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Haechan hates silence.
Of course, he's a simp. He's head over heels for you. He loves your honey voice; listening to you ramble about the nonsensical things in life, a giggle leaving your lips every few minutes or so, allowing him to completely bask in your presence. There would be a familiar sound of chatter filling the room you're both in, with him teasing you at the end and laugher blooms into the air. And then maybe, kisses would be exchanged and you tell him he can spend the night at your dorm because your roommate won't be back until the next afternoon.
He hates the incessant silence you're punishing him with.
He doesn't do anything but sit still and stare at you.
He notices the smallest changes in your behaviour: your nostrils are flared, you're excessively chewing at your lip to bite back remarks and your face is fully concentrated. You'd be talking his ear off about whatever you needed to let out in your chest, enthusiastic, smiling so wide your cheeks hurt, and now? You're cold. Your replies are shorter than normal, and you're no longer warning him when you're pressing an alcohol-soaked cotton round against the cuts on his knuckles. You grip his chin firmly, pressing the ice pack against the forming bruises on his cheeks harder too. You're less gentle than usual, and Haechan swears your shoulders aren't even relaxed. He's counting the signs of knowing how you're mad at him.
You know he's completely sobered up by now. It looks like he's stuck in a never-ending cycle of repeating the past. The past events of last night, well, four hours ago when it turned midnight. He was throwing punches, getting hit back by a (dare he says) weak fist, spitting curse words and threats of what would happen next time. The air feels colder, too. Yet, Haechan found it simply entertaining, because you're avoiding staring at the innocent smile forming on his lips.
"You're mad at me, aren't you?"
Your brows knitted, Haechan glancing at your eyes and figures it's your response because your eyes turn into a glare.
"Baby," He whined when he squeezes your hand, hissing when the alcohol hits his skin, against the incision of blood forming. You don't even react. You react by pulling your hand back to your side. He's surprised. Usually your eyes widen, you apologise, kiss his cheek, and tell him to suck the pain up because he got involved in the first place.
Maybe he deserves this silence, because you were a little angrier than he thought.
"Oh come on, baby. You can't be giving me the silent treatment now," Your boyfriend mused, chuckling amidst his busted lip. Now, his laugh echoes the empty room. "I know you can't be mad for me for long," You're placing all the equipment back in your first aid kit, reserved for whenever Haechan gets himself in unnecessary situations like this. He thinks that he's the luckiest man in the world, with nothing to worry about when he has someone like you. You walk away back into your shared kitchen, storing it inside one of your cupboards. "Sunshine? Come on, let's talk about this,"
You swallowed when he's sitting on the edge of your bed, and it feels like you've finally looked at him properly before the events of last night.
"Look, I'll talk if you don't want to," Haechan sighed. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry for not thinking about you when I got into the fight, but I'm not sorry for punching him and what he had to say about you. I'm sorry for probably fucking up your reputation a bit more, but I'm not sorry for speaking my mind through my actions."
"Y/N!"
You worriedly look up at the presence of Mark, who looks like he's seen a ghost. You furrowed your eyebrows, "Uh, what's up, Mark?"
"No time to explain — Haechan got into a fight,"
"What?"
You abandoned your red solo cup of vodka, mainly mixed with something like berries that Haechan got you, and drinking isn't something you're hugely into. Mark grabbed your hand hastily, pulling you up from the couch you're sat alone at into the main living room of the frat house, where you could see phones with flashlights on, filming their view in front.
"I think you're the only one that could stop them—" Mark is interrupted when you hear Haechan's voice.
"You piece of fucking shit," Haechan yelled, punching the figure in front of him until the body landed on the floor. "How fucking dare you, how dare you speak to my girlfriend like that? How dare you touch her when she said no? How dare you approach me, try to taunt me with all these false rumours you're spreading about her, and how dare you have the fucking audacity to come here like you own the place?"
"Before you, it was me, Lee Donghyuck. Of course you won't believe the truth about these rumours, because I fucked her first. I took her fucking virginity, Donghyuck. And what, you've been together seven months? You lasted over six, but have you fucked her yet? You've definitely been seeing Haeun, right? Because she's a better fuck than Y/N, huh?"
Rage is all Haechan could see.
He spits at the man you recognise to be Jihoon, your ex-boyfriend who you broke up with second year of high school, and somehow ended in the same college. You've avoided him desperately, warning Haechan to not get involved with his antics. Until Jihoon approached you at the frat house, holding your hand and begging for you to take him back because he's missed you since. You told Haechan and he promised he'd kick Jihoon out whilst you conversed with Jaemin, who left to get another drink before Mark found you.
"She's not a fucking object, you bastard, how fucking sick are you to talk about her like that?" Haechan hissed when he feels blood dripping from the corner of his lip to his shirt as Jihoon punched him back. Haechan stood up, kicking his ribs, spitting at him, cursing his name and hitting back when Jihoon laughs it off and comments on you and your relationship.
"Haechan!"
He doesn't know how he can hear your voice against the booming music. Haechan finds you in the crowd gathering the two of him and Jihoon's physical fight. He doesn't care about how there's several phones out, desperate to picture and film him. He doesn't care about his reputation, either. You push your way to the front, and he notices how your head is slightly down. "Haechan, please, let's go." You whisper, begging when you grip his hand.
"Sunshine—"
"How cute," Jihoon laughed bitterly from below you. "You know, Y/N, you'll never be together truly, right? You're different. He's different."
You shouldn't let Jihoon get to you, even though his demeaning words aren't far from the truth. Thus, you knew from the beginning, you had nothing to doubt about your relationship with Haechan.
Nevertheless, you understood how different it would be. Because you maintain the highest grades, spend your free time studying in the library and your dorm room and avoid relationships to fulfil your fullest potential by studying. For Haechan, he had a reputation for sleeping around, revving his motorcycle and hosting frat parties at the Nu Chi Tau fraternity. Honestly, you avoided people like Haechan in the beginning of the year because you knew trouble would occur. He takes your major with you, and you both met when he approached you at the library pleading for help in forming the first essay due in the school year. As you got closer, people got nosier. You and Haechan would get stares, your name would be talked behind your back, and you were warned that your good girl status would be manipulated by Haechan's reputation. You were warned Haechan would get back to a certain ex of his, and your relationship would never last the six months mark.
He asked you out on a date first three months you got to know each other, spending time making notes and submitting assignments together. He cleared his name, and you apologised for believing rumours. He's only ever slept around with the same girl, Haeun, who he had a previous six month relationship with, and never understood why people obsessed over his name. On the same day, he told you he never slept around with her since you started seeing each other, when he first met you at the library.
Haechan notices that your hand is slipping from his and takes you out of your thoughts by kicking Jihoon's side again. "Don't ever come near us ever again, got it? Or I'll put you into the fucking hospital myself and make sure you never recover." Haechan spat, leaving the threat to remain in Jihoon's mind.
You and Haechan make your way out, leaving the frat house. You tell Mark you'll message him and his group chat with his friends later on Haechan's phone, but your priority is getting your boyfriend back to your dorms in one piece.
"You're drunk." You said, getting Haechan into your car's passenger seat.
Haechan has made reckless drunk decisions in the past, but never like this. He still reeks of beer and soju, and he grimaces at how he smells like alcohol and faint blood. "I've sobered up now, beating the shit out of him."
You only sighed and drove back to your dorm.
"I'm not proud of myself, definitely wasn't my brightest moment when I knew people were recording," Haechan breathed when he remembered your face. You looked terrified when you saw him, though worry settled in your eyes when you saw him. You looked terrified after Jihoon spoke his last words on belittling your relationship. "But I'm proud that I can protect you, and I'm proud this might be the last moment, a warning, before people realise they should stop sticking their nose in our relationship. I mean, ah, fuck it. I am proud I beat the fuck out of that motherfucker."
"Language," Is all you said sternly while chuckling, and Haechan's brows raised, amused at how fast you've broken the silence you've faced him with.
"I just.. I couldn't let him get away with it, you have to understand where I'm coming from," He looked down at his knuckles, wrapped in wound dressing, and somehow you've snuck a Hello Kitty plaster to keep the wrap secure, and he laughed. "I know I saw the colour red in the heat of the moment.. But.. He.. He was talking about you, like an object, like all you mattered to him in your four months was sex. And it clicked when you told me earlier he was begging for you, and.. I.. I just honestly.. I swear I thought of you, because you didn't deserve him. He was taunting me, using Haeun as an excuse, using your name in a sick way, our relationship as well and how he was shocked we lasted.. I just... I couldn't let him just talk about you like that anymore, I've had enough.."
"Hyuck," You whispered, sitting closer to your boyfriend and cupping his jaw. You inspected the cuts, the forming bruises, his delicate lips and the dried out blood that formed on his perfect skin and you frowned. "Thank you."
"I know you warned me, but I needed to do something."
"Thank you," You repeated simply, embracing him whilst being mindful of the pain he could be in. "I'm thankful for you."
"So... You're not mad?"
"I am," You muffled into his neck as he kissed your head, moving hair out from your face. "I'm mad that you had to do that.."
"I've been wanting to do it since you mentioned him to me when we got together," He smiled at you when you look up at him with your loving eyes. "I was going to punch him, either way. But.. I'm sorry for ruining your reputation even more,"
"Hyuck," You sat back up and he intertwined your hands together, his thumb running over your knuckles soothingly. You almost cackle when you look down at your hands: you are different from him. It's ironic. Your hands are clean, complimented by the fresh set of nails you got done courtesy of Haechan choosing a set and paying, whilst his hands are wrapped in wound dressing, doused with alcohol and antibiotic cream to cure the lingering signs of pain, because he'd do anything for you.
"I don't care about our reputations, I thought you knew that. I can't get over how you'd be willing to do this all for me, for us,"
"I know," He murmured, kissing your knuckles. "I just love your clean reputation, I don't know why. It makes me laugh when I hear people say how you threw your good girl life aside for me,"
"And I wouldn't have it any other way." You caressed his face with your free hand, and Haechan sees the pout forming on your lips as your eyes intensely study the injuries he faced. "I think people should just stop meddling their opinions into our life,"
"I'm hoping I shut Jihoon up,"
"You definitely did, love."
"I love you," Haechan uttered, his free hand on top of yours where you placed a thumb on his cheek, running over the bruise forming on his cheekbone. "I love you so much, sunshine. And I'll keep loving you for the rest of my life, you know,"
"I know," You smiled softly, and Haechan's heart flutters.
"I always have your back, okay? And thank you for being honest about him bothering you earlier, I guess I wasn't as drunk as I thought since that was the only thing on my mind." You nodded in response, and he leans forward to kiss your forehead. "I'm telling Taeyong to put a fuckin' restraining order on him at the frat house."
Haechan smiles under your touch when your thumb runs down his cheek, as if to admire the signs of his sacrifice, his devotion and love for you. "I'm meant to be with you, even if everybody in the universe disagrees."
"It's the universe that brought us together, anyway," You spoke gently, your thumb going against the corner of his swollen lip, scattered with cuts. "I love you too, Hyuck. I just wish you didn't get hurt for me."
"I'd do anything for you, sunshine."