“Hey why won’t it work?”

“Are you stupid? Give me it.”

Jaejoong groaned at the unfamiliar voices and the stench of cigarettes. He willed his heavy eyes open and squinted as they adjusted to light.

“Where am I…?” came his weak voice.

“Ah. Our superstar is awake!”

“Who the are-“Jaejoong was about to push the man away, but realized that he couldn’t move. His hands and legs were tied tight on the wooden chair he sat on.

“You bastards, take this off of me!” The chair rocked as he struggled to break loose. Sweat started to clump up hair on his forehead as he shot glares at the strange men. They were at some warehouse with lights centered at him like some cheap spotlight while the men stood in the shadows like an audience.

“Don’t waste your energy, baby. You gotta save it for later.” The man held Jaejoong’s chin, his face just inches away from the boy. Jaejoong glared up at his kidnapper, his nostrils flaring from anger and exhaustion.

“She’s right, you’re really pretty.” He caressed Jaejoong’s cheeks, dark fingers contrasting his white skin. Jaejoong lips twitched and without hesitation, spat at the man’s face.

“Why you-“

A crisp slap echoed through the warehouse as Jaejoong’s head turned, his cheek burning red.

“Hey. Don’t touch his face, it’d be a waste.” One commented, snaking his eyes on the delicate boy from head to toe.

“Give it to him, so we can start.”

Fear began creeping in Jaejoong’s lungs, hitching his breath. With wide eyes and trembling lips, he watched another man fill a syringe with god knows what.

“What’s that,” his voice shook. “What are you doing? Don’t touch me!“

His wrists were beginning to bruise as he violently tried to shake the man’s hands away, but with no meticulousness, the needle was driven into his skin. Jaejoong winced at the sting and the sensation of foreign liquid passing through his veins.

“What did you put in me? What are you trying to do? You ing bastards, I’m gonna kill you!”

“Make sure you get a perfect shot, ok?” The man who stood in front of Jaejoong grinned. The one behind the camera nodded.

“Let me go so I can skin you alive you disgusting faggots!” Jaejoong felt himself weakening the more he writhed, his mind was starting to get cloudy. Whatever they put in him was working quickly.

“Faggots? Look who’s talking.” The men chuckled. Jaejoong failed to fathom what they meant as he was slowly losing sense of his surroundings.  

“Let’s start.” The man began ing his shirt.

“ing ert, don’t…touch me!” Jaejoong could only curse, his body was no longer his.

“We got big bucks and a pretty boy for this, boys. It’s our lucky day.” Jaejoong felt filthy eyes crawling in his skin, but he couldn’t protest; his muscles won’t listen. Red began tinting his skin as he felt his body temperature rise.

“Yong..“ he whispers as tears started welling in his hooded eyes. “Yonghwa.”

He felt hands fumbling with the metal of his belt, then with the zipper of his pants.

Yonghwa. Please, help me.

His head dropped over his chest.

“Hey, who are yo-“Pain overtook his body before he could finish, and before he knew it he was down on the ground. Four heads turned at the entrance of the warehouse.

Someone crashed the party.

“You son of a-“Another man ran up to him, only to be held on the neck all too easily by the intruder. The tall man smirked.

“So small.” A punch in the stomach and he was the next to join the slumber party.

Yunho's eyes darted from the two unconscious body to the boy tied to the chair. Then his ominous glare shifted to the man stripping Jaejoong. The three men was frozen, seeing how he singlehandedly knocked out two of them within seconds.

“G-get him.” The two lunged at Yunho, but their attacks were easily evaded. An elbow to the face sent one snoring, while the other was lifted and thrown to the ground, releasing his poor soul from his damned body.

Yunho winced when he felt a sting in his back.

He turned, only to see the man who was busy with Jaejoong had driven a syringe right in his back. The man stepped back as Yunho faced him, his wide eyes staring up at the visibly taller man. Yunho pulled out the syringe from his back; it’s needle had buried itself whole. He glared at the instrument, then at the trembling man in front of him.

It was a cute attempt for someone ghastly.

“Really?”

###

“.” Yunho is not the one to cuss, but he’s been cussing a lot lately. Especially now that the wimpy move that guy made on him– stabbing him with a goddamn syringe–was starting to take its toll. But that was the very least of his concern because right now he`s been playing mind games with his door lock, unable to properly enter his passcode, while his client–his oh so dear client–was slumped over his shoulder like a bag of rice, senseless.

The door clicked open and he rushed into his bedroom. He flopped Jaejoong into his bed, making the drugged man moan from the sudden movement.

Moan.

Did he just moan?

“.” Yunho rushed to his bathroom, quickly splashing cold water on his face. He stared at the mirror, his hair in wet locks and his eyes a bit glazed. He wasn’t sure how much that drug got into him and how it would affect him, but he prayed it wouldn’t be as much as how the other took it.

The AC is on, so why is still so warm?

“T-thirsty!”

He made a quick wipe of his face and hurried back to his room and grabbed a bottle of cold water from his fridge. Jaejoong was curled up in his bead, breathing like he was in pain. The tall man sat at the edge of the bed and helped him up.

“Drink up.” He said, even though he knew that the man can hear but can’t decipher. He guided the bottle to Jaejoong’s lips as he gulped small portions.

Yunho laid him back before standing up and drinking the remaining contents of the bottle within seconds. The room was dim, the AC was at its coldest, yet all he could feel was sweltering heat. He was about to walk off but stopped in his tracks when he heard a whimper. He looked back to what could have let out such dangerous sound–and wished that he didn’t.

Because Jaejoong, in his ed shirt and flushed skin, with half-opened, teary eyes and bullets of sweat glazing down his red cheeks and collar bones, was writhing in his bed, messing his bedsheets, as he desperately tried to unbuckle his belt.

As if something was begging to break free.

“H-help me.” He couldn’t do the simple task, not in his state, where his fingers felt like tissue papers and his mind like a goo. The drug blocked every sense in him, and only left the cruel need for touch, for friction, for release. And the neglect built up in his body in the form of scorching heat.

Yunho couldn’t believe that the man was begging for him to help get rid of his pants. Was it in his job description to take off his aching client’s pants? What’s more absurd is that he couldn’t take his eyes off the creature in his bed.

So with all his spite, he turned away once more.

“P-please. H-hot. It’s too…hot.” The breathy voice reached places in Yunho’s head that he never knew was there. It stirred something in him, and mocked all his logic, like a siren`s song.

Against all his reasons, his feet turned.

Leave. He convinces himself. It’s not in his job description to fend a drugged and ually stimulated man’s needs, no. Sleep on the streets, just anywhere but here.

“Take it off, I'm begging you.” Jaejoong cried.

He steps forward.

Don’t do it. Don’t touch him. Because touching him will be like touching fire. You’ll be the one left burned. Lock yourself in the bathroom, or find yourself a lady, a pretty, porcelain-skinned and doe-eyed-

“Please.” Jaejoong moaned.

“.”

###

The morning light seeped through the dim room. The thick curtains blocked most of the sunshine, but a ray made its way to Jaejoong’s sleeping face. He crinkled his brows and flipped over his body to escape the intruding light; wrapping his arms over what he expected to be his favorite Hello Kitty pillow, only to feel something hard and warm, nothing like the soft and fluffy feline.

His eyes blinked open, as his vision adjusted to tan skin and…muscles?

Yunho was sleeping beside him, his shirt missing and his left arm under Jaejoong’s head. Pale arms were draped over his sculpted stomach.

“What the he-“ He jerked too far off, and he ended up falling from the bed with a loud thud. “Ow!”

The sudden quake disturbed the sleeping man. He groans and lifts himself up by an arm while the other scratched his tired eyes.

“What was tha-“

Their dark orbs met.

Yunho’s sleepy eyes widened the moment they darted from Jaejoong’s eyes, to his semi- body to Jaejoong’s body. The latter followed Yunho’s gaze and realized, that he too, was only wearing nothing but boxers.

They screamed like two grown men would.

Two pairs of petrified eyes gawked at each other, both lips apart as they are at loss of what to say. Yunho scrambled for an explanation while Jaejoong tried to recall and understand what happened.

“Le-Let me explain, I was-“

“Are you ok?!” Suddenly, Jaejoong was sitting in front of him, placing a concerned hand on his leg.

“Did I hurt you anywhere? Are your hips fine? I’ll take responsibility, I promise!”

Wait, what?

“Are you saying, that you–to me…?”

Jaejoong’s doe eyes blinked.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I don’t feel sore anywhere I thought that it was you who botto-“

“Nothing’s sore because nothing happened, understand?” Yunho grabbed Jaejoong’s hands and placed it on the mattress, off of his leg.

Did this guy, this small, too-pretty-to-be-manly guy actually think that he could top him, who can win a 10v1 fight, catch bullets and Hapkido anyone to oblivion?

Never.

Not that he actually considers topping him, or any other man for that matter, no.

Because that would make him-

“Put some clothes on, it’s freezing.” He threw the sheets over Jaejoong when he felt shivers run down his spine. Grabbing the AC’s remote control, he turns it down. The AC was set to the coldest and he wondered why.

Jaejoong pouted as he covered himself with the thick blanket. Indeed, it was freezing. Yunho stood up, stretching his seemingly numb arm a bit before reaching for his drawer to grab some clothes. Doe eyes stared in space as he ransacked his memories for something. He thought that somehow they got wasted and ended up in bed.

“Then what happened last night, I don’t-“

Then he remember: Yonghwa’s message, some guy kidnapping him, the empty warehouse, the ugly, dirty looking men, strange hands on him and the foreign liquid infiltrating his system.

Yunho saved him.

“I-“

“Who called you there?” Yunho went on rummaging through his clothes.

“Who? I-“Jaejoong threw a nervous smile at Yunho’s back. “No one. I was simply-“

“Out for a walk? At 2 am?” Yunho turned to look at the blanketed man sitting on his bed.
“No. I just…needed to buy something.“ He evaded Yunho’s skeptic stare.

“There’s a convenience store across the street, sir.” Jaejoong inwardly smacked himself in the head. “So who was it, who were you supposed to meet at that kind of place, that time of the night?” Yunho prodded. He had an idea, though. He just needed to make sure.

“No one, I-“

“You could’ve been , sir. You were tied down, drugged and violated by the hands of this person’s men whose bait you stupidly walked right into, and yet here you are defending this bastar-”

“Yonghwa will never do that to me!” Jaejoong burst.  

Yunho resigned from his impatience. He didn’t mean to blare, but couldn’t stand the thought of Jaejoong covering up a perpetrator.

His suspicions were right, though.

“Yonghwa. Jung Yonghwa?”

Jaejoong bit his lips, his head down and eyes glazing. He was frustrated and hurt at the thought that Yonghwa would ever want that to happen to him. It was idiotic–what he did–and he was ashamed at how false the truth sounded to his ears, but Yunho didn’t have to rub it on his face.

He didn’t bother responding; he probably knew anyways.

He heard the bodyguard sigh.

“It is my job to protect you from danger,” Yunho turned back to his closet. ”If ever you feel offended by my ways, then I apologize.” He held out a pile of neatly folded set of clothes in front of Jaejoong.

“Just remember that I work for you, not against you.” Jaejoong looked up at him under furrowed eyebrows and jutted lips. “So at any given time or place, don’t hesitate to call me. I’ll be there.”

Jaejoong looked away. If only he could hear those words from someone he needed it the most.  

He took the clothes from Yunho’s hands and the taller man went to look for something to wear.

“If you want to take a shower, the bathroom’s that way. I’ll take you home right after.”

Jaejoong looks back up at him and wondered aloud. “What about school?”

“I’ll call in sick. Just rest for the day.”

###

“Stay inside your room.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t open the door to anyone unless it’s me.”

“Understood, sir.”

“I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Where are you going?” Jaejoong tilted his head, ruining the obedient soldier he’s trying to impersonate, and sounding like he didn’t want the man to leave.

“Headquarters. The criminals who took you are there.”

“Oh.” Jaejoong dropped his head, remembering the men and their disgusting faces.

“Don’t leave, understand?”

“Roger.” The smaller boy saluted at Yunho’s final order before locking himself in his apartment.

Yunho went to their headquarters, glad that his stubborn client was somehow cooperating. Maybe he learned something from the incident last night. And even if he didn’t, he’d know where to find him just in case he left the house and decided to once again offer himself to the bad guys.

And he will be there before anyone could lay a finger on him. Not like last night.

“Here’s the camera and the drugs used last night.” A tall man, younger than Yunho, placed the objects on the table. He proceeded with his findings.

“The camera’s filled with videos of women, most of them kidnapped, drugged and . They use the shots to sell illegal ographic material, but last night’s incident would be the first to have a man as their subject.”

“Did they have a shot from last night?” Yunho took the camera and searched for a playback.

“They did, but only until you arrived at the scene.” Replied the taller man. The video played and voices started murmuring from the camcorder.

“Are you stupid? Give me it.”

“Did you find anything about Jung Yonghwa?”

“Ah, I was just about to send you the info,” He reached for a file from a stack on his desk and placed it on the table near Yunho. He was still busy watching the footage from the recorder, so the taller man decided to iterate at least the summary of what he found.

“He’s an actor, though I’ve never heard of him before. He’s at the peak of his career though, having starred in a couple of big shot movies.”

“You bastards, take this off me!”

“He’s currently promoting a movie entitled Marry Me. Rumor has it that he didn’t deserve the main role, though. That he was only casted because he was in a relationship with the leading lady.” The taller man leaned on the table.

“She’s right, you’re really pretty.”

“Hmm. I see.” Yunho continued watching. “Any info of his relation with Kim Jaejoong?”

“None, actually. Though the common denominator would be Park Yoochun, as he’s in the entertainment business like Jung Yongwa, nothing shows any direct connection a university student like Kim Jaejoong to the actor. ” the taller man crossed his arms.

“We got big bucks and a pretty boy for this, boys. It’s our lucky day”

“I want to talk to the men before I go.” He turned off the camcorder and placed it back on the table before grabbing the file. He need not to check if the contents were enough.

“The leader is at the interrogation room.” The taller man sat in front of his computer and resumed his work.

“Ok. Thanks Changmin, I owe you.”

“Words are never enough, hyung.”

“I know. I know.” Yunho smiled and made sure to order something for the younger man's lunch.

Yunho found the man who was all hands with Jaejoong in the interrogation room, bruised and dishevelled compared to the other men he knocked out last night. He wondered if he’d been too…violent. He doesn’t know why the man irked him so much, but as long as he’s breathing he guessed it was ‘fine’.

It was gonna be easy to squeeze something out of him; Yunho knew this the moment he entered the room. The man began cowering at the mere sight of him. So he began throwing question, or facts rather, because Yunho never said anything in a quizzical manner. He laid his guesses down as if the man had no choice but to say yes.

And that’s what he got, full of yes’s and a name to wrap up his suspicions.

“I-It’s Seo Juhyun.” The man trembled, traumatized by last night’s pain. “She wanted us to make a scandal for Kim Jaejoong.”

With a slight tug on his lips, Yunho lifted himself up from the wall.

He found the runaway bride.