A/N: hello there beautiful reader, I'm sorry you've had to wait so long for this. I hope it was worth the time! Thank you for reading my story so far

But it isn’t as simple as that; and it certainly doesn’t look like it will blow over easily.

Jongin leaned against the tiled wall of the boy’s bathroom, waiting for his friend as he used the facilities.

With a muted click of the lock, Sehun walked out of the cubicle, and crossed the room to the sinks. Jongin watched his face in the mirror, brow ever so slightly furrowed as he washed his hands thoroughly. He paused briefly to twitch up the sleeves of his school jumper.

That’s when Jongin saw it.

Warm blood flowed cold in his veins.

Angry red lines crisscrossed and danced across Sehun’s left wrist, barely peeking out from beneath the woollen cuffs, but enough for Jongin to guess that there were probably more hidden under the material.

Finished, Sehun proceeded to the hand dryers beside the sink counter. He never made it though.

Jongin crossed the room in a few strides and caught him half way there. Encircling Sehun’s pale left arm with a strong grip, somewhat to the latter’s confusion, he lifted it to inspect it. He gently dragged back the sleeve with his other hand.

It was like a warzone; vivid red lines of fire burned across the white snow of his inner arm. They bloomed in one concentrated patch of violence stretching 3 inches down from his wrist and just under two inches across.

Jongin smoothed the pad of one thumb softly across the lesions, causing Sehun to minutely flinch.

Jongin raised his gaze to meet the other’s eyes.

“Is there any point in me asking why?”

Sehun dropped his gaze to somewhere on the floor to his right, a slight blushing colouring his sharp cheekbones. A long, painful pause followed.

“I’d rather you didn’t…”

A multitude of emotions vied for supremacy in Jongin’s chest; anger, sadness, pain, sorrow. Something somewhere between despair and anguish won out.

Jongin dipped his head ever so slightly, raising Sehun’s marked arm as he did so.

Brush.

Soft lips graced the broken skin feather-lightly, as if the boy before him might shatter. Perhaps he even will.

Jongin released Sehun’s arm, turned, and walked out of the bathroom.

Drip.

Perhaps a minute later, Sehun followed, leaving the bathroom empty, save a lonely tear lying forgotten on the tiled floor.

__________

Sat in his bedroom, homework strewn – and abandoned – across the desk before him, Jongin contemplated his best friend somewhere between his third and fifth cup of coffee; he lost count a while back.

He wasn’t even sure what he was feeling anymore, just that whenever he thought about Sehun, surges of emotion flooded his chest in a baffling cacophony he couldn’t put words to. They were friends, and of course friends care about each other, but what even was this anymore?

He felt rage that this beautiful boy should ever feel the need to put a blade to his skin.

Confusion as to what had made him this way.

Sadness that he had been forced into such a dark place.

Frustration that he felt so powerless to stop it.

And something else… something distinctly warm. Soft. Gentle. A strange calm in the eye of the storm of other feelings rampaging in his chest.

Damn. Out of coffee again.

Jongin sighed, and moved to go and make more.

This homework could wait until tomorrow.

A/N: Ooooh the feels. Important note: if you, reader, are self harming, please talk to me? You don't have to suffer in silence, and you are certainly not on your own. I don't care if you think your reasons for doing it are stupid - if it matters to you, it matters to me. Drop me a message

Thank you again for sticking with this so far! I hope to update soon