First of all: HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY MY BIAS WRECKER SUHO.

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

<33

Second of all: This is Minseok and the boys’ perspective after they’ve found their mate. It is more of a small snippets of how she was treating them in her crazy, broken state before she got healed by time. So the scenes all happened between the first and second month she was found.

Four months and twenty days ago.

Minseok walked through the front door with a long face, the hands of his he had wrapped around the door knob were shaking, even while they softly tried to lock the door behind him. His feline eyes wandered around the living room that immediately met his vision, noticing most of his pack members sitting around, a very tense sphere around them.

For a second, he just paused in front of the welcoming rug that connected the entrance to the living room, a cautious look on his face as he tried to gauge his pack mates’ reactions. He knew they all felt miserable, because she felt miserable, the girl they all felt connected to past the logical orders of things, to the point they all felt exactly what she felt, and since she felt extremely sad, they felt sad too; angry because they had to feel like that, irritated because they couldn’t do something about it.

Baekhyun’s eyes were distant, like usual, staring at the wall in front of him with a small, visible twitch to his eyebrows. Sehun and Jongin’s eyes were on Minseok, the Alpha, a helpless gleam flashing in their eyes almost too identically, and Minseok knew these two didn’t have any clue on how to fix this agenda they found themselves in. Yixing was looking similarly to Baekhyun: distant; dazed, and downright sad, while Joonmyeon was reading a book, a book he was holding backwards without realizing, which told Minseok everything he needed to know about how the boy felt.

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were talking amongst each other, trying to include an uncharacteristically quiet Chen to their soft whispers, and Minseok knew they were distracting themselves from their very forlorn mate, who wasn’t even sitting near them. However, her presence was too strong for them not to sense.

“Is she awake yet?” Minseok tried to say; gently not to startle the anxious wolves, placing his work bag on the living room table the wolves had their mugs of tea resting on. It was instantly how Sehun replied, almost like he was waiting for Minseok to ask them something about her so that he’d find a chance to speak.

“She is,” The youngster mumbled, running a hand through his sweaty; glistening blonde hair, and Minseok knew he hadn’t taken a shower for ages. None of them could do their daily routines anymore, not since she was brought to their house ten days ago. “She had been awake for a while now.” Sehun continued, still using a small, minimal voice.

“Well, did you give her food?” Minseok questioned again, taking off his suit blazer to allow himself to have a small breeze of cold air from the OC running in the room, and actually loosening the suffocating feelings growing in his heart that almost always attacked him the moment he took a step closer to the door of his home.

“We did.” Joonmyun answered aloofly, his eyes flying over the papers of his overturned book without focus.

“It didn’t turn out well.” Yixing completed, his voice filled with feelings to the brim; feelings Minseok knew and dictated each and every one of, and it made him annoyed, angry, yet sad, because he didn’t think any one of his pack members deserved the amount of self-hate that was going through them at the moment.

“What.. happened?” Minseok was actually scared of asking this question, knowing how that mate of theirs reacted whenever they entered her room either for food, or to request for her to take a shower. She’d spit in their face how much she couldn’t stand them, or simply cover her head with her blanket and stay silent when she was drained enough to prevent her voice from flying over their faces. Sometimes, she’d throw her pillow in their faces while hysterically yelling. That actually only happened in the first three days, she no longer screamed bloody murder when they entered her room, accepting the fact she’d have to see them all the time since it was their home.

“She poured soup on Chanyeol’s face,” Chen monotonously replied, shrugging in a casual way that was everything but casual. There was a dark look on Chen’s face, and he didn’t bother look at Minseok when he spoke either.

“And smacked Sehun with a spoon.” Chanyeol finished with a tired sigh, rubbing on his chest right over the new hoodie he was wearing, completely different than the one Minseok had seen before he went to work, so he concluded the soup she threw on him trickled all the way down to his clothes.

Minseok looked at Sehun in emphasis, and just noticed the soft purplish bruise on the corner of his cheek. When Sehun noticed his Alpha was staring at him expressionlessly, he started rubbing on the spot with a wince.

“You have something on your cheek,” Minseok stated the obvious, and Sehun was quickly snorting.

“Yeah, the spoon.”

Fortunately, his words made the mood a lot lighter, as they looked at Sehun with soft tilting to their lips, recognizing his sarcasm. In spite of the lifting mood, Minseok didn’t exactly feel it; his heart and brain entirely focused on the feelings his body produced, highly sensitive on the radiating emotions his mate was going through just upstairs in her room. Minseok pointed at Sehun’s bruise with a heavy frown, trying to soften the anxious beating of his heart.

“It didn’t heal yet?”

“It was one nasty hit,” Sehun provided with a sigh, “And I can feel it healing. It’ll take a few more minutes.”

“So she didn’t eat anything for three days?” Minseok realized, counting the previous three days she constantly refused to put anything in , lenient on sealing shut and throwing insults at how she’d rather just pass away from hunger rather than eat anything if she’d have to live a life she didn’t want to live.

“Yeah.” Baekhyun mumbled, his fingers playing with the chain of his lip-ring unconsciously, his eyes unfocused and his whole position on the couch was radiating with discomfort. He apparently couldn’t sit still, just like Minseok — who didn’t bother sit down — too aware of what was happening with his mate right in her room, too self-conscious, too burning with feelings of his own, mixed with the feelings of his mate pounding in his own heart, emotions mixed with anxiety, unhappiness; and downright misery.

The fact they were all too hypersensitive with their mate’s own personal feelings – even while she was alone, doing nothing – made them all jittery and uncomfortable. It was irritating to a sense; at least to Minseok, because he was too used to being nonchalant, cold, and simply detached. To feel too many feelings and emotions he never entirely indulged himself with, to the point where his own hands were shaking. He didn’t like to be too aware of these feelings, because they bothered him immensely, and made him jumpy. An Alpha shouldn’t be like that.

“Hyung,” Jongin’s voice calling him out from where he was sitting beside Sehun brought him out of his reverie, and the Alpha looked at Jongin with a questioning look on his eyes. “What are we going to do?”

Scratching his eyebrow in an entirely too un-Minseok-like gesture – filled with nervousness -Minseok announced.

“Give me a sandwich, I’ll go in.”

-

The minute Minseok opened the door of her room, he was hit by a wave of emotions ten times stronger than the feelings he had been feeling while he was downstairs, and his wolf side immediately resurfaced; his eyes flashing incredibly golden even when they didn’t even see her yet, since she was hiding under her blanket. She usually never reacted to them inside her room until they talked to her themselves, and Minseok knew that.

He was used to the shift of feelings inside of him whenever he was in close proximity, and he easily contained them inside his chest, making the color of his eyes disperse into the normal honeydew shade he spotted whenever he stared at himself in the mirror.

Minseok walked to the nightstand of her room, and easily placed the plate where the sandwich helplessly laid on with another sigh.

“Here, food.”

“Get out of my room.” Instantly; came her reply, her voice low and gruff from the walls of protection – her blanket – the voice squeezed out from, and Minseok fought the urge to roll his eyes at the annoyance she didn’t bother hide.

“This is my house, so logically, it is my room.” The Alpha mumbled, crossing his arms around him so that he’d be able to have a secure grip on how shaken they were, and how that shake of his had been violently rippling through his body. At his words, she yanked her blanket away from her, releasing the face Minseok found to be so beautifully alluring, even though it was swollen, puffy, and red from the amount of crying she constantly went through in her bed all the time, whether they tried to make her eat, or make her take a shower; or even make her sleep. Her tears just always fell down on her cheeks, as if the simple usage of her voice made her tears drop. She was too weak to hold them, maybe because she held them for too long that they refused to stop gushing out.

“I said, get out of my room.” She repeated in a clearer voice than before, even though it was still gruff and low-pitched, from crying no doubt.

“You need to eat.” Minseok unconsciously said so softly, a soft degree of tone that always took over his voice whenever he talked to her.

“I don’t want to eat.” She replied, locking her wilting eyes to his strong ones, hoping he’d relent just this time and leave her alone.

“You haven’t been eating lately; you’re malnourished, and—“ Minseok paused his words to press a warm, warm hand against her forehead, and she actually flinched, whether it was because he was unexpected, or because he was sweltering hot, like a human fire.

“—and you have a fever. At this rate, something terrible might happen to you and you’ll end up dead.”

“Who told you I don’t want to die?” She immediately fired, smacking his wrist away so that he’d stop feeling her forehead. Minseok’s eyes twitched at her words, at how little she valued her life – or them, whom were doing everything they could to make her pounce back on her feet — yet he didn’t say anything, only staring down at her with utter disappointment in his eyes that actually pierced something in her heart. But, screw it, she told herself, she wouldn’t let stupid mate reactions take control of her judgment. She didn’t value her life, and his disappointment; even though it was affecting her mate side; wouldn’t cloud her better judgment.

(Maybe it was in that moment that she learned to accept how to separate herself from the mate in her into two different entities, how to make her own feelings and that of the mate in her become two wholly different things)

“Huh? Who told you I don’t want to die?” She repeated again, more desperately than before, and once again; tears clouded her eyes, and they dripped on her hallowed cheeks. Minseok’s hard mask cracked, and his disappointment vanished; replacing it was the feeling of utter helplessness that invaded every part of his heart. Why was she doing this to herself? When she finally had a chance at life, she decided she didn’t want it?

“I don’t want to be here, please let me go.” She tried again when she noticed Minseok’s cracked mask, and the boy focused his eyes on hers once again.

“Where are you gonna go? You can’t go back to your house anymore.” He pointed the obvious, and thinking he was finally relenting – because he was actually answering her instead of giving her blatant NO – she sat up in her bed, the blanket falling on her lap.

“Anywhere, I’ll go anywhere; just please let me go, please.”

“I can’t leave you while you’re in this state,” Minseok sighed from his nose, “I’m sorry. I’d rather I die than let you leave when you’re this unstable.”

“Why are you doing this?” She desperately asked, more tears falling on her cheeks and outlining just how sickly and boney she truly was. Minseok noticed, of course, yet he didn’t comment on how she was skipping her meals, knowing she’d immensely close on herself again. Instead, he decided to answer her question, even though he thought it was stupid.

“Isn’t it obviously why we are all doing this?” He told her, a soft swirl of golden arising in his eyes, and she sniffled. “You can say you hate us all you want, you can blame us all you want, and you can throw the food Kyungsoo kept on remaking over and over again all you want; but we’ll always remain here, taking care of you, until you don’t want to die anymore.”

“If you knew all of this about me,” she tried saying in spite of the new batch of tears that flooded her eyes. “That I hate you and wish for you to disappear from my life, then why? Why do you still want to keep me with you? Am I not hurting you enough?”

“To be honest, you are hurting all of us.” Minseok answered truthfully, nodding casually even though admitting that in itself made him feel weak in front of her, and he didn’t think they were close enough for him to show his weakness to her when she, herself, was already weak.

“Then why? A mate bond does all of this?” She asked again; trying to find a better understanding of why they were all acting like this to her when she.. when she did anything to force them away. Was a mate bond this strong, this big, this.. wide, to make them act like this in spite of every horrible thing she hurled at them? She was an awful girl, she hurt them, but she understood where she was coming from. Years of abuse and mistreatment did this to her, but