The man with the bat swiftly took over the scene and bowed slightly, holding his bat down as he admitted. "Sorry for making a mess out of your apartment, they looked like they were up to no good."
Everyone stared at him with blank expressions, even Xiao Qiu, who was dealing with his little brother being strong enough to take down three men.
The silence reigned on for a few moments as Xiao Yi took a closer look at the one who admitted to being the culprit.
'Isn't that their big leader?'
Midnight continued. "Since everything's dealt with…" He met Xiao Yi's stare and gave a small nod. "We'll take out leave. Let's go."
Within moments, the hallway cleared, revealing Lee standing against the wall outside scrolling on his phone. He pushed himself off the wall and walked into the apartment, admiring Xiao Yi's work. "Good job."
Xiao Yi sighed and gave up the innocent act. "Yeah. These guys will fix the door."
Lee turned to the men who hadn't bothered to try to run away. "What happened?"
Xiao Yi stared at him blankly. "You have the footage."
"Not inside here."
"Oh, I beat them up."
Xiao Qiu broke out of his mid-life crisis and joined the conversation. "It was our parents?"
Lee hummed and threw his phone to Xiao Qiu, who watched the footage in the hallway.
Although Xiao Yi had thought that the EDGE boys must have heard the commotion, they were quite oblivious to the happenings outside the apartment since they were either sleeping or watching an action movie - hence, the sound was thought to be from their movie.
Instead, the Xiao couple had walked past one of the EDGE boys on his way up and he saw the broken down door and heard Xiao Yi fighting and quickly burst into his own apartment for a bat and his teammates.
The footage also confirmed that none of them stepped into the apartment at any point.
The evidence was there.
His parents were scum, and his brother was skilled enough to take down three thugs on his own.
Meanwhile, Xiao Yi picked up the bat and hugged it as he lay on the couch. Although he looked unaware, his eyes were focused on the three on the ground as if to say 'Try me'.
"The police will be here soon."
Xiao Yi hummed and waved off the thugs. "Come back and fix the doors later."
They didn't need to hear anything else, they quickly pushed themselves off the floor and began to leave, only to be stopped by Xiao Qiu standing in front of them. "They broke in, you're letting them run off?"
"We had a deal."
With that, the thugs left, leaving the three men in the apartment in awkward silence.
Xiao Qiu still didn't know what to make of this situation, but he was probably as angry as he'd ever been. In fact, he was quite offended that Xiao Yi had all but cleaned up his parents while he was recovering, instead of leaning on him.
He wanted to be the big brother, to protect Xiao Yi from their parents, his past teammates, and anything that could hurt him in the future.
Alas…
His little brother had grown up.
This wasn't something that he hadn't known, Xiao Yi had grown up far before he did and had dealt with more than he did, but during the years after Xiao Yi left the hospital and moved into the apartment… He'd somehow forgotten this.
Lee had the same thoughts. Xiao Qiu remembered him saying. "He resembles an abandoned dragon ready to bite or flee at any time."
As if enough hadn't happened… Four boys appeared in the broken doorway of the apartment at the same time.