hoodie ━ yeonbin. ✓

[ 📚¹⁸ ] back to school.

soobin woke up with the sun shining directly through the window. the sky was bright and clear, making him think it was probably close to noon.

he felt pins and needles in his aching legs, but reluctant to move yeonjun, who was still tightly gripped to him, even in sleep. when soobin started to sit up, he winced at the sharp pain in his neck.

soobin was then faced with a dilemma as he felt the urge to use the bathroom. he slowly shifted yeonjun's weight off of himself and, after what seemed like eternity, successfully got him to lay down on the bed without waking up.

his face was all scrunched up, eyes puffy, from sleep or crying, maybe both. soobin felt his heart twist with sadness and anger at the olive green coloring that covered the surface of yeonjun's cheek, and not to mention how he now protectively held his arm against his chest.

what happened to him?

soobin lightly brushed back the matted strands of yeonjun's hair and lightly kissed his forehead before dashing off madly.

soobin didn't think he'd taken more than five minutes, but he returned to find yeonjun sitting up and hugging his knees to his chest.

"you woke up? i didn't think you would..." soobin sat down beside him.

yeonjun let go of his knees to hug soobin close again, wincing slightly at the sudden flashes of pain. he moved to face soobin while sidling into the aforementioned boy's lap.

"your, um... your parents aren't here," soobin mumbled awkwardly, with yeonjun still embracing him.

the blue-haired boy looked confused. "but they always wake me up and tell me before they leave anywhere."

"yeah, i've always been jealous of how nice and caring your parents are."

yeonjun caught soobin's eye. "what if they came in here this morning? and saw you here?"

soobin's eyes widened. "oh shi-"

"i doubt it," yeonjun shook his head. "they would have had a 'stern' talk with me about having someone over without telling them. they probably just didn't want to bother me. what did you tell them yesterday?"

"i just said what you told me to tell them, that you didn't feel good," soobin answered. "and that you ate at school, so you weren't hungry."

"i miss my mom's cooking," yeonjun sighed forlornly.

there was silence for a few minutes, a lull in the conversation, as soobin contemplated either asking yeonjun if he could leave yet or to tell him about why he was so scared yesterday.

well, it didn't take a genius to figure out why yeonjun was paranoid exactly, soobin admitted, but... he wanted to know who were the people that did that to yeonjun yesterday. and, exactly what happened.

why was yeonjun even still at school at that time in the first place? couldn't he have asked soobin to walk home with him-?

and then yeonjun let out a breath, saying, "i need to tell you something. something horrible, that i did."

before soobin could even speak, yeonjun was already talking again, rushing through the story, as if he both desperately needed someone to confide in and hated telling the tale at the same time.

"...a-and... i thought that if i told you they were bad, you would stop hanging out with them," yeonjun finished, "so that you would never find out."

soobin was quiet, pensive. it was quite a story, and did explain why yeonjun was so hell-bent that soobin not hang out with daehwi's group so much.

"on the bright side," soobin tried, "i don't think they know you were part of the group. either that, or they didn't recognize you. or... they don't care, junie. i don't think anyone would hold it against you for being a bystander to that. it's hard to stand up to a violent group, much harder on your own."