In the sweltering heat of late July, Minho took a long drink from his bottle of water and looked up at the large hill in front of him. There seemed to be hundreds of tiny stone steps leading up to the lookout top where a white gazebo was placed. Climbing a hill in the heat was not something Minho was looking forward to.

“Want me to go with you?” Jinki asked at his side, his own bottle of water in hand.

Minho shook his head. “I don’t want to spook him. Give me fifteen minutes? And keep the hounds at bay.”

Jinki, sporting a brand new hair color, an almost too reddish to be called auburn shade that Minho liked even better than the blond, said, “I’ll see what I can do, but you might be asking for the impossible.” Then Jinki leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. “This is a terrible vacation, by the way. The next time we go away, just the two of us, I want to go somewhere cool.”

Minho bent back in for a second kiss and promised, “We’ll go anywhere you want after this. And thanks for coming. It’s nice to have the extra support.” It was still amazing to him the way Jinki had seemingly dropped everything to accompany him, being a pillar of support that Minho hadn’t known he needed until the very end. That kind of selflessness was indescribable.

Jinki hoisted his backpack up on his shoulders a little more. “Get going then. I’ll head back to the hotel. After you take care of business there, and get back to me, if you’re very lucky, I might not be wearing much. It’s very hot.”

Minho felt his face heat more than the sun was capable of doing. The picture in his mind of a Jinki was almost enough to have Minho seeping him up in his arms and racing back to the suite they’d booked. But in the end duty won out, and Minho settled for sending Jinki a longing look. Then he turned and started up the steps.

At the top of the hill Minho got a better look inside the gazebo, and more importantly at the dark haired figure curled up on one of the benches. The man in question was looking out over the landscape, seemingly unaware of Minho’s presence. And Minho had to admit, it was a breathtaking view of the bright blue sea. He could see how one could spend hours just looking, and be distracted enough not to notice they weren’t alone anymore.

“I hope you come to appreciate one day how much time and effort it took to find you,” Minho told him, keeping his voice soft as not to startle him.

That was when Minho got his first real look at Jung Taekwoon.

“Who are you?” Leo asked him warily, finally looking away from the ocean.

The video footage and pictures didn’t do him justice, Minho decided. Leo was beautiful in a classic sort of way, filled with obvious poise. He almost looked something to be revered, or even cherished. Minho was starting to understand how someone like Song could find obsession in him, from the gentle pitch of his voice to the fluid way he moved.

“My name is Choi Minho,” he introduced, “I’m a private investigator. People hire me for all sorts of reasons, and once in a while, they want me to find someone who’s gone missing.”

Leo was silent and looked away from Minho, back to the sea.

It gave Minho pause to be ignored. He knew Leo wasn’t incapable of understanding what he was saying. What was the problem?

Minho reminded, “It took me a long time to find you.”

Suddenly, Leo said, “You shouldn’t have come.”

Minho sat across from him in the gazebo, happy to be shaded from the sun. “I didn’t have any choice but to come.” He tried to catch Leo’s attention again. “See, I had five desperate guys in my office one day, begging me to just try. And the more I tried, the more invested I became.”

Predictably, Leo had no response. Minho was reminded that N and Ken, among the others, had claimed how quiet Leo was in the general. It didn’t seem to be an exaggeration. Leo was obviously a reserved individual, but probably also scared. He likely hadn’t thought anyone could find him, not with how well he’d hidden himself away from the world.

So Minho tried another tactic, and said softly, “I know what happened to you back in Seoul. I know it all.” A small breeze blew through and Minho’s eyes drifted to the coastline. “I put all the puzzle pieces together, about Song, and what he was doing to you for years.”

Leo visibly flinched at the name and turned back to Minho. “You think you know, but you have no idea.”

“That he stalked you?” Minho asked. “Threatened and assaulted you? I know he intended to hurt the people you love, and that’s why you did everything you could to placate him and keep him away from them. But ultimately he did something so vile to you that you had to run as far away as you could get. I know it all. I watched enough video footage, talked to enough people, and worked through it all. I know everything.”

Silence hung between them uncomfortably.

“Song won’t be a danger to you anymore,” Minho offered. “If you go back with me, that is. We can go the police, and we can stop him from doing this to anyone else.”

“No,” Leo said in such a tiny voice it nearly broke Minho. “I can’t.”

Minho asked, “What if he does this to someone else?”

Leo shook his head in just the slightest way. “He won’t. He doesn’t care about anyone else.”

Minho sighed. “I told you it took me a long time to find you. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible. He’s looking for you, too. He won’t stop until he finds you. You did a good job of disappearing, but eventually he will show up here, and he’ll hurt you again. You’re not exactly helpless, I know you can defend yourself, but he’s bigger than you are, stronger, and ruthless. What are you going to do when he’s sitting where I am? Run again?”

“I can’t go back.”

Letting himself stretch out on the bench, Minho asked, “Why not?”

The look of shame on Leo’s face was terrible. “Because. I’m … not clean anymore.”

“That’s not true,” Minho argued. “And what happened to you, what Song did to you, it’s unforgivable. It’s terrible and vile. But it isn’t your fault. And I guarantee you that the people who love you, the people who never stopped searching for you even for a day, and I mean the people who were willing to give up their life saving to me to keep me looking for you forever if need be, are not going to care about that. They just want you back. If they cared about that, they wouldn’t have fought so hard to get to you.”

Instead of pressing the issue, Leo wanted to know, “How did you find me?”

“Your sister.”

“My sister?” He said it like he couldn’t imagine it, and Minho didn’t blame him.

“I know,” Minho said, when Leo gave him a look of disbelief. “And let me say, your sister, she’s not very loving. Not very friendly. Not the kind of sister I’d want to have. But ultimately she does care about you, and if it hadn’t been for her pointing me towards Song, I wouldn’t have eventually found you. She knew about him, didn’t she?”

Leo nodded. “She found out by accident.”

“And that shiny new car of hers, it came from that withdraw you made from the bank, right?”

Again, there was a nod.

Feeling pleased, Minho said, “I went to her once I had all the pieces, less than a week ago. I told her I knew about Song. I knew what he’d done to you, and I was sure she knew where you were. I promised her I’d help keep you safe if I could bring you back, and I meant it. So she told me about the family tips you used to take as a child to Yeosu. There was always a chance you wouldn’t be here, but you’re familiar with the area, and next to Jeju Island it’s the furthest you can get from Seoul. Plus, my gut said this place had pretty good odds. I like to trust my gut. So here we are.”

The breeze was blowing through again as Leo said, “I like it here. It’s quiet.”

“It is nice,” Minho allowed. “But it’s going to if I’m stuck here for a long time.”

Leo raised a questioning set of eyebrows.

“Well, I can’t go back without you,” Minho said. “There are too many people who’d kill me on the spot. So I’m stuck here, at least until I can talk you into coming around. I can’t go anywhere until I can convince you that you are desperately wanted by people who love you very much, and that together we can make sure Song can’t hurt you or anyone else again. I’m just hoping that isn’t very long. It’s hot here and my boyfriend is waiting for me back at the hotel.”

In a bout of honesty, Leo said, “I don’t want them to look at me and know. I don’t want them to see. I think they will be able to see, if they only look at me. I see it when I look in the mirror. I see the taint.”

Minho crossed to Leo’s side, sitting beside him. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but they already know what Song did to you. N has three broken fingers to show for it, and Ravi had to make a trip to the hospital to have his foot x-rayed.”

Leo demanded, “Are they okay? How badly are they hurt?”

It was the first time Minho had seen him truly come alive, but it bode well for Minho getting through to him.

Minho said, “When I eventually convince you to come back with me, you might be going straight into debt with the amount of damages your significant others caused not only to Song’s face, but also his car, his personal belongings, and his apartment itself. They also got him fired from his job, so that’s likely a lawsuit. But they do already know what he did to you that day you disappeared, and they don’t care. They just want you back. They don’t have any judgment, and I promise you, they won’t look at you and see anything but the person they love. They won’t see you as a victim, and they won’t look at you and only see what happened.”

“But--”

The sound of voices shouting cut through the serenity of the location, startling Minho to his feet. Leo followed suit, and the both of them looked down the narrow, stone steps to the landing below.

“Did I mention,” Minho asked, “that when those five guys who were willing to hand over their life saving to me, the savings that you’re all supposed to be using one day to buy a house in the country, found out that I was going to bring you home, they wouldn’t let me go without them?”

Leo took a step back as five distinctive people rushed up the steps, an apologetic Jinki following up behind them.

“I tried,” Jinki said when he got to Minho’s side. “But there were five of them and one of me. I was overpowered before I even got halfway back to the hotel.”

Minho rolled his eyes but hooked a playful arm around Jinki, remarking, “I’m sure you didn’t fight them too hard. You pushed for them to get to come just as much as they did.”

Jinki looked at Minho indignantly, “They waited long enough to be the with the one they love. If it were me, no one would be able to stop me from getting to your side.”

Minho pressed is forehead down against Jinki’s with a loving smile, even as grown men shrieked hysterically around them.

Loudly, Hongbin demanded, “Why would you just leave like that? Do you have any idea how frantic we were?”

Leo seemed lost, caught in the middle of them, looking frantically from one face to another, searching for any hint that Minho’s words had been false.

“If you ever do something this stupid again,” N promised, “I’ll kill you.”

“I missed you so much,” Hyuk wailed.

The six of them were on a pile on the ground quickly after that, sweaty and indistinguishable with arms and legs everywhere.

“You’re crushing me,” Leo’s voice squeaked out.

“Good!” Ravi said, rolling on top of him more purposely. “Ken, help me get his legs! We’ll carry him back ourselves.”

N chastised, “Ravi, watch your foot!”

Ravi stuck his tongue out at the older man, but stilled as Leo reached delicately for the brace covered appendage, asking quietly if he was okay and if it hurt.

Kisses seemed to be flying left and right after that, and Minho thought it probably should have been odd, watching five people share something that Minho had only experienced with one partner at a time, but it really wasn’t.

“They’re something else,” Jinki said, happily tucked into Minho’s side.

“They are.” Minho could already see the smile breaking out onto Leo’s face. It looked out of place for a second, and then it looked perfect. “And something tells me, they’re going to be okay.”

“You have to make a call?” Jinki asked, watching Minho reach into his pocket for his phone.

Minho nodded. “I promised a friend I’d let her know when I solved this one. She’s invested too.” After a moment’s pause, he told Jinki, “Her name is Sulli, and she’s really important to me. I’ll tell you about her on the way home, okay?” He supposed this was the last step. This was the last thing he had to share with Jinki before he could truly open the last bit of his heart to the man he loved.

“Okay,” Jinki said easily.

“I got his arm!” N cried out, “Get his other leg, Hongbin!” The kisses seemed to be over now, and Minho laughed as the boys redoubled their efforts in pulling Leo from where they’d found him.

“Should we help?” Jinki asked, watching the five boys physically lift Leo from the ground and start to carry him away. N seemed to be giving the orders more than anything else, cradling his injured hand to his chest, and Ravi was hopping along, but they managed to make it work.

“Leo, or the others?”

Jinki laughed and tugged Minho after the boys. “Come on. I don’t want to miss this.”

Phone tucked in his hand, Minho let Jinki pull him after the group, a smile so wide on his face it actually hurt. It was a good hurt.

And thus ends the story! I promise, no more cliffhangers and no more questions. And with that in mind, I want know what everyone thought. This is the time, whether you’ve been a faithful reader and reviewer from the beginning, or just a lurker (and there’s nothing wrong with that). I want to hear form you. What did you like best? What did you like least? Tell me about your favorite parts, what worked for you and what didn’t. I want to know how this story made you feel, and if you’re completely satisfied. Because we’re at the end, I genuinely want to know. Tell me everything.

That said, I want to seriously thank each and every person who read this, subscribed, comments or hung around until the very end. This was my first foray into the world of kpop and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous at first. Kpop and its fans can be intimidating, to say the least, but I ended up having a great time and meeting some awesome people.

If anyone is interested in reading more from me, I’m all set to debut a new story in around a week or so. I ended up tumbling head over feet into the Exo fandom without meaning too, and once you get in, there’s no getting out. So I’ll be posting something Exo soon, if anyone is willing to give it a chance.

Once more, thank you so much to everyone. I appreciate all the comments, support, and even the lurkers. I write for myself, because I enjoy it, but getting to share it and make other people happy, is something pretty special.