trigger warning y'all

(y am I like this)

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Just as the grating sound of the bell echoed into the room, he frantically planted his body into his chair right before eagle eyes swept the area, looking to single him out.

He was on time today.

A skeptical stare burned through the middle-aged man's thick glasses. "Mr. Cha," he said, and the way the name left his chapped lips didn't sound as accusing as it usually did, but also didn't suggest he was pleased to see him.

"Hi," he responded in a small voice, shifting in his seat. He didn't like people staring at him, but this happened every day, so you'd figure they'd be used to it by now.

"Congratulations, boy. You learned how to read a clock," the teacher grumbled, turning back around and beginning to write on the board using a fading green marker.

Hakyeon let out a sigh of relief as he watched the teacher's bony fingers move to write out an equation. Despite another encounter with those stupid boys who refused to ever leave him alone, today, he was actually on time.

He was feeling pretty good for once, accomplishment welling up in his chest and making him sit up almost straight in his chair (a rare occurrence, mind you).

That was until he noticed that his shorts had ridden up his right leg at some point - enough to be able to see the ugly purple bruise spreading across both his knee and his thigh. Frantically, he pulled the material back over the bruise, frowning and sighing because he swore he could feel eyes on him, but he couldn't bring himself to check.

His eyes were glued to the carpet when out of nowhere, the bell rang for the second time in the past few minutes, and he watched in confusion and shock as every student except him and a girl with giant round glasses sprung out of their seats and bolted out into the hallway.

"What's going on?" he asked anxiously, turning to face the teacher, but as if by magic, he had disappeared.

"Gym," he heard a little voice say, and with a glance behind him he realized that it was the petite girl with the not-so-petite glasses.

"Huh?"

"This is what always happens," she told him with a sigh, suddenly moving backwards into the open, and that was the moment Hakyeon realized she was sitting in a wheelchair, using her sleeve-covered arms to push her out from behind her desk.

His eyes widened a little at the strange circumstances, but he shook away any reaction, not wanting to offend her and instead cleared his throat awkwardly. "Do you want me to push you?" he offered politely, standing up and looking her in the eye.

The girl seemed surprised, but nodded, her face seeming to get slightly redder. Hakyeon, completely oblivious, stepped forward and wrapped his fingers around the handles before beginning to push her towards the doorway. He walked confidently, almost like he'd done this before, taking them both out of the classroom and into the hall.

But he realized quickly that it wasn't actually the hall, doing a double take at the discovery that everything had shifted around him in the blink of an eye.

He had just stepped directly into the gym, and somehow, the wheelchair and the girl were both gone, leaving empty space in his hands. He was not alone either, as he might expect; a certain group of boys that he knew all too well were at the end of the giant room, dribbling around basketballs, laughing about something with each other.

Uh oh. Not good. Not good at all.

He scanned the place over to the left, then to the right only to find that it was only himself and those horrible boys in there.

He needed to get out. Fast.

But he felt something in him break a little when he wheeled around to rush to the now somehow extremely far away door, and he heard a familiar voice yell out behind him.

"Hey, ! Goin' somewhere?"

Oh no.

He didn't even spare a quick look behind him, instead launching himself forward on his feet, racing towards the door, but his heart sank as he felt the fingers from a large hand latch around his tiny wrist.

Though it was no use, he still fought, hating this feeling more than any feeling that he could imagine.

"I didn't think so," he heard sneered out through an evil smirk.

A huge lump grew in his throat, and he pressed his lips into a line. Why couldn't they just leave him alone? Why wouldn't they? He'd never done anything to them. Never.

That's what he got for being openly gay at a public high school, he supposed.

Things turned blurry as his body hit the floor hard, arm bending at a painful angle underneath his weight. Dizziness clouded everything in his view; it felt like his body was stuck on a spinning ride at a carnival, and he couldn't yell out for it to stop.

His eyes slowly came back into focus, a toxic breath stabbing into his lungs. He groaned in pain, trying to curl up into a ball so they couldn't hurt him anymore.

And he thought for a second that he would stay that way. He wasn't going to move. No way.

But then, he heard a different voice snarling down at him accusingly.

"I was talking to you, you little er."

His head slowly turned out of the little ball he was tucked into, looking up to see the face of Sanghyuk, who was wearing that uncharacteristic evil smirk proudly. He snickered at Hakyeon's expression.

"S-Sanghyuk?" he managed to get out, even though it hurt his chest to speak. "Sanghyuk, why are-"

"You know your parents ing hate you. They might say they don't, but they're lying. They hate you for being the way you are," he spat in Hakyeon's face, going for a kick in the chest that Hakyeon blocked with the palms of his hands, the rubber on dirty converse scraping against his skin.

"I don't understand," he coughed, his eyes watering and making everything blurry again. He saw another boy lean over him then, and it was hard to make out who it was, but as soon as the boy opened his mouth, Hakyeon's heart sank even further.

"Everyone hates you. You should just kill yourself," he heard Wonshik's voice growl from up above, and he couldn't look at him. He couldn't.

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up!" he screamed back hoarsely, and his chest ached so much, but he just couldn't take the words. Not from these people he loved.

Hands gripped his body, and he felt himself being lifted up. "No, no," he slurred out, halfway to unconsciousness but still struggling as forcefully as he could.

It all made no sense, and yet, in a way, it did. Because he knew how pathetic he was; he deserved this.

He felt his back hitting cold metal, and his head made harsh, noisy contact with something that sounded like a bench in the bleachers. He was pulled up and back down repeatedly into the surface, and at one point he felt his arm drag against a sharp corner, a digging sensation making its way under his skin, but it was difficult to really feel the pain.

At one point his head lolled to the side, and he caught a quick glimpse of the blood oozing from his arm. He screwed his eyes shut right afterwards, trying to take the steadiest breaths he could and calm himself down, despite also trying to tune out the feeling and sound of his body's continuous impact with the bleachers.

He was so dangerously close to just giving up on trying to struggle, or do anything when a voice rang out through the gym.

"Hey, put him down!"

The beatings suddenly ceased, and a silent thank you welled up in his chest for whoever that voice belonged to.

"Or what?" he heard Wonshik laugh back. "I'm sure you'll be able to stop us," he jeered teasingly, sounding so confident in himself. He knocked Hakyeon's head against the metal again just to spite the stranger, making the older boy groan in pain again, but that didn't seem to be the best idea because immediately afterwards, the rapid sounds of shoes squeaking against the gym floor could be heard.

Wonshik dropped Hakyeon's body completely, following Sanghyuk's lead in turning himself to square up to this unfamiliar guy, but it was barely seconds before loud thumping sounds filled the room, and Hakyeon took the now difficult task of raising his head to see none other than Taekwoon standing over the unconscious bodies of Hakyeon's real high school bullies.

Taekwoon turned around, eyes sinking into an uncharacteristic worry as they spotted Hakyeon, and he ran over.

"Are you alright? he asked, his voice sounding much louder than usual as he leaned over Hakyeon. Fingers wrapped around the unharmed part of his small arm, and a yelp of pain escaped his mouth, now noticing how weirdly deep the gash actually was.

"Sorry. You get cuts and bruises easily, don't you?" Taekwoon asked sympathetically, and Hakyeon's eyebrows knitted together slowly, his squint of pain still there.

"How did you know that? I never told you," he pointed out, his voice just on the edge of accusing.

"Shh. Here, take these. Eat them," the younger told him, holding out a handful of what looked like rainbow sprinkles. Somehow those rainbow sprinkles seemed familiar to him, and not in the best way, but he disregarded the thought. He trusted Taekwoon.

He held out his own hands, letting the little sugary things be poured into his palms before he dunked them all into his mouth, eating every one of them in one big bite.

And against all odds, as they all went down he felt all of his pain fade away, and when he looked down at his previously bleeding arm, only a dark scar was left.

"See? That's better, isn't it?" Taekwoon said, smiling and helping Hakyeon down from the bleachers and onto the gym floor.

"Taekwoon, you're acting weird," he remarked, following as the younger boy led him towards the door.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You just-"

He was cut off by a sound behind him, and he whipped around to face Wonshik lifting his body up off of the floor so he could stand on his feet again.

"Hakyeon," his best friend called as he got up, and the boy in question froze in panic. This was the guy that had just kicked him, sneered awful words at him, thrown him into the bleachers. He was not about to trust him.

"Run," Taekwoon whispered urgently to him as Wonshik called out his name again.

He did not hesitate to obey, using his newfound energy and fear to take off towards the door again.

Running as Wonshik called to him, running and running...

"Hakyeon."

His eyes flew open, and he in a startled breath, staring up at Wonshik's face.

His immediate reaction was to shrink away from him, the fear still fresh in his chest, but in this world, Wonshik looked confused at the response.

"You alright?" he questioned, placing a hand over Hakyeon's forehead to feel for heat. "You look pale as hell," he added, sounding a little worried.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Bad dream," Hakyeon grumbled out, gently pushing Wonshik's hand away and sitting up on the couch. He rubbed his eyes, taking a look at his surroundings. He must have fallen asleep there sometime during the day, and the fatigue from waking up early after staying up far too late the night before had kept him asleep.

"Yeah, no kidding. You were thrashing around like crazy; I almost thought you were having a seizure for a second there," Wonshik told him, shaking his head and grunting as he pushed himself up from his knees and stood upright.

Hakyeon frowned, looking him over idly from his lazy position, and in doing so, he noticed something a bit peculiar.

That's odd. He never goes out after he gets home from work.

Wonshik reached into the pocket of his pants, not noticing Hakyeon's curious stare.

"Anyways, I bought you one of these on the way home. These are the ones you like, right?" he asked as he pulled out a little blue er in a transparent wrapper and handed it to Hakyeon.

"Oh...yeah, that's the kind," he confirmed with a small smile, taking it and pulling off the clear, thin plastic. "Thanks, Wonshik," he chirped before popping it in his mouth.

"No prob. Hey, listen, I gotta go for a little bit," he told him.

"Ah, I was wondering why you changed into something nice," Hakyeon commented, words a little muffled because of the er. He had an eyebrow raised and sat forward a little in his seat, but Wonshik seemed to be ignoring his obvious hints that he wanted an explanation.

"Yup. I'll be back soon, okay? Don't have any more nightmares."

And with a pat on Hakyeon's shoulder, Wonshik turned around and walked towards the door.

"Where you going?" Hakyeon asked, raising his voice so Wonshik couldn't pretend that he hadn't heard.

"Eh, just out," was the only response he got, the vague and dismissiveness reminding him of that same morning.

It had been especially bad today - the distance and weird behavior, that is - and Hakyeon was feeling a little frustrated.

He ran a hair through his hair, shaking his head. He wanted to figure out the reason for it, but he didn't want to bring it up because he'd risk making it worse. With a sigh, he climbed off the couch and made his way towards the kitchen.

In some way or another, he was going to figure it out.

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So now we have a little slice of Hakyeon's past in the form of a dark nightmare

nice

Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed n stuff :) I'm really starting to get a better feel of the direction that I'm taking this I think, so yiss. See you soon! c: