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sillywillylils · 3 days ago

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this is my first ever fic to be introduced to my lovely emme’s work and i am absolutely SO EXCITED like i know this is just going to be amazing. let’s get straight into it!!

“tyunningism’s note: Special thanks to Lily for helping me with the gunshot scene!!” i just got a mention im going to cry MWAH OFC ANYTIME SWEETS </3

“Another street fight downtown in the peaceful suburbs; another stain that can't be scrubbed from your itching skin even if you bathe yourself in the strongest bleach— because they'll know where you scurried from. The smell that's carried with the lowest of the low” THIS IS INSANE?? OH MY???

“Hilarious, isn't it? That you can be left growling for days in the rubble and grit of their trash that bleeds dirty blood with greed composed of money you could never dream of. News agencies are the first to bark at the government's attempts to integrate your class with the likes of the wealthier. A pathetic apology for being born into a stable of destitution disguised under the term 'Amenities and Welfare' than a response for help. Babies still squeal abandoned in the bulleting rain and children still roam with stolen sugar sticks and cigarettes for their incompetent fathers; tucked deep into the seams of their shorts where no one could take away their means for survival” this entire scene is wow like i am blown away by just how true it is and how beautiful its structured and written

“Because in these urine-stunk slums blood runs thicker than the sweat of your truthful work” THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE BAR OH MY???

“'Don't play with her anymore Jaeyun, she's a bad influence.'” oh hey jake what’s up

“‘We don't have much but my parents would never stoop that low. Oops! Should've kept my mouth shut—please don't kill me next!!’” people are ruthless and straight up mean when she couldn’t even control what her dad did

“that he can't hide his own growing loathing for you when you look him in the eyes” jake i thought we would be in this together….. what the flip

“That you can never truly be rid of the skin you're born with when everything on your face takes after his” emme you’re literally dropping hit after hit and my mind can’t take it (keep it coming)

“it's what gives you faith that you're not an outlier anywhere else aside from this transient world” as someone who loves stars this is truly amazing and it switched something inside of me

"’I wasn't going to drink tonight but you're really stubborn you are, butterfly’" BUTTERFLY???

"’Butterfly, as long as you don't mess around with your life and hand it over to some criminal thugs you won't be anything like him. Doesn' matter what they tell ya, you didn't murder someone so their words hold no truth until you do. Then this old man can't help you at all.’ Tell that to the people here…like they'd give a shit” hehe i know something that people don’t know…. hehehehehehehehe

“They say, what use are prayers when Heaven has closed its gates on your foul blood?” EMME THIS IS INSANE HOLY COW WHAT?!/$8:

“You wonder if he finally saw through to you before the gun was slipped back in to his pocket following the shut of the closet”

"’Nothing here’ Accented, different and more mature from when your ears last picked up on it—like sandalwood—but nonetheless his” JAKEEEEEEEEEEEEE IS IT YOU

"’Jay. The window's open. She must've left through there’" sorry guys jay is hunting me down for another night together, it’s okay i’m already on my way back to him

“Click!— ‘Don't say a fucking word’” That same pressure again, gun hammered to your forehead with a gloved hand soaked in rouge shutting you up with the sickly-sweet mix of coffee and metal. ‘Attagirl. Don't think we're all buddy-buddy like we used to be because I let you off this once. I'm already tying my shoes on the powerlines because of this and it doesn't mean jack to me whether I pull the trigger or not’” WHAT THE FUCK?’!|*~!<* He better not play with me… i swear because he doesn’t know…

“What a breakthrough Sim Jaeyun. It was like yesterday when he packed his belongings out of hatred for exactly what he's grown up to be now; a cold blooded murderer” i am gagged like there’s no words that can describe how i feel right now

“The old man's greyed hairs are tainted with that identical sickly-sweet stench reeking from Jaeyun’s shirt, mangled on the floor with his head twisted beyond human capability as he slumps on the last step—a wound far too grizzly to describe as a killing, a butchering more suitable to put it in to words” GET THEM AWAY HUMPHREY NOOOOOOO

“He seeks an escape from his own torment with palms painted vermillion. Even if that meant rinsing the blood of people he looked up to the most from white cloths and hands unworthy of salvation” every paragraph is managing to make me go crazy every time like the way you write your words and describe everything is utterly amazing

“Male, much younger than you were expecting with a mole sharply dotted next to his nose with precision— deadly handsome in a sense you couldn’t describe” is this…. s-sunghoon? my love…

“‘Sorry sweetheart, this one might hurt’ The impact of the wooden baton swung to the backside of your resting head leaves a trail of scarlet which will be left unnoticed upon other pools of reds around the manlier arms heaved under yours; the pain barely tinging in your knocked state.” UHM WAHT THE FUCK?!?!

“‘Be more gentle next time Kai, that’s a girl in your arms’” CLEAR THE AREA CLEAR THE AREA KAI IS HERE GUYS

“‘Get a move on, Sunghoon’ The male leant against the peeling paint of the shuttlebus discards of his gloves down below onto an empty street. A small souvenir for whoever may be unlucky enough to find it that ParadoXXX aren’t leaving with another round of bloodied noses, they’ll emerge from these slums with Eternally crawling at their feet— sights he’s desperate for as he straddles the back of the motorbike. ‘I knew I’d find her by the shuttlebus stops. Heeseung’s ought to introduce his cousin to me after this’” i don’t even know how to feel about this i swear, like my head is reeling, i’m falling, hotel trivago

“‘Listen little-one. I don’t know who the fuck Humphrey is but I’ve got nothing to do with it, and nobody likes a girl who cries wolf, do they? I’m only after that ruby ring on your finger. It’s beautiful, I’d slot it on a dainty finger too if only it weren’t stolen from its rightful owner’” whoever the bus driver is… i’m coming for you LEAVE MY GIRL ALONE?? but little one… hey…

“‘Hah— as expected of you Taehyun, you’re really the coordinator of our little team here. Checked for explosives? Weapons?’ Taehyun” hey so i am so ready for this, just imagine my iconic dog licking gif right about now

“But Jake. Jake had been perfectly fine to walk his own line with his new friends who find it the greatest joy of life to make the world more cruel and unfair than it already has been towards him. He wouldn’t think twice before pulling that trigger to your head last night if one of these folks were present. Be hostile. Be nasty. So you let his name spill from dry lips even if that meant he’d be in grave danger” don’t hate the player, hate the game

“‘Taehyun’s taken a liking to you, so I’ll send you out on a business deal with him. It’s light, all that’s needed to be done is act stupid in front of Heeseung’s circle since they’re obviously interested in you for whatever reason, as long as you’re willing to dirty your hands’” TAEHYUN IM COMING WAIT FOR ME but the last sentence…. im scared

“who you’ve learnt to be called Yeonjun though he prefers YJ” THATS MY MAN and my mind goes back to that one video where he’s holding the back and then hitting someone with it…. yeah….

“a tattoo gun gripped in his hand as he swabs the patch of skin Yeonjun ordered to be inked with their mark” t-t-tattoo artist taehyun…. dog licking gif

“‘Eternally’s not like that. None of us chose to follow down this obvious dead-end but where else can we run to when the world’s shut all it’s doors on us, except the gateway to hell at the cost of nothing compared to the gateway of Heaven that costs everything we can’t afford. It’s easier to sin than pretend to be some sort of Solomon and I’m fine with that. You can curse me in front of my face all you want—I can’t deny that we’re terrible people. We still kill, we steal, we do all kinds of messed up shit that would land us in the chair. What’s there to be proud of?’” this is fucking art right here, not even exaggerating right now and i love to mention how the groups are correlated with their songs and eternally being one of my fav songs from txt just warms my heart

i just want to take some time at the way taheyun’s story is so similar to mc’s like they are basically the same but in different fonts. it’s a little refreshing to see how taehyun opened up to her regardless of barely knowing her but i like to see it as maybe from the moment he saw her, he knew there was some connection and he knew that it was just a bother version of him.

“guess bad seeds will always be rotten to the core” these are the lines that are taking me into orbit and spinning me around and around

“Soobin chews on the loaf of bread he stole from a small beginner’s bakery, the food pushed to the side of his cheek blowing in disproportion to the other while he rolls a blunt stuffed with clusters of flaked green with careful hands” my baby <3

“‘She’s not gambling with any cheaters like you’ That melodic voice you recognise— Taehyun’s back earlier than expected” when he’s protective heheheheheh… BEHEHEH

“Meanwhile on the highway of the city’s fastest roads, a male with cherry red hair glowers at the mirror of his driver’s car, knuckles decorated with brass clenched tight into an agitated fist that slams at the window in heated fury that shakes the vehicle vigorously” CHEERY RED HEE CHERRY RED HEE CHERRY RED HEE ADD MY DOG LICKING GIF RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW

“The blonde coughs in hopes that he’d relieve his boss’ lament, turning on the air conditioning a little stronger to cool off the hot-headedness radiating form the backseat” add my dog licking gif again because having jake as a blond is CRIMINAL BECAUSE I NEED EVERYONE RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW

“‘Say she isn’t at the brothel, you have a reason to pick a bone with Choi for toying with what’s yours Heeseung, it’s not a bad idea’”

“‘Not a bad idea at all, Jake’” hahahahah i am terrified right now

“‘New face around town? Didn’t know your boss was hiring, Doyoung’” DOYOUNG??(MY MAN OMGOGMGOMG)

“Taehyun’s not supposed to open fire at Homer’s tonight, he’s not supposed to have the gun fully loaded and aimed from up at the balcony like it is at the moment when you’re merely conversing with Lee Heeseung as you were instructed. The prostitute kisses down the bulging vein in his neck down to the pecs of his torso similar to the seduction of a siren— a thumb pressed to the tent of his pants that he pushes away when he notices the gangster getting too fucking close to what’s not even his” I AM FREAKING OUT AND ROCKING BACK AND FORTH LIKE A MADMAN AT THIS POINT OH MY GOD

“Disgusts him because the prominent voice out of the millions inside of his head wants to beg for the tears balancing in your watery eyes to fall and stain your cheeks their natural hue through the sticky-mess of your concealer. He relishes in it, how your lips quiver and hyperventilate with emotion that makes his erection twitch with gross excitement; so vulnerable, needy. You just need someone to hold and cry on— and he can play the nice guy if it meant he could get a taste of the purest sin he can get his hands on. If it meant that he could tarnish you with grime by having you tonight, a disgusting fantasy in his twisted head that he can’t blame his psychotic mother for nor the criminal life he leads but his own skin, blood and flesh that fucking loves it like some sick creep when you cry for his help at the thump of footsteps getting closer” i am screaming right now if you can hear something just know that is just me screaming at the top of my lungs because this entire paragraph took me out like how they’re about to be taken out-

“‘Get on your knees and suck me off. Trust me on this one, baby’” i actually had to get up and take a fucking lap because what do you mean? excuse me? what? what happened to hello? hi? SOMETHING?!!:&;but no need to tell me twice heheheh

“He’s thick, a bit too thick for what you thought was ‘big’ on screen, and he hisses when you feel around the weight of it in your hands—contemplating whether you really could bring yourself to slot him on your tongue when he’s already starting to drag on your hand” i can handle this, make some room and let me show how a master works, TAEHYUN GET READY FOR ME

“Taehyun bucks his hips into the warm cave of your mouth. Lewd gagging of your virgin throat more raw than any of the artificial moans brewed by the women down in the brothel as he holds the back of your head to guide you along the stretch whilst also putting on a show” I CANT EVEN BREATHE RIGHT NOW BECAUSE WHAT THE HECK WHAT THE HECK WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK

“A show that needs to be messy, filthy and looks nothing more or less of a heated quickie as he bunches your hair in his hands— fervorous as globs of spit leaked into the mix of fluids on damp ground beneath you. A sight to behold especially for the blonde who runs towards the dead end you’re gagged to Taehyun’s balls in” i’ll give him the sloppiest head ever, LET ME IN RIGHT NOW LET ME IN

“There’s no reason for him to still be caressing your tear-stained cheeks as he pushes his dick further down your coarse throat; it’s an act that’s supposed to break out of character the moment the audience leaves, and yet he holds you in position for a second longer than he should” now this is what i’m talking about, yes yes yes yes yes yes

“‘Never heard of someone who wants to make a criminal cum. Are you sure that’s what you want,baby?’” i have never been more sure of anything ever in my life, let do this

“Taehyun wants to mould your virgin throat to fit the fruit he grows from his bad seed, he wants to be the one to teach you the forbidden sermons of the devil’s book you were never meant to encounter. You don’t belong in their lair of outcasts— but he’ll make it happen the moment he marks you fucking his” my throat hurts (from all the screaming… nothing else…)

“He ruts into your mouth like he has places to be instead of wasting his time on these lone streets with you, hot and feverish as you yelp at the sudden change in rhythmic slapping of his pelvis to your drool painted chin. It’s like he’s purposely rushing to chase an orgasm with how rough each spit slathered thrust is to your aching jaw, starting to hurt from the strain and the soft sponge at the back of your throat he continues to ram into relentlessly. Sharp spikes of pleasure-filled pain mix the logic of your brain as rinsed tears start to form again— tears that could arise a bucketload of his cum if he dwelled on it too much because he loves the nastiness of it and the dubious essence of pain and lustful crying” i’m shaking back and forth, i’m levitating back and forth

“He'll bathe you in the very felonies he drowns in. He’ll teach you the ropes of how to smoke, drink, how to wield a gun. He’ll teach you how to kiss, how to ride him, and at the end of it all when he’s tired, he’ll teach you how to leave— leave like his mother had because you should have known from the start that this was bound to happen, and you should have him” UHMMMM WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON I NEED TO RUN AROUND THE WORLD AND NEVER STOP

“Your undignified moans pulse around his tip, hands clawing with desperate pleas at the belt of his jeans, and god when you look at him so powerlessly as he shuts your wails with the stuffing of his cock, he pulls you off of him with a pop! — Letting his seed coat the rich satin dress you bore and now have to explain the stain for later” oh my god. oh my. i am screaming way too much and i can’t stop myself from losing my mind any longer

“‘And we were taught before we could even speak that blood runs thicker than water’” oh this line

“And Taehyun had caught you too in the surprise of a kiss; lips pressed to yours that you didn’t know how to respond to with each mesh of fat, crashing of warm tongues and the bite on your bottom lip as he caves in for more. Sloppy with no sense of direction, purely primal in mutual need as his hands crawl up the vines that guard the soft skin of your neck; a possession he’s not to touch. But Taehyun doesn’t want to play by the rules— not when he’s pent up with anger from Yeonjun’s scolding, not when you’re so easy to give in to him like this” A KISS THEY FINALLY KISSED

“Detaching your lips from his for a breath is suffocating to say the least. You’re chasing after it again. The taste of sin on your lips and the pressure of his thumb cradled around your neck. Like it’s some sort of life force how his kisses turn into addiction, his touch bringing life to your diminishing soul as the sinking of his teeth dip into your neck and bruises your skin into darker blotches; tainted with the lapse of indulging in the debauchery of Taehyun” it’s like every paragraph i must say something because that’s just how good this is like the detailing, the way you describe how it feels that i swear i can feel it myself

“He wants to hear the filthiest pleas that run abrasive along the lining of your throat as he fucks you, until you can feel all the bad within him coursing through each rough slap of his hips like some ritual of corruption. He wants to mark you his, embellish your waist with his blood-soaked hands that pinch and slap at sensitive skin and evoke those tears of pain-rich pleasure” do it, you won’t.

“‘See? All this overreacting for what— your pussy’s just as much of an attention whore as you are. Always finding something to complain about, always getting on my nerves crying over nothing’” HE FUCKING HER MEAN?!?!? oh i’m so dizzy hold me up

“Thick fingers push at your lips, resting deep past the flat of your tongue as you gagged lewdly waiting for him to pick up the pace again, to help resolve the knot building up in your stomach that causes you to jolt when he fans his breath on your chest” he’s so mean in here oh emme you knew what needed to be given and i am EATING this up right now I CANT

“‘Don’t worry about making a mess, just cum for me like a good girl’” i am about to backflip into the sun with no hesitation (ps i already am)

“When were you capable of such insensitive words? Capable of turning suffering into a competition when you should know better than anyone the hurt of it all” this is when taehyun is going to realize he fucked up and she’s slowly starting to become like them slowly but surely

“‘Murderer’s daughter or not, you’re still mine tonight’” UHMMMM WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK?/!:$;$ i’m screaming

“So why do your eyes brim with tears when you notice him suck and bruise her skin red and purple down to her chest in a beautiful design that outshone the lazy and messy splotches randomly placed over your skin?” i will jump this man foxy style (and NOT in a good way)

“‘Woah— hey, hey now Taehyun. Let’s talk this out, shall we? You hand Jake the girl and we’ll leave Eternally alone for good— how does that sound? On top of two million up front? Surely that girl can’t mean that much to you—‘”

“The fire of a gunshot crackles in the air with unpredictability, originating too close to your timid ears as Taehyun holds you tight to his chest with his gun slotted securely in his hand. Too quick for you to grasp the situation as your ears ring with the sudden burst of the bullet and your heartbeat fastens with worry-fuelled adrenaline as you stare at the pool of blood trickling on the floor.” I FUCKING SCREAMED BOOM YEAH WATCH WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT HIS GIRL AROUND HIM

“‘Your leader should know better to fire first than to run his mouth’”OMG ITS THE SCENE ITS THE SCENE HOLD ON EVERYONE

“For a second you get an insight of just who Taehyun can be as he laughs with guilty hands rubbing down his face, pulling at his eyes in the process as he drops the gun in your shaking ones that struggle to adapt to the weight of the pistol; and the price of Taehyun’s sins laying burdensome in your palms. It’s unnatural for you to clasp around the grip without the interception of his hand ghosting over yours. He’s not touched the blood nor did the splatter reach him, yet the foul stench of copper diffuses into his natural musk— bloodlust still visible in the menacing smile he leaves you with as he whispers, soft but with an edge, in your ear” I AM FREAKING OUT OMGOGMGOG

“‘You want to be a part of us don’t you, baby? You want me to trust you and take you seriously?’ His hand redirects the muzzle of his gun wrapped within your fingers to Jake who lays armless with stark-awake eyes that plead with mercy you thought you could only find in teenage Jaeyun all those nights ago. Eyes that don’t look at you with disgust for your father and your doomed blood that flows most viscously with the remorse of murder, but instead forgiveness as he plasters the shakiest smile he could have on his lips” i am actually petrified right now CAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS IS GOING TO GO, are we going to welcome the sins forced upon or become the very person we hate

“‘You remember right? That night in the closet I—I spared your life so can you…can you..let this one time go?’ His voice trembles with the same fear he stammered on the very premise of the park that turned you from best friends to strangers overnight; from resting on each other’s shoulders, and dreaming of make it out of slanted-roof slums to moving miles apart from each other, unfamiliar’s in the making” FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUVJCK I DONT EVEN KNOW HOW TO FEEL ANYMORE LIKE IM SO CONFUSED

“His finger pushes your frozen-still ones up the to the trigger, dancing around the danger of possibility and the consequences of bad decisions. Amateur hands should’ve never found refuge on the mass of cold steel laced with gun powder that takes you back to two weeks ago—when you would have been on the receiving end of the bullet in that interrogation room if it weren’t for Taehyun. Who now snickers barbarically at your conscience’s last attempts to sway you—how you vowed to forbid this moment, promised to never have lost yourself in the craze of savagery in the likes of your damned father” i am trying to hard to comprehend this like actually i have no idea how i feel, all i know is that my stomach is twisting and my head in reeling and i feel sick

“Except Taehyun’s read you like a book, reread every crease in the page and every torn edge to understand what it takes for you to listen, for you to obey at his orders as he kisses the back of your ear gently with a hand slithered around your waist. ‘What are you waiting for baby? Fucking shoot him’” HE BETTER NOT TEST ME BECAUSE I WILL SEND HIM INTO NEXT WEEK

“Jaeyun still has hands in the starchy-thick air for you to see through the facets of his crimes, ‘We planned to make it…’ Jaeyun gulps loudly with a quivering intake of breath, ‘—planned to not end up like our parents…we were going to make it to fucking LA, shit we can make it out of these slums together I’ve made enough cash—‘“

“‘Damn incompetent bastard, all he’ll do is leave you again like before. You know I won’t leave you baby, Eternally will take care of you so pull the trigger for me, will you?’” being manipulated and gaslit so fucking hard right now like it’s not even funny BY THE BOTH OF THEM?? spare her why don’t ya

“Dead, at the ungranted mercy of your hands, Sim Jaeyun was” i’m about to go join him

“And the rings you exchange on each other’s fingers as he enters you with a lust-crazed purr followed by the damning of his blasphemous hips that cave into the darkening of your impure womb” OH MY FUCKING GOD?!? RIGHT AFTER WHEN THEY GET MARRIED??? WHAT THE FUCK

“The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree” oh my god.

i am gagged like you have no idea, like actually gagged like there’s no fucking tomorrow. emme this was my first introduction to your fics and needless to say that i will be consuming everything else you write because this is amazing.

i was blown away by the way i was immersed in this fic like i swore i could feel mc’s emotions right as they were happening like truly my jaw was dropping everytime i kept getting onto the next paragraph.

as always thank you so much for writing this fic and releasing it to the public for everyone to read, it has truly blown me away. all the hard work and dedication you had to complete this fic is so respectable. i cannot wait to consume the rest of your fics

much love to you- l.p

Spin Me On Broken Feet ⋆♱✮♱⋆

── .✦ pairing: k.th x reader

Outliers in the picture-perfect frame of an ideal society, a convict’s daughter and a runaway son, you’re subject to the piercing expectations that hold no value. There’s no place on this dismantled earth for you to run back to and call ‘home’, but there is an alleyway in the grimiest slums of the next city that’s better than nothing for the outcasted. ⋆.˚

╰┈➤MDNI - NSFW content ahead...

…or in simple words… ᴄʀɪᴍɪɴᴀʟ!ᴛᴀᴇʜʏᴜɴ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

ᝰ.ᐟ wc- 23.1k

mentions !! and warnings !! blood/mile gore, substance use, cheating mentions, like one mention of gambling, broken family dynamics, angst no comfort, death, gang violence + murder(crime and weapon use), arguing and derogatory lang, manipulation, corruption, oral!m rec, unprotected sex, dubcon, overstim, marking, degradation, dacryphilia, impact play, sadi + maso, dom!tyun, bullet wounds, finger gag, choking, some religious imagery(sin,salvation,heaven etc), cigarette burns (not in smut), slight public sex in empty space, ft.txt and enhypen

tyunningism’s note: Special thanks to Lily for helping me with the gunshot scene !!This fic is a heavy one so viewer discretion advised !! Spent a lot of time redrafting and it’s finally here <3 I’m like forced to post three taehyun fluff drabbles now after this. I tried to link my writing style somewhat similar to ghosting hehe but enjoy !!!

The old-fashion television flickers with static. Enough to drown out the rapturous malice of Humphrey who curses at each flick of the coffee-stained newspaper as he skims the headlines. Another street fight downtown in the peaceful suburbs; another stain that can't be scrubbed from your itching skin even if you bathe yourself in the strongest bleach— because they'll know where you scurried from. The smell that's carried with the lowest of the low.

Hilarious, isn't it? That you can be left growling for days in the rubble and grit of their trash that bleeds dirty blood with greed composed of money you could never dream of. News agencies are the first to bark at the government's attempts to integrate your class with the likes of the wealthier. A pathetic apology for being born into a stable of destitution disguised under the term 'Amenities and Welfare' than a response for help. Babies still squeal abandoned in the bulleting rain and children still roam with stolen sugar sticks and cigarettes for their incompetent fathers; tucked deep into the seams of their shorts where no one could take away their means for survival.

And you can still be that child—who now stuffs their hands and pockets full with half eaten microwaveable meals and leftover cheap liquor storing tiny sips left from the pub after Christmas. But the expectations you were held to at eight don't apply the same when you're sixteen. Nobody suspects a child of stealing when you're so little; scrambling back home on the pavements that crack with guilt from the nicked lollipops and chocolate coins falling through your hole-rich clothes. At sixteen you're unpreparedly pushed in to the expectations of adulthood. It doesn't matter if you still don't know how to read or fend for yourself on these streets, if you have the will to live and dig through takeout boxes to satisfy a growling stomach then you're just as capable of being a criminal like your convict of a father. Not you who stole from the small confectionery two blocks down? Not their problem. Because in these urine-stunk slums blood runs thicker than the sweat of your truthful work.

You were the first to blame in the basket of rotten eggs of other teens your age like their very own scapegoat. Some tatted with poorly done stick-and-pokes to embody their gambling fathers, others frail and sickly with the pungent mildew of their sorrowful mothers. And you lied in the epicenter of the scale; neither to return home to apart from a withering Humphrey who took you in when the calamitous rumors first began to spread.

'I heard that woman left for the first flight to Russia this morning. How horrible to not take the child with her—I guess the resemblance to that wicked man must have been too haunting for her weak mind.'

'Utterly foolish. Gamble, steal and smoke all you want. He just had to dirty his hands with his debt collector's blood—good riddance! We're already poor enough here and now we're going to be known as the neighbourhood of a murderer.'

'Don't play with her anymore Jaeyun, she's a bad influence.'

Invisible bounties were slotted above your head before you could clear your name.

A drink on me for whoever can find that murderer's daughter for me tonight.

Kids banter and mocking laughs they called 'karma'.

We don't have much but my parents would never stoop that low. Oops! Should've kept my mouth shut—please don't kill me next!!~

And worst of all when Jaeyun confronted you at the park two days after your sixteenth.

My mom's moving us out of here…not because of you—your dad. Just moving to another slum in town she says will be better for us.

You can't decide which one burns the end of your tongue more as you bite on your words. The fact that he lied to you about why he's moving when it's as clear as day in his mother's grimacing face or that he can't hide his own growing loathing for you when you look him in the eyes. He was once a kid who aspired to make it big in the city outside of these crumbling concrete cells you both refuge in; promising he'll never turn out like his broken family just like how you'll never end up like your indebted gambling parents. But there he goes as he runs back to the scratched assembly of suitcases to leave you by the swings— when you realised that he believes it too, doesn't he? That you can never truly be rid of the skin you're born with when everything on your face takes after his.

What use is there to cry when morbid tears bear heavier weight from the eyes of the debt collector's family than yours? You wanted to fly else where under a completely new identity where no one knew your name. Where your father's case didn't reach their ears so they couldn't see the resemblance. Like your mother in Russia, who left her trial at life behind in these dismal settlements, smiling with a new family to tend to with a foreign man than blot the dirt and coal of your face with warm water soaked on the ends of her night gown—which she wore for months on end day and night—whenever you got in to nasty trouble.

Had she have left a couple of bills of your dispersed family's life savings for you, then you probably would've hopped on to the bumpy course of a shuttle bus to the next city as well. You don't blame her for leaving, you yearn to be free of his shackles too.

In your twenties now, you're still outcasted even in a hell hole of heathens. Having settled in your father's best friend—Humphrey—‘s flat where all the windows are barricaded shut. In case one or two kids throw cheap fireworks and stolen goods through the gaps to incriminate you for good this time. Apart from the tallest roof-window in the attic you sleep in. Cramped, but better than being one of the unlucky few who fall asleep in even the direst settings of smashed plates and unfed infant wails, you'd much rather listen to Humphrey watch the evening channels to sunrise.

The roof-window is never closed unless in the events of a storm. Partially because on those restless nights, when all you can hear is the youth down below exchanging and swinging their knives with intricately designed blades instead of chocolate bars and gum, only the stars can soothe your wounds from this prejudicial town. The stars don't turn you away when you peek your head through the window, and in that sense, anyone can look up to those burning gas balls. Dirt poor or filthy rich-living on the other side of the city where the grass is greener and lush; the stars don't see you for anything more or less than them, it's what gives you faith that you're not an outlier anywhere else aside from this transient world.

On days that the stars don't appear and all you can do is warn the new generation of systemically impoverished children that their intricately beautiful knives won't keep their heads on their necks for long in a real violent fight—you look up for the planes.

Because then you can dream of the day your mother will return for you when she's healed her own hurt. Would she look plump with a face that's been pampered with towels of warm milk? Would she answer why she left you here alone?

You don't need to hear the answer to that frankly, you already know. And you've heard it countless of times from Humphrey to bother asking him again.

The old television is still flickering with static when you lift your head from your wandering thoughts; eyes flitting to check on the old man's mood before you ask for the repetition of the same story again.

"Humphrey," Brown strands of hair between greying ones are pushed back by the man's hand as he lowers his tilted glasses, "Did mom ever leave me a letter?—" The slam of his coffee mug dawns on you that by now you should've stopped trying, the screeching of his chair as he leans back to swindle the beer bottle from the counter stacked with dirty dishes dreadful to your ears.

"I wasn't going to drink tonight but you're really stubborn you are, butterfly." He would've drunk his sorrows away tonight anyway even without your nagging. He's holding on to the electricity bill with yellowing hands, not because he couldn't pay it off, but because paying it off meant that he'd have to cut in to your savings to move in to the next city once he's gone. 62…65 he lost count once he stopped caring, but his health is rapidly deteriorating for his age and it's showing.

"If that woman you're so keen on calling your mother wished you well that wench wouldn't have spent her lifesavings on a first-class ticket over two economies for her child as well." The worst thing is he's right about that part and it shatters your envisionment of her. But you’ll gladly pick up those shattered shards again to slowly build up the same falsified image—there's no heart in you to believe she's just as irredeemably wicked as your father.

His next advice doesn't sit as well with your stomach. "Your father at heart was never a bad man until he got stupid and laissez-faire with his work. You should know that better than anyone—blame it on him all you want but you have to realise that these very streets drove him to do it," The newspaper closes on itself from the gust of wind and at the same time you chew on the inside of your cheek, knowing that this conversation was headed down a path you didn't want to explore, one you wanted to close off completely. "Butterfly, as long as you don't mess around with your life and hand it over to some criminal thugs you won't be anything like him. Doesn' matter what they tell ya, you didn't murder someone so their words hold no truth until you do. Then this old man can't help you at all." Tell that to the people here…like they'd give a shit.

Pitch black empties through out the room in an ink that stains your words so you can't say them aloud anymore. The candle must've been blown out and that's you're sign for you to return back up those creaky floorboards of stairs to your room for the night. Even if you wanted to pick a fight with Humphrey over mentioning the male again in a defending tone the silence is all you need to keep your rocking relationship with the elderly male sailing in peace.

This time you don't give Humphrey a 'good night' but you really fucking wish you did.

Ramshackle wood creaks you awake earlier than the usual alarm of Humphrey's morning TV. The stars still haven't left their crests in the sky when you notice the ruckus of his coffee-machine whirring has been replaced with the rampage of footsteps; multiple, weighted with the consequences of their sins as the floorboards became creakier towards the attic.

The first instinct is to run. Don't look back for me, just go wherever your two feet can take you, he'll say but the dread filling up your lungs with stifling breathless air directs you inside the closet; dreary and compact with crawly creatures you'd prefer not to acknowledge.

Humphrey had warned you plenty about different guests who may show up without a prior letter nor stay for tea, and to every single one of them you're just fish food for their ulterior motives. So be hostile, be nasty. To them the lowest you can go anyway is be the daughter of a murderer—so don't try and suck up to those pot-bellied men and polish their shoes when they intrude through the doors. It means jack shit to the Lee’s circle.

"Fuck—it smells like dog piss in here."

"Stupid bastard can't do anything for himself can he?"

Baritone voices as rich as sweet wine bounce off the dented walls, but not quite sweet enough to blanket the red dye of that putrid stench of iron so nauseatingly strong it carries the burden of at least a hundred bodies on their culpable hands.

"What's so special about this one? I'll slit that lamb's throat the minute I find her for all this overtime." The silence you swore and tied your tongue to keep is broken by a choked gasp you failed to resist. Or at least you attempted to resist the dreadful clogging in your throat of whispered prayers and dire fear. For if God wanted to make your life so miserable he should be loving enough to spare you a chance to live when you've been on the route to death ever since the year you turned 16. They say, what use are prayers when Heaven has closed its gates on your foul blood? And you wish you had an actual answer to their insulting questions and not just faith that the group of men entering, no, invading the attic will leave without the extra effort of wasting a golden bullet on an already doomed soul.

"I heard something here—search the room." Shelves of dust-kissed books and skyscrapers of piled scrap crash down into the center of the tiny room, cluttering it further as more stringent curses fall from tight-screwed lips with every peltering blow to the furniture.

Hairs trailing down your neck raise on their ends in a shield of spikes when the reload of a gun rattles in your eardrums menacingly. It's not like you've never heard the deafening pelt of a bullet before; it may be the case somewhere uptown where chandelier-lit dinners are considered cheap if there isn't a dozen turkeys stuffed with a hefty price tag and relish for a starter, not here though. In these crime-stricken streets covered by a pall of the people's remorse and sin there's not one person who doesn't wield a gun of some sort outside of their grim homes, but knowing you're on the other side of the muzzle is far different from hearing the crackling of window-pane glass from your attic.

Like a deer in headlights, they've got you exactly where they wanted; enclosed and helpless beyond the loose hinges of the closet doors. Street rats can win a fight with bare fists alone, and the dealers on the street can get by just fine as long as this side of town's still yearning for that high every once in a while, when most of their calendar is wasted on begging for meagre dimes. You however have nothing. You find yourself stuck in a cycle where even the rock bottom of society, the lint of people's clothes look down on your weakness; no mouthpiece to defend you from their self-done exorcisms masked by slander; no will to fight anymore when you'd much rather find pain from the kicks to your dwindling legs than the cuts and bruises of their malignant stares. And as the closet is drawn open from the right all you can think of is what a cruel world this is.

Though when the moonlit sky cascades pitiful light inside of the glum space you don't expect to see the silhouette of black hair intervening it past the muzzle pressed snug to the cold-sweat of your forehead. If anything, you couldn't ignore the clash of night and day between the pressing indent of the gun and the look of horror that streamlined through the dip of his brows to the gape of his split lips; cracked dry with dried blood. You wonder if he finally saw through to you before the gun was slipped back in to his pocket following the shut of the closet.

"Nothing here." Accented, different and more mature from when your ears last picked up on it—like sandalwood—but nonetheless his.

"Goddamnit—just search!" Cramped palms criss-cross flat against your mouth to muffle the instability of your skipped breath; a heart racing faster than your limp body faint with fear could keep up. He gave you a chance in this plummeting slum, remembered the nights he would ease your suffering a little lighter on the broad of his shoulder; in your own little world. And the dagger of each hiss of his words as that shoulder became harder to reach with every step away from the rocking swings.

"Jay. The window's open. She must've left through there." You listen to each scramble of footsteps as they ascend towards the highest window of the attic and back downstairs in a huddle—gangsters, hitmen, you're not sure how to describe either of the lot exactly but you know well enough from growing up around here that they don't pull expressions like that. Not terrified when their finger is dancing around the trigger, not regretful when blood is smeared in clawed streaks down their ironed shirts.

When you believe they've all left from the silence upstairs you creak the closet open—

Click!— "Don't say a fucking word." That same pressure again, gun hammered to your forehead with a gloved hand soaked in rouge shutting you up with the sickly-sweet mix of coffee and metal. "Attagirl. Don't think we're all buddy-buddy like we used to be because I let you off this once. I'm already tying my shoes on the powerlines because of this and it doesn't mean jack to me whether I pull the trigger or not."

Bullshit Sim Jaeyun. His lips still quiver the same as they did on the nights the two of you had to share a meal to keep each other from starving. Still the same habit of focusing on his hands—equipped with a gun that shouldn’t have been in his life, in his possession—whenever he was caught up in a lie.

The glock falls on loose arms as he rushes to lag behind the flock of his folk. What a breakthrough Sim Jaeyun. It was like yesterday when he packed his belongings out of hatred for exactly what he's grown up to be now; a cold blooded murderer.

Ten minutes after they supposedly leave you search for the only bag you own under the landfill of books, broken wood and tilted drawers. The calm after the storm the saying goes, yet despite every hurricane and typhoon of depravity you've endured not once have you been embraced by nirvana, or at least something close to it. You can't stay here, they'll come back for you and Humphrey— so you pack all that's left intact in the attic: a pocket knife, some gum to suffice for the night, a flashlight and the savings you've earned alongside him.

Correction from earlier; they'll come back for you now that they're done with Humphrey. Two careful steps down the footprint dirtied carpet of the stairs and you'll be granted a welcoming gift at the very bottom. The old man's greyed hairs are tainted with that identical sickly-sweet stench reeking from Jaeyun’s shirt, mangled on the floor with his head twisted beyond human capability as he slumps on the last step—a wound far too grizzly to describe as a killing, a butchering more suitable to put it in to words.

The sharp tang of iron permeates the air in to a mingle of molding walls that sang shallow obituaries with every gut-wrenching step. Smells of death. Rotting smells no different to the bodies slumped in the streets—bony to the touch—before the authorities would find a useless Saturday to finally sweep them away a month later like disposing of crimped litter. And you hate to equilibrate your sympathy to the severity of their suffering but you've never encountered vexation so pure in anger to any other wrongdoing towards you that seeps through every pore of your skin in your trembling state.

Like thugs they treat your kind like a pigpen that they can loiter feed to for their own twisted amusement. The blood that you shed dirtier than anyone else's, saturated with impurities you cannot cleanse as dislodged milk teeth of your innocence bury themselves in the cavities of their hollow hearts. You see it clearer now, that Jaeyun no longer aspires to live the life of a good man nor does he seek comfort in the stars as you still do. He seeks an escape from his own torment with palms painted vermillion. Even if that meant rinsing the blood of people he looked up to the most from white cloths and hands unworthy of salvation.

It must be embedded into your nature to scamper in the most rodent-like way through weaving settlements built on rusting stilts and congested flats that loomed and twisted over themselves— a living labyrinth hemmed in by warped wood of knife carvings and tagging as patched rooftops slumped with a solemn drop of corrosive rain. Every boy on the street, still slack in their ripped shorts and soot-stormed shirts passed down from their brothers, trudges back home no earlier than 1 here. When it’s quieter, and the only voice that he can hear shouting is the soap opera playing whistling tunes as their mothers tend to yesterday’s broth for tomorrow’s supper. They’ll be entranced with ambitious eyes glued to the Hollywood dream they live through their television screens; carefree, they have it easy, and that’s all anyone born and dumped in to this manhole of a town can wish for.

It’s nearly impossible to climb this ladder to success when the silver-spooned are lifted halfway up this metaphorical climbing frame built on wealth and you’ve not even reached the first step with the mere nickels you stand upon for height. Hell, there’s not even a ladder offered to you at all— a splintered rope to cling on to that can only snap and drag you down further inside the abyss of the shunned. You can dream and beg every night in your unheard prayers but don’t wish for too much, oh no you shouldn’t get your fragile hopes up too early. For in this lifetime you can only get so far with the face of a killer knit between your brows and sunken into your drab eyes that weep for Humphrey as you slam your back in contact with the bus stop’s scratched plastic.

Crinkled greens are tucked into your sleeve as you peek for the headlights of the later shuttle buses through a low slipped hood over your panging head. 250 dollars rolled up messily by a rubber band; your life savings with Humphrey that’s always being cut into for drinks, dinner and debt, safely transferred and tucked from the empty cookie jar in the cupboard into your zip-up. Life savings that could easily be what one of them spend in a day, in their fireplace-warmed homes as obnoxious laughs fall from their wine-sipping lips, and half of it will be blown into thin air once you buy a ticket for the furthest you can go with the shackles of your past in this nobody-town.

You want to melt into the stitching of your clothes. The scent of Humphrey still lingers on the threading and your sobs are abrasive to your inflamed throat once tears become difficult to form in your red-stained eyes, the cries drowned out by the honking of a shuttlebus slamming on squeaky brakes as it skids towards your stop. Empty, then again at this time of night anyone who’s leaving to the city is up to no good, and those who are up to no good would much rather not be travelling in a dingy bus like this unless they want the cuffs on their wrists on the spot.

“Where to?” As you tread onto the bus the scent of lemon wipes and chemical disinfectant burns at your nose; scrubbed sore from tears and snot, and you don’t bother to question it nor look up at the driver past his lips as you mumble silently. “How far can I go with a hundred?” His chuckles ring irritatingly in your ear like he’s never heard anything funnier.

“There’s not much options with only a hundred. That’s bound to get you as far as Coles. Never got on the shuttle, have you?” Well, if a hundred could only get you as far as a 30-minute walk to Coles then there’s no reason to deny that financially you can’t have been on one before. “120 where can tha—”

“150 and I’ll take you to Alton an hour from here. Maybe half if I speed.” His straightforward cash-grab of your desperation boils shock all over your face as you flit through the crisp bills inside your sleeve; reluctantly shoving it forwards before you thumped your head on the windows of your seat towards the very back at an attempt to recover your much needed rest.

This jerk of a driver just has to be somewhere though because he speeds double the limit on flimsy and flat wheels that jump with each hitch of the road all the while laughing in sheer amusement. And you can’t help but stomach the unease within you as the driver laughs periodically in thin air, ignores all the traffic rules without a care in the world about the cameras or losing his job and you’re certain that bus drivers don’t usually bargain you for a pricier ticket to a destination that doesn’t read on the routes labelled on the bus. Coles…Perkins…Marinslow…Bay…along the list of viable destinations not a single read Alton.

“Where are you taki—”

“Here’s your stop in a record…32 minutes.” Suspicious in how quick he is to shut down any questions as you walk down to the front of the shuttlebus to stare at another slum no different to yours aside from the brickwork buildings and underground nightlife running through it. He can’t seriously drop you off somewhere that’s identical to what you wanted to leave so terribly. “There’s no bus stop here Mister.” That same irritating chuckle that vibrates lowly in uvula erupts from him and for the first time you lift your hood a little to judge that smug look on his lips. Male, much younger than you were expecting with a mole sharply dotted next to his nose with precision— deadly handsome in a sense you couldn’t describe.

“If I took you to the bus stop where the floor’s made of marble in Alton, you’re looking at sleeping on the streets for the night. So I’m doing you a favor sweetheart.” His words are laced with poison as he wets the bottom of his lips and you’re dying to tell him that you’ll be sleeping on the streets no matter where you go. With only a 100 to your name to keep yourself going before you could find a job in this stark city.

“A passenger of mine from earlier dropped this. Ruby. Not sure how real it is but you could probably pawn that for a hefty price. And keep it on your finger unless you want that goldmine to slip through the holes of your pockets.” The male slips a silver ring jeweled with a beautiful ruby gem in to your cold frosted palms which you swallow your pride to accept because it’s better than nothing to work with when your stomach growls with insatiable hunger. “Thanks.” Is all you can offer with your slim gratitude but you’re quick to run out of the automatic doors when you spot the small blood splatter missed by the Kleenex wipes, starchy crimson stained on the rails that reels you into an episode of gags as you disappear past one alleyway into another; where your two feet can take you.

Heaved breaths slow down in your chest when your stamina starts to give up on your throbbing ankles with a searching hand groping the indents of the rocky brick for balance. You’ve reached another endless alleyway with a protruding slab of concrete for a makeshift doorstep, one that you could mistake for a king sized bed plush with the softest duvet and mattress you could think of from how your head spins with exhaustion.

In the mechanical roar of passerby vehicles in this much busier city you find temporary rest on the miniscule surface of the block that carried the weight of you and your worries, strengthless eyelids fluttering shut into deep slumber as you try to accommodate the rough scratch of it against your skin.

It’s healing. Better to have the streamlined breeze of these squeezed alleyways cool the fire of your head than convince yourself not to dwell on Humphrey, the driver tonight, and Jaeyun. But how can you distract yourself from Jaeyun when all you can remember is the same disgust rooted inside his repentance? On that night by the swings when he spat those lies with a face playing nice you should have known better what he really thought of you with those fingers curled tighter around his suitcase, pleading to leave, than the curl of his reluctant arms around your pitiful self. You’re still met with that same old coldness to the new profanities in his speech, and you let those profanities stir your mind into fatigue that eventually transitions into sleep.

“Sorry sweetheart, this one might hurt.” The impact of the wooden baton swung to the backside of your resting head leaves a trail of scarlet which will be left unnoticed upon other pools of reds around the manlier arms heaved under yours; the pain barely tinging in your knocked state.

“Be more gentle next time Kai, that’s a girl in your arms.”

Criminal conversations are shrouded by the explicit of criminal exchanges that run through the fissures of the eroded brick and seep through drains pouring blood-washed water in this peril-estranged city. From above the hills where it’s visible how the flats leaned into the labyrinths of alleyways; a white motorbike wipes the sand and dirt into thin air as it halts.

“Get a move on, Sunghoon.” The male leant against the peeling paint of the shuttlebus discards of his gloves down below onto an empty street. A small souvenir for whoever may be unlucky enough to find it that ParadoXXX aren’t leaving with another round of bloodied noses, they’ll emerge from these slums with Eternally crawling at their feet— sights he’s desperate for as he straddles the back of the motorbike. “I knew I’d find her by the shuttlebus stops. Heeseung’s ought to introduce his cousin to me after this.”

Cold and mucky water launches and drenches the hair that now sticks and swirls on your face. It trickles down your lips that split apart into shocked gasps and choked coughs on the linen shoved as a gag halfway down your throat; the back of your head numbed to the touch with a dull ache you can’t soothe, nor rub with your hands tied double-knotted behind the mahogany backrest of the chair.

“Ah Shit— the girl’s awake. How’s the head?” Restrained legs try their best to kick and squirm for even the littlest movement prohibited by the coarse rope cutting the blood flow to your feet. Two men in the room study your panicked self with cautious— preying on their successful hunt already with their shrewd eyes. The one who asks you the question leaves the dip of his seat in a tattered sandbag, smudged eyeliner to match the choppy layers of his long hair streaked with blonde, yawning with outstretched arms like he’s been in the same position for hours. “Ah-ah girl. If you’re any smarter you should know not to kick and make a fuss. I’ll let you speak so be good.”

Calloused hands brush the wet of your lip, pressing against the fat to widen your mouth as he digs two blood-soiled fingers to pinch at the linen cloth. “Ack— cough— fucking bastard let me go!”

“If feisty is how you want to play, be my guest. Or, you could sit still for— 10 seconds? Anytime soon he’ll be here.” The room stinks of rain dew from the leak in the ceiling; blotched stains on the basement’s walls of fluids you’d rather block out of your head and keep your mouth shut for if you knew what’s best. And the male busy brandishing his pistol doesn’t even spare you a glance through his ash blonde ends of hair— finding his time more worthy of that kill-count multiplier than your measly life.

Struck right in the centre of the wall behind you is the concave of a staircase that leads further up than you can see, but you can make out the all too familiar stampede of footsteps that stick to the steps with murderous intent emanating from each one of them; those men again…back at the attic with Jaeyun.

“Awake? Sorry about the surprise little-one, Kai here is still learning to wield a bat but I guess he needs to learn the difference between knocking-out and intended murder.” Slicked back hair with gel-slathered strands are left messily at the front of the speaking male’s face as if he tried to make himself look presentable, failing in the aspect once you look down at the stylistic choice of rips and holes in their clothes— holes that you hate the sight of.

Gangsters; don’t care how they look to others as long as they’ve got something to slaughter to stoke a laugh, don’t worry about anything as long as they have a gun to pave their way on these vulnerable streets. These lot don’t wear flashy gold chains stolen from the high-end jewellery branch up north. But they certainly aren’t in any state to all be wearing the same knitted off shoulder with holes boring into each patch of fabric; yarn and thread hanging loose to fabricate some sort of struggle—like they’d know anything about real struggle. You don’t need to go out of your way to find some niche designer who’ll make clothes that would belong on people like you; holes stretched from wear and tear every time it would get caught on the edges of hotel trash cans as you dug for the crust of toast served during English breakfast; holes ripped from the seams by the persecuting shoves and brutal scratches of street rats no different to yourself. Never have you ever laid your hands on anyone to be deserving of the title ‘Murderer’, and here these gangsters are swinging their knives recklessly to kill for the rush of adrenaline for that title you so badly want to scrub from your tampered skin, drain from your blood and wash from your face.

“If you wanted me, why would you go for Humphrey? Nothing disgusts me more than gangsters who don’t understand shit.”

Triggered by your loud mouth the forged smirk of hospitality on his face melts into a scowl the slick-back had been hiding from the start, presuming he’s the leader with how his followers swallow their own fear when his jaw ticks with annoyance.

“Listen little-one. I don’t know who the fuck Humphrey is but I’ve got nothing to do with it, and nobody likes a girl who cries wolf, do they? I’m only after that ruby ring on your finger. It’s beautiful, I’d slot it on a dainty finger too if only it weren’t stolen from its rightful owner.” Your jaw slacks in unison to every drip of venom to his words of defamation. Once again, you’ve let yourself become the scapegoat for the transgression of others— a ditch for them to dig their offenses into further under a pile of lies so you could keep it. You’re always the culprit without an alibi regardless of the suspect walking past in blind sight with the knife; the easiest to blame; the easiest to get away with pointing fingers at because to the lucky, people born with nothing but the damning of their parents for giving life to them are nothing more than a scrape under the rug.

“That traitor Jaeyun told me nothing would happen—” Swift and calculated you’re met with an audience of artillery: a dagger jabbed under your chin that could skew you if you dared to open your mouth too wide, a gun of some macabre holt to the back of your head loaded for trigger and the one who supposedly swung at you in the first place now with a glock handled with expertise in his hands instead. Their ringleader’s scoff transcends into maniacal laughter comparable to a madman— laughs you’d only hear in exaggerated films that used to be broadcasted on those late nights with Humphrey except this time it doesn’t feel so much like an act.

“W—what’s this all about?” You scatter your brain for words hissed through gritted teeth in case the dagger really would pierce through.

“You’ve made this a quicker process for us than we thought.” The boisterous laughter of the man with smudged eyeliner shakes you to the core with a chilling spite that doesn’t leave as it circulates to every nerve to instigate dread within you. “They’re not very good at hiding their insiders, you don’t usually expect such poor work from ParadoXXX— unless this is a setup from those fuckers.”

“Jake wouldn’t send any insider to our side of the city like this, she calls him Jaeyun, she’s more than a simple partner in dirty business.”

Jake…Sim Jaeyun. None of It makes perfect literal sense in your head but you’re not tied or sworn by an oath to Jake or whatever alias he wants to go on his new trek of life, the name dies on the end of your tongue where it doesn’t belong as you try to plead your case through brimming tears at the gun still locked to the back of you.

“W—wait I don’t know where the ring is from! —" You try to remain calm even with all the fingers pointed in your direction however with each probing reload of bullets into the brandished pistol in the corner of this sullen room your strong headed voice falters into half formed sobs.

“Drop the weapons. I hate it when people sob and wail like they’ve got actual shit going on,” the male with split hair from earlier who paid you no mind finally speaks. His voice tuned slightly higher and melodic but tainted with the unwelcoming edge to his tone. “Let her speak and you might get the intel on ParadoXXX you’re after.”

“Hah— as expected of you Taehyun, you’re really the coordinator of our little team here. Checked for explosives? Weapons?” Taehyun, it’s one thing to be complimented by a ringleader of this cohort. It’s another that he’s able to retract all of the weapons targeted against you with a simple sentence. And as he nods to each of the questions the slicked-back male only laughs in horrific pride after snatching the dagger from the calloused hands of his gang member.

“Bravo Taehyun. My aide over there’s given you a chance so spill everything you know about ParadoXXX— and don’t even think about lying your way out of it because if there’s anything I despise the most it would be a lying scoundrel of their kids play gang.” The crazed male licks along the flat surface of the dagger with his tongue. The taste of dried blood fused with metal lingers on his senses as he struts towards you with prideful shoulders and a blank poker face, continuing to clean the dagger before laying it flat against your cheek with a wicked smile. “Go on darling, speak, and make it quick because I’ve got a deal to make.”

“I don’t know anything about this ParadoXXX guy you’re on about. And— and this ring I was gifted by some driver on the shuttlebus to Alton. He didn’t tell me it was stolen I swear I wouldn’t have taken it if it was but he said I could pawn it for a couple of bills! Then I spotted…blood and I ran all the way past a bunch of alleyways and now I’m roped into this whole kidnpping!” Attempting to stifle any more snotty sobs before Taehyun asks for the weapons to be held up to you again you sputter out everything you could. Although your answer doesn’t delight the male at all who flips the dagger in his palm to inflict the sharpest point by your cheek, “And Jake? Or should I say Jaeyun?”

You hate bringing up the past more than anything. It brews the nostalgia of a time you wish you could return to at the sacrifice of your heart, your limbs, whatever they want. It frustrates you that you can’t hold onto the poor rags of your mother’s clothes as she takes you on a penniless sightseeing trip around the slums; pointing to the different monuments of drying racks and squashed strawberries by the local market selling week old fruits. You can’t relive the nights you’d spend with Jaeyun who had to cry for you to accompany him home so that his parents would stop the bickering while you were under their collapsing roof of his home, trying to stop gossip from spreading about their situation.

But Jake. Jake had been perfectly fine to walk his own line with his new friends who find it the greatest joy of life to make the world more cruel and unfair than it already has been towards him. He wouldn’t think twice before pulling that trigger to your head last night if one of these folks were present. Be hostile. Be nasty. So you let his name spill from dry lips even if that meant he’d be in grave danger.

“We were friends in the same neighbourhood when we were younger. You— or someone, sent him and some others and fucking killed Humphrey instead of me and stormed the house, psycho bastards.” The male lets go of the dagger as it rattles on the ground by your feet, you’d opt to stab it into his knee while he’s kneeling down at eye-level but the beady eyes watching in on your exchange of information makes it stupid to do so.

“Good. What I wanted to hear. Soobin you spotted Ni-ki’s motorcycle parked next to a shuttlebus last night didn’t you? You’re lucky that Sunghoon who drove you here didn’t slit your throat on the spot; he’s famous for that around this side of the city, but clumsy in his work.”

Vile. Explicit. Gruesome. It’s like he has nothing better to say other than the grim details of his crimes and his circle and it sickens your stomach like no other that he can laugh off the lives of others without a care in the world.

“Would you be a darling and hand Soobin behind you the ring? He’ll do a nice clean before returning it to me. This baby right there on your finger? 15 million. You can live comfortably with that for the rest of your days, if you had lost it, you wouldn’t be on the receiving end of such a forgiving fate.” Fifteen million. That would’ve been enough to settle the debt you and Humphrey owed 100 fold, the kind of money you can’t fathom in your head when you’ve grown used to dimes and quarters in your palm most of the time rather than a proper bill. And here this heartless man is, losing and wavering it in your face like it’s just part of another collection of his; albeit stolen.

“Oh— and we weren’t the ones to kill your boyfriend or whatever, that would be ParadoXXX’s doing. And you should have common sense to know that no proper leader trusts the basis of a couple words between white lies. So I’ll give you the option here. Eternally will offer you a place to eat and stay in one our let outs given you slept on the streets last night, in exchange that you work for us to gather valuable intel on Jake— or should I say, Lee Heeseung’s little gang to prove you’re not an insider, hm? Otherwise we only have one other option and I can’t promise that you’ll leave in one whole piece.”

Primal fear and confusion flood and suffocate you in a body of water you can’t tread, that narrows in on your airways which hyperventilate in staggered breaths at a bid for survival, leaving you exposed and stripped of your dreamt freedom here in Alton in an instant. You’re frozen still by the weight of his words; a threat dressed as a choice. A choice dressed as freedom that you’re well aware is meddling in the palm of his hands like a puppet on strings as he toys with every frightened expression on your drying tear-stained face with a lift of his lips.

“W—what do I have to do if I work under you?” Even if you try to argue a different option you know you’ll only be met with a muzzle to your mouth here instead of the piercing gazes of the neighbours back home, and you know not to get too greedy. To be fair you couldn’t have gotten as greedy as everyone else when you can’t have anything anyways. There aren’t wallets to nick or tills to rob in a store that accepts mainly handfuls of coins, no boyfriend(s) to hang around with and date when you can never be too sure of their true intentions and no banquet to feast on when the entirety of the slums live on a carton of milk and dry crackers. And even now there’s no way for this man to pity you with a choice of neither when you’re constantly on the losing end of the stick—now to blame for working with a criminal organisation you’ve never heard of.

“Taehyun’s taken a liking to you, so I’ll send you out on a business deal with him. It’s light, all that’s needed to be done is act stupid in front of Heeseung’s circle since they’re obviously interested in you for whatever reason, as long as you’re willing to dirty your hands.”

The ending of his words doesn’t threaten you quite as much. Given that you’ve dirtied your hands in the filthiest water on a face soiled by the genetics of a monster you can’t be rid of, and that’s far worse than digging your own grave with the lives of other plunging men.

Being thrown into a nest with Taehyun is awkward for a start when a couple minutes ago you were pleading for your life confessing everything you know in the span of an hour. And Taehyun’s silent attitude doesn’t help either as he finishes wiping down the ringleader’s gun— who you’ve learnt to be called Yeonjun though he prefers YJ. He had sent the both of you into Taehyun’s workroom within their hideout; humiliating to still have the rope bound to your hands, in precaution that you try anything grizzly with the split hair male you followed behind, but it’s better than having your sore feet strapped to the bone to the legs of such a flimsy chair as well.

“You’re like Humphrey. You don’t like to speak much.”

“I don’t like being compared to your dead boyfriend.” That’s just how blunt Taehyun is with his words. No sugarcoating, no beating around the bush, the last person you’d seek to tell someone a loved one has died— to say the least he doesn’t care for a lot other than himself.

“Humphrey was my guardian. So are you going to inject me with lethal drugs or something now?”

“Enough questions. I don’t work with people who run their mouths faster than they can run.” For a gangster he sure does know a lot more than just the killing, drugs and gambling you’d expect back home, a tattoo gun gripped in his hand as he swabs the patch of skin Yeonjun ordered to be inked with their mark. “It’ll fade once I’m done with my role won’t it?” You’re already associated to a convict, it’s not preferable to be linked to a gang too.

His workroom is nothing short of a rundown shack— less exquisite in taste compared to the gambling headquarters Beomgyu, with the smudged eyeliner, frequents down a couple alleyways. There’s a blend of security in the bulletproof drywalls and the hesitancy of the countless rifles and handguns scattered over the concrete floor in piles alongside Cuban cigarette butts and liquor bottles discarded of lazily. Cheap liquor, that you’d find yourself bringing back to Humphrey on the days he refused to eat for you to stay plump and healthy, even gangsters with wads of stolen cash prefer the taste of a rushed high.

Needles eject dark ink on the skin of your back. Stings like a motherfucker. But any winces you let out might annoy Taehyun into equipping his hands with the boxcutter in his pocket, and you can never really know what gangsters are thinking in the moment but it’s never heartwarming nor pleasant to figure out. But a question plucks at your hair repeatedly, itching to ask him why he’d choose this path when he’d be better off inking beautiful designs onto soft skin for life, a possible crossing over an invisible boundary you shouldn’t step in but you do.

“Why choose to become part of a gang? I don’t understand.” The buzz of the machine halts and you bite on your tongue knowing you’ve done exactly what you knew you shouldn’t have; push Taehyun’s buttons.

“Eternally’s an organisation. A criminal one I’ll admit because it’s not a run-of-the-mill job, but it’s nothing like those ParadoXXX kids who go around spinning knives because they’ve got their affluent fathers to pay the fines and bribe the authorities for them. They think it’s impressive to be involved in this kind of life not knowing the reality of it— outside of these streets they’re nobodies without their guns. It’s only so far that their teenage knuckles can fend off a dozen bullets before their nails are digging into the soil.” Taehyun leans back in his seat; a cigarette pulled from a fresh white pack which slots between his lips like a puzzle, letting his own unclear thoughts fade into the smoke that blows a diaphanous grey under the dim overhead bulb’s lighting.

“Eternally’s not like that. None of us chose to follow down this obvious dead-end but where else can we run to when the world’s shut all it’s doors on us, except the gateway to hell at the cost of nothing compared to the gateway of Heaven that costs everything we can’t afford. It’s easier to sin than pretend to be some sort of Solomon and I’m fine with that. You can curse me in front of my face all you want—I can’t deny that we’re terrible people. We still kill, we steal, we do all kinds of messed up shit that would land us in the chair. What’s there to be proud of?” The drag of his cigarette is longer this time, a large exhale falling from his lips as he rests his eyes, blonde ends falling into place to cover them with the lean back of his head.

“I ran away from home at 17. Stupid, but this is the most freedom I’ve had since. My old man’s a politician, started sleazing around with his secretary and was caught. Got a divorce not long after and I was already on my one-way ticket to live with my mother. She was never in the right mental state to try be a mother to me despite what she pleaded in the eyes of the law; I’d often find her whispering that man’s name for nights on end, sleepwalking, begging, crying. It was when she held the knife she used for that night’s stew right at me during one of her manic episodes that I decided to leave. Mistook me for all I was known for; my father who I take after and her expression from that night still haunts me. I can smoke and take these drugs all I want to lose my train of thought but I can’t forget those eyes because they see something in me that I can’t get rid of. They see some sort of beast that I have to force myself to live with for the rest of my descending life. I met Yeonjun after a quick taxi ride with a stolen credit card. He was born in these very slums and never learnt proper manners, his home was often the target of thugs and so he had to learn how to defend himself early on and eventually the rest were all taken in by him at their lowest to form Eternally. He’s morally not a good man by any means but I owe my life to him in these gritty edges of Alton. And now I’ve let my mouth go on a tangent. The etch is basically done just let it set. There’s also blood stuck to your hair, Soobin’s not the best at patching up.”

The shut of the male’s eyes as he basks in the heat of the smoke is your sign to leave the room even if you wanted to say a couple more words; offer him a part of you to soothe the hurt you both share. Though at the end of the day he’s still a criminal. One that you shouldn’t get deeply involved with at that, so you stand at the exit leading back to the even longer concrete tunnel to say something at least.

“Sorry if I pushed you too far.”

You’ve grown to learn a lot of things as Eternally’s decoy. That really this isn’t an escape from home but merely just a substitute for it. Children in the alleyways scatter and play games of hide-and-seek from dusk to dawn when their melancholy mothers can’t find the heart in them to listen to the nagging and pleads of their starved children. In fact it’s probably common for them to wish that their children don’t return from their ventures out in the alleyways—one less stomach to feed for these unaspiring mothers that spend their days glancing outside the windows of brick walls and missing posters while they daydream of marigold fields and a diamond wedding ring. You learnt that from Beomgyu, one of the unlucky ducklings to have been on the receiving end of his mother’s flower picking.

Earth is bigoted in the favour of those who’ve never had to lay a finger to live somewhat comfortably. The group that the unfortunate envy the most aren’t the elite who interchange between million dollar cars every weekend but the people who live under the safe blanket of normality; a dream that’s not far to achieve in comparison to the conglomerates but an impossible feat for the slums where you can barely make a name for yourself outside of crime.

The same news channels play on the same outdated television screens here. Reporters and politicians cry and lament at the cruelty of deprivation in their skyrise buildings and penthouses while their carefully planned speeches reach the hearts of the already wealthy than touch your reality.

You may pour all your blood, sweat and tears kissing the feet of statues knelt in prayer to ask for a chance and you’ll be offered the grace of a couple blessings in your name for good health and a prospering life that will never be fulfilled, but you’ll never be exempt of the blasphemous features on your face derived from your father, no matter how much you pray.

The next time you’re to see Taehyun is late this afternoon when he’s come back from his robbery stunt on the high street with Kai, neither of you exchanged words since the conversation but your mind reflects back on it more than you’d like. Both of you are in this turmoil of a flaw neither of you can fix, a product of faces you don’t want to recognise; and here you are following in the footsteps of a criminal, guess bad seeds will always be rotten to the core.

“Adjusting well down here? It’s not the best but it’s better than anything.” Soobin chews on the loaf of bread he stole from a small beginner’s bakery, the food pushed to the side of his cheek blowing in disproportion to the other while he rolls a blunt stuffed with clusters of flaked green with careful hands. “It’s no different to where I came from. Slums can’t really get any more different when they’re all lacking in the same things.”

“I didn’t understand a single word of what you just said but I’m guessing it’s smart, you and Taehyun would work well together.” Beomgyu outstretches his legs in the discomfort of his seat, pulling out a deck of cards with a whistling tune from his pursed lips that he slams onto the table. “You know how to gamble little-one?”

“She’s not gambling with any cheaters like you.” That melodic voice you recognise— Taehyun’s back earlier than expected, a backpack of stolen goods filled with luxurious pastries you’d never dream of touching your tongue wrapped in pink ribbon packaging as he dumped them upside down onto the small table. “Awh— what a bore. I was looking forward to winning!” Beomgyu snags a couple of pastries for himself…more than a couple, gathered in his arms as he wipes the drool leaking from lips.

It's hard to believe that any of them are capable of stabbing a foe in cold blood— excluding Kai. Despite the sweet smile that plays on his lips you caught him dragging a corpse beaten beyond recognition inside one of the many storage rooms you’re forbidden from entering. He churns your stomach grotesquely with his wolf in sheep’s clothing act, and you find it more difficult than anything to return a smile when all your head can trace back to is the unreadable sunken look in his authentic eyes.

“You shouldn’t be smoking a blunt in front of her Soobin. She’s not one of us, don’t let her pick up on bad habits.” A thoughtful gesture it is however, you’re unhappy that you’re being outcasted in this little clique of theirs. You truly didn’t belong anywhere, even with the bloodiest of criminals and that sticks in the back of your head without you even noticing. Better than them or unworthy of their brotherhood your 3 days of staying at Eternally’s base hasn’t earnt you, you’re not quite sure.

“You’re coming with me today. Tabs on Sunghoon says he’ll be by the brothels looking for you— there’s a reason he’s dropped you off on this side of town and you’re bound to see a lot of shit you won’t like. But you have to suck it up or else I’ll have to finish you off without their help.” Trailing behind him with a bowed head you spot the splatter of crimson staining the back of his shoe, fresh blood. He’s been up to more than just stealing. But it’s not unusual for a criminal to lie and you’re in no position to pry him further about it as you tread down dingy hallways into Yeonjun’s private lounge.

Inside is lavish; velvet fitted couches, a small island table stacked with barely sipped champagne and tiled walls framed with expensive art that doesn’t suit to your taste but flattering amongst the gold detailing of the ceiling. The male sinks back into his seat with a woman climbed over his lap sucking maroon love bites down his neck as he grips the plush of her ass through satin fabric, a sight that flusters you to witness but you can’t take your eyes off of them.

“Be a darling and wait outside for me,” Picking up her heels the woman leaves in a hurry so her face can’t be seen by the two of you waiting at the door out of shame. Two fingers beckon you forward and suddenly the weight of your feet start to drag from their spot by the door, sweat pearling at your forehead under Yeonjun’s gaze you can’t familiarise yourself with. “Homer’s. ParadoXXX are headed to that brothel most likely in search of you— they don’t think very highly of us do they? Thinking we sold you off to a lair like that…if we really did want to send you off elsewhere I’d at least put you in better hands at Bridleway.” He stumps the butt of his cigarette onto an ashy tray filled with mounts of nicotine-depleted cigars— ashes flitting into the air as he does so.

“Open fire tonight?” The terminologies exchanged between the two men don’t click in your head yet you can make out the severity of what they’re planning from their sinister tones and how Taehyun’s eyes slender with deep thought. “Open fire outside of the brothel, I don’t want to visit on Sunday with bullet holes in the window. Though If you see Heeseung don’t hesitate to shoot that fucker in the head,” Yeonjun inspects the glass of champagne before drinking it in heavy gulps with a red starting to blush over his face, “I expect nothing less of you brother, so little one, it’s on you to bring back a dead man for me.” His chuckles spill in your ears like gasoline and burns with a sinister flame as he orders the two of you out, waving for you to shower before you appear so you can play the role of an actual hostess there and not the woman who cleans the fluids of the aftermath.

You strip yourself of your borrowed clothes— Humphrey’s old zip up in the wash while your threaded shorts were discarded in a disorderly matter by the community-built landfill down one of those sketchy alleyways. Warm water tickles the goosebumps leftover from Yeonjun’s peptalk and cascades down the dip of your chest in one smooth stream; a long time since you last had a warm shower after a good few years of winter lakes poured over your body. Lost in the feeling of the comforting droplets of water you imagine it to be similar to the warmth of an arm you’re yet to experience since your life turned for the worse at 16, humming loudly in your head to the point you don’t notice the click of the door as it creaks open.

“Nice humming little-one but we don’t have time for rubber duck baths—”

“Oh my god !! Get out!” Forgetting the dangerous capabilities of the criminal standing by the door you launch a vanilla-scented bar of soap at Taehyun who catches it amusedly with his unoccupied hand. “I’ve seen it all at the brothel we’re headed to so don’t bother feeling shameful when you’re being housed by criminals this very moment.” Despite his words your hands refuse to leave your chest and between your thighs— at the end of the day he’s still a man and Humphrey’s taught you to be careful around guys like Taehyun, even if they offer you the sweetest apple their forbidden souls can bear.

“The clothes of the prostitute from earlier. Consider it somewhat of a gift from Yeonjun. Said she wouldn’t need them by the end anyway.” Taehyun drawls out the repetition of his leader’s words with a drawl, his lips curved into a smirk as he drinks in your embarrassed state. And as unexpectedly as he walked in, he walked right back out to let you finish your shower cut short, disappearing into the hallways you’ll struggle to find him in later.

Meanwhile on the highway of the city’s fastest roads, a male with cherry red hair glowers at the mirror of his driver’s car, knuckles decorated with brass clenched tight into an agitated fist that slams at the window in heated fury that shakes the vehicle vigorously.

“Fucking idiot Sunghoon. What does he think he’s doing sending off that man’s daughter into that manwhore’s hands?” His voice is crisp and an octave lower that activates a trembling mechanism in his driver’s hands that start to swivel at the steering wheel.

“Hoon reassured us that Yeonjun wouldn’t be interested in her, he handed her the ring in hopes that she’d find the brothel to exchange it for some food and drink. Knocked out cold by the littlest on of their crew apparently but she was left on those very streets in front of the brothel just like that.” The blonde coughs in hopes that he’d relieve his boss’ lament, turning on the air conditioning a little stronger to cool off the hot-headedness radiating form the backseat.

“They better have left her at that damn brothel. I want to be the one she pleads for mercy at the hands of my gun, not his weaklings.”

“Say she isn’t at the brothel, you have a reason to pick a bone with Choi for toying with what’s yours Heeseung, it’s not a bad idea.”

“Not a bad idea at all, Jake.”

At the latest hours of night passing into morning, the Brothel is bustling in splendid business as men unzip the fly of their naturally ripped jeans upon entering. Homer’s was discreetly hidden behind a rusted door down one of the various alleys you’d find yourself hopelessly lost in, swamped in poorly done graffiti by the hands of teens who’ve never had the privilege to learn and dumpsters that overrode the streets with decay and rot.

The city held its breath as the two of you entered separately to fulfil your designated roles— you’re supposed to encounter a handful of ParadoXXX tonight in your sleek silk dress snatched off the prostitute and the deadly pigment of danger on your lips; all you need to do is lure them into the booth Taehyun’s in, and he’ll handle it from there.

Walking down the stairwell that led to the brothel acted as a final warning that you wouldn’t return back to those streets anytime soon. Down in this choking mix of cigarette smoke where morality hung stale in the air it’s far more shielded with the gang-prevalent back streets than the leering of the rapacious men slouched in velvet-padded booths.

Obscenities are shared in a network branched with bullet-stocked briefcases, dirtied with smuggled stacks of cash that’ll diminish throughout the night, and laced with fine white powder divided into lines. Red lanterns hung low from the ceiling; heavily burdened by the weight of wrongdoing and fractured conscience of those who dared to quench the devil’s thirst, pools of seductive lighting casting over the silhouettes of bare bodies.

Stationed by the bar is a male tailored in a black suit stained with whiskey. Sweat lined under his collar and eyeing your movement towards him with hostility. The last thing you’d want in this faultless plan is for the bartender to run his mouth like the cheap alcohol he pours in front of bottles of luxury imported wine robbed from the port— he doesn’t recognise you as one of the prostitutes slack with dull eyes, so you slide across the counter an envelope emblemed with the three rotating crosses matching the temporary tattoo on your back. A wordless conversation but it seems as though he’s understood your request— the emblem is enough to keep him quiet for the rest of his days if he values his own life, and hence he permits you to linger around the bar, swirling a quarter-drunk shot in your hand.

Taehyun is situated in the upper level of the collapsing brothel— a balcony view of where you were stood as a woman stripped down to her only pair of inexpensive lingerie beside him; running her sharp nails along his tatted-arm of words she never learnt to read. Clutched in his hand is the pistol he refined for hours in the workroom. Too small for a scope but his hands were sculpted to fit seamlessly to the trigger and grip with professionalism, and when he’s focused he’ll never miss a shot. In ten minutes Beomgyu and Kai are expected to be armed with their own dreadful guns and a unit of knives at the back entrance with a few underlings; you’ll lure ParadoXXX outside and he’ll find himself busy on gathering the intel from the bartender within that slot. By the end of tonight he’ll leave with one of their heads laid in a gift basket of the prettiest flowers for Lee Heeseung the next day— or a gift basket of Lee Heeseung’s head to his rodents, an option Taehyun smiles widely at.

“New face around town? Didn’t know your boss was hiring, Doyoung.” You lock eyes with softly curved ones, brown and glinting but even the illiterate can read between the lines of his intentions; the true epitome of looks can kill locked into the strands of his cherry-red tuft complementary to the wine in his hand— and the speck of blood you can’t draw your eyes from on his cheekbone that he rids of in one smooth swipe and a full teeth smile. Jaeyun shifts his weight onto one leg behind the man, diverting his attention onto the brothel’s interior as if it’s his first time in dirty business like this— nice act Sim.

Expensive pinewood cologne wafts from the jacket hung on his shoulders and the golden tooth snug where his canine should be gleams with radiance. Savagery exudes from every feature of his— not the murderous intent you felt when you were held at gun and knifepoint by Eternally, no, this was by far more extreme. This cherry-red male’s ideal torment is far worse than a slash and run, like he’s trying to reap your very soul with his eyes alone. This is it, a member of PardoXXX far different to the shuttlebus driver and Jaeyun and suddenly you’re not quite sure if you can fulfil your role without stammering the script under his gaze.

“We found her outside the brothel with a gash to her head. Doesn’t remember a thing she says, not even her name.” Taehyun and you hold your breath watching the bartender follow the script of the envelope but standing face to face with this man is no different to facing your conscience— the kind of well-crafted smile that renders it difficult to lie because he knows the truth already. The shorter male widens his eyes in shock to the sudden turn of events as he extends a hand to grip around the cherry-red’s in hopes to please the irk on his face. Sim Jaeyun’s betrayed you once more with void and shallow promises one after the other. The two of you may be warm in this body-heat insulated room. Yet neither of you can help the cold breeze from young sixteen, nor the solemn park’s mulch that blows over the last remaining building blocks of trust you wish you could confide in the vessel of the peace-mongering boy years ago.

“You were given a ruby ring by one of my drivers, it’s mine, left by mistake so if you could be ever so lovel—“

“Ruby ring? If I had one I’d be far from this side of Alton, you’re funny Mister.” It’s hard to play dumb when you’re trying to maintain a level of eye contact not too observant but not too avoiding either in front of a man like this, and it doesn’t help that you’re repeatedly taking sips from your shot to calm down your nerves. Unamused laughs fall dead on his lips that fail to ease your panic; the opposite effect taking place when he turns the wine glass on its side, letting viscous red wine soak the floor he walks on with bloodlust as he leans to whisper into your ear.

Taehyun’s not supposed to open fire at Homer’s tonight, he’s not supposed to have the gun fully loaded and aimed from up at the balcony like it is at the moment when you’re merely conversing with Lee Heeseung as you were instructed. The prostitute kisses down the bulging vein in his neck down to the pecs of his torso similar to the seduction of a siren— a thumb pressed to the tent of his pants that he pushes away when he notices the gangster getting too fucking close to what’s not even his. He curses under his breath with sourness that can’t be called jealousy but can’t go unlabelled with how his arm twitches to hold back from shooting the prying male in the head, splattering his fucked mind in a crime scene of cherry-red just how he likes it.

“Does Lee Min-hyung ring a bell?”

Blood runs cold in your sweaty palms, eyes tense with shock and your voice lost in the unearthing of memories you ought to conceal; memories that you desire to forget over cherishing them.

Lee Min-hyung. Notorious in the underground world of loans sharks— never behind on repayments mainly because he’d put himself through any dirty means to get to it and that’s what would’ve led him to his ill-fated demise by the hands of your guilt-ridden rather. You can cleanse yourself of your name, replace the rags you wear with the softest silk and powder your face smooth of blemishes and like a magnet you’ll be tied back to your father, even in Alton miles from home. The deadliest drug of thoughts you could lose yourself in— and all of it’s resurfacing in a room where you stand in the spotlight. Or more so the centre stage of a criminal court in a room of predatory eyes and it wretches your stomach like the reopening of a stitched wound. Because this man knows the faulty genes encoded into your DNA and the impurity of man’s tendency to sin that flows a whole ocean stronger in your blood than anyone else, and for a second you stop breathing.

“Fucking wench, I knew it.”

Bang! —

Two to three gunshots fire at a small chandelier that splinters into the crystalline tears of the woeful prostitutes marked with disdainful hands and you don’t have to look up at the balcony to see the gun in Taehyun’s hands to know the bullets were his doing. There’s only so much will you have to survive and you won’t let yourself stand idle for Heeseung to have the pleasure of your body limp in his arms while he’s concerned with the sudden gunfire, and the bullet-glass mess dented into the floor.

“Heeseung she’s ran off—”

“Eternally, fuck! Only that runaway bastard has designed bullets.”

The heel under the pressure of your foot snaps as you make a run for the back door, your ankle twists and contorts at each limped step but you need to get as far as where Beomgyu and Kai are, by the alleyway that leads back to the base but your head is muddled, overflooded with the replay of his looming words like he’s subject you to a curse that can’t be lifted with the remorse you offer in place of your father. Left onto the road where Marley’s butchers is, take a right onto the alleyway with posters— or was it left...Taehyun said something about posters and you saw them back there— God, you can’t remember the escape route you spent a whole afternoon revising like you’ve known these streets your whole life. The rampage of footsteps behind you are ear-splitting war cries and you can’t help the tears that spill knowing you’re finished without a route to take and armed with nothing but fists. And if a gang like ParadoXXX are nobodies with their fists then you must have been taken out of the survey in the events that you’ve been mangled in the same nature Humphrey was.

And fuck, you just fall to your knees in pitiful sobs when you run into a large torso knowing this is it. You’ve fallen victim to a man who’s set a bounty for your head on a pike in vengeance for someone you’ve never met— an undistinguishable fire that’s being taken out on you instead of the man in the cell responsible for your miserable living.

“Please— sniff, I have nothing to do with Lee Min-Hyung—”

“You’re getting snot everywhere, take off your heels they’re catching up any second now.” Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid, always getting caught in a mistake when you’re in his presence. You were never capable of delving yourself into this kind of work, not like Taehyun who knows his ins-and-outs of this flipside city that you’re just hostage in as he swerves you through alleyway to alleyway in this maze of brick and sleeping beggars. But even the most familiar paths can close in on you at any given moment, and it’s a real pain to see that the black Porshe custom-plated J4KE PDX stands blocked at the road ahead.

“Jungwon! They went that way— Heeseung’s headed back already.”

Blonde-dyed ends appear grey in the pollution of the city when Taehyun holds your head to his chest with his tatted-arms; scarred and defined with muscle that flexes as he rolls you behind the cover of the wall leading to a dead-end.

“Taehyun— hic— sorry I swear—”

“Shh. Stop crying. It disgusts me.” Disgusts him because the prominent voice out of the millions inside of his head wants to beg for the tears balancing in your watery eyes to fall and stain your cheeks their natural hue through the sticky-mess of your concealer. He relishes in it, how your lips quiver and hyperventilate with emotion that makes his erection twitch with gross excitement; so vulnerable, needy. You just need someone to hold and cry on— and he can play the nice guy if it meant he could get a taste of the purest sin he can get his hands on. If it meant that he could tarnish you with grime by having you tonight, a disgusting fantasy in his twisted head that he can’t blame his psychotic mother for nor the criminal life he leads but his own skin, blood and flesh that fucking loves it like some sick creep when you cry for his help at the thump of footsteps getting closer.

“Get on your knees and suck me off. Trust me on this one, baby.” You think he’s gone insane, lost his mind even— that this is the only thing he can think of in the moment when men armed with all sorts of illegal weapons are inching closer for your throats with no intention of holding back. Yet your brain and heart clash in opposition, you know it’s no good where this is headed. You’ve seen it before on the late night channels on TV on the chance that Humphrey would be asleep; sex, you never dared to cross that line— not with the plugs in the street nor the thieves that would get the whole neighbourhood pregnant. But you actually fucking considered it for Taehyun who’s not any different to the grubby men in the brothel and their vile requests, on top of the numerous lives lost to the very hands that hold you, that in your brain and soul you should despise because he’s killed more than your father ever has dirtied his hands with, but you can’t despise the attraction you have of breaking the rules just this time. Just testing the waters, there’s no one who’ll look at you any nastier for wanting a piece, after all you’re both two squashed peas in a pod; runaways, a stone-hearted killer and the daughter of one, like it’s fate that the only choices life had delegated to you were each other.

Don’t know whether it was the lust in the way he peered down at your tear-blurred eyes to have you following your heart as your knees make contact with the ridges of beer-stained pavement. Or if it was the nickname that eased the nausea in your stomach for even a moment, the first time he’s addressed you anything close to warm; and you hold on to it as you unzip the fly of his black jeans, even if it was empty of sincerity.

“Jake go down that alleyway I’ll search this one!” Even if you’ve watched a couple scenes on the TV that’s nowhere near enough to prepare you for the reality of it. He’s thick, a bit too thick for what you thought was ‘big’ on screen, and he hisses when you feel around the weight of it in your hands—contemplating whether you really could bring yourself to slot him on your tongue when he’s already starting to drag on your hand.

Maybe you should contemplate this later because Taehyun doesn’t want to rush you into it, that’s not his style of fucking, but Yang Jungwon’s getting awfully close. And if he wants this little stunt to work then he can’t have you staring up at him dumbly with his dick helpless in your hands, even if he likes the look of your eyes brimming with more tears worrying about how to even suck him off to begin with. So he spreads apart your amateur lips, preparing to graze your teeth on the sensitive skin, with a gun-powdered thumb. Instant and unprepared, Taehyun bucks his hips into the warm cave of your mouth. Lewd gagging of your virgin throat more raw than any of the artificial moans brewed by the women down in the brothel as he holds the back of your head to guide you along the stretch whilst also putting on a show.

A show that needs to be messy, filthy and looks nothing more or less of a heated quickie as he bunches your hair in his hands— fervorous as globs of spit leaked into the mix of fluids on damp ground beneath you. A sight to behold especially for the blonde who runs towards the dead end you’re gagged to Taehyun’s balls in.

“Found th— agh! Get a room, shit!” He doesn’t even spare you a second glance with covered eyes, running back down the alleyway he entered to find his partner in crime— a risky idea with no guarantee, but the soft breaths and murmurs of a calm Taehyun rocks your head away from the thought of it all. Your nose is still touching his pelvis minutes after the gang member leaves, and Taehyun knows it’s wrong. There’s no reason for him to still be caressing your tear-stained cheeks as he pushes his dick further down your coarse throat; it’s an act that’s supposed to break out of character the moment the audience leaves, and yet he holds you in position for a second longer than he should.

You cough and choke around the intake of air once he pulls out hastily; harsh and distasteful on the sore of your tongue. Gripped hands loosen the hold on your hair with the regret of unholiness engrained into the fingerprints that wipe needless tears away. The criminal doesn’t say a word, basking in mute you couldn’t fathom as he averts his eyes to the city skylines barely visible above the moss-covered walls of these slums; in thought of something you can’t read by the monotony of his face and can’t see on the flick of his wrist that prepares to lift up the bunched jeans back up his hips.

“Taehyun you…you haven’t finished.” It’s indescribable why you seek his touch again, a poor reason to feel the taste of Asmodeus on your tongue, have his amoral hands fondle your blemished skin with even more blemished hands bruised and battered with the soul-stirring cries of his victims on the other side of the muzzle. Exactly who you’d hate to be, Kang Taehyun is. Nevertheless you want to melt into his inked skin and the heat of his touch not of love but desire. You want the sting of your hair interweaved between his fingers that tug at your scalp with a pain that doesn’t burn like the irrational rancour of the neighbours— it’s sweet, sensual and itches the roof of your mouth to utter soft moans.

“Never heard of someone who wants to make a criminal cum. Are you sure that’s what you want,baby?” There it is again. Purrs from non-sacred lips that stir the most immoral of emotions in your heart that races with a steeply increasing pulse. There’s no reason nor joy that he gains from using those loving nicknames that reign foreign in his profanity-filled mouth— he doesn’t have to extend the act when ParadoXXX are miles away in the opposite direction of you, but he does.

So you open your mouth wider than any of the orifices in your stake impaled wounds of prejudice, for him to fill. For him to neutralise the toxin of the redhead’s words, the truth you’ve been concealing, with his lies embedded into unaffectionate coitus you’ll suffice with pretending is real for now.

Guttural moans coveted deep under his remaining conscience pour in a low voice as he sheathes himself into the warmth of your amateur mouth that only knows to suck with no real technique. Taehyun wants to mould your virgin throat to fit the fruit he grows from his bad seed, he wants to be the one to teach you the forbidden sermons of the devil’s book you were never meant to encounter. You don’t belong in their lair of outcasts— but he’ll make it happen the moment he marks you fucking his.

“Don’t use your teeth, relax your throat if you want to suck me off properly.” You trace the veins of his shaft with an inexperienced tongue and pursed lips; painfully slow with adjusting to his girth that makes it impossible to not have your teeth graze him in the slightest. And the criminal’s not as patient of a man as he portrays especially when your eyebrows are knit with concentration trying to redeem yourself with his advice because it doesn’t take him much to hold your jaw still with vice-like fingers. He ruts into your mouth like he has places to be instead of wasting his time on these lone streets with you, hot and feverish as you yelp at the sudden change in rhythmic slapping of his pelvis to your drool painted chin. It’s like he’s purposely rushing to chase an orgasm with how rough each spit slathered thrust is to your aching jaw, starting to hurt from the strain and the soft sponge at the back of your throat he continues to ram into relentlessly. Sharp spikes of pleasure-filled pain mix the logic of your brain as rinsed tears start to form again— tears that could arise a bucketload of his cum if he dwelled on it too much because he loves the nastiness of it and the dubious essence of pain and lustful crying.

Easily, he could find himself in any impoverished family’s home with a rifle as he drinks in the saline of their crocodile tears and the scanty bills in their hands, he can go further than making them cry and it still wouldn’t satiate the compulsion to be dominant and righteous in a world that’s oppressed him long before the fighting and the drugs. Not like your tears do.

He'll bathe you in the very felonies he drowns in. He’ll teach you the ropes of how to smoke, drink, how to wield a gun. He’ll teach you how to kiss, how to ride him, and at the end of it all when he’s tired, he’ll teach you how to leave— leave like his mother had because you should have known from the start that this was bound to happen, and you should have stopped him before it got too far.

Because fuck morals when they’ve been broken to persecute you, and fuck morals when they never existed to Taehyun’s father in the first place.

Your undignified moans pulse around his tip, hands clawing with desperate pleas at the belt of his jeans, and god when you look at him so powerlessly as he shuts your wails with the stuffing of his cock, he pulls you off of him with a pop! — Letting his seed coat the rich satin dress you bore and now have to explain the stain for later.

What follows next is a shared mutual quiet that lingers thick in the smell of sex. An unspoken agreement that this wasn’t supposed to happen— a foolish mistake neither of you should repeat but both crave for. His jeans are pulled up as fast as he wants to leave from dealing with the shame that overcomes you in rippling waves, phone in hand and dialling a number that picks up in a state of bickering and anger.

“Beomgyu and Kai are waiting for us at Ashbrook. And don’t mention this to any of them.”

Humphrey had taught you this lesson that always failed to stick in your head. Pushovers are the true lowest of the low in society, you won’t get any higher if you let everyone else step all over you. And it still doesn’t stick. Because you don’t want to ask for Taehyun to tend to the heat in your stomach and touch you like how the actors do on those highly exaggerated shows on TV. You want him to initiate it, but with every shallow action and look you’re more than aware you’re in no position to ask him for it— criminals wouldn’t risk the sentence if they really had cared for anyone but themselves.

“Fuck you Kang Taehyun. I was supposed to be back by twelve after dealing with Sunghoon.” Beomgyu cusses from the driver’s seat with invisible steam huffing out of his nose and both hands gripped so tight on the steering wheel they leave imprints on the leather; the angriest you’ve seen him so far but do bare in mind that he can’t be happy go lucky all the time with both body counts under his belt. “Heeseung sped off onto the highway before we got here. What a mission this has been for the dream-team.” Sarcasm that you don’t want to retort to stifles heavily in the car and Taehyun’s not one to argue either, instead leaning over to the centre console to dig for a small bag of rolled-up blunts to smoke.

“No hotboxing in my car. This baby’s brand new.” Beomgyu attempts to swat a hand behind his seat at Taehyun but gives up with a grunt the moment he hears the lighter click in the backseat. Kai only laughs heartily riding shotgun, a black bag he unzips filled with wads of cash you couldn’t count but if you did you’d estimate it to be in the hundred thousands. “I had quite the successful heist today— ay? ParadoXXX’s treasurer isn’t the brightest at keeping their funds safe. 700k upfront. That’ll save you from YJ’s earful. Give me a hit hyung.”

You watch with intrigue as Taehyun hums in approval upon hearing the youngest’s feat, propping up from his seat and passing the blunt in a shaking motion to urge Kai to take it from his hands. “So, what went wrong in the first place?”

Nobody outwardly points fingers or glances at you but you can tell they’re not suspecting Taehyun who’s never emerged on the losing end of raids before. Excuses don’t come to you easily and words strangle in your throat in the exact manner Heeseung, as you’ve learnt it, had when he unearthed the roots you’ve been burying since the police knocked on your door.

“That’s a conversation for later. Do you wanna try little-one?” Like some childish high school crush you tense at how observant Taehyun is towards the uncomfortable twiddling of your fingers trying to find a believable lie. The blunt is passed back to the split-blonde beside you from Kai, a raised eyebrow and a slightly outstretched hand to pass you the small roll. Bad for your health. Bad for you. But you watch the way Taehyun exhales the smoke smoothly, how his eyes close shut in relaxation as if he’s been transported to another world. And you want that high that’ll distract you from the chaos of this life you wish you could start anew, with a strong headed mind which’ll beg for you to not make this exact decision months down the line when the drugs aren’t just an escape but another hole you’ve dug yourself into.

Novice lips wrap around the blunt that Taehyun holds onto. Not quite sure what you’re supposed to do except copy how he had inhaled effortlessly, though you’re not close to perfecting it at all with inexperience coughing out of your lungs that shakes the car with laughter. “Come on hyung, teach her properly if you’re gonna hotbox.”

“I was planning to but someone’s eager to become every parent’s nightmare tonight,” The embarrassment that crashes down on you is comical; you got too ahead of yourself again. The male sat next to you turns your head with the finger pad of his index, staring directly into your expectant eyes that scan each movement of his hand as it positions the blunt to your lips. “Slow inhales, you’ll choke if you rush into it like just now for your first time.” Taehyun guides you through it, smoking weed. It’s a short-lasting euphoria that runs through your veins. Lightweight limbs that don’t carry the heap of your father’s responsibility, a head that becomes clouded with the comforting gale slipping through the window instead of the memories of Humphrey; losing yourself slowly in the backseat until you truthfully couldn’t remember your name nor the two men in front of you, tunnel vision through slitted eyes focused solely on the lips of Kang Taehyun.

He's a temporary escape stronger than drugs.

Gives you a high that weed can’t reenact when you’re with him.

Shots of cigar-dipped whiskey spills with impatience on to floors withholding the mass of fury circulating the room. Classical music belonging in the landscape of farmhouse manors screeches on the vinyl player; distorting the mood of Yeonjun’s lounge into an extra burden of regret that should’ve never been lifted from yours onto Taehyun’s shoulders. Broken glass as rigid and sharp as his stare dispersed onto the carpet and pierced through bare feet that Taehyun trudged with towards the preceding storm.

Navy tweed suits couldn’t disguise the coiled violence beneath. His head balanced on a glass cut-finger that trickles with runny red— a leg kicked up over the other bouncing with restlessness. Yeonjun’s not the kind to dwell on limited relationships that will only be dead weight to what he wants to achieve, and if he wants a bursary to pay for the younger’s poor hindsight then Taehyun shouldn’t be appalled walking out of the lounge with a single eye.

“What did I say about gunfire inside of Homer’s?” Words caught in Taehyun’s throat refused to speak, hammered in by the faucet of vitriol soiling his leader’s lips, “Damnit! — You’ve never been so reckless before, never strayed from my instructions once. I told you no gunfire unless it’s Lee Heeseung and you fucking shot the chandelier— and don’t play stupid with me Kang Taehyun you don’t just call that poor aim, not when it comes to you.”

“If I fired at him she could’ve been shot. That bastard’s snea—”

“Shoot her then. What does she matter to us? You never thought twice about strangling your old man. You didn’t flinch when you first shot a gun, but you wanna draw the line with some bitch you met 3 days ago? Since when did you get so weak Kang Taehyun— I picked your ass off those streets for bloodshed, not for you to play Angel Simon.” A cigarette is lit alight with wrath alone, the smoke a ghastly blanket to cover the younger’s winces, its ashes fall crisp with dead expectations. “I misunderstood, thought she was important to the ParadoXXX raid.”

“Quit the bullshit Taehyun. We’re goddamn outcasts there’s no one important to us nor the raid but ourselves. You think if she wasn’t held at gunpoint she’d be kissing your ass like she gives a shit where you end up? Would she hesitate to pfew! you in the head?” Yeonjun mimics the thought with a cigarette-embedded finger gun blown up into hysterical laughter. “Lee Heeseung. He’s related to that girl, someway somehow. And I’m not fucking having this alliance like yesterday— like you both want to fuck her, pussying your guns like that. Did the brothels get too boring? Do you want to start fucking holes Jongseong’s already found himself in? Don’t make me laugh Taehyun.”

Does he care what happens to you? Not at all. But yeah, he does want to fuck you. He wants to see the tears that make his dick throb with vulgarity Yeonjun couldn’t compare to with his roster of prostitutes. Doesn’t matter if ParadoXXX got to you first, he’s not picky, he was never one to have the privilege to deny leftovers to begin with.

“Then laugh.” Black slicked hair loses poise and falls loose in strands, hysterical laughter dying down in shock on an open canvas of the male’s face. Taehyun’s never opposed his words directly because he knows the lengths Yeonjun will go— he’s seen it happen to sweet sweet Kai over the years; the burns. Any appetite for the nicotine-rush is lost within seconds, finding the end of its lifetime on the hardened skin of Taehyun’s bicep, the flame put out within seconds but the burn of it everlasting. Blistered, burning and sore seemed like an overstatement for his reaction; drawing blood from his lips and a restrained throat that didn’t peep a single grunt. He doesn’t want to look weak in front of Yeonjun but he’ll settle with baring the burn before his mind turns to the pistol in his back pocket.

“It’s good to see you still know to look strong. But I don’t want to hear of this from you again— Kai’s learning quite fast isn’t he? 700k in cash and everyone used to look down on him, it looks like he’ll be the one to look down on you soon, hah. You know I love you like a brother Taehyun, but we don’t share a single drop of sinister blood. And we were taught before we could even speak that blood runs thicker than water.”

The walk to Soobin’s patch-up room is longer than Taehyun remembers. He hisses at the after shock of the burn’s flare, only the circumference of a cigarette butt yet he finds it more difficult to supress his grunts compared to any other bullet or stab wound covered in inked designs. Because this time it’s Yeonjun’s doing, and ironically enough he was the one to save him, when all Taehyun’s head can reel of right now is the gun in the back pocket and the chains of what-ifs?

Unexpected, you were. Dangling your feet off the edge of the nursing bed in place of Soobin who’s nowhere to be found among the shelves of bottled pills and painkillers mixed with stocks of ecstasy. Just you as the focus in a landscape of dull white and sheets stained with blood that can’t be washed, quiet and behaved as you stare at him walk through the door with wide eyes.

“Soobin?”

“He’s out to deal some stuff in another city. I was told to wait here until he got back.” It’s cute how oblivious you are to it all. You’d be here all night for him to put a flimsy plaster on if you really waited for him to return on the days he’s out visiting his girlfriend in prison. “Do you know how to use a med-kit?”

He likes the way your eyes widen with worry over something you’ll never understand, dressed in a pure white gown that clings and sits tightly to form another layer of skin. You don’t know how to treat a burn, if you did you wouldn’t be gagging at the sight of the blistered lump on his arm.

“I—I mean I can try…that wasn’t there earlier.”

Taehyun hums as he drops the heavy box filled with gauzes and bandages, spilling all over the dirtied sheets you sat with crossed legs on, unsure of what you were to use first. “It wasn’t, end of story. The non-stick dressing in the box, Soobin keeps a roll in there always.”

A small burn, the size of a fingernail yet it’s blistered bright red-orange and tender around the edges. Being as observant as he is Taehyun can tell that’s not what you’re focused on. He notices how your eyes wander to the craters of suffering in his skin; bullet wounds, a scar of his severance from life in picket-fenced homes to the barren land of sodden alleyways. It’s like some invisible force tugs on your hand to caress the craters— beautifully decorated with lilies stretched from his collarbone down to his elbow, you want to cross the line again; snoop your head into business you shouldn’t do, business that should only be shared among criminals him.

“Taehyun,” the syllables of his name whispers softly from your lips, every vowel delicate and meek, “these scars, why would you—”

“I don’t like it when you talk too much. Focus on the task at hand, will you?” His tone is deliberate and coated with bitterness much contrasted to your gently uttered worries. However his eyes tell a different tale with how they lock onto yours— underlying in want that you couldn’t pinpoint and a desire you could only reciprocate. His wife-beater is pulled off in a quick haste, scratching at the still sore burn that has yet to be treated and Taehyun doubts it will be any time soon judging by your obvious gawking. Gawking at the toned muscle running down his stomach as thought sculpted with marble and pick.

“A good nurse doesn’t lust over her patients.” Taehyun had caught you in the middle of the act of glancing at the tanned muscle lined with sweat, although cold sweat as you brushed your hand along the raised surface in lust enhanced curiosity. “I wasn’t—” And Taehyun had caught you too in the surprise of a kiss; lips pressed to yours that you didn’t know how to respond to with each mesh of fat, crashing of warm tongues and the bite on your bottom lip as he caves in for more. Sloppy with no sense of direction, purely primal in mutual need as his hands crawl up the vines that guard the soft skin of your neck; a possession he’s not to touch. But Taehyun doesn’t want to play by the rules— not when he’s pent up with anger from Yeonjun’s scolding, not when you’re so easy to give in to him like this.

Detaching your lips from his for a breath is suffocating to say the least. You’re chasing after it again. The taste of sin on your lips and the pressure of his thumb cradled around your neck. Like it’s some sort of life force how his kisses turn into addiction, his touch bringing life to your diminishing soul as the sinking of his teeth dip into your neck and bruises your skin into darker blotches; tainted with the lapse of indulging in the debauchery of Taehyun.

He's rougher today, rushing every mark on your neck further as he paints the canvas of your body in his art style— the same stretch of lilies leading down to the edge of your chest that he grips under the bunched-up cotton of your dress. A dress that rips within the vicinity of his hands that are good for nothing other than slaughter, torn fabric revealing the innocence of your chest that heaves nervous breaths and pounds with ecstatic interest.

The split-dyed criminal doesn’t want you to play coy with him and whine at every touch with overly inexperienced moans. He wants to hear the filthiest pleas that run abrasive along the lining of your throat as he fucks you, until you can feel all the bad within him coursing through each rough slap of his hips like some ritual of corruption. He wants to mark you his, embellish your waist with his blood-soaked hands that pinch and slap at sensitive skin and evoke those tears of pain-rich pleasure.

“So fucking troublesome sweetheart seducing me like this,’ His hands push you head first into the hard plank of the thin and itchy mattress, fingers clamped on the sides of your jaw as he spat heavy words, “Tell me, has Jake fucked you before? Did he cum to those tears as well?”

You shake your head in denial, wrapping your arms around his neck as he slips a finger under the soaked cotton of your thin underwear to push it to the side— drenched with arousal that tastes sweet on his tongue as a coated finger glides over it. “So sweet, it’s a shame you upset me yesterday, I’m not in the mood to play nice.” You’re only given a few breathy seconds to conceive the warning of his words before he’s spreading your closed legs apart with nails sharply dug and penetrating through your thighs’ first layer of skin; leaving your core exposed to his preying eyes, a haven that’ll cost him any slim redemption he has left to trespass.

A sharp slap to your clit leaves you trembling and at a loss of words as he fondles the flesh of your folds— shrieks of pleasure eliciting from your lips as Taehyun marks painful love bites down the plump of your held thigh, the other hand busying itself on removing his pants that causes him to hiss when the fabric rubs against his flushed cock.

“Taehyun w—wait!” Your pleas barely make it past his selective hearing, entirely focused on the your wanton moans as he stretches your cunt obscenely, every wince and curse slowly melting into needy cries as you tighten your hold around his neck. “Taehyun I can’t! You’re not going to fit I’m—” He chuckles lowly at your horrified expression when he finally pushes in the bulbous girth of his tip, all teary-eyed and scared at the thought that he could rip you, salty droplets cascading down the round of your cheeks that he coos at with shallow sympathy. There’s nothing more that excites him than the pitiful pout that appears on your lips as he buries each inch further inside of you, vibrato groans from the tight squeeze of your warm cunt with a cocky smirk on his face when you start to claw your nails at him.

“if you stopped squeezing me so fucking tightly then maybe we’d actually get somewhere.” He’s barely halfway in when you’re crying again at how your hole gapes for him, impossible to widen more than it is already to fit the rest of him where he starts to thicken at the base. But Taehyun’s starting to get annoyed with your whines, he doesn’t want to sit around to hear your overdramatic cries forever— he wants to fuck you until your mind can’t think straight and you can’t contain the drool in your mouth, and he won’t get anywhere close if you’re going to stop him with each inch. So he bucks his hips straight into your gushing cunt, the last remaining inches shoved inside within seconds as he starts to pummel into you; a hand groping at your tits with a harsh grip that has you squirming around him.

“See? All this overreacting for what— your pussy’s just as much of an attention whore as you are. Always finding something to complain about, always getting on my nerves crying over nothing.”

“N—no! I was just scared that fuck! Tae you need to hah…slow down.” And you’re soon to regret your words because he starts to drag his hips at snail’s pace, his thrusts teasingly slow as he drinks in the furrow of your brows smugly with a chuckle. The stretch is still there but you’re not blessed with the delicious prod of his cock against your cervix anymore, the thrill and heat of your bodies together suddenly dying down into desperate need displayed on the tears that threaten to spill again— denied of sufficient touch as his hand retracts from your chest.

“What? Not happy? Should keep your mouth shut to stop you from whining like a bitch, maybe then you’ll learn to take what I give whores like you.”

Thick fingers push at your lips, resting deep past the flat of your tongue as you gagged lewdly waiting for him to pick up the pace again, to help resolve the knot building up in your stomach that causes you to jolt when he fans his breath on your chest.

“You’re prettier when you actually listen.”

Taehyun leans his forehead into the small space between your neck and shoulder. Licking over the hickeys that finally started to set— still tender and painful to touch. Yet when he targets the same spot again the stinging sensation dissolved within the delectable rough of sex erupts moans that vibrate around his fingers that push down on the warm muscle inside, leaving gaps for drool to stream down your face messily.

He's plunging back inside your pussy which squelches with juices that soil the sheets beneath you on the shaking nurse-bed. But your mind can’t give one to care about what either of you will say to Soobin later— it’s not like you can make an excuse up on the spot when the male nestled into your chest is fucking you harder than the last and faster than your staccato moans can keep up.

Another launch of slaps land on the side of your thigh as you shake with the pleasure rinsing from each handprint flashing onto your skin for short seconds. Your hips jerk up to meet his; burying him deeper inside of you, scratching with your nails down the muscle of his back and shoulder sharp enough to leave them smeared in small specks of blood as you cling onto him with craving.

“Fuck, you’re so nasty clenching around my dick when I slap you like this. Do the others know how dirty you really are? Beomgyu surely does with how you shared that blunt with him this morning, is that who you learned it from? The other little pain slut?”

His taunting causes you to clench around him embarrassingly with each of his words that slur into grunts, unable to argue yourself any dignity the moment he pulls his fingers out of your mouth to find refuge around your neck—hands lightly clasped around it but closing in tighter when he brushed the beginning of your jaw.

“You’ve been stepping out of line lately, don’t think I should let you cum today.”

Mean was an understatement for how Taehyun appeared to you with that last clause. Eyelids hung low with borderline earnest watching your breath pause in sync with the rhythmic slamming of his hips.

He wants you to beg. To submit to him and his megalomania-rotted head. The tears, drool, furrowed eyebrows and pleading eyes accompanied by the swivel of your hips that yearn for his touch pathetically like you couldn’t possibly cum without him as he squeezes the air out of your lungs. And he’s right that you can’t cum without him— your fingers are flimsy and inexpert with naivety, they don’t know the ins and outs and the spongy spots that have your eyes rolling back in excitement like Taehyun does on the back of his hand.

Your voice barely shies of whispering, diverting your gaze onto the hands bundling the sheets into ripples within your grasp; symbolic of how you clutch onto Humphrey’s words like they’re sacrament, but you’ve already deviated so far from it the moment you walked into those foreign alleyways. It’s entirely impossible to believe wholeheartedly that a criminal like Taehyun is no different to the thugs on the street. Because being in his presence alone is the closest you’ll come to bliss, safer than any inn you’d have to dig your pockets for to stay the night.

And your hand relaxes, palm flat across your forehead that sweats with tension. Gentle rises of chest as you bat your eyelashes in total lust, lips barely open apart to beg of him.

“Make me cum please, Taehyun.”

Five words uttered in the most docile manner seem ironic when he responds with the persistent drilling of his hips into your pulsing cunt that envelops him with every second of contact; trying to savour the stretch of his girth for a moment longer, each stroke more intense than its predecessor.

On every calculated thrust that pushed you further up the headrest of the bed he rubs soothing circles on the surface of your thigh; a catalyst for the pit of fire ignited in your lower abdomen. “Can’t believe I didn’t fuck this cunt earlier— just look how you’re sucking me in baby.”

The biggest mistake you could make was listening to him, watching the lewd scene unfold as his body flushes against yours— the wet squelch that disrupts the stillness of the nursing room with suppressed whimpers and immodest groans. A sight that pushes you on edge as your legs clamp around him with pooling desire; the knot starting to undo itself with each pant of his breath that sounds through the small space between your lips.

“I won’t be able to tell you’re close if you’re keeping your whimpers from me.”

Taehyun doesn’t falter with the rock of his hips, never slowing down to let you catch your breath, intent on undoing the ache in your stomach that yearns for his touch. You shake with each plunge of his tip as he lays a hand on your stomach— grounding you from moving any further while his band-aid clad finger clamps tighter around your throat, drowning out your moans into gasps when he continually targets the bundle of nerves that drive you over edge.

“Don’t worry about making a mess, just cum for me like a good girl.” And as if on command you’re pulsing around him, legs shaking from the shock of your crashing orgasm as you cum around him. You’re still adjusting to the waves of pleasure when Taehyun drops his hands to wrap around your thighs again. Still hard, still after your tears that drives his dick to twitch at the dirty thought of it, and so he ploughs through your orgasm— bathing in the surprise storming your eyes and the loll of your tongue caught in gasps and tiny shrieks.

Overwhelmed with pleasure you latch onto his arms, the sting of the burn as your hands accidentally fiddle over the skin causes him to bite down on his already cut lip, feeling close to his own release when he sees the sultry pilling of tears that drench your cheeks and the weak fingers that grip onto the refined muscle.

Only he can have you like this. The one to provoke your watery eyes and your erotic cries that ring repeatedly in his ears— his favourite song, tuned with your high-pitched whimpers that reels his cock in like a fish on a hook. Your cunt pulsing and gaping to swallow him whole with a warmth that Taehyun curses he can live inside of you forever; cumming shorty after on to your fucked-out face still lost in the overstimulation, mixing with your tears into an even saltier concoction of lewd intervention.

A thumb caresses you from your episode of tears, allowing your heart rate to come to a rest— but you doubt the orgasm’s the problem, especially when he wipes you of his seed and kisses the marks on your neck and chest with attentiveness.

If it were anyone else you’d ask them to stay. To let you rest on the comfort of their chest as you nod off into light sleep to the sound of their heartbeat. But you know who Taehyun is. By the time you’ve closed your eyes he’ll be out the door again a busy man, who finds tremendous work in smoking weed inside his station. A pastime he prefers to tending to your needs, because you could resolve it yourself with a blunt too and the burn of alcohol down your throat when he’s gone.

Since that’s how he solves his problems.

That’s how everyone solves their problems in these slums.

“Can’t you stay for a little longer?”

The male nicks a small gauze and bandage with his dishevelled hair lazily tussled with his hand— a cigarette in his mouth already to help him forget the weight of his actions, for falling into temptation, for this fuck-and-leave habit you’ll have to get used to.

“You know the answer to that already,”

Sometimes you wish you could be cradled in arms that’ll clear your mind of everything.

And you got really fucking close to that. With the man in the front seat who speeds down the city’s highways late at night, when officers are fixed on heading home rather than chase a black Mercedes that’ll only cause them overtime. Over the week since your rule-breaking stunt in Soobin’s workroom you’ve returned to the awkward stage you fought so hard to climb out of. No more greetings, no more small talk when you catch each other in the concrete hallways and no more appearances at the table Kai, Beomgyu and Soobin sat at with you; sharing a blunt for breakfast whenever heists were slow.

Taehyun’s been noticeably uneasy around you for whatever reason you can’t pinpoint. And even as he drives you downtown to the club Soobin’s celebrating at following his girlfriend’s release he’s reserved in his own little world, that doesn’t have you in the frame.

“You’re doing it again.”

“We’ve talked over it. Don’t make a fuss.” Dismissive again, and you can’t tell if you’re overthinking the status of your relationship simply because you got used to the taste of some sincerity or if you weren’t a good fuck. If you were boring and reeked of inexperience, if was out of pity since you didn’t finish in the alleyway. The pit in your stomach starts to drop at the thought. Makes you feel sick in your skin tight dress Yeonjun had peeled from Stephanie this time— a favourite of his, and as petty as it may sound, you’re jealous that she’s being called back for seconds while you’re still stuck in this middle point with nowhere to go. Not wanting to step anywhere out into the danger zone with Taehyun, in case things take a turn for the worse.

Or maybe things have already taken a turn for the worse with how he turns on the radio to hinder you from bothering him anymore; reclined in the backseat with your arms crossed under your chest in a huff. You can tell he’s watching you from the mirror, and you hate that he kisses his teeth at you like this tension is all your fault, because everything in life wants to follow that side of the story.

“You talked it over. I didn’t even get a chance to say anything!” Your best attempt at talking over the radio. Shouting with your fists clenched tight in anger until sweat started to break through your makeup, “You’re treating me like a stranger!”

“You’re not one of us.” That irritating tweeting noise again, the whole ‘you don’t belong here’ bullshit you’ve been fed your whole life as if it were truth, and it may as well be although you’re ashamed to admit you’ve never felt more at home with Eternally; with criminals. Than you ever have with Humphrey, than you ever have with Jaeyun or your family when it was the three of you sat down for supper.

“You don’t fucking know me Taehyun.” The male doesn’t like that you’ve grown your teeth, not one bit. If he had the option to he’d sew your mouth shut with thread so you couldn’t argue with him— he hates arguing, he hates it when he feels out of control. But then he’d be unable to hear your whines, those sweet sobs that define him as the grossest pervert with how he gets hard thinking about it and he doesn’t want that, never.

“What don’t I know? I know you like it when I choke you like some slut.”

“That’s not it!” Heat rushes to your face hearing how agitated you sound when Taehyun couldn’t be calmer, like this whole argument’s going to end on a deaf ear of his again, all your efforts to waste, “I’ve had it ten times worse than you running away from your bitch of a mother!” That sentence was never meant to leave your lips. Your mouth running like a fountain of newfound hatred you would’ve never sought two weeks ago when you were still laid on the sofa with Humphrey, all sweet and smiley despite what came at you.

When were you capable of such insensitive words? Capable of turning suffering into a competition when you should know better than anyone the hurt of it all— after everything he confided in you, the solemn slant of his eye as he spoke of his mother and his cheater of a father, you made it about yourself again.

Was it the drugs? The drinks you emptied on the lonely nights you’d wander into his room?

Or was it the temptation of sex you should’ve never tried? And its conflicting nature because you’re spiralling. Spiralling on the days when you wash your face in the mirror looking more dreadful than you did with a gash to the back of your head with blood crystals stuck messily to your hair before you met him. But it shouldn’t be that way because you’ve never felt safer and more fulfilled than when you’re in his hold— when he caresses your face like the finest china, afraid you’d break if he was too rough.

Maybe, you lost that delicate aspect the second time when he finally entered inside of you; all used and dirtied in your mouth, all corrupt for him to choke and fuck lovelessly as he ruined the purity of your haven with his twisted, unchaste talk.

You’re almost unrecognisable now aside from the features encompassing your face; the remnants of a murderer, painted with the seed of a killer you don’t dare to face.

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know Taehyun maybe the fact that I’m the one that’s been fucking guilty my whole life because my dad killed Lee Min-hyung years ago?”

Ridicule only adds salt to the wound—he laughs, laughs louder and heartier than he ever has; with insanity Yeonjun’s pales in comparison to. There’s no essence of anger that startles you who comes to a standstill in fear again as he starts to speed dangerously fast down the road with a laughter that wasn’t subsiding. You cling onto the backseats with your eyes-squeezed shut as his Mercedes swerved between incoming traffic also headed towards the night life of the city that you’ve long lost the excitement for. And when he finally parks himself outside of the club entrance with your hair in a mess and your dress halfway ridden up your thigh he finally drops the maniacal laughter, turning his head around with wrongful amusement.

“Your father killed Lee Heeseung’s uncle little-one, would he be pleased to find out your fucking criminals too now?” The pit in your stomach drops with unease, widening your eyes and stuttering in shock. The Lees, Lee Heeseung’s circle that Humphrey had begged you to avoid— and they found you within an instant here in Alton, and Jaeyun was working with them; Jaeyun had led them here.

“Y—you know..about it?” Spit clogs in your throat when you’re on the verge of puking your stomach’s contents out in this very car; you couldn’t stand it, the sickly memory rushing back to you.

“Listen here little-one, that madman’s pointed his gun at every single person in Alton trying to find you, and that includes Yeonjun’s late sister so I’d advise you keep your pretty mouth shut from now.”

And you do, God you do. Because now it isn’t just a matter of being blamed for your father’s actions, indirectly, your existence has cost the lives of innocents too. It wretches your stomach to think about it— the perspective Taehyun’s shifted onto you like a laugh to the face because you’re not the centre of everything, you’re neither the worst sufferer nor sinner on finite earth, and it renders you speechless when he leans into your neck.

Marks you’ve spent hours covering with plasters and foundation put your labour to waste as he bites and sucks into the prone skin of your shoulder again except it doesn’t take your mind off the raiding thoughts in your mind this time.

“Murderer’s daughter or not, you’re still mine tonight.”

You spend the whole night at the club with your arm awkwardly rubbing at your collarbone to cover Taehyun’s hickeys that warded off any man that wanted to approach you with disgust. While he went off in the corner booths leaving you alone, surrounded by an audience of women that smothered their hands over his thigh.

Among that audience being Soobin’s girlfriend, sat prettily on his thigh as she poured liquor the same shade of crimson as the humiliation resonating within you down his inviting lips. Your posture slumps at the bar with ugly jealousy that you don’t understand because Soobin’s sat directly opposite them with a bar girl touching him up likewise— and to an oblivious eye you wouldn’t even be able to tell they were dating to begin with. So why do you feel jealous when even Soobin’s unbothered? You’re not here to be stuck to his side, you’re not his girlfriend. So why do your eyes brim with tears when you notice him suck and bruise her skin red and purple down to her chest in a beautiful design that outshone the lazy and messy splotches randomly placed over your skin?

Perhaps because he said you were his,

The weight of his words falling flat on the ground, meaningless and a spur of the moment thought.

And you really don’t want to ruin the lively mood tonight but your feet have a mind of their own as they storm towards Taehyun, his eyes making contact with yours before sending a smug smirk in your direction. One that weakens your knees and buckles you in because what excuse could you possibly have to reason why you’re upset with him? Sex, heartfelt conversations, he’s marked and called you his—but what makes you any different to the doll perched up on his lap sat with blinking eyes and long lashes as she questions your relevance, or well, irrelevance.

On instinct he pats Soobin’s girlfriend off his lap with a face that emanates neither expression nor emotion, trudging towards you with his hands in his pockets before removing them to flick at the marks you’ve been covering with two fingers.

“I said you were mine tonight, not sulk like some lost mutt out here.”

Inconsiderate words pierce your heart with glib depressions. Transported back to Homer’s it seems with how everyone’s head turns to gawk at the spectacle you and Taehyun star in, shame unable to conceal itself on your face when Soobin’s girlfriend scoffs at your stunt—the humiliation of it all to have to approach Taehyun in this manner becoming overbearing.

You’re practically on the verge of crying when Taehyun drags you outside of the back entrance of the club, not a word shared between you as he led you through iron-barred doors into the depths of the alleyway lit with a single overhead street lamp that casted shadows over dark and tired eyes.

You had so much to say off the top of your head out of pure anger and raw emotion yet when you stand face-to-face with him it’s like he steals the voice from your mouth, as if he’d become your mouthpiece that you nod and agree with every word to.

It doesn’t help that you’re getting tired of yourself as well. His previous nitpicking from your earlier conversation dabbling into your thoughts because you’ve picked an argument with him at least three times already, always find a problem to argue over;always making a fuss.

“Upset because I kissed up someone else’s girlfriend?”

“It’s not just that! —”

“You have to get used to it little-one, no criminal cares about morals out here. I can fuck Soobin’s girlfriend and she’ll take my dick like a slut. Oh! Was that toovulgar? Are you going to cry again?” Mocking whines fall on your shoulders that tremble with baseless anger as your eyes stare at the detailing of the squashed beer can beneath your feet. It’s not dirty talk this time, not some taunting that makes you crave him to salvage the need within you that he satiates with mere rough sex, it’s sincere. The sincerest words he’s ever said to you within your short time together past all the heated kisses and hand holding as he exhaled the smoke of his hit with the blunt in to your mouth.

“One minute you’re all over me and the next you’re dishing me to the side like I’m scrap Taehyun— I don’t even know if I’m mad at you or not, you— you’re confusing me.” Upon hearing your complaints his head cocks to the side; blonde ends framing his terribly alluring face that you can’t pick between kissing and kicking.

“So you’re not mad sweetheart? That’s all I wanted to hear from you.” He laughs off the argument again with ease; Taehyun’s not the type to fight, he chooses to dismiss. Rather bathe in the heat of agitation than be on the losing end to an argument.

Sweetheart. Such a simple nickname that rolls off his tongue smoothly like he’s done this countless of times before, but it’s enough for you to melt like putty in his hands when he pats your face gently with a dimpled smile on his face. Shit— Taehyun makes it really impossible to stay angry at when he knows how to pull on your heartstrings like this, when he can fabricate your version of events to fit his.

“Fine I’m not—”

“Fancy seeing you two getting so close. Tell me, slum lovers, did you lose a finger for that poorly executed plan at Homer’s?”

You hear it— a quickly ran through sentence, maybe a laugh thrown in between and a sudden cadence you weren’t expecting to hear again, not so soon at least. The recognition of the smooth voice claws through to your lungs and strangles you breathless. You don’t want to look up, don’t want to believe that the voice is his but even in this alleyway, down in the ends of the city where the EDM booms louder than the bullets in the gun Taehyun digs in his back pocket for, you can recognise the tinge of malice in his tone you never wanted to look back on.

“Woah— hey, hey now Taehyun. Let’s talk this out, shall we? You hand Jake the girl and we’ll leave Eternally alone for good— how does that sound? On top of two million up front? Surely that girl can’t mean that much to you—”

The fire of a gunshot crackles in the air with unpredictability, originating too close to your timid ears as Taehyun holds you tight to his chest with his gun slotted securely in his hand. Too quick for you to grasp the situation as your ears ring with the sudden burst of the bullet and your heartbeat fastens with worry-fuelled adrenaline as you stare at the pool of blood trickling on the floor.

“Your leader should know better to fire first than to run his mouth.”

Heeseung lays still in his own blood splatter that makes his cherry-red trenches look dull, his deep chuckles that sent shivers down your spine replaced with the shouts of a frantic Jake who rushes over to check for the expansion of his chest with breath but pales physically when the goosebumps of his skin start to run cold increasingly fast.

His body sprawls with his limbs limp and stuck with the coagulating blood by his ankles. For a second you get an insight of just who Taehyun can be as he laughs with guilty hands rubbing down his face, pulling at his eyes in the process as he drops the gun in your shaking ones that struggle to adapt to the weight of the pistol; and the price of Taehyun’s sins laying burdensome in your palms. It’s unnatural for you to clasp around the grip without the interception of his hand ghosting over yours. He’s not touched the blood nor did the splatter reach him, yet the foul stench of copper diffuses into his natural musk— bloodlust still visible in the menacing smile he leaves you with as he whispers, soft but with an edge, in your ear.

“You want to be a part of us don’t you, baby? You want me to trust you and take you seriously?” His hand redirects the muzzle of his gun wrapped within your fingers to Jake who lays armless with stark-awake eyes that plead with mercy you thought you could only find in teenage Jaeyun all those nights ago. Eyes that don’t look at you with disgust for your father and your doomed blood that flows most viscously with the remorse of murder, but instead forgiveness as he plasters the shakiest smile he could have on his lips.

“You remember right? That night in the closet I—I spared your life so can you…can you..let this one time go?” His voice trembles with the same fear he stammered on the very premise of the park that turned you from best friends to strangers overnight; from resting on each other’s shoulders, and dreaming of make it out of slanted-roof slums to moving miles apart from each other, unfamiliar’s in the making.

“Anyone smart would’ve ran away by now. Your little friend here doesn’t have the heart to be a proper gangster, does he?” His finger pushes your frozen-still ones up the to the trigger, dancing around the danger of possibility and the consequences of bad decisions. Amateur hands should’ve never found refuge on the mass of cold steel laced with gun powder that takes you back to two weeks ago—when you would have been on the receiving end of the bullet in that interrogation room if it weren’t for Taehyun. Who now snickers barbarically at your conscience’s last attempts to sway you—how you vowed to forbid this moment, promised to never have lost yourself in the craze of savagery in the likes of your damned father.

Except Taehyun’s read you like a book, reread every crease in the page and every torn edge to understand what it takes for you to listen, for you to obey at his orders as he kisses the back of your ear gently with a hand slithered around your waist. “What are you waiting for baby? Fucking shoot him.”

Jaeyun still has hands in the starchy-thick air for you to see through the facets of his crimes, “We planned to make it…” Jaeyun gulps loudly with a quivering intake of breath, “—planned to not end up like our parents…we were going to make it to fucking LA, shit we can make it out of these slums together I’ve made enough cash— “

“Damn incompetent bastard, all he’ll do is leave you again like before. You know I won’t leave you baby, Eternally will take care of you so pull the trigger for me, will you?”

Sometimes you wish that the arms that cradle you would be Taehyun’s.

And not the fingers that graze the white of your knuckle from clammy hands clutched around the pistol.

Because when he jeers at you with the exact spite of the slums you crawled from all those years ago, “Fucking shoot him!” Your head blanks with white noise as your finger desensitises from the lurking dread that seeps into every lining of your body; your eyes water with the cries of the thousands you’ve disappointed, your ears chiming with funeral bells as you mourn the loss of your remaining innocence and your mouth runs dry watching the river flood and saturate with the vermillion that mixes with bright scarlet.

Dead, at the ungranted mercy of your hands, Sim Jaeyun was.

And you thought you had made the right decision when Taehyun coos at you in that same babying tone. I knew you could do it baby, you see that? self-defence, so don’t be scared about making the right decision— there’s nothing scary about a bullet or a gun.

But the right decision shouldn’t inflict tears to stream out of your tearducts that dart off the surface of your burning cheeks as Taehyun drags you by the wrist again to run— this time away from the flashing flares of alternating reds and blues and blaring sirens instead of the thumping bass of the club the two of you lost yourselves in argument in.

Right decisions don’t fill your lungs with acid that leaves you feeling sour all over.

Right decisions don’t cause the sweat of your palms to drip with a reddish-hue as your mind traces back the blood trail that connects you to the solemn stiffness of the corpses.

But making that decision offered you the equally blood-stained hand of Taehyun, who interlocks his fingers between your corrupt ones in a non-church-bell marriage that vows a pact of secrecy.

Your very own oath and definition of ‘til death do us part’ as he shoves you into the backseat of his car with guilty-as-good hands that roam over the blemishes of your body.

And the rings you exchange on each other’s fingers as he enters you with a lust-crazed purr followed by the damning of his blasphemous hips that cave into the darkening of your impure womb.

For if Taehyun was a sin to indulge in then he shouldn’t feel like the closest route to Heaven. And if it is a crime in itself to even look him in the eye you’ll repent for an eternity to stare at him from the comfort of his work room. As he inks shallow, loveless matching tattoos on skin that can’t be scrubbed of blood, nor the bitter tear stains he loves to death.

Because you know what they say,

The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

A/N: WHEW my longest fic as of now done !!! Definitely a tougher one to write because it’s got darker themes and a lot of concepts i’m not super experienced in, but it was fun to redraft and old work <3 not proof read sorry. !!!

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