I look up to see Luhan standing in the doorway but there was something wrong with him. I get up and run over to him up grabbing his face as gently as I could and begin to examine his face. His eye’s swollen and bruised and he has cuts and marks all over his face. “What happened!?” I ask beginning to panic even more than I already was.

I grab his wrist, pulling him into the kitchen and sit him down in one of the chairs from the table. I walk away and over to the freezer, grabbing out an ice pack and taking it back over to Luhan; I pull a chair out and sit in front of him and I lightly place the ice on his eye causing him to flinch. He takes the ice pack from my hand and holds it up to his eye.

He still hasn’t answered my question so I decide to ask him again more calmly this time. “What happened?” He still gives me no response or any form of emotion at all.

I grab his hand and hold it tightly in mine “please, tell me”. Luhan lets out a sigh before answering “I was caught”

Luhan’s POV

~earlier that day~

I grab the ladder from the ground and place it on the wall directly in front of the window on the second story. I climb up and push the window open; and as Xiumin had said it was unlocked and had been slightly open. I crawl through it and let my eyes wander the bedroom, I’ve been in here a thousand times before but I can’t help but to let my eyes wander.

My eyes wander the dark blue painted walls that are covered in posters; I look over to his bed to see the dark red comforter made neat with two pillows arranged neatly on it. His floor had also been very clean as was the rest of his room. He’s always been neat and clean and has always kept his things clean like this. It’s just a natural habit of his.

I begin to wander the room with more than my eyes and with my body, walking around; I make my way to the table next to his bed. There was a tiny drawer connected to it, I begin looking through it.

I’m searching for the blades that Xiumin owns. He showed me that he kept them here the last time I had come over. Hopefully he hadn’t relocated them. I rummage through the junk and CD’s kept in the drawer till I finally find the blades. I pick all of them up; there were nine, three of which were from a razor and the other six from pencil sharpeners.

Where’d he even get all the pencil sharpeners from anyways? I push the thought away as I hear footsteps of someone walking up the stairs. I quickly shove the blades in my pocket, close the drawer and crawl under the bed to hide.

I hear the door creak open and footsteps of who I suppose is Xiumin’s father walk into the room. I hear the footsteps of him walking around the room probably searching for me as I lie under the bed waiting for him to leave.

After a few minutes of hearing footsteps ponder the room I finally hear the door close and hear the footsteps cease. I lay under the bed for a few more minutes to make sure he doesn’t come back into the room.

I roll out from under the bed and begin walking towards the closet. I open it trying to be as quiet as possible and grab a shirt and pants from our uniform. I hear the door creak open and I’m in too much a shock to move. I look over at the door to see Xiumin’s father standing there an angered expression on his face. “Why the are you in my house!?” He yells at me after a few seconds of him staring at me. At this moment I’m full out panicking “I-I’m sorry s-sir I just c-came to get a unif-form for Xiumin in case h-he can come t-to school tomorrow” My hearts pounding and I’m a stuttering mess.

I guess I’m scared because I know what this man is capable of. “I don’t want to hear your bull lies! You broke into my house!” I feel a hard slap across my face and it hurt like hell. I couldn’t help what I had done next; I was pissed about everything that he’s done. What he’d just done to me and all he’s done to Xiumin. I clench my fist, bringing it up and punching Xiumin’s father across the face.

“Oh, by the way that’s for all you’ve done to Xiumin” I punch him again this time with more force than the last one. “Stop using that petty name for him it’s so irritating and dumb. He deserves the pain he gets just like you deserve this” He lifts his leg into my gut causing me to collapse in pain.

Before I know it I’m getting a hard kick to the nose causing it to begin bleeding. He grabs my shirt and pulls me up “Get up you weakling” He punches me across my face next to my eye, and then knees me once again. But I don’t go down this time I refuse to lose, I refuse to let this man beat me.

I lift my leg, kicking this man in the groin with as much force as I could and he almost instantly goes down as I do so.

I squat down next to him, punching him once more. I stand up beginning to walk away but Xiumin’s father grabs my ankle causing me to stumble over. He got up and picks me up by my throat choking me as he does so.

I struggle to get free from his grip but he doesn’t want to let go of me “Listen here you little er, stay out of my house and don’t ever try to defend Minseok again. He ruined my life, my happiness, my joy in life therefore I have every right to hurt the little ”

I’m dropped and I struggle to catch my breath, rubbing my neck and coughing a bit as I do so. “Now, get out of my house before I kill you, you damn ”. He turns around, walking out of the room leaving the door open. I grab the uniform off the floor and crawl back through the window and down the ladder. There’s no way I’m going downstairs; definitely not with that madman down there. I pull the ladder off the wall, placing it on the ground. I walk over to my car, getting in it and beginning to drive away.

I get so distracted by my thoughts of what had just happened and Xiumin that I forget to pay attention to the road I’m driving. Luckily I have every turn, and stop memorized. I’ve driven this route so many times before.

Why would I have done that? I just made Xiumin’s father hate me and now he’s gonna take it out on poor Xiumin. . What have I gotten him in to? His life is pretty much ruined and it’s my entire fault. Why would I even do that? Maybe I deserve it. The pain I had just gotten, maybe I did deserve it.

I find myself glancing down at my wrist; their covered in old scars. All faded but not completely gone; my entire forearm is full of them from when I used to harm. I’ve been clean for a little over a month now. Has it been too long? I feel the need to start doing it again. But should I? Is it really the right thing to do?

I snap back into myself as I pull into the parking lot of the four story high apartment building. I get out of my car, walking over to the other side of it and pulling the side door open. I pull my red zip-up jacket out of the seat pulling it on and zipping it. I put my hood on to hide my face and walk into the building with my head lowered. Instead of taking the elevator like I normally would I walk past it and to the staircase walking slowly up the stairs and up to the third floor taking as much time as I can.

Xiumin’s POV

~Present time~

Luhan explains everything that had happened between him and my father. I feel guilty, like it’s my fault he had gotten hurt though. Once he finishes telling me what had happened I say “This is my entire fault, I should have gone with you. Maybe then you wouldn’t be hurt right now. I’m so sorry.’

Luhan places his hand on my shoulder “This is not your fault at all and I wouldn’t have wanted you to come anyways because then you’d be the one hurt right now. I can’t stand the thought of you being hurt. I should be the one who feels sorry right now, not you”

I furrow my eyebrows and slightly tilt my head in confusion “Sorry? Why would you be sorry?”

“Because, now when you get home your dads gonna hurt you case I pissed him off and it’s all my fault”

He’s gonna beat himself up over this? Because I’m going to get hurt?

“He was gonna hurt me no matter what; it’s not your fault at all Luhan please, don’t think like that” I pull him into a hug trying my best to comfort him but still being careful not to hurt him. Luhan sets the ice pack on the table and wraps his arms around me returning the hug. “Don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine; I’m used to him hurting me. Considering how often it happens.”

We pull out of the hug “Do you want me to get anything for you?” I ask, Luhan shakes his head “I’m gonna go shower, I need to wash all this blood off me” He stands up and slowly walks away and out of the kitchen limping a bit.

I sit in the kitchen for a few more moments before getting up and walking into the living room. I sit down on the couch realizing I never ate the chips I had gotten earlier but I’m in no mood to eat them now. I pick them up, lightly tossing them onto the table next to me and grab the TV remote, turning the TV on. I look through the channels and what’s on in hopes to find something interesting but as usual there’s nothing that perks my interest so I turn on the news. I didn’t really pay much attention to it though.

After about 30 minutes Luhan walks out of the bathroom in the same hoodie he had been in before and pajama pants.

“Hey, what time is it?” He asks walking over to the couch. I pull my phone out unlocking it to check the time “A bit after 9:30” He sits down next to me and I grab his hand holding it in mine. He looks down at our hands that are together, then back up to me and smiles. He’s so cute when he smiles. I give him a smile back “We should be getting to bed now considering we have school in the morning…” I pause for a moment…” I pause for a moment remembering why Luhan had to go to my house. “Oh yeah, did you get my uniform?” He throws his head back and groans “I left it in my car with your bag” I laugh a little at how cute he’s currently being. Well he’s always cute but right now he’s being really adorable. “Its fine, I’ll get it in the morning…oh how does your eye feel?” It still looks swollen not as bad as it had been earlier. “Its fine it still hurts but not as bad as it had earlier” I lean over and slightly and gently kiss his swollen eye “To help heal it” I say smiling.

He pulls our hands that are still conjoined up, flipping them over so my hands above his and kisses it.

((Author’s note))

Okay so this chapter is longer than the other ones have been. I hope you’re enjoying the story so far and I hope you continue to enjoy it. I wanted to add a plot twist and some action into this so yeah, Luhan got beat up.

I have certain days I’ll be updating. There will be three updates per week so look forward to that. I’ll be updating every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday’s. But there will be times I won’t be able to update cause of the fact of being busy and such.

What do you think of the story so far? Is it good? I’ve already finished it but I’m going through adding and rewriting stuff so is there anything you’d like me to add in? I’ll take suggestions for the story.