The drawing sat folded on your desk for five days. You had to admit that you were procrastinating but you couldn’t just walk in there and expect them to forgive you straight away; plus you were still figuring out what to say. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”, just didn’t cut it. You had never been very articulate when it came to apologies and your way of comforting someone was a very awkward pat on the back.

You continued with classes and kept hanging out with Inguk as the Eunseo situation hadn’t been resolved yet. You went through several scenarios in your head concerning the guys but all resulted in them turning their backs on you. The rain hadn’t let up since the weekend which was unusual as autumn was about to end and the rainy season was in summer.

You worried about that the guys were suffering in the cold and wet basement; surely it had flooded from the constant rain. Plus their wounds hadn’t been seen to for at least a week and even if they couldn’t feel their injuries they’d have to be uncomfortable. You came to the conclusion that you’d go and see them just to gauge whether they needed to be tended to.

Class ended and you took your time gathering your books as you kept working yourself up over nothing. You slowly walked to your dorm and got the first aid kit you kept under your bed out and placed it in your back pack. As you were about to leave you gathered the six dolls in your arms and started on the soggy trail to the house. The walk was difficult as the trail’s incline was made slippery from the rain and you could barely hold your umbrella as your arms were full.

You quietly slipped into the house and left your umbrella at the door. The sound of the rain thundered through the hollow house so your footsteps were hardly noticeable. The temperature below the house was several degrees lower than outside and you regretted not wearing an extra layer. A thin layer of water covered the floor as there didn’t seem to be an adequate drain under the house. It was considerably quieter under the house so you stepped carefully as to not blatantly alert them to your presence.

You peeked around the entranceway and saw that water was still streaming from the grate near the ceiling, flooding the floor near the centre of the room where a tiny drain was overwhelmed with the amount of water. You couldn’t see any of the guys; they were smart enough to stay as far away from the water as possible. You took a deep breath and inched around the entrance. No one stirred so you meekly walked to the table and chair at the centre of the room before setting the dolls and your backpack down on it.

“Uh, hey.” You mumbled while looking into each of the cells. Hongbin looked up at you with blank eyes. He had been running a finger along the many small stitches that dotted his arms and shoulders. The others slowly walked forward with similar despondent expressions. You clenched your hands into fists and grabbed the first aid kit before going into Hakyeon’s cell and sorting through the various creams and bandages. “I just thought you’d need your wounds looked at again.” You said loud enough for the others to hear.

You took Hakyeon’s arm and inspected the bruises that covered his forearm; luckily they had begun to heal and turn a lighter grayish-yellow colour. You leaned unnecessarily close to his skin so you wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes.

“You’re fine.” You gathered everything in your arms and stood to leave.

“I can understand why.” Hakyeon said matter-of-factly. You turned and stared at him with knotted eyebrows. “Why you yelled at him, I mean. Hell, I can’t stand him sometimes either. His negativity makes this whole situation worse, he doesn’t even trust us anymore and now all he does is sit there and stare at the wall.” He clenched his hands and leaned against the wall shared with Taekwoon while he glared at you.

“Why does it matter anymore? I’ve screwed up big time and I don’t plan on coming here anymore.” You hugged the bottles and boxes closer to your chest and looked down.

“I understand why you’re like this, but can you begin fathom what Sanghyuk feels?” You felt anger starting to burn in you as he spoke.

“Do you want me to feel sorry of him? Excuse his behaviour because he’s having a hard time? Well, I won’t. Someone who blames their actions on what happened to them doesn’t deserve sympathy. They don’t have the right to act however they want because they think everyone owes them something.” You snapped at Hakyeon, not caring that the others could hear your whole conversation.

“Would you two shut up; I think we all get it now. Yo, Seulgi, my back hurts again.” Wonsik growled from across the room, successfully interrupting your argument. You stood there motionless for a moment before Wonsik made a ‘what’ gesture and Hakyeon chuckled slightly.

“What the hell…?” You mumbled.

“Did you really think we’d reject you so easily? You have such little faith in us.” Hakyeon collapsed on his lounge and smiled at you.

“You were joking?”

“Not joking, just…testing you? We can’t have some flaky, spineless girl trying to help us out, can we?” He gestured to the others. “Especially with this handful.”

“You… do you have any idea how stressed I was about all this? I can’t believe it.” You sat down heavily next to Hakyeon and put your head in your hands. ‘All that worrying for nothing.’ “Why did I agree to this?”

“Cause you have no friends?” Wonsik teased and you glared at him; that was only half true.

“So, do you forgive us?” Hongbin said with crossed arms.

“You all irritate me to no end but I guess I’ll deal with it for a little longer.” You sighed and walked over to Wonsik and began inspecting the large bruise on his back. Normally, you’d have left already, too annoyed to forgive anyone but you were strangely determined to stick with them. You left Wonsik to go to Jaehwan who had grown a bright smile at your presence. You couldn’t help the little lift of your lips as you repeated the process of changing his bandages and applying burn cream.

“I’m glad.” He said as you replaced the safety pin on his bandages.

“About what?”

“You forgiving us. I was afraid you’d never come back.” Jaehwan’s eyes shined a little but he kept the smile on his face.

“I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” You placed a hand on his shoulder as a little sign of affection. Jaehwan had the ability to make you comfortable around him despite only knowing him for such a short time. You got up to go to the next person but turned around again. “Thank you for the drawing, it’s beautiful.” Jaehwan nodded happily and started drawing in his sketchbook.

Hongbin’s stitches looked fine so you only applied some antiseptic and put a new band-aid over a small cut on his hand. You decided to go to Taekwoon first as you were still figuring out what to say to Sanghyuk. You told him to sit down and looked away as he removed his t-shirt; it was still embarrassing to see any of them shirtless. You carefully removed the patches placed over the stitches and applied cream and antiseptic.

“Does that cat come here often?” You stupidly asked before realising he can’t reply. ‘How long will this awkwardness last? If only he could talk.’ Taekwoon only nodded and pulled his shirt back on then started reading one of the books you had brought him a while ago. Now for the challenge.

Sanghyuk sat in the corner with his arm resting on his knee as he stared at the ground. You were still angry at him, and that wouldn’t change soon but there was no point in ignoring him completely; you weren’t that cruel. You none too carefully dropped the supplies on the floor as an indication for him to roll up his sleeves. He just sat there but stared at you with blazing eyes. You were afraid that he would lash out at you again but you kept a brave face and grabbed his arm roughly as he obviously wasn’t going to listen to you. He clenched his hands into fists and you could see his eyes transitioning between his normal dark brown hues to the milky white with black ‘x’s.

“Stop acting like that.” You said firmly as you unwrapped the bandages and began to smooth ointment over the scabs. “You’re a person not some animal.”

“Trying to be nice now?” He said bitingly.

“Only in your dreams. For now you’ll have to harden up and deal with it.” You smirked a little at the look of defeat on his face that he tried to hide by scoffing. “So behave and I’ll give you a chocopie.” You gathered everything and ran out before he could retaliate. You stood in the middle of the room and looked at them all trying to figure out the most appropriate thing to say.

“Don’t expect any extra nice treatment from now on; I’m still kind of mad.” You tried to say with a big voice but wavered embarrassingly.

“Don’t worry, we don’t want any from some plain five-year old like you.” Wonsik drawled in an attempt to make you even angrier but you just shrugged and walked over to Hakyeon. At least he was sensible.

“I’ll be back tomorrow with some books or things to keep you all occupied.” You stuffed everything into your bag and left when he said goodbye.

“Hey.” Hakyeon called out so you turned around. “Thanks for sticking around a little longer.” He said with a light smile that you returned with a small lift of your lips. You left the house with a weird warm feeling, ‘I guess I can deal with them for a little longer.’ You thought as you entered your dorm to prepare for the next day.

Author Note: .....I have no excuse. Well, now that I'm in year 12 I need to study hard so I can get into the university I like. That.... and I became obssessed with B.AP and BTS...... sorry. But 95 subscribers in damn amazing, thank you all so much for bearing with my awful updating schedule! ^^