Let me In | Enhypen

Tag | 10

The rhythm of the steps were odd as Sunghoon and Lin walked down the hallway. There seemed to always be a quick step after the first one, setting the rhythm off to anyone who could hear.

"How's your hip?" Sunghoon questioned, tightened the grip he had under Lin's shoulders.

"Slowly killing me I suppose," Lin casually replied, making Sunghoon sigh and stop in his steps, "what?"

"Would you mind if I carry you?" Sunghoon hesitantly questioned making Lin look to him, with almost begging eyes.

"Please," she nodded.

Sunghoon slowly smiled before turning his back to her  and crouching down. Clumsily Lin managed to jump up on Sunghoon's back, letting out a small hiss as she did.

"I got you," Sunghoon assured as he began walking once again. 

Meanwhile, Lin let out a small huff as she rested her head on Sunghoon's shoulder. She felt too pathetic to stand being in her own body.

"Should I call you oppa?" Lin questioned as she glanced around at the artifacts they passed.

"Do you want to?" Sunghoon questioned and Lin simply shrugged, "Sunoo said you first moved to Korea a few years back. Your Korean is good for it, but you don't have to call me oppa if it seems weird to you."

"My mom's Korean," Lin excused with a small chuckle, "been speaking it my whole life."

"Ah..." Sunghoon slowly nodded. It was times like this he cursed at his introverted side, he felt like he should keep the conversation going but he had no clue how to.

"Dad died a few years back... and since my mom isn't exactly Chinese and only had her marriage visa she was deported," Lin murmured, "we stayed at the harbour for a few months in winter while we waited for a ship to be able to take us to Korea again."

"You waited at the harbour?" Sunghoon questioned in shock, having to concentrate on keeping his balance.

"They took my mom's passport," Lin quietly nodded and carefully played with a few strands of Sunghoon's hair.

For a second he was about to tell her off for doing so, he despised when anyone played with his hair. Even Soomin was barely allowed to play with it, but realizing that Lin was opening up to him about her life he decided against it.

"But it was alright," Lin assured him, dropping her hands from his hair, "my mom's amazing. We never starved and we barely ever were freezing. I don't know how she kept finding blankets and such for us, let alone food."

"Yeah..." Sunghoon quietly trailed off. He had a sense of knowing how her mom had done that, he had only ever heard stories about how North Korean refugees were trapped at the Chinese harbours before they could get a ship to South Korea. To think that Lin was unaware of such seemed unnatural, but he wasn't gonna tell her.

"And now I've overshared and you think I'm weird," Lin realized, a small pout forming on her lips as she turned her face away from Sunghoon to watch the walls along the hallway.

"No I don't," Sunghoon assured her, "I already thought so. It's weird you can stand Sunoo for so long," Sunghoon remarked in hopes of cheering her up. To his luck a small laugh did escape Lin, a laugh that slowly trasitioned into a quiet hum, "you like him a lot, don't you?"

"He never told you how we met, did he?" Lin questioned in amusement, only earning a shake of the head from Sunghoon, "when I moved here... back when I was like fourteen or so, we were in the same class... the other girls in the class started rumours about me being a North Korean refugee because I still had a bit of accent in my Korean. They refused to sit by me, do groupworks and all that. But Sunoo is too kind."

"He really is," Sunghoon nodded in agreement.

"He never hesitated to accompany me. Introduced me to Jiyeon from the other class, she introduced me to the unnies. I drifted away from him, I guess, but every once in a while he would check in on me, asking me if I'm alright and such with the situation. He still does," Lin explained as a soft smile grew on her face, "I've come to learn it's his love language to treat people so kindly and to assure they're alright. He's surprisingly not as affectionate as you would think, but I like his way of showing his affection."

"Cute," Sunghoon let out a small laugh.

"Tag."

Sunghoon stopped suddenly in his footsteps as he felt a hand on his elbow. Slowly Sunghoon carefully placed Lin down on the floor and carefully moved her out of sight for the tagger as Sunghoon turned around and looked at the tagger with a cold look.

The tagger held up his palm, two dices laying there. Sunghoon quietly recalled how Millie had explained that they would have to roll two dices if they were more than one playing the game. Sunghoon picked up both dices, still keeping his eyes on the tagger.

"Give one to the girl."

Sunghoon turned around and handed Lin one dice, giving her a small assuring smile as he did so. They both let their dices roll over the floor. Lin managed to get six eyes, meanwhile Sunghoon got five eyes.

"11 eyes. Blind dog."

The tagger extended a deck of cards towards each one. Sunghoon hesitantly pulled a card first. Ace of spades."

"First aid kit."

Next Lin pulled a red card. Nine of Diamonds.

"Hallway drag."

Within seconds the tagger had blindfolded Sunghoon, before he could do anything to fight back, they didn't even get to question what a hallway drag was. Lin was pushed further down the hallway as the tagger stood in the opposite end of the hallway.

"Blind dog will begin now. Boy with blindfold has to use his ears to identify the finger snapping of his friend to win. Please start."

Immediately the tagger started snapping his fingers, letting Sunghoon go in that direction for a few steps until another snap sounded in the hallway. Lin desperately snapped her fingers as quickly as she could.

Millions of thoughts ran through Sunghoon's head at once. Lin couldn't possibly start snapping her fingers as quickly as the first person did, she could've barely been processing the rules. But on the other hand, could she snap her fingers that many times so quickly.

As Sunghoon stood still in the hallway Lin had to bite down onto her lips to keep herself from calling out to Sunghoon. A small panic grew over Lin's snaps as Sunghoon began moving down towards the tagger once again and the energy in her fingers slowly gave out as the snaps of her fingers became quieter and quieter until it only was the sound of her fingers sliding against one another that was left.

Noticing the quiet snaps from the other end of the hallway Sunghoon paused. There was no way the tagger would wish to give up while the game still was going. Turning on his heel Sunghoon rushed the opposite way of what he had been walking in. He almost set into a run - had he not reached Lin faster than he had thought.

He was abruptly stopped by Lin, who grabbed onto his arms, stopping him in his place. A deep breath of relief escaped Lin as she leaned her forehead against Sunghoon's chest - the older boy sliding his blindfold off as a first aid kit was thrown down the hallway towards them.

"It's alright, we won..." Sunghoon murmured as he realized it was Lin who was shaking against him, "we won."

He carefully patted her head softly as he bent down and grabbed the first aid kit, slowly engulfing the smaller girl in a hug of assurance.