Yong Guk found Hyorin sitting on a swing in the park. Even as he took a seat on the empty swing beside her, she didn’t say anything or look up from her feet as she kicked the dirt.

“VIXX isn’t that bad,” the older man finally said, “they have good hearts. You really should give them a chance.”

“I know I shouldn’t have said what I said to Ken,” she frowned, “it was wrong.”

“You’re right,” he nodded, “it was wrong. You hurt Ken a lot by saying you hate him, and his brothers as well.”

“Yong Guk,” she turned to look at him, “why don’t you hate them?”

“What do you mean?”

“They killed your parents and left you an orphan,” Hyorin explained, “even if they were forced to do it, it still happened. How can you have them around and not blame them even a little?”

“I never said I don’t blame them a little,” he shrugged, “there is a part of me that thinks they could have tried harder to resist, but a larger part of me knows that it isn’t their fault.”

“I wish I could be like you,” she frowned, “whenever I see them, all I can think about is how I don’t know them yet they’re supposed to protect me with their lives. The thought that I’d rather have my fathers or SHINee protecting me because I know them and trust them.”

“You can trust VIXX,” Yong Guk countered, “you just need to get to know them. you haven’t even tried to learn anything about them yet.”

“I know.”

“Then if you know you should do it,” he sighed.

“I’m scared to,” she frowned, “especially now.”

“You just need to apologise,” he patted her head, “I know that they’ll accept it and move on.”

“But what if they don’t?” she bit her bottom lip, “what if they think I’m an ungrateful brat now and don’t want to protect me? Then what?”

“They aren’t going to be like that,” Yong Guk rolled his eyes, “so stop making excuses. You messed up and you need to own up to that.”

“Alright,” she nodded.  But there was still a bit out doubt in her mind that VIXX wouldn’t accept her apology, that they wouldn’t want to protect a selfish brat like her now.

 “It’s late,” Yong Guk frowned, looking at his watch, “let’s go home. You have school in the morning.

At home, none of the six demons even bothered to acknowledge Hyorin’s existence, walking by her like she wasn’t even there. To a degree, Yong Guk could understand why they were acting like that – they were still hurt over what she had said. At the same time, they couldn’t afford to act childish, not with someone out there hunting Hyorin down.

She wasn’t blind to what VIXX was doing. Hyorin knew that is was her own fault. Silently, she retreated to her room. maybe in the morning they wouldn’t be so angry and she could apologize for what she had said to Ken.

“This isn’t going to end well,” Yong Guk muttered to himself, watching as Hyorin retreated to her room. he’d let VIXX have a couple of days, though. Just until the sting of Hyorin’s words was gone.

--

Morning came and Hyorin found that she really hated school. Without Hyuk’s intervention, the bullies could do whatever they wanted to her whenever they wanted. If she didn’t know that Hyuk mad at her, she’d have gone up to him and asked for help. But he was mad and she knew it was her fault, so she stayed clear of him.

“Stupid,” someone laughed, shoving her roughly as she headed down the stairs to get to the cafeteria.

Trying to regain her balance, Hyorin found herself falling down a couple of steps, landing on her left arm. She didn’t think she’d heard the bone breaking, but something was wrong judging by how much it hurt. Glancing up, she noticed a couple of students making their way closer to her, an evil gleam in their eyes. It reminded her of predators in the wild, going after the sick or injured pray. Right now, she was the pray and they were the predators.

“What’s going on?” everyone turned to find Hyuk looking at everyone with an unimpressed look on his face, “do I need to get a teacher or something?”

“Nope,” one of the kids laughed, “we were just leaving. No need to bring a teacher.” The group quickly left, leaving Hyuk and Hyorin alone.

The demon glanced at her, quickly making sure that she wasn’t in anymore danger, before leaving.

“Great,” she whispered to herself, holding her arm, “I really messed up if he doesn’t even stick around long enough to ask if I’m alright. I’m so stupid.”

Leaning her head back against the wall, Hyorin wondered if maybe she should just go home to the boarding house and pretend today never happened. But if she did go home, Yong Guk would see her arm and want to know what had happened. If Yong Guk knew what had happened, things wouldn’t be pleasant.

Hyorin took hold of her injured arm, trying to assess the damage. Silently, she wished for her healing power to activate so she could fix the pain. But then what was the chance of that happening? A power activating when she actually needed it? Nope, the chance of that happening was so slim it was laughable.

Laughable or not, Hyorin decided to take that chance. Focusing on the pain, she willed it go fade. Nothing happened and Hyorin left out a sad sigh. Of course it wouldn’t work. But Lay would be disappointed in her if she gave up after one try, so she started again. This time, she didn’t put as much force into her attempt and just relaxed, picturing her injuries healing in her mind.

“What?” she whispered as her hand started to glow slightly and the pain began to fade, “it can’t be.”

Once the glow faded, she examined herself and found that she was perfectly fine. A small smile grew on her face and she felt proud of herself. She’d finally managed to use one of her powers correctly. And without help, too. Not to mention it had worked on only the second try.

Grabbing her bag, Hyorin stood and started walking away.

I think, she thought to herself, that I’ll just skip the rest of school as a reward.

A/N: don’t mind saying, I had a heck of a time trying to post this. my college’s internet connection has a major problem with this site…….and with facebook……..and tumblr………..and google……..and just the internet in general. Anyway. This is, like, my 7^th try to post this chapter.