“I was expecting you to find me, you know,” a soft, broken voice drifted across the room the second you closed the bedroom door behind you.

“D.O,” you called out softly as you slowly stepped towards the figure that was staring outside the window. To be honest, you had been rather surprised when you saw the other once you stepped into the room. You had expected Luhan to be talking about Sehun or Kai, or maybe even Kris to some extent, but D.O hadn't even crossed your mind.

You knew exactly why Luhan had led you to this particular member, however, when he slowly turned to reveal his hard, lifeless eyes. “You always knew how to somehow swoop in to save the day, Hanmi.”

You didn't say anything in reply, and you didn't need to. D.O didn't need somebody to console him and give him sweet pep talks, he just needed somebody to tell everything to. He needed somebody to talk to.

He glanced down at his letter, and stared down bitterly at the scraps of old paper. “My parents abandoned me, and I was adopted into a new family. It wasn’t much of a family for me, though; I was more like a slave. They… they would chain me to the radiator whenever they went on vacations, and I would be forced to clean the house only when night came, and I was whipped if I made even the slightest bit of noise.”

You were taken aback by D.O's sudden explanation, and felt your heart clench in pain at how lifeless the other sounded during his explanation.

He slowly walked towards you and draped his arms around your shoulders. “Just stay with me like this for a few minutes, okay? I won’t cry or sob or whine… I just want to be with somebody for a little.”

“It’s fine if you want to cry, you know,” you replied as you wrapped your own arms around the other’s waist. “I won’t find you any less of a man.”

D.O chuckled at your words and nuzzled his face deeper into your shoulder. “No, it’s fine. I don’t need to cry, I just need your shoulder.”

Within a few minutes, you felt your shoulder began to dampen, and small sniffles came from D.O, but you said nothing and continued to hold the boy in your arms.

This is what Changmin had meant when he said that they saved the Exo boys from their previous lives. That the Exo boys, despite only being at the age of 7-10 years old, would rather sacrifice their lives instead of living like how they were.

The boys were going through their most emotional and vulnerable moment, and you’d do anything to make them feel better.

A few minutes passed, and D.O shamefully ducked his head away from you and spun around so you wouldn’t see his tear stained face. “Thanks, Hanmi, I really needed that. I’m fine now, and as much as I would like you to stay with me, I need to learn how to share, so go find the others okay?”

You stared at him hesitantly, and he chuckled at your reluctance.

“I’ll be fine. Just… take care of the others for me. I know they’re going through a rough time as well,” D.O stated softly.

You nodded your head, but called out “Neh,” once you realized that he couldn’t see you. You quietly left the room and journeyed down the hall to look for the other members.

You peeked through the crack of one of the rooms, and smiled warmly at the sight of Kris holding onto a sobbing Tao. The two of them would be enough to console each other in peace.

The room next door, however, caught your complete attention. The door was thrown carelessly open, and you glanced inside to see Kai pacing back and forth with his letter crunched roughly in his hand. At the sound of your footsteps, his head whipped up, and your heart clenched in pain once you got a look at the pain and anguish in his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Kai growled as he shamefully turned his head away from you.

“I wanted to see how you were doing,” you responded softly and closed the door quietly behind you.

“Well don’t, I don’t want to talk to anyone,” Kai replied bitterly and crumpled the piece of paper in his hand even more.

“It’s alright Kai, you can tell me,” you stated softly as you gently caressed the other’s arm. “The other boys have had pasts just as hard as you… you’re not alone.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Kai exclaimed and shoved your arm off his shoulder. His eyes were filled with pain and anger as he intensely gazed at you, and his breaths came out in heavy pants. “I was normal, Hanmi! I was a normal kid, who was so stupid and tired of being normal!”

You stared at him silently. The confusion towards his words must have been evident on your face, because he then continued explaining. “You know, I always wondered why I didn’t have any memories from when I was little, and I always just assumed that it was because I had a bad childhood. I thought that the memories were erased because I had suffered so much, and that I wanted to forget all the pain that I had gone through. It always made me feel better about myself, you know? Whenever my life got tough, I would always console myself by saying that the past I had must have been ten times as worse.”

A pained expression captured Kai’s face, and his hands balled into tight fists. “But it wasn’t the case. My childhood, it was perfectly fine. I had a younger brother, and two parents. I scored decently in school, and I was a part of the dance team, and I lived a normal life. I chose to volunteer myself because I wanted life to be more interesting. Do you hear me? I CHOSE THIS LIFE ONLY BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS MORE INTERESTING!” Kai shouted and slammed his hand against the lamp next to him, sending it crashing into the floor.

The shattering of the ceramic lamp echoed across the room, and a heavy silence blanketed afterwards.

“All the hyungs… they chose this life because they had no choice. They chose this life because their past was ten times worse then what’s happening now… but me? I was just a stupid, greedy child who wanted to have a more interesting life,” Kai finished in a low voice. “The hyungs… they would have wanted what I had… but me? I just... threw it all away.”

The two of you stood there silently as you soaked up all of Kai’s words.

“Did you know that when we were young, Himchan tried to kill me?” you spoke suddenly. Kai glanced over at you with confusion and anger, but you continued to speak. “It was when we were all supposed to learn how to swim, and I was having a bit of a problem learning compared to the others. After the lesson, all the boys went away, and Himchan took me into a corner and shoved me into the pool. After a few seconds of drowning, however, he jumped in, and saved me.”

Your lips curved into a small smile at the distinct memory from your childhood. “He yelled at me afterwards,