Zelo wasn’t in his bed when Yongguk woke up and for a moment he went into panic mode, but then he heard Zelo’s laughter from the guest room, accompanied by Jiho’s voice.

“You’re ticklish, huh?” Jiho said and then there was more laughter. Yongguk couldn’t help the smile that spread on his own lips at the contagious sound as he stood and made his way to the room next to his and Zelo’s.

Jiho was sitting next to Zelo on the bed and the younger of the two was writhing as he fought to get Jiho’s unrelenting fingers away from his ticklish spots. Jiho paused as he noticed Yongguk in the doorway, motioning for the older boy to come in. Yongguk took a few quick steps and settled on the edge of the bed next to Zelo’s head. Zelo sat up properly and leaned against Yongguk’s back.

“I’d like to talk to Jiho a little,” Yongguk said to Zelo. “You can prepare breakfast if you want to.”

Zelo nodded, placed a quick kiss Yongguk hadn’t expected on his cheek and scurried out of the room. Jiho’s eyebrows were raised when Yongguk looked back to him, but Yongguk merely shrugged.

“I want to talk to you about what happened.”

“I told you,” Jiho said with a little sigh, “dad went crazy. He said I was a and that he’d kill me. Mom wasn’t around so he had some time to beat me up, but she managed to distract him when she came home…”

He paused, looking away. Yongguk thought he might understand what he felt like. How would he feel if he left his mother with some maniac who might beat her to death? Not good, that was for sure. Instead of saying anything, Yongguk tugged at the shirt Jiho had worn to sleep. Jiho tried to squirm away, but Yongguk only tugged harder, eventually managing to pull the shirt over Jiho’s head.

What he saw made him nauseous. Jiho’s chest, stomach and back were covered with differently sized, purple, yellow and blackish bruises. He had a few cuts here and there, but Yongguk concluded they looked worse than what they actually were.

“I fell a few times while running here,” Jiho murmured. Yongguk could hear the held back tears in his voice. “Some of it might be from then.”

Yongguk sighed and gave Jiho’s shirt back to him. There was nothing he could do besides keeping Jiho safe and away from his father as well as feeding him and providing him with clothes.

“Hyung, can you-“ Jiho said, interrupting himself as Yongguk turned to him with a raised eyebrow.

“Can I what, Jiho?”

“Can you call Kyung?” Jiho asked. Yongguk nodded and Jiho offered him a smile as he rattled Kyung’s number.

“Park Kyung, what do you want so early in the morning?” a grumpy voice greeted once Yongguk had found his phone and made Jiho tell him the number again.

“Hello, this is Bang Yongguk. Did I wake you up?” he replied, feeling a little guilty.

“Oh! Yongguk-sshi, Jiho’s friend? No, it’s okay. What’s up? Is it Jiho?” Yongguk was a little taken aback by the rapid succession of questions, but quickly got over the shock.

“Yes.” He gave Kyung his new address and Kyung promised he’d be there in half an hour. Jiho’s smile widened when Yongguk told him this.

Yongguk left Jiho in the guest room and went down to check on Zelo. Zelo was surprisingly good at cooking, breakfast especially, and had a rather big one half-finished when Yongguk came down.

“Whoa,” he said, “good job, Zelo.”

Zelo beamed at him and gestured for him to take a seat at the table. Yongguk smiled back and did as he was ordered.

“Kyung is coming over soon as well. Are Heechul and Hankyung still asleep?” Yongguk asked. Zelo shrugged and dropped the bowl he was taking out from the cupboard, but managed to catch it before it hit the floor.

“I think Heechul-hyung might be. Hankyung-gege’s shoes are not in the hallway,” he answered. Yongguk let out a hum to acknowledge his answer.

“Jiho’s not gonna eat with us?” Zelo asked when he put the last few things on the table and sat down. Yongguk shrugged.

“Doesn’t seem like it.” He flashed Zelo a grin, “Let’s eat!”

They were interrupted in the middle of their breakfast by the doorbell, followed by an annoyed shout from Heechul. Yongguk went to open the door, already knowing who it was. With all greetings out of the way, he showed Kyung to the guest room and left him and Jiho to their business so he could finish breakfast with Zelo.

Heechul came up when they were almost finished and Yongguk made sure to inform him they had guests. Heechul groaned.

“How often do we not have guests?” he said. Yongguk glanced at Zelo and let out a snicker. Zelo grinned.

“Once in a blue moon or so,” Yongguk answered as he went upstairs, Zelo following him.

Yongguk knocked on the door to the guest room and entered when Jiho called for him to do so. The two were sitting on the bed and Jiho’s shirt looked like it had ben hastily thrown on. Yongguk guessed Kyung had inspected his friend’s bruises, especially judging by the expression on Kyung’s face – a mix of worry and anger.

“How long do you think you’ll stay?” Yongguk asked, leaning against the doorframe. Zelo seemed nervous, he noticed, fidgeting with his fingers and keeping his eyes trained on the floor.

“I don’t know,” Jiho answered. “Mom said she’d look for me when she thought it safe to return.”

“Kyung?” Yongguk questioned. He saw Zelo sneak out of the room, probably into his and Yongguk’s, from the corner of his eyes. Kyung shrugged and looked at Jiho with an undecipherable look on his face.

“As long as Jiho stays, I suppose. But I’ll go to school,” he answered. Yongguk deemed it enough information for the moment and gave the two a quick nod before returning to his and Zelo’s room.

Zelo had seated himself by the desk and was doing something on the computer. Yongguk watched him for a moment before he decided it’d be good to get some homework finished.

~~

Jiho’s mother did not turn up the rest of the month and not the following either. Jiho was confused and worried but at least he was kept safe and warm and healthy. None of them had a clue what had happened after Jiho escaped to Yongguk’s – not Kyung, not Heechul, not Hankyung, not Yongguk, not Zelo and most definitely not Jiho – until at least two months later.

All of them were gathered in the living room; Kyung, Jiho, Yongguk and Zelo were on the floor, doing homework, while Heechul and Hankyung were watching TV. There had been a low, comfortable chatter in the room until Hankyung suddenly sat up straight and hushed them, raising the volume on the TV.

“Jiho…” he said slowly as the news man spoke of a woman who’d been beat to death by her husband, “that couldn’t possibly be your mother?”

Yongguk watched Jiho’s face as his friend watched the TV carefully. He didn’t show any reaction at all until a photo of the woman showed up on the screen. His mouth opened and his eyes widened, one hand flying up to cover his mouth. Yongguk had him in his arms already before his tears started falling.

The room was enveloped in a heavy silence apart from Jiho’s barely muffled sobs and the reporter on the TV.

“It’s… It’s not true, right?” Jiho finally spoke. He’d moved his hand from his mouth, but other than that he hadn’t moved at all. “It can’t be true.”

“I’m sorry, Jiho,” Yongguk whispered.

There was a moment in which Jiho was still stiff and unmoving like a statue, in which Yongguk still held him close, in which everyone else was still silent in shock.

“No!” Jiho shouted then, fighting out of Yongguk’s grip. “Liar! ing liar, let go of me!”

Yongguk eventually had to let go of him and Jiho stumbled a little, but Kyung was there to catch him like the best friend he was. The two left the room, heading upstairs, and no one chose to go after them. It was better if they dealt with it on their own anyway.

Yongguk felt a lump build in his own throat, but he refused to cry. At least not until Zelo’s small arms found their way around him and the boy climbed into his lap. Then Yongguk couldn’t help himself as he wrapped his arms around Zelo’s waist as well and held him closer than he ever had before, crying silently into his shoulder.

“Hyung,” Zelo whispered when he’d calmed down, “it’ll be okay.”

~~

Jiho was in shock the entire following week. Kyung stayed home with him as neither could concentrate on anything, but Yongguk was pretty sure they sneaked off to Jiho’s mother’s funeral on Thursday. Yongguk and Zelo tried to carry on with school, but it was difficult to concentrate for both of them. In Yongguk’s case it mostly showed as irritation towards Allie who yelled back until Zelo wrote on a scrap piece of paper that someone they knew had died.

For Zelo, he wrote a lot more. Yongguk was amazed that he continued writing like he did, especially when his wrist obviously started aching after a while.

Heechul and Hankyung offered Jiho to live with them now that he had nowhere else to go and so the guest room turned into Jiho’s room. Around the same time, Kyung moved back home even if he still visited Jiho almost every day and Hankyung always had dinner ready for him, just in case.

Things slowly went back to normal. Jiho started laughing again, even if he was noticeably more irritable and easily upset.

Everything was almost like it was before when Zelo’s eleventh birthday arrived. He had asked them not to give him presents, but they still could not resist waking him up in the morning with a cake and a new notebook. Zelo scolded them for going against his orders, even if they all noticed he was happy with his gift.

A few days later, Jiho trusted Yongguk with the biggest secret of his life – he was in love with Kyung. Neither Yongguk nor Zelo could see why that would be a problem, but Jiho was frantic. If he wasn’t ranting about how perfect Kyung was, then he was ranting about how out of reach he was.

“Kyung is religious, and he’s straight as a ing ruler,” he said with a grimace. “Why did I have to fall for my best friend?”

“Life’s a ,” Yongguk replied and Jiho let out a frustrated whine. He let out another one when Zelo snickered at him from the desk.

“You guys are so good at encouraging me,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. Yongguk chose to ignore him and go on about what he was doing.

Jiho wasn’t the only one with love related problems anyway. Kyuhyun had called Yongguk the other day, nearly panicking because he’d fought with Sungmin. Yongguk managed to get him to tell him what had happened, and then he assured him it would be okay if he apologized. Since then he hadn’t heard anything, so he assumed things were okay between the two again.

Yet Yongguk faced the biggest problem the day he realized that he was in love with Zelo. It wasn’t really a surprise, but Yongguk felt like the biggest ert on earth. He was seventeen, he wasn’t supposed to be in love with an eleven year old! Most guys his age had a girlfriend who was a year or two younger, maybe even older. Then there were his friends; Kyuhyun who had a two years older boyfriend, Jiho who was in love with his best friend and panicking over it, Seunghyun whose boyfriend was a year younger than him…

And then there was Yongguk. Yongguk who was in love with a little innocent boy who was six years younger than himself. At least he didn’t think of Zelo ually. Not yet. Zelo was way too adorable for that.

No, it wasn’t that Yongguk thought Zelo was y. He’d surely think so in the future, but at the moment Yongguk was still very careful about Zelo’s innocence and he was determined not to taint it. It had more to do with the fact that Zelo was cute, intelligent, talented, nice and had an uncanny ability to always make Yongguk smile, or at least feel better.

A few days after he figured it out, he deemed it impossible to keep this huge secret to himself, but he wasn’t sure who to tell. Jiho? No, Jiho would tell Kyung and maybe even accidentally slip it to Zelo and God knows what would happen then.

Yoseob, who was his oldest friend? He’d probably try to get Yongguk to do something about it and he didn’t want to. Not tainting Zelo’s innocence included keeping him out of all things even remotely romantic until he was at least fourteen.

Kyuhyun would probably turn into some kind of scientific thing and that would annoy the hell out of Yongguk, so no. Jiyong was out of the question for obvious reasons, as was Heechul. He would’ve considered talking to Hankyung about it, had Hankyung not been in a surprisingly serious relationship with Heechul and if Yongguk told Hankyung a secret, Heechul would sooner or later find out and coax it out of Hankyung.

Yongguk’s final option was Himchan. Himchan, his ex-boyfriend who still loved him but was over him and was all the way over in Taiwan. Himchan who’d surely not think weird of him and not tell anyone else. Himchan who’d given him his phone number before he left, ‘just in case’, even if it would be expensive to call.

Yes, Yongguk’s choice fell on Himchan. Once he’d decided, it was just a question of when he’d call, which turned out to not be as difficult as he’d thought. It was easy to sneak off and hide in the downstairs bathroom one afternoon while Jiho, Kyung and Zelo were doing homework and Heechul and Hankyung weren’t home yet.

Slightly nervous, Yongguk looked up Himchan in his contacts and pressed call. Was it a different time in Taiwan now? The difference couldn’t be that big, could it?

It took five signals for Himchan to answer, and then he said something in Chinese Yongguk could not understand, but he could hear Himchan’s Korean accent.

“Himchan? It’s Yongguk,” he said once he’d gotten over the slight shock. There was a moment of silence.

“Yongguk? I’m sorry, I didn’t expect you to call and I didn’t see the caller ID… I would’ve answered in Korean,” Himchan said then with a nervous laugh. Yongguk chuckled as well.

“It’s okay, I was just a little surprised,” he assured.

“Mm, hold on a second.” Himchan seemed to hold the phone a bit away from his ear and Yongguk could hear him say something in Chinese to someone who responded in a quicker, more fluent accent.

“Just came out of school, my friends wanted to know who’d call me at this time,” Himchan explained when he came back and this time his laugh did not sound as nervous. “There’s this girl who keeps calling me ‘oppa’ and push her s against me. Do you have any idea how annoying that is?”

“Sounds like she wants you in her bed,” Yongguk laughed, laughing harder when Himchan let out a disgusted sound.

“Well, I don’t want to be in her bed,” he said, making Yongguk snort at his tone of voice. “Anyway, is there a reason you called? I’m guessing you wouldn’t waste God knows how much money on calling me for a quick chat.”

Himchan was joking, but Yongguk still felt guilty. It was true, he wouldn’t call Himchan for a quick chat. He used to, but that was when they were still together and he still thought Himchan was the love of his life.

“No, I’m sorry. I just… I have a problem, and I couldn’t think of anyone else to tell,” Yongguk murmured.

“Oh?” Himchan sounded confused and maybe a little curious. “Tell me.”

“I…” Yongguk paused and took a deep breath. It was now or never. “I’m in love with Zelo.”

A short pause and then one of those familiar soft chuckles. Yongguk had come to learn that it meant Himchan knew and understood something about Yongguk that he was too dense to realize himself.

“I know, sweetheart,” Himchan said softly. “I’ve always known. But there’s nothing I can do about it. You love him, but you’ll have to wait. Wait until you’re ready to confess and then it’s up to him whether he reciprocates your feelings or not. In the meanwhile all I can offer is being something you can take out your frustrations on.”

Yongguk wanted to cry. Why was Himchan like this? He didn’t feel like he deserved it.

“Thank you,” he murmured instead. “I love you Himchan, you know that right?”

“Yes,” Himchan laughed. “I love you too, you idiot. Why’d you have to fall in love with a kid?”

“Shut up,” Yongguk groaned, embarrassed. “I already feel like a ert, don’t make it worse.”

“You should feel like a ert,” Himchan retorted, sounding amused. “Up for some phone some day?”

Yongguk nearly choked on air. The way Himchan said it made it sound like he was talking about the weather.

“I-what, um… Sure,” he stuttered, eliciting a very amused laugh from Himchan.

“I’ll call you someday then. If you’re busy… Well, don’t.”

“I think I’m pretty free on Friday,” Yongguk suggested. “Unless Jiyong decides to invited himself and drag some poor soul over here.”

“Hm, Friday sounds good,” Himchan mused. “Friday night, then I guess you won’t have any guests over.”

“Friday night. Talk to you then, Himchannie,” Yongguk said in a slightly teasing voice.

“Don’t call me that!” Himchan protested, making Yongguk snicker. “Take care.”

“You too.”

And just like that, a huge weight lifted itself from Yongguk’s shoulders. Sure, now he was worrying about Friday night instead, but at least he didn’t have the weight of the secret about being in love with Zelo on his shoulders. Someone shared his secret, someone who’d said he could talk to him.

Yongguk did indeed love Kim Himchan, but not the way he used to.