Not again... Not now.      She knew what was going to happen. She knew the second she laid eyes on him, how he stumbled towards her with eyes full of anger. The smell of alchohol made her nauseous and the look in his dark eyes made her furious. She clenched her hands into a fist and waited until he came closer. "Uncle Joe, why are you drunk again?" She whispered with a weariness sigh as she tried to grab his arms.   Her uncle backed away, shrugging off her hand. He bitterly chuckled and yelled, "Don't touch me, you piece of !"   Alex took a deep breath and stepped closer to him while trying to grab his arms once again. "Joe, come on."     But the man took that chance and yanked her by her hair to the ground. Alex hinced in pain when her head hit the cold hard sidewalk, and watched how everything happened in slow motion. Drowning by the hands full of hate and anger. She winced as she tried to struggle free of his hold. But what's the point? She knew better than to run away. So she closed her eyes, and let the man pure all his anger out on her.    With a final hit on her stomach, her uncle straightened up and drunkly stumbled towards the insides of the house, leaving her crawling in the ground and trying to catch her breath. Tears began to roll down her burning cheeks as she tried to stand up. She got a hold on the fence and pulled herself up. It took her a good few seconds to regain her breath again.    She groaned in pain when she tried to clean the cut on her lip but stopped when she looked up and noticed the reflection of someone walking away from the building at the corner of the one way street. There was something inside of her that told her to turn away and ignore it, but her instincts begged the differ. The image of someone finding out what just happened made her grow furious... nervous, and she will not let that happen again. Subconsciously, she ignored her pain and began to rapidly walk towards the figure.                      Fear rose up inside of Xiumin's body as he experienced those horrible couple of minutes.  He wanted to run and help, but once the man threw a last punch at her stomach, he stopped his steps. His eyes widened as he saw the mysterious girl he so desperately wanted to write about, laying on the floor all covered with horrible red and purple bruises on her face. Her eyes looked tired and her body looked numb. For Xiumin, it was surprising that she never screamed for help, nor yelped at the immense pain she must have felt. His whole body froze at the scene. He looked at her several times, desperately wanting to do something, butn ot knowing what to do.    Afraid of being caught, he nervously turned around and managed his own feet to walk away... to run.   His mind kept repeating the same scene over and over again. The way that man abused her and how she didn't even complained, nor stopped him. He has never experienced something horrible as this. For the first time in his life, he wanted to cry, to pour out all his feelings towards the cruelty in this world. Towards that man who is violently abusing one of his classmates, and towards the girl who didn't do anything about it. He clenched his hands into a fist, in anger and fury, just trying to come up with an alternative for her safety.    He made a stop by an abandoned bakery just a couple of minutes away from where he saw the voilent scene, unaware of who might be following him. As he stopped walking, he immediately felt a hand grabbing his arm and turning him around as the person pushed him against the bakery's wall, clutching his shirt by his neck.   His eyes widened once he noticed those furious eyes piercing right into his own. "What the hell are you doing here? Why are you here?" Alex furiously asked.    Xiumin tried to answer, but all he could do is nervously gag. "I-I-"    "Just answer the damn question!" She demanded him.   Xiumin stood in silence, nervously breathing as he tried to find words for his explanation. Due to his fear, he didn't noticed when his notebook fell to the ground next to Alex's foot. She looked down gazing at the notebook and bended down, taking it in her hands. Xiumin watched how she furiously read what was written on the notebook. "What is this? Why are you writing about me?" She seriously asked.    Xiumin opened his mouth again, this time making a big effort on finding the words. "I-I- we-" He took a deep shaky breath, calming himself down to explain without any gagging. He nervously met Alex's eyes and began to spoke. "T-There's a school p-project, a-and we-"   Alex tightened her grip on the notebook, making Xiumin look at her eyes with fear. "What makes you think you can write about me? Who the hell gave you permission to do this?" She growled.   He felt her grip his shirt again and he shut his eyes real tight, waiting for the worst. The seconds pass and he didn't felt any hits, nor heard any shouts. He nervously began to open his eyes as he let out a shaky breath. He gulped when he saw Alex right in front of him, looking at him with an indescribable expression as she was trying to find words to speak. Is that... Is that tears in her eyes?    The next move she made, left him astonished. She let go of him, lowered her head, and with one last glance, she walked away.   A strange feeling made Xiumin move his feet forward until he was following her again. He knew that she was aware of being followed, but still, she didn't turned around. She just kept walking back to where the whole scene happened. The same strange feeling made him extend his hand and grab her arm. She stopped her tracks and stood still. With all strength, Xiumin found words to say. "You can't." He shook her arm for her to turn around, but yet, she didn't. "You can't go back. That man will get you. He will hurt you." He desperately said as tears filled up inside of his nervous eyes.    He carefully watched how Alex turned midway around, slowly and gently pulling his hand away from her arm. "You have n-no right to intrude in m-my life. Just go away." She fully turned around, meeting his eyes and continued in a more serious tone, "Don't ever come back."     With those words said, she turned around once again, and began to walk away. But Xiumin didn't give up easily. He took another step forward and angrily said, "You're going back to that ? He hurt you, Alex. I'm telling the police."   Alex turned furiously around and took a hold of his collar. "If you dare say any of this to the police, damn it, I will not hesitate to- to-" Xiumin watched how her eyes widened as if she was surprised of what she was doing. She let go of his shirt looking at her own hands and quickly walked away without taking one last glance back.   Xiumin placed a hand on his chest, inhaling and exhaling to control his fear and trembles. An urge to run towards Alex and stop her from going back to that man, ran through his mind. But the way that Alex reacted at the mention of 'police' made him stop his tracks. The way her face changed once she started to say those words to him, and how he noticed a slight fear on her eyes before she stormed off from his sight.                    An hour later, he arrived at his house with a weariness expression. Before could he open the door, a voice made him startle. "Xiumin!"    He turned around and found Baekhyun walking straight to him. "I've been calling you for the past hour, where have you been? Did you find anything?" Baekhyun hesitantly asked.   Xiumin lowered his head and cleared his throat before speaking. "I thought your grandmother was in town."    "Oh, she was. But she left earlier than expected. Apparently her sister had a panic attack and granny had to leave as soon as possible." Baekhyun explained.   Xiumin nodded and turned around to leave but Baekhyun took a step forward and asked, "What happened? Xiumin, is something wrong?"   You have no idea. But of course, Xiumin couldn't let him know that. If Alex was that fierce in not letting Xiumin mention what happened to the police, then she surely didn't want Baekhyun finding out. Even Xiumin wasn't suppose to know, and he clearly un