Chapter contains strong language and aspects of violence.




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Lee Jinki


Ever since Taemin and I had taken my daughter to the playground a week had passed in which I hadn't seen him. It was a weird situation. He wasn't answering my calls, wasn't texting me or anything at all, he acted the opposite of how he usually did.
Since I was busy with job interviews all week I had no time left at all to see anyone at all, not even my ex-wife or Seohyun. However, on the Sunday that I was off I left very early in the morning so I'd catch him before he opened up Cute Cups … which meant getting up at five am.

It wasn't a specifically long drive to the shop, but I drove much faster since I was still sleep drunken. My eyes were itchy and red and my heart felt heavy in my chest, as if it hadn't pulled itself out of my dream yet.

My dream had been weird though … weird might have been an understatement.

Of course Taemin had appeared in my dream, just like he always had within these six weeks we knew each other by now. We had been hanging out, just like always, but then something weird had happened. For some reason he had gotten off of the couch we had been on and started undressing.

Undressing … Taemin started undressing.

My cheeks started burning and I had to focus on driving again quickly – the word echoed in my mind and the image of him in his underwear stuck to my mind.

What the was wrong with me …?

I sighed and tried to pull my thoughts away from my dream and to a reasonable excuse as to why I was thinking about my best friend – my only one as well – stripping in my living room.
Maybe, just maybe, I was just wondering whether his skin was really as flawless as his face made it look. That seemed reasonable. And logical. Who wouldn't want a skin like Taemin, anyway? I bet even his girlfriends were jealous.

Or … wait, this one was even better! I probably had just had one of those weird dreams everyone had every once in a while. You know, like when you dream about something totally stupid and didn't know the meaning of it? Just like that.
I smiled a bit to myself and nodded as I continued driving through the yet calm streets of Seoul. It meant nothing. A dream was just a dream, that's all … right?

When I eventually got to Cute Cups I parked in front of the shop and got out slowly, taking my time to look for Taemin – he was nowhere to be seen yet though. I figured he might be running late or something like that, so I just decided to wait by the door.
I leaned against the door frame and waited, occasionally peeking inside the shop. At first I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, however, after a bit I frowned when I thought I saw light coming out of the back. I couldn't help but to be weirded out by it and tried opening the door – to my surprise, it worked.

“Taemin-ah?” I called out and entered Cute Cups slowly. “Taemin-ah, are you here? I need to talk to you.” I put on a soft smile as I headed over to the counter. “I'm sorry if I upset you last time we met …” I kept on talking while I walked, my head beating a bit quicker for some reason. I felt glad I was gonna see him now. “You know, if you don't wanna tell me how Cute Cups came to be, you don't have to.” I opened the small door at the counter and stepped behind it, just about to open the door that led to the back of the shop when it was opened by someone else instead.

I felt my smile grow, thinking it was Taemin of course, but when I saw a – not ugly – guy with blonde hair and skinny frame in front of me I frowned and furrowed my brow. He looked like I had just caught him doing something wrong.
“Who are you?” I asked, my heart racing a bit now. The way he was looking at me was making me uncomfortable. “And what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing, dickhead.” he said and let out a snort. “The shop's not open yet. Leave.”

“And this isn't your shop.” I tried peeking behind him, I thought I had seen someone trying to hide in the shadows. “So who are you?”
The guy just glared at me and tried once again to tell me off. When I wouldn't budge he had hit me before I could have reacted. I felt my back hitting the counter before I felt the blood stream out of my nostrils – he had used his fist to hit the bridge of my nose.

“F- …” I only managed to gasp and touched the blood with my fingertips, looking at it with wide eyes. “What's your problem …!?” I tried standing up but the blonde guy just pushed me back down with his foot.
“Hyung!” he called out and reassured my thoughts that there really was someone in the back. “Hyung, someone's here!”

“Yeah, I heard. In fact,” another guy with black hair stepped out of the backroom, “I think the entire neighborhood has heard. Idiot!” he slapped the back of his friend's head and glared at him.
“What!” the blonde one looked away from me for a second and turned to his friend. “I'm just trying to do this unnoticed!”

“You just hit someone, you ing idiot!”

“So!?”
I sat up a bit and realized slowly that the blonde one might not have been the smartest kid at school. I kept on wiping the blood away, but there was just more and more coming, I figured my nose was broken … it felt pretty numb though … but that might have just been the adrenaline going through me right now.
They just kept on discussing and I used that chance to get back up to my feet. Either they were so busy with their conversation that they didn't notice, or they didn't notice.

“Get out.” I growled and held onto the counter for support. “This shop belongs to a friend of mine … if you want money, I'll give it to you. Just leave. Or I'll call the police.” they both looked at me with their brows raised and before I knew it the blonde haired guy had grabbed me and was pulling me to the back of the shop, where the light had come from.
I looked around and couldn't help but to snort, causing more blood to drip out of my nose, when I saw that they had drawn a picture of a on the opposite wall.

“Seriously …” I said and looked at them in disbelief. “How old are you? Twelve? Aren't you too old to be drawing -picks?”

“Shut up.” he kicked the back of my calves hard and I almost fell over. “You just don't get the message.”
I couldn't help but to laugh again and tried to get out of his grip while his friend continued drawing the picture. “Is that what you put on all of your pictures when some criticizes it? You just don't get the message?”

“Dude, seriously!” he kicked me again and this time it was rough enough for me to stop moving. “I'mma break all your bones if you don't–“

“Sehun-ah!” his friend called over and turned around. “Shut the up already!” he threw over one of his spray cans which his friend, apparently called Sehun, dodged quickly. “We're just here to leave this, get the money and then we're out.”
Sehun glared at him and then at the spray can on the ground, but he didn't dare to say a word.

“What do you want from this shop?” I asked, my voice much softer than usually since my body was starting to ache – I was still struggling to get out of his grip, but I was not giving it my all. “Taemin-ah probably has no money at all.”

“And we'll take the little bit he has as refund for all the trouble he's caused.” the other one said it so simply that it surprised me.
“Refund?” I repeated. “What kind of trouble?” he was just about to answer when I heard the front door of the shop opening again – damn, Taemin must have arrived. I heard how Taemin's steps were slow and insecure, he must have felt that something was deadly wrong.

“H-Hello …?” I saw part of his brown hair as he opened the door. “Who's –“ when he laid eyes on me and the other two he frowned hard and dropped the coffee he was holding, his keys and beanie. His face had suddenly turned to marble. He seemed more than frightened.
I saw both of the guys frowning and couldn't react when the one named Sehun pushed me away. I tripped and tumbled into a big box, feeling something soft inside being squished. I looked up quickly and reached out a hand – just in time. I managed to grab Sehuns pants and pulled as hard as I could, causing him to trip as well and meet the floor face first. He groaned and held his face while his friend just casually stepped over him.

“I thought your shop opens at eight am.” he said coldly and grabbed Taemins face. When Taemins eyes widened and he seemed to get scared even more I immediately fought my way up to my feet. “Why're you even he–“ I lunged at him and caused both of us to crash into a cupboard.

Taemin let out a scream, I heard plates crash underneath us and felt some shards digging into my hands.

“H-Hyung!” Taemin hurried over and pulled at my arm, trying to get me back up. I tried, but felt a bit weakened, so it took me a bit to stand again. “Are you okay …!?” he turned me around and I faced his pale skin, his teary eyes and the worried, yet, scared expression on his face. He trembled and was about to touch my nose when I was turned around by Sehun. He looked at me with a mad expression and didn't waste a second to hit me again, using his fist. I tumbled back, but didn't fall since Taemin tried catching me. I quickly regained my balance as well as possible and hit him back this time – I've had enough.

Sehun tumbled and fell back, I heard him groan. Behind me Taemin was trying to call the police.

I shielded Taemin from Sehun when he tried to lung at him and pushed the other one away whenever he tried to get past me. I noticed how my vision started spinning after a short while though and felt how my head spun around whenever I got pushed or whatever.

It didn't take long for Sehun and the other one to just push me and Taemin aside, rush to the counter and grab whatever money there was from the day before, and then leaving Cute Cups as quickly as possible.

Behind me Taemin was panting, he still looked horrified and I could see his body shaking. Still, before I could do anything to help him calm down I felt my knees buckling and fell back, right onto the smashed box from before – by now I felt how there were baked pastry cases underneath me.

“Hyung!” he knelt down next to me, his phone in his hand. I saw tears drip down his cheeks now – he looked so scared it hurt me physically. “A-Are you okay? Your nose … y-your arm.” he gently touched the blood under my nose and then used his sleeve to shakily wipe it away. He was shaking so bad he could barely do it without continuously nudging my nose and causing me to twitch. “I-I … why …” he sniffled and I saw him trying to find the right words, but he couldn't.
After a while of just stuttering and shakily trying to cleanse my face of blood he broke down completely. He slumped down, his bloody hands now covering his face and he started crying.

And he cried hard.

Sobs were leaving his lips, his breath was hitching and he shook even worse by now. I was trembling badly myself and could barely get my vision back into focus, but I leaned over and pulled him against my chest nevertheless … and he took the offer right away.
Taemin didn't need a second of thought before he leaned onto me and wrapped his arms around me, his face went right into my chest.

I tried to move a bit and rub his back, comfort him, whatever, but my spinning head was making it hard for me to move at all. Taemin muttered all sorts of different things into my chest, I only heard words like sorry, fault, Sehun and Jongin and scared. It made no sense whatsoever, but that might have been because nothing could have made sense to me right now.

We stayed in that position for a very long time, it felt like easily an hour, before he slowly broke away from me. His face was puffy, his eyes were red and bottom lip still trembling, but he had regained a tiny bit of color in his face and that calmed me at least a tiny bit.

“A-Are you okay …” he mumbled and blinked up at me. His eyes were big and round. “I-I … Hyung, I'm s-so sorry …” he took a few shaky breaths before he leaned back onto me again and hugged me once more. “This is all my fault …”
I couldn't even manage shaking my head or hugging him back. I only heard him say something about calling a doctor before my vision went black for a second. When I opened my eyes again I was greeted with the feeling of something soft being pressed against my cheek – was Taemin kissing me?

… whatever it was, it felt amazing.

“Thank you …” Taemin mumbled and ran a shaking hand through my hair. “T-Thank you so much, Hyung … i-if you hadn't been here … I … they … ” he stayed silent for a bit before picking up his phone. “I'll call the police … a-and an ambulance … you'll be okay …” I felt how he got a hold of my hand and weakly held it within mine – despite all the pain, being this close to him felt really good.

I only heard Taemin quietly explaining what happened to the police before I passed out.



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Thanks for reading (if you did)!!~