chapter twenty six: xxvi. to save a life

“Call me whenever you need me to pick you up from the police station or whatever. Not that that will ever happen, right?” I glared at the boy.

He nodded obediently, rolling his eyes. “Why are you so obsessed with me, anyway?”

I thought for a second. “Well maybe it’s like… since I saved your life, I feel like I hold responsibility over what you do now.”

He rolled his eyes again. “You did not save my life. But whatever. You have my number, so see ya!”

He said this as if he wasn’t using crutches to limp away.

Tao had talked with him, and I had no idea what he had said to convince the boy to tell him, but apparently Chanwoo was the maknae of a gang called WIN, though who knew why, and that man (and his lackey) had been after him because of something the gang had done to him. The gang wasn’t really a gang… it was a gang wannabe, more like. All of its members were very young, the oldest being twenty.

We had gone to his favourite hyung, a kid named Bobby. He was my age, and somehow knew first aid much too well than someone my age should. He had removed the bullet and cleaned the wound, and that was how we’d come to have Chanwoo limping away from the two of us on crutches with a well bandaged leg.

But yeah, what I had told him was true. Now that I had saved his life I felt kind of protective of him, and also like I was responsible for whatever he did. Even though I hadn’t really saved his life… that was more Tao.

I turned to Tao, letting out a sigh of relief. I shook my head in disbelief. “What just happened?”

“Today was a long day,” Tao groaned, rubbing his eyes as he walked me to my dorm room like he always insisted he would (“I’m a man! I’m going to do it!”).

I nodded tiredly, yawning. This caused him to yawn, which made both of us giggle a little bit.

“From dancing to coffee to almost getting shot… every single part of the day was exciting,” I grinned.

“I still can’t believe you don’t like bubbles.”

“Sehun already bugged me enough about it, dude. Leave me alone.”

We arrived in front of the dorm, and I turned, smiling. “Thanks, Tao. Good night.”

He looked like he was going to say something, but instead leaned down and gave me a tight hug. I squeaked in surprise, but quickly eased up and hugged him back. “I’m so glad we got out of that safely,” he breathed.

“Me too,” I whispered.

“A ing gang?” he breathed.

I could practically see the anger smoking out of his ears, creating a huge cloud of smoke over his head as his eyes flashed red-I shook myself. If you don’t answer, he’s going to get more pissed.

“Yeah well… u-um…” I stuttered, looking anywhere but his eyes.

“They had a ing gun?”

I nodded nervously. “But Pandtao was with me, you see…” I looked up at him hopefully, to look down quickly to avoid the anger.

“You helped a kid who had a ing gunwound?”

“Well, Chanwoo was bleeding a lot… he’s younger than us, only in middle school!” I looked for help, at Kris, who shrugged his shoulders at me, as if to say, if I get in the way, I’ll get killed. I looked to Minseok, who sighed and stepped inbetween the two of us.

“Ha, Suho, see, Tao and Jooeun are both totally fine! Nothing bad happened, and nothing bad will happen. Everything’s good.”

“Did I ask you, Kim Minseok?” Junmyeon snarled at him.

Minseok straightened up, looking Junmyeon straight into the eyes. “Kim Junmyeon, don’t go talking to me as if I’m younger than you. I am your hyung and I’m not afraid to give you a thumping when you’re not thinking straight.” He glared at him. “I look young, but I’m still your elder so you better keep yourself in check.”

As if snapping out of a daze, Junmyeon jumped up, before bowing meekly at Minseok. “I’m sorry Xiumin hyung I don’t know what came up to me I just-”

“I know, I know, you got angry and then you couldn’t control yourself. We know. We’ve seen it happen way too many times.” Minseok rolled his eyes, stepping out from inbetween the two of us.

“I’m sorry Jun oppa we were just talking for a long time at the coffee shop and then we were coming back and then we heard a gunshot and then we went into an alley to hide and some kid runs in limping and then I helped him with his wound and then Tao jumped out to beat the guy up like a stupid idiot and then there was another guy so I tripped him before he could attack Tao and then I kneed that guy in the balls and Tao knocked him out and then we quickly took Chanwoo-the kid, I mean, to some guy who helped him and yeah.” I took a deep breath.

“You-you-” Junmyeon tried to speak, before failing and just sighing.

“What he means is that we’re just glad that Tao was with you and that you’re a stupid brave idiot but we love you and we’re just glad that you’re alive,” Baekhyun burst in, grinning. “And you know what that calls for? Group hug!” He hugged me first, and everyone else quickly piled around us, hugging.

“GUYS-I-CAN’T-BREATHE!” I choked into Baekhyun’s neck-not being able to turn my face in any other direction due to the tangling of many arms.

“She can’t breathe, guys,” said Baekhyun, who was probably the only one who had been able to understand what I had said.

Eventually, people starting backing out of the hug, and I was able to remove my face from his neck, though he refused to let go of me. “Baek oppa…” I mumbled, looking up at him and quickly averting my gaze-because as soon as I had looked up my gaze had gone to his lips.

“Yah Byun Baekhyun if you don’t let go of her right now-”

“Don’t speak to me informally,” Baekhyun frowned at Tao, before reluctantly releasing hold of me.

Tao mumbled something under his breath in Mandarin, causing all who understood (meaning Kris, Lay, Luhan, Minseok, and Jongdae) to choke, obviously trying not to laugh. Baekhyun swore, saying something like, “I knew I should’ve taken Mandarin instead of Japanese,” causing another round of laughter, this time from everyone.

Being the kind of person who hated being out of the loop, I hurried over to Jongdae and nudged him lightly on the arm. “What did he say?”

“That in terms of height, he’s older than him. Much older than him.” Jongdae laughed. “I know that I shouldn’t even laugh at that, but I couldn’t resist.”

I giggled. “Kris oppa must be ancient compared to me, then.”

Jongdae started laughing again, eyes crinkling up amusedly. He bellowed something in Mandarin, mentioning my name and something I could kind of make out to be Kris’ Chinese name-Yifan, causing all who understood to start laughing again.

Tao hooted, high fiving me. “As expected of my baobei,” he murmured affectionately, messing my hair up.

My eyes lit up in comprehension. “I know what that means! That means baby, right?”

He nodded. “How do you know?”

I laughed. “I have a long history of starting to learn languages but never finishing… Mandarin was one of them. I learned limited vocabulary but that’s it. Aren’t I cool, Yixing ge?” I asked, to make a point.

Lay’s eyes lit up. “Call me that from now on, okay?”

“No that’s not fair! You have to call me that too! Call me Lulu ge! Or Han ge! Even though only my mom calls me that,” Lu Han laughed sheepishly.

“Call me Tao ge!” Tao whined.

“You’re not even older than me, Pandtao…” I rolled my eyes. “But I’ll call Yixing ge-wait no, Angelicorn ge and Lulu ge by what they want.”

Yixing rolled his eyes at me, but couldn’t hide his sweet smile, dimple showing. I had to stop myself from going over there and chubbing his cheeks. “Okay, mei mei.”

“How about me?” Kris asked, dumbfounded by the fact that he was left out.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, FanFan ge.”

The group continued bickering until Tao announced that he and I needed to go practice our dance.

“Almost get killed one day, practicing your dance the other,” Junmyeon muttered, shaking his head at us. “I can’t believe you two.”

“That’s what we do,” I grinned, winking at him. I grabbed Tao’s hand, before using my other hand to wave to them and sprinted off.

“JOO JOO!”

I looked up from my exhausted position on the dance room floor to see Chanyeol grinning down at me, holding a plastic bag full of drinks and snacks. He placed them on the floor beside me before holding a hand out to me. I took it, and he helped me into a sitting position. He sat down beside me, taking a still cold drink out of the plastic bag and handed it to me. I one-shotted it. Then, he tossed some more drinks to everyone else before turning back to me.

“How’s the dance going?” he asked, ripping open a bag of Korean style corn chips.

“Good,” I replied as I reached into the bag to grab a handful of chips and stuff them into my mouth. “I’m so tired,” I said in between a mouthful, and he couldn’t help but laugh at me.

“Aigoo, my little Joo Joo is so cute,” muttered Chanyeol affectionately, ruffling my hair.

“Do you know where Tao went? He disappeared like a minute ago.”

He grinned evilly. “I bribed him with food to leave me alone with you.”

I raised (or tried to) an eyebrow at him. “So alone,” I laughed, motioning to Sunyoung, Seulgi and Jinki who were all on their phones.

“You know how clingy he is… if he was here I wouldn’t get any skinship at all,” he whined.

“I can’t believe he betrayed me… now I’m stuck with you,” I teased.

He pouted, about to say something when Jinki’s voice cut through. “Yo guys I’m bushed, let’s just go back to the dorms and rest before practicing tomorrow, okay?”

We all nodded, and I pulled myself to my feet, shooting my now empty drink can into the garbage can. It went in and I cheered.

Then I yawned, rubbing my eyes automatically.

“Come here,” he said, and I walked over to him and gave him a giant hug, breathing in the scent of his soft and warm hoodie, his comforting smell luring me to sleep.

Somehow he guided me out of the building, to the dorm building, up the stairs, and to my dorm room. My eyes were closed the whole time, and I was on the verge of falling asleep. But I felt safe tucked away into his side, as if nothing could really hurt me and as if I truly belonged there.

Somewhere along these thoughts, I realized that this feeling was a feeling of trust. And I decided that I liked this feeling.

I heard Amber’s voice, and felt Chanyeol leading me to my bed, taking his arm away from around me and tucking me in.

“Sleep well, Jooeun,” whispered Chanyeol with a tender smile on his face.

A/N: Sorry, it's been so long!! I just wanted to pop a chapter in right before my exams start... thankfully I finished my summatives now... but I need to study :P

[there's a part of me that's like how many cliches can I fit into this fic-so lmao gangs]

[and i might write a spinoff fic based on sukjin-and i also might write one based on chanwoo or someone in ikon...]

Next chapter... is I don't even know when. Okay. Until then!! (check out my co-auther XIUHAN fic Origami or my own other XIUHAN fic Cry in the meantime)

~Jinny out