Updated 25/01/2016

Anyone could tell they were madly in love. They toned it down around the members, but everyone noticed the small gestures they tried to hide.

When Baekhyun struggled through his hardest months he rarely smiled off-screen, preferring to stay silent most of the time. He stopped cracking jokes, he stopped singing loudly in the house, stopped greeting the fans with a cheery wave. He pushed everyone away, assuring them he was alright, he was fine, he just needed time.

Yixing never left. He stayed with Baekhyun in the practice room when everyone else left, even if neither of them ended up saying a word. He let Baekhyun grow dependent on his company. He accepted every bit of the person Baekhyun showed him to be inside. He told Baekhyun jokes when he told him he wanted to laugh again. He held Baekhyun for hours as he cried. He shielded Baekhyun’s eyes and ears from the painful comments and pulled him into the protection of his embrace.

[* updated] Baekhyun told him of his broken family, of his stepmother from China and her mean kids. He hated going home, even though the little sister was bearable, her brothers were not. And it was a relief that his father married after Baekhyun moved out, because he could not stand another moment around his stepbrother. The oldest brother’s name was Yifan and he was cold and emotionless. The other was Zitao and he was violent and eccentric. Baekhyun told Yixing about how he was driving his stepsister back from shopping one day, and a truck rammed into the passenger’s side of the car, and how he survived but his stepsister didn’t. Her brothers had tried, multiple times, to cause severe hurt to him, and when he couldn't take it anymore he left Bucheon and moved to Seoul. He’d never driven a car ever since, and it left him with occasional panic attacks till today. Whenever he had bad days like the ones recently, he was especially vulnerable to them and there were many times Baekhyun would close himself in Yixing’s room for hours. When Yixing returned from dance practice the members would push him to his room and tell him, with brows furrowed in worry, that Baekhyun was having one of his panic attacks again. Yixing would step in, close the door behind him, and turn around to see the small body buried among in his very own sheets. Baekhyun would be shaking, trembling, gasping for air, his little nose red from crying. He would let out a whimper when he sees Yixing and crawl into his outstretched arms, where he clings onto his torso and sobs quietly as he waited for the episode to pass. Yixing would murmur softly into his ear and his hair, rub his back, press kisses onto his face, neck, fingers, until he calmed down and slipped into a deep sleep.

After a while Yixing moved out to sleep with Baekhyun in the living room. There were many nights the younger boy thrashed in his sleep, whimpering, gasping for air as he sobbed shamelessly. Yixing would kiss him awake and he would crawl into Yixing’s arms like a scared puppy, soaking his t-shirt with salty wetness as Yixing his hair and dried his cheeks. And it was always nights like this that made Yixing vow quietly to protect him for his life, with his life.

Nobody was going to hurt him anymore.