nice to her. Ughh.” Chen rolled his eyes before submitting with “Ayy whatever! Let’s get you back to the dorm before we see what we can do with that.”, pointing to her bleeding hand.

 

“Get on!” Luhan bent down lower to piggyback Nayeon and Chen felt himself aching from jealousy. Xiumin held onto her to stabilize her as she climbed onto Luhan’s back.

 

A dirty, muddy and unkempt Soomin answered the door when they reached the dorm. Guys were normally not allowed into the girls’ dorm but seeing that Nayeon was so seriously injured, the security Uncle decided to make it an exception. “Oh my, what happened?” Soomin started blabbering loudly but stopped when Chanyeol’s hand flew to almost immediately, signaling for her to lower down her volume.

 

“What the hell happened? I’ve barely even settled down from training and…and this…WHAT IS THIS.” she screeched when Luhan settled Nayeon down on the sofa carefully not wanting to add on to the pain Nayeon was experiencing. Meanwhile Baekhyun and Chanyeol phoned the rest of EXO who were chilling at the baseball basement because baseball training ended late.

 

“Will you please just not be so loud? Do you want the whole dorm to come over and complain about us being at a girl’s dorm, and much worse making a din?” Chen scowled. “Then why not just tell me what happened? I’m worried too okay.” The two were too busy to realize that Nayeon’s frown grew deeper.

 

“If you guys are not going to help and choose to carry on bickering away why not you guys just leave us for the moment. Nayeon needs her space.” The eldest, Xiumin walked into the living room with the first aid kid he found in the storeroom. As if on cue, the rest of the EXO barged into the room and made a commotion out of it and everyone wanted to know what happened. Just when Xiumin was about to holler at them to shut up, Kris got them to settle down in the small living room.

“There, I'm done. I guess you’ll be fine for now." Luhan bandaged up her wounds after Xiumin applied some antiseptic cream on her. Nayeon wasn’t too sure about that though. She has been injured countless of times when playing this sport but this was one where the wound bled unusually profusely and the fact that it caused her hand to feel numb really worried her.

Being the tough and strong girl she was not wanting the members to worry, she dried her tears and forced a smile. “Yeah sure guys, I’m fine. Don’t worry, it’s just a small injury. About how it came about err…” she hesitated before saying “It’s just me being careless.”

 

“How was that even you being careless? When we found you we bumped into that and her friends, what’s her name again…” Baekhyun recalled.

 

“UGRH IT’S THAT GINA AGAIN? NAYEON QUIT PUTTING UP WITH HER MAN.” Soomin was angry. She’d never have a disturb Nayeon especially when Nayeon was her bestie. Kyungsoo pats her back, telling her to calm down.

 

After whispering to Kris, Tao stood up and walked towards the door even though Kris tried to stop him.

 

“Tao, please… Don’t make things any worse than it already is for me ok? The league is around the corner and at this rate I’m guessing Coach will probably get me to sit out this year and I can’t afford to let that happen. Our first major examination is coming up as well. If I don’t recover by then what am I going to do, what if I screw up this exam and can’t graduate with you guys? Do you know how troubled I am now? Do you?”  Nayeon finally spilled everything out and her voice turned into a whisper towards the end as tears start to fall from her eyes, which were already swollen from crying in the afternoon. She never meant to lash it out on Tao, it was just that she could no longer keep her emotions within her.

 

Tao was just as shocked as the other members were, except Chen that is, who were seeing Nayeon cry for the first time ever since they knew her and the room fell silent.

 

“About your studies, don’t worry, I’m sure the school can have some special arrangements for you during the examination and you can always come to me if you need help! I have the same classes as you!” Sehun offered, breaking the tense atmosphere.

 

“That’s right, and about Coach… If your hand gets well enough by the first game, I can talk to Coach for you such that she would register you but otherwise...I’m sorry to say this but I rather you not play for the league this year because you'll injure yourself further if you do.” Kris continued, with a few more ‘cheer-up’s and “it’s okay, don’t worry” following at the back. And the teammates who were sitting closer to Nayeon reached out to pat her shoulders reassuringly.

 

Nayeon felt much better after listening to her teammates' words and she offered a slight smile to ease the situation. After EXO returned to their respective dorm rooms, Nayeon laid in bed wondering if her hand will really heal in time, or if it would even be able to function normally again.

 

Author's note:

Thanks again to the nest Beta in the world :D Hope the story is okay up till now! Appreciate if you will leave me comments!