Torn // exo x reader

Chapter 20;

He grasps for her clothes, and she pulls away just in time for him to reach air, falling forward, but in her small victory she forgets his stamina and is tackled.

"This was too easy, at least make it a bit difficult."

She leans backwards, and he thinks she's trying to escape so he restrains her arms, and she lifts up her knee, hoping to hit anything of significance.

"Aargh!"

She thinks she got his ribcage, but it's enough to loosen his grip enough for her to shove him off and run to the next room and grab the pipe.

She runs past him again, and out into the hallway, but she doesn't hear footsteps follow her. She turns around, and he's at the door looking at her. He's still seething, but he doesn't lunge for her like she expected.

He stands in the doorway, glaring.

And so, she runs.

He doesn't follow her, since the furious pounding of footsteps stopped thundering behind her.

She turns, and he's stopped, knees on the ground and hand planted against his side and face contorted in pain. She thinks this will be her time to escape, while he's injured, while he is hurt and down.

But then she sees the tears lining his eyes, and hears the things he whispers hoarsely.

"Taemin?"

"Ten, eighteen, twenty, two"

His eyes are closed tightly, his jaw set.

His hand hasn't left his side, and she walks over closer, crouching.

She doesn't know Taemin, but this isn't something she thinks anyone could fake.

She grasps his hand, ripping it away with force, and her other hand holds Taemin's from hitting her.

When she lifts his shirt, she lowers it immediately.

She doesn't even want to think about it.

Someone branded him. The shape looked like a heart, one she'd color on paper as a child. In the middle of the gruesome puffy heart, scalded into Taemin's skin, was the letter 'O'.

The skin around it was irritated and raw, scratch marks and scars littering the outside.

"T-Taemin?"

He doesn't look up at her, and just keeps repeating numbers, hand daintily touching his side.

"Taemin why did y-" She realizes belatedly she is in no position do interrogate him, but he cuts her off before she can do so herself.

"I proved it, I did." He makes little to no sense, since now he's crying and blubbering along with the fact his words don't make any sense to her.

"What did you prove?"

"He asked me to prove I loved him. I did, I did."

That bastard.

He took advantage of Taemin again, and now he's worse than ever.

"Taemin, he doesn't lo-" Belatedly, this was a bad idea too.

"You don't know him! You don't know me!"

He stands quickly, the sudden movement shocking her up too.

"Taemin, do you love him?"

Taemin looks down, like he's thinking, but then looks her in the eyes the most determined she's ever seen him.

"I do."

He leaps on her, knocking the wind out of her and forcing her to focus on taking shallow breaths instead of fighting him off, only worried about focusing on getting air into her lungs again.