*CRASH*

Yeon-hee’s hands had gone with the instinct, dropping the textbooks she was carrying to grab her side in pain, after being rudely bumped into with a sharp elbow for what must have been at least the tenth time that day; she’d lost count over the week, and the attacks were only getting more frequent and more violent. As the aching reduced to a dull throb, she slowly bent down to retrieve her books. No one stopped to help her. She didn’t expect anyone to. Because of its location her university housed an unusually large population of EXO-Ls, and non-fans knew better than to get involved in ‘exotic’ affairs.

‘I want to go home…’ she thought, wanting to cry but managing to keep the tears out of her eyes. ‘I want to go home… I want it to be winter break again… I… I want Chan. I can’t do this alone.’

‘Yes you can,’ a counter-voice came. ‘Two more classes and you can go home. it up for three more hours.’

With an even more watchful eye on her belongings and her ribcage, despite being miserable the entire time, she somehow made it through the day.

Almost.

As she walked to the train station while hugging her backpack to her, not daring to keep it on her back for fear of someone putting something unmentionably disgusting in it, she was tripped by someone. She didn’t have time to see who it was, but by the time she was on the ground, she was surrounded by a mob of girls. A glob of spit blinded her right eye, but she was too preoccupied by the searing pain of being kicked and clawed all over, fistfuls of her long hair being yanked until it was ripped out.

“YOU !”

“WHO THE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?”

“KICK HER FACE UNTIL SHE’S EVEN UGLIER!”

Suddenly there were shrieks and chaos in the crowd and the hits stopped long enough for her to feel herself be pulled to her feet by the wrist, and the next thing she knew she was up and running down the hill to the train station, footsteps and shouts behind her slowly getting quieter until she heard train doors closing behind her.

With one eye swollen shut and the other still wet, she couldn’t see who had a protective arm wrapped around her.

“Ch-Ch-Ch-Chanyeol…” she whispered, voice shaking as much as her body.

Her savior shrunk back, removing his arm and pushing her away slightly. “Ew, no.”

“W-wait… Kwang-soo?”

Of all the people in the world, it was her dorky little brother?

“Yah, don’t sound so disappointed!”

“What were you doing there?”

“I… That doesn’t matter!” he said, a bit too loudly. “What matters is that mom will kill you if you come home looking so ugly.”

“Then let her kill me, I don’t care! I just want to go home,” she moaned.

“And where exactly do you think a mob has been swarming all day? No way, we can’t go there yet.”

“Then where will we go?”

“Leave that up to me.”

Her question was quickly answered when three stops later, Kwang-soo commanded her to get up and follow him to a car with heavily tinted windows pulled up in front of the station. He ushered her in and she was finally able to identify the driver as

“Se… hun?”

“Noona, you look rough,” he said in a quiet voice, pulling away from the curb. “Worse than I imagined.”

She didn’t have the energy to comment on everything offensive about that statement.

“They ganged up and attacked her, about 7 or 8 of them. They only got a few kicks in, but they were really trying to hurt her…”

“You were supposed to keep them from-“

“I know, I know, but it all happened so fast!” Kwang-soo retorted, bitterness obvious in his voice. Sehun replied with a disappointed sigh.

“Incheon-Gal.”

“Mm?” She looked into the rearview mirror to see Sehun’s eyes locked with hers.

“Right now, we’re going to go get you touched up with some makeup and fix your hair and clothes. But either way, I don’t think you should go to school until this all blows over.”

“…Mm,” she conceded, head spinning too fast to think about his request past the fact that it made sense.

Still looking at her concernedly, he asked Kwang-soo, “She’s… not gonna puke, is she? It’s just, this is a loaner car, and, y’know…”

“She’ll be fine,” Kwang-soo reassured, only Yeon-hee able to hear the uncertainty in his own voice. “She’ll be okay.”

It wasn’t difficult to see why the SM makeup noonas had earned their reputations. Taking care of makeup for boy groups meant they were veterans in making scratches and bruises look porcelain-smooth, and the hairstylist-on-duty was able to quickly even out the spots on her hair that had been torn out. With her dirty, slightly torn uniform exchanged for the spare Kwang-soo brought, and Sehun calling in a favor for some of the best takeout she’d ever had in her life, she left looking and feeling better than she had in the past week.

“I have to stick around here for practice, so I got D.O. to drive you home.” Sehun said. “I hear the crowds by the house are kind of dying down, but still, take care.”

“Alright, thanks bro,” Kwang-soo said, linking hands with the taller and bringing him in for a quick hug. “We really owe you one after this.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. If…” He only paused for a brief second, but the pause was there, “If we weren’t idols, none of this would have happened. Consider it on me.”

“Are…” Yeon-hee spoke up, quietly, hesitantly. “Are you all going to… move back to the dorms?”

This time, Sehun paused for longer. “Honestly, I don’t know. What I do know is that we all like it a lot, in that house, that neighborhood. We talked about it, and we want to stay.”

“Even Chanyeol?”

Silence. She felt disappointment begin to creep into her soul.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what any of us think,” a new voice spoke up, immediately recognizable as D.O.’s. “If the managers think we’re in danger, we won’t have a choice. But they also trust us more than you’d think. If we feel comfortable, they’re not likely to make us leave.”

Yeon-hee’s gaze brightened at D.O.’s sudden appearance, and she could manage nothing in return but “Hi…”

“Hi yourself,” he said, taking in her silky, wavy hair and beautiful dark eyes set on flawless skin. “You look nice today, Yeon-hee. Really nice.”