Sehun waited outside the classroom door, he knew Luhan was probably already inside but he refrained from checking because he needed to stay focused on his mission. He wanted to apprehend Jongin before he made it into class, in order to ask about Luhan. The minutes ticked by and he waited as more and more students  filtered past into the classroom. Finally with only half a minute before class began Sehun simply gave up and ducked inside, followed by Jongin who appeared out of breath. Sehun sighed as he took his seat, realizing he might have to wait for tomorrow since Jongin wasn’t likely to leave Luhan alone all day.

    As he was about to glance back to catch a glimpse of his fairy the teacher finally entered and class began. Sehun kept stealing looks back towards Luhan for the entire class and something seemed wrong. As always Luhan was diligently taking notes, but whenever Sehun turned around his head was always down over his paper, his hair obscuring his face. Luhan always seemed so animated during class, it was such fun to watch someone so thoroughly invested in their studies, so it was strange when he didn’t seem to be looking up at all.

Sehun became worried as the behavior persisted through the other morning classes and when the lunch bell finally rang he stood immediately and walked in the direction of Luhan’s desk. Jongin was already there, facing backwards in his seat but something about his posture looked off as well. Reaching the desk and pulling up a chair he took a seat.

“You guys mind if I join you?” Jongin turned and instead of the normal irritation Sehun saw something else in his eyes, though he wasn’t sure what.

“Sure, go ahead, its not like you’re really asking after all.” Jongin seemed to be making a cursory attempt at being mean but it fell flat and lacked almost any malice. Finally Luhan turned his head, and slowly, almost reluctantly he met Sehun’s eyes, and Sehun stopped breathing.

“What the hell happened?” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could put a stopper on them, but he was in shock. Luhan, his perfect delicate fairy, had been hurt. The black eye was overly obvious on his pale skin and just seeing such a bruise on his angel’s face made Sehun feel sick.

Luhan let out a laugh that sounded a little too forced and he bit his lower lip. “Its entirely my fault, I walked into a doorframe because I wasn’t paying attention.” He gave himself a mock hit on the head with one tiny fist and stuck out his tongue. “I might be a lost cause, nothing can seem to cure my klutziness.” He laughed again, nervously looking towards the desk in front of him.

Sehun glanced at Jongin for a split second and in that one look they both agreed, Luhan wasn’t telling them everything. Turning back towards his fairy Sehun felt a rush of guilt, he felt guilty because of how scared Luhan had looked yesterday after practice and he felt guilty because Luhan was keeping whatever had happened a secret because he didn’t want to cause his friends pain.

Sehun realized he was burning with anger. Luhan shouldn’t have to feel this way, Luhan should never have to face the pain alone like this, hell, he should never have to be in pain at all. If someone was hurting his fairy he would kill them, death might not even be enough of a punishment for them. He’d burn them alive or feed them to wild animals, they deserved to suffer for what they’d done, hurting something as sweet and innocent as Luhan. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t going to leave Luhan’s side, from now on.

“Um, I wanted to thank you again for yesterday, you really helped me improve. But I’m sorry to waste your time like that, since I’ll never be much good at anything.” Luhan was finally speaking again and Sehun felt appalled at his words. Wasting his time? Luhan doesn’t think he’s good at anything? Juat what was going on?

“Stop that Lulu,” Jongin was the first one to step in. “If either of us think you’re a waste of our time then surely hell has frozen over.” He gave a wry laugh.

Sehun nodded vigorously and ruffled Luhan’s hair. “That’s right, you’re more important than anything I could have possibly done yesterday.”

Luhan was speechless, how did he manage to befriend such wonderful people? Jongin was always looking out for him and even though he’d barely met Sehun he was already soothing his worries. The worst part of the moment was when Luhan realized it was almost possible to believe what they said. And he wanted to, he really wanted to, he knew it was horrible of him to think they would lie, but deep down he knew his father was right. He was just a waste of space, good for nothing, useless, and no one really liked him. He felt tears in his eyes when he thought this and he hurried to try and brush them away. A hand took hold of his wrist though, and he looked up into Jongin’s eyes.

“Lulu?” Jongin whispered as he gently wiped Luhan’s tears off of his cheek. “What’s wrong?”

Luhan gave a pitiful smile, “I don’t deserve such wonderful friends.” Was all he managed to say before starting to really cry.

Jongin and Sehun looked at each other for all of a second before they were both on their feet, each on either side of Luhan, wrapping their arms around him protectively and shushing him gently.

“Why would you say that Lulu? Out every person in the entire world, you deserve to be happy, and to have friends that make you happy. And right now it doesn’t seem like we’re doing such a good job with that.” Jongin pinched Luhan’s cheeks.

“Give us a smile won’t you? Come on.” And so Luhan smiled, although tears ran down his face in rivers, he gave the saddest sweetest smile that Sehun had ever seen and he felt his heart break in two. He never wanted to see Luhan hurt like this again, never. He was going to find out what had really happened, and he was going to fix it.