It seemed to go without saying, although Taemin had to ask to be sure, that Sulli would keep his confession to herself until he was ready. While he knew in his heart that it would take something monumental for him to every admit the truth again, he felt comforted to know that at least one of his friends knew the truth. 

Even after so many years of having no one to trust, Taemin was still willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. He prided himself in being able to judge people’s characters, it was how he protected himself for so long. Knowing which foster parents would ignore him and which ones would show him too much interest. 

Sitting at the edge of the cafeteria by the large windows overlooking the courtyard, Sulli stirred her slowly melting ice cream. She had covered it with various brightly coloured candies and three different sauces. Handling Taemin’s rejection as though it never happened, Sulli was busy turning her frozen treat into soup. 

He, himself had skipped snacking, stomach still in knots after confessing his uality. Sulli tried to change his mind but stopped short of forcing ice cream into his bare hands. Barely. 

Taking a seat on the far side of the cafeteria, they settled in, keeping lots of distance between them and the few other occupied tables. Half way between lunch and dinner time on a weekend made for a deserted pubic place.

Sulli chatted away as if nothing had changed the entire time she inhaled her ice cream. “I stress eat,” she explained much to Taemin’s amusement. “Its always hard after a Jinki visit, and considering the news today…” her voice trailed off as her happy tone changed and she began to ignore her almost finished bowl of ice cream. 

“I’m still not sure why Key and Jonghyun thought I needed to go.” Taemin said, finally voicing his thoughts. “Back in the States, it wasn’t exactly normal for strangers to visit people they didn’t know in the hospital.” He barely had his foster families visit when he was admitted, then again, it was usually their fault he was there. 

“You’re Minho’s roommate and Key has decided to adopt you.” She said as though that made sense. At Taemin’s blank look, she elaborated, her spoon before speaking. “Jinki was Minho’s roommate before you arrived, they were really close and what happen to Jinki really messed with Minho.”

She looked around the almost empty cafeteria, eyes twitching as she took in the four occupied tables. Her voice lowered to a whisper, “Jinki’s been on a search for the last few years. No one but Minho really knew much about it. Jonghyun and Key knew he was searching for something, but even after his accident, Minho won’t tell us. I only know he was searching for something because I overheard Minho telling him that he should give up and stop looking.” 

The sounds of people approaching the cafeteria made Sulli jump as though she was caught doing something wrong. “We probably shouldn’t talk about this any more here. Everyone here thinks that Jinki transferred schools and thats what his family wants them to think. I don’t think they even want us to know except that Minho found out before they could hide it.” 

Taemin nodded and stood up, gathering Sulli’s garbage, nose wrinkling in disgust when his fingers became covered in the chocolate sauce that had overflowed from her bowl. He grabbed a paper napkin and tried to wipe the sticky off, ripping the napkin and causing bits of it to stick to the chocolate. 

“I need to wash my hands.” 

“Or you could just it,” Sulli teased. 

“ off your gross chocolate spill from my fingers?” He made a face, his eyes twinkling as he told her, in English, “Girls have cooties you know.”

“Cooties?” The word sounded odd with her accented English. 

Taemin laughed, “Yep, cooties. Ask Key what it means, I’m sure he knows.” Wiping his fingers on his pants, he let Sulli drag him out of the cafeteria. 

They ran through the halls, laughing as they went and ignoring the shouts of their classmates as they wanted to know why they were running. They stopped running when they reached the dorms, deciding to part ways. Sulli had homework that she needed to finish and Taemin was starting to feel mentally exhausted. 

“Hey Sulli?” 

“Yeah,” she said, standing in front of Taemin still holding his elbow. 

Shuffling his feet, the nervous boy his lips. “You really won’t tell anyone about me right?”

Letting go of Taemin’s elbow, Sulli stepped back and then stepped forward and grabbed his cheeks. “I know you’ve had a hard time in the past and we’ve all guessed that you haven’t really had friends before.” She paused, hoping she wasn’t going to offend him too badly, “but you’re one of us now. You’ve puked on Minho, been shopping with Key and you let Jonghyun lay on your bed after gym without complaining about his stink.”

Taemin nodded, thinking back to his plane ride here and the fun he had (albeit nervously and unsure) with Key who seemed to like him right off the bat, threatened to hunt him down even. Who else would do that? And how many people would become friends with a stranger who puked on them, regardless of roommate status or not. 

Biting her lip, Sulli did her paranoid look-a-bout again, “Jinki is our big secret, playing for the other team is yours. Now you know something that no one else does and so do I. It’s part of being friends.” 

She patted his shoulder, “Get use to it.”

With that, she leaned in, kissed his cheek and waved before skipping off the girls’ dorms. 

Breathing deeply, Taemin headed to his room. The door was still locked so he knew that his roommate wasn’t back yet. Keys jingling, he pushed open the door. 

Before he could even take a single step inside, he felt a hand on his back and found himself falling. 

He landed hard on his hands and knees, pain shooting through his joints on contact. He hardly had time to acknowledge what had happened before hands covered his eyes and mouth. 

Breath caught in his throat, Taemin felt his heart begin to race as his highly developed fight or flight adrenal system kicked in. Except that he couldn’t actually move. A heavy body pressed down on his back as he began to really struggle with his breathing. 

“We know you saw the Lee boy today,” A deep voice began, “And we want you to know that it wasn’t an accident. He got himself killed with his curiosity, he didn’t know enough to listen to our warnings. You will do well to be smarted than him.” 

Blackness moved in to Taemin’s vision as he struggled to stay conscious, the deep voice continued. “We will keep your homoual deviance quiet as incentive for your own silence to our little meeting.” A buzzing sound interrupted and the hand covering his eyes moved. 

Blinking, Taemin could only see the floor in front of him, the hand covering his mouth kept his head from moving. 

“It appears that your roommate has finally returned, we will have to continue this conversation at a later time. I hope that won’t be necessary though, now be a good little boy and close your eyes, count to 100 and don’t scream.” 

Frozen with fear, Taemin couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to, even when the hand left his face and the weight was lifted off his back. 

“Count.” 

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5…” Voice shaking, Taemin lapsed into English as he counted, forgetting how to count any higher than 10 in Korean. 

“Crawl forward to your bed and do not tell your new friends about our conversation. We will be watching.”

“27, 28, 29, 30…” Slowly moving forward, Taemin continued counting, even after he heard the door click shut behind him. 

He didn’t stop crawling until he reached his bed and didn’t stop counting, even when tears spilled from his eyes and he felt his bladder release from the built up terror. 

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Hey everyone!

So here it is, a much long awaited chapter. I had forgotten how much I enjoy writing and after re-aquainting myself with this work, here it is. 

I've got a pretty good idea of where I'm going from here so fingers crossed my muse carries on. 

Comments are love and reading your lovely comments that had backlogged for so long really lit a fire under me. 

Thanks to you all, hopefully this was worth waiting for! 

Tell me your thoughts!! 

All the loves, 

Kat