Chapter 17 : Nightmares Come True

Jong Suk hurries toward the school back gate. He hadn’t expected a visit from his aunt, she would’ve just texted him or called if she had something to say, but then again he had forgotten to bring his phone this morning. He wonders if there is some sort of an emergency for her to visit him at such early hours of the day.

Jong Suk grips onto the metal bars of the gate, trying to peer into the street to see if his aunt is there, but he sees no one. He considers jumping over the locked gate; Woo Bin has taught him a trick or two about jumping fences. He sets his foot on the lower metal-bar, ready to hurl himself off but a sudden grip on his hand halts him on his tracks. 

“You’ve gotten even more beautiful Jong Suk, it’s really amazing,”

His body freezes and his eyes widen in fear. He feels like his heart had just stopped; that grating voice, that pungent of alcohol mingled with cigarettes, that rough touch, it was all from his nightmares. Dreams—rather memories—he tried so hard to run away from, memories that reminded him of his cruel reality, a reality he wants desperately out of but somehow manages to chase him wherever he goes. Suddenly he has to remind himself to breathe.

The grip on his hand tightens and he is yanked closer with only the thin bars of the metallic-gate separating them. He can see the man’s face clearly now. His muddy eyes are staring at him in amusement with that uncannily familiar glint of lust and cruelty he always used when he looked at Jong Suk no matter how old he was.

His first instinct was to scream. That’s what you do when you find out your worst nightmare is repeating out in front of you. But he clenches his jaw on the impulse. His body has frozen, and not a single sound climbs past his blocked throat. He has to move. He knows he has to jerk away from those fat fingers ogling their way up his arm. But everything in his brain has just jarred shut with only that immense fear engulfing his whole being.

“How I had missed you…” the man chuckles, “Do you have any idea?”

The accent Jong Suk could comprehend over the sound of the thumping of his head has something off about it—it always did—and it churns his stomach with the urge to throw up. He can feel the man’s scraped nails drag over his cheek as his fascinated eyes observes Jong Suk’s matured face carefully.

He is older now. Jong Suk can see the fine wrinkles margining under his eyes.

“Why would you leave like that?” the man asks, his voice laced with false kindness and pain, “we were so close yet you left me…”

Jong Suk doesn’t respond, his right knee is starting to ache again. His initial shock has started to wear off and the notion that he had to run away quickly overtaking him but his body isn’t responding to him.

His fat thumbs starts to make their way down Jong Suk’s jaw, and he cringes. His fingers caress the column of Jong Suk’s tensed throat. The pain on his knee grows faster and deeper. It scrapes the core of his bones and fires down to his toes. He winces.

His mind howls for every muscle fibre to contract. He wills everything to fight the simple touch that constrains his whole body: he twitches.

He is not a child now. He isn’t the inadequate boy he used to be. He can easily shove this man off…he can jerk those intruding fingers off without much effort, turn on his heels and run off from him. He’ll not be able to catch him, he will not be able to get pass this locked gate…he knows it all, yet his body paralyses under that simplest touch. He hates not being able to jerk away, to those wrinkled fingers off; it forces him to feel everything.

His lips are suddenly at his ear, chapped and unwelcomed. He nuzzles in further through the gap between metal bars separating them when Jong Suk attempts to bend his neck and twist away. As those fat thumbs find their way to Jong Suk’s narrow waist, he weeps.

“Let’s go home sweetheart,” He feels violated and the feeling is reminiscent of a past he has tried long and hard to forget. He fights—or at least tries to—but with every touch, with every invasion, his body belonged a little more to him than it did to Jong Suk. He couldn’t stop shaking.

He begins to leave his body; he begins to inhabit that hidden chamber he had created in the depth of his soul. It is his safe cavity where no one—not even this man—can access. He retreats so he would not feel. That has been the only way he could protect himself when no one else did just like he has to now. But for how long he asks himself. He has been running away, from the slightest human touch for six years now—until he found the touch that didn’t scare him.

“Woo Bin…” the name escapes his dry lips in a strangle. How can he face Woo Bin like this? How can he let Woo Bin hug this tainted body tonight? The sudden realisation takes over him and he jerks back, falling on his . His slim fingers skim to his cheek, he has to get that loathly touch off his skin. His nails dig deep. He cannot let those ugly fingers leave their horrid touch on him…on his body that Woo Bin touches…No…no…he quivers, he has to get it off him…he shakes his head with force as his nails scrapes down his face, exiling the touch on his neck and he repeats, weeping as he tries to rid the unwelcomed touch. Yet he can feel that icy touch creeping into his cells, slowly infecting his body like a virus.

He can hear someone shouting behind him trying to get to him but no words registers in his mind, only one thought screams at him—get him off!! He tries harder, scraping faster and deeper—so deep that fragments of his skin lodges their way under his nails, blots of redness pops on his abused skin. But he feels none of that.

This isn’t right…that touch shouldn’t linger for so long…he isn’t dirty now…he isn’t dirty…he reminds himself, yet he feels like he is being undressed in the midst of a crowd, thousands of eyes ogling his fragile body. It’s too dirty. Those hands are too dirty. He can’t let them engrave their sickening touch to his body again.

His crying changes to screaming. Broken words… “Get off!! Get off!!” he cries when the touches still lingers on his skin. He can hear a voice shushing him, murmuring comfort, but he continues to scream his two words.

“Sh!!!” the voice tells him. But how can he keep quiet when his body is been engraved by that touch?

“It’s dirty,” Jong Suk mumbles, his tears falling free from their prison.

“What’s dirty?” the voice questions him.

“Too dirty….get off!!” he screams.

The voice shushes him again and a pair of strong arms envelops a warm cocoon around him. It somehow calms his thundering heart. When a familiar pair of lips press against the crook of his neck his screams dies out and his cries quiet down to low weeps.

“It’s alright now,” the voice says. Such easy words…. Everyone always said ‘it’s alright now’ but has it ever been alright? Why will that man haunt him like this if everything is alright? He hates empty words and he feels like laughing at whoever that uttered those useless words.

“I’m here now,” the voice says again, “Everything’s going to be okay,” he promises and Jong Suk laughs. Funny how every time he hears those words only an image of a boy begging for his life flashes his mind.

“Sukie…Jong Sukie…Angel…” Angel? Someone tainted as him could be called an Angel? He always hated that word. His mother said he was an angel and tagged him as a only a year after. He is no angel, he is a dirty . They shouldn’t mock him like this…. Was Woo Bin mocking him too? Is that why he had decided to call him an angel? Woo Bin…it hits him then who that voice belongs to. He starts to panic. What if Woo Bin knows he is dirty…what if Woo Bin loathes him like his mother did…what if he never wants to see him again…his heart picks up its speed again and his weeps grows into cries and Woo Bin’s hug tightens around him.

“I promise everything’s okay,” Woo Bin whispers into his neck, “I promise I’ll protect you.”

Will you be able to hold your grounds when you know the truth?

He turns around in Woo Bin’s arms searching for those dinosaur eyes; they stare at something above his left ear. Words climb up his throat. This is the guy who got beaten up to protect him, who taught him how to jump walls, who understood about his ways, who didn't make fun of his fears. If there is anyone in the entire galaxy he is dying to tell what really happened, it's Woo Bin. His throat burns.

Woo Bin’s eyes meet his after a second. "Everything’s okay," he murmurs with his beautiful smile. Everything’s okay…? That touch…eerie fingers….Jong Suk bites his lip. He is not going to think about it. It was ugly, but it’s over, and he’s not going to think about it. His lip bleeds a little. It tastes like metal. He needs to get away from here. 

“T-take me…home,” he mumbles, burring his face into Woo Bin’s chest. Even if it is the last time Woo Bin would touch him with such care, he’ll hang onto that as his salvage from those creepy hands.

***

The motorbike pulls up on the driveway and Woo Bin swings off. He had smelled something off about his step-mother’s supposed visit to school earlier this afternoon, but he had confirmed his suspicions too late it seemed. There was no one there except for a weeping Jong Suk pulling his skin off when he arrived at the back gate.

His chest ached and a cold shiver ran down his spine when he saw Jong Suk’s eyes continuing to drip with tears but what his eyes held completely shook him off; his eyes looked haunted and dead, there was a pain there that no one no matter how hurt they had been could convey. The pain in Jong Suk’s eyes was very real and at the moment it made Woo Bin’s heart beat hard and his eyes sting with tears.

He had no time to find who had called Jong Suk out, but Seung-hyun promised to find out for him before they left. He makes a mental note to call his child-hood friend sometime later.

Woo Bin observes Jong Suk’s weary face as he takes the helmet off him. He has no idea what had set the boy off earlier, but whatever it is he had never seen the boy in such fearful state before. He runs a finger down a bleeding scratch on Jong Suk’s cheek and the boy winces slightly. Without any further ado, he takes Jong Suk into his arms and carries him into the house.

He had borrowed Seung-hyun’s motorbike and excused themselves for the rest of the school day. The boy hadn’t spoken a word since they left the school grounds and he hadn’t pushed it any further. It was clear to him that the boy wouldn’t want to talk about whatever it was that horrified him to such extend. 

Woo Bin balances Jong Suk against the door and fiddles his pocket for the key. He unlocks the door and lifts Jong Suk fully in his arms and he brings him in, kicking the door shut after them.

Why would Jong Suk hurt himself like that? Who or what was it that caused such fear in him? And why was he repeating ‘dirty’ and ‘get off’ nonstop like that? All the questions are bugging him, but he had decided to wait until Jong Suk is ready to talk about the matter and that’s what he’ll do, he tells himself as he sets Jong Suk on the sofa.

He brings the first aid kit and kneels before the boy. He carefully attends to the bleeding scratches on Jong Suk’s face, surveying his eyes for any discomfort. When the boy shows no resistance, only wincing every now and then, he continues to treat the rest of the cuts.

“Do you want to eat something?” Woo Bin asks once he is done with the treatment. The only reply he gets is a slight shake of his head.

“Then do you want sleep for a bit?” he tries again, and this time Jong Suk nods.

Woo Bin sets the medicine box on the sofa and cradles the boy in his arms before heading off to their bedroom. Jong Suk leans closer and rests his head on Woo Bin’s neck and he wraps his arms tighter round the boy in response. He feels somewhat relieved that Jong Suk isn’t at-least rejecting his touches.

He gently places the boy on their bed and pulls the covers over his body. He watches Jong Suk’s eyes close shut and leans down to brush off a strand of hair falling over his face. Jong Suk jolts at the sudden touch and he pulls his hand away immediately. Perhaps his touch isn’t as welcomed as he thought it’d be, he thinks.

He wants to slip under the sheets and hug his weary angel to sleep, but he shakes off the idea. Jong Suk has always disliked being hugged like that, he was probably just bearing with Woo Bin for the past few weeks, he assumes and turns around to leave.

“Can’t you stay?” Jong Suk asks, clutching onto his wrist. Woo Bin turns around and his heart aches at the pained expression on his angel’s face. He tries to smile at the boy, but it comes out weirdly. Ignoring it, he climbs into the bed and wraps his arms around Jong Suk’s waist like he usually do and pulls him closer, burring his face the crook of his angel’s neck.

“Woo Bin-ah…” Jong Suk calls him after a while. He hums without lifting his neck and the boy struggle in his tight grasp. He immediately jumps back, jerking his arms off the boy. Perhaps he went too far, he thinks, waiting for any weeping from the boy. Instead Jong Suk turns around, and Woo Bin holds his breath. When he sees the faint smile decorating his damaged face he lets the held breath out. Jong Suk scoots closer and wraps his arms around Woo Bin’s torso, burring his face in Woo Bin’s chest.

Woo Bin’s heart picks up its speed and he feels Jong Suk’s lips stretch into a smile against it.

“Let me stay like this…for today,” he tells Woo Bin before closing his eyes.

***

A/N: I'm sorry it took longer  to update this and I want to thank Aimee (galax-yfanfan.tumblr.com) for helping me out with grammar/spelling checking on this chapter. I've the next chapter ready, but i need beta readers who can give me their opinion on the chapters as well as grammer/spelling mistake corrections. If you guys have some free time and likes to help me out, please drop a comment or a message ^_^ I'll truly appreciate your help and you'll get your updates faster :)

I'm going on holiday in August and I'll be starting my medical degree in September so I probably won't be able to update after that so I really want to finish this story before i go on my holiday. If anyone like to help me out, your help is more than welcomed  ^_^