39. SHATTER

They reach the support group centre late after all, so everyone is already gathered, sat in a circle, as they walk in together.

“Our favourite couple,” Jongdae greets, waving them in. He gives Junmyeon a look, waggling his brows. “No offence, Junmyeon, but you and Yixing have officially been beat.”

Junmyeon opens his mouth to retort but Yixing cuts him off. “I think we can live with that,” he laughs, eyes glinting as Junmyeon’s lips close once more, forming a pout.

Kyungsoo takes the seat next to Tao, blushing slightly with the compliment and everyone’s gaze. Jongin immediately takes the seat on his other side, and a chorus of oohs and awhs start up in the group.

“Oh, shut up,” Jongin rolls his eyes, but he looks pleased.

“How’s the honeymoon phase phasing, then?” Luhan pipes up from across the room. “Have you got past the point of gooey-eyed longing stares or-“

He trails off though when Kyungsoo and Jongin look to one another as he speaks, and there must be something in that look for the way he sighs, “okay, fine, still in the gooey-eyed bit then-“

“Oh, shut up, Luhan, let them be lovey dovey,” Tao admonishes with no real malice, smiling from ear-to-ear.

“WOW, THIS IS HOW THE YOUNGEST SPEAKS TO HIS ELDER IN THIS PLACE, HUH, TELLING THEM TO SHUT UP?” Luhan faux-yells, a -eating grin on his face. “I gotta knock you down a peg or two.”

“Good luck with that,” Jongdae pipes in. “First get past his bodyguards.”

Jongdae turns pointedly towards Kris first, who is fixing Luhan with a pair of shrewd, unamused eyes, and then to Yixing, who is staring at Tao with the same fondness he always holds when the youngest speaks.

Luhan grouches. “Life isn’t fair on the elders of the world.”

Laughter bursts out across the circle at this, reverberating around the room like birdsong.

If Kyungsoo had to pick which laugh he feels the warmest hearing, the one most contagious within the group, it would be Tao's. His whole face lights up with his laughter, joy emanating from him and spreading through the room. Kyungsoo sees it now too, head inclined Tao’s way as his eyes crinkle into crescents and the short, childish chimes of his laugh pass from his mouth. It’s precious.

But it’s just as Kyungsoo is thinking all this that he watches the expression on Tao’s face suddenly dissolve, like a flame being extinguished: sheathing the room around it into darkness. The crescents of Tao’s eyes widen, lips shaping into a horrified 'o', and then this short, almost inaudible passing of air through his teeth, like an involuntary gasp. Kyungsoo follows Tao's eyes, turning his head to see what could evoke such a reaction, and that’s when he hears Tao say something which makes his blood run cold.

"Father." Tao whispers out from next to him, just loud enough for Kyungsoo alone to catch.

Kyungsoo's eyes widen and he looks to the man across the room, frozen in the doorway and staring straight at Tao with an indescribable expression on his face. Kyungsoo's nails dig into his skin, and around him the others are still laughing, yet to notice the presence in the room, though Kyungsoo can now see Yixing faltering and setting a worried pair of eyes on Tao.

"Tao?" He questions, voice wary. "Tao, what's wro-"

"Huang Zitao."

Yixing freezes, the laughs around the room simmering down in one single second, and Tao, visibly shaking, stands up on unsteady feet, as everyone else turns to see the new presence in the room.

"F-father," he repeats, louder this time. "F-father wha-what are you-"

"Zitao," his father cuts in, voice so cold that Kyungsoo can feel his own blood curdle in fright. "Zitao, what is," he takes a glance around the room, "this?"

Kyungsoo can feel Tao's body tense beside him when his father takes a few steps forwards to get to him, and Kyungsoo reflexively moves a hand forwards to give the younger boy a quick squeeze on the thigh, trying to calm him down, to soothe him, though he knows it is impossible.

"Zitao," the man calls out loudly, though he is now only a metre away.

He is smaller than Tao, and by much too, but his build is wider and the way he looks up at Tao and Tao shrinks back makes the height difference non-existent.

In this scenario, Tao is always smaller - is that not what he'd said, all those sessions back now? Kyungsoo can only believe it now, when the infuriated man is a mere metre away and the look in his eyes is so overpowering, glinting so very dangerously, that Kyungsoo can feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, hit with an overwhelming urge to lower his gaze.

"Huang Zitao," the man says, "Huang Zitao, do not tell me, do not expect me to believe, that the son I raised, the only son I can call my own in this world-" he pauses to gulp and Kyungsoo can see his hands balled into fists by his sides, shaking.

"Do not tell me," he continues, voice stone cold, "that I have raised a ."

Kyungsoo inadvertently flinches at the expletive but he does not even get to see Tao's reaction before a hand grips onto the younger's arm, hard enough to make him cry out, and the two are walking out - Tao trying to keep up in his shaking state as words spew from his father's mouth like knives: "filthy", "not my son", "not a ing ."

"Wait!" A voice calls out, and Tao is at the edge of the circle when Yixing stands up. "Wait, Mr Huang!”

Tao’s father rounds on Yixing quick, and he points an accusing finger Yixing’s way. “You,” he evokes with pure disdain. “You’re leading this disgusting group, are you? Telling him it’s okay to not be a ing man, huh?” He steps forward, a threat, but immediately Junmyeon occupies the space between them, standing up tall and with a silent fury emanating from his person; Kyungsoo didn’t know the man was capable of such a look. Mr Huang hesitates at the move, but then an incredulous laugh peels from between his lips as he regards them, probably noticing the unmistakable care of lovers in their stance, their proximity. He shakes his head once, and turns on the spot again, continuing towards the door with Tao still held firmly in his hand.

Yixing steps around Junmyeon quickly, fast to keep up, but the man carries on walking at his own speed, still spewing out words to the boy in his grasp.

"Wait!" Yixing tries again, moving to step out of the circle, but Junmyeon wraps his arms around him from behind, holding him back and halting his movements forward.

Yixing turns to his boyfriend, eyes wide and filling with tears fast, and he struggles to escape, turning back to the door where Tao is being taken from.

"No! WAIT!" He calls out, thrashing in Junmyeon's grasp. "Let go, let me go! I can't- he can't- TAO!"

Yixing thrashes even more when Tao turns back to him, tears falling fast on his own cheeks, nose pink and lips shaking in fear, but that is the last image of his face before he is taken behind the door and his father's voice muffles slightly, against walls which he walks past more quickly.

"No!" Yixing calls out, hurling his body forwards towards the door, and Kyungsoo has never before seen him look so distressed. "No, no, no, not-"

But he is cut off again when he hears, from a distance, Tao's voice calling out to him, though it shakes and cuts off immediately after.

"SUHO!" Yixing yells, writhing harder than ever. "Suho, he's calling for me! LET ME GO! PLEASE! NOT TAO, PLEASE!"

But before Yixing can move to escape once more, Junmyeon twists his body around and hugs him tight to his chest. Yixing still cries, and it’s an awful, anguished cry, so horrendously pained. Kyungsoo isn’t sure he’ll forget that cry for a long, long time. Yixing, trapped in Junmyeon’s embrace, starts beating against his partner’s chest with an unexpected level of desperation. He calls out for Tao in a choked, screeching voice, but Junmyeon only holds the man firmly in place and shakes his head over and over.

"Xing," he says against Yixing's head, though Kyungsoo can hear the falter in his own voice too. "Xing, please. You know we can't, you know that we can't do that."

Yixing's shaking is uncontrollable, his head buried in the crook of Junmyeon's neck and hands clawing desperately at the other man's shirt, and his head still shakes furiously, a chorus of 'no, no, no, no, no' slipping from his lips like a mantra.

"Xing-ah," Junmyeon tries again, cradling hands over Yixing's cheeks and trying to meet his darting, frenzied eyes. "Xing, please. We can't do anything. Please, Xing-ah. You know we can't. We can't do anything."

Yixing suddenly pulls away, tears still falling fast down his cheeks as he runs, not towards the door, but towards the room at the side, where he disappears with a slam and a sharp cut-off cry.

There is silence for a long moment, save for Yixing's muffled sobs behind the door to their side. It only breaks with a question Kyungsoo himself is too scared to voice out.

"Is he-" Kris starts, and it's only then that Kyungsoo notices how very tortured he looks, his hand gripping tightly onto the edges of his chair. "Is Tao going to be okay?"

The question is directed at Junmyeon who is still stood in the middle, worried eyes trained on the door which Yixing is behind, though he hears it.

Junmyeon stays silent.

Kyungsoo sees Kris's face scrunch up, and a dreadful seriousness blankets over the group, but a question still remains unasked, and Kyungsoo fears the answer perhaps even more than the other.

"What did Yixing mean? ‘Not again’" Jongin is the one who says it, his voice steadier than the rest, and though his question is open-ended, Kyungsoo knows the elder boy understands what he is asking when Junmyeon's face falls even more.

"It has happened before. Once. At the very beginning, when we first started he group,” he says simply. "Though there wasn’t much we can do about it. When parents find out about the group, quite a few of them disapprove. But we have no power over how they parent their own children. We have no legal right to intervene. But Yixing- he tried to… tried to contact the student after. Help them. The parents found out and it was…” Junmyeon’s eyes turn distant, remembering a past they were never a part of. It takes him a long moment to find the right wording, and when he looks up and to the group, there’s something glassy, almost tortured to his eyes. “It was a messy situation.”

A short moment of silence and then, "what happened to that member?” Jongin asks, and Kyungsoo's breath bates in apprehension, eyes wide and waiting.

Another moment of silence, longer this time, and then-

"We... don’t know.”

A/N

(please don't kill me for making this happen)

(It hurt to even write)