Chanyeol groans, the sound of metal clattering into the sink echoes right after. Jongin doesn’t respond immediately, too engrossed with his reading. But when Chanyeol lets out a whimper, Jongin looks up. He gets up from where he sits and stalks into the kitchen with a worried look, calling out to his friend. He sees Chanyeol cradling a wounded finger in his other hand.

“Yeol?” He calls out. “You okay?"

“Yeah, I’m fine, but I kind of hurt myself, I guess?” He looks up to see his friend’s face scrunched up into a grimace, and he almost smacks his face right then and there.

“You guess?” Jongin mocks.

“Well, I’m sorry I’m such a klutz.” Chanyeol rolls his eyes, tone bordering around sarcasm and humour. He grins then. “Please tell me you have a first-aid kit.”

“I don’t,” Jongin grumbles, though he sounds a lot guiltier than he is annoyed. “I do have bandages for that little cut of yours. But you have to wash it off first.”

Chanyeol turns to the sink, probably to wash his wound from any bacteria, as Jongin stomps out his kitchen to go retrieve his bandages. He doesn’t take that long to find what he needs before he’s shuffling back into the kitchen. Chanyeol takes the box of bandages and makes his way to the dining table. He sighs as he lets himself drop onto the seat.

“You’re unconsciously very self-destructive.” Jongin snickers.

“Yeah, I realise that.” Chanyeol laughs along. “But I take care of myself pretty well.”

“Yes, you do.” Jongin tilts his head to the side as he gives Chanyeol a peculiar look, one that feigns pride for the sake of humour.

“Hey, speaking of, how are you?” Jongin doesn’t answer right away, too busy wiping Chanyeol’s cut. Or maybe he just doesn’t know what to say. Chanyeol doesn’t ask a second time, only patiently waits for Jongin.

“I’m doing better.” Jongin smiles, finally pressing the same ball of tissue he used to wipe the blood away against the line of red so it would clot.

The light coming from the living room shines on them almost like a small candle flame would on a night stand. Miniature. Subdued, but very compact. Flickering about when there’s movement but unmoving when the air’s settled. Like staring into a flame would make one notice the hues of blue and green edging around the seething yellow, Chanyeol distinguishes the constant fright ablaze in Jongin’s glowing orbs.

“How much better?” Chanyeol shifts in his seat, now directly facing Jongin. He’s sporting a little frown on his face, and he’s unconsciously leaning closer.

Jongin shrugs, clicking his tongue. “I don’t know, Yeol.”

Chanyeol sees the truth in the way Jongin refuses to look at him. Quite possibly, Jongin would love to share his pain, but most definitely he’s just afraid no one would understand him. No matter how bad Chanyeol wants Jongin to open up to him, he can’t blame Jongin for not complying. Pain is relative, and so is fear. And he keeps on forgetting that.

So Chanyeol settles on edging around till Jongin’s finally ready to open up. He knows best how humiliation could hold one back. Then he thinks, maybe if Jongin’s not going to let anyone in, he should invite Jongin in.

“My first year in High School, I had everything ready and planned out ahead of me,” Chanyeol starts. Jongin’s head shoots up from peeling the plastic off from a bandage with a muddled look casted towards Chanyeol. The latter continues, “I come from an infamously poor family. Everyone in town knows that. We live in between the nicer houses, squeezed in with our poorly designed bijou house. And some kids at school know that, so they decided that it was best to cast me aside. A nobody— a mutt like me could never hang around with clean people like them.”

“Chan—” Jongin’s pity cry’s cut off by Chanyeol placing a finger to his lips. Jongin shuts up with a perplexed look.

“They bullied me, of course. I wasn’t even trying to be their friend. I was minding my own business but of course they had to come along and rub it in my face that I wasn’t good enough for them. Then, they would even throw stuff at my house. There was one time my mom was still out on the front yard but the kids came, threw about 8 pounds of hard rice and left laughing.” Chanyeol chuckles then and Jongin wonders what’s so funny. “I didn’t take the bullying very well. I kept to myself and I hated everyone. I was in so much pain. Mentally, physically and emotionally. As much as I was hurting, I was still hopeful that maybe one day, someone would stop them. No one came for a very long time. I had to endure them shaving me bald, them dousing me in dirty cat pee. One time, they actually stripped me except for my underwear.”

“How old were you?” Jongin asks almost in a whisper, as if Chanyeol would break if he talked any louder.

“I was maybe around 16? 17?” The redhead shrugs. “The teenage hormones spiking up around that time doesn’t make it any better. Imagine the humiliation a normal person would feel but you triple it. I was a crying mess every single time they did something to me.”

Chanyeol’s facade disappears along with his handsome grin, his eyes casted down to where his wound is. The blood stopped flowing, but one simple squeeze would break the dam. Jongin thinks it’s similar to Chanyeol’s pain, his fear.

“I didn’t know.” Jongin breathes out a little too harshly till it turns out to be a soft, breathy groan. “I— I mean I knew you were bullied. I just didn’t know how bad it was.”

“It was so bad.” Chanyeol takes a deep breath, leaning back on his chair as he did so. “But Jongdae was there.”

“Jongdae was there,” Jongin repeats after him.

“I’ve seen his face a couple of times while they did things to me. He would watch and it’s obvious that he pitied me or was disgusted, I couldn’t tell between those two emotions.” Chanyeol scratches the side of his nose, sniffling as he grins. “But he helped me. And maybe he couldn’t handle just standing by the side anymore. No one came for a very long time but there was someone at the end.”

Jongin grins. “I know how that feels.”

“Interesting.” Chanyeol raises his eyebrows high up, his eyes crinkling a little at the sides from a faint smile. “How so?”

“Sehun.” Jongin ducks his gaze to where his fingers are scratching the edge of the table, tracing the little whites scrapped in the polished wood with his eyes. “Sehun told them to stop and they did. That emotion I felt when he told me they wouldn’t bully me anymore was pure bliss. I was so happy.”

“But what happened with you and Sehun? You’re not on good terms with him, right?”

“I guess not.” Jongin laughs, finding it amusing how he doesn’t know his true relationship with Sehun. “People stopped bullying because Sehun stopped them, and for a long time I tried to get my life back together very slowly. And I was going steady, but Sehun publicly humiliated me in front of the whole school.”

“That’s awful of him.” Chanyeol gives Jongin an apologetic look. “I hope he comes to his senses soon.”

“Oh, he did.” Jongin starts nodding in glee, his eyes wide open as he waits for Chanyeol to catch on.

“What? He apologised?” Chanyeol punches Jongin in the arm. “I bet you felt good.”

“I did.”

Jongin finds himself sharing part of his story to Chanyeol. He breathes in lightly, a big weight on his chest flung away. He’s taking in sharp breaths in between the flow of words. The faint soft rumble of fear blooms in his chest, familiarly, and it’s digging its way down to his stomach. The more he shares, the stronger the fear grows. The perception of people not being able to understand him intrudes his mind, causes fear to build under his flesh, but Jongin digests that emotion. He refuses to give in to it because Taemin’s not here with him and he’s got no one else. Chanyeol’s offering a safe, warm place to take shelter in, so he accepts.

Orange. That's what Jongin sees in the corner of his eyes. He wants to look but he's too afraid to. But when a shadow caresses where he sits, Jongin gets too curious. He looks up, and he sees a familiar face. 

The soft murmurs and the sight of fingers pointed at them blurs the longer he stares up at the boy's face. Jongin straightens his back, getting ready to bolt  as soon as he decides to anything to him. He hasn't even recovered from yesterday when he's been thrown around and hit a couple of times, he doesn't need more. 

"Who are you?" Jongin asks when the boy doesn't make any move to show Jongin what he's doing. 

"I'm Oh Sehun." Sehun slides the small bottle of orange juice  a little closer to Jongin. "I told them to stop. You're welcome."

Jongin's piercing gaze lingers a little longer, trying to see what Sehun means through the look in his eyes. Fear, pride, but mostly fear. For someone who's standing up for others, Sehun brings himself with too much insecurity. Jongin shakes his head, looking away. He gets ready to leave, but Sehun tugs on the back of his shirt.

"I'm not lying to you." Sehun's face contorts into a smug expression. "It's true."

"Bull!" Jongin swats Sehun's hand away, his face hardens, fitting into anger and borderline humiliation. People are staring again. "Leave me alone!" 

"I'm not lying..." Sehun pulls Jongin back by his arm, insistent on making Jongin believe his words. "Believe me."

"Yeah, right!" Jongin jabs both his hands right into Sehun's chest, causing the latter to groan louder than Jongin would expect. Jongin goes rigid, eyes studying the way Sehun has a hand pressed to his chest, stepping back as his face folds into a pained expression. Jongin fears he might have hurt Sehun. He considers apologising but when he catches sight of the surrounding kids throwing him dirty looks, Jongin snaps his eyes up to Sehun and scowls. "Just— Just let me be!"

"I'm— I'm trying to help you..." Sehun tries once more, but Jongin's already too far from him, hands wrapping around himself as he scurries out of the cafeteria. And he hears Sehun mutter his name before he totally disappears round the corner, "Kim Jongin."

After Chanyeol’s gone back home, Jongin sits in complete silence and ponders about his life. He’s not really the type to share to just anyone about anything important, or anything that could possibly put him in a very vulnerable state. So he wonders where that sharing corner came from. He was the one who refused Chanyeol’s offer to confide in him but not long after that first offer he’s come crawling back in tears. Jongin’s unarmed as of now, and if telling Chanyeol that small part of his past regarding Sehun was to backfire, he won’t have anything to protect himself with.

He only snaps out of the trance he’s willingly fallen into when his phone dings in his lap. He unlocks his phone with a swipe on the screen and sees Judi’s name at the top of the screen. She’s asking if he’s up for dinner together. He’s boring himself a little too much with the Representative matter — and taking a break alone wouldn’t help because he would only contemplate about life instead of resting — so he agrees to Judi’s invitation.

         Judi’s as pretty as she naturally is, and Jongin handsomely smirks once his eyes lands on her. She sends back a similar grin before she swats the side of his arm with the back of her hand, calling him out for being later than her. He laughs, freely like he naturally does. He proceeds to drape his right arm around her shoulders, guiding her into the restaurant a little further into the street.

“We haven’t talked for such a long time!” Judi drawls, rolling her eyes as she thumbs the sharp edge of the menu.

“Yeah.” Jongin purses his lips out of having nothing else to do. “I’ve be