dicey ↬ nomin

Ch.18

Donghyuck was happily approaching the orphanage after his hangout with Mark, which was probably the most fun he had had in a long time. They had merely gone to the Canadian boy's house and chatted but he just really enjoyed all the small moments with him. Not to mention Mark's parents adored Donghyuck and he knew it. He was nearly like their second son since he practically lived there on the weekends and some days after school.

He remembered playing with Mark when he was younger, back when the boy had first moved to Korea. They must have been ten or eleven at the time, but Mark's house was the focus of many of his most savoured childhood moments. The house was enormous with lots of hallways and secret hiding places, a huge garden with a little tree house where they used to pretend to be explorers, and the lovely parents who viewed Donghyuck as their own. At a time when the boy thought that all adults were the same and would eventually abandon him, Mark's parents treated him like how his own parents should have but never did. He...really loved them. And their son. He just didn't have the guts to say anything to him yet, and apparently Mark was the same, to his dismay.

As Donghyuck opened the door and went inside, he noticed that the tv was turned up really loud and the littlies were jumping around on the sofas. "Hey, whatcha doing?" He asked loudly over the tv and watched as Taewon and Hyunwoo jumped off the coffee table. Minhee and Gaho were walking along the back of the sofa like it was the beam or a tightrope. He hurriedly ran over to them before they could fall off and pulled them into his arms, pretending to swoop down like an aeroplane to put them on the ground.

"Hyucky!" Heeoh grinned and ran over, making grabby hands to be flown in the aeroplane too.

"Why are you all messing around?" He asked in fake hurt. "And without me, nonetheless."

They looked over at the tv to catch the final few minutes of a Power Rangers episode before Ki turned the tv off. "We were having a party. Mum told us we could have some fun since Dongwoo will be going into foster care soon."

Dongwoo looked down sheepishly at his feet and then glanced back up at Donghyuck, who was pouting at him big time. "I wasn't invited? I thought I was your big bro..."

The little five year old nodded his head eagerly. "You weren't here so we started without you."

"Well then," he smiled and turned the tv back on but the volume down, "I guess I should put on my party clothes!" He began to dance really weirdly and earned some confused looks from the children. They watched him in wonder as he made dancing look like a ritual for reviving the dead.

"You're a crap dancer," Heeoh deadpanned and folded her arms over, annoyed that she wasn't carried around while Donghyuck pretended to be an aeroplane. "Let the gang show you how it's done." Taewon and Hyunwoo jumped back on the coffee table and Gaho and Minhee stood up onto the couch again to bounce around and wave their arms around. Heeoh stood beside Donghyuck with her arms still folded and watched, then turning her head to look up at the seventeen year old. "You have so much to learn, Hyucky. This is real dancing."

He just subtly rolled his eyes and started to jump up and down too, following the lead of Yuna and Hyora, who were trying to jump the highest from a crouching position.

After getting tired of repeatedly making a fool out of himself, he snuck out of the living room to escape the little demons. He couldn't get the Power Rangers theme song out of his head and he found himself humming along with passion, much to his embarrassment. Walking into the kitchen while singing the words, he looked at a note on the table which said that Ms. Kim had gone to the doctor's clinic with one of the babies, claiming the child had an ear infection.

Worried about the child, he frowned and picked up the note in hopes of rereading it to see if he could figure out which baby it was. There were two, after all. Although he didn't pick up on which one it was, he put the note down and wondered why he hadn't seen any of the older kids yet. He imagined Jeno and Chenle were upstairs and Jaewoo was in their shared room.

With a tired sigh, he trotted down to his room to grab his earplugs, planning on doing some homework to music. As he was about to open his door, he could hear muffled yells and what sounded to be a struggle. He snapped his hand back from the door as thoughts flooded his mind. Was Jaewoo in there alone or was he with someone? He gulped as the quiet yelling ceased, making way for hushed murmurs and whispering which Donghyuck couldn't decipher.

Curiously, with his brow furrowed and his hand over his mouth to quiet his breathing, he opened the door a tiny bit, just enough for him to be able to see in but not enough for the people on the other side to notice that he was being nosy. But what he saw made his blood run cold and his eyes to widen. Jaewoo had Jeno pinned to the wall by his arms and he was whispering into Jeno's ear. The look on the boy's face was utter fear. There was no trace of anything except fear and terror. He had never seen that look on Jeno's face before.

Donghyuck couldn't peel his eyes away as Jaewoo's hand slid through Jeno's hair, tugging harshly on some of the strands and forcing his head to the side. The hand he had clasped around the doorknob began to shake, but he couldn't bring himself to interrupt. His roommate looked absolutely terrifying. His eyes were glued as Jeno's face contorted in pain from something that Donghyuck couldn't see was happening. His breath hitched and he felt bile rise in his throat, completely unable to bring himself to interrupt.

So instead, he closed the door quietly and walked away in a daze, his eyes glazed over as he ran the scene through his mind over and over. He looked down at his shaking hands and clenched them to stop the erratic movement, but it didn't stop the sweat from forming on his brow and his heart from beating like a bass drum in his chest.

The boy wandered past the living room, where the party seemed to be in full swing with the children, and went straight up the stairs on weak legs to Jeno and Chenle's shared room. The Chinese male was lying on his bed reading a book, completely unaware of his roommate's sufferings downstairs as the tv in the living room hid the event. "Chenle," he whispered, afraid that someone was eavesdropping even though it wasn't possible for someone to hear them over the loud noise. "Chenle."

At this, the boy looked up and seemed startled by Donghyuck, who was standing in his doorway looking like a little mouse who had been chased until it couldn't run anymore. "H-Hyuck? You gave me a fright." He ran his fingers through his purple hair and chuckled lightly, placing his book down turned over so that he wouldn't lose his page. "You look like you saw a ghost."

Donghyuck just looked at him with the glint of tears in his eyes as he slowly walked forward and settled down on the end of Chenle's bed. He was in shock from what he witnessed, but he felt he needed to tell someone. Chenle was the only person he felt could do anything since he was closer to Jeno than anyone else.

"Hey, are you okay? You look kinda sick."

"Lele," he interrupted and locked his wide eyes onto the confused male's. "I-I saw something that I shouldn't have seen."

Chenle paled as his own eyes widened, feeling that he knew what his friend was trying to say. He brought his hand up to his mouth and nervously bit at his nail, waiting for Donghyuck to elaborate.

"I saw....Jaewoo hurting Jeno."

The Chinese boy had a delayed reaction as he processed what had been said to him. After a few seconds of silence and heavy breathing, he sat up straight and put his hands on Donghyuck's shoulders. "You saw Jaewoo hurting Jeno?"

Donghyuck nodded weakly and felt confused as to why Chenle was acting so knowingly about it. "Did you know?" He asked in confusion and looked down at the hands on his shoulder. He then looked at him in the eyes and saw Chenle having an internal battle. It seemed intense, but Donghyuck was too shaken to care. "You knew?"

He let out a shaky breath and took his hands off Donghyuck's shoulders. "I-I don't know what to do," he looked at his own shaking hands and the sweat beginning to make them clammy. In a moment of weakness and relief that someone else finally knew, he began to release tears. The quietness between the two boys as they looked at each other in worry caused Chenle to cry more and excessively wipe his eyes, continuously ridding the tears only to have more fall. "It's Jeno...He's..."

Donghyuck caught on, realising that Jeno knew that Chenle knew. He was so confused and worried and scared, unsure of what was actually happening. "Lele, you have to tell me what's going on."

So as his tears fell and led Donghyuck to cry too, he didn't brush them away because the motion began to sting his eyelids. He just heaved in uneven breaths and they hugged each other while Chenle told him everything.