Before I'm Gone | Stray Kids FF

Walking Home

Areum POV

"Jeongin, what happened?" I was patting his back while he held me close to him. "Jeongin?" He was whimpering slightly as he held onto my shirt. "What's wrong?" Concern growing in my voice.

"I... I saw her." His voice was shaky.

"Who, Jeongin?" I stroked his head. "You can tell me anything, don't be afraid to." I felt his grip on the back of my shirt tighten slightly. "Was it Eunji?" I felt his head shake by my chest. "A classmate?" Another shake. "Was it someone from school?" Again he shook his head. "Do I know the person?"

"N-no." He managed to get out. "Eo-Eomma."

My eyes widened as he said that. I let go of him and reached back to unravel his hands from me, holding him so that he would look at me. "What do you mean?"

"I was walking home and I saw her." He sniffled. "She recognized me and headed towards me. I ran."

"Jeongin..." I trailed off once I saw more tears forming in his eyes, making me pull him in tighter. Just then, a soft knock came upon the door. Jeongin did not respond, so I did for him. "Come in." I said softly. Woojin opened the door, Minho and Hyunjin were behind him. I put a finger up to my lips, telling them to be silent. Woojin came by silently and he sat on Jeongin's other side, his back was facing Woojin. He felt Woojin's presence and loosened his grip on me. He looked up and told me that he wanted to talk with Woojin and that I could go home because it was getting late. Not wanting to be pushy, I did as told and headed out, making Hyunjin and Minho go home too.

Hyunjin said his goodbyes and Minho and I walked together. It was relatively quiet and we were both pretty awkward. Eventually, I started to slow down and let him take the lead, it was too awkward to walk beside him and not talk. Taking out my phone, I decided to play some music by BTS. They had come out with a new album this year which I really enjoyed. As I put in my earbuds, I played the music before putting the phone back in my pocket. Minho turned back to look at me and rose a brow as he turned back around to keep walking forward, but he slowed his pace, seemingly trying to fall in step with me. Instead of letting him, I started to walk faster. I heard his footsteps quickening behind me, which caused me to get faster just slightly. This was probably annoying him, but I did not mind.

"Yah, Areum." He pulled one of my earbuds from my ear as he got hold of my arm. "Why are you running from me?"

"I'm not." I said, pulling my arm away from him. "I just want to go home."

He hummed in response and took my arm again. Confused, I stopped and looked at him. He slid his hand down to mine, bringing it up to seemingly examine it. He made those tsk tsk tsk sounds before intertwining his hand with mine and pulling me along.

"Why are you holding my hand?" I said as I let my hand go slightly limp in his as he dragged me home.

"You wanted to get home quick right?" He kept pulling. "Let's go." He seemed to be trying to make me go faster. Sighing, I let him drag me along. We passed through a neighbourhood where a lot of people from our school lived. As we were going through, we got some stares from the students who were coming home from an evening out with friends. Both Minho and I ignored them, until one group of students went out of their way to be rude. We both saw the group gossiping as we walked past while giving us dirty looks. Suddenly, Minho stopped in his tracks and let go of my hand, he turned around and walked around me to the group. Stunned, I turned around to see why he had suddenly turned back to them.

"Let me hear what you said one more time." He looked at a girl dead in the eye.

She scoffed. "Why do you need to hear it?"

"Tell me." He grabbed her hand. "Now."

She rolled her eyes. "She's too ugly and unworthy to be hanging out with you." Her brow rose arrogantly as she signalled my way before looking back at Minho. "Ow!" She tried to pull her arm away. "Let go!"

As I looked at Minho's eyes, they seemed to darken with ever moment he stared at the girl. "Don't say that about her." He growled, tightening his grip.

"Well, I can't lie can I?" The girl scoffed, trying to stay chill, but soon began to whimper because of Minho's grip. Minho did not seem ready to let go, and just by looking, I could tell that girl was losing a lot of circulation and was in pain. I decided to intervene.

"Minho," I walked up to him and put a hand on his chest, the other on his hand. "Let go of her." I let my hands curl around his and tugged him away. With a slightly confused look, he reluctantly let go and let me take hold of his hand. "She isn't wrong anyways." I muttered under my breath.

"Shut up." Minho said to me. "Don't let what they say get in your head." He looked up at the girl and her group of friends. "I better not hear another word from you guys." He put his arm around me and dragged me away.

"Minho..." Letting go of his hand, I brought it up to remove his arm from around my shoulder. "Why did you do that?"

"She shouldn't have said that." He looked at me.

"Yeah, well you shouldn't have hurt her for that either." I let go of his arm and let mine fall to my sides. "Look, those things may be mean, but that doesn't mean you should hurt people back for it. If anything, it shouldn't affect you so much, it's not like it hurts you."

"It does." He muttered as he pulled ahead of me as we neared the apartments, leaving me to think about what he meant.

He went inside first, not bothering to hold the door open for me. I went inside and went towards the staircase, passing by him while he stood in front of the elevator. I felt his eyes on me as I opened the door to the staircases. Looking back at him once before I went in, I sighed and turned away, disappearing up the flight of steps. As I went up, I heard the door below open. I heard familiar footsteps behind me. Minho's footsteps. As I heard his pace fasten, mine did too. Eventually, I found myself running up the steps, holding onto the rail as I did so. I was reaching the fifth flight of steps and by now, I was out of breath. Even so, I continued to hurry up the steps. Exhaustion was starting to take over me, but I continued to run of the steps. I did not really know why I was running from Minho. I guess I just did not feel like talking to him after the events of the day. Just as I was reaching the ninth floor, my foot missed a step and I fell back.

"Caught you." I felt two arms around me and pushing me back up without letting go of me. "Don't you try running away from me again." He said as he suddenly pushed me against the wall beside us.

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So I'm realizing how crappy this book is... I hope you enjoy though? I'm trying.

Thank you Erynn2704 for supporting my book!

See you in the next chapter.