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Carat Safe House; as the name would state, is a safehouse for any child, teen or young adult who feels unsafe in their home for any reason. The two owners of the safehouse, Jihoon and Soonyoung, are both quite young for being the owners of one of the most prominent safehouses in the area (both are 25). They’ve been best friends since they were in kindergarten and lovers since they were 15. Both come from awful home lives; Jihoons parents would beat him because the sun shone too brightly and Soonyoungs mother was the definition of neglectful with her focusing more on booze, drugs and men. They ran away from home the second both turned 18 and never looked back.
They struggled for a couple years, both working 70 plus hour weeks, to afford a home, a place to call their own. At age 20, they bought a large house and after much consideration, they decided to open it as a safe house for anyone that feels like they did growing up (scared, hopeless, and angry at the world). Five years later, they’ve had hundreds of occupants come and go through the five bedroom house.
There are currently 11 young men taking refuge at the house, ranging from 16 to 21-years-old. The oldest being Seungcheol, a 21-year-old who has been at the safe house for about a year after his parents died and he wasn’t able to keep up with house payments, and the youngest being Chan, the poor boy being kicked out of his home after coming out to his parents as pansexual. All 13 have their own back stories, have their own traumas, but they all have found that they can confide in their fellow residents. Well, almost all of them.
Xu Minghao; the newest resident and the biggest mystery at the safe house. The 18-year-old showed up on Carat’s door step in the middle of the night with a black eye, bloody lip and a sprained wrist. He begged for help from Jihoon and the man obviously took him in after seeing the desperate look in his eyes and the awful state his body was in. It’s been three months since that night and Minghao has become close to all the residents of the house, specifically Junhui, Seokmin and Mingyu. He’s always there to listen whenever someone needs to rant or he offers cuddles when someone is sad and needs affection. He always gives. He gives and gives and gives, but he never asks for anything in return.
No one knows why Minghao was bruised that night; he refuses to talk about it. It wasn’t his parents; they’re still in China and he doesn’t have enough money to get back to them and he doesn’t want to burden them. He won’t even tell them why he came to Korea in the first place. He will go on for hours about his life and childhood in China, but whenever someone mentions him coming to Korea, he immediately clams up.
Jihoon and Soonyoung have tried multiple times to try and get the boy to open up, but after months of silence, they backed off, not wanting to push the boy too much.
Everything came into the light one night when all 13 men were in the living room, having a game night. It was an interesting sight; 13 young men sitting in a circle, some screaming at each other (Seungkwan and Soonyoung), some laughing so hard they have tears sliding down their faces (Chan, Vernon and Joshua) or some just watching the rest of their friends fondly (Jeonghan and Jihoon). Playing Cards Against Humanity with 13 chaotic people may not have been the smartest idea.
“COME ON HYUNG, CRIPPLING DEBT WAS THE PERFECT ANSWER AND YOU KNOW IT”
“OH YEAH SEUNGKWAN. I JUST LOOOOOVE BEING YOUNG, HOT AND FULLING OF CRIPPLING DEBT.”
“You just have no sense of humor Soonie-hyung”
Soonyoung makes a dive to grab Seungkwan when everything stops at the sound of someone loudly banging on the door. Everyone hears a man screaming behind the door; “MINGHAO. XU MINGHAO, I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!! COME OUT HERE!”
Everyone’s gaze immediately shoots to Minghao. Said boy’s eyes are wide with fear, his face is ghost white, mouth open in shock.
Jihoon immediately makes his way to Minghao to try to calm him down as Soonyoung makes his way to the door. Soonyoung cracks it open, glaring at the larger man in front of him. “Excuse me sir, but can you not bang on my door at 11:30 at night? There isn’t anybody here by that name.” The man scoffs and pushes Soonyoung out of the way, causing the smaller man to lose his balance and fall to the ground. Multiple sounds of complaint are heard around the room as Soonyoung falls and the man makes his way into the living room, his eyes scanning the living room. It takes all of five seconds for him to meet eyes with Minghao, the boy still in Jihoon’s arms.
The man smiles almost evilly. “Baby, I finally found you! Please come home; I’ve missed you so much. I love you, I’m so sorry about what happened. You know you love me.”
Minghao panics even more when he finally sees the cause of so much trauma in his life. He shoots up and with shaking hands, he quickly makes his way to the man that was once the love of his life. He grabs the man's arm and starts dragging him towards the door, which is a surprise in itself because Minghao is at least a head shorter than the other. In the hardest, coldest voice he could muster, he tells the man, “Get. Out. Byungho. GET OUT! I don’t know how you found me but I don’t care, LEAVE” He pushes Byungho hard, causing the man to stumble back out of the house with wide, shocked eyes as Minghao had never fought back or yelled at him before. “Come here again and I won’t hesitate to get a restraining order.”
Minghao slams the door in Byungho’s face, making sure to lock it before making his way back to the living room, almost terrified of having to face the rest of the boys who have slowly begun to be family to him.
“What the hell was that Minghao? Who was that?” Mingyu asks after helping Soonyoung up from the ground.
Said boy just looks at the ground, ashamed. “N-no one you need to worry about. He’s gone now.”
Seokmin cuts in quickly, “obviously he’s someone that we need to worry about if he’s coming here in the middle of the night, apparently ‘wanting you back’. We didn’t even know about this man! Why didn’t you tell us about him?!”
When Minghao doesn’t say anything, Junhui makes his way to the boy. “Does he have to do with why you came here, bloody and bruised?” The wince Minghao inadvertently gives out is all an answer they need. Junhui tries to calm himself down as he rubs his face and takes a deep breath; the same can’t be said for Hansol who starts storming towards Minghao, getting in his face.
“What the hell Minghao?! Why didn’t you tell us?! Why don’t you ever talk to us about your issues? We can help you!”
Minghao snaps. He pushes Vernon away from him. “I DON’T WANT YOUR FUCKING HELP. CAN’T YOU SEE I’M DOING FINE? WHY WOULD I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT PIECE OF SHIT?!”
Vernon scoffs and looks at the boy incredulously. “Right. You’re doing so ‘fine’. I’m your roommate, remember? People who are ‘fine’, don’t wake up in the middle of the night, sobbing from nightmares. People who are fine don’t panic when people start fighting. You’re not fine Minghao. You haven’t been in a while! JUST STOP PRETENDING. STOP BEING FUCKING FAKE.”
With as much venom in his voice that he can muster, Minghao replies with a hard “fuck you” before lunging for Vernon, his fist raised. Screams are heard from around the room as everyone lunges towards the two, but before Minghaos fist can make contact with Vernon, Jihoon jumps in between the boys. Jihoon falls back into Vernon after Minghao’s fist connects with his cheek, the younger boy catching the smaller.
“WHAT THE FUCK MINGHAO?!”
“JIHOON”
“HYUNG!!”
Minghao stands in front of the boys on the floor, mouth open in shock. He looks down at his shaking hands in disbelief. I just punched Jihoon-hyung. Jihoon-hyung who has been there since the first second I got to this house. What have I done?”
“I’m fine guys, get off!” Jihoon exclaims as he pushes away the worried hands of the other boys before quickly standing, making his way to the younger, terribly worried about the scared look on his face. “Minghao, baby, can you look at me? Talk to me? Hyung is fine, see?” Minghao meets Jihoon’s gaze and the older’s heart breaks when he sees the tears glistening in Minghao’s eyes. Barely above a whisper, Minghao states, “I’m no different than him.”
Minghao breaks his gaze with Jihoon as he lets out a loud sob and quickly runs to his room.
Instead of following after the distraught boy, Jihoon turns to glare at the remaining boys, specifically Vernon, Seokmin and Mingyu. “Are you serious right now? Why would you treat him like that?!” He locks eyes with Vernon, the younger looking incredibly guilty. “You all saw what he looked like when he came here! Why would he want to talk about something that obviously traumatized him?! Why would he want to talk about a man that obviously abused him? He needed time! Vernon, do you want to talk about the bullies that beat you half to death?” He moves his glare to Mingyu “You don’t want to talk about your parents starving you when they thought you were bad. Seokmin, you panic at the thought of having to talk to or see your abusive brother again.” He looks around at the rest of the boys. “He’s scared and he needed time to talk about what happened. Yelling at him obviously wasn’t the way to go.”
With that, Jihoon turns and makes his way to Minghao’s room. His frown deepening when he hears the heart breaking sobs coming from the normally happy boy. Softly knocking on the door, Jihoon calls out, “Baby, can I come in? Hyung is worried about you.” He hears the smallest of ‘yeahs’ before slowly pushing the door open. The sight inside breaks his heart; there’s a Minghao sized lump under Vernon’s blankets, the boy obviously trying to find comfort in the younger's covers. Sniffles could be heard from underneath.
Jihoon makes his way over, sitting next to the sobbing boy, placing his hands gently on Minghao’s back. “Honey, can you please come out from under there? It must be super hot in there” Jihoon slowly pulled the top of the covers to reveal Minghao’s tear soaked face. The older gives a small smile to the other. “There’s my beautiful Minghao,” Jihoon smiles bigger when a small giggle erupts from Minghao. “And I even get to hear your breath taking giggles?! I’ve been blessed,” Jihoon puts his hand over his chest and falls over Minghao, pretending to pass out. Minghao laughs as Jihoon looks at him and winks cheekily.
The smaller sits up and moves next to Minghao so he can pull him into his arms. As Minghao makes a move to apologize, Jihoon cuts him off, “Please don’t apologize. I’m the one that stepped between you two. Yes, you shouldn’t have tried to punch Vernon anyway, but know that you’re NOTHING like that man. I don’t know what happened, but I can guarantee that what you said about he just like him, couldn’t be farther from the truth. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to pumpkin but I really think it would help. I know it hurts, but please know that you have 12 brothers that love you so much.”
Letting out a barely audible sigh, Minghao sits up, rubbing the rest of his tears from his face. “I know it will help. I’m just afraid of reliving everything that happened. I’m afraid of looking weak to everyone else.”
Jihoon immediately takes Minghao’s face into his hands, making him look at Jihoon. “We will NEVER think you’re weak. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, so please don’t ever think that you’re weak.”
Giving the smaller a smile, Minghao takes a deep breath and moves to stand up before looking at the other. “Will you sit next to me when I tell everyone my story, hyung?” Jihoon smiles wide, “of course baby.”
Making their way down the stairs, the duo can hear the other members talking in the living room; Vernon expressing how bad he feels about what he said to Minghao.
Arriving at the living room, all eyes shoot towards the duo. Minghao shyly waves at them all, (ignoring the cooing sound from Jeonghan) and makes his way to the empty loveseat, Jihoon sitting next to him.
Taking a deep breath, Minghao begins, “First, I’d like to apologize,” many objections are heard, “I need to apologize for keeping you all in the dark. As I told Jihoon hyung, I was just scared. I didn’t want to look weak and I didn’t want to be a burden to you all. Hyung assured me that I don’t have anything to worry about, so I want to tell you all my story.” He looks around at his friends, his brothers, his family before delving into the story about why he’s here with them.
“Three years ago, I was still in China. My family decided to house a foreign exchange student from Korea. He was gonna be staying with us for an entire year. He was only a few months older than me, and we had the same interests, so we became quick friends; I showed him all of my hometown and he helped me learn Korean. It was great, we were always together. We even had all the same classes. For about two months we were just friends, but one night, we were playing video games in my room when he kissed me. I was surprised; I had never thought of Byungho that way. After the kiss, he told me how much he liked me and he asked if I’d give him a chance. It didn’t sound awful so I thought ‘why not’ and agreed. My parents were even happy for us when they found out; they have known I was gay since I came out to them at 13. As months went on, everything was good, great. I started realizing how much I loved him. He was so kind and sweet and an all around amazing guy.”
“Fast forward to the end of the year, it’s getting harder and harder knowing that he has to go back to Korea soon. That’s when we came up with the idea of me going to Korea as a foreign exchange student. It took some convincing from my parents, but they eventually agreed”, he smiles sadly at his brothers, kind of finding it amusing how into the story they are. All are on the edges of their seats. “That’s how I ended up in Korea.”
“I lived with Byungho and his parents. They were nice people, really quiet and kept to themselves. They weren’t ecstatic when they found out about us, but they weren’t against it. I went through my last year of school here and graduated. After graduation, I decided to stay here with Byungho. We had been dating for almost two years at this point and we decided to keep living together at his parents house. Everything was fine for a few months before Byungho changed. He started getting angry at the littlest things, he wouldn’t let me hang out with my friends, he continuously went through my phone to ‘make sure I wasn’t whoring myself out to anyone else’.” Minghao swears he hears a growl coming from Mingyu, “I eventually had to start letting him make all my choices for me to avoid making him mad. He chose what I could wear, who I could hang out with, what and how much I could eat, he even took away my phone”.
Tears spring to Minghao’s eyes as he recalls the next bit, “it was like that for a couple months. It was just him screaming and being controlling. He never physically hurt me. Not until I threatened to leave him.” The tears he was trying to hold back start sliding down his cheeks. “He beat me so bad that I was hospitalized for two weeks,” Chan gives out a sob he had beeing trying to hold in; everyone else not looking any better. “He told the police that I was attacked on my way home from work. I was too scared to tell the truth. I was too scared to leave him now, so I kept quiet. He continued to beat me almost daily for five months before I finally managed to escape. He caught me putting money aside so I could eventually afford a flight back to China and he went ballistic. He started throwing things, accusing me of cheating and being a slut. He said I was leaving him for another man and that he would never let me leave because he ‘owned me’. He tried raping me that night,” everyone is sobbing by now, including Minghao, “I was able to get away after I hit him with a lamp. After running out of the house, I just ran here as quickly as I could. I knew about this place from when I looked up safe houses in the area months prior. And yeah, you guys know the rest.”
A weight feels like it's been lifted off his shoulders after finally telling his story. Minghao is immediately engulfed in hugs, loud sobs could be heard from everyone.
Through tears, Joshua says what everyone is thinking, “I’m so sorry you had to go through that baby. We’re so happy that you were able to get away. We love you so much and if you ever need us, we’re always here for you.” Noises of agreement are heard from everyone.
Giving a smile through his tears, Minghao looks around at his family, finally feeling happy. “I love you guys with all my heart. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me.” The giant group hug continues for a few minutes before Soonyoung pulls away and starts herding everyone to bed. “It’s late guys, we can give Minghao more cuddles tomorrow.”
Vernon, Minghao, Seungkwan and Chan move to their shared room, Chan sliding in with Minghao to get extra cuddles, when a loud yell from Vernon is heard through the house.
“WHY IS THERE SNOT ALL OVER MY PILLOW?!”
Minghao giggles and just pulls Chan closer to him.
“XU MINGHAO, WHAT THE HELL?”