Dainty [ˈdān-tē] adj. - Delicately beautiful or charming; exquisite.

There isn't any ual content in this chapter, but there is a theme of ual abuse, and therefore if you are uncomfortable with the idea, you shouldn't read this.

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Three days had passed since the false accusation Sehun had made against Mihyun, and she hadn’t been able to make it to the Noye house ever since.

She cursed her bad luck. Why did a pile of work suddenly strike her at that moment? Sehun probably saw her absence as her admittance of guilt from attacking Luhan, or if Luhan had explained everything to him, he probably saw her as a coward.

Han Mihyun was not a coward.

Mihyun hurriedly made her way down to the cages; she was moving so quickly that she would have nearly missed the familiar patch of blond hair amidst a group of guards if it wasn’t for the squeal of a voice. She froze midstep, and slowly turned in a clock like motion to face the group of offenders attempting to hide in the dark shade of a hall. Her ears perked once she heard one of the guards murmur, “Be a good boy, Luhan”, and her eyes immediately narrowed in anger at the sound of the name.

“You will let go of him at this very instant,” Mihyun’s cold voice cut across the air like a knife. Despite the softness of her volume, her words were said with anything but submission. “You will let go of him or I will have your head.”

The guards spun around, guilty from being caught in the action, and Mihyun’s eyes widened when they caught sight of the boy that had been forced to his knees in the middle of their man made ring. Her blood boiled in fury; were they the s responsible for the marks that served as permanent symbols of suffering for Luhan? A hundred thoughts cluttered her mind all at once, and she forced them out to concentrate on the current situation at hand. One of them opened his mouth to shout angrily at the girl for interrupting, but another quickly held him back. 

“That’s the daughter of the Han family, hold your tongue,” Mihyun heard him whisper quietly.  

Mihyun’s small steps made not even the slightest bit of noise against the hard floor, and she walked towards them in almost a calm manner. The guards would have let out breaths of relief if it wasn’t the look of pure death in Mihyun’s eyes that sent shivers down their spines.

Within a few seconds, Mihyun stood besides them. She stared down at Luhan’s body and he averted his eyes in shame, embarrassed that he had been caught in such a situation by his master. If she hadn’t before, surely she would view the older now as tainted goods, dirty and filthy from the touch of other men.

To his uttermost surprise, she knelt down and pulled the boy’s pants up for him, not even blinking when she met eye contact with his private area. She looked around for Luhan’s shirt, and her eyes zeroed in on the ripped scraps of clothing that littered the cold ground. She then pulled her own jacket from her shoulders and placed it around Luhan’s torso. After that, she gave him a small smile of reassurance so quick that Luhan had to mentally debate whether or not he had actually seen the curve of her lips.

The room was silent and the tension was so thick that the sharp look of Mihyun’s eyes could have cut it in half. She slowly gazed at all of their faces, and the guards felt beads of sweat roll down their foreheads with every passing second. Why wouldn’t she say anything?

“I,” Mihyun finally stated, her clenched fists remained hidden at her sides. “Have photographic memory.”

She remained silent for a few seconds to let her words sink in before she continued with, “I have memorized all of your faces. After I take care of matters here, I will return to the office and ask for the records of employees. After I find out all of your names, I will go to the owner of this place and demand for the firing of each and every one of you. When that is done, which I assure you, will be, I will journey to the capital’s justice department and turn in your names as predators who attacked a member of the Han family. I suggest that you spend the remainder of this week with your families, because you will be hung within a week’s time.”

Luhan was shocked that the girl could utter such words with such a cold voice and emotionless face.

“Luhan,” Mihyun called out softly as she turned to the Noye. “Come, follow me. We will return to Sehun now.”

Luhan took a deep gulp and nodded his head. He quickly trailed after her when she made her way down the passage to the cages.

“Wait, please!” one of the guards cried in exasperation.

Mihyun froze when she felt a hand clamp down on her shoulder, and she slowly turned her head to glare back at the guard with disgust. “You will get your filthy hand off of me unless you want your family to be hung at your sides.”

That of course was an empty threat. Never would Mihyun impose any harm on the soul of an innocent. The guard, however, did not know that, and he immediately pulled away with shut lips.

 “Come, Luhan,” she stated once again as she continued down the corridor. The two walked in silence, and the only noise made was the soft footsteps of the pair. Sehun had been pacing back and forth when they arrived, and spun around once Mihyun announced their presence in her familiar soft voice.

“Luhan!” Sehun exclaimed with relief as he wrapped his arms around the boy’s torso. He had heard that Luhan had been taken away by the guards again, and had been waiting stoically for his hyung’s return. He was relieved to see that his hyung had returned relatively untouched.

“Please take care of Luhan, Sehun,” Mihyun’s soft voice stated. He looked up from over Luhan's shoulder to stare into the girl’s knowing eyes.

Sehun didn’t know if he was happier to see his hyung safely back into his arms, or Mihyun’s face for the first time in three days. Three days too long.

It was almost frightening how he could have longed for the girl  with such desire when he had only known her for such a short period of time. Not even a week had passed, yet Sehun found himself already under the spell of vixen. If this was what he felt in a week, how would he feel in a month? In a year? Shudders ran down his spine at the thought of it. Yet, despite this fact, he still had continued to pine for the face of the tiny girl.

He had so many things to tell her. He wanted to apologize for his stupid behavior from a few days ago, and he wanted to know what she had been doing for the past three days to not have come to visit them. Had she been so angry? Had she been so hurt? There were so many things he wanted to know.

 “I have things that I have to take care of now, so I must leave early today,” Mihyun continued in a soft voice before turning around.

Sehun’s face immediately fell at her words. It had been three days since he last saw her face, yet she was leaving so soon already?

“Wait,” Sehun called out as he stepped forward.

Mihyun wearily glanced back at him. “What is it?”

“Did you… did you save him?” Sehun asked in a quiet voice as he timidly glanced at her.

Mihyun stared at him in silence for the longest time, and he hated the way she looked at him. He felt when she looked at him; it was as if she was capable of looking through his clothes and his skin to see his innermost thoughts. He felt vulnerable.

Mihyun gave him a curt nod before she spun away on her heels to leave the cage. Again, her footsteps made no sounds. She registered the soft plea of Sehun’s voice telling her to come back soon before she left the cages completely.

Sehun’s thoughts for the girl disappeared when he registered the tight grip Luhan had on his shirt, and he wrapped his arm with an even tighter grip around his hyung’s shoulders.

It was at that moment that Sehun swore he had never been as thankful in his entire life as he was then. Four years. He has had to watch his hyung get dragged off with those disgusting men for four, long years, with the inability of doing anything.

He still remembered the first time it had happened as if it was no more than a day ago. It was in the middle of the night when he had been awoken by the sudden cries of his name. His eyes flew open just in time to see Luhan being dragged away by a handful of guards. The look of fear in his hyung’s eyes was enough to make him go mad, and he attacked the guards without hesitation. He was obviously outnumbered, and was taken down in almost an instant. All he could do was watch under the blows of fists and flashes of blood as his delicate hyung got dragged off to a corner. The last thing he had saw were Luhan’s wide eyes before he out.

When he finally regained consciousness, he registered Luhan who was at his side, silently tending to his wounds. He sat straight up and stared at Luhan in panic, ignoring the pain that shot through his system.

“Hyung! What did they do to you?!” Sehun exclaimed as he clasped his hands on the boy’s shoulders. Luhan didn’t speak, but he knew that he didn’t have to use words to explain what had happened to him.

“Hyung,” Sehun’s strained voice sounded. “Are those… bite marks?” He got his answer when Luhan shamefully averted his eyes with tears threatening to spill down his cheeks.

Sehun didn’t say anything after that, and neither did Luhan. He simply engulfed the older, fragile male into his arms and rocked him back and forth, swearing to himself that he would never let them touch his Hyung again.

Luhan limped the entire week.

He broke his own promise two weeks later when he was awoken once again to the sound of cries and whines. He didn’t want to open his eyes for he was scared of what he’d see when he did, but he forced his eyelids open anyways.

The guards were different this time, but they still had similar intentions as the last ones. Luhan screamed for Sehun, and Sehun darted forward without failure, hoping to this time come to his hyung’s rescue. He threw his fists blindly and scratched and bit everything that came in contact with him but it still wasn’t enough.

The events of that night replicated the one from two weeks ago, and again, the last thing Sehun saw before he out was the look on Luhan’s face as he got dragged away. This time his expression was made up of fear, and just the slightest tinge of disappointment. Sehun didn’t know who he was angrier with – the guards or himself.

Sehun woke up to his hyung’s gentle hands as they tended to his wounds, and he just lied there silently, staring up at his hyung’s fatigued face. His eyes unconsciously traveled down to his hyung’s neck, and his eyes flashed with anger once he saw that the bite marks had doubled, or even tripled in quantity.

His eyes went back to Luhan’s face and he unconsciously met eye contact with him. “Don’t look,” Luhan whispered shamefully as he covered his marks with his hands. The movement was useless seeing as how there were even more marks covering his bare arms, they were even worse, however, because scattered among the bites were bruises – bruises in the shape of fingers.

That week, Sehun nearly killed one of the other Noyes with an iron bar when he had playfully slapped Luhan’s , causing his hyung to wince in pain.

A month passed after that and nothing had happened. By then, Luhan had already calmed down, and had forced himself to forget all the things that happened on those two nightmares of nights. Sehun was smarter than that, however. He stayed awake every night, refusing to let the weakness of sleep consume him as he watched over his Hyung.

Finally, they came.

Sehun was well prepared, and with a single blow, he managed to knock one of the guards out with the metal pipe he was equipped with. That was enough to anger the other guards, and he shouted for his hyung to wake up and run away, but it was too late.

As a punishment for actually getting the nerve to prepare himself with a weapon, the guards decided to give Sehun a gift before they knocked him out with brutal fists.

That night they made him watch.

They told Luhan to be a good boy, and to put on a good show for his dongsaeng.

The next day he couldn’t even meet his hyung’s eyes.

A few more months passed by, and Sehun finally allowed himself to feel at ease once again. Perhaps the guards had gotten tired of Luhan, and had gone to prey on some other innocent Noye. Sehun didn’t care who it was, as long as it wasn’t his hyung.

He soon realized how naïve he had been when he stumbled upon Luhan and the guards one night when had had awakened to relieve himself.

“That’s right, you’re a good boy, Luhan. You’re being such a good boy.”

He stood there for a few seconds in shock, not being able to mentally process what was happening before his eyes. Luhan’s face was completely expressionless. His eyes were closed and his face was stoic – as if he had already grown used to the rough treatments, and was simply waiting for the end. It wasn’t until one of the guards acknowledged Sehun’s presence that his eyes flew open in horror.

“Sehun, no,” Luhan’s cracked voice rasped. “Please, leave.”

“You heard the boy, leave,” one of the guard bellowed in laughter.

Sehun’s hand curled into a tight fist, but before he could even attack, a searing pain shot through his abdomen. He staggered a few steps forward, and stared at his torso to see the stalk of a knife jutting out of his body.

Luhan’s screams were the last thing he heard before he out.

He woke up the next day with a throbbing pain in his stomach and a tearful Luhan next to him.

“Hyung, are you okay?” Sehun exclaimed as he shot upwards, letting out a low hiss of pain at the sudden strain the action caused his wound.

Luhan calmly wiped his tears away from his eyes and nodded as he gave Sehun a small, forced smile. “I am fine, Sehun.”

Sehun registered that he was lying on something that completely contrasted the hard floor of the cages, and his eyes darted around to observe the white walls and curtains.

“You’re in the hospital,” Luhan explained as he placed a gentle hand on Sehun’s forehead.

Sehun’s eyes widened in surprise. A hospital? How on earth was he in a hospital? Never before were Noyes sent to the hospital, even if they were on the brink of death! The owners would much rather have the Noye die then waste their time and money healing their wounds.

“Sehun,” Luhan stated quietly. Sehun’s attention went back to his hyung.

“Sehun, I want you to stop fighting them,” Luhan stated in a silent voice. “No matter what they do to me, I want you to stop fighting them. I want you to turn a blind eye and ignore them.” 

When Sehun’s mouth opened in outrage, Luhan held up a hand to silent him. “Please, do this for me. Do this as a favor to me.”

“H-Hyung, I know I haven’t been able to save you yet, but I will! I swear to god I will! Don’t lose hope in me,” Sehun exclaimed.

Luhan shook his head with a sad smile. “I haven’t lost hope in you, idiot. I just… I just hate seeing you get hurt. It’s worse than what they do to me. Please, Sehun. By you fighting back, it just doubles the pain I feel.”

Before Sehun could even reply, Luhan climbed to his feet and quickly made his way to the door. “I want you to abide by my wishes, Sehun. This is the last thing I will ever ask of you, please. I will see you tomorrow, good bye.”

Sehun’s protest disappeared from his mouth once Luhan vanished from sight.  Tears sprung to his eyes, and he fisted the sheets of his bed angrily. “Damn it!”

Luhan didn’t come back to visit him the next day, nor did he come the next.

Finally, a week later, Sehun was able to leave the hospital and be returned as a Noye to the cages. He had been waiting for that day the entire week, and the doctors found it strange that the boy would be so willing to leave the nice comfy bed and decent food to return to a life of horror, but Sehun ignored them. They didn’t know about Luhan.

When Sehun returned, a wide smile spread across his lips once he spotted Luhan sitting calmly in the middle of their cage.

“Luh--!” Sehun’s happy cry of Luhan’s name died in the air once his Hyung turned to look at him. His smile wiped off his face, and he sprinted to his hyung and fell to his knees, ignoring the pain that jolted through his body from the rough impact. “What have they done to you?”

Luhan kept his promise. That was the last thing he would ever ask of Sehun.

Sehun never heard the sweet voice of his Hyung again.