Thanks to Fairylust and Rainer for reviewing!

Fairylust: Matthias doesn't really know just how bad Yong Soo's relationship is with his older brother, though he does know that the two don't get along very well. If I'm being honest, I don't have a specific reason for picking Matthias to ship Yong Soo with, other than I feel like they have similar personalities and would get along well.

Anyways, I'm so sorry this chapter took so long to come out! It's twice as long as usual and I spent a lot of time on it, though I'm honestly not too proud of it.

I know the first few chapters went by pretty fast, but from here on out, it'll probably slow down quite a bit til we get more towards the end. Which also means updated will probably be limited to once a week, perhaps twice if I work extra hard lol.

Well, I'm going to quit my rambling now.

Goodbye, make sure to comment and review! Constructive criticism is and always will be appreciated. Also, as a side note, I'd like to add that I proof read this and checked over it at 1 in the morning so there are probably a few mistakes.

Hasta La Pasta

~ Scarllett out ~

Chapter 5 - Circles and Bruises

"Yao! Yao, guess what, da-ze!"

Yao, Jade, and Mei, who were all occupying the back patio, looked up when Yong Soo came bounding outside.

Unlike his abrupt awakening an hour earlier, he was now grinning brighter than the sun. He practically collapsed onto the red bricks of the patio ground in front of Yao, gazing at him with wide eyes.

Yao's lips twitched into a smile. "What is it, aru?" Truthfully, Yao was happy to see that the Korean was acting more like his usual self.

"Well." He started, giving a slightly guilty smile. "I had a favor to ask."

"What?" Jade teased, "Do you want your older brother Hyung to spend the summer with us, too?"

None of the three noticed the way Yong Soo tensed up, and how his laugh was tinted with more anxiety than usual. "Actually, Matthias told me-"

"Matthias? Ooh, you mean your boyfriend?" Mei chirped.

"-he told me that he got his truck back from the shop, and was going to come down here.."

Yao laughed, holding up a hand to cut Yong Soo off. "Let me guess, aru, you wanted him to come stay with us for a few days?"

Yong Soo only blushed, embarrassed by his own request, and nodded shyly.

"Of course, aru. When will he be coing?"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?!" Mei shouted, causing a few birds in the nearest magnolia tree to flutter and fly away. If possible, Yong Soo's blush seemed to deepen at the exclamation.

0000 LINE BREAK 0000

It was nearing 10a.m. when Yao, apparently, decided that they were all going to the park— again.

Truthfully, Yong Soo loved going to the park with his family. It was somewhere they spent a lot of time when they all still lived together. It reminded him of the long afternoons and mornings he'd spent scuffling in the dirt with Leon, climbing trees with Jade and Kai, or even making flower crowns with Chio, Mei and Kiku.

It reminded him of better times, when he hadn't had a care in the world. When he'd been truly happy.

"Oi, get up."

Yong Soo felt a foot nudge him in the side, and he opened his eyes. Leon stood above him, staring down with a blank expression.

"We're going to the Circle."

In an instant, Yong Soo was on his feet and sprinting towards the forest, Leon not far behind. As the two stumbled past the blinding green tree-line, they heard Yao and Kiku laughing from back at their spot in the grass. The further and further they went into the forest, the thicker the tangle of vines became and the greener everything was.

Out of everything and every place at the park, the Circle was Yong Soo's favorite.

The Circle was a decent ways into the forest, in a rather isolated and hard to find spot; though that was never a problem for anyone in the family, seeing as most of them had memorized the path. The Circle was a formation of different wooden platforms in the trees, starting on the ground and slowly getting higher higher. The trees they occupied were, of course, in a circle, with a large open space in the middle.

When Yong Soo and Leon got there, the others were already waiting for them. Mei and Jade were sitting on one of the lower platforms, legs dangling over the edge. Kai sat on a platform across and above from them.

Glancing up, Yong Soo saw Chio on one of the highest platforms, perhaps 50 feet off the ground.

"Took ya long enough." Kai joked lightly, giving the two a smile. Leon quickly took up the seat beside him.

Yong Soo grinned, and quickly began to climb. He went up platform after platform, til he finally found himself seated on the aged wood right across from Chio, a foot of space and a 50 foot drop between them.

Chio have him a smirk, idly waving his fan in the air. "You always have been the only one daring enough to ever come up this high. Other than myself, of course."

"Damn right, da-ze!"

The two of them slipped into a peaceful silence, both of them entirely content just to listen to their siblings arguing and banter. "No way! Chris Pratt is totally hotter than Evans," They heard Mei shout.

"Oh please." Kai had butted in, "We all know Hemsworth is the hottest."

Jade whistled, and even gave a sharp catcall. "Yes! You know it, honey!"

Yong Soo laid, sprawled across the wooden platform, staring up at the canopy with a smile. He closed his eyes, happy to just listen to his sibling's banter. He'd gone far too long without them, and though he'd rather die than admit it aloud, he missed them more than anything else. Yeah, he'd missed his childhood home and town, yet he missed them far more.

He'd missed all the pranks Leon and him used to play. He'd missed the days when him, Mei and Yao would roll around in the grass and talk. He had missed spending long nights out, gazing up at the stars with Kai and Chio. He had missed all the evenings he'd spent with Kiku and Jade, just laughing and covering the sidewalks with chalk.

He missed having a family.

Sure, Alfred and his whole, huge family had always been welcoming— as had Feliks and his parents, but they'd never truly been a family to him. The same could be said for Matthias' crazy brothers.

No, not in the same way Yao and everyone else was.

But now, after years of spending his days locked away in his bedroom and his nights sneaking out of his window, he was finally back with his family.

His real family. Not Hyung, who beat him to the point he could barely stand and left his skin different shades of purple and blue.

"So, I heard your boyfriend is coming down from the city." Chio drawled, pulling Yong Soo from his thoughts.

"Yep." Yong Soo gave a rather dazed smile, unable to hide his joy at the prospect of seeing his lover. He turned his gaze back to the treetops.

As time passed, he listened to his siblings below him and made idle chatter with Chio. Yong Soo told him about Alfred and his big, weird family, and about Feliks.

"One of his dads is French, and he's rather weird, but he's really nice. His other dad is British, and he has these huge eyebrows! I ate his food, once, and I was so sick I stayed out of school for half a week." Yong Soo inwardly cringed at the memory of the horrible, bland food. He liked Mr. Bonnefoy's cooking much better.

Chio laughed at the story, and gestured with his fan for Yong Soo to continue.

"Oh, oh! One time, I was going to play hockey with Matthias and his family, right? Well, Al's twin brother Matthew decided to tag along with us. And let me tell you, da-ze, he's scary when he's on the ice! I ended up spraining my wrist, and..."

Chio sort of blanked out around that point, not really hearing the rest of Yong Soo's words. He stared at his younger (by barely a year) brother, nodding every now and then.

Yong Soo just looked so happy when talking about his friends. He went on and on as if he had not a care in the world, telling amusing tales of the camping trips he went on with Alfred and his brothers, and that 'one time, Matthias, Alfred, Toris, Feliks and I tried to go hiking but Toris ended up getting bit by a snake, and we had to take him to the hospital. It was crazy, but Toris came out just fine, da-ze.'

Chio thought about it. He really thought about it. At first, when Yong Soo had first come home, he'd thought that maybe - just maybe - he didn't like living with Hyung.

But, perhaps he was wrong. Because Yong Soo seemed happy, now that he'd been home nearly a week. And besides, wouldn't he be complaining and whining as he always did if he didn't like living with his actual older brother?

Chio's heart thumped painfully at the thought that maybe Yong Soo wouldn't want to move back home.

"—and then, there was that time Alfred's oldest sister Camille convinced me to try gambling with her, but that didn't end too well either, da-ze. Hey...hey! Chi, you listening to me anymore?"

Chio spaced back in, and blinked. He gave a lithe smile, his eyes revealing nothing. "This Camille, she sounds like an interesting person." He commented idly.

"Oh, yeah, definitely! She's really nice, but super hardcore. If you touch her without her permission she'd smack you in the face, da-ze. I would know, she did that to Matthias once."

Yong Soo looked like he wanted to say more, but a voice from below stopped him.

"Oi, it's getting late, we should head back now." Leon's voice drifted up, and both males looked over the edges of their platforms to see Leon heading back towards the ground.

"Yeah, da-ze, I guess you're right." Yong Soo hummed.

He threw his legs over the side of the platform, and jumped down, landing on the one just below. Like that he went, platform after platform, Chio following just behind — or above? — him.

Just as he was getting closer to the ground, the corner of Yong Soo's shirt caught on an edge of jagged, splintered wood.

He dropped to the ground, and as he did so his shirt strained and pulled upwards, showing his back.

A gasp and a muffled shriek from behind him made Yong Soo jump, and his foot slid on the edge of the platform he'd been trying to drop on to.

He gave a yelp, and sharp cry as he fell. He slammed down onto the ground, almost immediately rolling onto his side. "Fuck." He hissed lowly, cringing.

He recovered quickly, though, it would seem. Truthfully, the fall hadn't really hurt. He'd only fallen about four feet, and he'd managed to land on a rather soft patch of dirt, grass and leaves.

Around him, his siblings all stared with wide eyes. Mei had clung onto the nearest figure (who happened to be Jade) and looked like she was about to cry. Kai, recovering rather quickly, darted towards Yong Soo and hastily helped him up off the ground.

Chio practically jumped the rest of the way down. Being uncharacteristically careless, he practically threw himself to the ground without a second thought. Even from above, Chio had managed to catch a sickening glimpse of purple and black.

"Your back." He'd practically snarled as he reached to grab one of Yong Soo's arms.

Yong Soo froze, and for a moment, his heart stopped. Oh god, oh god. They'd seen all of his bruises.

Yong Soo's next breath came far too sharp, and he held it til his lungs burned, and his legs shook. He'd spent so long, and put so much effort into covering his bruises. For so long he'd been so careful. Now. all because of one little mistake, he felt as if his entire world was crumbling.

Leon watched in absolute horror as Yong Soo crashed to the ground like a falling building. How had he not noticed? How had none of them noticed? The bruises were right there, they had been right there ever since they first picked Yong Soo up from the train station.

"Show me your back." Chio demanded, his voice hard and his eyes aflame. His fan lay on the ground, abandoned moments before.

"No. N-no, I can't, I can't." Yong Soo whispered out, eyes wide with panic and his whole body shaking.

"I'm- I'm going to get Yao." Mei stuttered out nervously, hastily turning and making back towards the park. Jade, wishing so badly to get away from the deathly still tension, quickly followed her.

Kai and Leon stood still, only watching in silent horror.

Chio, rather forcefully, grabbed the hem of Yong Soo's shirt. He pulled it up, ignoring Yong Soo's rather pathetic pleading. He clenched his jaw, and his chest twisted painfully at the sight he was met with.

There was an almost completely healed gash down Yong Soo's left shoulder, and his back and ribs were showered, blanketed in bruises.

Chio's anger slipped away in mere seconds. Slightly guilty, he let go of Yong Soo's shirt. Dropping down to his knees next to his younger brother, Chio felt his heart breaking as he saw the tears dripping onto the ground. "God." He whispered in absolute horror. "I'm sorry."

He didn't quite know what he was apologizing for, and he doubted Yong Soo knew either.

"What the hell is going on, aru?!"

Yao burst through the thicket of trees, Kiku, Jade and Mei right behind him. Then he eyed the crying, shivering Yong Soo on the ground and the horrified Chio next to him.

Kiku would never forget that moment. In that split moment, he saw one of his two youngest brothers break down and shatter entirely. And when he turned to his older brother, he saw a look of pure hopeless, despair, anger, and a million other emotions in Yao's familiar dark eyes.

In that moment, that second, Kiku saw his entire family break down and crumple to dust for the second time in his life. And though he'd never admit it, it felt like his heart was being ripped in two.

Faintly, in the back of his mind, Kiku seemed to come to the conclusion that this was all their fault. They hadn't helped Yong Soo; hadn't realized he was even hurting to begin with. They, as his older brothers and sisters, had failed him; that realization was what really brought Kiku close to tears.

Again, thanks for reading, and please comment/review! I was gonna post this chapter last night, but it was like 1am and I still had to go through and put in the italics and stuff, and I was too tired to deal wih that.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, a lot of this fanfic is based around Chio. Mostly because Macau is my favourite of the Asian family. If you'd like to see more of Yong Soo bonding with his other family members, then just say so!

In other news, just in case you didn't know, 'Camille' is supposed to be Monaco; I put her in as America's older sister since I do see her as a sibling figure to Canada, and he is of course America's twin brother.

Anyways, bye!