A/N: I'm so sorry it's been a while hasn't it? I hope Summer has been great for all of you! Please enjoy this and once again I apologise for the lateness!

It had been a few weeks since Jinyoung had accepted the drug money from his neighbour and everything had been fine. He had returned to school, he had turned in all of his assignments and he had been getting closer to Jaebum.

It was a bright sunny day, the most unsuspecting of days, when his seemingly new and perfect life began to go downhill. The drug lord neighbours began to demand the money back.

“Hey kid.”

Jinyoung cocked his head to the side only to be met with a fist smashing into his cheek. He fell to the ground, clutching his red face and looked up to see a few men in suits towering over him.

“The money”

“I-I don’t have it y-yet” He muttered, shaking from fright

“Well /get/ it you little bastard”

With a few kicks in the stomach, the men left and Jinyoung heaved himself back into his apartment, coughing up some blood into his sink. He looked up and saw a face in the mirror he didn’t recognise. The boy had big black bags under his eyes, his skin was breaking out, he had purple bruises over his neck and his hair was greasy. He was staring at himself.

“…”

He managed to heave himself over to his mattress where he lay down face first, tasting his salty tears for what felt like the first time in forever.

The beatings in Jinyoung’s life didn’t just stop there, when he wasn’t pretending not to be home when the Drug Lords called, he was desperately trying to avoid Jackson and his friend Yugyeom at school.

Jaebum was in most of his classes and provided constant protection and friendship and Mark was in the other classes where Jaebum wasn’t so Jinyoung always had someone by his side, someone ready to stand up for him as he wasn’t quite capable of doing so himself. The only times Jinyoung was alone was when he was at the bathroom or when he was working. Well, that was until Jinyoung’s boss told him he couldn’t keep him on any longer.

“But sir- I’m more than capable of-“

“I’m sorry Jinyoung- I can’t just let you trail around the café holding your back like that, you need proper rest”

“No. What I need is the money,” Jinyoung snapped back, holding his head.

The room started to spin and he felt his back crack. The next thing he heard was his boss’s voice shouting over him, his silhouetted body crouched down beside him.

He couched and sat up, pain shouting up his back. He yelled out and held it before looking up to his boss and the worried staff members.

“I’ll take my leave…I’m sorry”
 

He bowed and as he was leaving his boss stopped him before shoving an envelope into his hand, “You were a great employee.”

His former boss Mr Kim had given him a few hundred dollars to cover Jinyoung’s wage for the rest of the month. It wasn’t nearly enough to pay off the Drug Lords but it was a start. 

“Hey Jackson- look who’s here”.

Jinyoung pleaded with his eyes to Yugyeom who was pinning him against the wall by his neck.

It had been less than five minutes when Jinyoung had been left unsupervised, but in those five minutes Yugyeom had managed to locate the smaller boy and alert Jackson.

With a swagger in his step and a smirk on his face, Jackson appeared from the right and immediately turned his attention to Jinyoung who was squirming against the wall.

“Jinyoung! My friend!”

Jinyoung seethed at the words.

“How was hospital? Very different from the ones in North Korea, right?”

Jinyoung stayed still.

“I asked you a question”

Jinyoung remained silent.

“Yah-“ Yugyeom slapped him across the face before almost spitting at him, “Answer him!”

Jackson shook his head, “Yugyeom let our friend be! We must accommodate him”

Jinyoung saw a single hint of sincerity in Jackson’s words and thought maybe even for a second that Jackson wouldn’t be cruel but was proved wrong his fist came sliding down into his stomach.

He let out an almighty groan and collapsed onto the floor, the pain in his back screaming out.

He stayed quiet throughout the whole ordeal, only letting out a whine when the two boys finally got bored of their punching bag and left.

It was lucky for them, Jinyoung thought, that they could run off. They didn’t have any worries, they didn’t have to cook for themselves, pay their rent or deal with the amount of torture Jinyoung went through on a daily basis.

He groaned and managed to stand up, leaning his back against the wall to support himself. Shuffling along the wall, he made it to the bathroom where he washed his face and brushed his uniform, making sure any blood from his face was covered up.

Once he was finished and satisfied that neither Jaebum nor Mark would suspect a thing, he made his way back to the lunchroom and put on a big fake smile, not willing to disappoint to Jaebum. Jaebum, a boy that had paid for his medical bills, stay with him morning noon and night and very recently, had been the person closest to Jinyoung. He felt like he could tell him anything but at the same time he was wary, wary not to ruin anything as in his mind, the only one who could protect him, was Jaebum.

Jaebum had denied it to himself at the start of their friendship, when Jinyoung bandaged him up in his apartment and gave him tea.

He had denied it once more when he purposely followed Jinyoung that one night when Jackson attacked him.

However now, there was no denying that Jaebum had a crush on Jinyoung.

The way his cheeks flushed in the cold air.

Jinyoung...

The way his right eye twitched when he got excited.

Jinyoung…

The way his lips curved into a natural smile whenever he saw Jaebum.

Jinyoung…

With his palms sweaty and butterflies in his stomach, Jaebum shook the thoughts out of his as he saw Jinyoung approaching, his back hunched a little. He turned away as he often did when Jinyoung approached, to worried to look him in the eyes, even for a split second, in case somehow he revealed how he felt. He was scared which was rare for one of the most popular guys in school.

He feared rejection.

He feared relationships.

He feared love.

Seeing his father move on so quickly after his mother’s death, he became disenchanted with the idea of love and since the only woman he had ever loved was gone forever, he promised himself he would never fall in love for the pain he experienced when he lost his mother, was far too painful to even conjugate in words.

That promise was set to be broken.

“You little punk- I have a right to punch your living daylights in”

Jinyoung watched on in horror as Jaebum and Mark pinned Yugyeom against the wall, the latter crying his eyes out.

“You think it’s funny to torture someone like this?” Mark shouted.

“You think I shouldn’t rip up your insides?” Jaebum snarled.

Yugyeom squirmed as hot salty tears ran down his face; his gaze drifting over to Jinyoung was standing at the side, not quite sure what he should be doing.

It was the day after when Jackson and Yugyeom had previously beaten up Jinyoung after school and Mark had overheard Yugyeom boasting about it to some girl. Together, with Jaebum, they managed to hunt him down after school and were holding him in the woods.

“Stop this- you’re no better than them…” Jinyoung choked out, a growing knot in his stomach. He didn’t wish for this to happen, he didn’t want others to experience the torture and pain he had only known too well his whole life.

Mark let go of Yugyeom first and then Jaebum followed, but only reluctantly.

Yugyeom dropped to the ground and picked up his books and bag. He scurried along the ground and looked up at me from my feet, a chilling sense of distress in his voice.

“Jinyoung-“ He choked out, “I only did it because Jackson told me- I never meant to hurt anyone- I’m sorry!“

With Yugyeom sobbing at his feet in amongst the leaves and twigs of the dirt, Jinyoung extended a hand down to help him up, trying to keep his back straight as much as possible.

“You’re forgiven” Jinyoung said plainly, a soft smile showing on his face.

Jaebum scoffed, “And so you’re just going to let him go Jinyoung? After what he did to you?”

“I’m not going to show anyone the same tort-“

“You can’t take the higher road all of the time” Jaebum spat back, looking at the ground with his hands in his pockets.

Despite the good that had come from this, a growing sense of pain, worry and dread began to rise up in Jinyoung and he fainted, falling back against a wooden stump.

“I’m taking him to the hospital Mark, how many more times does he have to faint until he aggravates his condition! You saw those bruises on his back!”

Jinyoung’s eyelids fluttered and as he looked up, he could see Mark looking back down at him. He looked around to see that he was in a car, Jaebum’s car, and that Mark had set his head on his lap in the back.

“He’s awake Jaebum- how are you Jinyoung? Do you remember anything?”

Jinyoung shook his head, “The last thing I remember is falling…and my back hurting”

Jaebum cocked his head around from the driver’s seat, a sense of urgency in his voice; “I’m taking you to the hospital”

“Jaebum no-“ He choked out with a fit of coughing, his chest heaving up and down, “Just take me home”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes Jaebum…just take me home so I can sleep…please”

Jaebum didn’t want to drive Jinyoung home, he wanted to bring him to the hospital where he knew he would be safe, where he could stay with him; there was no excuse Jaebum could think of that would let him be able to stay with Jinyoung whilst he was in his own apartment.

Leaving the feeble Jinyoung off at his apartment, Jaebum ran Mark home to the glitzy American-like homes in Northern Seoul before he turned back into the city, heading straight home and straight into an essay that was due the day before.

The pressure Jaebum felt from school only began to rise

He was so caught up in his school work that he didn’t even realise Jinyoung wasn’t attending school. It was 3am when Jaebum decided to check exactly when the last time he and Jinyoung had spoken was. He opened his phone and checked the calender.

14 Days Ago

He needed to see Jinyoung. He needed to make sure he was okay. He needed to talk to him. He needed- he needed Jinyoung.

He jumped into his car at 3am in the morning and set off for Jinyoung’s apartment, not quite sure what he was going to do or say when he arrived there.

Jinyoung groaned at the sound of his apartment telephone ringing. It had been ringing for what felt like two weeks and the ringing was growing monotonous.

Jinyoung took a look around his shabby apartment and wondered when the last time he left it was. He tried to rack his brain but couldn’t remember, had it been two weeks? Three weeks? More?

At first he gave the excuse that his back was hurting because, truthfully it was getting worse each and every day. Some days Jinyoung couldn’t even move from his bed and just had to crawl around everywhere, the weight of 1000 men pressing into his back.

A week had passed of him not attending school and he had grown thinner, something he believed wasn’t even possible. The knocking at the door from the Drug Lords became a daily thing and sometimes they even knocked twice. Jinyoung had still not paid back the money and he was sure the next time he was to leave the apartment, he would be dealt with an almighty blow to the face, possibly with something worse than a fist.