#made in his life and he's only staying for the kid

[sturniluvr]

Love in the sun

Lando Norris x fem!reader

word count: 2.8k

warnings: none other than a few mentions of children (if you don’t like kids😭) possible spelling mistakes(?)

summary: Lando and Y/N go on holiday together during the summer break and come home engaged.

A/N: Keep in mind throughout that I have no idea how the luxury life works im broke asf so it may be inaccurate😭and sorry for quite a few time skips I had a bit of writers block😭

❗️semi proof read❗️

Y/N and Lando were currently halfway through their flight en route to Mykonos for a week while Lando had the summer break. The couple had a few things pre planned for the week in Greece such as a party boat they had booked prior to the holiday and Y/N was hoping for no more injuries on Lando's end after the incident in Amsterdam and going to a few tourist attractions, but they mostly just wanted to spend time with each other, they didn’t care what they were doing as long as they were together, and of course they were staying with Hilton as the couple always had the best experiences with Hilton hotels and being a sponsor of McLaren, it was only right they chose Hilton. 

Lando was scrolling on his phone and he felt a weight on his shoulder, he looked to his side and saw his girlfriend asleep on his shoulder. The love of his life, his best friend, his girl and hopefully, soon, his wife. She had been by his side since before he made it into f1, he remembers vividly how excited she was when he told her he was offered a seat with McLaren, she seemed more excited than he was, and she hadn’t left his side since. He smiled at the memory. He had a whole plan set in place to propose to Y/N, he couldn’t wait to propose to her, he had brought the ring around 2 years into the relationship when he was out with Max and he saw the perfect ring that just screamed Y/N to him and he’d just been waiting for the perfect moment, which was this holiday and also their 5 year anniversary. 

time skip to landing

Lando was looking out the window in his own world when he heard the pilot over the intercom. 

“Mr Norris, we will be starting descent in Mykonos in about 10 minutes so please get ready to fasten your seatbelt sir.” On cue, he saw the little seatbelt light come on above his head. He gently shook Y/N to wake her up. 

“Darling, we’ll be landing soon, you need to put your seatbelt on.” He spoke quietly as he knows she doesn’t like loud noises when she first wakes up. She stirs and slowly opens her eyes and lifted her head off Lando’s shoulder. Lando looked at her with a soft smile and a little chuckle escaped his lips at the sight of the woman’s messy hair.  

“Hey sleepy head, pilot just said to put our belts on we’ll be descending soon.” She nodded at him as she fixed her hair and put her belt on, Lando doing the same next to her. 

As they got closer to the ground, Y/N grabbed hold on Lando’s hand to comfort herself as landing was probably her least favourite part of flying and he rubbed her knuckles in a comforting manner. 

After landing, they grabbed their luggage and made their way to the chauffeur who led them to the car provided by Hilton to take them to the hotel.  

small time skip cus I’m lazy

They arrived to their room in the hotel and unpacked their suitcases and got changed into some clothes more suited to the warm climate of the island they were on for the next two weeks as they had an early flight and when the couple arrived it was only early afternoon After changing, Y/N and Lando left the hotel and went for a small walk around the town and get anything little essentials they may need while on holiday like bottles of water, snacks for the hotel room etc. 

“Don’t forget we need to buy sunscreen aswel, since somebody left it behind being the clever clogs he is.” Y/N said, giving Lando a cheeky smile.  

“Ha Ha, very funny cheeky.” Lando replied sarcastically, pinching her side softly. The couple laughed as they continued to walk in and out of shops and buy the essentials. 

Later on that day, Y/N was relaxing on a sunbed reading her book and Lando was next to her on another sunbed with his hat over his eyes. About half hour later, Y/N was now lying on her stomach so she could tan her back aswel as her front and she felt a pair of hands smack her bum. She looked behind to see her boyfriend with a boyish smile on his face, she smiled back at him and rolled her eyes jokingly at his actions. 

“Do you want another drink baby? I'm going to the bar.” Lando stated and she nodded. 

“Same again please Lan, I'm going to head up to the room for a little siesta, it’s getting pretty warm out here.” He nodded in understanding knowing how easily the heat got to her sometimes, that’s why he always made sure she was well hydrated and was taking care of herself. 

“Okay baby, I’ll grab our drinks and I’ll come up aswel and have a quick shower or something.” She nodded at her boyfriend before he left to go get their drinks from the bar. She packed up everything she had brought down to the pool with her and made her way into the hotel and up to their room. 

couple days later

Y/N was relaxing on the balcony of the hotel room while waiting for Lando to get back, he’d told her he was going out to get some more water for the room when in reality he was sat in the hotel reception talking on the phone to the manager of the restaurant he was planning to take Y/N to on the last day of the holiday, their anniversary, to finalise any details about the proposal and the booking details.  

“So, you’ll tell her you’re going to the bathroom and one of our waiters will lead her out to the beach? Is that correct Mr Norris?” the manager asked Lando over the phone.

“Yes, that is correct. Thank you again for helping me with this. It means a lot.” Lando replied, the manager smiled at the idea of young love.

“It's quite alright sir. Right, that's all booked and ready for you for a few days' time.” 

Once everything was finalised, he thanked the manager and hung up the phone and left the hotel with a small smile on his face at the thought of him proposing to the love of his life in the next couple days and made his way to the little shop 10 minutes from the hotel and grabbed the bottles of water like he had told Y/N he was doing. 

He walked back to the hotel and into the hotel room where he was met with the sight of Y/N asleep on the sofa in the living area with the balcony door open to let a breeze in and her book covering her face. He smiled in amusement and put the crate of water bottles down and he made his way over to the sofa. He crouched down in front of her and took her book from off her face, keeping his thumb on the page so she wouldn’t lose her page and quickly put her bookmark in place before closing it. He gently shook her awake.  

“Wake up sleepy head. We need to go downstairs for lunch soon.” She opened her eyes lazily and looked at Lando with a sleepy smile which he returned with a smile of his own. She slowly sat up and picked up her half drunk bottle of water off the table in front of her. 

“Hey pretty girl, the sun tired you out huh?” He joked, stroking her thigh. She nodded softly before speaking. 

“Yeah, and it didn’t help next door had a crying baby and I couldn’t focus on my book, so I just came inside.” Lando chuckled at her response.  

“We’ll be heading down for lunch in a minute if you wanna go freshen up a bit beforehand.” The curly haired boy spoke, Y/N nodded and made her way to their bedroom to put a clean top on as she had some sweat stains that didn’t look flattering at all and touched up the small amount of makeup she had on which consisted of just concealer, mascara and some lip balm. 

The couple both headed down to lunch, indulging in conversation about the most random topics causing them both to start laughing. The couple were suddenly interrupted by a little girl, who looked no older than 5 and had a little bunny stuffed animal in her arms, who came up to them and tapped Y/N’s arm softly. 

“Excuse me miss, can you help me find my mummy. I was with her and my older brother and now I can’t find them.” The older woman’s eyes softened at the sight of the tears in the little girl's eyes. She nodded at her. 

“Of course, sweetheart. What’s your name?” Y/N spoke in a gentle tone. 

“Emily, I’m sorry for interrupting you two, but I recognised Lando because Jack my brother is a formula one fan and I’ve seen him on tv, so I thought you two seemed safe rather than a complete stranger.” Emily admitted shyly, Lando nodded at her with a smile before the couple stood up to help her find her brother and mum. 

“You did the right thing sweetie. C’mon we’ll help you find your mum” Lando spoke, he held the little girl's small hand in his and the three of them made their way over to the front desk at reception. 

“Excuse me, this little girl has lost her mum. Do you have any idea where she could be?” Y/N asked the lady on the front desk. She nodded and made her way around to the front of the desk so she could talk to Emily. 

“What does your mum look like sweetheart?” She asked as she crouched down to her size. 

“Brown hair, green eyes, she had a long blue dress on, she was with my older brother who was wearing red swim shorts and a Minecraft t-shirt” the receptionist nodded at her. All of a sudden, they heard the voice of a woman, Y/N looked up to see a woman matching Emily’s description of her mother.  

“Emily! There you are baby!” She ran over and gave her a quick hug. Emily pointed to the three other adults before she spoke to her mum.

“The helped me mummy. Lando and his girlfriend helped me find you and the nice lady on reception!” Emily walked over to Y/N and gave her a hug which Y/N reciprocated. 

“Thank you.” Emily muttered smiling up at the couple. They both smiled at her. 

“Thank you for helping my daughter, we were so worried!” Her mum exclaimed.  

“It’s fine honestly! I can’t imagine how worried I’d be if I’d lost my kid in a resort this big.” She replied, the two women chuckling at her response. Lando looked to Jack and smiled. 

“Hey buddy, I hear you’re a formula one fan? Do you want a photo?” He asked and Jack nodded quickly, the children’s mum pulled out her phone and Jack walked over to Lando and the pair took a photo together. Jack said a quick thank you to the driver before the little family headed off and the couple went to their room to get ready for the party boat they were going on later, which thankfully did not end in any injuries on Lando’s part this time.

 

the last night of the holiday

Tonight was Y/N and Lando’s last night of the holiday, and it was their anniversary. After a morning full of cuddles, kisses, some less PG stuff and exchanging cards and gifts, the couple had spent the rest of the day walking around visiting little landmarks around Mykonos and getting gifts for family members.  

They were now currently getting ready to head out to the Italian restaurant Lando had booked for them. Y/N was wearing a flowy white dress that came down to just below her knees and Lando was wearing a plain white dress shirt and some khaki shorts that Y/N had brought him just before they came to Mykonos. 

“You ready sweetheart?” Lando shouted to Y/N from the bedroom. She walked in and smiled at him. 

“Yup. You ready?” She replied walking into the bedroom smiling at Lando who was sat on the bed. He reached out to her and rested his hands on her waist and pulled her into him, he pulled her down slightly and planted a kiss to her lips. 

“You look stunning baby. An absolute princess if you ask me.” he expressed with a small smirk on his face. She grabbed her bag off the bed and grabbed Lando’s hand and the couple made their way out the hotel and to the restaurant.  

Once they arrived at the restaurant, the waiter took them to their seats and took their orders, coming back shortly after with the drink orders which was some red wine for both of them. When they had their food brought to them around 20 minutes later, they ate their food while talking about anything they could think of. There was never a dull moment with Y/N and Lando’s conversations.

After eating and having paid the bill. Lando was about to put the plan into motion. 

“I’m just gonna head to the bathroom before we leave gorgeous. Won’t be long.” She nodded at Lando, what she didn’t realise was Lando was actually leaving through the back entrance of the restaurant to get to the beach across from the restaurant without Y/N realising. 

Shortly after, the waiter came over to Y/N and held his arm out for her to take. 

“If you’d like to close your eyes and follow me miss.” he requested. She skeptically complied and took his arm as she closed her eyes, and he took her across to the beach where Lando was waiting by the ocean.  

Once she was in front of Lando, he silently thanked the waiter and he left and went back to the restaurant. Lando grabbed Y/N’s hands in his and she took that as a sign to open her eyes and her and Lando were the only ones on the beach and the only sounds was the water crashing onto the sand. Lando began to speak. 

“Y/N, from the moment I made it home after our first date when we were 19, I knew you were the one. You’ve been with me through the ups and downs of not only my life, but my entire career and I could not thank you enough. You experienced my first podium with me and my first win and every other milestone in my career and I’ll forever be grateful to have you by my side for everything. My mum always told me as a kid that when I meet the one, I’d feel it. You’re the one Y/N. You’re my person.” Lando announced. Y/N’s hand flew over her mouth as Lando got down onto one knee and pulled out a red velvet box, opening the box to reveal the most stunning diamond ring, tears were welling in both of the adults’ eyes. 

“Y/N M/N/ L/N, will you make the happiest man ever and marry me?” He spoke with a hint of emotion in his voice. She vigorously nodded her head, tears flowing down her cheeks. 

“Yes Lando! Of course I’ll marry you” she replied. He grinned up at her and placed the ring on her left ring finger as he stood back up, hearing distant claps from people passing by and sat outside the restaurant who had witnessed the proposal. He then cupped her cheeks and pulled her into a passionate kiss full of love. The newly engaged couple pulled out of the kiss and smiled at each other, eyes filled with just as much love as the day they met. 

“I love you so much my darling girl. I can’t wait for you to be my wife.” He grinned ear to ear at his now fiancée.  

“I love you too my love. I can’t wait to be married to you and spend the rest of our lives together.” She replied, smiling back at her fiancé. 

They made their way up the beach, walking along the shore in a comfortable silence. Y/N was first to break the silence. 

“Oh my god I just realised I can now put my Pinterest board to use!” She exclaimed in excitement, clapping her hands together with a beaming smile on her face. Lando let out a laugh at her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and Y/N wrapped her arm around his waist. 

“I knew you’d say that you muppet” Lando joked. She smiled softly up at him. 

“We’re both muppets but we’re each other's muppets.” She corrected the driver. He just smiled at his girl. 

“That we are beautiful, that we are.” He softly chuckled as they continued to walk down the beach. 

Once they got home from Mykonos early the next morning, Y/N and Lando had announced the proposal on social media and rang their families, who were all very happy and excited for the couple. 

y/user

Liked by: landonorris, maxfewtrell, pietra.pilao, mclaren and others

y/user: Mykonos with my favourite human, swipe to the end for a surprise👀 (hint: he’s now completely off the market ladies🤭)

tagged: landonorris

comments:

landonorris: had the best time with you beautiful, love you forever🤍

liked by creator❤️

↪️ y/user: right back at you my love. Love you more❤️

pietra.pilao: congratulations you two!! So happy! Love you both🫶🏻

liked by: landonorris, y/user

↪️ y/user: thank you p! We love you too🫶🏻

mclaren: congratulations to you both!🧡

liked by: landonorris, y/user

lilyzneimer: omg!! Congrats you guys🤍(I better be your bridesmaid y/n/n😉😂)

liked by: landonorris, y/user, oscarpiastri

↪️ y/user: thank you lils! You already know you’re my bridesmaid babe!😉😘

liked by lilyzneimer

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landonorris

Liked by: mclaren, y/user, oscarpiastri and others

landonorris: Lando Norriz who?😏 here’s to forever with you my darling girl I can’t wait for you to be Mrs Norris🥂I love you endlessly🤍

tagged: y/user

comments:

y/user: I love you my boy🤍can’t wait to be mrs Norris🤍 (and to use my Pinterest board😝)

liked by creator❤️

↪️ landonorris: 😭😭😭 I do love you baby😂❤️

oscarpiastri: congrats mate!👏🏻Love you both!🧡 (Y/N and Lily have already been messaging non-stop about dresses😭)

liked by: y/user, landonorris, lilyzneimer

↪️ landonorris: thanks osc!🧡 and trust me mate, I know😭

↪️ y/user: watch it you pair, lily will be just as bad when you finally grow a pair and propose osc😌😘

↪️ lilyzneimer: yes I will😉😘

↪️ oscarpiastri: 👀

maxfewtrell: congrats you pair! Lots of love❤️

liked by: y/user, landonorris

↪️ landonorris: cheers mate we love you too❤️

user3: omg my parents!!😭🫶🏻also trust Lando to wear a jumper in Mykonos😭

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🏷️: @allywthsr @idathereader @moonlight-girls-posts @saturnbloom77 @scar-005 @barcelonaloverf1life @shellybee456 @meandjoemama @wellwellwellsposts @charli123456789 @timmy-wife1 @m4rt10ne @tellybearryyyy @hc-dutch @nocoolusernamesavailable-blog @neo-teenkidz @landosgirl97 @promenadewithme

If there’s a line through your name, it wouldn’t let me tag you😭

[faithshouseofchaos]

Can I get an Oscar Piastri and Lydia moment? Will she be shy or stay sassy as she rules the whole paddock haha

This sat in my inbox for a few weeks 😭

Lydia Verstappen princess of the paddock part idk 😭😭

Word count 738

Fluff

Lydia was anything but shy. Her sassy demeanor often belied her young age, yet there were only three individuals who could bring out her bashful side, and one of them was Oscar Piastri. The reason for this reaction was a mystery to most, with many attributing it to Oscar's kind, soft, and gentle nature.To Lydia Oscar was like an older brother to her that is why she went shy around him.

Today Max and y/n agreed to let Lydia spend the day in the Mclaren Garage. This was pretty normal for Lydia going from garage to garage Spending time with the drivers who knew Lydia her whole 10 years of life.

Lydia was dressed in a cute orange and papaya colored outfit, her excitement about spending the day in the Mclaren garage evident in her wide eyes and beaming smile. As they approached the familiar entrance, she couldn't contain her excitement any longer.

"Can we go see Oscar now, daddy?" She asked, almost bouncing with anticipation.

Max chuckled and ruffled her hair affectionately. "Of course, sweetie. But promise me you'll be on your best behavior, okay?" he replied, knowing how Lydia could sometimes get a bit too excited when Oscar was around. Lydia nodded eagerly, her blue eyes sparkling with determination. "I promise, daddy! I'll be the best behaved kid ever!" She declared, a hint of mischief in her smile. Max just shook his head, a flicker of amusement crossing his face. He knew his daughter's spirited nature all too well.

They made their way through the bustling garage, the familiar hum of car engines and the chatter of crew members filling the air. As they turned a corner, Lydia's gaze immediately fixated on Oscar, his kind smile and soft demeanor drawing her in like a magnet.

Oscar looked up from his work, a warm smile spreading across his face as he spotted Lydia and Max. "Hey, there's my little friend!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet to meet them. "How's my favorite ten-year-old doing?" Lydia's cheeks flushed slightly, and she shyly hid behind her father's leg for a moment before mustering up her courage to speak. "Hi, Oscar," she said timidly, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I'm really happy to be here today."

Oscar's eyes twinkled with warmth as he crouched down to Lydia's eye level. "Well, we're happy you're here too," he replied genuinely, reaching out to ruffle her hair. "Your dad mentioned you wanted to learn a bit more about race strategy today, is that right?"

Lydia's eyes widened with excitement, the shyness momentarily forgotten. "Yes, please! I want to know everything about race strategy!" She replied eagerly, her earlier bashfulness replaced by her usual inquisitiveness. Oscar chuckled softly, delighted by Lydia's enthusiasm. "Well, then let's get started," he said, standing up and motioning for Lydia and Max to follow him. As they walked, Oscar began explaining the ins and outs of race strategy, using terms that even a ten-year-old could understand. Lydia's eyes lit up with understanding, and she eagerly asked questions, absorbing every word like a sponge.

As Oscar patiently answered her questions and showed her diagrams illustrating different strategies, Lydia's earlier timidness melted away, replaced by her usual confidence and passion. She was absorbed in the information, her mind racing with excitement as she envisioned implementing these strategies on the racetrack.

Throughout the day, Max stood by, observing the interaction between Oscar and his daughter with a mixture of pride and contentment. He saw the evident connection between them, how Oscar brought out not only Lydia's curiosity but also her sweet and shy side. It was clear that Lydia looked up to him. As the hours passed, Lydia soaked up not only the information about race strategy but also the positive energy and kindness Oscar radiated. His gentleness and genuine interest in her questions and well-being made her feel valued and respected, something that made a deep impression on her.

Eventually, the day came to an end, and Lydia reluctantly bid farewell to Oscar, knowing they'd see each other soon during the next race. As she walked away, clutching her new notebook filled with race strategy notes, a shy smile played on her lips. She had learned a lot, but more importantly, she had formed a special connection with Oscar that she treasured.

After all, he was like an older brother to her.

Tagged — @ashy-kit @astraeaworld @67-angelofthelordme-67 @anedpev @amatswimming @a-casual-romantic @alwayzbeenale @bblouifford @bbtoni @barcelonaloverf1life @badassturtle13 @charlesf1leclerc @clowngirlsstuff @crashingwavesofeuphoria @entr4p3 @embrosegraves @eugene-emt-roe @dark-night-sky-99 @dudenhaaa27 @formulas-bitch @f1ln4dr3cl16mv33 @formulaal @hangmandruigandmav @ironcowboycopnickel @jeffs77 @kimiracing07 @lightdragonrayne @lollypop90907 @laura-naruto-fan1998 @moss-on-tmblr @omgsuperstarg @oconswrld @otako5811 @purplephantomwolf @raikkxz @starkwlkr @strugglingyetvibing @sweate-r-weathe-r @swifth0lic @the-ghost-lovwr @tallrock35 @toasttt11 @llando4norris @uluvjay @vellicora @venusisnothere

[remlionheart]

you're the thoughts that can't be tamed

and i'm trying to be sane

⋆˙⟡♡ MDNI. whewww. the people demanded more high / toxic!megumi and the people got more high / toxic!megumi. tw for angst, daddy issues, drug use, smut. 4.3k words. all characters aged up 21+. ๋࣭ ⭑ life held no promises - it was a fact that you and megumi were made well aware from a very early age. from sleeping under blanket forts as kids to sneaking through windows as teenagers, he'd always been your one constant in a sea of variables. but what happens when the tides become strong enough to pull him away too? ๋࣭ ⭑ this was fucking emotional to write, not gonna lie. lemme know whatcha think, luv u ⋆˙⟡♡

‎𓆩🖤𓆪

“No one else has what we have.”

Those were Megumi's favorite words to say to you.

On the nights where both of your dads would take off together, deciding that they were done being responsible for the two of you for a few days, you would hide under blankets in his room and laugh at the things that only 9-year-old you would understand.

You'd keep yourselves occupied with video games and books and dive so far into each other’s imaginations that you'd completely forget about the world around you.

It was all late-night summer air, swinging in your backyard for hours, and the way that you two were somehow able to turn something as damning as parental abandonment into adventure.

As teenagers, reality became harder to sugarcoat but there was still that same unfettered energy between both of you that made it doable.

At 14, you'd sit on the edge of his bed during the wintertime, drinking beer that you'd stolen from Toji's stash and exchange secrets in-between drunken kisses that neither one of you would be brave enough to acknowledge the next day.

You'd walk to school together with matching tired eyes and unkempt hair and he would tell people to fuck off when they’d ask you why you'd been wearing the same hoodie for a week straight.

He'd sneak through your bedroom window on the nights that your house didn’t feel safe just to lay with you, running light fingers through your hair while sharing a set of tangled headphones to drown out the sound of your parents arguing.

The things that he couldn’t tell his other friends, the things that he couldn’t tell his family, the things that he could barely tell himself – he'd tell you.

You were two halves of two very broken homes. Rigid and unstable when apart but perfectly balanced when together. From spending practically every weekend together to essentially raising one another since none of the adults in either of your lives had any interest in doing so – he was right:

No one else had what you had.

‎𓆩🖤𓆪

Nobara's ceiling fan creaked steadily above you as you stared back at it, trying but failing to swallow down your emotions.

You rolled over, careful not to wake her as you reached for your phone to see the time "3:33" displayed across the screen. With a heavy sigh, you unplugged it from the charger and crept out of bed, keeping your movements light as you made your way into the living room.

You wrapped one of her knit blankets around your shoulders, sinking down onto the couch like you'd done so many times over the last few weeks you'd been staying here. There were bags under your eyes that you were convinced would never go away. Tear stains on your cheeks that felt like they'd been permanently adopted by your skin.

Thinking about Megumi was nothing new, it was the unfamiliar pain that came along with it that you couldn't quite adjust to. The way your chest tightened and your insides burned with each memory that surfaced. What used to be the most comfortable part of your brain was now the one place you were desperate to stay away from.

"So you're leaving then?"

You'd replayed the last conversation you'd had with him so many times, it still felt like you were in his room most days. A ghost that wandered the halls, hopelessly waiting for him to come back no matter how much time passed.

You had struggled to look back at him that night, his pupils dilated from the Oxy he had taken. There was something so unnerving about being so close to him and so far away from him at the same time. How physically, he was within arm's reach, but mentally, there might as well have been galaxies separating you.

Your voice betrayed you, shaking as you fought to keep your resolve. "That's what you want, right? For me to leave?"

He was silent, his worn-down demeanor saying more than his voice was capable of at the time. You watched his hand twitch at his side as if his own body was attempting to fight against his sentiment. "Just go."

You stared at him, forcing yourself to take in his pale face and hollowed out blue eyes. You'd seen the whole thing. The entire progression of the boy who used to build blanket forts with you to protect you from the outside world to the boy who'd taken your virginity on a rainy September night when you were 15 because "you both deserved to know what it felt like to be loved" to the vacant 22-year-old who was standing in front of you with nothing left to offer to you or himself.

You'd been there for every day and every moment that had led the two of you down that one pivotal breaking point, but you still couldn't fathom it. You didn't have it in you to fight with him. Didn't have it in you to push back or yell or fall apart in front of him like you both thought you would.

Instead, you did something much more damning: you mirrored him. Leaving him with an empty, "Okay." as you closed the door to his apartment and disappeared back to your car, realizing that his words still reigned true, only they held a new meaning - no one else had what you had, not even you.

You nestled into the couch, using your phone to put the same song on repeat as you tried to close your eyes again. Out of all the grievances you'd experienced throughout your life, you had never considered until recently how much harder it was to mourn the living than it was to mourn the dead.

𓆩🖤𓆪

Megumi had barely slept in the last three days. His thoughts were blurred by hazy white pills and scattered flashbacks of the things he should've never said to you and worst of all...

The way your face used to light up when you'd wake up next to him and what a jarring contrast it was to have his eyes flutter open to an empty bottle of whiskey on his nightstand instead.

"I feel awake when I'm with you."

He'd said it to you one morning when you'd both just woken up, his fingers running lazy circles over the top of your shoulder, his arms still wrapped protectively around you from the previous night's sleep.

"I'm listening." You hummed, propping your head up to meet his blue eyes in quiet encouragement.

He wasn't always the best with his words - you both knew that, but he still tried as he kept his fingertips featherlight against your skin. "I'm always so tired, but... not when I'm with you."

He remembered the way your pupils bloomed while he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, letting himself say the things he'd usually be too afraid to admit. "I... feel like the only time life really makes sense is when we're like this, you know...? When we're both half asleep tangled up in each other."

You cried, your hands finding the back of his neck as your lips met his in a gentle mid-morning daze.

It was the first time you'd said it - it poured out in between breaths and tears, opening up like a floodgate once it began: "I love you." you whispered against his lips. "I love you." You repeated while you pulled him on top of you. "I love you." as he slid your shirt above your shoulders. "I love you." only, it was his voice this time fanning across the nape of your neck. "I love you." he exhaled again, carefully sliding into you. "I love you." you moaned, your eyes completely fixated on him as he thrusted harder.

"I love you, I love you, I love you..."

The nostalgia was so intense it rang through his ears, his stomach churning violently. No matter how much he tried to bury you, you were still everywhere. Stuck to the walls. Stitched in his blankets. Embedded into his skin.

Panic swelled in his chest, his hand shaking as he dug the cellophane baggy out of his hoodie pocket and promptly shoved two oval-shaped pills into his mouth. 

"That's what you want, right? For me to leave?"

The answer wasn't yes because he didn't love you, the answer was yes because he did love you. Because after all that you'd been forced to deal with between your dad and his, the last thing you needed was for another man you trusted to let you down the way he was.

"Just go."

It wasn't that he wanted you to, it was that you needed to.

𓆩🖤𓆪

"You're not responsible for him." Nobara said as she handed you a cup of coffee, taking a seat next to you on the couch. "You realize that, don't you?"

Despite her rough edges when it came to men, she was truly the gentlest friend you had. She was patient. Kind. Non-judgmental. She listened to your feelings no matter how repetitive or morbid they may have been. There really weren't enough 'thank you's when it came to how much she'd been there for you over the last few weeks.

You dropped the blanket from your shoulders and took a sip, struggling to look back at her. "I know, I just -" you faltered, your eyes still locked onto the steam rolling off of your mug. "I just hope he's okay..."

It was the longest you'd gone without seeing him and no matter how many times she'd tried to remind you that you couldn't hold yourself accountable for his well being, you still felt an odd sense of responsibility for him. It was a feeling that you'd held onto for so long, you weren't sure how you were supposed to even separate yourself from it now.

Nobara let out a stifled breath, shooting you a pointed look as she took her own sip. "Has he ever been okay?"

The question was damning enough to bring your attention to hers, your breath hitching in your throat as you looked back at her.

"Look, I know you love him." Her hand was on your shoulder, her eyes softening a bit. "But you can't save him."

Flashbacks of an 11-year-old, chubby-cheeked version of him smashed through your mind. The way the warmth of his hand contrasted the coldness of your feet as he helped sneak you in through the sliding back door. You apologized to him for having to risk getting him in trouble just to let you in, but you couldn't be at your house for another minute. Even at his young age, he looked so perplexed by your guilt, shaking his head as his eyebrows furrowed. "If you're ever in trouble, I'll always come get you."

There was such an indescribable amount of safety laced into that one sentence alone.

"You promise?"

"Promise."

Nobara's grip tightened on your shoulder, gently trying to pull you back to reality, but his words were suddenly everywhere. His promise echoing on an unwanted loop as you sat your mug down on her coffee table and grabbed your phone.

Even with the falling out you'd had, he never stopped sharing his location with you. It wasn't an invitation back into his life by any means, but it was proof that his sentiment from all those years ago still held merit. That no matter what happened, he'd always know where to find you and you'd always know where to find him too.

Her expression was serious as she watched you, trying to find a tactful way to say what she needed. "I can't stop you." She finally exhaled, "And you know that I'll never tell you what to do, but..." It was that same sense of comfort you'd felt as a child, only this time it came in the form of protective brown eyes. "Remember that you're important too, okay? You matter just as much as he does."

Your body stilled, your stare lingering as you nodded back at her. A wave of the same fear you'd felt that night on his back porch swept over you again. "I know." You said softly. "We both matter. That's why I have to at least try."

𓆩🖤𓆪

Megumi stood under the warmth of his shower, letting steam fill the room as water beaded off of his pale skin. His eyes were heavy, his stomach struggling to keep up with the deficient mix of painkillers and nothingness he'd been offering it the last few days.

He was tired - physically, mentally, spiritually.

Absolutely drained in every sense of the word.

He let the water pour over him until it began to run cold, his hand finally reaching for the dial when he was certain there wasn't a drop of heat left for him. He reached for a towel, haphazardly running it through his hair before wrapping it around his waist. The bloodshot stare of his reflection was haunting, a painful familiarity laced into the tidal wave irises looking back at him.

"One day you'll understand." It was something that he had heard more times than he could count growing up. "One day you'll fuckin' get it." Megumi had always written it off as a jaded excuse from the man who'd raised him. A despondent explanation for his father's shitty behavior in place of an apology. But as he stood in front of the medicine cabinet in his empty apartment, he realized that for the first time maybe it wasn't an excuse for his father's neglect. Maybe it had been something much worse: a warning.

His fist slammed into the mirror without a second thought, an impulsive blur of blood and shattered glass flying past his face as he watched his hollowed-out reflection fracture and drop to the ground in tiny, severed pieces.

"Megumi...?"

Any fleeting amount of relief that he'd gained from the impact was instantly stolen by the softness of your voice.

His head snapped up, the bathroom door cracked open just enough for your eyes to lock with his.

He'd heard as a kid that the only time angels were visible to human beings is when they were needed the most. He didn't believe it back then, but it was the only explanation he could find to explain seeing you in his hallway.

He blinked back at you slowly, his gaze drifting from his battered knuckles to the blood staining the wall in front of him, to the floor that was covered in glass shards.

You didn't hesitate. Didn't pause to ask for an explanation. Didn't flinch at the scene you'd walked into. You just stood there, observing him in quiet understanding.

Time felt like it had come to a grinding halt as he watched you extend a hand out to him with all of the patience in the world. You were goodness incarnated and he was so undeserving.

"Let me help you."

𓆩🖤𓆪

His grasp was warm, his cut up fingers tangling cautiously into yours as you helped pull him away from the wreckage.

He followed behind you, letting you guide him back to his room where you promptly began cleaning and bandaging his injuries. It was almost nostalgic to be sitting with him like this again. Memories of middle school and the way he'd plop himself down on the edge of your bed after his most recent fight surfaced through your mind as you tended to his wounds.

You were almost done, lifting his wrist up to double-check your work when his hand broke free from yours. His thumb suddenly finding the underside of your chin to tilt your face up to his. It was the first time all night that you'd been able to look into him rather than just at him.

"You have a pretty big gash on your middle finger, but -" your voice was barely audible, completely overruled by the way he was staring at you. "It should be okay..." you swallowed, struggling to hold onto the calmness that you'd fought so hard to maintain thus far. "Where's your vacuum? I'll grab it real quick and –"

"Why're you here?"

Your mouth opened and then closed again, the wheels in your head viciously turning as your eyes searched his. There was an extensive list of reasons as to why you were here. A never-ending list, really. And he knew that just as well as you did.

You looked over him carefully, drawing in a shallow breath before pulling away from his hand. "A promise is a promise, right?"

His pupils widened, a glint of what almost resembled anger flickering across his face. "You've gotta let that go, you're smarter than that."

It was enough to snap your attention back to him, resentment settling heavily into the pit of your stomach. "Yeah well, unlike you, when I said 'always', I meant always - not 'always' until it got too hard. Or 'always' until I'm done. I meant fucking always, Megumi."

He leaned in closer to you, his tone every bit as sharp as his expression. The heat from his body was suddenly noticeable as it filled the small space between you. "God, you're dense sometimes. You really don't get it, do you? I didn't tell you to leave because things 'got too hard' or because I was 'done'." His stare was piercing, his face only centimeters away from yours. "I told you to leave because no one deserves to treat you like this. No one deserves to hurt you. No one, not even me. I don't get some pass just because of a promise we made as kids."

The scorned rebuttal you had lined up abruptly died on your tongue by his last sentence. The air felt stagnant and far too thick to breathe. Tears were pricking at the corners of your eyes, threatening to spill the longer you looked at him, but you fought with everything you had to keep them at bay.

"I guess we're both facing the same problem then." Your tone was light despite the crippling weight your words held. "Because no one deserves to hurt you like this either, not even you."

It felt like every late-night conversation, every right and wrong decision, every major life lesson that had played out between the two of you had only been practice for this one grave moment.

You watched the first small crack form in his concrete demeanor as you rested your hand on the back of his neck. Could almost hear the second one splinter down when his fingers traced along your jawline, catching tears you didn't even realize had fallen. Could practically feel the reverb of how shattering the third fracture was as he leaned in and attentively parted your lips with his tongue.

"I think the only time life makes sense is when we're like this."

You pulled him in closer, letting the past and present blur together through gentle, desperate touches. His grasp tightened around your waist, neither one of you able to stop what you'd started. You'd kissed him so many times before, groveled for him in so many different ways, but you weren't sure that you'd ever known this type of fervency for anyone or anything else in your life.

His hands were calloused, damaged but still tender as they ran through your hair, pulling your head back slightly. His mouth drifted to the side of your neck, the warmth of his breath dancing across your skin. "I love you." It was so faint that you weren't sure if he had actually said it or if it was just another part of your past coming back to haunt the both of you.

He hovered over you, gradually leaning you back into the mattress as the towel wrapped around his waist fell to the floor. You followed his lead, letting him delicately slip your t-shirt up over your head. Your heart stuttered in your chest, watching his eyes roam over you as he unbuttoned your shorts.

There was something so intimidating and overwhelmingly comforting about how well he knew you. Every freckle. Every scar. Every blemish. There wasn't a single part of your body that he hadn't familiarized himself with over the years.

His fingertips traced easily over the inside of your thigh, his eyes locked intently with yours. "You're sure this is what you want?"

His movements were calculated as he drew up towards your center, keeping his touch featherlight and his voice low. "You could have anyone else you wanted, you know that? Probably even have a pretty normal life without me.”

You shook your head at him, trying not to squirm as he slid a slender finger into you. "Just you." you whispered.

His thumb brushed against your clit with just the right amount of pressure while he added another finger. "I'm hard to love." He reminded you, his eyes glazing over as he watched your hips thrust up towards him.

"D - don't care." you moaned, trying to keep your focus despite the way he was picking up the pace, plunging innn and outttt of you, only going deeper with each time you tried to speak. "I... don't - oh, f...fuck."

"You don't what, baby?" Your walls were wrapped around him so tight, swallowing him hopelessly as you writhed beneath him. You opened your mouth again, but your thoughts were all but stolen from you as he slammed into you, rendering you a whimpering mess. "Words." he demanded.

You were trying so hard to keep it together, trying so hard not to soak him, but your release and emotions were all threatening to flood out at once the harder he went. You were grabbing onto him, clenching around his fingers as they continued their relentless assault on you.

"I don't want easy," it was almost one word with how breathlessly it came out. "I don't want easy –" you repeated, your body needily bucking up towards him again. "I want you. I'll always want you." you were finally at your breaking point, drenching him as he looked down at you with feral adoration. "Fuck Megumi, please."

He withdrew from you, his composure a bit more feverish as he leaned in to kiss you. It was hard, urgent.

"Bend over for me." He said against your lips.

He helped you roll over, grabbing your thighs to lift you into position while you arched your back for him and buried your face into the softness of his comforter. The absence of his fingers was short-lived, his tip suddenly prodding at your entrance.

He went in slow, watching you carefully as he held onto your hips for support and pulled you onto him. His pace was determined by your breathing. You were taking him so well, your body practically melting under his touch as he entered you, but he wanted every confirmation he could get that you really were in this as much as he was.

"I love you." you panted, tilting your head to look up at him over your shoulder. "I love you." you said again, feeling the hesitation from him finally start to dissipate.

His grip dug into your sides, each thrust rougher than the last. "Say it again." He nodded.

But you could barely get the first word out before he buried himself into you, taking away every last bit of resolve you had left. He leaned over so that his body was locking yours in place, his breath trailing across your shoulder as you shook underneath him, heady little whines filling the space between you.

His hand wrapped delicately around your throat while his voice picked up where yours had left off. "I love you." he exhaled.

Your eyes widened when they caught his. There was something so irrevocably binding about the way he was looking at you, it almost felt like an agreement. A soul tie. A meeting between angels and mortals. A promise where "always" really meant always.

"I love you." You whispered, not breaking away from his stare as his pace quickened. His thrusts were unyielding, his body becoming just as needy as yours while your nails dug desperately into his sheets. "I love you." you let out again, your walls nearly smothering him. "I love you." you whined, feeling yourself clench and spasm around him. "I love you." He groaned, holding you in place as he filled you - his cum mixing with yours, sealing the unspoken contract you’d both created.

"I love you. I love you. I love you..."

𓆩🖤𓆪

Megumi was careful not to wake you the next morning. He slipped out from under your grasp with all the caution he possessed as he got to his feet, throwing a pair of boxers on and sliding a black hoodie over his head.

He grabbed the empty bottles that were littering his nightstand before closing the door to his bedroom and heading to the kitchen. It was the first time he'd woken up sober in roughly 3 weeks. The clarity that came along with it was almost too much to handle as he looked over the state of his apartment. The piles of dishes. The destroyed bathroom mirror. The blood stains on the floor of the hallway.

It all told a story, painted an entirely too vivid picture of his own self destruction. He reached into the pocket of his hoodie, finding a cellophane baggy filled with the last 4 Oxys he had.

He took a breath, looking over them. Knowing that they were the one thing that could make everything feel so much more bearable and all it would take was one quick swallow. "God damnit..." He sighed.

Your footsteps were too light for him to hear as you crept around the corner, watching him dump the contents of the baggy into the kitchen sink.

He hastily turned on the water, fighting the urge to fish them out as he let them disappear down the drain. Today might hurt. Tomorrow might hurt. But as he turned around and caught your eye, he quickly realized that they weren't the only thing that could make everything better, they were far from it…

"Need some help?"

No matter how out of control life got, he would always have one advantage: No one else had what he had.

𓆩🖤𓆪

[will80sbyers]

The thought that they are perfectly written to help each other makes me feral for them because they are complementary without having to try to be

Mike has that type of strong and morally golden character that believes in fighting back for justice and he genuinely thinks that all his friends being some kind of "different" only makes them special and that's something positive that they should be proud of and just by being himself- when he's not trying to be cooler for someone else - he helps Will to feel like he shouldn't hide himself like all the other people around him made him feel he should

Will looks at Mike and takes example from him and he takes courage and the love he feels for him is so beautiful that it feels wrong to think it would be wrong to love him

Will with Mike usually starts to feel like he can be brave and honest about his feelings, and he's not a mistake only because he's born different from what society considers proper.

and then we have Mike that doesn't feel special at all, that doesn't see himself reflected in the mirror as a hero, he doesn't see himself represented as one irl because for him what he does, like, be willing to give his life for his friends and challenge anyone that wants to hurt them just because he wants to protect them doesn't feel like something special or a burden

for Mike that is just in his nature

and so he doesn't understand how that makes him a hero inherently, he runs towards the danger any time his friends and family need him even against all odds... he fights back and he's willing to take any type of consequences for that, he's brave and loyal and loves with all his heart and still he doesn't see himself as a hero

during the years Mike has started feeling like he's not special enough for people to really want to stay in his life long term and so he has to try to be cooler than he is and change what he's like on the surface to be more like what society regards as one of "the cool kids"

and then here comes Will that gets MAD when Mike is not himself, that pictures him as a brave hero and wants Mike exactly as he is, he looks at Mike and sees the best person one could be and takes a mirror and places it right in front of him and says you are perfect exactly as you are too, I love you for who you are and I want you to always know that, I need you to be yourself because you being yourself is what gives me hope that I am not a mistake

you being yourself is what makes us all better because we are inspired by your character and you make us all want to fight injustice with you and follow you anywhere

you are special. and you are actually the one that's most special between all of us because of what you have in your heart and we all need you and most importantly we WANT you and we want to be with you

I want to be with you and stay with you for the rest of my life - you make me want to stay on this earth even against all of the pain and fear, and you make me feel brave and I need you to know how much you are loved and appreciated as you are right now without having to change anything about yourself

Mike & Will are complementary and they need and want each other at the same time and they will find happiness together🩷

[sonoyoung]

— so lets go see the stars

non idol!woozi x gn!reader | first encounter, fluff | 0.9k | so let’s go see the stars - boynextdoor + late night calls - p1harmony

For the first few hours each room of the house was filled with noise of chattering, giggling, obnoxiously loud singing but now it was all quiet. It amazed you that they had so much energy to spare working full time day jobs but then you’d notice how quickly it would die out.

It was your second time spending time with the entirety of the friend group and you had the time of your life, it was like being at an amusement park where each room had different activities to partake in with a new set of people, you had to formally thank Soonyoung for inviting you. Even though the alcohol had collectively hit their tired nerves, and they were all passed out in the most random spaces of the house at 1 am, you could say you enjoyed your night.

Slumber however hadn’t hit you yet so you tiptoed out, through the crevices between Soonyoung and Seokmin who laid flat on the floor. Quietly creeping to the balcony where you could let the midnight breeze rock you to sleep.

Stepping out you immediately notice him, resting on a lounge chair legs crossed with a book placed right on his face, your first instinct was to sneak back inside but you got caught too early. He lifted up the book to peek at you, sitting up in his seat so you could feel at ease roaming around, you gave him an apologetic smile before stepping back out closing the door behind you.

“I thought everyone was asleep inside” you tell him with a soft smile still standing by the doorway, the balcony was lightly lit up with stringed lights but you could tell it was Jihoon.

“Yeah I just came out for some fresh air, its a bit stuffy in there”

It felt awkward for some reason, as you walked over to the edge of the balcony leaning against the barrier you realized you had never actually talked to him prior to this moment. It was a funny coincidence that you happened to be the only ones awake at this hour, maybe it was a calling.

“You’re y/n right?” your lips were parted open ready to speak just as he asked, you turned around to face him still sat on the chair, a breathy “yeah” escaped your lips in response.

“So you’re everyone’s favorite?” you smile your eyebrows lifted in a confused manner, wondering where he got that idea from.

“Am I?”

“Absolutely, though I can’t speak for myself but tonight’s the perfect opportunity to fix that.” He gestures for you to join him by the chairs, bouncing his gaze from the seat beside him back to you.

You felt like you already knew so much about him just from hanging out with his friends but it wasn’t comparable to actually being with him. He had such a fascinating way of thinking that made you want to prompt him to continue his talking just so you could hear more.

“You guys look best when you’re all together, truly. Like a bunch of happy kids.”

Sitting under the dark night sky, the conversation flows in so many different ways, never dying, talking about how they met, staying friends for such a long precious time, some things you envied, some things you admired. The words came out of nowhere but they felt fitting, you wished you could also keep your childish heart and be happily surrounded with love.

For a moment you sat in the silence of the night, you glanced at him, right there looking at you with a small smile on his lips, the look in eyes so pure you couldn’t help the way your heart clenched at the sight.

“What?” you ask softly trying to laugh of the feeling, only making his smile for you grow as he spoke up.

“I just like how you said that, i guess we think alike” he turns his gaze away up to the starry night, your eyes stayed focused on him unconsciously, watching him take in the beautiful twinkling spread across the canvas.

“Has the sky always been this beautiful?” the question made you look up, the feeling of being caught in your fantasy crawling up to paint your cheeks rosey, just as you looked up he brought his eyes back to you, like it was a game to catch the other.

The sky did in fact look more beautiful than it had when you first stepped onto the balcony, it was an odd difference, you didn’t quite understand why but you soaked in it. His occasional glances back and forth between you and the moon finally came to a stop, right where they began, watching the tiredness take over your body.

A couple weak blinks and you were gone, he wasn’t sure if to leave you there to rest or carry you inside but seeing how you slept so soundly, he just grabbed a blanket placing it carefully over your body, loving how you instantly snuggled into the warmth of it. He felt you would become his favorite too.

He stayed there by your side for the rest of the night, for no other reason than being by your side. Morning came you parted ways, exchanging contacts with everyone finally, anticipating the next time you would have fun together.

.

The name on the screen caught you off guard, you had been in bed for the past hour hoping for slumber to reach you. It had been over a week since you saw each other, and you had been thinking about that night constantly but you never thought you’d get a call.

You answered the phone with his name the confusion apparent in your intonation.

“Is it weird that I missed your voice? I’m standing on a balcony right now and I miss you”

[krazyyyyyy]

Forever Longing Solivan Brugmansia /Reader

Synopsis: A small glimpse into Sol's elementary life, where he abruptly meets the single most important person in his life...You

Warnings: Mentions of violence

Words: 2553

Notes: Don't know how many more of these I'll write, but I'm hoping to get around three more done if not a few more.

Hope you enjoy this short story <3

Children’s happy laughter echoed loudly throughout the playground, as they began to spill out of the school building; marking the beginning of their cherished recess time. Kids ran freely playing around with friends, swinging giddily on the swing sets, and continuously going up and down the slide.

Well, all the kids but one…

A young, small, and quiet Solivan stood far away from the other kids, staring at the ground at his feet, avoiding any eye contact with anybody within the area. He knew he didn’t fit in with the others, given his introverted nature, he was considered an outcast amongst his classmates. People tended to overlook him, barely acknowledging his presence even when they were standing right next to him.

He was used to it, though…. He had his drawing supplies and stuffed animals, the only things that really made him feel anything close to happiness. The stuffed animals would never judge him, and, they’d always be around to listen to him when he needed it, an idiosyncratic concept to him growing up in a loveless household.

A soft tap on his shoulder causes him to lift his amber gaze from the ground and into the familiar brown orbs of his teacher, Mrs. Baker. A woman with a skinny frame and curly auburn hair that just slightly exceeded her shoulders. It took everything within him not to scoff at her arrival. She was keen on pushing him towards being more sociable with the other kids, a goal that would always fail in his favor. So why couldn’t she just leave him alone?

 She crouched down to his height and spoke to him in her usual soft and steady voice, “Solivan, Why don’t you play with the others today? It seems they're playing a little game of freeze tag, doesn’t that sound like fun?” 

Solivan spared a short glance toward where the kids were running wildly at each other, while some others stayed frozen in place, showing signs of annoyance at being frozen; he retracted his gaze back to the ground shaking his head, mumbling a small “No”

Mrs. Baker smiled understandingly at the timid young boy before her, “I know it might seem scary, but give it a chance, you might like it more than you think.” She attempted one last time to try to convince the boy to open up, even if it was just a little.

The boy remained silent, having lost interest in the conversation completely and hoping that his teacher would simply give up and leave him alone for the rest of the recess period.

Thankfully, it seemed fate was on his side, as he heard his teacher sigh next to him before standing up and walking away to a different part of the playground to supervise a group of rather exuberant children. Leaving him alone at last.

The little raven-haired boy sat on the ground, back pressed against the steel fence that separated the playground from the busy streets that lay not far behind. Settling down, Sol pulled out a small sketchpad from his back pocket; a notebook that was filled page to page in his numerous doodles, which he usually did during class time to pass the time.

Pulling out a pencil, Sol began to doodle, head buried in the notebook; heavily embarked on the mini sketches that required his utmost attention. After a while, he finally cranes his head back to admire his work; his sketch was that of a small horse with a small sketched figure of him seated cheerfully on its back.

He beamed at the drawing, proud of his work. While marveling at the sketch, the notepad is quickly ripped from his grasp. Startled and confused, Sol snaps his head up to look at the culprits. Standing above him, were three kids, obviously much older than he was, possibly four grades above him.

Sol was quick to spring up to his feet to try to get the notebook back, but to no avail, as the blond boy who held the item towered over him. He held the sketchbook high above his head, so even if the little boy tried to jump for it, it would prove pointless in the end

“Give it back!” Sol shouted at the kids as he continued to try to reach for what he considered to be one of his only sources of comfort. All three of the boys laughed at him, “Aww, is the little weirdo gonna cry.” a boy with red hair teased, pointing at him.

“You drew yourself riding a horse? What are you, some kind of girl?” The blond boy jokingly flipped through the pages of the book, briefly observing its contents.

“Stop it!” When Sol tried to reach for his sketchbook once again, the blond boy laughed, before tossing the book over to another boy; then that boy proceeded to also flip through the book and laugh before also tossing it to the next boy. Sol found himself playing in this miserable game of monkey in the middle; a game where he could only watch as his book flew through the air above him, out of reach, with no hopes of ever reaching it.

Eventually, Sol got the courage to defend himself from these bullies, and with all the strength he could muster with his tiny form, he tried to shove the bully who had the sketchbook in his possession. But, the shove proved unhelpful, as the bully didn’t even move an inch.

Sol could barely catch his breath before he was harshly shoved to the ground. A sharp pain pulsed through his body as his back was met with the hard ground; Sol opened his eyes to notice that his sketchbook had fallen next to his body, the bully had more than likely dropped it in outrage at Sol’s sudden rebuke. Sol swiftly snatched the book off the ground and held it close to his chest, shielding it from the bullies.

Sol lay on the ground in a fetal position, with his back facing his bullies, arms still tightly wrapped around his sketchbook. There was a sudden sharp pain on his side as a bully directed a fierce kick toward the young boy; another boy directed a kick, of similar intensity, toward his other side, leaving the little boy only to whimper in pain.

The group of bullies continued to relentlessly kick the defenseless boy, not showing any hint of mercy toward him. Tears ran down Sol’s cheeks as he could only endure the endless kicks that the bullies threw at him. He closed his eyes and hoped the boys would soon grow bored with this and walk away, or maybe a teacher would notice this assault and interfere.

It felt like an eternity that the kicking would continue, he almost thought it would never end…

Until a loud voice rang out and suddenly the kick stopped.

“Hey! Leave him alone!” Sol heard the unknown voice shout at the group of boys. He peeked from his position to glance at where the shouting came from; upon opening his eyes, he was met with his saviors back facing him as they spread their arms out wide to shield him away from the sight of the bullies.

“Get outta the way Pipsqueak! Or you're gonna be next!” He heard one of the bullies shout at the person before him. Sol noticed the stranger's visible shakiness as they stayed rooted in their spot in front of him; they were just as scared of these bullies as he was, yet they still chose to throw themselves in the middle just to protect him. He felt a surge of admiration for the stranger; this had been the first and only time someone stood up for him… his heart couldn’t help but skip a beat.

“No! I-I won't l-let you!” The stranger's words came out shuddered and breathy as if they were holding back tears. Luckily, their voice had been loud enough to possibly draw the attention of others nearby.

The twisted grins on the bullies' faces faded at the realization, and they looked around the area to see if anyone had caught the drift of what was happening.

“Shit!”  Was the last thing Sol heard from them, followed by the frantic pattering of feet in the grass as the bullies quickly fled the scene. Leaving behind two frightened kids as a result. 

Sol, who was still lying on the ground, breathed heavily, the fear coursing through his veins still running wild. He flinched when a blurry object suddenly came into his vision. As his vision slowly cleared, he noticed that the object was the outstretched hand of his savior; they looked down at him with a concerned expression, tears still lingering in the corner of their eyes.

Hesitantly, Sol took the hand, which helped pull him to his feet. He stumbled a bit but managed to regain his balance with a bit of effort and help from the person next to him.

“Are you okay?” The stranger asked him, their voice a bit hoarse from all the yelling yet still holding a subtle gentleness to it. Sol looked at them for a second, before shyly shifting his gaze off somewhere else and slightly nodding his head.

They smiled, their gaze landing on the item that Sol continued to hold tightly to his chest. “What’s that?” They pointed out the sketchbook, which, unknowingly to them, had caused the whole ruckus that just happened moments ago.

“... It’s my sketchbook,” Sol murmured under his breath, keeping his gaze away from the person in front of him. He never did well talking to people, never mind kids his age, this person wouldn’t be any different.

Their eyes lit up as he spoke, “You draw?! I wanna see it! Can I see pretty, please?!”

 Sol was taken aback by their sudden interest in his sketchbook, his eyes were blown wide at them; he had never shown anyone his work before, nor had anyone ever asked to see it… this person was achieving a lot of firsts for him. He supposed he could show them, considering they had just saved him from a harsh beating.

“Umm… Okay.” Sol pulled the sketchbook from where it rested on his chest to hold it out between him and the stranger. He slowly navigated through the pages, properly allowing the person next to him to take in each piece of art. They were a bundle of excitement, commenting excitedly on almost every single little doodle in the book; it brought a small smile to Sol’s face, knowing that someone enjoyed his drawings just as much as he did.

“These are so good! You're so talented! Do you think maybe you can draw me something?” Sol felt his cheeks flush with an odd, unfamiliar warmth. They wanted him to draw something for them. Him? Out of all the people they could have asked? They wanted him to draw for them…

He fidgeted with the pages of the notebook in his hands, keeping his eyes glued to the ground, nervously. “Sure–”

“Wait! Before I forget, my name is Y/N!” They cheerfully cut him off, “What’s yours?” They talked a million words per second, which was a bit overwhelming, but Sol still found himself intrigued by them.

“My name is Solivan…” He spoke quietly, but loud enough for their newfound acquaintance to hear. “Solivan?” They tested his name out, “Well, Solivan from this day forward you are now my friend!” Sol stared at them dumbfounded. He never had a friend before, but didn’t think it would ever be this simple, yet here he was.

He didn’t get a chance to respond to their declaration when they continued to speak, “I’m thinking maybe a butterfly–No wait! A gecko… no…” They continued to list through a variety of animals, as Sol would stand and watch them in awe. He didn’t know what it was, but he felt some sort of connection to his new friend, it wasn’t unwelcome, but it was still strange.

“Oh, I got it! How about a dove? Mom says those are her favorite!” 

Sol raises an eyebrow at them.“Like the bird? Are you sure?”

“Yeah!” They cheer.

Sol only nods his head in response, but a smile remains on his face at their jubilation. He sees the opportunity to speak after your moment of triumph and takes it, “I-um… thank you… for helping me. Not many would’ve done the same.”

They shake their head at him with a smile,“ Don’t mention it. You needed help…so I helped!”, the sincerity in their tone set Sol at ease. He wondered if had truly been missing out. If other kids acted just like Y/N, then maybe talking to others wouldn’t be so bad.

A mature voice suddenly rang out through the playground, catching everyone's attention, “Kids, recess is over! Starting lining up with your class!”

“Aww man!” The child next to Sol groans, “Just when we were having fun, too!”. If their definition of fun was getting nearly trampled by a couple of older students, then Sol supposes he had the time of his life… Not really, though, but meeting Y/N was a nice surprise.

Children from all around the playground started to depart, moving to their designated class lines. Y/N started to make their way toward their line before they stopped to turn around to look at Sol one more time. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Solivan! Can’t wait to see the drawing!” And with that, the energetic second-grader gave him one last wave before running over to their class.

Sol gave them a little wave in return, watching as their figure got further and further away. It wasn’t long before he himself started making his way toward his own class, to continue the rest of his day. Of course, his attention wasn’t drawn toward that of his classwork, but rather that of the little dove drawing he spent the rest of the day drawing for that special someone he met.

~

Sol paid no mind as his art teacher rambled on and on about the importance of elements in art; his focus mainly on the small, worn-out sketch pad that lay open on his desk. He lazily drew his fingers along the delicate pencil marks of his old drawing from way back then.

Out of the drawings he had created during his entire childhood, that little dove that he drew for you in the second grade always held a special place in his heart. He remembers how bright your face lit up when he showed it to you the very next day; you insisted that he kept it in his sketchbook, under the circumstance that you get to view it anytime you want–which you would do on the daily.

He shifted his gaze from the paper to where you sat near the front of the classroom, trying your best not to fall asleep during the lecture. His heart ached for you to look at him the way you did when you were kids, now it was like he was a total stranger to you; another student who simply attended the same art class as you.

But with time, you’d eventually grow aware of his existence, you’d have too.

After all, you were his soulmate, just as he was yours.

[sunnyangy]

Could you please do maybe a post-timeskip Headcanon where Umemiya and his significant other are married and have a family together with kids? I really want to see that guy happy and have his own family again 😭😭😭 (and it’s up to you if he still has something to do with Bofurin or just keeps in touch with the members!)

Family Headcanons 🍃

- Umemiya 🌱

• After 5 years of dating in high school, from 17 to 22, he proposed to you during a trip he planned to the beach. He couldn’t go out of the country because of his duty, but made sure to take you to a nice place. He proposed on the first day of the trip, in a nice rooftop restaurant. He got on his knee next to you, holding out a beautiful diamond ring.

« Y/n, it’s finally time for me to ask you this, even if I knew since a long time I want to spend my life with you. My beautiful girlfriend, will you marry me and become my wife for life ? »

• You got married in your city, a casual but magical wedding.

• Of course he fucking cried like a baby when you walked down the aisle.

• You only had kids in your 30s, as Umemiya wanted to be sure and ready, to have a steady life. He works as a kindergarten teacher, in the local one.

• You have two kids, a boy and a girl. Umemiya is the best father, always playing with his kids, teaching them things, showering them with care and gifts. He is the fun type of dad, always making them laugh.

• He isn’t Bofuurin’s leader anymore, as he let the next generation replace him. But if there ever is a big conflict, they will contact him and require his help. He stays as the fondator of Bofuurin. He is still in contact with all of the other members and even the new ones, often organizing barbecues with what he grows.

• And speaking of this, your garden is HUGE and FILLED with plants, fruits, vegetables, anything he can grow. And he will always ask you to cook things with it.

( • Sexy asf even in his 40s with his glasses when he reads.)

• He always reads a story to the kids before sleeping, leaned against their bed. He will stay with them if they’re sick, without ever sighing.

• He is still as romantic and as caring with you, never letting you on the side.

• This is the happiest he has ever been, his role as big brother (now more as a dad) finally being fulfilled. He is proud to have two amazing kids, and the best wife anyone could ever ask for.

• He helps his kids with homework, but sometimes gets frustrated because he doesn’t understand some questions. He will pinch the bridge of his nose, adjusting his glasses as if they were the problem.

• For a time, he grew his hair longer, like shoulder length, but then cut them again like before, to refresh himself. Both suited him very well.

• He always is the cool dad at school, especially in kindergarten where he is everyone’s favorite teacher.

• Everyone knows his position in the city, and everyone respects his kids.

• Both of his kids then became themselves the leaders of Bofuurin for their generation, fueled by their dad’s ideas, but also influenced by « Uncle Sakura ».

Umemiya with glasses 😩 @hell-hoound

[lyrenminth]

What we could be

Second part of the request about Joe and you getting divorce

Happy ending, second chance

I'm going to send the kids with my mom on Saturday. Would you like to go out and eat something or we stay at the house?"

Truthful to his word, Joe sent you a text. You didn't know what to answer, going out implied many things and you didn't want to be seen with him (harsh but true) but being surrounded by people made you more confident than being alone at his house. You didn't want to think what would happen if you were alone at his house.

"There's a coffee place we could talk privately. Saturday at noon" you answer back.

"Perfect!"

When Saturday came, you were so nervous you messed up your eyeliner twice. You remembered his words. "I never wanted a divorce" Was that really true? You never thought Joe was putting any effort into your relationship after Mackenzie was born. Everything was football and winning. You really try to talk to him, you really did and he wouldn't clear a damn space in his agenda for you.

You sighed, looking at your reflection in the mirror. You remembered the way Joe look at you when Julian mentioned the date.

Would you go back with Joe if he asked?

You didn't know. You loved him, he was the dad of your children but you were so scared. You didn't wanted to get hurt again.

When you arrived at the coffee, Joe was already there. He smiled fondly and stood up to kiss your cheek. Your hands were sweaty when you took your seat. "Should we order something?" He said looking at the menu. "I'm going to order an iced coffee" he stood up before you to set your order on the counter. You watch him interact with the employee, and you felt a pang in your chest. He was lovely, really polite. He would order your coffee like this many times before. Nostalgia hit you like a truck, but you weren't here to remind the sweet times.

When he came back you said a shy thank you and waited for him to sit down. "Well, thanks for coming" he smiled again. "Julian has the same smile at you" you pointed out. His smile grew bigger. "Yeah, the boys told me"

"Well, yes" you gulped, sipping your coffee.

He ran his hands through his hair, one, two, three times. Good to know you weren't the only nervous.

"I mean it. What I said in the house" he said, his eyes big and honest "I'm sorry I've never considered your feelings. I guess being a father made me realize the big responsibility I was carrying, but I completely forgot to be a husband" when you didn't say a word, he continue "I thought that by working more, earning more money would protect my family" he was sad "I never thought it would be the reason of losing it"

"Joe, this is not about the kids. I think you're a great father, and they loved you. This is about us" you sighed, tired of having this conversation "We forgot about ourselves. I tried to arrange dates you didn't show up. We had conversations like this before, I missed my husband and you weren't there so tell me" you voice filled with emotions made you stop for a second "...tell me why I should believe you"

"I-I still love you, Y/N" he confessed, staring at your soul "I want to share a bed, a house or a damn mug with you. No one else. You are the mother of my children and I still care about you "

"You didn't hook up with that reporter a month after our divorce?" you brought up. He pressed his lips and have the decency to look ashamed. "I was hurt, but yeah"

"Well, it was long ago" you realize after the divorce Joe went blank about his personal life. No one knew if he was having dates. It was hard to believe if he didn't.

"I understand if you're afraid, I'm very honest and very clear right now, I want a second chance" he declared, fully confident.

"Joe..." you pleaded, but looking at him felt so familiar. What would happen if you didn't divorce? Your family would be closer, children wouldn't be stressed but maybe you would be miserable, right? You loved him, you still do. Joe had all the respect and admiration on your side, but again you never felt the same support. "I love you, you're a great father but you haven't show me any different"

"Give me a second chance please" his hand looked for yours over the table, and when you felt it so warm and big around yours, your mind was in completely silence. You haven't touch Joe in three years. He was the love of your life, and yet...you were so scared.

At your hesitation, he confessed "I'm sorry to made you feel lonely, I regret it completely. I'm not going to talk about my wishes anymore. And I understand if you say no" he took a deep breath before saying "I'll retire this year"

The new made you flinch in surprise. "What? No? Are you joking?"

"No, I'm not joking. After the divorce I realize many things" he sounded honest.

"But you loved football!"

"Yes, but my body is asking for a rest. And football is not my family, doesn't make me cookies and hug me tight everytime they see me" you were crying at that point. If that's true, things could be so different. "I want you back. You're my wife, I made those vows for you. I love you"

"Okay"

"Do you give me a second chance?" he was grinning full of hope.

"Yes"

"You won't regret it, I promise"

[sohnric]

partners in crime – j. changmin

after a series of unpredictable events, you and ji changmin, the foster kid with a shady reputation, become partners in crime. in a world where every choice has a consequence, you two must decide how far you're willing to go as you balance on the edge of danger with the promise of a better life.

pairing: ji changmin x fem! reader

genre: criminals au. coming of age, slice of life. angst, hurt/comfort. thief! changmin. partners in crime au (duh). slight high school au. inspired by a real case of robbery in a jewelry store here lmao. also loosely inspired by the kdrama extracurricular!

wc: 33k (33.689)

warnings: mentions of alcoholism and juvenile behavior, swearing, changmin's character is a little inconsistent at first. changmin is a foster child, dysfunctional families, financial issues, yn's father is absent. mentions of minors going on dates with older men, a man trying to take advantage of the reader, a physical fight (with the use of a knife), fake gun, robbery and that should be it...?

playlist || teaser || ao3

a/n: i had worked on this fic since december and only finished it at the beginning of may i am so glad it's finally out TT thank you SO much to my best friend @csenke for beta reading this, your comments were what made me feel more secure about this fic to actually post it. i know it's a lot of work and i appreciate you<3 i always wanted to write a fic like this and it's finally here, i hope yall like it hihi taglist: @songchan @luumiinaa

One of the police officers drags you up from the chair by your shoulder, urging you to move outside of the room. The one that’s been sitting opposite of you smiles sadly at you– something akin to sympathy, but not enough to really get through and hit your core– while the other one opens the door and shoves you down to sit at the plastic chair outside of the office. His movements are more stern and strong, tone of voice more stingy when he talks to you– it’s not hard to differentiate which one of them has kids at home, which one knows the tired eyes of a teenager more.

“Wait here until your mother picks you up,” the officer says, a stone cold look making you shiver.

“She doesn’t know that I’m here. You called her and she didn’t pick up, so–”

“I don’t care, young lady. Either your mother comes to pick you up, or you stay here forever, for all I care,” he mutters, sending you another one of his sharp looks before he turns around and disappears back into the room you came from, shutting the door behind him with a loud thud. 

Figure jumping at the sudden noise, you settle deeper into the uncomfortable chair. Christmas will come earlier than your mother, and that’s a lot to say, since it’s March– and it seems that nobody really cares if you stay here forever. It’s not surprising, actually. Not at all. You don’t know what you were thinking anyway, but hey– desperate times call for desperate measures, and you had no other way of going around the situation. You don’t regret trying. You just regret getting caught.

Head resting against the hard wall, intending to rest your eyes closed and maybe take a nap before a miracle happens and your mother somehow starts caring and appears on the doorstep of the police, your orbs are met with another pair sitting opposite of you, silently watching the previous exchange. The intensity of his gaze almost makes you jump in surprise again, only relaxing when you recognise the owner of the dark chocolate irises and visibly shudder, embarrassment creeping up your neck. 

It’s not every day you meet a guy from your school at a police station. Well, it’s not every day you end up at the police station, but being caught by someone who is aware of your existence makes this whole encounter even more uncomfortable.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Ji Changmin chirps, something akin to an amused smirk appearing on his face. His composure is light. He seems to be comfortable with the situation– well, as much as you can read from his blood-smeared face– and you start to wonder how and why your silent classmate from English class would end up at the police station, with a cut on his lip, a bruise on his upper jaw and scraped knuckles on full display, as he rests his intertwined hands in his lap.

“Could say the same about you,” you shrug, biting back at him. 

“Oh please,” he snickers, shaking his head in disbelief, “I’m a regular here.”

The sentence catches you off guard. It’s not every day you meet a guy from school at a police station, but considering his words, it seems like you would meet him here every day, only if you were dragged here by rough hands of a police officer as often as he has.

“Oh,” you gasp, not really knowing how to react to such a confession, “good… to know…?” you mumble, nodding to prove your point.

You expect the conversation to die down– you don’t really know what to talk about with someone you barely know at the most unusual place you could imagine for a conversation. Ji Changmin is one of the classmates you’ve never talked to before, but would say hi to when passing them by on the street. He seems polite and easy-going enough to not feel uncomfortable with when left alone in a closed space together, but aloof enough to not have many friends himself. You barely know anything about him– apart from his marks in the one class you share, since you are often chosen to be the one to hand out graded tests at the beginning of English– and you don’t expect things to change just because you met him in unfortunate circumstances.

At least you know this won’t get out in any way. Not like you have any reputation to withhold in the first place– you’d just hate to have the reputation of someone being chased around by the police. Trying hard to find the light in the things, you thank all higher forces that out of everyone, the one classmate that could witness all of this is the guy with seemingly no friends to tell.

Changmin seems to have different plans, though. For someone that isn’t interested in making bonds with people, he seems to be interested in casual talk with you.

Well, if you could call this casual.

“Yeah,” he shrugs, “they always let the kid from the foster house get away with it. They blame it on the trauma, or something, make me sign some papers and then someone comes to pick me up and the cycle repeats itself over and over again.”

The information catches you off guard. Truth be told, you didn’t know that about Changmin– you doubt anyone from school really knows, except for the teachers, and the sudden confession makes you hesitant. You don’t really know why he’s telling you this. If you were in his position, you’re sure you wouldn’t. It seems like everyone has a different measure for what’s appropriate to tell someone you barely know, though, and Changmin seems to enjoy the weird intimacy of the quiet police station enough to dump this information on you.

“Oh…” you say, chewing on the inside of your cheek. Not wanting him to think you’re distressed with the information, disturbed, even, you try hard to think of a conversation topic to discuss with him. “What… what did you do this time, then?” you ask, mentally slapping yourself for being so awkward.

“Tried to pickpocket someone on the street,” he says, chuckling to himself. His eyes move to his bruised hands, shrugging. “Seems like I picked a bad victim. See, he had this fancy watch, so I saw him as a jackpot, but then he swung at me and… here I go,” he says, laughing as if it was a funny story.

He must be a regular here. He is too comfortable with being arrested to not be.

“That’s… unfortunate,” you hum, watching as the boy in front of you shrugs, eyes curious as they land on yours.

“It is… I could buy so much with that money,” he sighs, shaking his head, “what about you, though? How did you end up here?”

“Oh, uhm…” you gasp, scratching the back of your neck, suddenly a little shameful to admit it once you’re asked, “I… I tried to steal something and I was caught by the store owner, so he called the police on me…” you tightly smile, hoping to seem nonchalant.

“Shoplifting?” Changmin chuckles. “What did you want to steal? Designer clothes, or something?” he snickers, obviously mocking you. And it’s valid– you are a teenage girl, after all. You seem to have everything you need in your life, but that’s only because you don’t let anyone even suspect that there is something wrong. To an outsider's eye, they might think there is nothing more you could need to be happy if not designer clothes or jewelry. It’s what most teenage girls get caught stealing– you guess he’s not wrong for making such a guess.

Still, you feel a bit hurt at seeming so vain. Locking eyes with the boy, you shrug. If he’s going to share every small detail of his life with you in the comfort of the walls of the police station, you guess you can unveil at least something to him, desperate to make him feel ashamed for assuming.

“No, actually,” you say, the tone of voice suddenly calm and collected, “I was stealing groceries.”

And it finally seems to down on him– because if you try to steal something, it means you’re lacking it, right? Why would you steal something you can easily buy?

That’s right– you wouldn’t.

Changmin’s eyes soften with the realization, his mouth opening to say something– anything– before he’s cut off by the door to one of the offices opening, the kinder one of the policemen approaching you with a solemn look in his eye, leaning towards you to talk quietly into your ear.

“You can go home now, okay? We’ll let you off with a warning this time,” he says, smiling at you. 

“But my mother–”

“Just go.”

You guess the object you’re stealing makes a difference in the way you’re treated at the police station. Also, you guess it’s good that people still have sympathy.

Usually, you hate the sad looks from people that are aware. This time, you leave the police station comforted, happy to know that you still have a future without a criminal record.

You’ll have to be more careful next time.

Eyes catching the glimmer of the silver chain in between your fingers, you press your skin into the metal and drag your nail over the stones in the pedant. You watch over the glass vitrines situated all around the store, various different shades of gold and silver staring back at you, almost laughing to your face with the prize tags slapped onto them, showing prices worth more than your groceries for the month. 

Contemplating your next decision, looking behind your shoulder to catch the security camera watching you, you think over your next steps. Angling your body so that it’s shielding what you’re doing with your hands, you gently take out the drawer that you’ve taken the silver chain out of, pretending to put the jewelry back where you got it from.

Your movements are careful, calculated. You’ve rethought this plan over and over again, birthed in your mind the moment you saw the sign ‘hiring’ on the glass door of the fancy jewelry store in the town center– made adjustments to it, tweaked it around and tried your hardest to make a good impression on your boss so she wouldn’t suspect anything– but now that you’re actually in front of the important part, the one that’s supposed to help you the most in your hunt for money, you can’t really bring yourself to do it.

Who knows. Maybe you could just keep the job– you don’t make much, though, considering you only work part-time. With the way your shifts are scheduled and the amount of time you have to put into working, you don’t really see the jewelry store as a good source of income– you are barely home and have time for anything. 

And it’s not the kind of money you need. Not at all.

Sighing to yourself, you shake your head to clear it off all thoughts– it’s time to do it. You can be sneaky. You can be uncaught. You just have to put your head to it.

Fingers shaking, you move the chain towards the front pocket of your jeans, ready to hide it in there and then sell it in the pawn shop a few weeks later to not raise much suspicion– when the sound of the front door opening brings you out of your thoughts, making you jump in surprise. Eyes snapping to the customer entering the store, you get ready to sport the kindest, warmest smile you can– to seem innocent and not at all suspicious. However, the grin stops growing mid-way as you recognise the appearance of the customer, smile freezing and turning into a concerned frown. 

This is not how you’d expect a customer of a fancy jewelry store to look.

The person is dressed in black, skinny jeans adorning their thighs, the hood of their jacket pulled over their head and a mask covering the bottom half of their face. Before you get a chance to dwell on it any further, they take out a gun– and they point it to your face.

There’s a moment in time where you feel like everything freezes. A moment in time where you just stare the gun into its eyes and wait for the person to shoot you, a moment in time where you can’t even think. Your brain clears, the only thought present at the tip of your tongue being– this is not how I imagined to go.

Your hands start shaking as you put them above your head, pupils dilating in terror. You guess this is something you should’ve expected when taking the job in an expensive jewelry store, but even though you’re aware a situation like this could exist in your timeline, you don’t really expect it. It’s like that with all bad things in life– you keep telling yourself that there’s no way something like that would happen to a person like you.

There’s no way your father would leave. There’s no way your mother’s world would crumble. There’s no way you’ll be left in charge of everything. There’s no way you’ll have to be the one to steal groceries because you can’t afford to buy food to put into your sister’s mouth. 

There’s no way a man would pull out a gun on you in the middle of your shift.

And yet, it happened. Everything.

In a moment of absolute terror, though, it feels like the world starts spinning again and the force clutching your chest relaxes a little when you stare into the man’s eyes. 

Strange, isn’t it?

There’s a sense of familiarity in his gaze. Something mirroring a weird kind of surprise, a weird kind of recognition. A million different thoughts flow through your brain, eyes scanning his figure– the skin of his hands as he grips the gun that you now recognise to be one of the kinds you use when you play airsoft, not a real one– the lean posture of his figure, but most importantly, the spark in his dark orbs that somehow invites you to do everything he tells you to. Not because he’d kill you if you don’t– but because somehow, you know this might be of gain for you.

Trying hard to play out your previous panic, riding off the erratic heartbeat in your chest, you walk over to the cash register and open the drawer. Eyes meeting with the intruder, you precisely take out the bills stacked in the register, throwing them on the counter in a careless, yet seemingly nervous manner. 

“The jewelry,” he mumbles, pointing towards the vitrines with his chin, waiting for you to obey his words. 

It doesn’t take you much to take out the drawers full of silver and gold, letting the man take whatever he pleases, his bag filled with expensive chains and rings, all while he keeps the gun on you to get the full effect. 

You could be given an Oscar for how good your acting performance was in this very moment.

Your eyes lock in another meaningful gaze, one that suggests that all cards are on the table now and you share a secret you will never be able to shake off, before he disappears out of the store into the dark. Acting stunned for the camera, you only reach for the phone when you’re certain he’s far enough to not be caught, dialing 911 and telling the line all about the robbery.

Ji Changmin chose the bad jewelry store to rob.

Or maybe, he chose the best one he could.

You find him sitting on one of the tables with built-in benches at the corner of the school yard, alone and seemingly lost in thought. His eyes are dark, deep as the ocean, the black bangs falling into his eyes only helping more with pushing his mysterious appearance. The tie around his neck is a little loose, since Changmin was never the believer of wearing your school uniform properly, and when you approach him, he barely notices your presence. 

Clearing your throat, you finally catch his attention. The male stares up at you, raising his eyebrows in question, as if to ask you what you want from him. And it’s valid– as you’ve never been the one to talk to him first, since he was the self-believed outcast in the school (and self-preserved too, since he never really made any attempts at connecting with others) – but you think that after your recent encounter, you reaching out to him is not something that shall surprise the boy. More so, he should’ve expected it.

“Changmin,” you hum, as if to tell him that he should be the one to talk to you first, the one to bring up the matter. If you really think about it, he should apologize. If not for making you lose your job (which was mostly your fault, because you didn’t make the attempt to call the police on the thief fast enough), then for the emotional damage and very obvious trauma his little play could’ve cost you, had you not recognised him and the fake gun aimed towards your forehead.

“Y/N,” he smiles, the tug of his lips almost looking ironical. He looks like the Cheshire cat, mischief almost reeking of him as he pats the place next to him on the table, legs resting on top of the bench crossed, showing his casualty. “Fancy seeing you here,” he says, and with that, you know he sees right through you.

He knows damn well why you came. Hell, it would be weird if he didn’t. He also knew that you’d come crawling to him first, almost taking advantage of the fact that he has the upper hand on you with knowing the information you confided him with at the police station. No person that steals groceries is a millionaire, after all. Only someone who desperately needs the money goes ahead and steals something so trivial. 

Maybe it's a bit of an asshole move from Changmin, if you really think about it. You let him get away with it, and now, he’s pretending like you owe him one, not the other way around.

“What do I owe the pleasure to?” he asks, tone of voice laced with irony. He is almost a little too lighthearted for someone who robbed a jewelry store just three days prior, and it suddenly makes you wonder if he’s done this before. How often does a boy like him just run around town and steals things from big corporations? You’re all for the eat the rich agenda– it’s just a little weird to think about how skilled Ji Changmin looked in the act. How calm he was. As if he’s done stuff like this before. As if he was an expert.

Was this his hobby? A way to pass time?

“Cut it out, Changmin,” you grunt, tugging the edge of your skirt down as you sit on the table next to him, covering your thighs, “you know why I’m here.”

“I’m afraid I have no idea,” he hums, pursing his lips and acting out a perfectly staged face of surprise. If you could punch him in the face right now, you’d do it. You didn’t notice the boy to be so smug back at the police station– maybe it was your own distress shielding your judgment. 

“Come on,” you roll your eyes, sighing. “I didn’t let you off just to have you laugh in my face about it. Where’s my cut?” you ask, feeling a little impatient at this point.

“Your cut?” he asks, chuckling. “I wasn’t aware you were the one doing the dirty job, you know. All you did was let me off because you were scared–”

“Of your airsoft gun? Mhm, you are so correct,” you cut him off, noticing his face spread into one of irritation. A crease appears in the middle of his eyebrows at your reaction, his jaw hardening when he sees the annoyance in your eyes. You don’t know what he was thinking– that you’re just gonna leave him off with all the money? He couldn’t be that stupid, could he?

“Look, it was me who did the work, so I don’t understand why you would think that you get a cut,” he shrugs, crossing his arms at his chest. 

“You do understand that I can just walk up to the police station and tell them that it was you?” you say, suddenly turning stone cold and serious. You thought yours and Changmin's little secret could do you something good– now it seems that you were wrong. “They wouldn’t bat an eye before sending you to jail, I bet. They have hoards of evidence of your past criminal behavior, but I don’t think they could overlook this one–”

“Now, don’t get all threatening on me, sweetheart,” he grunts, kissing his teeth. “There’s no reason to get all defensive–”

“Oh really!” you exclaim, catching the male off guard as you stand up from your seat, suddenly too heated to be in his presence. “I do believe that I have all the right to get defensive, though! You know damn well I didn’t do this so you can run with the money and spend it on fuckall! Because guess what, Changmin– I did this to get something out of it. Not everyone gets to go around and do stupid shit for fun, so you best believe that when I basically became an accomplice to your crime, it wasn’t just for shits and giggles.”

The male opens his mouth to reply to you, but before he gets a chance to do so, you continue, running your hand through your hair. “And if you think that I steal groceries for fun, then you’re terribly wrong. So if you don’t let me take the part of money I rightfully deserve by basically dropping the hundred dollars worth of jewelry right into your grabby hands so I can survive for the next few days, you best believe I will do something about it.”

There’s a moment of silence between the two of you, the only thing heard around being the chirping of the birds and the sound of the wind hitting your eardrums. Your hair gets in your face from the strength of the breeze, the fabric of your school uniform’s skirt ruffling against your thighs. It’s like the world stopped, something behind Changmin’s eyes changing at seeing your obvious distress. You’re really starting to think this was all a game for the boy. Something to pass the time– something to occupy his bored mind with.

He doesn’t reply to you even after a few seconds, though, which makes you even more mad. The anger is tinted with disappointment and fury as you turn around and shuffle your feet through the school yard, accompanied by the sound of the school bell in the distance announcing your next period. You’re ready to leave the boy there, already thinking of all ways you could go around telling the authorities without ratting yourself out in the process too.

Suddenly, something comes into contact with your wrist, pulling you back. Your legs stumble a bit, but you manage to stand your ground and throw daggers with your eyes at Changmin still holding you in your place. “Let me go–”

“Look–”

“I have class, Changmin,” you grunt, attempting to take your hand out of his grasp, but failing. His hold is firm. Unpainful, but strong. It makes you annoyed.

“Will you listen to me for just a second? Gosh,” he rolls his eyes, dropping your hand as if it was poisoned, shaking his head at your antics. You stare at him with raised eyebrows, waiting for what he has to say after having the opportunity to speak before, but ignoring it altogether and leaving you with the cold shoulder. Did he change his mind in that split second you showed him your back? Did he realize you were serious with your threats?

“Of course I’m gonna give you the cut,” he grunts, scoffing. “What do you think I am? I was just keeping it for some leverage.”

The question sounds a bit ironical out of his mouth, since he spent the last couple of minutes trying to convince you that you have no part in his little robbery and that you have no right for the money he gained from it. The other half of his statement makes you intrigued, though. Not in a good way– just in a way that makes you wonder what the fuck he was talking about.

“Leverage?” you ask, squinting at him in question.

“Well,” he starts, staring at the sky for a split second, as if collecting his thoughts into coherent sentences. Scrambling for something in the back pocket of his pants, he takes out an envelope seemingly filled with cash he’s gained, offering it to you, but retracting his hand as soon as you start reaching for it. “Let’s say I have a bit of a plan for us two. A plan to make even more than this,” he says, pointing towards the envelope.

Squinting at the male, you scoff. As if you would ever agree to something so reckless. If this interaction with Ji Changmin taught you anything, it’s that the boy is not to be trusted. You can’t read him. You can’t tell when he’s joking or when he’s serious, you can’t tell if he’s going to save you or throw you under the bus the moment he has a chance to. And if his plan is anything similar to the ways he’s shown himself to you before, you’re fairly certain that you want nothing to do with his endeavors.

“Yeah, no, thank you,” you say, snatching the envelope from his hand and turning on your heel, ready to leave before he changes his mind again and takes what’s rightfully yours out of your grasp, like the thief he seemingly is.

“Think it over, Y/N. You said you need the money,” he calls after you, not making a move from his previous spot in the corner of the yard. His words sting you a bit, but you guess he’s not wrong– no matter how embarrassed or ashamed you feel of the situation. The outside of the school is completely empty now, everyone back to their classrooms waiting for the lectures to start, letting his words resonate in the stranded field. “I think we could make a very good team.”

Not looking back, you walk through the grass, taking a look at the amount in the envelope. You don’t know the exact ratio he split the money into, since you don’t really know how much he earned after selling everything at the pawn shop, but it’s more than you expected. 

More than you would’ve made with your initial plan.

Still– you want nothing to do with Ji Changmin. This only happened once, and you’ll make sure it never happens again. Associating yourself with someone like him will do you more bad than good in the future, and that’s something you really can’t afford right now. 

No matter how hard he tries to persuade you, you two will never be a part of the same plan.

Lunch breaks are almost always spent alone lately. Or at least that’s how it’s been in the last few months, the last few years. It’s not like you don’t have any friends or acquaintances to spend them with– you’re not that antisocial– it’s just a lot easier to mask the fact that you have no food to put into your mouth when nobody pays attention to whether you eat or not.

The last amount of money you could afford to spend was pressed into the palm of your younger sister when you walked her to school today. There was no way for you to buy something at the canteen, and the last groceries that were edible were eaten last night. There was no way you could satisfy your hunger during the lunch break today, and to spare being embarrassed by the fact that you are barely holding your life together (since you’re 17 and taking care of everything), you decide to spend the few minutes in between classes in the school yard, sitting in the grass at the far corner of the school property.

Your eyes are pressed into your notebook, scribbling away as you try to pass time and ignore the pain in your stomach, chewing on the inside of your cheek in a bad attempt at focusing onto something else. When the sketch of the tree to your right turns out badly the third time in a row, you sigh and scribble all over the little drawing, wanting to see no more of it, wanting it to disappear. The very moment the tip of your pen lifts off the paper, something falls into your lap, the sound of a plastic bag rustling in the wind making you jolt in surprise.

Taking the item into your hand, you notice the sandwich wrapped in a tissue paper staring back at you, as if you wished it to existence and it fell into your lap from the sky with the sheer impact of your thinking. After more consideration, though, you look around and find a raven haired boy looking down at you, an indifferent look adorning his face.

“Changmin,” you hum, acknowledging his presence.

“Y/N,” he nods, taking a seat next to you on the grass, completely uninvited. His invasion of your personal space makes you sigh, but his gesture makes you even more frustrated. Pointing towards the sandwich he threw into your lap, you ask.

“What is this?”

“A sandwich,” he shrugs, “I bought extra, we can share.”

A heartbeat passes of you and him having a staring contest, something inside of you turning bitter at the otherwise nice gesture. Is he making fun of you? Or does he pity you?

You hate both alternatives– you almost can’t decide which one you despise more.

“Look, Changmin,” you scoff, shaking your head in disbelief, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to do right now, but I am not your charity case. Just because you know I’m too poor to buy my own lunch, it doesn’t mean you can humiliate me and do it for me,” you grunt, throwing the sandwich back into his grip. He catches it with no trouble, fast reflexes working on full time.

“I didn’t get it to humiliate you,” he says, rolling his eyes at your antics. It seems to be hard for you to accept actions of service from people– and Changmin somehow understands. He’s been through it with people around him his whole life. They show him any kind of kindness or pity for the fact that his parents decided he wasn’t good enough to keep and threw him into the adoption system, and Changmin feels himself crawling out of his skin. He doesn’t need pity. He hates the considerate looks.

But after years of living that way, he learned to use those instances for his advantage. There’s no excuse as useful to getting him out of trouble as “I’m sorry, I live in a foster home.”

“Yeah? Then why did you?”

Changmin sighs, closing his eyes and paying more thought to how he’s going to reply to you. Speaking with you feels like working with a wild animal– any bad step could shoo you away, or make you attack. He doesn’t want either of those options. Actually, he wants something completely else. “It’s a bribe, really,” he shrugs, watching you and waiting for your reaction.

“A bribe?” you scoff, your chuckle almost sounding amused. “I already told you I want nothing to do with your plan, so you can take your stupid sandwich and fuck off.”

“I’m persistent when I want to be,” he just replies, watching you with an unmoving expression.

Ignoring his antics– as if to test how persistent he really can be– you point your eyes back towards your notebook, scribbling random lines and shapes into the thin paper. There’s only so much silence he can bear before he realizes you won’t pay him a minute of your time, you think, but the more you scribble away and the more the birds around you chirp and the distant voices of kids enjoying their lunch break preserve, the less confident you are in your assumption. Ji Changmin is a strange individual.

“Look, we don’t have to lie to ourselves now, Y/L/N. You know shit about me that could get me to jail, and I know shit about you that you don’t just show to everyone. Involuntarily, but I know that stuff,” he starts, tone of voice almost careful, almost a little caring as he speaks. “You and I both know you need money. And me? Well… I could use some cash too,” he hums.

When he doesn’t get a reply, he continues with his little speech. “You need money and I have a plan on how I’m gonna get it for you. For us. But it will only work if us two do it together. It’s a foolproof plan, but I need you on-board,” he says, clasping his hands together. Glancing up from your paper, you watch him with examining eyes. 

He repays you with eye contact, as if speaking to you through his orbs. There’s a hint of understatement in the air, an aura of a connection you don’t quite comprehend yet, but suddenly, the presence of him in your personal space feels less invading and more… alleviating. Like you’re not judged, like you’re not pitied. 

Your stomach churns and Changmin chuckles, offering the sandwich back to you. There’s a moment in which you contemplate your next decision, knowing that if you take the food from him, it’s your own way of sealing the deal. You have no idea what his plan is, you’re completely unaware of what you’re getting yourself into– for all you know and predict, it’s not going to be the most legal thing under the sun– but the more you think about it, the more you come to the conclusion that with the way your life is going right now, maybe you don’t have that much to lose.

“So? What do you say?” he asks, eyes lighting up when he notices your lack of resistance. “Will you at least hear me out?”

The wind makes his raven bangs move, revealing his forehead. He looks like he has a thousand tricks up his sleeve, hundreds of ways to get his way, no matter what he wants. He looks as sly as a fox, messy exterior with his tie loose around his neck, dress shirt a little wrinkly around the collar. Ji Changmin looks like he’s bad news. Like he can never bring you any good. 

You should stay away.

Still, you take the sandwich into your grasp, hand fishing for the food in the green plastic bag. Biting down into the seemingly homemade lunch, you avert your gaze into the sun. 

“What is it, then?”

“So.. what do you do for work?” you ask, twirling a strand of hair around your finger as you sit facing the man you don’t even remember the name of, a plate of fancy food in front of you almost untouched even though you’ve been starving for multiple days now. Truth is, you don’t really know which fork and which size of spoon to use when having those meals, since you’ve never been to such an expensive-looking place before– and even though you think your current date doesn’t really mind, you don’t feel like adding public humiliation to the list of your worries.

“Oh, I do real estate, honey,” the man replies, smiling at you with something sly in his eyes. Everything about the male sitting currently in front of you irks you a bit. The very obvious power imbalance in between the two of you, the age difference, the different social class… The fact that he only sees you as a young girl to spoil and get to do something more for him– no matter the fact that you’re underage. Judging by the way he kept getting into your personal bubble the moment you arrived at the restaurant, you’d even say he was enjoying the fact. 

You were told to act gullible and stupid. Men like him like that, apparently, and so, despite your best judgment and everything you know about life, you do just that. “And what is that?” you ask, eyes big and curious, putting on your most innocent face.

“Buying land and then turning them over, renting places, all kind of stuff,” he nods, “a lot of money gets around in this sphere, sweetie,” he adds another sugary nickname to the mix, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up all alert, disgust slowly creeping up your neck, but thankfully never reaching your mouth.

“So you’re a landlord?” you ask him, the last remains of your personality shining through as you bat your eyelashes at him, trying hard not to focus on the chest hair peeking out of his opened dress shirt. It’s quite difficult to do when the golden chain around his neck blinds you with every movement, the surface illuminating in the beams of the sunlight. 

God. You should’ve chosen a more attractive male to trick, at least.

The male laughs in shock, not really anticipating such a title. Maybe he’s offended, but still, he doesn’t let it show as he looks you over– mainly your cleavage and the girly way you managed to style your hair today– before he sighs, as if disappointed, yet happy to show you that you were wrong. “Not really, no. I’m a real estate investor, actually.”

Gasping, showing that you now completely understand what he’s trying to explain to you– that he’s basically a landlord, but hates being called that because it isn’t such a fancy title– you take another sip of the champagne in your glass. You’ve never drank before, and quite frankly, you hate the taste of alcohol on your tongue, you despise it with everything in you. If it was your choice, you would’ve ordered orange juice, or something– it seems that the man in front of you would hate nothing more than if you sat in front of him without a tall glass in between your fingers, and so you satisfy his sly looks and leave a lipstick stain on the rim of the champagne flute.

The breeze plays with your hair, sun kissing your exposed shoulders as you bathe in its light. You wore your prettiest sundress today– the one that you only grew into this year after inheriting it from your older cousin– and while you did feel pretty when you looked at yourself in the mirror, you’re not really satisfied with what you’re currently doing. Nothing makes you hate yourself more than working for money like this. Nothing makes you loathe your reflection in the mirror more than hanging out with old rich guys for monetary gain– no matter how beautiful you feel with the dress you got from your cousin three Christmases ago and the sandals you’ve owned since 15 and had thankfully not yet grown out of.

There’s one advantage to sitting outside of the fancy restaurant, though– and that is the fact that your plan is going smoothly. The man’s bag is on the chair next to him, just like Changmin predicted, and although it took you some time convincing him to sit at the table on the edge of the veranda, you’ve done your part in entertaining the male, making sure he’s as distracted as he can be.

Eyes averting to the right, seeing your accomplice with the hood of his black hoodie over his head, a mask over the lower part of his face, you lock gazes in what seems to be some silent kind of communication. One wouldn’t notice him if he hadn’t tried hard enough, but Changmin’s been standing on the other side of the road for as long as you’ve been sitting in the restaurant, keeping an eye on you. He’s dressed all in black, looking all mysterious, but not eye-catching enough for anyone to be suspicious of his presence. 

Raising your eyebrows at him only in the slightest manner, making sure your date doesn’t notice you nonverbally communicating with the teenager on the other side of the street, you get your reply from Changming almost immediately, a nod of his head sent your way to start your little plan.

Ready, yet a little stressed of executing it, you clear your throat and focus all your attention back on the male in front of you again. He’s currently talking to you about something you have yet to grasp, not really interested in the first place– but doubting you’d know what he’s talking about anyway. After hearing a part of his little speech, you conclude that he is mansplaining something to you, and although the fact would make you infuriated with any other male in your presence, you think this is a perfect opportunity to dibble more into your little school girl play. (As if it was a play in the first place.)

Nodding at him, showing that you’re listening, you put on your best doe eyes as you reach over the table and enclose your palm around his. You haven’t watched enough movies about this to know how to flirt with a man, but you think it comes to you naturally as you part your lips the slightest, biting on your lower lip in a sensual manner. It’s inappropriate, not at all something you should be doing at your age with a man at least twice your age, but you can’t help it– if you need the plan to run smoothly, you need all his attention on you and you only.

And it works. It does, you conclude as the man runs his thumbs over your hands and gently pats your leg with his under the table, feeding into your actions. His eyes are focused on your lips and you suddenly pray for Changmin to work quicker– fast enough for the man to not find an opportunity to kiss you, at least. Your brows furrow the tiniest bit, on purpose, of course– to look more dumb, to look more in love and enchanted with the male in front of you– when you notice a figure in black passing the two of you, their hand slipping easily into the opened contraction of the male’s bag.

Changmin works fast. It seems easy to him, you can see it in your peripheral– there’s no wonder that he’s done this countless times before. You wonder why he likes this kind of adrenaline. You wonder how he even taught himself– how he even came to the conclusion that he should try something like this in the first place. Either way, you must admit that it’s kind of admirable. Kind of cool.

You see Changmin taking out something from the man’s bag, and just as silently and unsuspiciously he came, he also disappears. You let the man play with your fingers for a bit more until you’re sure that your partner is a safe distance away from the restaurant on the other side of the street again, before you lock eyes with him, being let off with a victorious crinkle of his eyes.

“Will you excuse me?” you hum, tone of voice laced in sweetness, puckering your lips as you cut the male off, something about an annual turnover hanging in the air as you don’t let him finish. “I have to use the toilet,” you say, already breaking contact with him.

Unsuspecting, the male only nods at you, letting you off. You can almost feel his eyes watching every move of your ass as you walk back to the building. As your feet enter the interior of the fancy place, you don’t even aim for the bathroom– Changmin checked it before you arrived to the restaurant, chewing on his lower lip in distress as he announced to you that there’s no windows in the stalls– and so you take yourself straight to the other side of the room, taking the other exit out. “Look, it’s even easier, Changmin. I’ll just walk out the other way,” you reassured him, concluding the last step of your little plan.

Feet shuffling through the red velvety rug, you pay no attention to the waiters watching you as you walk through the big dining hall, escaping through the other door without looking back. Ji Changmin is standing on the other side of the street, taking off his initial place as soon as he saw you safely inside of the restaurant, waiting for you to rejoin him and celebrate the end of your successfully finished mission.

Running towards him, a smile breaks onto your face. Changmin stays in his place, not going as far as reaching you midway. 

“Did you get it?” you ask, raising your brows at the male.

Wordlessly, the boy shows you a leather wallet, taking it from the right pocket of his zip-up. A gasp escapes your throat at the realization of just how easy this was– just how fast you gained a stack of cash you can use to survive another week. Sure, you still feel a bit weak in your knees, you still feel like your blood pressure is a bit high, but the thought of the green notes soon secured in your hand makes it all worth it.

“Let’s get out of here before he notices,” Changmin says, tugging down his face mask and reaching for your elbow, dragging you to the opposite direction, away from the restaurant.

Somewhere along the way, you start to run. There’s a sense of childlike wonder in you. A sense of excitement you shouldn’t feel from stealing money from someone unsuspecting. Sure, you could argue that the rich person in the restaurant doesn’t need the money like you do– he has enough of it to not even notice its absence– but it was still morally wrong. 

It was still a crime. But hey– you’re only 17 with a seemingly big weight on your shoulders. So if getting the money you need in an illegal way takes some of the pressure off your back, you think you’re not so wrong for being excited about the success of your little plan.

Changmin catches up to you, his face mirroring a weird mix of annoyance and disbelief. He understands, though. The adrenaline of your first act of successful crime is a moment one doesn’t forget. “Wasn’t that hard now, was it?” he asks.

And when you lock your eyes with him again, a foolish laugh escapes your lips. Maybe he was right. Maybe this was the way to go around things.

Maybe it was good to accept his offer. Something about the inkling in his eyes tells you that he won’t betray you. 

Standing in the middle of the aisle, your eyes soaring from the pack of gummy worms you wanted to buy for your little sister and the chocolate bar you’ve been wanting to eat the whole week, you roll the coins in the palm of your hand around, as if counting them over and over again is going to make more money magically appear in your possession. Ji Changmin (who for some reason decided that by being your partner in all things illegal, he has to be glued to your hip at all times when he has nothing interesting to do), standing next to you, sighs at your composure and clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth.

“Y/N, Y/N…” he hums in disapproval, almost sounding disgusted at the fact that the logical thing hasn’t appeared in your brain yet, “I see you need a bit of a lesson in shoplifting, yeah?” he whispers into your ear, his breath hitting the side of your face and making you jolt away from him.

“What?” you whisper-shout, punching him in the shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous. What we do is already enough. I’ll just pick one,” you say, rolling your eyes at the fact that your new friend always somehow finds a way to make everything an illegal act. It really must be his hobby at this point, no?

“Whatever you say, sweetie,” he shrugs, but the more he watches you move your eyes from the gummy worms towards the chocolate bar, noticing the sparks behind your eyes every time you eye the rich cocoa treat wrapped in red plastic and the fondness behind your gaze when you eye the sour worms, the more he’s convinced that you’re going to go with his previous proposition. Once the temptation is there, it’s hard to resist it.

And he’s right. A mere second later, you eye him with pleading eyes– as if to silently say ‘okay, you win. Now teach me how to do this thing,’, and that has the boy chuckling at your antics.

“Okay, newbie,” he nods, patting your back. “First thing first, the number one rule of shoplifting is: always choose a gas station. Check! Why? Frankly, the people working here are underpaid university students that could care less about the company they work for, so as long as you’re not too obvious with it, nobody is going to run after you.”

Nodding, showing that you’re following, you wait for the actual tutorial. “Step two,” he says, voice loud enough only for you to hear in the empty store, “look casual. Walk around a bit. Pretend you’re contemplating your choice of treats– check. Wow, Y/L/N, it seems to me that you are a born natural!”

Rolling your eyes at his useless comment, you sigh. Changmin seems to get the hint that you want to know how to actually shoplift, and not how to prepare to do the thing, and so with his next tip, he is a bit more specific, which you welcome with open arms. “Okay, okay. So, now you wanna look for the cameras. Try to look for any blind spots,” he says, casually glancing around the store.

You follow his motions, trying hard to stay as unsuspicious as you can, and before you can say anything or try to find the blind spots he was talking about, the serpent-like boy tugs you by your forearm into another corridor. Your hands are now covered by the regals, only the tips of your scalps visible under the security camera, and before you know it, Changmin ushers another order into your ear. 

“Now, take the more expensive thing and put it into your pocket,” he says. That has you pointing a sharp gaze to him, question marks accompanied by exclamation points striking into his skull, which has the boy utter out a quick explanation to your very confused state. “Trust me. Putting it into your bag is way more suspicious,” he hums, looking around the gas station and pointing his gaze towards the energy drink stand in front of you, acting as if he was contemplating on buying one for himself.

Hesitantly glancing behind your shoulder, finding the coast clear, you chew on the inside of your cheek before you swiftly put the pack of gummy worms into your pocket. Clearing your throat to signal to the boy that you’re done with the task at hand, he turns his head to you and raises his brows, smiling. “Are you ready to pay, finally?” he asks, his voice now a little louder. You think it’s to not cause any more suspicion, since the two of you have been murmuring amongst each other for the past few minutes. 

Humming, feeling a buzzing in your fingertips, heart quickening– you’re really doing this– you nod and let your friend lead you to the counter. You’ve tried shoplifting before, of course, but the last time you did so, you were dragged by your hair to the police station, so you think you have all the right to feel the tiniest bit paranoid when trying for the second time. There is stress settling to your shoulders when you awkwardly shuffle to the counter and put the chocolate bar in front of the cashier, but when you notice the fact that Changmin was right and the clark was barely paying attention to the store at all– there was Candy crush turned on their phone behind the POS machine– the nerves seem to fall off a bit.

“Cash or card?” the girl behind the counter asks– she is chewing on a gum and her neon pink hair is falling into her eyes. She seems a few years older than you, but she seems to be still in college. There are dark circles under her eyes– she seems tired. Not letting yourself to shield your next actions with the usual waterfall of empathy, you clear your throat and try to speak up with the most casual voice.

“Cash,” you peep, taking the hurdle of coins back from your pocket– the one that doesn’t currently hold a pack of gummy worms– and quickly count the sum of money you need, putting it onto the counter.

“You need a receipt?” the cashier asks, completely uninterested in her job. You can tell she has this situation rehearsed– she must have been working here for a while.

“No, thank you,” you nod, taking the chocolate bar into your grasp and spinning on your heel, following Changmin on his way outside of the gas station. Before the door closes behind you, the boy heaves out a cheerful ‘Goodbye!’ which has you mirroring his actions, yet your walking still speeds up with the weight of wanting to be outside and done as soon as possible.

You never know. What if she noticed and a policeman will come and catch you at the last minute for stealing those gummy worms? You can’t afford getting a criminal record– this won’t land you any job in the future.

As soon as your figure moves outside of the building and you’re sure you’re not being followed by anyone and there’s no police cars parked in front of the gas station, you feel the weight of the situation finally leave your physical form, your breathing finally becoming more normal. Changmin glances at you over his shoulder, a grin spreading over his features, patting your shoulder like a proud father. 

“See? Wasn’t so hard now, was it?” he asks, having you roll your eyes at him.

“I’m sorry, man,” you snicker, “I still have some PTSD from that one time…”

“It takes a few tries to perfect the art, I get it,” he says, nodding as if to admit your struggle. It’s hard to believe Changmin has ever failed at anything he tried before– in all situations you’ve encountered with him, he seemed completely capable and knowing. It’s as if he’s been doing this his whole life– and for all you know, he might as well have been.

“Well, not everyone takes joy in doing illegal activities like you clearly do,” you sigh, having the boy look at you with furrowed brows.

Unknowingly, you lead the boy towards your house. He doesn’t seem to mind walking with you, and although you did just commit a crime, you’re happy with the comfort of not having any committed against you– a girl in her school uniform walking home in the evening is an easy target for all men who’d love to take advantage of you and fulfill their dark fantasies. It’s funny to admit that you feel safer with Ji Changmin walking you home, but it’s also a natural cause of the fact that you two have been working together on fake dates with rich men for a few weeks now. (So far, you’ve gone on three. They all worked and went by the plan. You suddenly question why you didn’t say yes to this plan earlier.)

“Living in the foster home makes you fight other people over everything, Y/N-ie. Over food, old donated board games, treats, clothing, parents…” he chuckles at that, a bitter tone coating his words, “my point is… If you don’t take what you want forcefully, it will be taken out of your grasp one way or another. And if that piece of candy is stolen from you by an older kid at the foster home, you’re gonna have to find a way to get yourself one as well,” he explains. 

You feel a little embarrassed for assuming. Changmin doesn’t reveal much about himself to you. Neither do you. For this reason, you’d describe your relationship with the raven-haired boy like something similar to being coworkers. You don’t tell each other about your personal lives, you don’t talk about your issues or intentions. All you know is that the both of you need money, so you’re willing to work together to get it.

The sudden confession hangs an uncomfortable air of vulnerability over the two of you. It’s strange– hearing him chuckle so bitterly about his situation, seeing the shift behind his eyes when he realizes what he just said. You don’t really know what to say back to him– do you console him? Do you try to play it off, ignore what he’s just said? Before you have any chance to take action, though, the boy clears his throat and does damage control on his own. (Which is probably for the best. You wouldn’t want to overstep any boundary– so you’ll act according to his.)

“But after a while, it became kind of fun, yeah,” he laughs, shrugging. “I like the adrenaline rush.”

“You’re a freak.”

“A freak with useful tactics,” he points a finger-gun at you and winks, making you roll your eyes at his misplaced pride, but laugh along with him nonetheless.

It’s good to make fun of your situation sometimes. Didn’t someone say humor is one of the most useful coping mechanisms? Or maybe a sign of unhealthy coping mechanisms? Well, one way or another– you have to cope with it some way anyways. A little joke never hurt anyone.

“Half of that is mine, by the way,” he points towards your favorite chocolate bar in your grasp. “I earned it by helping you get it,” he says, content face beaming at you in mischief.

His features are a little sharper under the yellow lampposts, his dark hair falling into his eyes making shadows appear under his eyes. He looks like a cunning fox– much like always– but you think you’re growing used to the charm. “What?” you huff, face scrunched up in frustration. “I bought this, actually, so–”

“So you’re telling me you would’ve chosen the chocolate bar, had I not opened your eyes to the wonders of shoplifting?”

“What does that even have to do with anything–”

“Exactly what I thought,” he nods, taking the chocolate bar out of your grasp and tearing it open, not even sparing you a chance to defend yourself, “if I wasn’t there, you’d buy the gummy worms, so the fact that you bought this is my work and I deserve a half of your treat, thank you very much.”

“How can you even be so sure–”

“Y/N?” a thin voice calls for you, making you stop the little petty argument you’ve been having with your crime partner and look around, noticing both facts of the reality at once– one: you’ve reached your street, and two: your little sister is watching you from the doorway of your house, big eyes worried and hair tousled. 

She’s still wearing the clothes she wore when you sent her off to school in the morning, and by the way she keeps chewing on the inside of her cheek, you know that she hasn’t eaten. She always does that when she’s hungry and doesn’t want you to know. A pit opens up in your stomach at seeing your sibling in such a state, and although it’s not as uncommon as you’d like to say it is, you know you have to put up your big sister act.

“Aerin-ie? Has mum not come home yet?” you ask, watching as the little girl walks out of the house and through the pathway of your house, standing only a few meters away from you.

“No,” she shakes her head. You’re not surprised by the answer. Maybe, you’re not even disappointed anymore. You learned not to have any expectations when it comes to your mother.

Sighing, you nod, chewing on your lower lip. “Go inside, we’ll eat something together and then you’re going to sleep, you have school tomorrow, okay?” you hum, tone of voice compassionate and gentle, the way you always talk to your sister ever since the issues started. There is no room for quarrel between siblings when you’re too busy making sure your little sister is eating well and going to school. There’s no room for sibling fights when you’re more of a motherly figure now.

“Okay,” she nods, but doesn’t move from her spot in the middle of the yard.

“Well? Go–”

“Is that your boyfriend?” Aerin asks, pointing towards Changmin. You momentarily forgot that he was still here, so when you finally take in his silently standing figure, it almost makes you jump. Waving your hands around in panic, not wanting your young, gullible sister to get any ideas, you eagerly try to take her out of her lapse of judgment.

“God, no. No, no, that’s–”

“Hi! I’m Changmin!” the boy suddenly waves, smiling at your little sister. “I go to school with your sister.”

Aerin watches the boy with big eyes, as if scared. You understand her– Changmin doesn’t seem as the most approachable of people (although his smile does feel unusually warm and contagious right in this moment)– and she didn’t have much experience with male figures in her life to feel secure with any new men entering her life. Not that Changmin will be entering her life anyway– but you get the gist of it.

“You do?” she hesitantly asks.

“I do. Tell her to study more, because if she keeps it up this way, she’s going to have to go back to school with you and retake all the lessons for smaller kids,” Changmin hums, poking fun at you. 

“Hey!” you thunder, kicking the boy into his shin in a weak attempt of defending yourself. “That’s not true!” 

Hearing your sister laugh at your misery– an action you never thought would warm your heart up so much– you lock your eyes with Changmin only for a split second, and in that, you come to some sort of mutual understanding. You talk without words– you learned something about me today, I learned something about you today. Your secret is safe with me. 

He doesn’t know the full truth of it all– quite as much as you don’t know about his life, but somehow, this evening brought you two a little closer. You moved from being coworkers to now being coworkers who know more backstory about each other’s lives, and you don’t really find yourself hating it.

“Y/N got something for you,” Changmin muses, pointing a finger to your pocket. 

Somehow, he has it all figured out.

“Oh, right!” you gasp, taking the gummy worms out of your jacket and offering them to your little sister. Her eyes light up instantly, that kind of joy you only feel when you are 12 and presented with your favorite treat, and you get a solemn feeling on your insides comforting you– you’re doing all you can. She’s smiling. She’s still mostly unknowing.

“I heard they’re your favorite,” Changmin keeps talking to your sister. It’s a surprising sight– how welcoming he suddenly seems.

“They are! Y/N, can I have some?”

“After you eat dinner,” you nod, seeing the little girl furrowing her brows and opening her mouth to protest, a sense of blissful normality shielding you all from reality. 

“But–”

“After dinner, Aerin. Now let’s go inside so you can sleep,” you hum, walking over to your sister, “you get fussy in the morning when you don’t get enough sleep.”

Something about your hand on her shoulder has the little creature moving closer towards your house, the two of you walking alongside each other through the pathway. Looking behind, you wave at Changmin. He offers you a gentle smile– one you haven’t seen on him before. It moves something within you. 

He doesn’t know much, but somehow, he understands.

Before you close the door behind you, you mouth him a silent ‘Thank you’. The boy salutes you before he disappears into the dark.

“Do you want some lemonade or something?” you hum as you enter your house, tugging uncomfortably at the hem of your short skirt, throwing the knock-off purse Changmin got you from the donation bins at the foster home into the corner of the entrance hall. It’s midday, you are supposed to be at school and having your lunch break, but instead, you’re tiredly slugging home with your classmate tailing your back, done with yet another date.

“I’m good,” Changmin shrugs, “I’ll just have some water.”

“Amazing choice,” you nod, pointing towards the tap in your cluttered kitchen, “didn’t feel like making you a fucking lemonade anyway,” you sigh, watching as the boy helps himself to a glass of tap water and you get yourself a taste of the old coffee your mother must have made herself in the morning before leaving, furrowing your brows at the bitter taste.

After you’re done chasing down the thirst that’s accumulated in your throat, you walk upstairs into your room, followed around by the boy. There was a silent agreement between the two of you to let him stay over at least until the acceptable time to come back into foster home was– if he came before school ended, he’d get in trouble. (You wonder why he’s afraid of this and not the fact that he was dragged from the police station multiple times, but you choose to not question him anymore.)

It’s strange to have him in your house. It doesn’t make you uncomfortable, per se– you just wonder how much your living conditions say about you. It’s very clear that you don’t live with your father. He left shortly after your little sister was born and you haven’t seen him since– you wish you could say you don’t mind, because you never really had a good relationship with him anyway, but the truth is, maybe he was the whole reason for the downfall of your quality of life. The mess all around the house suggests that nobody has time or energy to clean it. You try your hardest to keep it relatively clean on most days, but it gets significantly harder when you also try to bring food home into the house. 

If Changmin makes anything out of the state of your living, he doesn’t mention it.

Settling into the mattress of your bed, totally uninvited, he squints at your ceiling. You, on the other hand, turn towards your wardrobe and take out some comfy clothes– the preppy mini skirt you were dressed in before you left to meet up with another rich old guy was starting to get on your nerves. Turning your back to Changmin, you slip your blouse over your head and put on a big T-shirt, one of the clothes you got at the Dollar store when you grew out of your last pajamas, and after you dress yourself in comfortable sweatpants, you walk up to the boy with an outstretched hand.

A mutual understanding falls over you as he puts the leather wallet into your hand. Opening it, you flick through several credit cards, squinting at the owner’s ID– by the birth year on the card, you calculate that he was even older than he told you he was– before you count up the money and cut it in half, throwing the rest into Changmin’s lap. 

The more often you do this, the more you wonder how it keeps working. It’s surprising to see just how many wealthy men are carrying cash around and being reckless with their belongings. Changmin almost never has any trouble with stealing their wallets– either when they’re not looking, or when the man foolishly leaves to the bathroom and leaves his bag behind on the chair. It’s like they’re inviting you to do it, at this point.

The more often you do this, the more you start hating yourself, though. There’s only so much objectifying you willingly submit yourself to before it makes you want to crawl out of your skin. If there was a better way to do things, you would. 

Sighing, you open your sock drawer and sit cross-legged on the floor. Taking out the sock balls and unraveling the items of clothing onto your thigh, putting bills into them and rolling them back into neat balls, throwing them back into their designated place very un-Marie Condo style, you hear Changmin ask a question after minutes of watching you in silence.

“What do you need all this money for, by the way?” he asks. “Except for keeping your sister alive, of course.”

The question has you halting your movements, looking up at the male with a blank look. You two never discuss deep things– you two never talk about your lives and the reasoning behind your actions. You just do things and don’t think of consequences– you just get as much money as you can without telling the other one what you need it for. 

Locking your eyes with him, you shrug. There’s a hint of understatement behind his orbs that shows you that maybe you can trust him. Maybe him knowing isn’t that bad– what could he possibly do with the information? You two know about each other’s crimes far too much to betray each other, you think.

“I… my family… we have debts,” you say, nodding to yourself. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you chuckle before speaking up again. “My dad left shortly after my sister was born and then we couldn’t really afford paying for the house anymore. My mum refused to move, though, so she got another loan to cover the previous one, but it’s…” you drift off, remembering the day you found out the harsh truth only a few months ago.

You hear your mother’s sobs as you walk into the house after your classes, making your heart drop to your stomach. It’s not every day you hear your mother cry, since she tries hard to pretend everything is okay even though it’s not– and the empty bottles of alcohol waiting by the trash can every day are the clear sign of both that and her not really handling it well. This feels different, though. The crying doesn’t sound like someone pitying themselves once again– the crying sounds like someone in such a deep despair, hopeless and lost.

Socked feet shuffling through the house as you take your shoes off at the door, you find your mother crouching above the kitchen table, a glass in her hand. There’s a sheet of paper staring back at her from the void, the scene almost appearing in front of you in grayscale. You didn’t expect your life to change so much in such a simple afternoon. You didn’t expect to grow up with a click of a finger.

“What happened?” you ask, carefully approaching the wounded animal of your mother. You learned quickly after she picked up drinking that you need to handle the fragile woman with care. A bad word and she could break– an incorrectly crafted sentence and she could turn into a volcano, erupting with screams and swearing, cursing you out.

No answer reaches your ears, though, so your only resolve is to take the paper into your hands and read it over. And now, you’re no expert in legal things and contracts, but it doesn’t take a lot of knowledge to recognise a loan contract. It’s a company you don’t know, though– one of the not famous ones, one of the fishy ones that give you the money quickly– and before you even get a chance to read over the fine print at the bottom of the page, you already know you’re in deep, deep trouble.

The knowledge of trouble only intensifies when you come home to strange men escaping your house one day. There are no groceries in the fridge for a few days after, making it vastly clear to you that your mother simply couldn’t afford to get food for her kids to eat. 

It only takes one crying fit and an argument with your mother to find out the harsh reality– your mother fell for a loan that is too difficult to handle, one that makes you pay back fast and with big amounts monthly. She already had a warning. 

If she is late with her payment again, you lose everything.

“It’s… it’s difficult to pay it back,” you conclude, watching as Changmin only nods in understatement. The air around you is suddenly too heavy, but you figure the whole truth won’t hurt anyone. Maybe the weight on your shoulders would feel lighter if you finally tell someone– however selfish the sentiment feels. “If we don’t pay it back within the next few months, we will lose our house. My mother fell for a loan shark,” you say.

“All the years of her telling us to not fall for scams, and then she does this,” you mumble, trying to make fun of the situation. 

“Y/N, that’s–”

“I was also thinking of leaving one day,” you add as you cut him off, not letting him psychoanalyze you or make you feel like he pities you. “I was thinking of getting enough money to settle all of this and then just… move out. Disappear. I need to get away from this house before it suffocates me,” you bitterly laugh, seeing the boy shift his eyes from the ceiling back at you, pressing his lips into a tight line.

“I get you,” leaves his mouth after a heartbeat of silence. Never in your life have you feared being judged as much as in this moment. It’s strange to face your biggest fear– being vulnerable with someone, opening up to them about everything you’re going through– and find that it wasn’t at all as difficult. It’s strange to face your biggest fear and realize that maybe, you had nothing to be scared of in the first place.

It’s strange to hear that you’re understood. That somebody gets just how hard it is to breathe every day, walking through the house you grew up in, but which is now haunted. If it was anybody else, you’d try to argue with them. How could they understand? How could they possibly know what is going on inside of your head on a daily basis? How could they get the extent of how far you have to go every day just to survive and keep your sister out of the mess, totally unknowing?

Ji Changmin may not know everything about you, he may not be in the same situation, but still; he knows how you feel. Coming from a background like that, you don’t get to keep a lot of freedom either.

“It’s… it’s a work in progress. I don’t really have a plan either, I just… I just know I need to save up enough to sort things out, move out and leave everything behind. I can’t… I can’t keep doing this forever, y’know,” you shrug, snickering to yourself.

Changmin hums in understatement, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He looks so out of place in the middle of your white sheets, dressed in his all black attire. The contrast of his clothes and the brightness of your laundry cuts through all major parts of your life as well– where there’s anxiety, there’s also Changmin’s ability to turn everything into a joke. Where there’s mess and confusion, there’s Changmin’s calculated plans and thought-out strategies. Where there’s loneliness, there’s also Ji Changmin’s sheer presence next to you during the lunch break. It’s strange, just how quickly you found comfort in the serpent-like boy. It’s unfamiliar. The novelty of it all both scares you and comforts you all at once.

The boy is silent for a while before he speaks up, processing the information. As if knowing that there’s nothing he could really say to make you feel better about the situation– or fearing that anything he could utter out would make it worse– he entrusts you with a secret of his own.

“If I don’t get adopted before I turn 18– which, let’s be real, with my history and everything, won’t happen– I age out of the system and I’m all on my own,” he says, shrugging, “I’ll need money to get on my own feet. To leave, too. Fuck, I need to leave that house and this town. I need to start over somewhere where they won’t know every single thing that happened to me in the past.”

You hadn’t realized just how much your plans align when you first nodded to this agreement. You think it adds a sense of reliability now. Both working towards the same plan, knowing that if you fail, the other’s fate is at stake as well. 

Before this, you didn’t know just how serious it was for Changmin– you didn’t know if he needed the money on reckless spending, on buying drinks and cigarettes to chase down his boredom, or if there was a greater sense of ironical responsibility behind it all. Knowing that there’s so much on the table, so much of both of your future’s that are at risk if you don’t try your hardest to make your lives better– because no one else in the whole world will help you, it seems– brings a greater sense of alliance hang in the air between the two of you.

Shared secrets, plans, view of life. Shared responsibilities, burdens, desperation. That bonds two people like nothing else does.

“You can count on me, Y/N,” Changmin hums, tone of voice barely louder than a whisper. Your eyes don’t meet in the confidentiality of it all, but your heart still squeezes on itself. “I’ll get us out of this town even if it’s the last thing I do.”

The low murmur of the school cafeteria lands into your ears as you stand in the line for food, Changmin’s tall figure in front of you turning to face you, an annoyed sigh heaving out of his throat. “Now I remember why I never fucking go to this place.”

“Oh, right,” you nod, shrugging to yourself as if to show your absolute fury with the fact that you’ve been standing in the line for more than 10 minutes now, a third of your lunch break already passing by like a flash, “it was never because I was too broke. The line was always the problem.”

The male in front of you snickers at your ironic remark. You’re convinced you could count the amount of times you’ve been to the school cafeteria to buy lunch on the fingers of one hand. Most of the time, you take whatever remains of food you can find at home with you. Lunch money is reserved for your little sister only– and even that is on special occasions. Usually, you try to buy her the cheapest things you can find at the store downtown– the retailed bread that’s too old to sell at original price now, but still fresh enough to eat– but when you figure you have enough money in the week to spend, you give her enough to buy lunch at school. For you, buying your own warm lunch at school feels like a holiday. You’ve lived through more Christmases than cafeteria lunches, you think.

“Starting to doubt if it’s even worth it anyway,” Changmin fusses, folding his hands at his chest. You don’t think you’ve ever met a more impatient person than him. If things take too long, he gives up on them– like the line in the grocery store the other day. You made the mistake of inviting him to buy groceries with you, but when he realized the self-checkout lines were too long, he just carried your groceries out without paying, grinning at your shocked face the moment you unsuspectedly got out of the store. ‘It’s okay to steal from big corporations,’ he justified. ‘They won’t feel the loss.’

“Changmin, this is my first time buying lunch this year,” you sigh, “have some patience. Of course it’s worth it– it’s a celebration of our hard work.”

“Does this feel satisfactory?” he doubts, pointing a thumb behind him to show the line in front of you two– which, just by the way, moved a ton, meaning it’s gonna be your turn soon. 

“Not yet,” you admit, chuckling to yourself, “but the feeling will come once I bite into the soggy, half-cold pizza. Trust,” you point a finger to him and poke him in his stomach, that has, just by the way, growled in hunger three times since you’ve taken your place in the line for food.

“Of course you chose to get lunch on pizza day…”

“What do you have me for?” you scoff. “I have some culture.”

“Says the person who hasn’t seen Train to Busan before. Girl, you’re the farthest thing from cultured, trust me.”

“You call Train to Busan our national treasure?” you ask, blinking at the boy in pure confusion. You don’t trust a man like Ji Changmin to be the film critic of modern age, to be fair, but you think even this opinion is quite far-stretched.

Changmin furrows his brows at you, clicking his tongue. “You’re only saying that because you haven’t seen the movie.”

“Well, I haven’t been given the opportunity to watch it, so I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

The line finally moves and lets you two get your lunch. The lady behind the counter looks even less pleasant than you remember her– with more gray hair and a more tired expression on her face– and the food isn’t much either even by looking at it. Still, you feel a sense of satisfaction run through your veins when you look at the sad-looking plate. You earned this pizza. This soggy, bad, a little shoe sole-looking pizza. You put a lot of effort into buying this plate, and although it doesn’t necessarily represent the determination, at least it represents the morality of your earned money– and you know what, at the end of the day, you think that’s fair.

Walking away to one of the empty tables in the cafeteria, carrying your tray in both of your hands and following Changmin’s lead, you feel your stomach churn at the image of the pizza on your plate. It sure doesn’t look great, but it looks edible– you still consider it to be a reward.

However, before you get a chance to sit down and bite into the meal, your side suddenly comes in contact with something firm, yet soft, the impact of the hit making you stumble and fall over to the hard linoleum. The tray of food you’ve had in your hands is knocked out of your grasp, falling to the ground with a loud noise, and the force in which you hit the floor makes your butt sting in pain. The moment comes by like a blur, and before you even get a chance to register what happened, a train of apologies lands into your ears.

“Oh my god, Y/N, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to–” a boy a little shorter than Changmin (that’s just standing by your side, looking a little taken-aback, but still uninterested in the commotion, not at all trying to help you out), stutters out. You recognise him to be your classmate Eric Sohn– one of the people you’ve never really spoken to before, because you had no reason to do so. He is a loud extrovert, a people person, a bundle of never ending energy. He’s charismatic, but not someone you would find yourself hanging out with (not that you really hang out with anyone other than the criminal by your side anyway)– and a little inkling in your brain tells you that one of the reasons for this fact is Eric’s high social status. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, offering you his hand to bring you back up to your feet.

Wincing in pain as you take his grasp and get back into a standing position, you wonder if he was running– there was no way the sheer force of him walking would send you to the ground. Once you take a closer look at the boy, you notice his blushing cheeks and an incredibly guilty look on his face, notifying you of the fact that you haven’t replied to him yet, still too shocked by the events. “I’m okay, yeah,” you nod, eyes shifting to the plate on the ground. It didn’t break, but your pizza slice is very visibly on the ground– and no matter how desperate you are for food right now, you consider it too contaminated to be eaten.

“I am so sorry, Y/N, I wasn’t looking where I was going– oh god, your uniform is all dirty,” he points to your white button-down, now stained with the last remains of the soup that was seemingly in one of the plates your classmate was carrying.

“It’s… it’s okay–”

“I’ll pay for you to get it dry cleaned!” he stammers, eyes wide and bangs falling into his eyes, the boyish, panicked aura around him making you feel kind of bad for him. Which is strange– you are the one in pain and without lunch now. Not him.

“No, really, it’s okay, Eric… It was an accident–”

“And your lunch is ruined! God,” he grunts, scrambling to pick up all the dishes from the floor, cleaning up the mess. “I’ll get you a new one. Just… wait here, I’ll be right back!” the boy assures you, running off with the trays and plates, aiming for the area designated for discarding them. 

Like in a trance, you take a seat at the table, following Changmin. Scratching the back of your neck, you sigh and aimlessly stare at your companion, watching as he eats his pizza. Casually speaking the fact into existence, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, the male decides to make you choke at his words. 

“You should get on that, Y/N,” he notes, snickering.

“Huh?” 

“You know what I mean. Man’s rich as fuck, Y/N,” he says as he swallows down the bite, shrugging. “He’d fit perfectly into your little plan,” Changmin schemes, pointing a finger at your face.

“Stop being ridiculous,” you grunt, “why would I do that? He doesn’t even like me, so–”

“Oh, as if,” Changmin rolls his eyes, speaking with his mouth full, “he looked at you as if you were Jesus fucking Christ, Y/N. He clearly has a crush on you. And, respectfully, any man would want to get with someone like you– why do you think our plan is working so well? You’re hot enough, that’s why,” he shrugs, making you blink at the male in surprise.

Hot enough? Did Ji Changmin just call you hot? You’d rather not focus on that part of the exchange.

“Shut up, Changmin,” you sigh, “besides, I’m not doing that to him.”

“Why not? I thought our motto was ‘eat the rich’, no?” 

“Yeah,” you grunt, nodding to the boy, tone of voice ironic, showing him just how stupid he sounds right in this moment, “but it’s ‘eat the icky old rich men’, not ‘eat unsuspecting, innocent rich’, Changmin. Got it?”

“You’re missing out on–”

“I said no,” you cut him off, pointing a finger right in the middle of his forehead. Something about your authoritative tone gets the point across, making the boy sigh.

“Jeez, okay, if you really say so…”

Opening your mouth to continue on with the sentiment, you’re quickly cut off by Eric’s voice coming from beside you, the boy suddenly appearing at your table. “Here,” he says, a bashful look on his face as he puts the tray in front of you, two slices of pizza and a box of orange juice settled on the red plastic dish, “I’m really sorry again! And…” he starts, scratching the back of his neck, “and here is my number, so if you want me to… uh… pay for the cleaning of that, or whatever, just… let me know, okay?” he smiles awkwardly, pointing to a piece of paper settled under the juice box, having you blink up at him in surprise.

Before you get a chance to protest, Eric pays you two his goodbyes and rushes out of the cafeteria, cheeks red and an expression a little alarmed. You’re not an expert in body language, but the more you think about it, the clearer it gets. 

Ji Changmin is right. Eric Sohn does clearly have a crush on you. 

If that even means anything…

The house is silent. Your naked feet clad through your room as you open your drawer, fingers reaching for the soft fabric of your socks. It’s gotten a bit chilly, so you automatically go and try to warm yourself up with one of your thick garments. Fingers unraveling the sock ball, prepared to find dollar bills inside– already knowing you’ll take a part of it and give it to your sister in the morning so she can get some lunch at school– a momentarily shock washes over you when you find the sock ball empty.

Confused, you furrow your brows and check the insides of the socks. You remember very clearly that you put some of your money into this specific pair just a few days ago. 

Or maybe you didn’t… You’ve been tired the last few days. You could be remembering it wrong. Maybe this particular sock ball didn’t have money in it in the first place.

Still, you reach for another sock ball, hands a little shaky as you look through it. When you notice the lack of bills inside, your heart starts hammering against your chest, sweat appearing on your forehead. Searching through another one and another one and another one, you find all sock balls empty. There is no money where you hid it. It’s all gone.

Thousands of won gone. Vanished. Nowhere to be found.

Where could they go? Who could’ve taken them? 

In the few seconds that pass before the fact that all of your money is nowhere to be seen fully settles into your brain, your feet react on themselves and drag you out of the comfort of your room, making you jog downstairs. Reaching the living room, finding your mother laying on the sofa with a bottle of rum next to her on the ground, you feel the amount of patience you’ve had with her slowly overflowing, frustration taking its deserved place in your body as you scream at her sleeping figure.

“Did you take my money?” you yell, watching as your mother slowly opens her eyes at you and blinks in confusion, the alcohol haze around her stinking and making you sick to your stomach. The woman looks at you with zero ounces of sympathy behind her eyes, no words escaping from between her lips as she continues to wordlessly stare at you.

“Mum! Did you take my money?” you scream, clenching your hands into a fist, chewing on your bottom lip in frustration.

“I needed the money,” she says, a groggy voice cutting through the silent house.

Running your hand through your hair, an amused chuckle leaves your throat. “Did you use it all? Is it all gone?”

“I needed it,” she only adds, turning on her side and proceeding to ignore you, which makes fury hammer against your chest with more force than ever before.

“You needed the money. You needed it,” you laugh, shaking your head in disbelief. “For what, mum? You needed the money to give to Aerin so she could have lunch? You needed the money to buy groceries? To pay for the bills when a man comes to our house and tells me we haven’t paid enough for our electricity bill? You needed the money for all of that, right?” you chuckle, frustration making you kick your foot against the side of the couch. 

“Or did you need the money to buy alcohol, mum? Is that what you needed it for? Is that more important?” you bite, watching as your mother looks at you with stern eyes, the words finally entering her bubble and getting to her heart.

“Don’t speak to me like that. I am your mother.”

“You’re only my mother when you want to scold me!” you yell back, your words resonating through the silence. “Why won’t you be my mother when I need to feed my sister? When I need to take care of the house? Why aren’t you my mother when I need you?!” you scream, a sob involuntarily dragging out of your throat as you finally verbalize the words you’ve been biting back since this whole situation arised. 

“I brought you to this life. I raised you!” she screams back, merciless words stabbing you in the back like daggers coming for your heart. “So when I say I needed the money, I have every right to take it!”

“Do you?!” you argue. “Do you. Did you earn that money, mum? Because the last time I checked, you got fired and the only person trying to keep this family afloat is me!” you scream, watching as your mother sits up in her place, a tired sigh escaping her throat.

“Don’t you dare yell at me!” she gestures with her hand. 

“Well, then don’t take what’s not yours! Because now, I’ll have to work my ass of to get all of that back, because you won’t try to get your fucking life together–”

“Don’t swear at me,” your mother drags out, tone of voice stone cold and serious. It sends chills down your spine, a teardrop trail down your cheekbone and towards your jaw. You have a staring contest with your mother, one in which you question just how much impact your argument has on her– if she recognises the fury and anger and translates it as grief, just like your insides have been doing for so long now. 

Behind her glossy eyes, there’s not much for you to read, though. You lost that ability a long time ago. It’s one of the things you mourn the most.

“Y/N?” you hear a small voice call from behind you. It has you snap your head around and watch your sister shrinking away in the doorway behind you, holding on to the wall. Aerin’s eyes are glossy and scared, shaking from you to your mother, her little face morphed in anxiety as she chews on her bottom lip in nerves.

That has your fury dissolving– at least on the outside. You can’t afford to fail at protecting your sister from everything. Wiping your own tears harshly, you clear your throat and move to her hunched-over body, placing a comforting palm on her back, leading her upstairs to her bedroom.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” you hum groggily, sniffling on your way to the top of the stairs, “it’s okay. Me and mum just didn’t… we had a bit of an argument, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

As you cover up your sister with the duvet on her bed, she looks at you with watery eyes, a little voice shaking as she inquires. “We don’t have money?”

“Of course we do, dummy,” you snicker, shaking your head. “We do. Don’t you worry, Aerin-ie. I’ll take care of everything, yeah? Get those worries out of your head.”

“But you said–”

“Let the adults deal with this, yeah? It’s gonna be fine.”

“But you’re not even an adult yet,” Aerin furrows her brows, restless eyes not closing as she tries to wrap her head around the situation. No child ever should worry about things like this. And she’s right– you’re not an adult yet either, but as the older one of you, you think it’s your responsibility to take care of things. Just because you can’t afford to not worry about your situation doesn’t mean you will let your sister down and drag her with you.

“That’s right,” you sniffle, laughing airly as you rub her upper arm through the fabric of the duvet, “so that means I can still share a bed with you, yeah?” you force a smile to your lips, watching as your sister nods and scoots over in her place, letting you hug her from the side and snuggle into the warmth of her sheets.

“Everything will be alright,” you whisper into her ear, trying hard to provide her head with some distraction.

It’s kind of ironic, if you really think about it. Both of your parents failed you, but you were only truly hit with the reality of your mother’s betrayal. Who is your father if not the first man to ever disappoint you, right? You came to peace with the fact a few weeks after he left for good– you thought you didn’t need him. You could be good without him.

It seems like your mother needed him more than anything, though. Sometimes, you wish she chose her children instead.

Holding your little sister to your chest, you decide to do everything to protect her. You’d do anything it takes if it means she won’t have to worry about her future. If that’s your responsibility, then so be it– you are more than willing to carry it.

“I don’t think this looks right,” you mumble as you stare at your reflection in the mirror, furrowed eyebrows on full display as the girl staring back at you doesn’t look half similar to how she usually appears. 

You’re wearing a skirt you bought from your savings last month– wanting to treat yourself to something nice– and a cropped shirt that shoves a trace of your skin in the midriff. You’re wearing your old shoes that admittedly throw off the whole look a little– but you don’t have anything else to wear, so that’s what you’re going with. The outfit wouldn’t be the strangest thing about your appearance today– although you’re not the one to wear skirts casually, with the only exception being your school uniform.

The thing that is throwing you off the most about your apparel is the coat of makeup on your face. You and Changmin walked into a drugstore after your classes were over, trying your hardest to make you look the most enchanting you can. You did your makeup with the testers, going through three different lipstick choices before your companion was satisfied, and only when you finally escaped the fluorescent lights of the store and looked at yourself in the daylight is when you realize just how different your face looks to its usual.

“It does,” Changmin shakes his head, standing up from his place on your bed and walking over to your figure, prompting a finger below your chin to angle your head a little, staring at you from up close. His eyes glaze over your skin, making your throat dry out from being so closely examined. “You look different, but it doesn’t look bad.”

“It doesn’t look good either,” you sigh, escaping his gaze and turning around in your place, watching yourself in the mirror once again. The male leans against the desk behind him, communicating from your behind.

A sigh escapes Changmin’s throat at your words, rolling his eyes. “Be serious for once. You look good.”

“My face is all cakey,” you frown.

“You only notice when you see it from up close,” Changmin says, “and I don’t think Eric’s gonna look at you from up close. He’d shit his pants.”

“You’re not helping.”

“That’s because you won’t let me help,” he grunts. “No matter how many times I tell you that you look good won’t change the fact that you won’t admit it to yourself.”

“I don’t look like myself.”

“You do!” he runs his hands through his hair, shaking his head in frustration. “You always look pretty, it’s just… today you look like you put more effort into your appearance,” Changmin huffs, his voice growing a little more quiet at the end of the sentence. Your eyes meet with his in the full-length mirror, watching as the tips of the boy’s ears tint a pink hue, the warmth spreading to his cheeks at the compliment that just so casually slipped through his lips. “Which– which is good, because you wanna look like you put effort into a date with a rich boy, y’know?” he adds, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

His words comfort you a bit. Trying hard not to meet his gaze in the mirror– because you suddenly feel a bit bashful under his gaze– you nod to yourself and focus on the hem of your skirt for the thousandth time, making sure it fits right against your skin. “How does one act on a date? I’ve never been on one.”

“You go on dates every week,” Changmin snickers.

“I meant real dates. The dates you have with people your age,” you roll your eyes, watching as the boy cheeses and shrugs to himself.

“Well,” he starts, “he already likes you. Like, a lot. So making him fall for you won’t be a problem, because I’m quite certain it already happened.”

His words have you feeling a little bad for Eric Sohn. He’s just an unsuspecting teenager that just so happens to be born into a rich family. He likes you– quite obviously so– and you’re going to break all the trust he has in you and use him for your own personal gain. It’s not morally good to do anything like this. You should be ashamed of yourself.

But then again, you think of all the paths you have to take just to survive. You lost a lot of money, and you need to get it back again– and you need to do it fast. 

There’s no time for you to feel bad for Eric. You have to think of your sister first.

“I think you just have to pretend you like him back. Like… listen to him when he talks about boring stuff. Smile a lot– he’ll go crazy over your smile. Don’t be too touchy on the first date, or else it would come off as you being too eager, but if you manage to get a casual touch in without being too clingy, that’s bonus points,” Changmin hums, listing off all advice he can think of.

“Just be yourself, honestly. You have the guy wrapped around your finger anyway,” Changmin shrugs. “Let him pay for everything. Abuse the power you hold, Y/L/N.”

Nodding to yourself, you take a mental note of everything Changmin told you. “I don’t think it’s really fair to him, still.”

“Well, when was ever life fair to you?” he asks, tone of voice suddenly more sincere, more tender than the usual way he speaks to you. It has your eyes meeting again in the mirror, an unspoken understatement making you feel a tinge of bittersweetness in your insides, your gaze communicating the words you can’t quite materialize into existence.

The eye contact is broken as the male stands up from his place and pokes your exposed midriff with his finger, laughing at seeing you squirm before he dives into your bed sheets once again, a muffled yell sent your way from the cushion of your pillow.

“Go get him, tiger!”

“Why don’t we finish this at my place?” the man– you think his name was Baekho– asks you with a suggestive smile on his face after he pays for your dinner. 

This man was particularly hard to get to. He seemed smarter than the others– keeping his belongings close to himself, paying more attention to his surroundings. You and Changmin didn’t manage to go along with your initial plan, which made you tense on the inside as it was– his suggestion only made your heart drum harder against your ribcage, the self-preservation instinct within you telling you to run.

“I am actually not really feeling well, so I’ll head home,” you nod, a stern smile fighting its place onto your lips. 

“Don’t be silly,” the male opposes, shaking his head at you like you would at a child when it does something wrong and you can’t believe a human like that will someday grow into a fully functioning adult, “the night is still young, baby.”

Standing up from your place, following his motions, you turn your head sharply around and send a look full of worry to your companion. Changmin raises his eyebrows at you in question, but for the sake of your secrecy, you don’t pay him much of an answer in fear of where an explicit call for help would lead you. 

“Thank you so much for the dinner, really,” you try to seem welcoming, you try to play it off and put up a nonchalant facade, smiling at the man that towers over you, “but I really should get going.”

“Let me give you a ride home, then,” he insists, glazing your elbow with his hand, making you shudder at the action, acid hunting your tongue.

“That won’t be necessary, I don’t live far–”

“Oh, don’t be stupid. Let me show you my car,” the male grunts, harshly gripping your elbow and dragging you away from the restaurant.

One of the biggest mistakes you made today was the fact that you chose to meet with this man in the evening. Most of the dates you go on happen in the afternoon, providing you with more sense of safety– you should’ve known that this gathering would end differently to all the other ones you’ve been to. You get dragged away into one of the poorly-lit alleys, no cars in sight, and you swear you can feel the imprint of his hand burning on your skin.

“Please, let me go so I can–”

“So you think you can just go on a date with someone like me, bribe me to buy you dinner, and then leave me nothing in return? That’s not how it works around here, sweetheart,” the male grits through his teeth, dragging you along the alley despite you trying to wrestle your way out of his grip.

He’s stronger than you, and he’s taking that into advantage. The danger in your chest hammers stronger than any time before, alerting you of the fact that if a miracle doesn’t happen, you’re going to either die tonight, or be marked by the events of this date forever. Oh, what a foolish idea it was to go along with this. You should’ve known this was bound to end in a disaster from how well it’s been going since the start.

Trying to kick around in the male’s grip, huffing and screaming out– but knowing nobody’s going to hear you in the buzz of the nightlife– you gulp on nothing and try to use all your adrenaline for getting yourself out of the situation. 

“Stop squirming, you know it’s not going to help you–” 

The male suddenly grunts, a wince of pain flashing through his eyes. 

A miracle happens. Ji Changmin with his mask pulled up and his cap down low shielding his face appears in your point of vision, a bloody knife in his hand. When your shaky pupils look around, taking in your surroundings, you notice the man crouching down and holding his leg, growling like a wounded animal. 

Too shocked to do anything yourself, you let Changmin drag you behind him with his arm, shielding you from the man. You faintly notice him launching after your companion, but before he has a chance to fight with him, Changmin puts the knife up, threatening the male. You haven’t seen him fight anyone before– only heard of the quarrels he’s gotten into in the foster home or on the streets– but something about his swift movements and the kicks aimed at your attacker makes you feel a little safer, a tinge of relief flowing through your veins. He looks like he knows what he’s doing. He seems to have the situation at least partially under his control.

“Run!” you hear Changmin yell at you, only paying you attention for a spare second as he looks at you over his shoulder. 

You do as you’re told, but still keep looking back at your savior, watching as he kicks the man into his crotch area and slices the knife against the skin of his upper hand before he stabs him again, the pained groans echoing against the walls of the alleyway. There’s something terrifying about Changmin’s skills, leaving you wondering where he learned all of this– but before you get a chance to ponder on the origins of his self-defense skills any further, you hear his voice calling for the male.

“Don’t follow us, or this will end up worse,” he growls, still threatening the male with the pocket knife. “Try to go after us and I’ll tell the police you’re a pedophile– she’s only 17. You heard me?”

When the male doesn’t give him a reply, Changmin lets out a satisfied snicker. “That’s what I thought.”

Changmin runs up to you and drags you by your hand, tugging you out of the alleyway. The bloody knife is quickly hidden in his pocket as you charge through the streets, making sure you’re as far away from the man as possible. You stumble a little over your feet, making Changmin hold onto your hand a little stronger, dragging you behind a corner of a 24/7 bistro on the end of the street two blocks away, hiding you from the sight of the main road by the shade behind the building.

“Shit, are you okay?” he asks, looking you over with examining eyes. His shaky fingers take ahold of your chin, turning your face around to see any possible damage, letting go only when he’s sure there are no bruises on your cheeks, gripping your shoulders instead, breathing heavily. “Fuck. I’m so sorry,” he sighs out, his composure faltering a little, the contrast between him from a few minutes ago to now so big it leaves you weak in your knees.

“I’m okay,” you nod, barely registering the shakiness of your own voice.

The words have him tugging you close to him, arms wrapping around your body. He holds you as if he’s making sure you’re still there, all intact and alive, a hand sneaking into your hair petting it in an affectionate act you’ve never received from the male in the months you’ve spent working with him. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault,” you choke out. The previous sense of danger slowly evaporates out of you, heart relaxing, your brain getting the signal that you’re finally safe and sound. Closing your eyes for a minute, you allow yourself to mold against his figure, foolishly adjusting to the way his grip around you brings you a sense of newly found serenity and calm.

“Kinda is. We’re never doing this again,” he says, and if you tune in with his body hard enough, you feel a slight tremble of his arms. 

“It’s fine, we can–”

“No,” he sighs, “there’s other ways. Safer ones.”

And it’s kind of strange– the way Ji Changmin demonstrates that your safety matters to him more than the money gain you’ve been both chasing after for the past few months. The things you two do to get by are never morally right and never the safest options, but when he lets go of you and holds his face in his hands before giving you a head pat, you know what he means: he’ll rather take the harder way than to leave you so vulnerable ever again.

Your shoes get discarded at the doorstep and your feet are quickly put into the guest slippers that reminds you too much of the ones you see in fancy hotels on the TV– the white, thin footwear you wear only to be polite, since they do nothing to keep your feet comfortable or warm, your heels thudding against the floor with as much force they would’ve if you wore only your socks. Eric takes off your coat and hangs it in the hall, like the true gentleman he was raised to be, and leads you into the house.

The ceilings are high, walls are various shades of white and cream, floors either mirror-like marble or expensive, hard wood. The whole house looks like it was taken out of a furniture catalog or made for one, everything fitting together in a simple, yet polished beauty. The decorations are simple and sleek, but they still make the whole place look put together. The floors are clean, not a speck of dust on either of the bookshelves you pass when the boy leads you into the common area, not a single mug misplaced or a dish forgotten in the sink. The air is fresh in the spacious rooms, yet it’s still quite overbearing, not letting you breathe.

“Do you want anything to drink?” he asks, almost a little nervously.

“Just water is fine, thank you,” you smile, agreeing. Your throat is suddenly dry, almost begging for the cold liquid to splash down and hydrate it a bit before you completely choke out.

Eric nods, leaving you alone in the living room. The big plasma TV seems to be framed against the wall, like an artwork in the gallery, and although it still gets a look full of awe out of you, you find the sentiment a bit ridiculous to look at. You feel like you’re in the Truman show– everyone’s watching your reactions through the camera, laughing at the fact that this is the first time you’ve set your foot into a place filled with so many expensive things, making you scared to even move in fears of breaking something more than your yearly rent. You must look like a deer in the headlights, clueless and shocked at the state of your surroundings, and it suddenly makes you self conscious as you decide to walk around the room and focus on what you’re here for– the plan.

Eyes scanning the contents of vitrines, the crystal glasses and expensive wine bottles, you try hard to mentally calculate the worth of everything in the house– you find yourself failing, though, since you can’t even tell just how much each thing costs, too far out of your league to even assume the price tag. There’s a particular display of jewelry you recognise from back when you worked in the store, scoffing when you add up the prices of the chains you once sold to an old man wanting a gift for his wife’s birthday– something about the number of digits making you feel just the tiniest bit infuriated.

How come some people have so much, yet you have so little? What makes them deserve it and makes you work tirelessly to afford a living? Why can they afford vacations in Greece and Dubai, yet you keep gluing together the last remains of your money to buy groceries for your sister?

It’s ridiculous. It’s frustrating.

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you move towards a wall filled with pictures– each framed in a white or silver frame so they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle for your eyes, aesthetically pleasing each guest that’s ever crossed the threshold of the house– gazing at the memories captured on the photos. 

You recognise the little boy on all of them to be Eric. There’s a girl, a few years older than him, but undoubtedly his sister, with her arm around his shoulders, a silly smile plastered on both of their faces so similar the resemblance is uncanny. There are a few pictures with all 4 of them on the wall as well, sun shining into their eyes as they all squint into the camera, posing in front of various monuments. A few of the mementos are from the beaches of Europe, some are from the hiking trails of Asia, and the one with Eric’s hair longer and in little curls, very obviously one of the most recent ones with how much he resembles the boy currently in the kitchen fetching you with a glass of water, standing on a surfboard, was taken in the waves of the american west coast. You remember him saying something about having family there, so it’s not unusual for him to visit often.

A knife laced with the green poison of jealousy cuts you somewhere into your abdomen. It’s not only the expensive luxuries he gets to experience that make you long for a life like his– it’s also the carelessness, the joy. It’s the care you see in his parents’ eyes on the pictures, the obvious love shared in the photographs– they’re taken not to boost their privilege, but to remember their happiest moments. You wish you had something like that. A functional family. One that cares for each other. One that doesn’t put obstacles under each other’s feet.

“Here you go,” Eric’s voice wakes you up from the slumber, making you jolt and take the glass of water he’s offering to you into your grasp, taking a sip.

“Thanks,” you nod, smiling. 

Watching Eric from under your eyelashes, you notice his eyes glazing the frames you’ve been focusing on before. Licking his lips, the boy speaks up with a voice laced with genuine absurdity, pointing towards the wall. 

“You must think this is just ridiculous,” he notes, scratching the back of his neck. Eric Sohn isn't stupid– although he grew up in luxury, he can still recognise the imbalance of resources the two of you have. You don’t know why he is being self-conscious about it, though.

“Not really,” you note, shrugging, “it’s just… quite unbelievable, to be fair.”

“Yeah,” he snickers, “we don’t really go on many vacations anymore, to be honest. We used to go on many when I was a kid,” he says, making you recognise the fact that most of the pictures did indeed look older– back from when Eric was younger. 

You never really went on vacations when you were little. There was always something that got into the way– your parents either had a fight just in the middle of the summer, or you simply didn’t have enough money to travel anywhere, since you were surviving from paycheck to paycheck. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you start to wonder about the difference it makes to miss something you once used to have, and the desire for something you never got to experience. Which one is worse? Or are they not really comparable at all?

“My dad started working much more, so he doesn’t really have time. My sister got married, so she has her own family to worry about,” he shrugs, trying hard to play it casual– somewhere in the depth of his dark orbs, though, you notice that he’s battling away the fact that it upsets him. “I was really close with my sister,” he chuckles, pointing towards one of the picture frames where she’s putting up a peace sign behind his head, photobombing their own picture together, “I miss her sometimes.”

The role of the older sister is perhaps the one you try your hardest to keep. Will your little sister miss you the same way Eric does now with his own sibling? Will it hurt her less or more? Will she resent you? You can’t imagine a world in which your sister hates you– do you choose to protect her always, or do you take a step forward so you can breathe too?

“Does she visit you at all?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he hums. “It’s just not the same. That’s alright, though,” he shrugs, pressing his lips together into a tight line, “little Eric had a very happy family, at least. Can’t complain about that.”

And when you lock eyes with him, the sympathy oozing into the spacious, silent, almost lonely-looking place, you recognize the reality of it all– that no matter how fortunate you are in life, no matter how much money you have, there will always be struggles. Life always has its way of finding your weak spots and hitting where it hurts, strangling you and leaving you breathless in the battle of it all. You either don’t go on vacations at all, or you once did and now you can’t– either way, it hurts to think of what ifs and to remind yourself of all that once was and is now wasted. 

For the first time since you met Eric Sohn, you start to see him as human. You start to see him as someone with his own life, his own emotions, his own struggles. 

Maybe Changmin was wrong to tell you to get closer with the male. Now, having the insight to his thoughts, having the image of his once so idyllic life that’s now so far away, lonely, makes it harder for you to think of what you’re supposed to do when the time comes– mercilessly, completely selfishly. 

You’re not so sure you can proceed with the plan anymore. 

You miscalculated your abilities.

“Do you really need to write it all down?” you squint at your companion, feeling at least a little comical when you watch him scribble down a list onto a lined sheet of paper, blue ink twinkling in the sun. 

“Yeah,” he nods, totally focused on the task at hand. “So we don’t miss out on any important information. Everything’s useful.”

A sigh leaves your mouth at that, making you shaking your head in disbelief. Changmin is currently laying on his stomach in the grass, not a picnic blanket in sight– just his bare shirt against the ground– and as you sit cross legged against the tree in the very corner of the park, enjoying the breeze playing with your hair, you start to wonder just how innocent and carefree you must look to the rest of the people. Just two friends enjoying their weekend in the park. Nothing else. No shady business going on– you promise!

“So you said there was a bunch of jewelry?” Changmin asks, tapping the glitter pen against his chin. You don’t really know where he came across one, but you don’t dare to ask. You know he was eyeing one of the fancy glitter gel pens in the dollar store when you last went to buy a notebook for class with him after school, so you guess you know the source of his newest shiny toy. He’s like a crow, you think. Both with the love for anything that glimmers and the love for stealing.

“Yeah,” you hum, “like at every rich person’s house,” you shrug, not really knowing what his deal was.

“Okay, good. Visible? Unprotected?”

“Are you asking if it was locked like in a jewelry store?” you snicker, rolling your eyes at him. “Because if so, the answer is no, Changmin. Who in their right mind has their personal belongings locked in their own home? Right. No one.”

“Just making sure. I don’t know how it works with rich people, I’ve never been one of those,” Changmin hums, not paying your sarcastic remarks much mind. “But this is good, it works in our favor. What other valuables have you laid your eyes upon during your visit?”

You try to think back to the day you went over to the Sohn’s mansion. You didn’t really see the majority of the house– since Eric didn’t give you a full tour and you didn’t really think it was appropriate to ask for one– so all you know about the stuff he has at home is from the living room, the entry hall and his bedroom. 

“A game console of some kind? I don’t know, dude…”

“A PS5?”

“God, I dunno,” you mumble, furrowing your brows at the boy. “Do I look like an expert?”

“Right,” he sighs, licking his lips. “Well, we can only assume. Next?” 

His glitter pen scribbles the words ‘PS5 (?)’ into the notepad right below the words ‘expensive jewelry’, making you chuckle. You really don’t know what he’s trying to achieve over here– well, the main goal is clear, you’d say– you just don’t really know why he has to have a complete list. It’s not like you’re going to rob his house of everything. You don’t have the capacity to do all that.

“Well, I don’t know. I doubt you want me to carry out his plasma TV or something, so I think this is all I can really give you right now,” you mumble, shrugging. “As if this whole thing isn’t totally immoral in the first place.”

“Y/N, sweetie, I told you to forget about morals long ago.”

“Not everyone is morally gray by default, Changminnie. It takes a while to recalibrate,” you say, rolling your eyes at his phlegmatism. If only you could live your life with Ji Changmin’s mindset. You bet handling a lot of things would be much easier.

Eyes searching through the trees and the greenery, you take a mental note of your sister’s whereabouts. You’re glad you were finally able to take her out of the house. Her friends invited her out, and although it’s only in the neighborhood, you’re much happier with keeping an eye on her, just in case. You’re much more concerned with safety of your little sister ever since you came in contact with breaking the law– you realized just how many people with bad intentions are on the planet, and although you’re not one of the people engaging in child trafficking, something about tasting danger on your tongue makes you feel more cautious when it comes to Aerin’s safety.

She is currently laughing at something with her friends before she runs off, seemingly playing tag. The park is big enough for the girls to roam around without getting on the road, and it’s good for her to get some physical activity in. Shifting your attention back to Changmin, noticing him doodling shapes in the corners of his notebook, your mind settles back into conversation with him.

“Or maybe you’re just starting to like your boyfriend a little too much,” Changmin scoffs, making you furrow your brows in confusion.

“I don’t think me not feeling 100% happy with planning to rob someone I know is the cause of me suddenly being in love with my fake boyfriend,” you note, “that’s just, y’know. Being a human being with basic empathy.”

“Fake boyfriend?” Changmin repeats, completely disregarding the rest of your sentence.

“Well, it’s not exactly real, is it?” you laugh, a hint of discomfort on your tongue. “Makes me feel kinda bad, but–”

“So you’re dating?”

Blinking once, then twice at the boy in front of you, you scratch the back of your neck in nerves. “Is that not what you wanted me to do?”

“No, it is, it’s just… is it, y’know, official?”

“Define official.”

“Does he call you his girlfriend?” 

Plucking a stem of grass from the ground, twirling it around in your fingers– because looking into Changmin’s eyes is suddenly too unbearable in this situation– you shrug. “Sometimes.”

“Ah,” the male nods, an unreadable expression sitting at his face. “So it’s pretty official, then.”

Not really giving him an answer to this argument– both because you’re suddenly a bit embarrassed, cheeks burning and ears ringing (even though you really don’t know what made you have this reaction, since you have no romantic feelings to your current significant other) and because you don’t really know what to say– you only chew on the inside of your cheek, examining the greenery in between your pointer and your thumb.

“Have you two kissed already?” Changmin asks, quite confidentially, making you kick him in the side of his thigh.

“God,” you sigh out, shaking your head. “No!”

The male in front of you clicks his tongue, a grin spreading over his features. There’s a boyish sparkle behind his eye, his expression not understandable to you, making your insides squeeze in a weird tinge of anxiety. “What?” you ask, but get no reply– just a soft laugh coming out of his throat, battling its way to your heartstrings.

“Nothing.”

“Changmin! What’s so funny?” you ask, hiding your cheeks into the palms of your hands. “It’s just– I don’t wanna do it if I don’t like him like that, y’know? It’s not as embarrassing as you make it to be–”

“Not for you, that is.”

“Changmin!”

“What?” he asks, the dimple on his cheek at full display when he faces you, clearly amused at your reaction. “Look, it’s just that if it was me–”

“Changminnie! Changminnie!” a high-pitched, female voice cuts your friend off, making both of you turn your heads towards the source currently running to you at full speed, laughter escaping your little sister’s throat.

“I bet you can’t catch me!” Aerin says, touching your friend by his shoulder to tag him into the game before she runs off, the rest of her friends looking behind their backs and watching as he scrambles up from his lying position, a smile of a beaming sun plastered onto his face.

You never learn what Changmin wanted to tell you that day. You don’t ask later– you forget, not really deeming the information as that important. The memory you have of the afternoon spent in the park is mostly the image of your friend running after your sister, the laughter of the little girl resonating through your brain like a distant taste of childhood you wish to visit.

Ji Changmin is a fast runner, but he makes sure to play according to the girls’ pace. His voice is cheerful as he taunts them, calling after them in the spacious park, and when he looks back over his shoulder at you, eyes locking, your heart is left soaring in your chest before an invisible hand pierces through your lungs and takes the muscle into its hold, as if to offer it to him.

You wish to make your sister’s laugh last forever. You hope to make her joy prominent in the memories of her childhood. You pray she never turns bitter.

And when one of the girls starts chasing after Changmin, her legs half as long as the boy’s, pace slower and muscles more tired, you watch the boy theatrically trip and fall to the ground, shielding his fall with his outstretched arms. The girls laugh as he loses the game, getting tagged, and after the male almost comically slowly gathers back up to his feet again, a thought flashes through your brain– how amazing life would be if it was just you three in it– just you, Aerin and Changmin, spending your afternoons together, free of any trouble.

How happy life would be if every afternoon went like this. How good life would be if you spent days together just like this, like family. 

For the first time since your decision, you start to doubt your life plan. How can you leave a fantasy like this behind? 

How could you ever leave your little sister alone?

“It’s happening soon, right?” Changmin asks, the two of you sitting next to each other on the bus stop. Changmin sometimes takes the bus back to the foster home after class when neither of you have plans, but due to your poor time management skills and awfully slow pace of packing your things up, it just so happened that the poor boy missed the earlier bus– which you tried to repay him for with offering him both your chocolate milk and your time as you stayed with him on the bus stop and waited for the nearest bus to the other side of the town with him.

“Hm?” you ask, a little confused at first. Then, it dawns on you. “Ah. Yeah, I guess.”

Changmin’s voice is soft, almost careful when he talks about the topic. You don’t often discuss your plan out loud together. It happens once a fortnight– after sealing the deal in the school yard that day, there always was a feeling of mutual understanding hanging over the two of you that said that even though it’s the reality you’re striding towards, you don’t really mention it out loud. As if not to jinx it. 

Or maybe, the both of you just don’t really want to discuss something so difficult. It’s easier to prepare for it when you pretend it’s easy. When you don’t open up about just how scared the both of you clearly are.

“Are you… are you ready?” he asks, making you look at him with confused eyes, a hearty chuckle escaping your throat.

“As ready as I’ll ever be– which actually, just for the record, means no,” you say, watching as your companion hums and nods to himself, head clearly full of thoughts he’s a little afraid to say out loud. 

You don’t blame him. Not at all, actually. Your own mind is full of conflicting thoughts and feelings, a battle of morality and selfish desire making a pit open in your stomach every time you think of the next step of your little plan. A part of you desperately needs to leave, to settle things once and for all, but another part of you is still hesitant. Maybe there’s another way. Maybe you could do something about it. Maybe you could try contacting your father again– one more call left to be sent into the voicemail really won’t hurt you right now.

You’ve been thinking a lot of similar things lately. Questioning the nature of your plan. Wondering if you’ll succeed, if it’s all worth it.

You don’t really talk about it, though. Not until now. You don’t know what gets you so weak and fragile. 

“What if… what if there’s another way?” you ask, watching as the boy’s head spins to face you, eyes glossy as they stare back to yours.

“Hm?” he seems confused. “What do you mean?”

A little sigh escapes your throat at that, your head turning so you face the road again. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you shrug. “I was just… I was just thinking, like… what if there’s a way for me to do all of this without leaving? Y’know, I could just…” you trail off, not really finishing your sentence. Truth is, you don’t really know where you were going with that statement either. Maybe you just said it out loud in hopes that Changmin would finish it and figure it out for you, offer you a different perspective, make a new plan– a plan where neither of you leave, a plan where neither of you have to cut ties with everything you know back home.

That’s a foolish thought, though. “What? Get 20 million won in a month a different way? A legal one? You’re gonna get another loan, or something?” Changmin chuckles, not really taking you seriously. Or maybe he is– you just feel a bit childish for having such unrealistic views.

“I don’t know,” you say, jaw clenching. “Maybe I could get another job, and start going on those dates again, and–”

“Yeah, no,” Changmin cuts you off, a huff escaping his lungs. “I know it’s hard, Y/N, but this is all you can do. This is the last resolution, or else you’re gonna lose your house, your mum will be homeless, and you two with Aerin will either end up with your dad– which is unlikely, from what you’ve told me– or at the foster home. If you’re lucky, maybe they’ll put you both to the same one–”

Something about his words feels like daggers are thrown into your skin. Like poison is on his tongue and you’re getting burned with each honest sentence that is uttered out your way. The truth hurts, it makes you feel like he’s only adding salt to an open wound, and it’s not fair of you to react that way– you’re certainly aware– but you can’t help it. The world is toppling over onto you, the weight is all on your shoulders, and you feel totally, utterly helpless. You feel overwhelmed. You feel tired.

“Okay, I get it,” you cut him off, shaking your head in a dismissive way and rolling your eyes at the boy. “It’s just that I don’t really like the thought of doing illegal stuff just to survive, y’know? It’s not exactly easy to steal and do all of this shit, and then leave. I know it must seem fun to you, since–”

“Fun?” Changmin cuts you off. A heartbeat of silence passes by between the two of you, and suddenly, you know you’ve crossed the line. You and Changmin can tell each other many things, but this time, you sound a lot like the people judging him on the street. You sound a lot like the police officers always letting him off without punishment– he’s a kid from the foster home. He does this stuff for attention, doesn’t he? For fun. For satisfaction. He doesn’t know any better– that’s how he was raised. Right?

“Fun,” he repeats. “You think I’m doing this for fun, huh?” he chuckles. You notice his knee bumping up and down in the periphery of your vision, a nervous action just begging to tick you off. “That’s not exactly something I expected you to say, but okay–”

“Well, that’s how we fucking ended up here in the first place, didn’t we?”

“I’ve been doing this for you!” he spits, voice rising and making you flinch. “For you, and for me. For our fucking futures,” he says. You refuse to look at him even when he stands up from his place on the bench, situating his figure in front of your body still hunched up on the hard wood. “I’ve been doing this for the both of us, because we deserve a better life than this, Y/N.”

“A better future?” you laugh, bitterness dripping off your tongue. “In hiding. On a run.”

“Do you prefer being homeless? Being thrown into the foster home for a few days before you age out of the system and your little sister is left there with the other kids? Kids like me?” he says mercilessly, only adding gas to the fire. 

“You know that’s not what I meant–”

“Oh, trust me, Y/N, I know,” he says, irony slipping through his words. “You’re just saying this because you’re scared. Because you feel selfish–”

“And isn’t it true, Changmin? Isn’t selfish what we both are?” you say, your eyes finally meeting with the boy’s. His hair is disheveled as if he’s been running his hands through it in frustration, eyebrows furrowed and a displeased expression is sitting at his features. On most days, Ji Changmin looks like a cunning fox– full of mischief, full of secrets. Now, though, it’s like you see right through him. Somewhere along the way, you feel like you’re the one that started building up a wall in the middle of this argument. “How could I ever just leave my sister there? You could never understand–”

“I can’t, huh?” he says, nothing close to the gentle softness in his voice now, all disappearing from when he spoke to you just a few minutes ago. His voice is harsh, hoarse, even, something behind his eyes shifting in the middle of the fight. “Why? Because I don’t have siblings? Because I have nothing to lose?”

“You wouldn’t know how leaving someone behind feels,” you let out, but even as you’re saying it, you feel immediately disgusted with yourself. How could you ever say this to his face? 

Changmin looks like he was slapped in his face. You swear he winces at your words, bottom lip trapped between his lips as he stares you down. The corners of your eyes start burning like there’s been acid poured into your sockets, hands trembling in the reality of your words. The boy in front of you nods to himself, harshly breathing in.

“I wouldn’t know how leaving someone behind feels,” he repeats, nodding to himself. “Yeah. You’re right. Because I don’t have anyone,” he admits. “I don’t have siblings like you do. I never met my parents, because they never gave a shit about me enough to keep me in their lives in the first place. Nobody fucking cares at the foster home, because I can’t seem to make meaningful connections with anyone. And you know what, yeah. It’s just so easy for me, because there’s no one here who would give a single flying fuck if I leave, because they don’t even really care if I’m alive or dead.”

“Changmin–”

“Just say it, Y/N. Say nobody cares,” he says, eyes stone cold, an avalanche taking place in your lungs. It’s hard to breathe and your eyes are hazy, fists crawling in themselves as you relish in the catastrophe you’ve caused.

“That’s not what I–”

“And you know what? Maybe you’re right, Y/N. I have nothing to lose, I am not leaving anyone behind, I wouldn’t know how it feels. Call me selfish, for all you like. Call me selfish for wanting something for myself, for wanting to leave this town and start over somewhere new. I don’t care. I’m doing this for myself,” he says, the noise of an approaching car landing in your ears through the sound of his words. “But don’t you fucking dare give up on your future just because you feel guilty. Don’t you dare call yourself selfish when you’re doing everything you can to keep the rest of your family afloat. Don’t call yourself selfish when you’re paying back a loan that isn’t yours and taking care of your sister’s future by doing all of this alone, yeah?”

A hot trail of liquid falls down your cheek as you hear the bus approaching the stop. Taking a shaky breath in, you open your mouth to say something– anything– but no words come out.

“And I know it’s hard for you. I know you’re tired, I know you’re exhausted and I know you’re scared and god do I wish I could make this easier for you, but Y/N, don’t you ever say it’s fun or easy for me, when I’ve been putting everything on line trying to help you. To help us.”

The bus door opens. Like a child that’s being scolded, you refuse to meet his eye. There’s shame flowing through your veins, embarrassment creeping up your neck. It feels like you betrayed him. Like you cut right where it hurts, tried to use everything you had on him against him, hitting all his weak spots– all because you were suddenly too prideful to admit to yourself that you’re scared and wallowing in guilt. It’s hard to bear the weight alone. You wish you could make Changmin feel guilty. 

That’s something he won’t understand. It doesn’t make it easier for him, though. He was right– you could never do any of this differently. You could also never do any of this alone. 

“And if you still think it’s selfish, then, well,” you hear him sigh, “I think it’s okay to be selfish sometimes. I think it’s fair of you to be selfish right now,” he says, the words both feeling like a hug and a punch to your sternum, leaving you cut open in the empty road.

“I’ll see you on Monday.”

The bus drives off, the boy’s figure peeling itself off your proximity, entering the other side of the town. You sit at the bus stop for a long while after, aggressively wiping your tears away with the back of your palm, embarrassed to cause such a scene. You never meant to fight with him. You never meant to act like a toddler, playing the victim in a situation that you sadly cannot change, in a situation you unfortunately cannot solve in any better way. 

Ji Changmin is the only person you can lean on in this situation. You feel bad for using him as your punching bag. You’re deeply flawed to take it out on him. 

In the silence of the street, the thought hits you with full force, making your knees weak and your throat dry up like the desert, a dagger straight through your heart as you realize you’re the only person Changmin would be leaving behind. 

And after everything you two went through together, he would never do such a thing. Ji Changmin will hold on to you like a lifeline, because you’re everything he’s got– everything he keeps fighting for. He could give up on everything, had you not been on board. 

He could never give up on you, though.

Warm sunlight peeks through the windows as you sit in silence side by side, neither of you daring to say anything, as if you were scared to break the atmosphere hanging over the calm library. You and Changmin haven’t talked to each other much the whole day, something in the air remaining tense and strained after your previous argument on Friday, but you still tagged along with him when he asked you if you wanted to do homework with him in the library. This is the first time you see your companion doing any school work at all, so you figure you don’t want to pass out on the revolutionary moment– and also, you still feel kind of bad about your latest interaction. You take the fact that he invited you to spend more time with him as a good sign, though. 

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you decide to break the bubble and move a little in your place, reaching for something inside of your bag. Changmin promptly ignores your movements, but when a carton of banana milk appears in his vision, he pays you a glance. 

You’re too prideful to say sorry with words. You don’t want to mention it and go back to the topic you were discussing, much preferring to let things be the way they were before you had an emotional outburst at the bus stop. While you can’t say you aren’t glad that the words are now out in the open, the two of you are more vulnerable in front of each other than ever, you really don’t think you can handle another argument. Some things are better left unsaid. Ignored. There was mutual understanding over you two anyway– there was no use saying those things out loud.

And when you move the banana milk closer to Changmin’s elbow resting on the table with a push of your pointer finger across the dark-wooden desk, you see his eyes softening. He understands, taking the drink into his hand and tearing the plastic off the straw, sucking in the beverage. Ji Changmin accepted your offering, and somehow, you feel like there was some weight lifted off your shoulders, a force unsqueezing your heart. 

“You’re not working on your homework?” he asks, voice hushed in the silent library.

“No,” you shake your head, deciding to lean over the desk and rest your weight on your folded arms, prepping yourself into a comfortable napping position. “I’ll just borrow your notebook before class and copy it.”

“Is this you finally admitting that I’m smarter than you?” he teases, shaking his head at your prompt laziness.

“If that helps you sleep at night,” you shrug. 

Changmin snickers at your reply, eyes hovering over you for a few seconds as you get comfortable next to him. He takes another sip of the banana milk before he offers the drink to you, the straw hovering over your lips. Like a baby being fed through a sippy cup, you open your mouth and let him slot the straw between your lips, sucking the liquid in and relishing in the sweetness of the beverage. 

You shoot him a smile when the carton is back in its place on the desk, his eyes promptly moving to the monitor in front of him. You don’t really know what he’s working on in the first place, the hoard of assignments mixing up in your brain, but you refuse to let your mind wander over equations or foreign languages now. It’s Monday afternoon, and even though it’s only the first day of the week, you feel like you deserve to rest.

Changmin types something on the keyboard of the library computer, eyebrows furrowing as he focuses on the contents of the screen. You find yourself glued to his motions, watching him from the side, studying the way his expressions change in milliseconds, irises dialing by the second. When he focuses a little too hard on the information his eyes are scanning on the device, he traps his bottom lip in between his teeth, tugging on it. He also has a habit of licking his lips every few seconds, leaving a wet trail glossing over his mouth, making you feel foolish at the examination of that part of his face. Hair is falling into his forehead, black locks messily trimmed and mostly unstyled, oftentimes leaving you eager to brush your hand through the raven strands to tame them into place. 

His features have grown familiar to you over the months. He has the face of someone you’ll remember even in a few years. He looks like someone you’d take pictures of in photo booths and tape the strips up in your room. You don’t have any pictures like this, though, and your room isn’t worthy enough of being made prettier with such a photo strip. Maybe in the future, you think. When I live somewhere else.

His voice wakes you up from the slumber, your heart hammering at the interruption. Changmin speaks to you casually, the monotone hum of his voice making you listen attentively to what he has to say.

“Where do we eventually want to settle?” he asks, making you raise your brows at him in question.

“What part of the homework is that?” you joke, watching as the boy’s cheeks tint pink, a dismissive wave of his hand shutting up your teasing.

“I’m already done with that,” he clears his throat, “I’m just… doing research.”

“Research,” you repeat, nodding to yourself. You nuzzle your nose into your hoodie sleeve, thinking for a while as you contemplate your decision. You never really thought of where you’d go. ‘Away’ was always your destination– never specified. You just knew you’d have to leave one day, eventually.

“Busan, maybe?” you hum, laughing to yourself. “I dunno. I always wanted to go to Japan, but I don’t think our funds will reach as far.”

“I don’t really think the language barrier would be ideal either,” he agrees, nodding to himself. “Busan sounds nice.”

“Doesn’t it?” you grin, locking your gaze with his only for a few seconds before he looks back to the computer. 

“We could get a little flat somewhere in the middle of the city when we save up enough, eventually,” he says, tone of voice sweet and gentle. There’s something about planning your future with Changmin that leaves you feeling particularly vulnerable and fragile. Not in a bad way, just in a strange type of way. In a way that makes your insides ache and heart tremble. You never thought you’d plan your future with someone. 

Ji Changmin never planned his future either. Somehow, he assumed there was nothing good waiting for him after aging out of the system. 

The intimacy folded over you two like a blanket makes you panic. “We’re moving in together?” you tease, watching as the boy’s face heats up more, a hesitant shrug of his shoulders acted out to seem casual.

“I think it’s more convenient that way,” he hums, trying to stay logical. “We can split the rent and groceries, and one of us can cook while the other one cleans…” he trails off, scratching the back of his neck. “We are leaving together, so I assumed…”

A dumb smile battles its way onto your lips. “I was just joking,” you assure him, watching as he shies away from your gaze. It’s not an usual reaction from him. Ji Changmin doesn’t really get bashful– at least not with you. You try not to question it for the sake of your own comfort.

Forcing your eyes off his face, you watch as he types something on the keyboard again, attention glued to his digits. Dark bruises paint his knuckles, scratches glazing the backs of his fists. Eyebrows furrowing, you act on instinct as you reach out your hand, stopping him from typing as you take his palm into yours. “Did you get into a fight again?” you ask, thumb absent-mindledly tracing the outlines of the scars.

“Maybe,” he admits light-heartedly, lips pressed into a thin line when your warm hand locks with his, the tender touch of the pads of your thumbs against the open wounds making him shiver. If asked, the boy would blame it on the breeze coming through the window. It’s getting late and the air is colder. That has to be it.

“No getting in fights after this is all over,” you say as you let go. “Wouldn’t want our landlord to kick us out for delinquency.”

Changmin laughs, the absurdity of the situation and your foolish dreams downing on both of you at once. Unaware that even though you were both forced to grow up much faster than other kids your age, you were still childish at heart– as if chasing the time of your life that was forcefully taken out of your hands– older, but still needing to live through that stage, you fold back over the table and force your eyes closed, scoffing at the sentiments.

“Don’t you worry, Y/N,” he laughs, “we’re starting clean. Hell, I’ll even give back to society. We can start volunteering, if it makes you sleep better at night.”

The joke makes you chuckle, warming your heart. It’s nice to think about the future with someone. It’s good to feel like your dreams might be tangible. The future is in your hands, and you will do everything you can to make it worth it. 

It’s good to have someone you can lean on.

“Can I help you with that?” Aerin asks you from behind, startling you in the small kitchen space. Turning towards her, you offer her a smile and shake your head, watching as your little sister takes her stance next to your figure, observing your cooking.

When it comes to cooking, you wouldn’t call yourself a professional. A lot of the times, what you end up with isn’t as delicious as you expected it to turn out when you started making it, but at the end of the day, it’s food anyway and you eat it– because throwing it out would be a waste of money and resources, and you have to eat something. There are a few foods that are easy enough that you perfected them, though– and those are ramen, an egg omelet, fried rice, and lastly, the pre-made foods you get at the grocery store that you either just boil or heat up in the microwave. 

“No, it’s okay,” you say as you work on one of your master dishes– the one that satisfies everyone, including your little sister: ramen. You can never go wrong with ramen, you think. 

“But I wanna learn to cook as well,” your sister insists, crossing her arms on her chest, “I’m not a child anymore, and I have to learn how to look after myself.”

A dry chuckle escapes your throat, shaking your head in disbelief at her mature words. In your eyes, she’s just a child, though– a kid that’s not to be trusted with knives and boiling water, a little girl that isn’t as careful with the utensils as she should be, which can undoubtedly end up with her getting hurt. 

“That’s what I’m here for,” you smile, throwing your little sister a caring look. “You just focus on studying and I’ll be there to cook for you so your little stomach is never empty,” you say as you slice the spring onion to add into the noodles boiling on the stove.

Aerin seems to be disappointed with your answer. Her cheeks grow twice as big as they usually are as she pouts, a frown overtaking her features. You take it as your sign to engage your little sister more in the grown-up activities, sighing to yourself as you realize just how fast your little sister has grown. Even though you try to shield her from all the troubles of the adult world, you can’t really prevent her from maturing faster than the other kids her age. Hell, she’s not blind– as much as you’d like her to be. She knows what’s going on. She might not be able to grasp it fully, might not be able to understand everything with her childish brain, but she knows– to a certain level, that is. 

Nodding to yourself, you try to put up a smiling face. “Okay, then,” you say, “I’m making ramen.”

Your sister seems to be intrigued with your sudden tutorial, eyes growing big and focused. Something grows impossibly soft and fond in you, watching her scanning the surroundings, trying to find any task to help you out with. 

“You can just open the pack and put the noodles in the water to boil, if you want to do it the easy way,” you start, “but if you want to make it more delicious, like I do, you can add some other ingredients in with it.”

“What do you add?” Aerin asks.

“Spring onion,” you hum, pointing to the vegetables you’d been cutting when she approached you, “soy sauce,” you point towards the black bottle on the counter, waiting to be opened and added into the dish cooking on the stove, “and lastly, I crack in an egg.”

“That doesn’t seem hard,” Aerin says, earning herself an amused chuckle out of you.

“It’s not,” you admit, “I’m not a professional chef, or anything, so I keep it simple.”

“Can I do it, then?” she asks, looking at you with big, hopeful eyes. You can’t possibly turn those eyes down. A passing thought emerges in you that she needs this– she needs someone to teach her even the smallest things. She needs you to teach her how to cook ramen, because you know how hard it is when you have no one to show you, when you have to figure out everything on your own. 

Nodding, you step aside and put the black bottle of soy sauce into her hand. “You can pour in a little bit. Not too much, though, or else it will be too salty.”

“How much?” she asks, furrowing her brows.

“I’ll tell you when to stop,” you smile, watching as her smaller hand opens the lid of the bottle, positioning the glass above the pot. Black liquid soon drips down, tinting the broth a dark brown color, the spices mixing in and making the ramen instantly twice as delicious as if you’d just thrown it on the stove with the spices that come in the packaging. 

“That’s fine,” you say, halting your sister in adding more and over-seasoning your lunch.

“Now the egg?”

“Yeah,” you nod, watched by the focused eyes of your little sister. You take the small sphere you’ve prepared onto the kitchen counter before you started cooking, offering it to Aerin. “Have you ever cracked an egg before?” you ask.

“No.”

“Okay,” you laugh, “so this is your first time. Don’t worry, nobody gets it right the first time. Just crack it on the counter and then open the shell. Be careful not to spill it everywhere, though,” you instruct, watching as your little sister moves with much uncertainty, small hands shaking with the delicate ingredient in her grasp.

The touch of the shell with the counter is almost delicate the first time, as if she was afraid the egg was going to spill everywhere and make a mess on the kitchen counter, but the second time, she’s a little more confident, cracking the egg on the corner. Pure concentration is shown on your sister’s face as she moves the ingredient above the pot, her little fingers having trouble with opening the shell and dropping the egg in. She struggles, nails digging into the light tan, putting in more force than necessary and breaking the shell even further, having the yolk spill all over her fingers, dropping to the pan with a crash.

Aerin gasps in surprise at her own actions, a frown instantly overtaking her features as she notices that the shell fell in, disappointment so evidently running through her veins.

“It’s okay,” you say, petting her arm, “as I said, nobody gets it right the first time. Throw the shell into the bin and wash your hands, I’ll finish this,” you smile, trying to transfer all your feelings of pride into her.

She is growing up right in front of your eyes. It’s a feeling only older siblings can understand– seeing someone transform from a baby to an elementary-school kid, being there for every step of their journey. You’ve known her her whole life. It’s a bond that you never want to break.

But there’s that bugging voice in your mind that keeps telling you to enjoy this, enjoy it while it lasts, enjoy it while you can, because soon, you’ll be gone and you won’t see her take the next steps, you won’t see her grow up. A chill runs down your spine at that, an unsettling feeling making you feel heavy, making you trap your bottom lip between your teeth and gnaw on it in a poor attempt to ground yourself.

Crouching over the boiling pot, you take out a spoon and fish for the cracked shell in the noodles, not really being in favor of getting an upset appendix. Your eyes get hazy, stinging at the corners– maybe you could blame it on the steam.

“You did well, Aerin. You’ll be a better cook than me in no time,” you praise her.

“I have to learn,” she agrees, the sound of the tap turning on as she washes her hands flowing into your ears with her next sentiment. “You won’t be here forever to do everything for me, after all.”

With your back turned to her, pretending to still dig around the noodles for the egg shells you already got out a few seconds ago, you hum. You catch yourself mid-sniffle, quickly wiping your cheek with the back of your hand, turning off the stove– maybe you could blame it on the spring onion. Cutting it always makes you tear up. It’s just the fumes getting in your eyes.

You won’t be there forever to do everything for your little sister. The day that happens is maybe sooner than she’d expect– you can’t tell her, though. You can’t prepare her for your departure.

By bringing this up, though, it’s almost like in the corner of her soul, she knew. It’s almost like she had it all figured out, it’s like she saw right through you. It’s like her own way of telling you not to worry– she’ll be a big girl and take care of herself. She’ll be strong, even when you’re gone.

You won’t be there forever to do everything for your little sister. You really, desperately wish you would, though. 

Carisoprodol, sold under the brand name Soma among others, is indicated for the relief of discomfort associated with acute, painful musculoskeletal conditions in adults. Carisoprodol is a white, crystalline powder, having a mild, characteristic odor and a bitter taste. It is slightly soluble in water; freely soluble in alcohol, chloroform, and acetone; and its solubility is practically independent of pH. SOMA should only be used for short periods (up to two or three weeks) because adequate evidence of effectiveness for more prolonged use has not been established.

“What if it kills him?” you ask, chewing on your bottom lip.

“It won’t,” Changmin says, placing his hand over yours, the package of pills resting in your open palm. “Trust me.”

The recommended dose of SOMA is 250 mg to 350 mg three times a day and at bedtime. The recommended maximum duration of SOMA use is up to two or three weeks.

“Where did you even get this?” your eyebrows furrow as you listen to him instruct you on the ways of using it. Your stomach is already burning with acid at the thought of what you’re going to do. It’s what you’re dreading, but it’s also what needs to be done. 

“Our caretaker back at the foster home takes them,” he says, shrugging. “So I just borrowed some.”

SOMA has sedative properties and may impair the mental and/or physical abilities required for the performance of potentially hazardous tasks such as driving a motor vehicle or operating machinery. There have been post-marketing reports of motor vehicle accidents associated with the use of SOMA. In some patients, however, and/or early in therapy, carisoprodol can have the full spectrum of sedative side effects and can impair the patient's ability to operate a firearm, motor vehicles, and other machinery of various types, especially when taken with medications containing alcohol, in which case an alternative medication would be considered. The intensity of the side effects of carisoprodol tends to lessen as therapy continues, as is the case with many other drugs. Other side effects include: dizziness, clumsiness, headache, fast heart rate, upset stomach, vomiting and skin rash.

“Just give him two of these. He should be out within an hour.” 

A chill runs down your spine. This is nothing close to the occasional stealing at the grocery store or the lying you used to do to get money out of old men that are predatory towards a girl knowing she’s underage. This is twice as morally wrong and twice as dangerous for everyone involved. If you had to draw a line at what you can excuse yourself, you think all of this is far over it.

“If this goes wrong, I’m ratting you out and we’re both going to jail. You hear me?” you say, eyes bearing into Changmin’s.

“That’s the plan, baby,” he grins. “If you go down, I go as well.”

The usual dose of 350 mg is unlikely to engender prominent side effects other than somnolence, and mild to significant euphoria or dysphoria, but the euphoria is generally short-lived due to the fast metabolism of carisoprodol into meprobamate and other metabolites.

You watch the boy from up close, his eyes now blown out and big, blonde hair falling into his forehead in a messy manner– yet he doesn’t find it in him to drag his palm across the strands and push them out of his vision. You’re laying in the bed with him, side by side, staring into each other’s eyes. You watch as the drug slowly takes over him, as the boy in front of you slowly starts slipping into a more and more sleepy state, completely unaware of the fact that you dropped two white, round pills into his drink when he went to the toilet. 

Your conscience starts stinging more and more with the passing time. Eric Sohn looks at you like you hung the stars onto the sky, like you made the whole world with just your two hands– and this is what you’re repaying him with. This is what you decided to do, this is what path you chose to take.

Millions of excuses flash through your alert brain. Maybe it’s just your mind trying to rationalize everything, trying to make you feel better about the mess you’re just now going to create– either way, it’s helping only a little bit with the rapid beating of your heart. 

You keep telling yourself that it doesn’t matter. That Eric would never understand the life you’re living, that he wouldn’t even want to date you, had he known just how much money your family owes. You keep telling yourself that it’s okay, because he has a lot of money, and it’s not like you’re stealing it all– you’re just stealing the valuables he showed you. And maybe it’s his fault for trusting you. After all, he was the one willingly taking you back to his house when his parents weren’t around. This is his lesson– he should start being less gullible and vulnerable. He should stop hanging out with people like you.

You and him, you don’t belong together. Eric Sohn is supposed to stand by the side of another rich heir, showing her off to his parents. He’s supposed to be proudly going around the town with his newest girlfriend, not hiding with her in the shadows, knowing, sensing that she’s flawed and not like him– not like others.

He’s going to wake up and find out who you are– the reality, not just what you’ve been pretending to be all this time– and he’s going to be disappointed, sure, but he’s going to move on to better things. Because what you’re taking from him is just a fraction of his wealth, just a small part of what he has. He won’t even feel the loss. 

But for you, you’re taking everything you can– everything you need.

It’s not like any of this– your relationship– was ever real. You two haven’t even kissed yet. You hang out with him and hold his hand, you listen to him while he talks to you with sparkles in his eyes, but there’s no depth. Surely, he must feel it. Surely, he must know there’s something wrong.

“I love you, Y/N,” he suddenly says, tone of voice hushed, almost not audible in the silence of his room. The sentence is like a knife to your heart, a dagger stabbing you in your back. Something inside of you crumbles, your stomach burning with guilt, hands shaking as you pretend you didn’t hear him. If you ignore it, maybe it’s like it never happened. 

It’s the effect of the drug. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. It’s not real– how could it be? He doesn't know you. He doesn’t know who you really are and what you’re about to do. He can’t love you.

Fingers playing with the loose threads of the blanket thrown over the two of you, your eyes avert from his, big and honest, still like water. It takes everything in you not to stay here with him, wait until he’s back from the sedation, and apologize. It takes everything in you not to back out. Every time the weight of your actions becomes too unbearable, the weight of responsibility and your family’s well-being drops onto the other side of the scale, though, and you’re back to square one– this is what you need to do.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he says to you despite not meeting your eye, “you… I know…” he trails off, but doesn’t finish the sentence, as if changing his mind. A dry chuckle leaves his throat at that, words sweet like honey lacing your throat, choking you up with the thickness of them, the richness of his unreturned care. “I just wanted you to know.”

You’re a terrible, terrible human being. The force of your teeth against the side of your cheek suddenly gives out, making you taste iron on your tongue. Promptly ignoring everything he says, focusing on calming down your breathing and the erratic beating of your heart, you wonder if he knows. If he’s aware you’re just playing with him– if he knows you never cared for him in a way he does for you. 

Because if he knows, it’s like he’s allowing you to break him. Isn’t that what love is, though? Being vulnerable, offering someone your whole heart, and expecting them to take care of it? Love is cruel in that way. It can take away all of you. It can consume you.

And would he still love you if he knew what you were going to do to him? Is his love unconditional? You chuckle at that. He doesn’t know anything about love. 

A while passes, the two of you laying in silence. When you finally battle away the fear and look up at him, you find him asleep. His eyes are closed and his breathing is steady, and when you touch his arm– testing to see if he will wake– you find him unresponsive. This is your cue.

Standing up from his bed and straightening the wrinkles on your clothes, you take a deep breath in and out to calm yourself down. Your hands grasp the backpack you brought with yourself– the bag that was supposed to be filled with clothes so you could sleep over, yet that is now empty, just waiting to be filled– and you walk out of Eric’s room, feet dragging you towards all the empty rooms in the corridor.

The first part of the plan is now in action.

Walking into the master bedroom, dashing to the walk-in closet, you take all the jewelry you can find. The mental calculations of the worth of the chains and golden earrings in your bag are adding up slowly, the digits growing and making a sense of satisfaction flow through your veins. Maybe something rubbed off on you from hanging out around Changmin so much– you get the thrill now. You get the adrenaline. It’s like working for something you want, something you need, and although you know there are other ways, they’re not as fast and effective. The thing is, you need the money now. 

Fastly getting through room by room, taking everything valuable you can see with the idea of turning it into profit in a pawn shop somewhere along the way, when everything is settled and you’re on the run, starting your life somewhere new, you find that it gets easier to operate. It’s like you’re working on auto-pilot, the full weight of your actions slowly slipping through your consciousness. You’re only an actor in your life right now, looking at yourself from a third person view– like you’re playing a video game. 

Detached from everything, hands now more steady and breathing almost normal, you take the jewelry from the living room as well. A dry chuckle leaves your throat as you eye Eric’s wallet thrown lazily on the shelf by the front door. You never leave your money out in the open and unhidden at home– don’t you know that? Haven’t you learned about the dangers of that yet, Eric Sohn? Oh, what a blissfully unaware life you lead.

Opening it, taking the bank notes into your fingers and folding them into your pocket, you stop as you put your shoes back on at the front door. Looking around the big, empty space, not really allowing yourself to dwell on your actions just yet, you take your phone out of your pocket and before you completely turn the device off, block Eric’s number. 

The doorknob is cold in your hands as you open the front door, walking out. It’s like you’re leaving who you once were and who you could’ve been in that big house behind you– it’s like you’re saying goodbye to the life you once led and anxiously awaiting the new one waiting for you behind the corner. 

Getting sentimental won’t help you in this situation, though. Being emotional and afraid won’t drag your family out of the depths of loan sharks’ teeth. 

And so you walk off the property, mind set on the meeting point you agreed on with Changmin. It’s now or never.

The first part of the plan has been completed. You have something to fall back on when you discard all the money into the loan shark’s hands. Eric Sohn’s wealth is now your safety net. 

You meet up with your partner in crime at the corner of the neighborhood. Your backpack gets hidden in the bushes, away from the eyes of everyone, on the route you’re going to take when completing your second part of the plan. The next couple of steps are completed on autopilot. 

Flashes of Changmin’s face. A ski mask pulled over his head, a hood pulled over your hair, disposable mask covering your nose. He throws one of his spare black hoodies over your body, leaving you to put your arms through the sleeves and zip the clothing up, the two of you masked to the point of not being recognised even to the eyes of people that know you. 

You two make a silent entry to the empty road leading towards the town square. Not much conversation is shared between the two of you because of the adrenaline running through your veins. The stride in your step is consistent and fast-paced, the timing of your plan set to a tight schedule. When you cross the corner, nearing your target, the two of you put on sunglasses and keep your head low. Your heartbeat is so fast you can hear it in your ears, your body responding to the stress with the help of your sympathetic nervous system– breathing growing fast and hands a little sweaty.

Your mind is repeating ‘It’s gonna be okay, It’s gonna be okay, It’s gonna be okay’, a silent plea that constantly gets overthrown by the rational side of your brain. Is it too late to back out now? You don’t know– but at the same time, you recognise that you don’t particularly want to. You’re just scared– you know it. You recognise it. 

And it’s okay to do things afraid. It means you have the courage to do them– it means you have what it takes to change the situation you’re in.

Your eyes lock with Changmin’s, his face mostly hidden in a shadow. You can’t really read his expression– it’s dark and his features are covered– but it seems like you two operate on the same frequencies. One nod is all it takes– the world stops for a second before Changmin turns on his heel and moves towards the jewelry store you once worked at, a heavy rock he prepared close to the sidewalk thrown through the door giving you an easy entry to the property.

The alarm goes off instantly. That means you only have about 10 to 15 minutes before the police come and you’re busted.

You have to act quick. Changmin climbs into the store like he owns the place. You have the background information from working there that could very well get you caught quickly, if the police are smart enough to connect the dots in the investigation. The plan you and Changmin have is efficient, fast and smart. You thought about everything– you can’t make a single mistake. The way you move and operate is calculated and thought-out. There’s no way you’re giving yourself to the hands of the police tonight.

While you run to the back and rummage through the manager’s room, looking for the key to the cash register– you know where it’s usually kept, since you closed with her many times before and watched her do all the tasks with innocent eyes, not yet knowing that you’re going to end up using this information for your good one day. When you find it– on the top of the shelf, almost invisible if you hadn’t known that’s where to look for it– you move to the safe in the corner of the room. The sequence of numbers is easy to remember– or at least for you. Your father used to tell you that you’re good with numbers. You’ve grown to hate every quality of yours he ever complimented, but you must admit it’s coming in clutch right now.

Your fingers work on the lock, the junctures of the metal unclasping under your touch. Your hands are still sweaty, but a little more steady now– you notice as you open the door to the safe and take out the rest of the money binded with rubber bands, throwing it into your backpack. You work fast, not really giving yourself an opportunity to mentally count and estimate the amount, but something in your bones is telling you that it should be enough.

Running back to the main store area after you’re done, not bothering to close the safe after yourself, you reach the register to get the last remains of cash from this store. The alarm is still going off, making your ears ring and your stomach churn with acid, but as you get the key in and forcefully take out the drawer, you feel a little calmer at the sight of the bills inside. 

From the corner of your eye, you watch Changmin getting out jewelry from each shiny glass vitrine, smashing it with his gloved fist. Countless earrings, watches and necklaces get thrown messily into his bag, expensive metal rising your worth with every passing second. 

When the cash is in your bag, you quickly pace around the store and try to help Changmin. As soon as your hand goes to smash the window, though, he takes you by the wrist and shields you from your attempts. Furrowing your brows, you meet eyes with him, wordlessly asking for an explanation. Does he not want your help? Does he want you to fully stick to the plan? But you’re done with your part– the best thing you can do at this moment is help him with his side, no?

Your question is quickly answered when the man keeps tugging on your hand, leading you out of the store. Your feet buckle the tiniest bit when you cross the threshold, but that’s when you hear it– the sirens.

You didn’t notice them over the sound of the alarm and the whooshing of your blood in your ears. You have to leave– they’re close.

Changmin takes the lead, his sneakers making a loud noise against the pavement. You run after him, your pulse quickening with each meter. They could be anywhere, you think. They could stop you right here, on the run. You have to be careful.

The paranoia gets the worst of you, making you constantly check over your shoulder. Pupils shaking, you scan your surroundings– there could be anyone watching you that could tell the police that they saw you on the run. There must be cameras everywhere. You can’t hide. They’re always watching. You’re going to get caught, and you’re going to be sent to juvie. You can’t help your family–

“Y/N,” you hear him call from in front of you, the anxious thoughts vanishing from your brain fast, like the strike of a lightning. 

His sunglasses are off, your eyes meeting. Something inside of you comes to a calm, your heart leaping, squeezing on itself. His hand grabs yours, a force dragging you to his level on the pavement. He’s not letting you fall behind, his legs giving the pace as you follow him, left, right, left, right… You’re almost there. You’re almost done.

It gets to the point of the route where Changmin bends down and searches through the bush. Your backpack is quickly found, thrown over his shoulder. He’s carrying both now, one on his back and one on his front, leaving you leaping behind him with a smaller duffel bag on your shoulder. You carry a lot of money with yourself right now. You don’t think you’ve ever seen so much money in one place in your whole entire life.

And then you’re finally there– the police sirens are no longer audible, there are houses all around you and the only thing accompanying the silence are the lampposts and your heavy breathing. Bending over at his waist, Changmin finally lets go of your hand. His fingers grasp the ski mask on his head, tugging it off and letting him finally breathe in the oxygen freely, not restricted by the thick fabric.

Your heart starts to calm down as you take more air into your lungs. Wiping your sweaty hands onto the fabric of your jeans, you unzip the hoodie and fan yourself with your shirt, hating the way it’s sticking to your sweaty skin. 

It’s calm. Quiet. Just like any other day. Tonight, it feels a bit strange.

Changmin looks up at you, hair messy sticking up everywhere, his sweaty forehead glistening a little in the moonlight. A heartbeat passes by of you two just staring into each other’s eyes before his lips turn into a lazy grin, the dimple on his cheek showing itself to you in its full glory. It’s a strange situation to smile in, but it still makes your heart leap and thunder, a similar expression taking over your face. Then, he laughs. Like it’s funny. Now, this is getting ridiculous.

Still, you can’t help but mirror him. He must be crazy. Surely, you’re both going insane. 

Shaking his head, he straightens his back and takes a step forward to where you’re standing, offering his hand to you for a high-five. When you meet him in the middle, he locks his fingers with you, squeezing your palm with his. “Almost there.”

“Almost there,” you repeat, nodding. 

Now, all it takes is to settle the loans and leave. Leave fast, that is.

You take both of the bags into your hands and slowly, quietly enter your house. Changmin doesn’t follow you– he’s on to the second to last part of your plan as you walk up the stairs to your room and lock the door behind you. Unzipping the bags and dropping the money onto the rug in the middle of the floor, your breathing heavy as you prepare to count, you crouch and let your eyes wander for a bit along the notes in the middle of your room. 

You’re rich. Only for a moment, though. You try to salvage the feeling the best you can– the satisfaction doesn’t hit your brain, though. You can’t fake it. You can’t make yourself believe a lie.

Pulling yourself together, your fingers slip across the smooth surface of each bill, your brain working fast as you rustle with the cotton. The amount gets added up, the sum growing bigger and bigger, and after each ten thousand, you put a rubber band on the roll and drop it back into one of the bags. 

You’re using your school bag to carry the money to settle your family’s debt. There’s something deeply ironic about the sentiment. It almost makes you chuckle.

The light pink backpack gets filled with expensive pieces of paper, each roll lifting the tiniest bit of weight off your shoulders. Only a few more and you have enough, you think– and although you hate to admit it, the remaining sum you see scattered across your floor is less than the amount you expected. It’s okay, though– you know how to live with nothing. You’ll survive. You’ll get through it. 

After you’re done counting, you zip up the bag. Shaky hands reach for the last notes on the floor. You take out the envelope you hid under your pillow and put the money inside before you hesitantly drag out the piece of paper you’ve treasured inside, letting your eyes scan over the last words you’re leaving for your sister.

My sweet Aerin. 

Don’t look for me. Don’t worry about me. You’re safe now and everything is going to be okay. Take care of mum while I’m gone and make sure to study well so you get into a good university and make your big sister very proud. There are some things you are too young to understand, but I’m sure you’ll get it when you’re older. 

Please don’t hate me. I’m always thinking about you. We will meet again one day.

Love, Y/N. :) 

P.S.: keep this money safe. Only use it when you really need it. 

The corners of your eyes burn, making you blink away the tears. Although your heart wishes for one last hug, one last goodbye, you know you can’t grant yourself the benefit. If you held your sister for a second, you know you’d want to hold her forever– and that’s something you can’t do anymore. Not after what’s done. You can’t look back and keep holding on to something so selfishly– there’s no going back after what you’ve done. You’re a criminal now– a proper one, but you did it all for your family. You hope that one day, at least your sister might understand.

Wiping the stray tear that’s rolled down your cheek, you breathe in to calm your erratic thoughts. Putting the letter back in and sealing the envelope, all while simultaneously gathering all the bags, you walk into your sister’s room and leave the envelope under her pillow. 

Her sleeping body is still shorter than yours, but she’s no longer so little. She’s grown so much over the years. The thought of not seeing her grow into an adult pains you, but it’s the price you have to pay for her comfort. 

You close the door to her room quietly. You walk down the stairs of a house you can no longer call a home, foot stepping over the threshold of a place you’re never coming back to. You don’t allow yourself to look behind you. You don’t allow yourself to say a proper goodbye.

The jog towards the car parked in your driveway feels like a marathon– you’re slowly running out of breath. You didn’t train hard enough for the responsibilities you’ve taken on your shoulders. It’s like you’re jogging with a bag of rocks on your back.

Changmin opens the door to the passenger’s side for you. The bags are dropped onto the backseat. When he asks you if you’re ready, you don’t look into his eyes when you nod. There’s a sinking feeling in your stomach telling you that he’ll see right through your lie– but you can’t waste any more time than you already allowed yourself back in the house.

Changmin twists the car key in the ignition and starts the car. You drive away towards the other side of the city. Your baby pink school bag is dropped at the gate of the expensive-looking house of which you found the address of on one of the contracts somewhere in the middle of planning your escape. You drive away before anyone notices. Somehow, it feels like by leaving the bag there, you’re losing your youth with it. You can never take that backpack back to school with you. 

But then again, you’re never going back to school. Somehow, you know you lost your youth before you had a physical reminder. Your shoulders hang heavy even without the weight.

The drive is silent. You try to distract yourself by watching the stars.

When you were little, you promised your sister that you would be by her side forever. She was only 6 when she came home from school crying, telling you that her friends all went out alone without her and talked badly about her behind her back. It took everything in you to not go out of your way to hunt down those little heathens and give them a piece of your mind back then, but you remember it as if it was yesterday, telling your sister that ‘It’s okay, because you will always have me,’ as her big eyes glistened with tears, ‘remember, I’m your best friend forever, okay?’.

You don’t really know if she remembers that day. It was ages ago and she made new friends just two weeks after this whole fiasco, forgetting all about it. It stuck in your brain like a sticker, though, the one that you try to peel off but the residue stays behind, tearing at all edges, getting beaten up and looking rather pathetic– just like your words resonating in your brain, bouncing off the walls of your mind.

You broke the only promise you ever meant. 

“You did well,” you hear a voice cut through the silence, the buzzing of the engine not really lullying you to sleep anymore, “you did the best you could.”

Eyes darting to your companion on the driver’s side, you hear yourself let out a soft chuckle. Teeth catching the flesh in your mouth, biting on the inside of your cheek to battle with the tears begging to haze your eyes, you try to focus on his side profile, studying the slope of his nose and the hair falling into his eyes instead, burning this image into your memory. You do everything but think about the events of the night. 

Still, you ask. “Do you think she hates me?”

“I don’t think she could ever hate you, Y/N,” he says, voice tender and sincere, trying his hardest to fight the battle with you, to hold you up when you’re falling.

“I think that one day, she will grow up and she will understand. She will get why you did what you did,” he hums, eyes still sternly glued to the road ahead of him, “she will understand that you did it for her.”

Swallowing hard, for you feel like there’s a lump in your throat, you nod and look back outside of the window. This is something you’re going to need more time to get through, but this is a start– this is something. You have someone that understands. You have someone who shares the burden. 

“Thanks,” you whisper. 

The lampposts blur behind the glass with the speed you’re going at, your surroundings unfamiliar and strange to you. You don’t really know where you are or where you’re heading to– you let Changmin handle that side of the planning, since you don't really care where you’re gonna end up– but the hills and forests cornering the right side of the landscape make you feel strangely at peace. You must be far, far away from Seoul right now. Maybe you’re heading north. You don’t really mind. Maybe you don’t really care.

“How did you even get this car, by the way?” you ask, turning your head back to the boy in the driver’s seat.

“Oh, this?” he snickers, shrugging. “I know a guy. We used to be friends when he lived at the foster home. He aged out of the system like three years ago, but he knows a guy who knows a guy, and he just so coincidentally had this old thing laying around, so I figured we could use it for some time,” he says, nodding to himself. 

Shaking your head in disbelief, you wonder just how far connections can take you in the world. It’s not quite as easy as if you were born to a rich businessman, per se, but you’ll take the off-handed nepotism of the underground world, if it makes your life go smoother– just for the time being, at least. 

“Do you even have a license?” you ask.

“No,” he shakes his head. “But nobody has to know that–”

“Changmin!” you exclaim, terror shaking with your body.

“You really thought I was allowed to drive a car when you got into the vehicle, Y/N? Come on, I’m a foster kid. Do you really think anyone paid for my license?” he laughs, eyes darting to your figure momentarily, forming moon crescents when he notices the look on your face. “My friend taught me how to drive, though! He got adopted a few months ago, a super rich family– can’t say I’m not jealous, but that’s a story for another time–” he hums casually, as if it’s not a big deal, “and they bought him a car. Anyways, we stayed in contact and he let me try it at this empty parking lot, you know, where the abandoned factory is? And–”

Watching him speak, arms flying around the air making him look like an animated character– going as far as comically noticing that the car is heading to the left by itself when the wheel is unoccupied, quickly taking ahold of it with both hands and trying to make it stay on the road– it’s like a weight is slowly being lifted off your shoulders. It all seems so ridiculous. Insane. Crazy. 

A laugh battles out of your throat. Changmin’s eyes meet with yours, a big smile spreading across his face. A dimple appears on his cheek, his essence contagious. 

Suddenly, you can do anything in the world. Nobody can stop you. You fought with your future. You changed the trajectory of your life. You helped your mother. You protected your sister.

What’s a few years in hiding? 

A foolish thought passes by your brain. You don’t dwell on it much longer, but it’s a nice thing to reflect on when you’re alone in the hostel room late at night, hyper-aware of Changmin’s presence on the other side of the bed– because it’s more expensive to get a room with two beds and it doesn’t matter anyway. You will push it back into the corners of your mind, ignoring it until this moment happens. But it’s there– creeping around, waiting for you to pay attention to it– and it says that as long as you have Changmin, you’re sure you can get on with anything. You can get used to this.

“Aren’t you hungry? There’s some snacks in the compartment over there,” he says, pointing towards it. Magically, your stomach starts to churn– he must have said it into existence. It stinks a lot of black magic, if you really think about it. You knew you should’ve been more careful around him.

Still, your hand reaches for the compartment, opening it. There’s an opened pack of Lay’s chips, a bottle of soda, a wrapped sandwich, and a small chocolate bar, wrapped in red packaging, smiling at you brightly from the darkness of the car. It’s looking at you with big heart-eyes, your favorite flavor of them all– peanut butter covered with tasty milk chocolate, a heaven on Earth– and then reality hits you like a truck again, your eyes burning with the realization.

Fingers wrapping around the treat, you study the packaging for a while– as if you weren’t familiar with it already, having the chocolate bar on days where you really felt like you deserved it, on days where you really felt like you earned it. 

When you look up, you see Changmin altering his point of view between the road and your face, a bashful smile playing with his features. “Bought it for you this time,” he notes, “as a new start.”

A sniffle. Your hands shake a little, your lungs betray you with the intake of oxygen. 

“No, you’re not gonna cry on me now,” he panics, shaking his head, “no, no, no. Open the chocolate and eat it, you moron, we don’t have time to be sentimental–” he grunts, although his intentions are too clear even without words– the silent support still makes your weak heart squeeze on itself. 

You laugh, unwrapping the chocolate and taking a bite. Somehow, you manage to let out:

“You remembered.”

“Of course,” he hums, “how could I forget, I mean, you had a whole hour-long dilemma about it back at the gas station–”

“Shut up, you’re ruining it,” you grunt, tearing a piece of the chocolate bar and holding it up in front of his lips, “I’ll share it with you this one time just to make you shut up,” you say, shaking your head.

The boy takes a hold of your wrist to steady it, taking the sweetness into his mouth. He stays silent for a bit as he chews on it, but his fingers still stay wrapped around your skin as he moves your hand away from his face, resting it on your thigh. Warmth covers the back of your palm as he rests his own on it, his digits intertwining with yours. When he squeezes your fist in tender reassurance, you feel your heart skip a beat.

Orange hues appear behind your window as you drive off the highway. The land is still sprouse with buildings, but you enjoy watching the sun slowly waltz onto the sky, greeting you into the new day. Watching the side of his face as he focuses on parking in front of a lone diner in the middle of nowhere, you finally get in tune with the fact that Ji Changmin’s everything you have right now– everyone you can lean on and fall back on. 

Maybe it’s been that way for a while now, but it only downs on you when you’re essentially on the same level now, no illusions playing with your mind– nobody’s son and nobody’s daughter.

“Breakfast!” he exclaims as he turns the engine off, seemingly impressed with his parking skills. When you get out of the car and he marches up to you, putting a cap onto your head and tugging it low to cover your face, ‘just in case’, tugging you by your hand into the diner, you can’t help but wonder– if anyone unsuspecting saw you right now, 

would you look like lovers, or partners in crime?

[hidtired]

Unfortunate Timing [Part 3]

(Daryl Dixon x Reader) Masterlist

Description: You found out your pregnant early into your relationship with Daryl Dixon. To make matters worse? The apocalypse happens a few days later! (not fully canon)

5.4k words

Warnings (Pregnancy, gore, sexually themes, violence, fluff, walking dead stuff, ect.)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 etc.

It was clear Daryl was near a breaking point. With the unsafe camp and your near death experience mixed with his missing brother you couldn't blame him. You knew he didn't have a healthy way of processing emotions. So he was on a war path this morning. You knew the only way he dealt with big emotions was through angry. He of course never directed it at you. In fact while you had laid next to him in the morning he was proud that you handled yourself. He was contemplating most of the time staring off to the top of the tent. You thought he was still stressing himself in that already anxious head of his. But after he told you he was proud you saw that maybe he was just enjoying the fact you were in his arms and not dead.

It was when you all decided to go to the CDC and you were sitting in Daryl's truck that you said something that made him feel the true weight of his responsibility. "I'll follow you." He looked over to you before turning his attention to the caravan in front of him. He was confused but you went on, "Any choice and decision. I'll stand with you unquestioned, my life and are child's is under your protection." His heart slowly dropped into the pit of his stomach.

Worry and a sense of responsibility he's never had before felt crushing. But another feeling he didn't expect sat within him. To be wanted and trusted in such a way burned his heart into a fire. He was determined. He was already willing to give his life for you and his... his kid. It was something he didn't question. You inhaled deeply before speaking again,

"Don't you dare think that gives you permission to go and die on me... I can't do this without you."

He slowly slid one of his hands off the wheel and into your own. He brushed his thumb back and forth, "As long as m' still breathin' so will you." You smiled at the implication, moving your other hand to rest on the hand he had on you. He wants to stay alive to make sure you'll both be ok. You nodded in thought, "Then you agree that your life also rests under my protection?" He turned to you with a lifted brow, his face giving a 'really' expression. He didn't like the thought of you risking your life for him but, he guess he understands you don't like the fact he would do the same. Being cared for was something he never got, until you. He watched as your hand move to rest on your stomach. Now that is something both of you would protect together. He bites his lip knowing you started this conversation to make him realize this wasn’t all on him. His eyes move to the road watching the RV roll to a stop.

The honking sound telling them the RV must have died just like Dale said it would. It had but also Jim just couldn’t take it anymore. You’ve never been around someone who’s been bitten before. So to see how it was killing him was gut wrenching. He seemed at peace with it. Sitting in the wind under a tree. You and quickly stated a ‘rest as well’ before excusing your way back to Daryl’s truck. You were bound to get emotional over it and didn’t want to be a wreck in front of everyone. You had reached the door of the truck, tears streaming down your face. Something felt like this would be something that often happened… losing people.

You manage to pull yourself together before Daryl got back to the truck. The ride on the road made you drift asleep. You were in a weird position crumpled into the door with an arm thrown over your head. Daryl found it funny but not before questioning how you could possibly find it comfortable. He knows you are always tired nowadays and he worry's its due to a lack of nutrition. But he lets you sleep only waking you a few miles away from the CDC. You stretch from your odd position. A crack releasing from your neck with a sigh of relief. You rub your eyes looking around. Daryl almost spoke quietly close to a whisper, “We are close, wanted ta’ make sure you were fully awake in case we have to run.”

You hum still stretching a hand moving to your breast. They have been irritating you recently. One of the many wonders of pregnancy. Daryl had caught you with a displeased look on your face. He gave you a questioning look with a smirk, “They look bigger…” You look to him with shock and then back down. He childishly snickered as you swatted at him. You tilt your head while still looking down, “Are they really?” He gave a mischievous smirk causing you to roll your eyes. You had not thought that maybe you would have to get a bigger bra. Not that you could just go buy one anymore. The playful mood in the car would soon turn sour at the arrival of the CDC. Empty, bodys lay scattered and not a soul to be seen.

Standing at the closed doors hoping for the safety it once thought it provided. It almost seemed fleeting until Rick noticed a camera move. Daryl was hearing none of it. He was mad at the decision made and him going alone with it. Your safety now compromised because he didn’t make the right call. Even just after your admission to trusting him he felt like a dumbass. He pulled you to him and felt one of your arms pull around him. The grip you held onto him telling him of your fear. Just before he could try and pull you away to safety, back to the truck, a bright light came pouring out of the newly open door.

One lone man sat in the whole building. You thought it was strange and somewhat eerie. But he did offer assistance so he couldn’t be that bad. A few of the group ran back to collect some things. Daryl gave you that look of, ‘please don’t’ so you understood he would get your things. The price of entry was a blood test. This doctor wanting to make sure none were infected. Which was fair but god did you not like getting blood drawn. Shots you are fine with but having your blood taking from your body disgusted you for some odd reason. Blood itself was not the issue. The thought of having your blood taken still rolled into your mind, a thing that made your heart race. You went after Daryl but he stood next to you waiting for you to finish. The man you now know as Dr Jenner started the process. You caught his eyes flick to your stomach.

He seemed to maybe suspect something but you were at that stage in pregnancy where someone might not speak on it, just in case you weren’t pregnant they didn’t want to call you fat. When he placed the needle in your arm you quickly moved your eyes anywhere else. Heart racing with discomfort. Your eyes focusing on Daryl which he didn’t like the plain fear he could see on your face. You seemed to ease out after it was over, but trying to stand your vision spin. Daryl managed to keep your balance for you. It wasn’t until Jacqui almost collapsed that the doctor learned that you all were a little undernourished. So now here you all are going down an elevator at the promise of food.

It was cramped going down farther than you thought. Daryl getting you out of your thoughts by pressing you back into him. I’m sure he saw your body rigid. But he didn’t really, he moved you into him subconsciously. Eyein the new person trying to determine whether he was a threat or not. The gun slung around him not really helping in his case, “Doctors always packing heat like that?” His awkward response eased him no less. You however at the mention of spaghetti threw caution to the wind. Following the group in a small hallway Daryl right behind you. He saw your happy bouncing at the promise of a carb filled meal. Most of your complaints to him in your pregnancy was the cravings driving you mad. Saying something along the lines of ‘when undead situation is handled your getting me any food I ask for no matter the time!’ Another thing to get you excited was the doctor mention a hot shower.

You smiled at him giddily practically dragging him off to a room. He dropped both of there bags by the door and just watched you be happy. You popped in the bathroom while struggling to kick off your pants in a hurry. Daryl chuckled, ‘Slow down would ya, thought you wanted to eat.’ He could hear you ruffle with your clothes still. Your voice echoed in the bathroom out to where he sat himself down, “There still time while their making it!” He leaned back smiling to himself at your antics. The light through the door got dimmer causing him to look up. You stood in your underwear and bra, hands behind your back trying to unclip it. You gave him a look he hasn’t seen for a while, “Well you just going to sit there or join me?”

He was stunned for a second. He leaned forward looking dumbfounded for some reason. You tilted your head to the side slowly turning back to start the shower. He was stood now hesitating for a second before slowly approaching, maybe it was the fact you both haven’t done anything for a while, mostly due to lack of privacy and him always off around the camp. Perhaps the stress still swarming around him from this place. Despite that he wasn't going to give up this opportunity so he walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind himself. He saw you finally manage to get free of all your clothes. He started to unbutton his shirt when he saw you looking in the mirror at your belly. The first you are probably seeing it in a reflection. Your eyes swirling with thought but soon landed on him with a smile.

You then elected yourself to help him with getting his closes off because he was to slow. You replaced his hands with yours and started undoing the remaining buttons. He smiled down at you, "I don't know, last time we showered together we broke your curtain." He got you to laugh at the memory and you gave your own snarky remark, "Well, if you slip this time try not to take me down with you again." He cringed remembering how he landed with you on top of him. Merle had made a comment about the huge bruise he had on is back, how 'you must have gotten your ass kicked!’ He just ignored him not wanting to say he fell while having shower sex. Releasing the thought he then realized you said 'again'. As be pushed his shirt off while you started on his jeans he gave you a smirk you yourself hadn't seen in a while, "Again huh?"

You smile bashfully back to him, "I'm a hormonal mess, and I can't say that you having been looking extra hot as of late." He scoffed thinking you were kidding. But then you looked up at him seriously causing him to mumble and small... "oh." He smiled raising his hand to move your hair off your shoulder. He pushed it away from your face while you undid the clasp to his jeans. Your hair was noticeably longer since the beginning of this shit show. Finally freeing him of his clothes you bounced back over to the shower. He rolls his eyes and follows you knowing you ran to be under the water before him.

He watched as water ran down you and it sparked a sudden calm from him. To see you doing something that used to be so normal felt crushing. He walks up behind you wrapping his arm around your waist. He knows he hasn’t been exactly himself lately but here he is holding the soon to be mother of his child. He just hopes that you know that even if he has never said it out loud, he loves you. You knew it perfectly well while enjoying the warm water of the shower and him leaning into you. You had thought maybe you both would take this chance to clean yourselves in a shower for the first time in months but his hands were telling you something else.

He was leant forward kissing you down your neck. Causing you to sigh and lean back tilting your head to the side. His hands moving across your body causing you to giggle. You turned around looping your arms around his neck and seeing him smirking down at you. Months of not having a proper shower only to not use the time for one to actually clean yourself. Instead it was spent with a man seemingly remembering how much he wanted to touch you. Back at the camp he was unwilling to throw you around to teach you self defense. It wasn’t until you were pushed back to the wall of the shower in a flurry of harsh kisses did he seem to freeze. He was a gentle lover but could have times where he got excited and went a little rougher then normal. Which you never had any complaints with but in this moment of pause he was a little unwilling to do what he would have. For example again, your shower curtain. Ya not really a great thing for when your prego.

He was pleased with himself by the end of there shower. Like all the bruting was because he was sexually frustrated. Maybe you should have made an effort sooner if you knew he would be walking away with such a pep in his step. Granted you remember why you haven’t done much because if you thought you were tired before, then you were sure to look like you were in a daze. Maybe that look another factor to Daryl walking around so prideful. You would be lying if you haven’t been wanting to jump him for the last month. So maybe you were a little sedated. You wrap your hair up into a towel after getting everything but pants on. You sat there thinking while just holding them about to go on. Lost in space at something Daryl grunted into your ear a few moments ago. The thought sparking a nice warm fuzzy feeling.

‘M’ baby is the one you got in yeah. M’ girl with my baby~’

Daryl watched you sit there with one pant leg in while you stared at a spot in the carpet with your mouth slightly open. Thoughts clear as day, “You done drooling over there? Or you want’n to see if foods done?” Your mouth snapped closed as you took a moment to process what he had just said. Then you proceeded to jump into your pants while jumping to the door. To think he had made you forget about the food inflated his ego he got going. He followed you taking the towel out of your hair and opening the door while you shuffled forward looking down to clasp your pant button.

This was not only a big meal but big morale boost. Stepping into the kitchen to take a seat at the table you waste no time digging into the spaghetti before you. A blessing for a craving you’ve had. One point alcohol was being passed around the doctor took clear notice of you not drinking any or being offered any. You were too busy trying to convince Daryl to just drink already. All those times at the bar he always used the excuse of having to drive home. So you’ve never seen him drunk because and I quote, “I’m a mean drunk… don’t wanna do that to ya.” But you incurred him to let loose because this was probably the only time he would be able to for a long time,

“Come on hun! Drink because I can’t!”

He had definitely eased since the shower so he finally caved and excepted this opportunity. He still didn’t want to get to drunk but he wouldn’t mind being a little tipsy. The fun antics going on in the room was swiftly crushed by Shane. You sat uncomfortably as Shane pushed Dr. Jenner for answers, “So when are you gonna tell us what the Hell happened here, Doc?” His random aggressive outburst caused the room to fill with awkward silence. Rick cutting in saying what everyone else thought, “Come on man, not now.” Shane snapped to Rick, “It’s why we’re here right! This was your call. I want to know why we came here to just one man, why?” Shane’s words to Rick sending red flags in your mind. Then the depressing story of what happened at the CDC dragged the once happy mood back to reality. Felt by all if Glenn stating, “Your such a mood killer dude.’ to Shane didn’t say it all.

It was eased back into a happier state with a pouting Shane in his corner of shame. You payed no mind to it anymore. Daryl was acting more like himself while getting himself and Glenn drunk. Daryl was having to much fun getting Glenn to drink that he himself had way more then he was wanting. It was fun to watch him stumble while he tried to stand. Your laughing getting his attention causing him to point a finger at you, “I don’t wanna hear it from you “miss tipsy”.” The nickname making you giggle. After a while he leaned over the back of your chair as you talked to Dale. He didn’t even put his arms around you just laid them out over your shoulders. He wanted to go, a nonverbal action you have learned he did. So you excused yourself wishing everyone a goodnight. Daryl had an arm over your shoulder while you walked down the hall. “You drunk off your ass?” He sighed leaning into you more, “More than I would have liked to be.” He sure walked like he was.

“Let’s get ready for bed then.”

The room you had claimed had a small couch and cot. Daryl had already started to wrestle with his shirt before you had the door open. Now shirtless he sat down and leaned back slumped. You snicker to yourself while going to take your damp hair up out of your face. He sat there watching you before saying, “Your so pretty.” He was still slumped with his head tilted to the side looking at you. You walked over to him and he held is hands out for you to come sit on his lap. But you grabbed his hands and looked down at him, “Come lay down with me.” You pulled at his arms before he got up and trapped you against him. He shuffled back until flopping on the bed with you. You were lying on your side with him behind you. His hands moving under your shirt onto your baby belly. He curled into you from behind tucking his head down into your neck. You heard him mumbling but couldn’t understand him. But you caught a bit of it to put in context.

“-lucky. I made my pretty girl a mama.”

You smile at his drunk rambling. Reaching to his hands to your stomach and lightly drifting your nails up and down his arms. So much for being a ‘mean drunk’. Then he started on another tangent but this time lifting his face for you to hear him “An I only thought love was something that you would either kill for or die for. But for you? I’d live for. You’re something to live for.” His hands move across your stomach and he whispered, “You both.” Your heart raced at this, you would classify that as a confession. He has never said verbally ‘I love you’ but this in so many words was just that. He damn near was about to make you cry. But instead you shuffled back into him feeling that he was so relaxed he might have fallen asleep already in your silence. That didn’t stop you from whispering back to him.

“I’ll live for you too.”

That morning started with a hungover and grumpy Daryl. You were also grumpy. Daryl had thrown up earlier that morning and that got you to throw up. Now your stomach felt like a loop of acid reflux. You elected to stay in bed because you also were experiencing vertigo, so maybe Daryl wasn’t the only reason you threw up. You may have gone to make sure he was ok but the spinning feeling and noises he was making set you off. Daryl was off to the kitchen to get you a plate of breakfast. When he came back to the room he laughed telling you how fucked up Glenn looked, “He is swearing off alcohol, so may have over did it with him.” You smile at him while you sit in bed eating the food he brought back.

He then paused before he started biting his nails, “Hope I didn’t cause you trouble while drunk…” You chuckle shaking your head still chewing. Swallowing you looked up to where he now leaned on the wall, “Oh please, ‘mean drunk’ my ass! You were just being a sweetie!” Now you were teasing him about it, “After all I’m so pretty remember?” He looked relieved but also grunted before move for the door, “Doc gonna show us something. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.” You hummed in agreement going back to eating. Sitting up you felt like you were on a boat, so dealing with whatever Jenner was going to nerd out about wasn’t worth getting up for. Before Daryl went out the door he called out from behind him, “Be right back, ‘pretty girl’.”

Now even 20 minutes later did Daryl walk back in with a broken look. He sat down on the bed near you and stared at the wall. You would wait for him to gather his thoughts. Something bad happened, or he learned something he didn’t want to either way it didn’t look good. He moved to sit with you on the bed against the wall. He slowly put a hand on your stomach, “Everything’s gone.” You link your fingers with his and lean onto his shoulder. He went on, “It’s lookin like these dead assholes aren’t going anywhere.” You clench your teeth at the thought. You understood what he was saying. If the world was to ever be fixed, it wouldn’t happen in a long time. So your fantasy of a hospital could be kissed goodbye. You had a foolish hope that eased the fear for your child… and yourself. Childbirth before technology had a high fatality rate, for mom and baby.

So your brain was on overdrive after the rug was pulled out from you. Daryl had leant his head on top of yours which got a small sniff out of you. His arm now going to pull you into his side. You struggled with not bursting into tears while asking him something, “We’ll be ok, right?” He turned to you wiping away a tear that slipped out, “We got this.” He explained to you more what he found out. Like the scan of how the infection killed the host then took over the body. Relieving a fear that these people were conscious while doing this. They weren’t people so that made it easier to justify killing them. You both sat there talking until the air flow seemed to still. Daryl perked up feeling uneasy. Then people started to gather into the halls also noticing the lack of air flow.

Daryl had stood behind you in the door way but when Dr. Jenner walked by ignoring peoples questions, Daryl pushed past you slinging words his way in worry now. You followed behind the growing group of worried people. Stepping into a very open panel room with a red clock on the wall. The group stood in the middle when Jenner finally started to explain, “The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It’s designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark. Right on schedule.” You look over to the clock that was counting down.

A wave of uneasiness fell over you. You move closer to Daryl while he started yelling to the Doctor, “Air seems pretty ‘essential’ to me!” He took notice of your closer proximity and how you looked around cautiously. Jenner pauses at the steps that lead up to the work stations in the big room. Everyone has followed and is grouped around. Everyone turned to Jenner for answers. "It was the French." Andrea clicked her tounge at him, "What?" Jenner sighed sitting down in a chair at a computer, "They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution." Jacqui now voicing her confusion, "What happened?" Jenner turned to her, "The same thing that’s happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel.  I mean, how stupid is that?" Shane was about to start but was cut off by Rick, "To Hell with it, Shane. I don’t even care. Lori, grab our things. Everybody, get your stuff. We’re getting out of here now!" But before anyone could move a alarm started. Carl said with a nervous tone, "What is that?" A voice spoke through the speakers,

‘30 minutes to decontamination.’

You were now grabbing Daryl's arm in fear causing Daryl to speak up, "Doc what's going on here!" Jenner scans his badge and enters code into a security pad. Rick yelled turning to everyone, "Get your stuff and lets go! Go!" Then the doors all started to closed. Glenn yelled in anger, "No. Did he just lock us in!? He locked us in!" The kids started to cry in panic to there moms. Daryl makes a run at Jenner, "You son of a bitch!" Rick grab Daryl while yelling for Shane to help him. You sat there in shock with a hand over your mouth. Daryl continued to yell while being restrained, "You locked us in here!" T-Dog now joining in to stop Daryl, "No, stop! Don’t!" When Daryl was pushed back he made his was back to you and pulled you into him at the sight of your eyes becoming glassy. Rick now spoke to Jenner, "Open the doors." Jenner sat there calm, "There’s no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed." Dale now taking the chance to speak, "Then just open the damn things." Jenner just shook his head.

You saw Rick stare at the clock that was now 28 minutes. You watched as he slowly turned to Jenner, "What happens after 28 minutes...?" Jenner sat up straighter, “In the event of a catastrophic power failure... in a terrorist attack, for example... H.I.T.s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out.” Rick shuffled from foot to foot in concern, “H.I.T.s?” Jenner sighed putting his hands on his hips, “Vi define.” A robotic voice of a women filled the room through speakers, “H.I.T.s - high-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired.”

Everyone was stunned. Jenner speaking immediately after Vi, “It sets the air on fire. No pain. An end to sorrow, grief... Regret. Everything.” He said it like this somehow made everything better?! You felt Daryl squeeze you and you held him back. This crazy prick was going to kill you all! You felt the deep vibration in Daryl's chest as he roughly spoke, "Open the door." T-dog used the axe he had to start hitting the door, Daryl went to try and open the door to. Jenner just look defeated, "You should’ve left well enough alone it would have been so much easier." Lori now spoke up while holding her panicked son, "Easier for who." You felt that sinking feeling again. Jenner's voice fading out in the back at you felt blood rush your ears. 'All of you. You know what’s out there. A short brutal life and an agonizing death.' Memories of your aunt killed, being near the edge of the water and almost getting killed by two walkers. You moved your hand to your stomach. You had just talked to Daryl about the future. Asking if now in the changed world could you be enough for this child. Sound of Daryl's voice bring you back from thought, "BUT YOUR HEAD ANI'T!"

He was pulled back before being able to hit Dr. Jenner with the axe in his hand. Jenner once again not fazed and he turned to you, "What do you not get by everything is GONE! There is no world for that baby of yours." Daryl again tried to get to him but was held back by four people. You looked down with tears in your eyes, but also anger burned in you. Taking two steps closer to him you quickly punched him in the face. Everyone gasped in surprise but you continued by grabbing him by his lab coat collar. "That is not your choice to make for me!" Rick had gently grabbed you by the shoulder pushing you back. Rick now with hands on his hips spoke calmly to Jenner, "She's right. You’re lying about no hope. If that were true, you’d have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn’t. You chose the hard path. Why?" He huffed, "It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. It always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?"

Jenner looked down in thought, "Not because I wanted to. I made a promise." He looks back up and points to the screen, "To her. My wife." Lori glanced to the screen, "Test subject 19 was your wife?" Jenner slowly nods, "She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no?" Something felt like it was shifting. The clock was now ticking closer to its end. You had pushed everyone off Daryl while Rick spoke. You replaced everyone's hands on him by wrapping your arms around his middle, leaning into his chest. "I told you topside’s locked down. I can’t open those." Jenner walks back to the security pad and unlocks the door. Daryl went straight to action grabbing your hand and pushing you to the exit, "Move it! Move it!" You heard others feet behind you. Making your way down the hall you swiftly grabbed all your bags. In the lobby there was another problem of getting out again. T-dog and Daryl tried breaking the window with axes but it was bullet proof. Some how Carol had a grenade she found off Rick. Taking cover the window exploded, finally freeing you of this ticking time bomb.

Everyone rushed out killing the walkers who took interest in the noise. You made it to Daryl's truck with Daryl opening the door for you while jumping in himself. He leaned over you seconds later a wave of heat rushed over you. The explosion was loud and shook the truck. Once Daryl rose off you, you looked up to the now demolished building. You and Daryl then looking back to each other, tears filled your eyes while staring into his. You sobbed in relief, adrenalin slowly leaving your body causing you to shake. Daryl moved to hold you while breathing a sigh of relief himself, "See? We're ok." You sniffle while Daryl start moving to drive away from this walker magnet of a building.

This was now officially the end of the world.

Part 4

Feedback welcome and requests open! (Next chapter is so much angst mahaha)

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[theanxiousbookdevourer]

I'm finally starting to get the love for Jean—but I still think he's a jerk.

After playing Disco Elysium for the first time, I was pretty baffled as to why people seemed to like Jean so much. In my experience, he had only ever made fun of us when we radioed in. He was constantly critical of us and basically seemed to hate our guts.

Then I played again. And again. And again. And I think I get it now.

(Disco Elysium spoilers. Also, "ridiculously long post" warning.)

Jean is supposed to be our partner. Lt. Kim Kitsuragi can put up with us because he's a saint, but imagine how hard it is to try to keep someone afloat when you're always on the brink of drowning yourself.

If you have high Esprit de Corps while on the radio, you can learn Jean actively tries to protect us, despite making fun of us beforehand.

He's upset about what we said, though. He's upset about what we did. He's upset about the fact that he's spent so much of his life worrying about us, and then we went and told him we didn't need him.

So he decides to have fun for once. He shows up in a blond wig and sunglasses to look like Guillaume Bevy, thinking we'll catch on.

But we don't.

He also specifically references the fact that we told him to leave (except in a much less pleasant way than that).

Even when we almost get it, we don't, really.

We say we can't imagine working with him anymore, hypothetically speaking.

He says the same thing. But it isn't so hypothetically.

We may not recognize him, but somewhere deep down, we recognize the feeling he gives us. We may have forgotten almost everything else, but we haven't forgotten what it was like to be partners.

And despite his best attempts, he can't forget either.

If Cuno's there to defend us at the end, Jean claims he's only letting us return because of the kid. But that's not the only reason.

And if we end up alone, he still can't help but feel sad.

He leaves the door open for us...

... but things will really have to change. And based on the text from Shivers, it seems pretty unlikely.

So do I think Jean is perfect? No. He can be a jerk. He makes fun of us and doesn't understand the depths of our struggles. This post by palms-upturned explains that really well.

But Jean is also tired of drowning. In some ways, I think he feels exactly like that Coupris we crashed. If he had stayed on with us, he would have drowned too. And there would have been no bringing him back.

So I don't know. Do I love Jean? No. Not really. I still have my reservations. But I think anyone who has ever held onto someone so tightly, especially one who says they don't want to get better (and can say it twice)...

... can understand how Jean feels. If only for a moment.

Maybe if we do go back, we find a way to make amends. Maybe Jean will learn more about us and realize there is something wrong, and he shouldn't beat us up for it. Maybe he can let go of the bitterness. It is as Miss Oranje Disco Dancer herself said:

The world can change. People can change. We can change. And I really hope we will.

[spider-jaysart]

Okay soooo fun mash up idea that I've created recently, which is DC crosses over with The last of us part 1! (But the game version though with some parts of the show included)

So it would be like this:

Joel: Bruce (for many obvious reasons, like for example being the old grumpy, cold man who grows into the Father figure role once warming up to the kid that changes a part of his life, causing him to become more of a softy)

Tommy: Dick (the one who eventually became tired of Bruce's bull and went his own ways in the future, but reconciled after reuniting with him in their next meeting)

Sarah: Kid!Jason (the innocent kid who didn't deserve to die)

Ellie: Damian (has her attitude, stubbornness, fearless determination, shameless cussing, loyalty, humorous side but in his own way, artistic side, and stabbing skills, so he fits perfectly well. It would also be interesting that him and Bruce have no idea they're related to eachother at all, so they don't bond because of known shared blood, only because of the many things they've been through together that brang them closer overtime to being like a Father and Son, and then they find out this secret about themselves much, much later after the end of their very long journey)

Riley: Maya (not a love interest like in the game and show, but just the first good friend and a trusted sister figure to Damian who knew things well)

Tess: Diana (A well trusted and respected partner for Bruce in work)

Maria: Starfire as Dick's wife

Sam: Jon (shares that innocent vibe with Sam and just like him with Ellie, he'd be quick to want to befriend Damian and see him as the cool older kid he'd like to impress)

Henry: Kon (is young just like him and is just trying his best to keep his baby bro safe the way he believes is best, since he is the only one who can now)

Marlene: Amal (Talia's only known friend in comics, so she fits as Marlene who used to be close friends with Ellie's Mom and made the promise to always watch over Ellie for her, so here she does that for Talia with Damian)

David: Joker (both a total weird, creep that can secretly hide who they truly are whenever they felt like it for their own benefits and then reveal their horrible sides and true intentions by surprise)

Bill: Lucious Fox (because he makes Bruce's gadgets and vehicles in canon and since Bill has a skill of doing just that for himself and gives Joel a new gadget and also a needed car, he is fitted enough for the role in this way)

And then for some small details and also additional things that help make the au stand out a little more differently:

Chris will be included with Jon and Kon here just to have all the Superbros together

Mar'i and Jake exist here but are really young twins (6 years old)

When things were still normal, Bruce was married to Talia here and they both were raising Kid!Jason together. They both got separated during the event of the outbreak and never found eachother again after that

Instead of 20 years of the apocalypse, it's 14 years here instead, because Talia was already pregnant with Damian when things began going wild

Damian will be immune just like Ellie (well obviously loll), but just for a little bit of play, it's cause it actually has to do with mixed Lazarus blood in his body that saved him, which comes from a small, strange part of his brain that keeps creating and pumping it out into his veins. This was naturally passed down from Ra's always over using the pits so much for years, causing the body inside to develop and grow in becoming much stronger and different in unique ways. And Lazarus pits are gone now, so Damian is like the only source that holds it in him as the possibe cure of the world

Unlike Ellie's Mom, Talia survived the birth of Damian and lived until he was 7 after saving him from an attack in a herd of infected that they were both trying to outrun. Damian stayed always feeling heavily guilty about it ever since and blames himself, even though how it happened wasn't actually his fault (still kind of debating on this one just a little bit for small reasons though)

Jon won't be 8 like Sam from the show, he will be around his canon age from the game instead. He will also be Damian's first love instead in this au and they will both have crushes on eachother

Instead of the games original cities and other places as settings, things are set in Gotham and other known DC cities Instead

Instead of a switchblade, Damian was left with a dagger from Talia, and all collected comics in his backpack from his adventure are mangas. He also carries around old special photos of Talia and him to remember and cherishes them very much, since that's all he has left of her besides her dagger

All characters wear their own versions of the tlou outfits to fit their style better instead of just using the existing ones

One of the things Damian would never want is to get killed by a bloater the most, because they actually just kill kids with only a slap instead of tearing up their jaws like the adults, so he would feel SO humiliated if it ever happened to him too (based on how this actually happens to Ellie in the game whenever she gets caught by them because she's underage loll, which makes the bloaters look like a bully to children)

Despite killing in this au having to be done against all kinds of enemies in order to survive, Bruce never feels comfortable with it, but he does what he has to. He also has sympathy for all the infected people, usually seeing them more as victims who didn't ask to become what they are now instead of just harmful, angry creatures, but knows he can't be pity them too much, cause at the end of the day it's either him or them during encounters. He also tries taking the pacifist route whenever he sees he has the chance to in a situation where confrontations aren't actually nesscarry, allowing him to flee without notice instead, and during stealth he will choke human enemies in a way that he knows will only make them pass out and not die

Annnd I think that's probably it for now!

I also have a lot of drawings from this au that I really wanna make and also put out soon heheh and I'm also working on Damian outfits that replaces all of Ellie's, which I'm almost done with!! And if anyone maybe has questions for the au btw, feel free to ask anything!

@pin-crusher2000 @camo-wolf @paladin-of-nerd-fandom65 @dunkinsthings

[marshmallowprotection]

Any hcs of Saeyoung and his days trained by the agency? I saw some pretty messed up ones and it made me tear up a bit remembering that he was just a KID

Saeyoung's time in the agency is far from joyful. It is the worst experience of his life because he sold his autonomy away for the chance to keep his brother safe, and it was for nothing in the end because Rika and V didn't keep their promise.

There isn't a lot of concrete evidence as to everything he went through during his time in the agency, and due to how much he pointedly jokes about his experiences to cope, it's hard to tell the truth from the lie he put in to make you doubt the validity of what actually happened.

So, if anything, I think it's important to point out that the agency did send him to California to study computer science. He went by a solid alias during his time there, Chilyoung Choi, and this is revealed in the diary Rika wrote for the Special Believer box. He went missing before the graduation ceremony, and the newspaper clipping Rika had was proof the agency wiped all the data of him being there which made a lot of students question if he was even there or not.

It seemed like his existence was a question meant for a scary story online about how someone never existed at your school but you all collectively remember this person for some reason. So, imagine that, Saeyoung is no older than fourteen or fifteen, and he's in America, no choice but to learn English and other languages as fast as possible to acclimate and not be suspicious, and he has to remain out of sight at all times as not to make a lasting impression on others, but be good enough to ace all his classes without fail.

He doesn't even get to enjoy the experience of being in school or making friends in school. Sure, it's implied he did speak to others sometimes, but that... that isn't a fun experience. I think that had to be hard on him, because Saeyoung loves to learn and if his life wasn't cruel, he would stayed in college to learn as much as he could for as long as he could. It was another slap in the face that he couldn't live a free life, but maybe, just maybe, Saeran would be able to experience a life like that.

It's a note of contention between Seven and Vanderwood when Seven slacks off. He procrastinates doing much of his work, and I think he does that for a reason. Most of the work he's doing is dirty work that wealthy people want to pay off the agency to take care of so they don't have to worry about getting their hands filthy. That means the work he's doing in the field and through cyberspace aren’t things he’s morally okay with.

After all, if you're going to pay an agency to take care of something for you, you are not a good person, and even if you are, what you're asking for from the agency is more likely than not illegal and would be considered taboo or unforgivable in the public world 9/10 times. For a long time, I always theorized that Saejoong Choi was amongst those who paid the agency, and hot damn, I was proven correct in the RAE. That goes to show how dirty and underhanded the agency is when it comes to work.

Anything for the bottom dollar.

Anything for greed.

Part of the reason why he avoids doing his work until the last minute has to do with the kind of work he's doing. I feel like if his target is innocent and he doesn't want to do what the agency wants him to do, he puts it off as much as humanly possible and tries to find other ways to take care of the problem first.

If that doesn't work, the only reason why he procrastinates is because he doesn't want to go through with doing what he has to do. In the end, he doesn't have a choice, and neither does Vanderwood, they’ve got guns at their heads and that’s why Vanderwood doesn’t fucking ever mince his words and tells him to get over himself and DO IT. He does it, and he long lost the reasoning to tell himself to think about the morality of the situation.

It'll happen to Saeyoung eventually, too.

But, as much as Vanderwood thinks of saving his own ass first, we all know that he covers for Seven, too. As much as he reasonably can in a situation, anyway, doesn't make Vanderwood the best person, but I do think his soft spot for Seven is important because it shows a good reason why some people soften to Vanderwood in the end. He has a good heart underneath everything, and even if he has methods to do things that most people don't agree with, he still wants to look after his brat.

Seven doesn't want to hurt other people who don't deserve it. But, he doesn't have much of a choice given the fact he sold his life away for his brother. He doesn't regret that choice, but he has to live with it in ways he never imagined when he made that deal as a kid. Ways that haunt him every day, even after the agency is dismantled from every angle imaginable.

Now, I think most people are well aware of the fact that Seven has had missions where he has to dress up to get close to his target. There are a multitude of reasons why an agent would have to dress up, and sure, not all of those reasons are horrible, sometimes you need to wear a tuxedo to get into a party. You have to look the part otherwise you're going to stick out like a sore thumb.

But, I don’t think most people who see him dress up think about the implication of his words. This is a snippet from his Diary that you can look at in the RFA box. Saeyoung has been a member of the agency since he was a teenager, and it doesn't blow past me for a second to think about the fact that they'd have him dress up to fill a role to get their targets to drop their guard long enough for the kill.

Saeyoung dressed up as a maid because there was a "maid fanatic." I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't like the phrasing of those words and I never have. There is some creep at the event he attended and the only way he could get close to this creep was by dressing up as a maid to get this guy to look at him. They used the fact that he's a scrawny teenager / young adult to their benefit, knowing that if he is there playing a helpless damsel, their targets will eat it up.

The amount of sexual harassment and WORSE that Saeyoung has experienced is something I don't think he's even begun to unravel. I do think as well that the agency giving him the opportunity to don a new persona on missions also helped him explore his gender identity and fluidity. He feels comfortable as a woman when he's the one who has a say in his look, and while no Saeyoung fan agrees on what label he's comfortable with, nonbinary, genderfluid, trans, or a cis guy who simply loves to crossdress or do drag—it's an interesting to see how we all view his exploration of gender.

I personally think he's genderfluid, and he doesn’t mind whatever pronouns you use for him, but if you deviate from using he/him as your default, God there’s a look of euphoria on his face the likes of which you have never seen before. “Pretty girl” and “Good boy” hit the same for him but the former really makes his eyes sparkle. My headcanon, of course.

Though, I think sometimes he has a complicated relationship with his identity because his self-discovery happened not because he decided to dress up and learn more about himself, but because the agency told him he had no choice but to dress up. He doesn't want his experience in the agency to taint what he sees when he dresses up, which is why I think he does what he does in the chat room to receive compliments now and again from the other members. He ends up fishing for compliments because he wants them to come from a genuine place, not from some creep he has to get rid of for work. 

I think it'll be better for him once he's out of the agency and he can explore his identity comfortably, and his MC can play a role in helping him feel validated in his sense of self, regardless of how you headcanon him. Because, more than anything, I think he deserves to have an experience that makes him feel good when he dresses up, allowing him to overcome the damage the agency did to him and embracing that he can identify and express himself anyway he wants to and nobody can take that from him. 

Most people are aware of the warehouse phone call. He spent days in a warehouse behind enemy fire and the only consolation he won out of that pain was the Honey Buddha Chips they paid him off with for the "trouble". He spent those days thinking he was going to die within an instant, one wrong move and he's dead, and that's one of the hard traumatic events he's gone through that he hasn't unraveled the way he needs to. 

I cannot even begin to imagine how agonizing it was to sit there, no food or water, knowing that if he made a single sound, they would kill him without remorse. 

He isn't just a desk agent who hacks his way into what they tell him to. If they tell him to go out into the field, he has to and that's that. He doesn't have a say in the matter.

He's mentioned visiting Antarctica and I believe a few island nations before. Again, you can't tell for certain just how much he's joking and how much of the truth he's telling you, so you have to take it with the smallest grain of salt and work out the realism. But, it's clear to me in my mind that he's had to travel to places just to take care of a mission and those missions put his life at risk.

He's trained not to defend himself but to attack first. He doesn't keep guns in his bunker but he knows how to use one. He knows best how to defend himself in a fight, considering that the car he used to take you with him was bullet proof, and that's not something you do in the average life. You don't just get a bulletproof car for no reason. You get it because you're scared for your life.

I make it abundantly clear in most of the posts I write about him to remind people just how paranoid of a person he is. It's not healthy, not in the slightest, but if you understand where he's coming from, it makes sense why he reacts the way he does. Saeyoung is afraid of dying and he’s right to be afraid. Not only does he need to be scared of his father and how fast he could be erased, he has to be afraid of all of the people he has pissed off during his time in the agency. He is not short on enemies.

Plenty of people don't like him and that's one of the reasons why he was afraid to let anybody get close to him. It's not that he's afraid of letting himself be loved, although, that is something he does have to learn how to accept, it's more so he's afraid of people being tortured because they love him. Bad people will exploit your weaknesses and if you own those weaknesses close to your heart where anyone can see it, they will know how to hurt you. 

Honestly, there are a lot of things he went through during his time in the agency, things that I don't think will ever be able to account for because it's going to take him a long time to open up about what happened to him. He always puts the needs of others before himself. He's going to get better about that in the future, but you're going to have to be gentle with him as he begins to unravel all of the things they made him do to survive. He's not out of the water yet but at least he's willing to trust his partner with his heavy heart. 

[iqmmir]

"but then they would gossip about it!!!!" Woman if people have nothing better to do with their lives than gossip about how your husband's a cheater and you almost got yourself into a cult, then honestly id just feel bad for them

[spacedlexi]

people dont talk enough about how heartbreaking the marlon betrayal mustve been for clem too,,

this dude saves the life of her and her kid. takes them in has them patched up gives them their first hot meal in who knows how long. gives them a safe place to stay. possibly permanently. confides in her that hes trying to be a good leader but feels like and fears that hes failing. asks her to help him take care of the rest of the group. helps her get over her fear of dogs by asking her to trust him. and things go well. she feels safe. like this place could really finally be the home shes been looking for

but as soon as she finds out what happened to the twins. that marlon planned on giving up her and aj too. she immediately becomes a liability to him and he attempts to kill her for it. locks her in the basement to die by walker. then tries to turn the group against her so he can shoot her instead when the first method fails. and he nearly succeeds

then a majority of the group turn against clem the minute aj kills marlon. ignoring marlons mistakes but condemning aj for his. like clem wasnt betrayed by marlon in the exact same way he betrayed the twins. like she literally wasnt almost killed twice? and how long had he been considering giving her up? was it always some contingency he planned? did he truly want to keep them around and things only changed when he feared the raiders had returned? she'll never know

[eepyracc]

Lnds fandom.. how are we feeling 🧍‍♀️

Because I for one, am absolutely losing it