always ↬ leading me on || l.dh • h.rj • z.cl

·fifteen·

Renjun carefully laid Chenle down on his bed as he went back to shut the door to the room. He perched himself near the blonde's legs and scanned the area around him.

Nothing had changed much since the last time he'd visited, which was 3 years ago. They'd painted the walls together, Chenle did two of them a pretty lilac and Renjun did the other two pitch black. It reminded them of their relationship. Beauty against brutality.

Chenle was the delicate pastel that lined his paintings and Renjun was the rough charcoal they were born from. Such a sharp contrast, but it made a masterpiece.

Most things had stayed the same, apart from the new addition of the pictures that littered the walls. He got up and walked closer, his bare feet cold against the deep mahogany laminate. It took him a whole minute to reach the prettily coloured wall (the room was huge) and as he stepped into a range in which he could see the photos clearly, he felt a dull sadness prick at his heart.

They were all pictures of the two of them.

Ones where they were happy and smiling and others where Chenle was crying and Renjun was holding him.

Pictures of Renjun on his 5th birthday which he spent with Chenle and his family because his own had forgotten and left him behind on holiday.

Pictures of when Chenle had scraped his knee and Renjun was cleaning the graze.

Pictures of them when they had grown up, when Renjun had visited the younger when he wasn't so busy.

There was one in particular that made all of the saliva dry in his throat. A picture Chenle's dad took of them. It was Chenle with his hands slung around the elder boy's neck, foreheads touching and dreary eyes as neon flashed around them. There was a purple bruise that bloomed across his cheekbone, but the boy looked as beautiful as ever, staring at Renjun like he was his whole world.

Renjun remembered that day so clearly.

‣‣

It was the first fight Chenle had ever gotten into, he came home that day with his bright green locks soaked to the roots with rain. Blood ran down from the cuts on his lips, that were swollen and red. Fringe covering his right eye as he shrugged off his bag.

He winced at the shriek his mother let out when she saw him and tried to walk away from her, but he couldn't. She crushed him into a worried embrace and bombarded him with questions as she dragged him to the closest room (which was the living room) and sat him on an armchair.

"I don't want to talk about it Mum," he'd told her in a low and threatening tone; one that she'd never heard him use before.

It scared the woman slightly, but she was more concerned about what had happened to her son and so she asked one of the maids to call Renjun down from upstairs. That caused Chenle to snap his head upwards and glare at his mother, "Don't. Don't call ge-"

But it was too late, because by the time Chenle had narrowed his eyes at her and stood to leave, Renjun had already ran down the stairs with a worried murmur of the younger's name on his lips.

As the black haired boy rushed into the room, his eyes widened and he stopped to stare at the state the greenette was in.

"C-Chenle?" he whispered, shock morphing into anger as his eyes darkened, voice icy and filled with danger, "who the fuck did this to you?"

Mrs. Zhong flinched slightly before standing straight and moving to leave the two together, she knew that Renjun would inform her of what happened once he'd found out and tended to her son properly. She looked back once before she closed the door, sighing and resigning to her office. It's not like Chenle would let her disinfect and clean his wounds either. Whenever he was hurt, whether it was as minor as paper cut or as serious as a gunshot (not that he'd ever gotten shot), he'd only ever let Renjun care for him.

He'd only ever wanted Renjun to look after him.

Inside the room, Renjun was taking slow steps towards the injured boy. Chenle had his head hung low and a thick tension settled in the air surrounding them.

"Chenle." His voice was still stern, but it held a soft edge to it which made the boy we was addressing look up at him cautiously.

His whole demeanor had taken a full 360 from moments ago, in front of Renjun he was completely vulnerable, attitude having vanished as he stared at the elder like a deer caught in headlights.

The ravenette had reached him, hands settling firmly on his shoulders as he guided the younger back into his previous seat and went to fetch the first aid kit.

‣‣

He came back and kneeled in front of the younger, the light from the fireplace illuminating his pale skin and gifting it a warm glow. He looked like home to Chenle — like a haven that would always stay set for him within the cruel world. One that he kept coming back to constantly because he couldn't live without it.

He couldn't live without Renjun.

"Chenle," he'd started again, quietly, "what happened?"

Chenle gulped and stared at the boy who was currently applying antiseptic to a cotton ball, his words died in his throat even before he could think of them. How could he just tell Renjun that he'd beaten up a bunch of guys who were insulting the elder? He couldn't just be like, 'oh yeah, some guys were chatting shit about you', Renjun would positively slaughter him if he found out that he'd done it to defend the ravenette.

To find out that he'd got himself hurt because of him.

Renjun raised a brow as he dabbed the cotton ball to Chenle's bottom lip, causing the boy to hiss, "are you just going to keep blanking me today?"

Chenle shook his head vigorously, recoiling because Renjun hadn't stopped and the movement made his lip sting further.

"G-Ge they were making fun of y-you," his voice was small, almost ashamed of what he'd done, "I couldn't just sit and watch them d-do that."

He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt Renjun retract his hand, he didn't want Renjun to be mad at him.

"For me?"

Chenle just nodded. Gasping when he felt his whole body be pulled forward into a strong hold.

"You idiot," he whispered, but there was no edge to his words.

-To Be Continued-