She ran back to her room with the last of her strength, taking the long way around so as few people as possible would witness her in her undershirt, with her scraped and bruised arms out for everyone to see. She fairly kicked the door open and collapsed against it when it closed behind her.

“Taemin?” Minho stood up from where he'd been studying at his desk and hurried to her. “Taemin, what happened? Where's your uniform?”

Tears came. “Jonghyun,” she said by way of explanation. She crossed her arms in front of her, covering her shoulders with her hands, remembering the way Jonghyun had touched her. “He knows. Everything. He... he saw.”

Minho understood immediately. “What did he do?” he said, his voice low. Dangerous.

Taerim shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing really. He just – he saw this, and that was it. I mean... I just ran. He didn't do anything.”

He looked at her. Saw through her. “He hit you,” Minho said. “Didn't he?”

She'd lied to him too many times already. “Some,” she admitted. “It doesn't hurt any more.” That was a lie.

His hand hovered over her abdomen. “Can I...?”

“What's more bruises?” she said shaking her head. “I had plenty already.”

He wanted to respect her decision. “Nothing broken?”

She forced a smile. “Nothing broken.”

His eyes were sad. “웃지마,” he said quietly. “거짓말하지마.”

Why did she even try to lie? She let her hands fall into her lap, looking down. “What am I going to do now?” she asked, hating how hard it was to keep her voice from shaking. “Where can I... where am I going to go?”

Minho slid a finger under her chin and made her look up at him. He didn't even look worried. “Whatever happens,” he said, “we'll get through it together.”

“Together...?”

“Together,” he confirmed.

“But –”

He leaned forward suddenly and kissed her cheek, his lips pressing on her skin softly, pressing on it like it was a thing meant to be. He pulled her into a fierce hug, wrapping his arms around her so tightly that she could feel his heartbeat against her hands, her hands that she'd thrown up at the last moment as some kind of mindless defense, as though her body was telling her the opposite of what her heart was saying, as though it was telling her that she didn't want this. Instead she pressed her hands against her own chest between them, trying to calm her own pounding heart. It was suddenly telling her all the things she'd been afraid to think about before, that she'd thought impossible.

There was really no resistance.

Her hand crept to his neck, his cheek, pushing him away a little so she could look at him. His face was different, this close, when she could see every tiny expression, almost like she was reading his mind; almost like when she looked into his eyes, which before had been mysterious and closed to her, she could now see a mire of emotions swimming in their darkest depths.

She kissed him. She'd never kissed anyone like this before – a kiss that was completely empty of an ulterior motive. That place that had once held her cold calculations was now filled to the brim with something she couldn't define – something warm and full and immensely happy.

When he'd kissed her cheek, his lips had been soft, but now that she was feeling them with her own, she imagined that she had never felt anything so perfect. Just the contact was enough in the moment, the closeness, the silent communication of thanks.

Later, thinking back on the moment, Taerim couldn't remember anything besides the way their lips moved together, the softness of his hair sliding over her fingers as he leaned closer. But she imagined what it must have looked like, that healing moment between the skinny girl, defeat written in every bruise and in every scar, unkempt and afraid, and the schoolboy, outwardly orderly and mild, but every movement betraying how much he cared. A kiss so fleeting as to have hardly happened at all, but seeming to last an eternity. A pause, when everything seemed to fall into place. The event transcended their embrace, seemed much more than a hand on the cheek and touching foreheads, closed eyes and soft breaths in unison.

Healing. Taerim couldn't get enough.

~~~

It was selfish. Every moment of that kiss made the record for the most selfish thing Taerim had ever done. And she'd had some prizewinners before – mostly in prison, where she'd had to be selfish in the interest of survival. But those times had all been in the interest of her physical body. The kiss with Minho, that came so fast and was over so quickly and yet seemed to last an eternity of sunlit days, was the first thing Taerim had ever done to repair her own damaged heart.

But the repair was temporary and, even worse, artificial.

“Stay away from Jonghyun,” Minho murmured into her hair a few moments later, seated next to her against the door with his arms encircling her. “I'll talk to him.”

Taerim nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Minho's arms tightened around her. “Drop tennis,” he said. “And don't get hurt again.”

Taerim nodded again. Even among the transports of joy that her heart was experiencing, horror was already starting to creep in. Minho knew. Jongin knew. Now even Jonghyun and a few of his friends knew. She'd been careless. And that wasn't even the half of it.

He sensed something was wrong. “Taemin? What is it?”

Even though Minho's arms were around her, Taerim hugged herself. “Bad things will happen,” she murmured. “I need to go.”

“Don't say that.”

“It's true.”

He fell silent. Taerim knew what he was thinking. “There are things about me you don't know,” she said slowly. This must be the hardest thing she'd ever done. Even when she'd confessed to Jongin, she hadn't felt like this. What was that feeling? Guilt, because she was starting to realize that her actions had consequences beyond what the law meted out as punishment. Shame, because she knew those actions would disappoint Minho, someone she respected and admired.

“I told Jongin about some of those... things,” she continued, feeling like every word was a battle. “You- you know what happened. He said we can't be friends any more, and he doesn't talk to me unless he has to. He said if I did anything wrong he'd get me kicked out of the school –“ Minho's arms tightened protectively around her, but Taerim shrugged them away. “Jongin isn't stupid, you know? So you know whatever I told him was bad, okay? I don't want to tell you...”

“Why not?” he murmured, fascinated by her words even if he didn't want to be.

“Because you'll be disappointed in me,” Taerim answered immediately. “Wouldn't you rather not know? Wouldn't you rather I left?”

“No.”

“It would solve the Jonghyun problem. And I could find somewhere else to go.”

“No."

“Please, Minho...”

“You're hiding,” he said abruptly. “Where else are you going to hide?”