After writing this, it felt like it should end here... but trust me, there's still very specific plot points we have yet to run into, especially regarding with a certain giant...

Five more minutes...

He felt his senses dull at the impact of the concrete ground against his shoulder. There was a strong impact to his nose, but his body muted it as his head rang. He reasoned it's because his body had faced such a situation so many times.

Just five more minutes...

A liquid was poured over his head, drenching his hair and school uniform, mixing in with the blood that dripped out of his nose. From the scent...  chocolate milk? He couldn't help but scoff, "How childish," earning an irritated kick to his side. He wearily glanced to the side where his preciously read book about the human nervous system laid.

"Wonwoo?!"

What is he doing here...?

He forced to push himself up, faltering at the loss of strength in his arm. Wonwoo expected to fall again before being cushioned by the familiar scent of strawberries, long, auburn hair tickling the side of his face. His blurried sight catching sight of a needle cushion pinned with pastel-colored needles tied on that thin wrist.

After seeing Jeonghan trying to protect him, his presence served to remind him that coming to La Belle Shoppe acted as a runaway place from the ever-so childish people he had to be in the presence of at his school. An isolated, dream-like area away from civilization where he only needed Jeonghan to survive properly.

"You should step away from the freak, never know what'll happen to you if you stay so close to it, unless you know it?" the bully took a step forward, Jeonghan curling around Wonwoo tighter as thought to protect him with his pale, porcelain-like form.

"He's not a freak nor an it, he's my boyfriend," Jeonghan glared at the bullies through his hair that was beginning to come out of his unruly top knot ponytail. Wonwoo felt his heart thump against his chest at that, as though he was coming back to life. He fell onto the ground yet again, looking up to see Jeonghan's face scrunched up in pain as his bully held him up by his hair. Before Wonwoo knew it, he had let that feeling consume him at the sight of the boy getting hurt, pushing himself to stand up despite his weak state and snarling, "Let go of him."

The offender cockily smirked at that, shoving Jeonghan back as though he was a doll made of dirty rags, Wonwoo catching him securely and holding his wrists  for just a moment.

Those eyes...

The bullies began to walk away, snickering, before halting in their steps when Wonwoo chased after them and grabbed the offender's arm.

Those eyes that gleam with disgusting mischief and ego...

"Let go of m- what the?!" the arm he grabbed drops limply to his side, unable to react in time to Wonwoo grabbing his hair and pulling him over. He placed his fingers over one of the bully's eyes, watching stoically to how the bully screamed in pain, his friends watching in shock and confusion as the bully tried to free himself from Wonwoo's grip with one arm, the other arm twitching lamely against his side.

"Don't touch him ever again," Wonwoo stated, unphased by the scratching against his arm, instead focusing on the one eye and digging his thumb into the socket, the cries of pain becoming louder. He watched how the small trickle of blood and tears drizzled now, stating in a bored manner, "You're too dirty to touch him. So ugly and causing such a mess over a small needle."

Once he deemed the needle buried far enough without it reaching the brain, he lets go, shoving the sobbing offender away with his friends catching him. The offender held his eye with the only arm he could move, eye widening in fear, "M-Monster...!"

"Don't come near here ever again. Oh, don't bother crying wolf to anyone else either. After what you did to him, I wouldn't mind deforming you further," Wonwoo threw an unused needle onto the ground, the bullies immediately scurrying away in fear.

They sat in silence, Jeonghan tending to the bruise on his abdomen. Wonwoo glanced to his thumb, now clean from blood and tears yet remembering vividly of how the eye was damp, warm, yet malleable. If he had squeezed in his pointer finger and angled it just right, he swore he would've been able to take out the entire eye.

"Wonwoo, who were those people," Jeonghan broke the silence, pausing for a moment to meet his gaze.

"I guess, the equivalent to childhood friends, except in the form of bullies," Wonwoo murmured, observing how Jeonghan tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear.

"And they've been treating you like that even until high school?" Jeonghan asked, shoulders slumping at such a thought. Wonwoo gently held Jeonghan's face, tilting it up to give him a small peck on the lips.

"Well, school's over now for summer so I don't have to deal with teachers and students that hate me for a while. It was only five minutes until the bus came anyways, I could deal with five minutes."

"It wasn't five minutes. The bus was late and you lost track of time. I was worried something happened to you so I rushed to your school by foot and... you...!" Jeonghan bit the bottom of his lip, trembling from almost crying.

He pulled the long-haired boy over, holding him tightly against his chest, "I'm fine. And if you hadn't come, I wouldn't have heard you confirm that I was your boyfriend."

"Yeah, and I'm your's," Jeonghan clutched at the front of his uniform, weakly chuckling, "One of us had to say it at one point. I didn't want what happened on your birthday to be a one time thing anyways."

Mine... he's mine... Oh, if only Jeonghan understood how greatly those words affected him.

"But, Wonwoo... what did you do to them?"

He froze at that, unsure as to how to answer to that either. Jeonghan didn't seem to notice however, continuing on quietly, "I-I rarely travel outside, since it's so hard to get my parents' permission to go out... b-but that was the first time I heard someone scream that loudly." Jeonghan looked up to Wonwoo's gaze, eyes wide and lips visibly trembling, "Wonwoo, what did you do...?!"

All Wonwoo wanted to do was kiss the boy- his boyfriend again but knew that wasn't what Jeonghan needed right now. The thought of Jeonghan being his seemed to spur on more than just a feeling of being alive, but it also appeared to be what connected the thoughts that laid dormant in his head for who knew how long now, slowly allowing the words formed carefully, "I was only protecting you."

And God, did those words he just spoke felt so right for once.

The long-haired boy blinks, eyebrows scrunching up slightly, asking, "Protecting me...?" as though testing those words on his own tongue.

"Yes," Wonwoo carefully slid Jeonghan's hair-tie out of his already messed-up ponytail, watching the auburn strands fall to his shoulders. He picked up a lock of hair and held it against his lips, returning to meet gazes, "To protect you. To protect my boyfriend from everything tainted and filthy in this world."

Jeonghan- albeit after a pause for a thought- changed to look fixedly at the needle cushion on his wrist, whispering, "I don't understand."

Wonwoo had let go of the lock of hair in favor of lifting Jeonghan's chin back up and leaning in.

"It's okay, you don't need to right now."