Glitch slipped through the door into the apartment that he and his boyfriend, Bodie shared. Boyfriend - sometimes, he loved that word. It was the word that meant that he had Bodie to himself. Someone to love; but more importantly, someone who would love him. But he hated that word sometimes. When he was gone, he had nobody he could call by that word. Nobody to call upon. Nobody to protect him from those who didn't approve of him. Glitch fought back the urge to jerk tears out of eyes; he just came back from a brutal scolding by people from school. He was open about this relationship; he didn't talk about it at school, but he didn't care if he was seen showing affection with Bodie. His friends thought no lesser of him - they treated him as any other. Other close-minded students found an extreme distaste in Glitch, and consequently, he became the subject of gossip and bullying. In a cold voice, he remembered the words "fag" and "gay" pierce their way into his mind like venom.

Glitch rushed passed this assault; he was naturally weak to verbal abuse, and this confrontation was only one of many. He stopped in place at a person his height stood before his path. He maintained an empty look - this was not the time to show emotion. Sporting a deathly firm gaze, the boy forced his arm at Glitch's neck in a horizontal forward motion, causing Glitch to step back in confusion.

Slowly lying down on his side, Glitch recoiled in the pain rushing throughout from his body from a fresh bruiser.

Slowly, Glitch found himself back to back with a brick wall. Trapped. Suddenly, he felt the arm strike him into the wall, holding him there by this lower neck, providing a strong restraint while keeping Glitch breathing.

Glitch coughed violently, neck sore from a firm grasp.

Squirming to escape, the Korean began to swing his feet around, and to no avail, quickly exhausted himself. He saw a mildly annoyed look in his assaulter's eyes. With one quick motion, the boy felt a sharp pound come into contact with the side of his stomach. The force of the blow forced him down the wall, scraping his sweatshirt open with a scratch. Nearly losing his breath from the sudden impact, Glitch was once forced out of himself when he received multiple knees to his stomach. The pain spread through Glitch's body like wildfire as he felt as if his ribs were being cracked. Glitch could barely catch his breath as he was hit again - this cycle repeated until an abrupt stop. Glitch felt his lower neck released, and slumped to the ground to regain control after the pain. He gasped heavily, unable to gain his breath, and rested on the ground for a few minutes until his breathing reached a steady rate. Wincing at the pain in his stomach as he slowly got himself up, he limped his way to the nearby alley - he loved this shortcut. When he didn't feel like going so far, he would take this route, concealed.

Glitch felt exhausted and ready to drop to the ground in fatigue. But it would do him no good to rest on the carpet, which was only above the hard floor. Limping, he found his way to the bedroom, and hand shaking violently, reached for the post for support, slowly navigating around the bed and slumping down onto it, not bothering the slip under the blanket. Breathing in and out in a steady pattern, he closed his eyes, trying to slip away into a sleep. He realized that it would not be the best decision to try without proper sleepwear, but for all the wrong reasons. Glitch winced at the pain in his abdomen as he got up and sat on the side of his bed, slipping out of his shorts into his conveniently worn boxers. Now came the hard part. Glitch bit down on his lip as he raised his arms, slow reaching to his sleeves to slip out of his shirt, revealing his body, seemingly clean from the assault, until it got lower. Glitch winced back at the pain as the cool air hit the revealed scars on his lower abdomen. Trying to stand up, Glitch bit down harder on his lip and released, letting out a painful moan as the pain from the attack and the scars on his body combined into a feeling hostile to his tolerance. Quickly wrapping his arms around his abdomen, the dancer began to shiver with pain, and lied back down, trying to get into a comfortable position. He shuffled into a position parallel with the bed, finding the strength to pull the blankets all around him as he rested his head on a pillow. He figured if he rested for a little bit, he'd have enough time to put on a shirt. But the pain lingered, flowing through his body like poison; he felt as if his insides were ablaze, and hot tears began to steadily stream down his face. Eventually, Glitch just stayed in that position, unable to find the willpower to get up, and soon, he lost consciousness.

Bodie tapped away on his phone, trying both to text and call Glitch, a somewhat worried look on his face.

When he failed to respond to the first attempts at contact, Bodie thought, "No biggie. He's probably not near his phone."

But as he sent more texts and called more with no sign of a response, Bodie became nervous. He knew that anyone would lose track of their phone, but not for so long. After a few hours, he became worried about him, and anxiously went about the rest of his shift at the beach lifeguard duty. As he carpooled home with Emilia, he began to do things that any nervous guy would do; twiddle with his thumbs, try to lie back in his seat, and stare absently into space. Emilia, noticing her friend's strange patterns, decided to strike up a conversation.

"Something up, B?"

Bodie snapped out of his seemingly mindless trance, somewhat startled by the sudden voice talking to him. Quickly turning in his best friend's direction, he put on that sometimes needed but usually not plastic smile.

Weakly, he responded "Not really. Just bored on a car ride."

He turned around, now trying to get into a trance state; too much was on his mind, and it was not needed.

Emilia smirked slyly. "Come on, Bodie. You know you can't sneak a lie around me. I've got the eyes of a hawk."

Bodie looked down at his lap, sighing. "Well, if you have to know know. I've been trying to talk to Glitch the past few hours, and he hasn't responded in a while. So I'm worried about him. You know me, always looking out for others."

Emilia looked curiously at him."You never know. Maybe he just doesn't have his phone on him. But for a few hours? That really does seem weird. But I wouldn't worry; I doubt he's in any trouble; maybe he's practicing with Mo."

Bodie turned his gaze out the window again, sighing an replying dryly."Sure, I guess you're right. Maybe I'm getting too overprotective."

Nevertheless, he continued to stare out the window until he returned to his apartment.

Quickly waving his goodbyes to Emilia, he started a steady fast walk to his apartment. As he reached the door, he began to nervously fumble around his pockets for his keys, taking a good minute to find them, nearly in hysterics. He rushed as he slipped the key in, breathing a sigh of relief as he saw Glitch's backpack on the floor - surely, he had to be here! Bodie put on a real smile this time, and calling in an eager voice, he began to search for his lover.

"Glitch? Yo, G!"

Bodie at last slowly slipped into the bedroom, smiling warmly as he found the little boy wrapped in blankets. Slowly walking over, he decided waking him from his slumber would be a good idea.

"Wake up, sleepyhead..." he whispered, as he began to pull the blankets off of Glitch.

As he pulled the last one off, he gasped and slightly stepped back at the sight he saw. There weren't too many, but nonetheless, he found himself looking at unhealed, straight scars on Glitch's rib area. Glitch moaned quietly as he began to fumble around in annoyance due to the loss of his blankets. Bodie began to panic at this new sight. It raised so many questions as to what went on in Glitch's life. He reached over to the medical supplies drawer, fumbling around for bandaids. He had never been in this drawer, so he nearly screamed when he saw the small knife under the large pile of band-aids, medicines, and other things. A few tears slid down his face; he didn't bother to dry them. All he was focused on right now was helping to patch these disgusting scars up. But the big, friendly guy everyone knew couldn't hold back his strong emotions, as he began to whimper at the concept of Glitch's scars. Peeling band-aid after band-aid, he finally finished after a few painful moments, and watched as Glitch's eyes fluttered open. The boy raised his fisted hands to adjust his eyes, and as he looked from side to side, he grew wide-eyed, as he saw Bodie looking down and crying. Bodie looked up and saw his stare, and grew into more despair as he screamed. He tacked Glitch into a tight embrace, crying even more violently than before.

"Glitch...oh my god...glitch.." was all he could mutter as he felt nothing from his lover.

Glitch did nothing for a while as Bodie held him tightly. For such a long time, he had kept this secret. And now, as he felt adhesive patches all over his body, he felt cruel. He had hidden this from Bodie, knowing very well how much it would've hurt him. And now that he knew, there was no telling what was to come next. He broke down just as quick, tears welling up into a quick stream.

"B-b-b-Bodie..."He quickly tightened his embrace as he soon became only aware of their embrace.

As cruel as Glitch felt, Bodie felt a seemingly empty void grow inside him. He had been so careless and ignorant, and when he found out, it was too late to care for them. Those scars - he knew that if there were that many, it must have been a few months. Not looking at Glitch, he choked out,

"How long..." Bodie choked at the answer he got - a few months, right on the money.

He didn't have to ask why - he knew why something like this would occur, and it hurt him to know that he couldn't see through that. Glitch never went shirtless around Bodie, and he never bothered to ask. Instead, his best idea was to ask,

"Why didn't you come to me? I would've helped you - you know I love you..."

Bodie was met with more whimpers and cries as Glitch was in an inconsolable state. He sighed heavily. He let go of the embrace, looking into Glitch's wide, watery eyes. He pulled Glitch around him, cradling him in his arms and lying down, and as he laid there, everything around him went silent as he listened to Glitch's crying and sniffling. The last thing he could say was said in a soft whisper.

"Promise me that you won't do this again."

Glitch barely heard this, but slowly shook his head in response. Bodie smiled lightly, bringing his lips down to Glitch's forehead, and dozing off to his lover's slowly receding crying.