[kicks the fucking door down] I FOROGE=T TO ASK U YESTERDAY DO UR PRECIOUS GAYs (like wontaek i mean) with "Shit, are you bleeding?!"
Jaehwan has the tiniest bladder of anyone Taekwoon has ever met, ever.
Jaehwan has to pee at least three times a day, sometimes more, and Taekwoon is always the one sent to accompany him. Why he can’t go by himself, Taekwoon doesn’t know.
Jaehwan’s puppy dog face always keeps him from refusing, as does Hakyeon’s killer glare but whatever, he won’t ever admit to that aloud.
So here he is, hands stuffed in his pockets as he walks with Jaehwan down to the only bathroom in the sciences hall. Jaehwan is humming something beside him, tennis shoes squeaking obnoxiously on the linoleum tile. It’s their only free period of the day, after lunch and before pre calc, so the hallways are empty and silent around them.
By the time they make it to the restrooms Taekwoon has put in his earbuds and Jaehwan is bouncing as he walks, hands clenched together in front of his lap and his lower lip caught between his teeth.
He looks like a child on a potty break, and it makes Taekwoon smirk a bit as he takes his normal station beside the entrance to the restroom as Jaehwan speeds in.
Taekwoon leans against the wall and pulls out his phone to pick a new song.
He hears something from inside the bathroom, sounding like a muffled curse behind the beats of Taekwoon’s music, and he pauses it to lean closer to the door.
"Are you talking to me?"
He waits for a reply for a moment, ear pressed to the door.
"Shit, are you bleeding?!"
It sounds like Jaehwan, a panicked Jaehwan, and Taekwoon shoves open the door with a pounding heart.
He skids onto the grimy tile and feels his eyes widen and his lungs stutter uncomfortably as he takes in the scene.
Jaehwan is kneeling on the floor in front of some kid, his hands fluttering awkwardly around the guy’s chest. The kid’s head is drooping low on his neck, his legs sprawled in front of him and his hands lying limp in his lap. There’s bright crimson staining the color of his uniform shirt and spattered in irregular spots all over his chest.
"I just found him like this! I think he’s unconscious, Taekwoon," Jaehwan breathes.
"I’m awake, I’m awake."
Jaehwan startles at the raspy voice of the beaten boy in front of him, and Taekwoon feels a horrible sense of familiarity take hold of his heart.
He kneels beside Jaehwan, crouching low to try and get a better look at the kids face just as he starts to pick his head up with a groan.
And it’s just as bad as Taekwoon thought.
Wonshik’s eyes are more heavily lidded than normal, one ringed by a nasty purpling bruise tinged yellow and green around the edges. There’s a smudge of dark blood staining the corner of his mouth and drawing attention to the pained grimace his split lips are pulled into.
Then Wonshik sees Taekwoon, eyes widening marginally and mouth dropping into a gape for the barest second before a flat mask falls over his features. He coughs once, wet and hoarse and deep, and he starts struggling to stand up. Taekwoon stands up hurriedly, shaking hands wrapping around Wonshik’s bicep to help him up on his quivering legs, but the younger boy yanks away back into the wall.
"I don’t need your fucking help, Taekwoon.”
The way he spits Taekwoon’s name, like it tastes bad in his mouth, has guilt he’d spent weeks trying to bury bubbling back to life in his chest.
Jaehwan stands back, shocked, and Taekwoon swallows harshly, turning back to address him.
"Go back to class, Jaehwan."
"It’s our free period, hyung-"
Taekwoon shoots him a pleading look, and Jaehwan sends a worried glance at Wonshik before sighing and shoving his way through the bathroom door, leaving Taekwoon and Wonshik drowning in the uncomfortable silence echoing around them.
Wonshik moves first, wiping an arm across the mouth and succeeding only in smearing the blood across his bruised cheek.
Taekwoon opens his mouth, to say what he doesn’t know. but Wonshik quickly shuts him down with a raised hand.
"Just…" Wonshik’s voice is weary and sad, and god does Taekwoon hate himself for putting that vulnerable slump in Wonshik’s shoulders. "Please, just don’t act like you care. Don’t pull that shit with me."
Wonshik stoops with a poorly concealed groan to shoulder his back pack.
"You’ve proven how little you care about me, I don’t need you trying to be the hero again." He pauses to huff out a bitter little laugh, and he makes eye contact with Taekwoon for the first time since he'd stood up, gesturing at his beaten body. "You see where that stunt's gotten me."
Taekwoon bites back something dangerously close to a sob when he sees the wetness gathering at the corners of Wonshik's eyes.
A dozen years of friendship, one failed attempt at a relationship and the deepest betrayal Taekwoon ever could have committed, and he'd never seen the younger boy cry.
When Wonshik starts to walk out of the bathroom Taekwoon doesn't try and stop him. The door swings shut with a click that seems to damn final to Taekwoon, and he knows then that he'll never regain Wonshik's trust.
Not after this.
