Chapter 27 – New Rules, New Me

I woke up with my head on someone's lap, fingers softly threading through my hair every now and then. It felt good, who was this? I heard someone mumble something, but it didn't seem to be Korean. Where am I? I clenched my hands slowly, nails scratching over the soft cloth I recognized as our sofa's. At home?

“I think he's waking up”, a scratchy voice mumbled. It had to be Jooheon sitting on the armchair as usual and I winced when the other hand stopped my hair.

The person let out an affirmative hum and I furrowed my brows, trying to categorize it. Wonho? But it sounds different... I opened my eyes with a few difficulties since my eyelids seemed to stick to the lower half of my eyes. They felt a little bit sore, had I cried? I opened them just enough to find the living room in almost complete darkness, only lit by the last rays of sunlight breaking through the windows. It had to be late in the afternoon.

I turned my head to glance at the person's face, only able to make out dark hair at first. So it's not Wonho. He then glanced down, locking gazes with me and that's when my eyes shot open in shock.

“Hyungwon?” He started chewing on his bottom lip and I jerked up, suddenly wide awake as I crawled to the other end of the sofa and my head started to pound. Hyungwon looked as though he was about to say something but I beat him to it. “I don't know what happened but I'm sorry!”

My eyes wandered to Jooheon who was trying to read some English sentence without much success, but other than that he didn't seem to be agitated in any way. And if Jooheon was fine with me sleeping on Hyungwon's lap something was fishy. “Why am I here?”

“This is your home, ”, Jooheon hissed with a raised eyebrow. “You forgot?”

I shook my head, eyes darting to Hyungwon again. “No, but I...He- You...What-”

“You went without Delphinium yesterday, right?”

I my lips in confusion when my opponent just calmly returned my gaze and I tried to rewind my memory to the last moment I remembered before waking up. We had been at the store, had argued about Sangwon- I wondered why Hyungwon didn't seem to be completely devastated, he had told me about a big turning point in his life after all. Chae Hyungwon wouldn't have done that for nothing, so why wasn't he panicking about anything right now? Did something worse happen? Was there even something worse to him than having his past exposed? I remembered helping him fill up the shelves in silence when I dropped something due to an enormous pain shooting through my brain. What was it? Something with red sauce on it, I could see the stain in my mind. Immense pain and then... Darkness. Nothing.

Hyungwon was still staring at me and I swallowed with a nod. Yeah, right, I didn't have any drugs due to staying with Hyungwon the day before, but- “Wait, did you give me some?”

“You were shou-” He interrupted himself, glanced to the side and shrugged. “You looked quite sick, so I did, yeah.”

“Where'd you get it from?”

“Wonho gave it to me in the morning. He must have known something was going to happen.”

Wonho. He must have been worried when I didn't come back yesterday evening... I lowered my eyes and rubbed my sleeve across them. “Did I get...angry or unbearably depressed?”

Hyungwon scratched the back of his neck. “Nothing we wouldn't be able to handle. You were moody but surprisingly calm when- uhm, yeah, it was okay.” I eyed him in suspicion but he just leaned back on the sofa, oblivious to my stare. Hyungwon never interrupted himself and he'd never be oblivious to something either, but I knew he wouldn't tell me a thing. “That you're okay now is the most important thing.” What the hell was this completely new mindset he was displaying?! “Are you?”

I fidgeted with my hands for a moment. “My head feels like it's made of cotton but I'm good, yeah. Thanks then?” I still didn't know why I had been sleeping on his lap but since neither Hyungwon nor Jooheon felt the need to talk about it there wasn't much I could do – I'd just have to it up.

“Are you done now?”, Jooheon muttered as he rose to his feet to switch on the light and I squinted at the yellow color it painted the surroundings. “We still have to finish my homework, so, could you keep quiet and let us move to the table now that you're awake?”

I blinked at the young man in surprise before remembering that they were doing his English stuff together. “Ah, y-yeah, sure. Don't mind me.” Hyungwon got up, stretched his back and casually walked over to the big dining table to join Jooheon, the scene looking very unfamiliar to me. There were times when Jooheon wouldn't even look at Hyungwon and now he was listening to the elder's explanations about English grammar. Jooheon really is like a cat, he does things as he pleases, I figured with a smile playing around the corners of my mouth just when Hyungwon turned his head to glance at me once more.

“Before I forget it again: You won't go to Exo this week.”

“Huh?” I frowned and Jooheon groaned at the repeated interruptions but his new friend didn't spare him a glance.

“I wanted to tell you before but I always forgot. You're meeting at the playground near the store I'm working at instead. I told them to come at half past five.”

The playground? “W-wait, b-b-but why?” I could go to them myself, why would he change the place?

“I don't want you to get caught by military officers”, he explained with his jaw tensed and my breath got stuck in my throat when I saw the fire in his eyes. “They should come to us if they want something, not the other way round. I'll be there too, work ends around five.”

He turned towards Jooheon to have a look at some weird sounding words, leaving me dumbfounded. “Oh, euh...Okay, then, let's do it like that?” Not that my approval would actually change a thing about it.

Hyungwon had taken my job under his protection without me having to ask for it. When had he done that? During our visit last week when I was asleep? He really didn't want me to go there anymore, wanted me to be safe, or at least under his supervision. It was a little bit twisted, but I couldn't stop that warm feeling from spreading in my chest. This was Chae, slowly peeking through the mask of Hyungwon. And I couldn't deny that I liked that a lot.

________________

“What the is that?!”

“Shhh!”, Kihyun shushed Jooheon while shooting me a panicking glance once the younger entered the living room. “Don't wake him up or we're in trouble.”

Jooheon craned his neck with a number of different expressions passing over his face before he settled with a simple frown. I could tell he was pissed for some reason and mirrored his look as he asked: “Mind explaining?”

After Minhyuk had fallen asleep, I had somehow managed to shift his weight a little so that his head was now resting on my thigh, making this whole ordeal a bit more comfortable and bearable for me. Well, at least I could move my arms. Kihyun told Jooheon the summarized version of what had happened, he stared at me for an unknown amount of time before relaxing with a dismissive wave of his hand and that was that.

He, just like Changkyun and Kihyun, didn't seem to care about Minhyuk's tantrums but focused on the fact that I was the one to calm him down instead, asking how I had done that, but of course I didn't have an explanation. I could only wait and pray for Minhyuk to wake up with his normal state of mind restored.

The others were scattered all over the house when Wonho came home and I forced myself not to look like I was struggling too much. This was the part I had hoped to avoid. The blonde carefully tiptoed closer with one of his signature smiles on his face. “Now would you look at that”, he whispered when his expression received a cunning twist all of a sudden. “My son and ex-wife got so close, I might be jealous.”

I clenched my teeth, careful not to move my leg. “Wonho, I'm kind of on edge right now, so if you could just control yourself that would be great, you know?”

“On edge? How come?”, the other retorted, stepping behind the sofa and his hot breath sent a wave of shivers down my spine. “It looks a little uncomfortable but you must have chosen this for yourself. Why don't you tell me the reason, this isn't like you at all, right?”

“It got uncomfortable the moment you walked in.” I squirmed in my place but Minhyuk flinched at the movement and I quickly forced myself to calm down, soothingly running my hand through his hair instead. A serene smile spread on his face and his whole body relaxed. “He needed this. It would be problematic if you were to trigger a panic attack now, so at least back off a little”, I muttered.

“You're so rude”, Wonho muttered without actually sounding hurt or angry, moving away to crouch down in front of Minhyuk and inspect his face instead. The playful glint in his eyes vanished and I could tell that he was switching into the serious mode I hadn't come to witness often. We were all so two-faced it was almost ridiculous. “He had a shock?” I nodded, slapping his hand away when he reached out to the white-haired's cheek. I didn't want him to wake up. And I didn't want the leech to touch him.

“Thanks for the flower.”

Wonho closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “It was the least I could do. Thanks for taking care of him after that, but-” He looked up to meet my gaze with curiosity. “What are you going to do when he wakes up like this? This really isn't like you. I might be sounding like I'm joking around, but I'm surprised nonetheless.”

“So am I.” I bit the inside of my cheek, going over my options for a moment before swallowing. I couldn't blame Minhyuk for his behavior, it was all due to the drugs. “When he wakes up, I'll act like nothing happened. He'll be confused enough, he doesn't need to have a bad conscience as well.”

Wonho pursed his lips, followed by a curt nod as he drew himself up again. “Fair enough... You're growing, you know?” I cocked my head to the side, feeling a weight being lifted off my chest when he distanced himself and gave me a warm smile, a real one. “Sometimes it's okay to care about others.”

“Wonho?” Changkyun came running down from some room upstairs with a bright expression as he threw himself into the blonde's arms. “I knew I heard your voice. Had a nice day?”, the youngest asked while Kihyun shushed him, following down the stairs.

Wonho chuckled, affectionately ruffling the younger's hair up as if to underline his previous statement. Sometimes it's okay to care about others. “Shouldn't you call me Dad from now on, you rascal?”

“Ew, no.” Kihyun scrunched up his face. “Disgusting. Sounds as though you were a sugar daddy, he's still a kid.”

“, right. Uhm, yeah.” He his lips, ignoring the questioning look Changkyun was giving him. He had his guard down and I stopped threading my fingers through Minhyuk's hair to observe the trio in surp