A/N: content/trigger warnings: homophobic slurs/violence
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Somehow, they knew.

Not immediately as Sehun would’ve expected, but just long enough into the week that the memory of ing Baekhyun in the library began to make the move from the forefront of his thoughts to the back of his mind, nestled quietly between homework and the minutiae of getting through the school day.

Sehun’s heart thudded in his chest with the open palm that suddenly pounded into his shoulder, the textbook he was sliding into his backpack clattering to the worn classroom tiles. He cringed as the pages landed the wrong way and folded in on themselves like broken, disheveled feathers. Nothing was different yet.

“How’s it going?”

Sehun pursed his lips and ducked down to pick up the fallen book. He cradled it like a wounded bird before slipping it into his backpack and standing up as quickly as possible with a deep breath. The face suddenly hairs away from his own sealed off his lungs, and he tried his hardest to keep his trembling limbs still. Predatory eyes met his own as he finally faced forward, a wolfish, toothy grin spreading wide to devour him.

This was routine. “’Scuse me,” Sehun mumbled, putting his bony shoulders to good use as he wedged his way between the boys surrounding him. He was a good head taller than most of them, but what they lacked in height they made up for in solid muscle and mass, and Sehun always cringed at the thought of one of their meaty fists connecting with his jaw. He had been fortunate, he supposed, that his bullies relied on their words instead.

“Hey,” one of the voices called out behind him. Sehun pursed his lip and focused on getting his legs to work properly, one step in front of the other, he just needed to make it to the doorway—

“I said, hey.” The palm pounded the center of his back with a hollow thud, his heart echoing behind the sound in his ears as he stumbled out of the doorway. . , they hit me. Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Sehun chanted the mantra to himself so quickly that the words blended into a tangled mess while he marched forward with his head ducked down. The thicket of thoughts strangling his breathing suddenly cleared when he collided into hard bone with a stifled gasp.

Two other boys stood before him, arms and necks thick like tires. Sehun stumbled back a step in shock, eyes glued to the ground and desperately searching for an exit. , he thought, his heart hammering in his chest. This is bad. . The footsteps of the other boys from the classroom nailed themselves one by one into Sehun’s chest as they approached him from behind.

His eyes would not leave the floor as the one from before spoke. “Don’t ing ignore me next time,” the boy growled, and Sehun watched the speckled pattern of the tiles race towards him almost passively as the boy shoved him to the ground. Sehun coughed as the air was forced from his lungs, black stars stinging the corners of his eyes when his forehead smacked the tile.

.

Sehun struggled to scramble to his legs in spite of the welt forming on his head, but he let out a choked cry as a foot drove him back to the floor. “I just wanted to talk…I heard something interesting the other day,” the owner of the muddied sneaker remarked, gazing up at the ceiling. Sehun gritted his teeth and craned his neck to watch the boy laugh quietly, his head bobbing from side to side. “Man, did I hear it,” the boy chuckled ominously. “You work at the library down the street, ?”

Sehun’s voice cracked from lack of use when he spoke. “Get the off me,” he muttered, twisting and shoving aside the leg that pinned him down. He snarled as random sets of arms wrapped around him and chained him in place on his knees. Sehun laughed incredulously when he saw the boy who pushed him dangling a cell phone between his fingers. “What is this, you wanna photo-op with me?”

“Shut the up.”

The punch came swift and hot like a bullet to his gut. A tear rolled down Sehun’s cheek as he wheezed, gasping for air with frozen lungs.

It was never like this, he thought as the hands locked around his arms tightened like vise grips. He was always so careful at school to keep his head low despite being out—to keep himself safe, to keep himself sane, to keep the vitriol thrown at him from warping into fists—and yet here he was anyway, and there they were before him, his bullies drinking in the sight of his battered and shaking body. Something had happened, and Sehun wasn’t sure if his stomach was screeching in pain from the force of the punch or the absolute dread of the unknown.

The sinister snicker from some convoluted space above him jarred Sehun from his thoughts. He desperately tried to focus on the cellphone that was suddenly shoved in his face, but the plastic form danced across his muddled vision until the unmistakable lurch of nausea wracked his frame. “Now that you’re quiet, I want you to listen to this.” The boy pressed the screen and Sehun blinked, straining to hear the crackling audio over his pulse pounding in his ears.

It was quiet, quieter than his own heartbeat, yet something tugged at his stomach as he managed to make out muffled voices and sighs as he willed the tile he was fixated on to stop swaying back and forth. Something undeniably intimate danced at the back of his memory just out of reach, something oddly familiar…something…

The blush burst quick and hot on his cheeks as the realization forced the air from his gut. This couldn’t be happening. “Wh-what is this,” Sehun wheezed, knowing full well what it was. It was back then—it was him and Baekhyun—it was a complete ing nightmare.

The laugh that rang out above his hunched body twisted a knot in his throat as the boy before him turned up the volume on the phone. The unmistakable breathy sighs and moans of blared from the speakers and echoed off the walls of the empty hallway, and it was in that moment that Sehun could only squeeze his eyes shut and think of the soft glow of the library’s stained glass ceiling mural, now blinding him like a fever dream, and black hair and tattoos.

“Please,” the boy sneered. “Don’t try to tell me this isn’t you getting your brains ed out like a girl by some other . Even if it’s not, the whole school won’t believe you anyway.” Sehun’s burning cheeks went pale, and the arms still holding him shoved him to the ground.

“You heard him.” Finally, one of the other boys spat. “Everyone’s getting this text. We didn’t even know about it actually until some anonymous number just sent it to us and—”

“Dude, shut up.”

Sehun’s head throbbed as his eyes raced from wall to wall of the empty hallway, his muddled thoughts punching through the pain with every heartbeat as the voices above him continued to bicker.

“What?”

Got. To. Get. Out.

“For ’s sake, don’t tell him everything. God—”

Got. To. Get…out. School had already ended for the day—no one was coming and no one would ever be coming, but Sehun had to get out, and he had to do it alone and he had to do it now. The sensation of being free to move as his bullies momentarily lost themselves amidst their arguing struck him suddenly, and it was now just a matter of if he could move. Sehun’s limbs trembled and begged for purchase against the slick tiles as he felt the force behind the one word repeating in his head willing him to run—go. Go. GO.

“S’that’s why I’m saying we should just—hey! The you think you’re going?!”

Sehun had scrambled to his feet and launched himself into motion, his heart protesting against his aching ribs with every shaky step. The familiar hallway of his school had warped itself into some surreal labyrinth as he stumbled forward in a dizzy stupor, and he suddenly felt like it probably would’ve been much more convenient to simply stay on the floor and accept his fate.

Sehun realized that he was most likely moving much more slowly than expected when a stiff palm to his shoulder knocked him to the tiles again. An incredulous huff of a laugh escaped his lips at the absurdity of it all as he allowed himself to be picked up by the collar—the fact that he thought he could actually escape, that his particularly bony body only hurt more against the hard floor, that he had just tried to live a normal boring life up until these past few weeks and was now getting his whooped for it, that the library seemed so far away, that Baekhyun seemed so far away—

The punches connecting with his tormented body at that point almost felt like they were happening to someone else, and Sehun couldn’t help but truly wonder if this was what it felt like to die. Maybe he already had, and he’d left his body behind to get beat up on the floor without him. Some part of himself that hadn’t been completely obliterated yet by fists and screaming chuckled at this thought as the black and purple shadows swirling at the corners of his vision closed in on him and the yelling voices above quickly drifted higher and higher away from him—or was he the one drowning?

It was then before he let the sweet relief of unconsciousness swallow him that he could barely make out two scuffed up sneakers suddenly standing a few feet away from him. The voices began yelling at them, and Sehun squinted at the blurred but terrified face before him, desperate to see clearly—a red snapback and black hair—or was it? Sehun begged his eyes to focus to no avail as he attempted to reach out towards the figure—it had to be him, but also how could it be—only to watch the boy slowly step back and away, and everything went dark.

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A/N: Well, I finally updated. I have 23 pages of papers due in 2 weeks but my brain said take a break from writing by writing lolol so here we are. I know this chapter is quite different from the other ones so I was a little nervous about publishing it, but I hope I didn't disappoint after a 2 year hiatus. It'll be done by the end of the year! <3