"Come, let me take you home right away. It's not safe for you to be in the rain any longer."
Chin-hwa raised his head to see worry and fear in Kang-woo's face but that wasn't enough. That still didn't explain to him why he had to leave.
"Ah, right." Chin-hwa said. "I still have to ask my parents to..." Slowly, he got up from the wet bench. "Let me go... With you."
His eyes rolled back, and he ended up fainting, but thankfully, Kang-woo caught him.
"Chin-hwa! Hwa!" He shook him violently, his face flooded with fear, confusion, and worry, but Chin-hwa was out cold while his body burned. "Oh no, you have a fever."
Chin-hwa was taken to the hospital right away. Just as Kang-woo had said, his body was weak to cold, so for three days, Chin-hwa suffered the consequences of his actions, lying in bed unconscious and sick.
Kang-woo felt responsible, but he couldn't do anything about it, and they all told him not to worry since Chin-hwa did unpredictable things quite a lot.
By the time Chin-hwa woke up, it was the night of the day of his high school graduation and the day Kang-woo left.
He cried and cried for hours, clutching his sheets and asking why he couldn't go with him, why he couldn't just go ahead and study with Kang-woo in the States. He knew it wasn't about money or connections; his family had all of that, and if they wanted to send him there, it would just take a snap of their fingers.
So, it meant they were intentionally keeping him from going with Kang-woo but he could not see why.
"I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry." Baek-Hyun kept apologizing while Chin-hwa cried in his arms. He could not do anything but that. And since he could not give his beloved child the answer he craved, he felt awful.
For the next couple of days, Chin-hwa stayed in his room, eating little and doing nothing. He simply gazed at the sky at night and during the day too, reminiscing on his memories with Byul.
No one could talk him out of his state and no one had a way to help him either. They wanted to go on family trips to cheer him up but he did not leave his room.
He made it clear that he would not go anywhere or see anyone so he stayed in his room.
But then, a few days before college resumption, he walked out of his room as if nothing had happened, smiling faintly at his family and announcing that he would be living alone in the dorms.
At first, they were against it, given he was an Omega, a dominant one at that, and then the fact that there would be no one to take care of him.
If he became stubborn and refused to call when he needed help, they would have no way of helping him. There were so many reasons why they didn't want him to go live in the dorms alone, but Chin-hwa went deaf to them all since he had already made up his mind.
"It's the perfect distraction." He suddenly said, putting all of them to a stop. They looked at him and though he was still smiling, they could tell what was in his mind.
"Alright," Hae-won accepted quite quickly but added, "But only on the condition that you come home whenever we want you to. It won't affect your academics since we'll probably only call during weekends and... You can't stay out late, no matter what. If you stay out late and come into trouble, there'll be no one to take care of you, and..." Hae-won found himself crying before he even realized it.
Woo-bin hugged him, turning away from the kids and Chin-hwa bit his lip, feeling anxious, before saying,
"You don't have to worry. I'll make sure to follow your instructions." He said. "I will never stay out past 9 and I will come home as soon as I'm called,"
That was how they ended up letting Chin-hwa live on his own in the dorms. He kept his end of the bargain by not staying out too late and coming home when he was called.
They gave him some time to heal and settle down in his school before they started calling out to him and by then, his smile had returned.
Yet, he had become so different.
He, who liked to talk about how his day went a lot, didn't even want to talk about how things were going in school. He didn't speak about his school activities, his coursemates, or his problems, if he had any, and it made them worry.
They secretly went around finding out for themselves and luckily, their little one hadn't gotten himself any problems at all. He was actually not noticeable in the school and they imagined that that was how he wanted to create his image in his school.
It was sad that he had inclined himself from being a social butterfly and has become a wallflower, but they respected his decisions.
"So," Chin-hwa said, "I'm more than aware of the methods you used to get me here, Hyung and Noona, but..." He turned towards Yun-Tae who had been quietly standing at the side. "What is Yun-Tae doing here? Did you kidnap him on our way here?"
"Yes," Deok-Ryu answered mindlessly, earning a brutal hit in his ribs from Si-woo's elbow.
"You'll have to sew your mouth one of these days," she flared at him. "Anyway, we saw this one when we were coming out of your dorm room." She said. "And he so happened to be your friend,"
"Yeah, so why did you kidnap him?"
"Precisely because he's your friend." She boldly said with a grin but that didn't make sense to Chin-hwa, so he turned to his daddy, Baek-Hyun, giving eyes they needed answers.
"Ahem," Baek-Hyun cleared his throat. "I believe they wanted to know more about how you were doing in school, so they picked him up as well."
"They?" Chin-hwa asked with folded arms and a raised eyebrow.
Baek-Hyun smiled nervously. It was already clear that the entire family seemed to be in this plan, so why was he using 'they' in his sentence?
"In any case," Baek-Hyun cleared his throat. "You never speak about school and we didn't want to go around your back to find out what you've been up to, so we did this."
"Um, I'm pretty sure this is also going around my back since I had no idea you would be kidnapping my friend."
Baek-Hyun had started to massage Chin-hwa's shoulders, trying to appease this son of his.
Chin-Hwa glanced at Yun-Tae, who looked a little on guard and sighed.
He never wanted his friends, or anyone for that matter, to know who his family was, so he never mentioned it. But at this point, Yun-Tae already knew who they were. He was sure of it.
*Ding-dong* the doorbell rang, and Chin-hwa looked up.
"Hm? Who is it?" He asked. "Are we expecting anyone over?"
"Of course." Woo-bin answered as he was heading towards the door. "And it's someone you're familiar with too."
As soon as Chin-hwa heard that, he was more than sure who was at the door. Ah, no. Why were they doing this to him?