Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/10846839.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M, Multi
  Fandom:
      SEVENTEEN_(Band)
  Relationship:
      Choi_Hansol_|_Vernon/Xu_Ming_Hao_|_The8, Choi_Hansol_|_Vernon/Choi
      Seungcheol_|_S.Coups, Lee_Seokmin_|_DK/Boo_Seungkwan/Lee_Jihoon_|_Woozi,
      Choi_Seungcheol_|_S.Coups/Yoon_Jeonghan, Jeon_Wonwoo/Kim_Mingyu
  Character:
      Choi_Hansol_|_Vernon, Xu_Ming_Hao_|_The8, Choi_Seungcheol_|_S.Coups, Jeon
      Wonwoo, Kim_Mingyu, Hong_Jisoo_|_Joshua, Wen_Jun_Hui_|_Jun, Lee_Seokmin_|
      DK, Boo_Seungkwan, Lee_Jihoon_|_Woozi, Yoon_Jeonghan, Lee_Chan_|_Dino,
      Kwon_Soonyoung_|_Hoshi, Kim_Jonghyun_|_JR
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Prison, Unhealthy_Relationships, Prison_Sex, Abuse,
      Past_Alcohol_Abuse/Alcoholism, Suicide, Rape/Non-con_Elements, Underage
      Sex, Stockholm_Syndrome, Kidnapping, Violence, Other_Additional_Tags_to
      Be_Added, Mental_Health_Issues, Mental_Instability
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-05-09 Updated: 2017-06-23 Chapters: 2/13 Words: 20067
****** when skies are grey ******
by socially_inept
Summary
     you are my sunshine, my only sunshine
     please don’t take my sunshine away
      
      
      ~
     Soonyoung was- well, admittedly right about this one thing. When
     Minghao looked at Hansol, he didn’t see the monsters that he’d spent
     his whole life fearing.
     He saw a gentle boy with careful hands and curved lips and more than
     enough love to give. He wondered, momentarily, how someone so docile
     could have ended up in a place like this.
     He resolved not to ask.
Notes
     PREFACE
      
     DISCLAIMERS
     -I’ve never been to prison
     -I don’t watch prison break
     -seventeen aren’t criminals
     -this is in no way an accurate representation of the setting or the
     people mentioned
     -really the only thing in common between my writing and seventeen are
     names; pure fiction
     -unbeta'd, so I'm sorry for any mistakes I missed while proof reading
     WARNINGS
     -graphic violence
     -unhealthy relationships
     -abuse
     -rape
     -suicide
     -major character death
     -kidnapping and reference to stockholm syndrome
     -underage sex
     -mental disorders
     please please please do not read this if you think that any of this
     could be triggering to you! the warnings are in place for a reason
     CHARACTERS
     s.coups
     -literal mafia boss
     -really bad guy
     -life sentence
     -prison gang leader
     jeonghan
     -jewel thief
     -seven years
     -sleeping with s.coups
     jisoo
     -prison psychiatrist
     -nice guy
     -just wants to help
     -dr hong
     junhui
     -prison guard
     -soft hearted
     -takes no shit
     soonyoung
     -defense attorney for hansol and minghao
     -not great at his job
     -trying™
     wonwoo
     -deserves better
     -life sentence
     -was framed
     -suffers a lot
     woozi
     -aggressive™
     -aggravated assault with a deadly weapon
     -five years
     -one smart cookie
     dk
     -robbery with company (seungkwan)
     -three years
     -a genuinely good person
     -did someone say tragic backstory
     mingyu
     -literally awful
     -abusive
     -makes wonwoo suffer
     -life sentence
     -the antagonist™
      seungkwan
     -robbery with company (dk)
     -three years
     -relies heavily on woozi
     -fake optimism
     dino
     -genius
     -hacking and some other crazy shit
     -five years
     -physically harmless
     minghao
     -possession of an illegal firearm
     -eighteen months
     -plot centric
     hansol
     -a lot
     -life sentence
     -ohgodbackstory
     -plot centric
     -serious issues with s.coups
     -the one who dies
      OTHER INFORMATION
     -chapters are in three parts (i, ii & iii)
     -i | after hansol’s death
     -ii | stories of other characters and various expositional scenes
     (can be skipped over, contains most explicit content)
     -iii | events leading up to hansol’s death
     -updates may be slow because I update as I write
     -there will be thirteen chapters
     -PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE WARNINGS
      
     that's all, though that was way too long
     enjoy the first chapter!
     -dan xx
***** seungcheol *****
i.
“I’m very sorry, Seungcheol, but while you were in isolation, Hansol passed
away.”
Seungcheol hated grey.
Everything in this fucking place was the same dull grey. The same, dreary, dry,
middle-ground grey. It was a morally ambiguous colour, not quite saint-like
white but not even close to the dark associated with criminals. Everything was
grey - the walls, the bars, the yard, the tables, the tiling in the shower.
Even the goddamn sky, as if it had been done on purpose.
“Seungcheol.”
Seungcheol hated grey, but he sat still nonetheless, hands folded on the
particularly grey table in front of him. He was itching to get out, but he
didn’t move. He hadn’t seen his boys in three months, but what was another hour
or so?
The psychiatrist’s tie was a lighter shade of grey, with thin black stripes in
diagonal lines. There was a clasp on it, to keep the two ends together, and it
was silver, which wasn’t much better than the grey. It caught the light at a
strange angle, the reflection probably hitting the wall somewhere behind him,
and it was so simple and yet so infuriating.
“Seungcheol?”
Seungcheol’s gaze fixed on the shadow of his hand on the table, making it a
slightly darker grey. He fucking hated it. When he thought about escaping,
fantasy though it was, he thought about colour. The violet in the sky and the
pink tinge to Hansol’s cheeks in the cold. The obnoxious orange of streetlamps
and the natural green of the inhuman number of houseplants that they had kept.
The baby blue of their bedsheets, the pale red of the blankets on the sofa,
even the too-bright yellow of the keyring that Hansol had made him a long time
ago.
“Seungcheol.”
Seungcheol raised his head slowly, like a child reluctant to meet his father’s
eye. It couldn’t be right, he thought. It wasn’t possible. He told himself that
it was another of Hong’s mind games, another test of his reactions, but he
didn’t believe it enough to cancel out the aching feeling of loss in his whole
body.
Surely, surely, Hong was mistaken. Seungcheol would know if Hansol died, he
would feel it the moment that it happened. Wouldn’t he?
He told himself that Hong was lying, even when the menace in his ear whispered
that the man had no reason to lie. He said it over and over again in his mind,
and in the span of not even a minute he must have thought it a thousand times.
You’re lying.
“You’re lying,” he said out loud, eventually, and the doctor sucked in a sharp
breath.
“Seungcheol, I’m very-”
“You’re lying.” His voice cracked as he spoke, his tone more desperate than it
was authoritative, and for the first time in ten years he felt out of control.
Doctor Joshua Hong was an attractive man, and Seungcheol found himself hyper-
focussed on his facial features. The shape of his eyes, the slope of his nose,
the curve of his lips. Even the tiny amount of stubble, suggesting that the man
had forgotten to shave. There were circles under his eyes, dark and prominent,
that more than suggested that shaving wasn’t the only thing that he was too
distracted to think about.
His pretty face was ruined, though, by the expression painted onto it. He
looked like a tragic actor, mask beautiful but so horrific, and Seungcheol was
in the audience, pretending that he didn’t notice anything but the chorus.
“Show me,” he heard someone say, and realised a moment later with a sense of
alarm that he had said it.
He didn’t want to see, but he had already asked. He knew what the doctor would
show him; an image of a cold body that Seungcheol wanted to believe was still
warm-blooded. The man had shown him many images from his file, pictures of his
victims - the lucky ones, who had still been recognisable as his work when his
men were done with them - and it all felt so disgustingly similar.
Hansol wasn’t a victim. He had confessed falsely, but willingly - and while
infuriated by it, Seungcheol had found his loyalty endearing. He was spirited
and loving, Seungcheol’s sun and moon, and Seungcheol had never done anything
to hurt him.
Hansol was not a victim.
But he was, because no one could ever hurt Hansol unless they intended to hurt
Seungcheol through him. The boy was a victim of his own identity, his own place
in the world, and Seungcheol felt ill thinking that someone had killed the
bright-eyed, wide-grinned, soft-spoken boy because of him.
“Are you sure that you want to see?” the psychiatrist said mildly. “You don’t
have to, if you don’t want to.”
And Seungcheol didn’t want to, but if he had been the indirect cause of
Hansol’s death, the least that he could do was look at the boy’s body for a
moment.
“Show me,” he repeated, more insistent, more desperate, and the doctor
relented.
There would have to be a funeral, Seungcheol thought. It would be everything
that the boy could have ever wanted. It would be in a church, and Seungcheol
would use half of his bank account on the most intricate and inessential
coffin. It would be white - Hansol would be dressed in white, too. Not criminal
black, and not prison-sky grey.
Doctor Hong’s bony hands slid the photograph across the table, until it sat
right under his nose. Seungcheol stared at it in disbelief, then in horror, and
then in anger.
It was, plainly and simply, a picture of a corpse. Hansol’s corpse. It was only
his face, but it was easy to tell; he looked ill, his skin tinted with lifeless
grey. Seungcheol had never hated grey as much as he did staring at the image,
and he had never been squeamish about blood or bones or bodies, but he felt
bile rising in his throat just looking at it.
The boy’s face was expressionless, but not in the way that it was when he
slept. His hair was swept back, his mouth closed, his lips looked stained blue
and his eyes must have been shut for him.
It sickened Seungcheol to the core, thinking that someone had pushed his eyes
closed and he hadn’t been the one to do it, the one to hold the boy in his arms
and give him some comfort even in his last moments.
It was abruptly that Seungcheol got the burning fury, not at Hansol’s death,
but at whoever had robbed him of the opportunity to make his death dignified,
worth something.
It wasn’t even a question of who, because there was only one other person in a
prison for hippies and druggies and harmless kids who could be capable of
hurting someone like Hansol.
Kim fucking Mingyu.
For the first time in a long time, Seungcheol stopped seeing grey, and only saw
red.
It only took seconds for everything to happen, for every thought to race
through his head and every instinct to rush out, but it felt like hours. He was
on his feet before Hong could even say anything, and out of the room before the
man could react.
Seungcheol had been a powerful man, before this. Some men dropped to their
knees before him, heads bowed in respect. Almost everyone here was afraid of
him, but Kim Mingyu was too much like him to bow down to him. He was a
different kind of monster, the kind that had been born that way, with something
wrong in the head, and it made him dangerous - more dangerous than even
Seungcheol, in some ways.
He didn’t think much in depth about what he was doing until he was in the
recreation room, walking intently with long strides and burning blood towards
the giant of a man. His skin was alight: almost like the way that it felt when
he was overridden with passion, only more intense.
Jeonghan saw him, and flung himself into his arms. Seungcheol didn’t stop to
consider any action other than throwing the man to the ground and continuing on
his way to Mingyu.
In all honesty, the man wasn’t too much taller than Seungcheol himself was; but
he was a beast nonetheless, twisted and roaring and violent, and with a
nauseating bloodlust that made him kill for fun, rather than business.
He stood up from his seat, either to greet Seungcheol or mock him, but whatever
he had planned on saying was lost as the elder’s fist met his mouth.
Wonwoo whimpered from where he stood behind Mingyu, though the man himself
offered no immediate reaction, stunned for a moment.
Then he hit back.
Seungcheol was ready for it, the weighted blow to his jaw, and he didn’t
hesitate in hitting back again, and again.
Mingyu was a monster, but he played with knives and shiny things, not knuckles
and bones. He toppled like a tower, sometime between Jeonghan’s screaming and
the addition of the security guards’ voices. The taller they stand, the harder
they fall, Seungcheol thought with triumph, but didn’t stop.
One hand fisted in Mingyu’s collar, he kept hitting, until the red that he saw
was the man’s blood, rather than his own anger.
And the bastard bled, teeth stained red as Seungcheol kept at it, even when
hands pried at his arms. He had let Wen Junhui drag him away the first time, he
had let Mingyu get away with what he had done to Hansol.
This time, he wouldn’t be so easily forgiven.
“You fucking killed him!” he heard himself shout, in the blur of action.
Mingyu only spat at him.
The taller man had stopped fighting back, already lying limp but still
breathing by the time they were separated, bleeding from the mouth and nose,
and Seungcheol was panting heavily, knuckles bruised, pride bloated, and
everything else just as painful as it had been before.
He strained again Wen’s grasp, attempting to lunge when Mingyu came to, and was
helped to stand up.
“I could kill you for fucking looking at him!”
Mingyu laughed. It was harrowing, malicious, the kind of laugh that movie
villains had when the story turned out to not be a fairytale.
“He killed himself.”
The worst thing, Seungcheol thought, in a fraction of a second, was that it
wasn’t even impossible.
“Bullshit!” he screamed anyway, trying again to launch towards him.
There was nothing insincere about the way that he said it, though. Mingyu would
have admitted it, free and clear, if he had done it.
Hansol had killed himself.
Seungcheol had always been volatile, subject to a mood change at the slightest
provocation, but this was something else entirely. It was like a pin had
dropped, and the fight melted out of him faster than he anticipated. They were
only a few words, but they were so vital, so unspeakably awful, that he let
himself go still in Wen’s arms, let himself show his weakness for the crowd
that the fight had gathered. He buried his face against the guard’s chest, and
choked out a sob.
“He was innocent,” he whispered, because it was true.
Hansol had suffered so much here. He could have had a life. He could have gone
to the best university in Korea - fuck Korea, the world. He could have studied
what he wanted, never had to work a day, stayed with everything that Seungcheol
still owned and been safe and content.
But he hadn’t, and now Seungcheol’s boy - his beautiful, gentle, delicate boy -
lay dead and grey in a medical tray in someone’s workplace, ruined and abused
and just as harmless as he had ever been.
His words were barely audible, but Wen must have heard them, because he placed
a discreet but gentle hand on Seungcheol’s back.
“I know,” he responded, voice low.
Seungcheol’s body sagged, and he allowed the guard to take him away from Mingyu
and Wonwoo and all the others who hadn’t saved him.
 
 
ii.
A man like Choi Seungcheol might have expected to see a number of things on
returning home.
A pretty boy, perhaps, peacefully asleep on the couch with the TV on standby,
his face expressionless but still somehow contented, his lips parted, his hair
in his face, and his long eyelashes brushing so lightly against his cheekbones.
An enemy in a suit, possibly, fingering a gun, seated on an armchair with his
ankles crossed, waiting for the man of the house to return before he turned a
weapon on the child sleeping in his bed.
A police officer, even, weapon at the ready in one hand and silver cuffs in the
other, blue uniform disenheartening and the telltale sign of a rat in the
organisation gnawing holes in their business.
Choi Seungcheol had returned to the first of such sights too many times to
count; Hansol had no sense of how tired he was until he had a blanket over his
legs and a pillow under his head and he fell right asleep.
The second one, in turn, he’d seen twice - once when he was young enough to be
forgiving, and again when he was older and much more in touch with the concept
of crime and punishment.
The third one- well, a story for another time, but this particular night,
Seungcheol might have preferred it.
Instead, though, Seungcheol arrived at his home to hear a gasped, “Do you want
to go upstairs?” that was not directed at him, and in English.
It was Hansol, that much was recognisable by the voice, but who would he speak
English to? The boy knew that Seungcheol hated the language, it irritated him,
and he much preferred Korean, and he doubted that any of the security guards he
employed could even speak it, never mind allow themselves to be caught inside
the flat.
There was a laugh, one that Seungcheol didn’t recognise, and he had to keep the
possessiveness inside him bitten back when a growl building in his chest
threatened to make him known to Hansol and the intruder.
“How rich are you?”
The voice was unfamiliar, and every one of Seungcheol’s instincts told him to
hunt the stranger down, remove him from the apartment.
Hansol made a sound of disinterest, and answered in Korean. “It’s my
boyfriend’s place. He has an important job.”
The stranger followed this with a squawk of indignation, but switched to Korean
as well. “You have a boyfriend?”
“We’re not exclusive. That’s why he’s not here right now, he’s probably getting
messy with some stripper.”
“You could have mentioned that! What if he comes back? Do you think he’ll get
those guys outside to, like, chase me out?”
“I don’t even know those guys,” Hansol answered, voice smooth, even as he lied,
“he’s not coming back any time soon, either. He never does.”
“He must be stupid.”
“He is.”
The last words were barely audible, and Seungcheol could picture Hansol’s lips
whispering into someone else’s skin. He was a man of great self-control, but he
could hear them kiss, and the title slipped away from him just like that.
“Get out,” he snarled, pushing through the kitchen door before he really
thought about it.
Hansol was sitting on the counter, shirt half unbuttoned, legs wrapped around
the stranger’s waist. The stranger in question was tall and dark-skinned, his
hands on Hansol’s hips and one finger slipping under his waistband.
He at least had the decency to pull away immediately, but Hansol gave a needy
whine in response.
“Get the fuck out,” Seungcheol repeated, louder this time, and the stranger
cowered, ducking away and grabbing his jacket from the island counter in the
centre of the kitchen.
“I’m really sorry, I didn’t realise, I wouldn’t have-”
“Get. Out.”
The stranger seemed to understand this, darting out of the kitchen, and
Seungcheol was still until he heard the elevator close.
He fisted a hand in Hansol’s hair, tugging him down from the counter and
forcing his neck to the side.
“The fuck is this?” he barked, free hand going to run light fingers over the
lovebites on Hansol’s neck.
Lovebites that he hadn’t left there.
Hansol shoved him away, never one to accept rough treatment when he was in a
mood like this, and put a hand over the marks on his neck.
“Why did you do that?” he yelled, and he looked to be blinking back tears.
“Aren’t I allowed to enjoy myself just because you’re not here?”
“You’re mine,” Seungcheol hissed, gripping Hansol’s wrist so hard that the boy
whimpered like a kicked puppy. There would be a bruise later, surely. “You
belong to me. No one else touches you. Are you too thick to understand that?”
Seungcheol’s head snapped to the side, and his cheek stung, but for a moment it
didn’t register in his mind that Hansol, his Hansol, had dared to hit him.
It caught him by surprise, and he had little time to react before Hansol was
pushing hard against his chest.
“I’m not some kept whore for you to abuse!” he shouted, though there was more
misery in his tone than anger, and Seungcheol felt a flash of guilt.
“Hansol-” he started, but Hansol was out the door before he could even try to
apologise.
He stayed put, listening to his footsteps on the staircase, and then the sound
of a door slamming and clicking as it locked.
Seungcheol swore loudly, slamming his fist down on the granite top of the
counter. The boy was right, to some extent, which only frustrated him further.
Hansol wasn’t a prisoner in a tower, he wasn’t a piece of property, despite
what the rumours that buzzed through Seungcheol’s employees said.
Hansol was the biggest difference between Seungcheol and his predecessor, the
only thing that people couldn’t seem to explain about the newer boss. He was
cute, sure, boyishness and mischief carved into his face, but too many people
knew that he didn’t quite fit Seungcheol’s preferences, and he appeared so
content most days that it was near impossible for him to be one of the man’s
whores. The only other reason that Seungcheol took so much time keeping him
safe would be that Hansol was a relative - but they acted intimately, and even
he wasn’t twisted enough to keep his own cousin or brother as a plaything.
Neither speculation rang too true, of course, but Seungcheol let them talk.
Maybe that was why he was so angry now: he’d grown so used to the idea of
Hansol as a pet that he was enraged to find that it wasn’t the case.
How could he justify being upset that Hansol spent time with someone else went
he spent regular nights with prostitutes and other less-than-favourable
company?
That was the easy answer - he couldn’t. He would continue to be unjustifiably
pissed, though, until Hansol got drunk enough to sob an apology and Seungcheol
couldn’t cling to his anger any longer.
He was still simmering as he drew his phone from his pocket, not hesitating for
a moment in dialling the number for one of the security guards downstairs.
“Let Hansol bring a friend up again and it won’t end well for you,” he hissed,
in lieu of a greeting.
The man on the other side spluttered his explanation. “He called us - Hansol -
he said the guy, the tall one, was one of yours, told us you didn’t want to be
disturbed while working but wanted two when you came home, just thought that-”
“Don’t think,” Seungcheol enunciated slowly, “do your fucking job. I don’t have
whores at home. Next time I won’t be so forgiving.”
The man stumbled over a string of apologies, promising that there wouldn’t be a
next time, it wouldn’t happen again - but Seungcheol was already hanging up.
Another time, he might have made an example of the man, but he was in no mood
for bloodshed now, and that would be a third guard gone in less than two
months. He always had more to fill in the spots, they were efficient like that,
though it didn’t ensure that the others would be anything like pleased that
Seungcheol had lashed out again. Too many of them killed and replaced left room
for waning loyalty, and Seungcheol was not inclined to deal with that at this
point.
He peeled off his jacket, letting it lie on the granite, and finally left the
kitchen. Hansol must have been about to start drinking, if he hadn’t already
started. It was a bad habit of his, one that Seungcheol hadn’t got around to
controlling yet: the boy’s family was prone to alcoholism, but it wasn’t
tobacco to stain his teeth or cocaine to fuck up his nose or heroin to leave
marks on his skin, so it wasn’t the most pressing addiction that he could have
faced.
Hansol was a mess when he was drunk, even more emotional than usual but
affectionate and much more willing to be obedient, at least. Seungcheol made
his way slowly up the stairs, stopping outside the closed study door and
raising a hand to knock on the wood.
“Open the door,” he called, and Hansol sobbed quietly in response. “Hansol-ah,
angel, open the door. I’m not angry with you.”
Another choked sound, but no movement, and Seungcheol growled in irritation.
“I said open the door, angel.” His tone was more authoritative this time, less
gentle, and it worked.
He heard feet shuffling on the carpet, stopping on the other side of the door.
There was a pause, and then the telltale click of the door being unlocked. The
handle twisted and the door opened slowly to reveal the boy, face streaked with
tears and whole body trembling violently.
“You hit me,” Seungcheol said, voice an octave lower than it had been a moment
ago, but not quite in a seductive way.
Hansol stepped back, and Seungcheol stepped forwards.
“Have I ever hit you, Hansol-ah?”
Hansol shook his head wordlessly. It was enough to satisfy him.
“Never. I have never laid a finger on you that you haven’t wanted or deserved.”
Hansol kept shaking his head. Seungcheol willed himself not to cave into the
guilt that curled in his gut and in his throat; he did these things for
Hansol’s own good. No one could be trusted around the boy - especially not
strangers.
That was what he told himself, at least, over and over again, reminding himself
that what he had done today, and what he would probably do in the future, was
not only reasonable but warranted. Keeping Hansol isolated was absolutely
necessary, even if it happened to calm the flame of possessive jealousy inside
Seungcheol as well.
Hansol flinched as Seungcheol reached out to cup his cheek, but didn’t pull
away.
“You hurt me, Hansol-ah. Do you know that?”
The boy choked out another sob, and dropped to his knees. “I’m s-sorry, hyung,
please, I’m sorry, you were right-”
Hansol continued to babble apologies, but Seungcheol wasn’t paying much
attention, simply carding his fingers through the boy’s soft hair.
“Are you afraid of me, angel?”
If Hansol weren’t in one of his episodes, minorly drunk and overly emotional,
he would have kissed at Seungcheol’s jawline and murmured should I be? Now,
though, he pressed his forehead to Seungcheol’s thigh and whimpered helplessly.
“Not, not, only, hyung, only when-”
Seungcheol’s grip in his hair tightened ever so slightly, eliciting another
whimper. “Yes or no, Hansol.”
“Yes, hyung.”
He sighed. He had known the answer, of course he had, but knowing it and
hearing Hansol’s snivelling admission were two entirely different things. He
wanted to take the boy in his arms, promise that it was okay, that he forgave
him: but Hansol wouldn’t learn like that. If he did this again, it could be
with someone less harmless than a scared kid looking to make out. It could be
one of Seungcheol’s enemies, looking to get to him through his soft spot, or
even the police, trying to coax confessions from him.
It was dangerous for Hansol to be so trusting, especially if he was going to
leave the protection of the flat every day for school next term, out of
Seungcheol’s reach.
“I’m the least of your worries, Hansol-ah.”
“He wasn’t m-mafia,” Hansol murmured weakly, and Seungcheol tugged lightly on
his hair.
“What was that?”
His shoulders were still shaking, small frame rattling like a skeleton in a
ghost story, and Seungcheol felt a delicate hand on one foot as he struggled to
support himself for much longer.
“The b-boy. I asked Mr Kim to look at him. He was c-clean.”
Seungcheol crouched to be eye-level with Hansol, and guided the boy’s hands to
his shoulders.
“No more people coming home,” he instructed, and Hansol nodded. “I don’t think
I want you going to school this year, either, not until I know you can protect
yourself.”
Hansol let out another harsh sob. “P-please, please, hyung, please let me go,
I’ll be so good, I won’t be any t-trouble for the rest of the year, please,
hyung.”
“No,” Seungcheol said, evenly, “I don’t want people I don’t know touching you.
I don’t want them looking at you.”
Hansol was a precious thing - a diamond so valuable that Seungcheol didn’t even
wear it when he wanted to impress. He trusted few people to be around him, and
even less to actually talk to him. It was a mystery to Seungcheol’s employees
and the man wanted to keep it that way: the boy belonged to him, and it was no
one else’s concern.
He was perfect, most of the time. Charming and laughing and doting, strong-
willed and loud-mouthed and interesting to talk to. But handling Hansol was
like handling glass; his mentality was fragile, any instance of violence, light
as it was, could trigger an episode, and then Seungcheol would have a mess of a
child in his arms, sobbing and hiccupping and grasping at any comfort that he
could. What would happen if he fell into the mindset somewhere else? He was
vulnerable, impressionable, and avoided conflict at all costs when he was like
this. It made him a liability, and Seungcheol refused to take the chance.
Neither side of him was for other people’s eyes. Hansol was his.
“I’m doing this to keep you safe, angel, not to punish you.”
Hansol shook his head, but Seungcheol knew himself that it was true. No one was
safe in his line of work - he killed on the regular, sold worse things than
drugs, and without protection Hansol was a pretty face with too many enemies
and too little spine.
He pressed a tender kiss to the skin behind Hansol’s ear, and helped him to
stand up.
“Let’s get you in a warm bath, yeah?”
Hansol didn’t answer, only allowing himself to be half-carried, half-dragged
from the study, across the hall into the bathroom. Seungcheol guided him
carefully back to the floor, so that he could reach over to turn on the tap,
and then sank down next to him. They sat wordlessly for a while, just listening
the running water, until the boy spoke up.
“There’s a bruise on my wrist.” Hansol’s words were barely audible, but he
managed to get them all out without stuttering, or breaking into another fit of
sobs, which meant that he would be back to normal soon enough.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, angel.”
Hansol wrinkled his nose, and Seungcheol chuckled at the expression. Yes, he
was definitely coming down from his episode.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” he mumbled, the sound of water filling the
bath almost drowning out his words entirely. “It makes me think of that girl
you hurt, when we went to that club.”
Seungcheol hummed, recalling the incident. “I shouldn’t have let you see that.”
Hansol slumped against Seungcheol’s side, and the elder curled his arms around
his shoulder.
“I’m not really afraid of you,” he promised, resting his head on Seungcheol’s
shoulder, “only when I get broken in the head.”
“I know,” Seungcheol breathed, soaking up the affection. “Come on, get up and
undressed so I can wash your hair.”
Hansol obeyed tentatively, continuing to unbutton his shirt from when it had
been half-done earlier and pulling down his jeans and boxers before stepping
out of them and climbing straight into the bath.
Seungcheol stood up to turn the tap off, and knelt behind where Hansol sat in
the bath.
“Head back,” he said, already pouring a generous amount of shampoo into his
hand.
It was sickeningly domestic, exactly the type of thing that men like Seungcheol
didn’t go out of their way to do for people like Hansol, but the boy hummed
like a cat purring as the elder massaged his scalp. It was one of the things
that calmed him, surrounded in warmth with light hands in his hair: and it was,
so far, the most effective way that Seungcheol had found to make sure that he
came down completely from his fits.
He looked like an angel, now, completely at peace, eyes closed and lips parted
slightly, chest rising and falling evenly. His eyes had fallen shut, and
Seungcheol stared at his face. He looked blissful, like he’d reached a state of
serenity, and it made the man’s heart lurch, only slightly.
“Hyung?”
Hansol looked up at him, blinking his dark doe eyes, and Seungcheol could only
smile in response.
“Tell me you love me?”
“I love you, Hansol-ah.” He wasn’t sure how true it was, how capable he was of
loving even someone like Hansol, but as long as the boy wanted to hear it, he
would continue to say it.
Hansol sighed in contentment, and let his eyes close again. “I love you too,
Cheollie.”
 
 
iii.
Seungcheol regretted a very small number of things.
Despite his attorney’s initial insistence of his remorse, he held no guilt for
the majority of things that he had done, even when they were rolled off one by
one, even when the prosecution brought people in to testify that Seungcheol had
taken their ten-year-old from the streets and sold him off, that their teacher
of a daughter had been found in an alleyway without a heart or anaesthetic in
her blood, that he was a life ruiner and deserved the death penalty.
His trial, and the way that it had gone, was - strangely enough - not one of
those things. He didn’t get the death penalty and, if anything, he was glad
that he’d hit every branch while he fell from the tree. It would be an insult
for them to forget what he had done.
He’d gone out with a bang and a scandal: a mafia boss in a low security prison,
with everything he could want on the other end of the gun that he didn’t even
need to hold anymore.
No, he didn’t regret too many of his own actions: that was no way to live,
after all, but he did regret the odd thing or two.
Not fully appreciating steaming hot food from the takeaway place on the block,
for example, was a terrible mistake that he had made before he was
incarcerated. He regretted not having that last cup of quality coffee on the
morning before he was sentenced: the shit that Wen smuggled in on occasion had
taste, at least, but the rest of the time Seungcheol put up with sludge.
Most of all, he regretted not hiring a better lawyer for Choi Hansol.
Kwon fucking Soonyoung was a bumbling idiot, on the good days, but he had
impressed Hansol, helped the boy to relax and comprehend the whole situation,
so Seungcheol had taken a chance on him, selecting him over his own attorney.
It had been a mistake.
For the most part, it appeared to be going well. Kwon kept Seungcheol updated,
assured him over and over again that Hansol knew exactly what to do. The boy
was going to stand up, plead innocence, and testify against Seungcheol - and
Seungcheol, who would have been found guilty beforehand, would give a statement
confirming his story. It was never the man’s intention to get out of a
sentence: they had been ratted out, and there was no going against the evidence
that seemed to stockpile against him. Hansol hadn’t done anything, though; and
when Seungcheol got his life sentence, Hansol would be free, with money and the
penthouse and all the security that he could need.
Or, that was how it was supposed to go.
Kwon had apparently failed to notice that Hansol had a plan of his own, and on
the day of his trial he stood in front of a court and announced that he was
guilty of all charges. All of Seungcheol’s charges.
Accessory to murder. Human trafficking. Serial rape. God, so much worse.
Words that Seungcheol wished Hansol didn’t even know poured out of him that
day: but the boy could do no wrong, so instead Seungcheol rested all of his
blame on the singular head of one Kwon Soonyoung. He had never wanted to kill a
man more, and he had killed enough people to label himself a mass murderer.
Kwon Soonyoung had allowed Seungcheol’s boy to get himself a life sentence, and
if it weren’t for Hansol’s meek promises that Kwon couldn’t have known, he
would have had the man murdered in his bed the very day that Hansol was
convicted.
Kwon seemed to have expected this, because Seungcheol was cuffed to the table
as the man walked in.
“Good afternoon, Mr Choi!” he said cheerfully, though his expression wavered
visibly when Seungcheol only glared in response. “I have to say, I was very
surprised that you wanted to see me. I know we met to discuss Hansol’s defence,
but I was certain that you had another-”
“Kim Jonghyun,” Seungcheol said lowly, and Kwon seemed put off by the malice in
his tone.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I’m very glad that you-”
“I want to talk about Hansol’s case.”
Kwon stopped, and did somewhat of a double take. “Hansol’s case.” He spoke
slowly, as if trying to clarify something for a child. “As in, Choi Hansol? The
boy who stood up in front of court and pleaded guilty, and asked to be given a
life sentence because he felt so remorseful?”
Seungcheol growled in the back of his throat.
“Right, yes, Hansol’s case, of course. What, uh, what exactly about it? As far
as I know, it was a clean conviction. After he confessed, well, there’s really
no going back on what he said.”
“You sound sure about that.”
“I, he confessed, Mr Choi. In front of a judge and jury and cameras. There’s
not really much that I can do about that, unless-”
“Unless?” Seungcheol interrupted, but nodded for him to continue.
“Unless, uh, you and he take someone else down. Get Hansol to testify that he
was forced to wrongly confess by another gang leader. But, from what I know,
and what I’m sure you know about Hansol, it’s not very likely to happen. He
doesn’t want to be away from you, Mr Choi, and, no offence, but I don’t expect
that your sentence will be overturned too soon.”
And, bumbling idiot though he was, Kwon Soonyoung was right. Hansol was little
more than a child, and for years Seungcheol had drilled into him the idea that
without someone to protect him, he would end up like the whores he saw in the
clubs that Seungcheol took him to: abused and alone and another pretty thing to
be taken advantage of. He wasn’t going to testify against someone to get away
from Seungcheol’s protection; and he didn’t believe it when Seungcheol promised
that there would be people to ensure he didn’t get hurt if he got out.
“It’s really not my place-” Kwon started up again.
“It’s really not,” Seungcheol muttered, but the lawyer didn’t seem fazed.
“-but why now? It’s been two years, Mr Choi, and you seem to be doing a fine
job of keeping him safe, since I haven’t heard of any mishaps regarding him.”
“Does it matter?” Seungcheol snapped, and Kwon shook his head frantically.
It did matter, of course it did, but it wasn’t as if that was something he was
willing to explain. It had been nine years, as of today, since Hansol had gone
to live with Seungcheol - and the promise that he had made then was about
freedom, but here the boy was, locked up alongside Seungcheol, and the man felt
like he owed him something. Some chance to try it again, live a real life, the
life that had been promised to him the first time that he laid his trust in
Seungcheol.
That, of course, was not what he was going to say, and he instead settled on
something entirely different.
“Kim Mingyu - you know about Kim Mingyu, don’t you? - is getting bored of the
kid that I got for him. I don’t want Hansol to be next when he looks for
something more exciting.”
Kwon seemed to get the idea, because his lips were pressed together so hard
that they looked like one thin line across his face.
“Mr Choi, is it not possible that Hansol has something outside the prison that
could motivate him to get out? A family member, or a close friend that he had
before he was convicted?”
Seungcheol recognised the desperation in Kwon’s tone only because he knew it so
well himself.
“There’s nothing,” he said, and the words tasted like poison on his tongue,
like he had been the one to condemn the boy.
And hadn’t he?
Kwon sighed, but didn’t appear especially surprised. “I’m afraid, Mr Choi, that
there’s not much else that I can-”
“That’s not good enough!”
Seungcheol forgot, momentarily, that his hands were cuffed down, and he lunged
at Kwon. He barely reached, but it was all the time that the man needed to
scramble away and catch his composure.
“Please,” he said, voice cracking and anger crumbling as well. He sounded
pathetic, and if his old employees could see him now, they would snigger at
what he had become. Grovelling, willing to fall to his knees and beg a high
street lawyer. “Please, there has to be something.”
“I promise I’ll look, Mr Choi,” the attorney replied, tone clipped, “but I
can’t promise to find anything. I’m working other cases at the moment, but it’s
on my priority list.”
The man moved as if to leave, and Seungcheol had to bite the inside of his
cheek to keep from cursing him out.
“I’ll be in touch, Mr Choi.”
Just like that, Kwon was gone, and Seungcheol dug his nails into his palms. He
should have hired a better fucking attorney.
 
~
 
The uniform enveloped him.
Minghao was never particularly short, however he was decidedly thin, all hard
edges and sharp angles and bones that looked like they might poke right through
his skin. The clothes that he was assigned hung from his wrists, loose enough
for him to fit his fist into the excess, and it did admittedly little when he
attempted to roll them up.
“Move it along.” The guard’s voice was tired more than it was threatening, and
Minghao could understand that, in a sense.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, allowing himself to be pushed along the hallways, ignoring
remarks as they were called out to him.
Please, he had whimpered to his lawyer, I can’t go to prison.
He had known even then, as he knew now, that he was less masculine than the
other men he would undoubtedly meet here. With slim hips and delicate features,
he wasn’t muscular or predatory or dominant in stature.
Such things were pointed out on the walk that seemed to be endless, catcalls
ringing in his ears and pointed stares heavy on his lithe frame.
The guard stopped outside a cell, and Minghao got the hint, dragging his feet
on the concrete floor as he entered. It was bare and unwelcoming, but somehow
Minghao was relieved that he at least got the basic commodities. A set of bunk
beds were pressed against one wall, a desk against the other, a toilet and sink
crammed into the corner, and there was little go-between space, but it was
livable.
“It’s nice, right?”
The voice made Minghao jump about a foot in the air, and he peered to the top
bunk, where the man - boy? - who was his cellmate lay stretched across a
mattress.
He wondered if he’d heard incorrectly, because nice wasn’t the first word that
sprang to mind, but his cellmate continued.
“I thought so too, when I came. There’s so much space! And only two beds, I was
so surprised, I thought for sure that they’d cram us all in one hall or
something.”
Minghao blinked. His cellmate beamed, and sat up, swinging his legs over the
side of the bed and jumping down.
“I’m DK,” he said, and the Chinese boy stared at him for a moment.
He was definitely young, not much older than Minghao, so far as he could tell,
and more attractive than one might expect for a prisoner that sounded so
content to be locked away. There was a boyishness to his face that made it
difficult to be afraid, and his smile looked so genuine with the way that his
eyes shifted into crescent moons that Minghao wanted to trust him.
Even so, when the boy took a step forward, Minghao took two steps back.
“What’s your name?” he asked, tone brighter than everything else in the dull
grey room.
It occurred to Minghao very suddenly that maybe he should have come up with a
fake name: maybe his real name would be used against him here, some kind of
constant reminder of what he used to be, what he could never-
“The8,” he blurted out, not bothering to separate the words with a pause.
His cellmate, DK, was silent for a whole second before he laughed.
“Oh, that’s really cute! You don’t have to make anything up, you know, your
real name will do just fine. If you want a nickname so bad, I can give you
one!”
Minghao shifted. “Minghao. It’s, uh, it’s Minghao.”
DK nodded approvingly. “You’re really pretty, Minghao.”
He felt his whole body stiffen just at the comment, and DK must have noticed
this, because he immediately got to correcting it.
“No! I don’t mean, I’m not going to do anything, I promise. I was just saying.
It’s refreshing. Most of the guys I see are beefcakes or ugly as hell. You’re
really gentle-looking.”
“Sounds like a bad thing,” Minghao muttered, eyeing the violet marks on DK’s
neck, and the boy’s hand shot up, covering them with a sheepish smile.
“Not always,” he answered, like a promise, but Minghao made no plans to hold
him to it.
There was a moment of silence, and DK returned to his bed, hauling himself up
to the top bunk and settling into a sitting position on the mattress.
“Do you like to read?” he called, after a few minutes had passed.
Minghao only shrugged in response, but DK took this as a yes.
“Here,” he grinned, tossing a book down to his cellmate.
Minghao caught it, a little startled, and stared at the cover. “This is
battered.”
DK hummed in agreement. “Well-read, that means. You know a book’s boring if the
library copy looks untouched.”
“Interesting principle.”
“True, though. Someone in here loved that book so much it literally fell
apart.”
He looked back down at his, fingering the pages. The spine was bent out of
shape, a number of pages still dogeared, and the front and back covers were,
indeed, wrecked. He had never thought about it that way, as if someone had
really read the novel so frequently that the book began to crumble like dust in
their hands, rather than just thrown it about, or used it as a doorstop.
It was bizarre, to think that someone in a prison could have adored a book so
much; but he supposed that it was also relatively bizarre to have a cellmate
spouting philosophies about reading to him.
He imagined Soonyoung grimacing at him, putting a hand on his shoulder. They’re
people too, he would have said, if Minghao had ever voiced his concerns to the
lawyer, not every prisoner is illiterate and aggressive.
A loud sound, reminiscent of some mixture between a game buzzer and a high
school bell, jolted Minghao from his thoughts, and DK seemed especially pleased
as he jumped back down from his bed again.
“That means it’s time for dinner,” he said, helpfully.
“I’m not hungry,” Minghao lied, more than willing to stay put in the safety of
his cell and not risk running into any kind of trouble. Eighteen months, maybe
less if he got some kind of appeal, and then he would be out. He wasn’t going
to ruin his chances by getting himself into messes.
DK wrinkled his nose. “Starvation isn’t good for you. Come on, the food is
warm, usually.”
Minghao tugged at his sleeves, self-consciously, but gave no further objection
and stuck close to DK’s heels as they walked towards the cafeteria.
He tried his best to ignore those who seemed to recognise him as the new guy,
practically clinging to DK in the line, and not letting himself be separated
even as his cellmate started to move towards a table.
DK dropped his tray of food onto the surface of the table, and Minghao followed
suit, keeping his head bowed and avoiding eye contact with the other two men at
the table.
“This is Minghao,” DK said, gesturing to him although there was no need to. He
could feel them looking. “He’s, uh, well that’s actually all I know about him,
but he’s cute, isn’t he?”
One of the men hummed, a low sound that must have come from the back of his
throat, and Minghao chanced a brief glance upwards. It was enough for him to
catch the man’s eye, and something so simple felt so sinister.
“Woozi,” the man said, instead of anything degrading, and Minghao could have
sighed in relief. He tilted his head to the side, signalling towards the person
sitting beside him. “Seungkwan.”
Woozi seemed smaller, but there was something about the way that he sat and the
way that the other two looked at him that gave Minghao the impression that he
was the leader of whatever little group this was.
He ate without comment, listening to Seungkwan and DK talk excitedly, until
Seungkwan reached over suddenly and Minghao instinctively moved as far away as
he could without falling from his seat.
Woozi raised an eyebrow at him, but Seungkwan didn’t seem to notice, so Minghao
didn’t bother explaining himself.
“They’re monsters,” Seungkwan was saying, running his fingers carefully along
the side of DK’s neck, where the violet marks that might have been hickies but
could have equally been bruises lay. Seungkwan turned to Woozi, smirking. “Get
a bit eager, did we?”
DK blushed, and Woozi only scowled.
“What are you, a vampire? How hard did you even have to bite-”
“That’s enough,” Woozi said, quietly, and it was more than enough to shut
Seungkwan up, confirming Minghao’s theory about their hierarchy.
“Did you meet anyone else, yet?” Seungkwan chirped, directing the question at
Minghao, awful at hiding how desperately he wanted to change the subject but at
least finding an effective way to do it.
Minghao shook his head, and had barely opened his mouth to speak when DK cut
in.
“He just got here, Kwannie, like, just before dinner. He only met me. Oh, and
Wen, I guess.”
“Wen?” Minghao questioned, settling his gaze back on the food in front of him.
DK waved his hand dismissively. “The guard who walked you in. Hyung has all
kinds of deals with him.”
Woozi offered no comment on this, and Minghao didn’t think it was his place to
say anything either.
“It’s a pretty small prison, you know,” Seungkwan piped up again, “there’s only
like a few hundred inmates. I probably know everyone. I can introduce you from
a safe distance, okay?”
Like DK, he accepted Minghao’s shrug in the place of a verbal answer.
“They,” Seungkwan began, pointing with dramatic flair and no hint of discretion
to the table nearest to them, “are the most well-known junkies. I’m basically
certain that they’re all in for possession or dealing, but they kind of keep to
themselves until they need new hits and go grovelling to the big fish.” He
pointed to another table, a little further away, and continued, “They’re, like,
the kids of the place. Dumb college kids, bonding over their dumb university
stunts that got them arrested. It’s a low security place anyway, so they all
get crammed in here, and they’re pretty harmless, except for their egos.”
“Horrendous egos,” DK agreed, shovelling a forkful of food into his mouth.
It went on like this for a while, Seungkwan pointing people out and summing
their group up in sentences like it was a game in high school: those were the
aggressive ones, those were the freaks, those were the people who insisted they
were innocent. DK interjected with an occasional comment, usually a joke, and
Woozi didn’t say a word. When Seungkwan got to the table in the far corner of
the mess hall, the mood changed. It was subtle, but it was there.
“They’re, uh,” Seungkwan paused, as if looking for the right words to explain,
“well, we don’t mess with them, okay?”
“Why not?” Minghao asked, even though he knew that he didn’t want to know the
answer.
Proving his suspicion right, Seungkwan lowered his gaze nervously, and looked
at Woozi for help.
He seemed to get the hint, because he didn’t hesitate in sighing, and
continuing where Seungkwan couldn’t finish. “They’re the worst people in here,”
he said, tone serious, and Minghao didn’t know how to respond. “They’re
killers. Or, S.Coups is. See the one with the short dark hair, sitting furthest
away from us, eating right now?” Woozi didn’t wait for Minghao’s nod in
confirmation that he saw. “He’s a mass murderer. Some other shit too, but they
got him in here for the murder. He’s on a life sentence. He’s killed two of his
cellmates since he’s been here, so now they just leave him alone. Removed any
trace of a second bed, in case a third guy falls onto the side hard enough to
shatter his skull too.”
Minghao shuddered.
“And the tall one, he’s called Mingyu. I don’t know what he did, no one does,
but it was enough to get him put in a maximum security place. He met S.Coups at
court, because they had their trials the same week, but they hit it off I
guess, and Mingyu got transferred here.”
Minghao tried not to notice the tension in DK’s muscles where the man sat next
to him, and made some attempt to ignore the way that Seungkwan was holding onto
his spoon with white knuckles.
“Why don’t they send him somewhere else?” he muttered, not able to help his
wandering over the table in the corner. “If he’s so dangerous, surely they can
just put him in another prison?”
Woozi shook his head, lips pursed. “It isn’t that easy. He has a lot of power,
even though he’s in here now. He was some mafia boss, I think, before he got
arrested. He got ratted out, but he still has all his connections, so he can
get everything he wants.”
“They don’t bother us, though!” Seungkwan said, eerily bubbly. “They don’t
really bother anyone but each other, after they take tax, unless you seek
trouble out on purpose. We live with it.”
Minghao frowned, “Tax? Are we supposed to pay them money? So they don’t kill
us?”
DK coughed. “Something, something like that. It’s not really important. Just
stay on this side of everything, and you’ll be fine.”
Minghao sensed the wave of discomfort that seemed to have settled over the
table, and let the subject drop while they finished their food. It wasn’t until
later, when he was lying on the top bunk, that he even thought about it again.
He could hear voices, from the bottom bunk - DK was the first, along with
Woozi.
“Hyung,” DK gasped out, and Minghao could imagine what they were doing, “we
have to look out for him, please-”
“No.” Woozi’s voice was rough, gravelly, so different and yet somehow similar
to the way it had been earlier.
“He’s so little and delicate, you saw him, he needs us. And I thought, since
Doctor Hong and you have your little agreement, and there’s all those deals
with Wen, maybe you could-”
“I said no, Seokmin. I doubt he’ll even survive when they get their hands on
him.”
Minghao felt ill. He lay there, unmoving and unspeaking, until he heard the
rustle of clothing, and Woozi’s footsteps disappeared down the hallway.
Even then, he waited a little longer, until he was sure that no one else was
around.
“DK?” he whispered, not willing to try out the name that Woozi had used.
Seokmin.
“Yeah?” he grunted. It was scratchy, and Minghao wondered if the muffled sounds
he had heard just minutes earlier had been screams in disguise.
“The tax is physical, isn’t it?”
There was no answer. Minghao tried again, words shaking as they left his lips.
“Am I going to be raped?”
He wasn’t aware that he was even crying until his own choked sob broke the
silence that DK gave. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t stay here, he could
barely even find the Korean words in the back of his mind as he began to curl
in on himself, tucking his knees against his chest like a child rocking to
protect itself from the storm.
“Please, I have to know, I have to-”
“I’m sorry,” DK said under his breath, in the note of a man who had experienced
something terrible, and it was answer enough.
 
~
 
“Dino?”
The cell was dark, and Vernon’s whisper seemed to ring out in the silence.
“Are you awake?”
Chan considered calling back to him. He did, honestly, but Vernon never said
anything when he thought Chan was listening. So many of Vernon’s whispered
confessions, tearful stories, had been shared when Chan was only lying there,
pretending to be asleep, and he knew what to do by now. He kept his breath
steady, and waited.
“It’s my birthday,” Vernon said, but there was something in his tone that made
him sound terrified of the statement.
Chan thought it over, played it again in his mind, compared it to other
stories, and the way that Seungcheol had treated Vernon today.
“I’m eighteen.”
No, Chan thought, that wasn’t true, because Vernon had been sentenced just
under two years ago, and no thinking judge would condemn a seventeen-year-old
to an adult’s prison. Juvenile detention, maybe, like the places Chan had found
himself in when he was younger, but not prison.
He didn’t interrupt, and instead waited for the explanation.
“We made it up, hyung and me, because no one knew my real birthday. He put
something different on the papers, I think, but this is the day I remember. Can
you believe he found me ten years ago?”
Chan could believe it, but he didn’t say so, and he heard Vernon sigh softly.
“It’s like my surname, I guess. I must’ve had another one, before he found me,
right?”
He must have, Chan agreed internally. Neither of them had ever gone into detail
about their relationship before they came here, but Chan knew snippets. Vernon
had been a kid when Seungcheol found him, been raised as a companion for the
man, and known nothing different. It was a twisted kind of story, when Chan
really thought about it, but he had long since learnt not to question it.
“I think I had a sister. I don’t really remember, but I know one of the rooms
on the hallway was pink. That means a girl, doesn’t it?”
Chan thought so too, and he wondered if Vernon would be here if he had grown up
with a sister instead of Seungcheol.
“I could have been a good brother.”
You could have, Chan almost said, but he kept his mouth shut. He could imagine
it; Vernon with a little sister, his arm around her as they walked to school,
promising to protect her from anyone that tried to pick on her, helping her
with her homework, teasing her.
It felt strange, to think of Vernon as anything other than the boy he was now,
but Chan couldn’t help himself. Would he have been naturally clever? Found
himself drawn to maths or music or creative writing? Would he have been like
Chan was, eager to learn and pushing himself, quiet and studious but
consciously more intelligent than everyone around him? Or would he have been
slower, taken his time to understand what was being explained to him, had to
take a step back for a few days before he could return to the work and finally
see the links between the words? Would he have been the boy who never knew the
answer but could admit it with a bright smile, the boy with limited vocabulary
but so much love to give that it didn’t matter?
Vernon had once admitted in a whisper that he’d never been to school, never had
many friends outside of Seungcheol and his associates. There was an element of
grief to such a truth, and Chan mourned secretly for whatever boy Vernon could
have been if he had never met Seungcheol. Maybe he wouldn’t lower his voice
when he was sharing something about himself, maybe he wouldn’t be so afraid
when someone reached towards him, maybe he wouldn’t be in a cage meant for
criminals.
Chan didn’t realise that he had made a sound until Vernon responded.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
He grunted, glad that he at least hadn’t been discovered. “It’s fine. Go to
sleep, Vernon.”
Silence passed, though it was difficult to tell how much of it. One minute,
maybe ten.
“Dino?”
Chan hummed, burying his face in his pillow.
“Will you wish me happy birthday?”
Chan hesitated. Vernon seemed to sense this, because he started up again.
“You don’t, it’s kind of stupid, I-”
“Happy birthday, Hansol-ah.”
He would have been scolded, he knew, if Seungcheol ever heard Chan call Vernon
that, but Seungcheol wasn’t here to hear, and Vernon’s soft murmur of thank you
made it more than worth it.
***** jeonghan *****
Chapter Summary
     i| it’s been two weeks, jeonghan is tired of grieving
     ii| the partial history of yoon jeonghan and various lovers [content
     warning: rape]
     iii| minghao and hansol meet, and what follows
Chapter Notes
     almost two months later!!
     I’m sorry that this took me so long, but the good news is that the
     next chapter shouldn’t take quite as long because exams are over now
     and summer is in a few weeks
     a few notes that weren’t mentioned in the first chapter because I’m a
     div:
     ~ this will mean POV change
     larger spaces between paragraphs will mean a time skip most of the
     time
     I will try to start most graphic scenes with ### but I can’t promise
     that I will remember every time!
     I hope you enjoy the chapter!!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
i.
Jeonghan was bored.
Chan saw it coming, as was one of his many talents. He had learnt early in his
incarceration that good things never happened when Jeonghan was bored, and had
trained himself to recognise the signs before they could escalate into
something that the older man would regret.
He saw it first in the man’s hands. He was writing - maybe a letter, maybe a
memoir, Chan still didn’t know - but eventually ink-smudged fingers dropped the
pen and moved from the paper and tapped irritably at the surface of the table.
Next he saw it in the lines of Jeonghan’s body; the way that he sat, legs
stretched out in front of him and settled in Chan’s lap rather than crossed
beneath the table, posture slanted, jaw tense and eyes half-lidded.
He tried to ignore it, he tried to convince himself that he wouldn’t give into
Jeonghan’s tendencies. He knew better. He flicked his gaze between the man and
the radio, which was playing some mindless pop song that Chan couldn’t deny was
catchy. Another time, he might have kept his attention on the words of the
song, allowed himself to pick the lyrics apart, searched for the bass line and
labelled the key signature - but Jeonghan was bored, which made him restless,
and his agitation bounced off the concrete walls and hit right back at them.
Jeonghan shifted in his seat, tipping his head back in a way that showed his
neck and made him appear asleep. This got Mingyu’s attention, apparently,
because the beast looked up from where his stare was burning holes in Wonwoo’s
head to rest his eyes on the pretty man.
He was pretty, which was probably why S.Coups had wanted him around in the
first place. He had the kind of face that made him look nescient and naive,
while still managing to be so soft and sweet. He was lovely enough to be an
angel, Chan thought, but he reminded himself that Lucifer had been an angel,
and Yoon Jeonghan was genius.
Beautiful, but a genius.
He didn’t doubt that S.Coups knew it too, making it all the more curious that
Jeonghan had been collected as a pretty possession for the man. Vernon hadn’t
been the sharpest knife in the toolbox, so Chan wondered sometimes if S.Coups’
reasoning had been a desire for intellectual company: but one look at their
dynamic was more than enough to prove him wrong.
Mingyu, it seemed, did not care quite so much about Jeonghan’s relationship
with their leader, and instead focussed all of his attention on the column of
Jeonghan’s neck and the irregular bob of his adam’s apple.
If Jeonghan noticed, he made no show of it, but he rarely did not notice. More
likely, he was thinking, searching for something to say, considering which
stone would cause the most ripples when he dropped it in the water.
He raised his head eventually, meeting Mingyu’s eyes with an unsurprising
smirk, but instead of making some crude remark, Jeonghan just stared. The
bruises on the beast’s face were blossoming, and Chan could sense Jeonghan’s
appreciation. He deserved it, they both knew, and there was a macabre
satisfaction in seeing him marked up like this.
The satisfaction, of course, was short lived; it withered and died when Chan
turned his attention to Wonwoo. The beast’s black eye, split lip, and bruised
cheekbone all corresponded in some way to Wonwoo’s own battle wounds, brands of
Mingyu’s frustration. A stretch of violet that looped around the front of
Wonwoo’s neck was more than enough to get the idea across, but they all knew
that Mingyu seldom stopped at enough. A sickening green bruise on Wonwoo’s
temple matched the beast’s cheekbone, though it seemed twice the size, and Chan
couldn’t help himself from letting his eyes stay for a moment too long on the
reopened scar on Wonwoo’s cheek.
“New necklace, Jeon?” was the comment that Jeonghan decided on, and Wonwoo
stiffened where he lay.
He was almost entirely frozen: if not for the slight rise and fall of his
chest, the frantic movement of his eyes and the occasional adjustment of his
head in Mingyu’s lap, Chan might have assumed that was dead too.
Even as he spoke, every part of Wonwoo remained still, other than his lips and
throat. “New bracelet, whore?”
The smirk slipped away, replaced in a fraction of a second by a scowl as
Jeonghan looked down at his own wrist. The ugly strip of yellow there was
without doubt from the brief engagement that Jeonghan had shared with their
leader in the instant before Mingyu was knocked down, making it compatible in
cause with the violet scarf sitting around Wonwoo’s neck.
Jeonghan opened his mouth, to snap back a response, but Chan cut in before he
could.
“Let’s play poker, hyung. We haven’t played in ages.”
Whatever expression had been carved into Jeonghan’s features changed just like
that, the man turning to smile sweetly at Chan, as if suddenly pleased to be
reminded of the boy’s existence.
“That’s because you have been too busy moping to focus on a game.”
Wonwoo bristled, but gave no comment, so Chan tried to disregard it. Jeonghan
pulled a pack of cards from his pocket, which didn’t surprise him enough for
him to dignify it with a remark. It was so cliché for prisoners to play cards -
he couldn’t name a prison-based movie where it didn’t occur - and although
Jeonghan claimed to hate conforming to stereotypes, Chan knew that he adored
poker because he knew that he could win.
He had a knack for cheating, after all.
It was an easy way to distract him; Jeonghan’s addiction to winning made it
straightforward to direct him away from less than favourable conversation
topics, and it was one of the things that Chan played on when he played
peacemaker.
He didn’t pay attention as Jeonghan shuffled the deck, nor as he dealt it, but
he tried to concentrate on his hand and play properly.
The recreation room was busy, which was hardly unusual, but no one strayed too
close to the four of them; Wonwoo and Mingyu taking up an entire couch and
Jeonghan and Chan comfortable at the table closest to the radio. Chan attempted
to keep his mind on the game, but it wandered without his permission, zoning in
on snippets of conversations, latching onto the words that stood out.
The world buzzed around him, and he failed to understand it - how everyone
could be so natural not even two weeks after a boy’s death.
“You know, I don’t even miss him,” Jeonghan was saying, when Chan refixed his
attention on the man, “he wasn’t that special. I can’t believe that he’s still
news.”
Chan blinked, taking a minute to acknowledge the words. Vernon’s death was
still news - at least, according to the hosts of whatever radio show was
playing. It was a tragedy, one was saying, but was it really, the other argued,
he was a criminal, after all.
“I miss him,” he said, before he weighed out the potential reactions to such a
statement.
Jeonghan sighed - not unexpected - and the other two gave no indication that
they had even heard. “You’re soft,” Jeonghan said, like it explained
everything, “you’d miss Wen if he took a three week break.”
“I miss him,” he repeated, surprising even himself with the amount of weight
behind the three words.
And it was true. Most of the things that Chan said were true, as was his
nature, but this was especially true, so true that he could feel it with every
breath. He was still coming to terms with it; even two weeks later, he still
woke up expecting to find the other boy in his bed; he still left parts of his
food untouched in the knowledge that Vernon would have liked to finish it; he
still lay in the darkness, breath steady and eyes open, waiting for the
whisper.
Dino?
Jeonghan had never had such a relationship with the boy, so maybe it was harsh
to criticise him for refusing to grieve, but it wouldn’t have taken too much of
him to at least keep quiet about his lack of remorse.
“It’s just a distant fact, you know? He died, and everyone’s like, wow someone
died, but no one actually misses him.”
“Heartless bitch,” Wonwoo called from where he lay, accompanying it with a
humourless laugh.
It was predictable, but Chan wished nonetheless that Wonwoo hadn’t responded.
His own closeness with Vernon was a poorly kept secret among the group of them,
so it was nothing like uncharacteristic for him to respond to Jeonghan’s
taunting.
He suspected that a reaction from Wonwoo was what Jeonghan had been fishing
for.
“Get over it, kitten,” Jeonghan said, confirming Chan’s conclusion with four
words.
Wonwoo made a sound that could only be described as a growl, and Jeonghan
laughed aloud at the sound. This was how they always were, pushing and pushing
until one of them snapped but couldn’t do anything about it. Mingyu and
Seungcheol hated each other, and never stopped showing it, but they never
touched the other’s property: Jeonghan and Wonwoo were the best examples of
their truce - even if Vernon had been the worst. Without the intervention of a
more powerful force, the two men went at each other’s throats constantly, and
it always ended in a way that no one liked, forcing Chan to step in every damn
time.
“I think that’s enough,” he said, as steady as he could manage. “Hyung, do you
want to play with us?”
Wonwoo huffed. “Jeonghan cheats.”
“He can’t stop thinking about Vernon for long enough to focus on a game,”
Jeonghan said in a stage whisper. “I bet it’s a guilty conscience. Maybe he
feels bad for letting Mingyu-”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Wonwoo was standing. Chan didn’t know when that had happened, but he was closer
than he had been before, fists clenched at his sides, expression dark, lips
pressed into a thin line.
“Kitten’s got claws,” Jeonghan gasped, mockingly, and he looked close to
squealing with glee when Wonwoo made another low sound in the back of his
throat.
If such a sound had been coming, though, it morphed into a shriek of distress
when Wonwoo’s hand shot out, wrapping around the slim column of Jeonghan’s
exposed neck. It was so quick that Chan almost didn’t see it, but he couldn’t
tear his eyes away as Wonwoo slammed Jeonghan into the concrete, holding him up
by his neck.
Kitten was the only word that he managed to choke out, which did little to ease
Wonwoo’s anger.
“Easy,” Chan said, the way he might have to a dog back at his childhood home.
His hand was on Wonwoo’s shoulder before he even evaluated the consequences,
and he couldn’t help himself from saying it again. “Easy.”
This seemed correct, because while Wonwoo didn’t let Jeonghan down, he did
loosen his grip enough to allow for breath.
“Shut the fuck up,” he repeated, slowly and carefully, tone lower than anything
that Chan had ever heard from him before. “One more word about Hansol and I
swear to God I’ll rip your throat out.”
“Easy,” Chan said again, weakly, but this time it had no desirable effect, as
if Wonwoo hadn’t even heard it.
Jeonghan shoved him away, in a feeble attempt to regain at least some of his
dignity after letting himself be threatened by a stick of a man.
“Freak,” he spat, but there was an unmistakable tremor in his voice.
Wonwoo was nothing to be afraid of - even with his advantage of height, he was
skin and bone, mild and silent and sometimes so absorbed in a book that he paid
no attention to their leader. In that moment, though, Chan saw a flash of
something feral in him, something that must have been left over in their
genetic coding from when it was commonplace to lose a loved one every day and
natural to destroy any potential threat to them.
“I fucking dare you.”
Wonwoo was no one. Compared to the things that Chan had faced, the people that
he had met in the past, including S.Coups and Mingyu, he was less than a
person. It was like Vernon’s death had thrown the world off its axis, because
Wonwoo was no one, and the threat wasn’t even aimed at him, but Chan felt the
words vibrating in his bones.
He wished that he could doubt it.
 
 
ii.
Yoon Jeonghan liked to be courted.
It was a pity, really, because his father had always taken him for the courting
type, the man to chase what he wanted, never take no for an answer. He might
have been the final two things - in fact, it was likely that he was - but the
lack of first remained a disappointment.
He was in love with the idea of love, but only in the circumstance in which he
was the one being pursued.
It was the books, his older brother teased, ruffling a hand in Jeonghan’s hair
and tugging the pages from his hands in heathen-like curiosity. They softened
his mind, contorted his masculinity, made him wish for things that men didn’t
wish for - jewels and prizes and gifts of favour.
It was the pressure, his sister might have argued, the insistence of everyone
around him that even as the youngest Jeonghan step up into the virile role. It
reshaped his priorities, pushed at his boundaries, made him into something
decorative - not unlike a diamond, so much pressure upon him that he became
something else entirely.
In actuality, it was neither. His mother knew, his mother always knew, that
some things were simply nature. He was her son, through and through, and his
desire to be the passive one in any romantic advances did little to disprove
it.
The first example came when he was ten; a boy with a gap-toothed smile, hair
pulled into a bun, and a tray of still-warm macarons as he stood outside the
door.
“Choi Minki,” the boy said, bowing ninety degrees before Jeonghan’s brother.
“May I see Jeonghan?”
They were classmates at the private school, Jeonghan a few months older, Ren
twice as energetic. He was enthusiastic where Jeonghan was lethargic, clumsy
where Jeonghan was elegant, and more than happy to be the suitor where Jeonghan
insisted on being the object of admiration.
Jeonghan had to stop himself from rushing to the door, contain his composure,
but he couldn’t help the impossible grin that spread over his face at the sight
of the other boy. They were in love, after all.
It was a liquorice kind of love, sweet and bitter and so intense but somehow
still hollow; though he didn’t know it, then. At ten years old, all Jeonghan
needed to know was that Ren’s laughter filled the room like water, that his
smile was bright and his words were sincere, and that the butterflies in his
stomach soared higher at every compliment that the boy gave him.
“My father is the head chef at a western restaurant,” he explained, pride
evident in his voice as he gestured to the tray of macarons. “He helped me make
them. They’re sweet, just like you, so I thought you might like them.”
Jeonghan giggled at the cheesiness of it, and plucked one from the tray.
“They’re strawberry,” he observed, after swallowing it, and Ren beamed.
“It’s your favourite.”
It was, and a part of Jeonghan squealed at the idea that Ren knew.
“Thank you,” he said, genuinely. Ren’s eyes twinkled.
Everyone claimed firsts, and Ren was Jeonghan’s first everything. First kiss,
first date, first sexual encounter. First love.
“We always remember our first loves,” Jeonghan’s grandmother crowed, and the
fifteen-year-old had to hold in his scoff.
Memory was not the failing aspect.
Jeonghan would not forget the softness of Ren’s lips against his own; nor the
saturated sunlight silhouetting his features when he turned his head to the
side, making sure that his mother wasn’t in the kitchen looking out. He would
not forget the clamminess of Ren’s palms when he pressed against them; nor the
self-satisfaction in his voice when he opened his mouth, ensuring that he
recited Jeonghan’s order perfectly. He would not forget the tentativeness of
Ren’s nips to the skin of his neck as though there was an underlying fear of
causing pain; nor the delicate whispers against his earlobe as Ren’s fingers
wandered, groping with apprehension in an attempt to bring pleasure.
Remembering his first sweetheart, his first example of courtship, was not what
his grandmother should have been concerned about. Perhaps, instead, how easily
Jeonghan replaced him.
 
The last ever example came when he was twenty-two; a man with bleached hair,
more money than Jeonghan’s father, and the insatiable desire to please others.
“Lee Minhyuk,” the man smirked, bowing so low that Jeonghan was afraid he might
snap. “It’s truly a pleasure.”
It was the perfect match, really. Both of them openly gay - much to their
parents’ distaste - both of them dipping too far into scandal; both of them in
need of commitments. That was the point of it, Jeonghan supposed. Tying them to
each other would keep them from ending up in less than respectable company,
because they had each other to stay entertained.
It was smart, in the sense of politics and business, but Jeonghan wouldn’t be
convinced by such a minor amount of effort. He expected to be impressed, and
there was very little that impressed him about a daddy’s boy with a shiny Rolex
watch and no common sense.
Minhyuk managed it, though, burning through stacks of money as he bent to meet
Jeonghan’s every whim.
Difficult was perhaps a harsh word for Jeonghan as partner. He much preferred
the term picky. High maintenance. Endearingly fussy. Minhyuk did it
nonetheless, never falling short of Jeonghan’s expectations, high though they
were.
“You’re up early.”
It hadn’t even taken a year for them to fall into a routine of sorts. Unlike
Jeonghan, Minhyuk was the eldest of his siblings and had inherited his father’s
company. He left for work every morning, trudging into the office usually
before Jeonghan was even awake, and the latter woke up later, working from home
for his brother’s company, doing the jobs that his sister didn’t.
Jeonghan smiled, leaning into the peck on his cheek and the stroke to the small
of his back.
“Am I?”
Of course he was; he made a habit of getting up early to surprise - well,
anyone - when he wanted something from them, and this was no different.
Minhyuk knew this, and instead of answering the question, he chose to comment,
“You’d look better if there wasn’t anything under that apron.”
“You’re a scoundrel,” Jeonghan said, flicking water over his shoulder at the
man. “But do continue, I’m in the mood to be flattered.”
Minhyuk laughed, pressing gentle kisses to the side of Jeonghan’s neck. “You
never cook. What’s the occasion?”
“Occasion?” Jeonghan echoed, attempting his best imitation of innocence. “Maybe
I just want to spend a relaxing day at home with my husband-to-be.”
Arms curled around Jeonghan’s front, pulling him closer to Minhyuk’s body, and
he smirked to himself.
“I have work,” he said, lowly, and Jeonghan sighed.
“Oh, I suppose you do. Get out, then.”
“If I didn’t go to work, I wouldn’t be able to buy you pretty things.”
“If you didn’t go to work, you’d get to see all the pretty things I’m wearing
under the apron.”
“You’re shameless.”
“How unbecoming of me.”
Minhyuk snorted against Jeonghan’s skin. It was a strange sensation, and
Jeonghan had to bite his lip to stifle a giggle at the feeling. He didn’t
bother hiding the gasp when Minhyuk dropped a hand to squeeze at his ass,
though, instead playing it up, making it more theatrical than it had to be.
“What do you really want, my dove?” His breath ghosted over Jeonghan’s ear,
making him shudder, and he could feel Minhyuk’s smirk against his neck.
“What makes you think- oh.”
It occurred to Jeonghan that he could pull away from the hand between his legs,
push Minhyuk to the side and protest that the man not touch him unless he got
what he wanted. The more that he thought about it, however, the less that he
wanted to: instead letting his head fall back against Minhyuk’s shoulder, lips
parted in pleasure as the man palmed at his already half-hard cock through his
clothes.
“What was that?”
“I, Minhyuk.”
“Yes, my dove?”
Jeonghan moaned. Volume was never a problem for them, as a couple - Jeonghan
liked to be loud, and Minhyuk liked to hear him. They really were quite the
match, not that either of them would ever admit to it out loud.
“I, ah, I want the jewellery store, where your watches-”
He cut himself off with a needy whine when Minhyuk pulled his hand away.
“M-minnie, please, I-”
“The whole store?” Minhyuk said, gravely serious.
“Minnie.”
“I’ll buy it for you, dove, I’ll-”
“No.”
It might have been the most coherent thing that he’d said all morning, and he
felt Minhyuk’s body behind him freeze because of it.
“No, Minnie, I don’t want to buy it.”
Minhyuk inhaled sharply. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
The thing about having everything one wanted, Jeonghan’s mother had once told
him, was that one started to crave experiences rather than material things.
Exhilaration couldn’t be bought, but money could do a hell of a lot towards
building the initial adrenaline. He had been nineteen when he started such
adrenaline, cage-diving off the coast of Australia to see sharks, twenty when
he skydived and bungee-jumped, twenty-one when he flew out to Africa with a
friend to climb Kilimanjaro.
His newest interest came around the same time that he met Minhyuk, and the
older man had no sense of how to deny Jeonghan anything that he wanted.
Criminal activity, he called it, tone laced with disapproval and nose wrinkled,
but he participated even so.
Over the last six months, they’d successfully robbed two jewellery stores, guns
in hand and masks in place. It was all Jeonghan, of course - his plan, his
idea, his location. They never took much, they didn’t need it, because it was
the thrill of risking being caught that drove Jeonghan, rather than the desire
for what was actually in the store.
“It’ll be the last one,” Jeonghan promised in a whisper, though it held no
weight. He had said the same thing about the first one, and the second. “Third
time’s the charm, Minhyuk, please.”
The warmth at his back disappeared, and Jeonghan whimpered.
“I’ll never ask for anything else.”
Minhyuk laughed aloud. It was another empty vow, they both knew. The very same
words had been spoken about the rubies when they’d been in India, the
chandelier in New York. One last pretty thing for my pretty dove, Minhyuk had
said then, and continued to buy things anyway.
“I can’t, dove, not again, we almost got caught.”
Jeonghan held in a huff of frustration. They hadn’t been caught, they had
merely passed by a police car. He was still upset over that?
“Minnie-”
“I have to go to work.”
His tone was cold, and Jeonghan sniffed, the first of his tears beginning to
fall.
Minhyuk looked like he wanted to ignore it, but he seemed to be having
difficulty doing so, and he gave in within a matter of minutes, engulfing
Jeonghan in a warm embrace.
“Ah, dove, don’t cry. I’ll think about it.”
“I love you,” Jeonghan wailed, wrapping his arms tightly around his partner and
holding on for dear life. “P-please, please Minnie, I love you, please.”
Minhyuk combed his fingers through dark hair, littering tender kisses along the
back of Jeonghan’s neck. “I know, dove, I know, I love you too. I promise I’ll
think about it.”
Jeonghan smirked to himself, the expression hidden against Minhyuk’s chest as
the man continued to play with his hair and rub gentle circles into his back.
He was soft - it was almost too easy - and his difficulty saying no made him
perfect for Jeonghan.
Perfect match: just as their mothers had cooed.
It took the better part of ten minutes for Minhyuk to peel himself away from
his partner; whispering promises that he’d think about it, that he loved
Jeonghan, that he wanted to make him happy the whole time.
“I have to go to work,” he said again, like he regretted it.
Jeonghan sniffed, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Yah, stop
waiting around, the big boss is needed.” He fit a tremor into his voice, and
tried not to look smug when Minhyuk picked up on it and looked even guiltier.
He gnawed on his lip, before finally cupping Jeonghan’s cheek and kissing his
forehead. “If you really want to, we can do it, alright? This is the last time,
I swear.”
“The last time,” Jeonghan echoed, already thinking about the next one.
“I’ll see you when I get home.”
Jeonghan hummed, satisfied. “I love you, Minnie.”
He was backing away, at the door, by the time he called back, “I love you too,
dove.”
There wasn’t much that impressed Jeonghan about a man who couldn’t say no to a
few tears; but he supposed that in this case he didn’t need to be impressed,
only appeased.
###
The contrast came in prison, after Minhyuk sold him out in return for immunity;
a man with dark hair and eyes darker still, ink painting his skin, euphemistic
blood staining his hands.
“Choi Seungcheol,” his cellmate whispered, shaking in horror as he in turn
shook Jeonghan’s shoulders. “He’s the devil.”
There was no room for courting in such a place, only violence and brutality and
everything else that he’d been afraid of before he even arrived.
There was no attempt at romance, no flirting or dating or gentle touches to
ease him in: only three of Choi Seungcheol’s fingers forced into his mouth, and
the command to suck.
When Jeonghan hesitated, Seungcheol pushed them further into his mouth.
“You get them wet, or you’ll get fucked raw, you got that?”
Like a switch had been flipped, he didn’t delay any further, swirling his
tongue around the digits, coating them in saliva, closing his eyes in
anticipation when Seungcheol removed them. He couldn’t hold in his sob as his
uniform was forced open, his underwear ripped from his legs, all three fingers
pushed inside him at once. Spit was something, but it certainly wasn’t anything
like lubricant, and Jeonghan thought he could feel his skin tearing. There was
no coming back from this, no way to wash his hands of it.
He had wanted experiences, and experiences he got.
He fought even though he knew that it was of no use, kicked feebly at
Seungcheol’s shoulders, tried to squirm away from his touch.
Just go limp, his cellmate had advised, smiling like a madman, just stay still
until he’s done and he won’t come back.
He couldn’t, though. He couldn’t force himself to stay still and pliant. He
couldn’t find a place inside himself to retreat to. He couldn’t stop crying.
It burned when Choi Seungcheol pushed inside him, merciless and unforgiving. He
flipped Jeonghan onto his back, bent his legs and pushed them against his
chest.
Monster, Jeonghan might have said, between sobs and screams and gasps for air,
when Seungcheol pulled out, only to slam back inside him to the hilt. Monster
monster monster.
Choi Seungcheol grunted when he came. It reminded Jeonghan of a pig, though he
didn’t dare say it. He was too wrecked to move, too defeated to push Seungcheol
away when the man leant in to bite at his neck. Whatever pain he might have
felt was reduced a dull throb, nothing compared to the tightness in his chest.
“You’re mine,” Seungcheol said, voice gruff, and in the moment Jeonghan didn’t
know what it was supposed to mean.
Perhaps it was best that he didn’t know; he had been promised that it would be
the second night and no others, after all. Perhaps if he had known, he wouldn’t
have tried so hard to pick himself back up.
“So pretty,” Seungcheol said, and if Jeonghan didn’t know any better he would
have described it as tender. “So pretty.”
Seungcheol left sometime after that, cock tucked back in his pants and uniform
zipped back up. Jeonghan just lay there, in too much pain to even curl in on
himself and cry. He didn’t sleep, not for a fraction of a second, and instead
spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, replaying the scene over
and over and over again.
To his credit, Jeonghan didn’t vomit until the morning after, when he was
cleaning the evidence of the battle from his body in the showers. Anyone would
have found it difficult not to; the dried cum alone was disgusting, and the
blood was an added horror. Maybe the people in the prison had become numb to
it, learnt to ignore the barbarity of it all, because not one of them stopped
to be appalled. They simply looked on, then continued moving, accepting that it
was neither their problem nor their place to intervene.
The absolute worst thing, he would tell anyone who asked, was the nauseating
blind panic he felt as he was pulled in Choi Seungcheol’s lap at a breakfast
table. No one moved to help him, no one spoke up against it; they sank lower in
their chairs at the tables furthest away, relieved that it wasn’t them.
The boy to Seungcheol’s left offered a weak objection of hyung, but didn’t
follow it up with any kind of argument, and the other two men at the table only
stiffened and stared.
“Is this necessary?” the boy to Seungcheol’s left said, brow furrowed, lips
curled in distaste.
Seungcheol smirked, and tugged on Jeonghan’s hair. “What? You don’t think he’s
pretty? Jeon, isn’t he pretty?”
“Yes, hyung,” Jeon said, not looking up from his breakfast.
“Relax, angel,” Seungcheol murmured, teeth grazing Jeonghan’s ear and one hand
finding his thigh. “Be good, and I’ll be good to you, yes?”
“Hyung,” the boy to Seungcheol’s left said, and Seungcheol growled.
“Hansol-ah, whatever you’re about to say, keep it to yourself and eat your
breakfast.”
The boy, Hansol, looked like he wanted to speak anyway - but he seemed to think
the better of it, and returned his attention to his food.
“Choi Vernon,” Vernon - Hansol? - said later, materialising next to Jeonghan on
the exercise yard. If he still had it in him to be surprised, he would have
been. “Hyung and I-” he cut himself off, reconsidering whatever he was going to
say. “I’m sorry that he took you,” he tried again, quieter, “I would have
stopped him, if I knew.”
Jeonghan didn’t know what to say to that, so he let out a barely audible
whisper of, “Yoon Jeonghan.”
This was acceptable, it seemed, because Vernon nodded and continued. “The tall
one, that’s Kim Mingyu. Hyung won’t tell me what he did, but it was really
awful, I think. And Wonwoo - Jeon Wonwoo - is harmless. Mingyu hurts him.”
Jeonghan hummed, hearing Vernon’s words but not really listening.
“Hyung’s a good man,” he said, after something else, and Jeonghan burst into
violent laughter.
He had only known Choi Seungcheol for a day, but he knew that his cellmate had
been right - the man was the devil.
“Your hyung wouldn’t know goodness if it struck him upside the head and pushed
him to his knees.”
Vernon dropped his head, in something like shame or disappointment, and
Jeonghan almost felt guilty. Almost.
“You’ll change your mind,” he whispered, as if he was talking to himself. “The
grey and the bars and the psychiatrist chats, it makes people go crazy if
they’re not already. You’ll change your mind.”
Jeonghan didn’t stop laughing, manic and monstrous and something from a mad
house, but maybe he should have, because Vernon was right.
Within three months, Jeonghan had convinced himself that he was in love with
Seungcheol. It was the only way to stay sane: the man wouldn’t stop raping him
if he begged, so maybe it was better to pretend that he wanted it. That he
enjoyed it. That Seungcheol loved him.
The more he told himself, the more he believed it - the easier it became to
block Seungcheol out when he reminded Jeonghan that he was a whore.
I love him, Jeonghan might have said, seated between Vernon’s legs on the floor
as the boy plaited his hair. His hands stilled for a second that Mingyu and
Seungcheol couldn’t have detected, but that still managed to convey his pity.
From the other side of the room, Wonwoo looked up from his book and smiled
sadly at him.
“I love him too,” Vernon said, loudly, but perhaps all three of them were
thinking the same thing.
Monster monster monster.
 
 
iii.
The timing of it all seemed inconsistent. Minghao’s trial and conviction had
gone by in a blur, the journey on the bus was all too short, and his first day
- or, rather, afternoon - had blown by as if it were winged.
Then, to contrast, the night had gone in slow motion. Even when Minghao closed
his eyes, willed himself to sleep, he opened them not ten minutes later,
trembling in panic and reluctance to let the morning come any faster than it
had to.
Instead of allowing himself the mercy of sleep, he stayed awake for most of the
night - only slipping into unconsciousness for minutes at a time when his
eyelids drooped too low.
When the sun did come back up, it felt surreal. The dawn light filtered through
the thin strip of window that sat high on the wall, parallel to the ceiling;
but there was no sound. No irritating alarm, no voices from the apartment next
door, no gentle humming from Hoshi as he bumbled around the flat as quietly as
he could.
Not even a single birdsong.
It was a different world here, he supposed, and he forced himself to sit up on
the mattress. He only had to last eighteen months; eighteen months. He repeated
it in his head like a mantra. Maybe it would be even less, if he could get
parole.
It would be okay, he wanted to believe, but really he’d never been so terrified
in his life. Fear thrummed in his veins like it belonged there - like he’d die
without it, and maybe he would. It was the only thing keeping his heart going,
after all. He could feel his whole body shaking with it, from his fingertips to
his toes, and he had no idea how to make it stop.
If he reached up a hand, he would be able to touch the concrete ceiling. It
wasn’t low enough for him to hit his head, which he supposed was a saving
grace.
Even from little, Minghao had never been good in enclosed spaces. He liked to
be free to move, free to swing his arms and spin and not be afraid that he’d
hit a wall. He wasn’t meant to be caged in, especially not like this. He wasn’t
a criminal, he was hardly dangerous, it had been a misunderstanding - he didn’t
belong here, he had to get out, he had to get out.
“Minghao? Are you okay? You look a bit pale.”
Minghao was not okay, but he nodded, watching as the curiously concerned
expression on his cellmate’s face slipped away just like that.
“Well, it’s breakfast soon, and then showers and washing up and stuff, and then
you’ll get put on a job.”
The way that DK said shower was careful, like he was frightened of the very
word, and it didn’t take Minghao long to figure out why. He hadn’t asked any
further about the tax last night, not after DK confirmed that it was physical,
but he suspected something about the showers.
It had been a joke, when he was in school: dropping the soap in prison, the
hilarity of someone locked behind bars being violated.
Somehow, it wasn’t funny now.
“Will it, will they-”
“I don’t know,” DK admitted in a tiny voice, before he even formed the words,
“it was, for me. But for Seungkwan it was later.”
Minghao didn’t know which was worse.
“Just don’t think about it, okay? It’ll be over soon anyway, and then hyung
will look after you.”
He didn’t protest, couldn’t find it in himself to announce that he had heard
Woozi flat-out refuse to look after him last night, and instead matched DK’s
shaky smile with an uncertain one of his own.
“Okay,” he thought he said, but it might have stayed curled up in his tongue.
It occurred to Minghao, eating breakfast next to DK and opposite Seungkwan, how
profoundly positive they were. Even when Woozi grumbled about the food quality,
called the coffee shit and complained about the jobs they had to do, they had
responses for everything.
At least it’s warm, seemed to be the favourite, for both the food and the
coffee, followed by, keeps everyone busy, though.
He was content just to listen, until Seungkwan turned to him with a smile that
looked all too sweet and seemed sinister for it.
“Are you okay?” he asked, tone far too understanding for someone that Minghao
had barely spoken to, and he wondered if DK had already told him about last
night.
“Fine, thank you,” he managed through gritted teeth, gripping his spoon so
tightly that he wondered if it would snap.
Seungkwan wasn’t oblivious to this, and lowered his gaze as if in apology. “DK
told you, then.”
He didn’t need to validate it for the other inmate to know that he was right.
“Good,” Woozi said, entirely unbothered, “now you know. Don’t fight it too
much. I had to take DK to get stitches.”
Minghao wished that he could brush it off as a joke. He wished that he could
doubt it all for a moment; that they were simply putting on an act, scaring the
new guy; that the men that Woozi had told him about yesterday were hardly even
dangerous. If there had been any sliver of hope, it was snuffed out like a
candle just like that as DK stiffened beside him, hanging his head as if it was
instinct.
“Minghao, are you sure that you’re okay? You don’t look very well.”
Stitches. How hard did someone have to be hit to need stitches? He’d seen a
girl need them, once; she had been hit in the mouth with a swing at the park
and cut her lip open. It had looked like it hurt - there had been so much
blood. Minghao was beginning to feel sicker by the second.
He didn’t belong here. He didn’t belong here. He had to get out, he had to get
out, he had to-
“Kid, you’re shaking.”
Minghao wanted to wake up. He wanted to wake up and be at Hoshi’s place, see
the familiar gaudy orange of his living room walls, feel the uncomfortable
crick in his neck where he’d slept on the couch at an angle. He would even take
the apartment, the sheets smelling like alcohol and too-strong soap, his
roommate insisting to their landlord over and over that they just needed
another day. He swore that he would never complain again, never, never, he just
needed to wake up.
Everything in his being was screaming for him to escape. But he couldn’t, of
course he couldn’t. This was a prison, it was designed to prevent escape. This
was a prison. Where he was going to stay for eighteen months. Where he was
going to be raped by a gang leader.
God, he was going to be sick.
DK touched his shoulder. “Hey, you look like you’re-”
“Going to be sick,” Minghao gasped out, cutting off whatever DK had been about
to say.
He scrambled to stand up so quickly that he hit his knees on the underside of
the table. He held his arm over his mouth as he sprinted in a direction that he
hoped would lead to a bathroom.
He managed to stumble through the marked door, though he didn’t make it all the
way to a toilet before his legs gave out and his stomach emptied its contents
onto the tile in front of him. It was vile, and he hugged his arms around
himself as he heaved, though it did little to stop anything. He continued to
retch for a minute that felt far too long, even when nothing was coming up,
until it stopped and he sat up, spit dribbling from his lips.
“Are you okay?”
Minghao squawked in distress, leaping to his feet. He wished that people would
stop asking him that.
“Fine,” he rasped, surprising even himself with how rough his voice sounded.
“I’m fine.”
The stranger didn’t look like he could be much older than Minghao was, soft
features twisted in what seemed to be apprehension. The uniform labelled him as
a prisoner - not that looked old enough to be anything but - and Minghao
assumed that he must have been part of the dumb college kids group that
Seungkwan had pointed out to him yesterday.
“Okay,” said the boy, quietly. “You’re going to have to tell someone about
that.”
He punctuated the word that with a very pointed look at the vomit on the tile,
and Minghao scrunched up his face before he realised that it probably wasn’t an
acceptable reaction.
More than offense, though, the boy seemed to find amusement in the expression.
“I’m serious, you could have a bug. It’s a small place, it’ll travel.”
“It’s not a bug,” he said, considering telling him the truth. If everyone in
this place suffered through the same thing, maybe he’d get compassion instead
of ridicule.
The boy wrinkled his nose. “Is it food poisoning? That’s even worse, you should
talk to the warden, that could-”
“Tax,” Minghao snapped, if only because he didn’t want the boy to keep talking.
The boy’s eyes widened in understanding, and Minghao clenched his jaw. There’s
that compassion.
“Oh,” he said, and for a minute it was all that he said. Then, much softer,
“Does it hurt? Do you want me to take you to the infirmary?”
Minghao stared at the boy. The boy stared back, the kind of stare that Minghao
felt somewhere in his soul. He shifted his weight on his feet and pulled his
eyes away.
“It didn’t happen yet,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Someone just told me about it and it, it’s just set in. In my head.” He
laughed bitterly. “Guess my body doesn’t approve.”
“You’ll be okay,” the boy muttered, “it’ll be okay, I promise.”
Minghao hated that word, he thought. Okay.
“I promise,” he said again, and something inside Minghao lurched.
He was so young, so trusting - he didn’t even know Minghao, didn’t know whether
or not he was a good person, what he had done to get here. It was absurd, the
amount of sympathy that he was so willing to give.
As much as he hated to admit it, he would never do the same for a stranger:
much less a criminal.
Minghao realised with a startling certainty that whatever was going to happen
to him had probably happened to the stranger as well, and he felt abruptly
guilty.
He didn’t apologise, though, because he doubted that it would make anything any
better. Instead, he said in a low voice, “Minghao.”
A ghost of a smile crossed onto the boy’s face. “Vernon.”
 
~
 
“Are you even listening?” Jeonghan asked, waving a hand in front of Hansol’s
face.
He blinked. “You have my undivided attention,” he said, not entirely sure what
they were talking about, and he looked back down at the sheet in his hands.
Jeonghan frowned, “You’ve been folding the same sheet for five minutes.”
The worry was evident in everything - his face, his voice - and another time,
Hansol would have revelled in the fact that Jeonghan cared enough about him to
be concerned. Now, though, he was at metaphorical crossroads, and the long-
haired man was hardly a trustworthy confidant. No one seemed to know anymore
whether he was playing lovesick puppy for Seungcheol’s sake, or whether the
grey walls and psychiatrist talks had really driven him to that point.
So Hansol shrugged, and finally finished folding the white cloth in his hands,
before picking up a new one. “I like to be thorough.”
He pretended not to notice Wonwoo listening in, from the other end of the
bench; pretended not to see the look that Jeonghan gave him, the raised eyebrow
in response.
Seungcheol didn’t like Wonwoo. He didn’t hide it well, Hansol thought; he
didn’t hide it at all. There were a number of contributing factors that came to
mind, when Hansol considered his reasoning, but this was one of the prominent
ones.
Wonwoo and Jeonghan’s relationship was, for lack of a better word, intriguing.
They weren’t friends - they couldn’t speak ten words to each other without the
conversation spiralling into cheap and petty verbal attacks, let alone talk for
long enough to get along - but they weren’t enemies, either. Even with all the
malicious attempts, all the physical encounters, all the times that they ended
up on either side of Dino as he pulled them apart: there was some understanding
there that made them seem like allies. Unlikely allies, but allies nonetheless,
united against a common enemy.
The enemy, of course, being Seungcheol-and-Mingyu. One word.
They communicated in subtleties unless they were fighting - subtleties like a
slick movement of the eyes, a slight tilt of the head, a sudden stillness of
the fingers. A pointed look, a raised eyebrow. Things that men like Seungcheol
and Mingyu were too slow to catch, things that boys like Hansol and Dino were
too sheltered to properly decipher.
“You shouldn’t have skipped breakfast,” Jeonghan commented, and Hansol wondered
how he could have gotten it from a single raised eyebrow. “Kitten’s not
sleeping well either, but at least he ate.” He lowered his voice, even though
there was no one who could be listening in. “He’s getting new pills in soon,
was it a nightmare?”
Hansol couldn’t bring his mouth to form the word no. “I have to ask you
something, but you can’t tell hyung.”
He regretted the words as soon as they left his lips, but they were out there
now, hanging in the air like poisonous gas.
Jeonghan opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it - somewhat resembling
a fish. After a glance over Hansol’s shoulder, to where Wonwoo stood
motionless, he seemed to decide what he wanted to say.
“Right,” he said. He could not have sounded less confident in such a word. “Of
course. What is it?”
Hansol weighed his options. If he didn’t ask the question now, Jeonghan could
get annoyed and tell Seungcheol that he had intended to ask something in
secret. If he did, and Jeonghan didn’t like it, Jeonghan could get annoyed and
tell Seungcheol everything.
He had nothing to lose, he supposed.
“Did it hurt?” he blurted out, eventually.
Jeonghan grinned, “When I fell from Heaven?”
“When hyung raped you.”
Hansol didn’t know what he expected. A gasp, maybe. A shriek.
Certainly not the strike to his face, followed immediately by, “Oh my God.”
He cradled his cheek, too stunned to say anything as Jeonghan fussed over him
and apologised.
“Oh, God, Vernon, does it hurt? I’m so sorry, please, please don’t tell Cheol.
I didn’t mean to, oh, he’s going to kill me.”
“Shut up,” Wonwoo snapped. “Christ, calm down. Hansol won’t say anything.”
“I won’t say anything,” Hansol echoed, unsure of what else he could possibly
say to reassure him. “I didn’t mean to upset you, I just, I was just thinking
about it. There’s a new guy, I met this morning. He was so scared, he vomited,
all over the floor, and, and-”
Jeonghan made a sound in the back of his throat. “This sounds an awful lot like
the Dino story.”
The Dino story, which they hadn’t even talked about since it had occurred,
consisted mainly of Hansol getting a new cellmate, with a brain that worked at
a hundred miles an hour, who held unmatched fear behind his eyes.
Hansol was soft - and managed to avoid showering for three days to hide the
hand-shaped bruises that covered him, after he asked for the boy with a high-
functioning mind and a low tolerance for pain to be spared from the tax that
Seungcheol was so fond of.
But it worked, he had said, with an indescribable smile and a self-disgust in
his voice, when Wonwoo accused him of using himself as a bartering tool.
“He was so scared,” Hansol repeated, and Jeonghan and Wonwoo looked at each
other.
He tried to discern what their silent conversation consisted of, but he didn’t
figure anything out, until Jeonghan turned back to him.
“It hurt,” he said, due to or despite Wonwoo’s cold glare. He spoke it like the
very admission demeaned him, like he was at fault, like he was ashamed of it.
Hansol supposed, in some twisted way, that such an answer was their permission,
their approval, their blessing - if any of those words were appropriate for the
circumstance. They wouldn’t stand up for him, especially not against
Seungcheol; but they wouldn’t stop him from asking at least.
He supposed that it was all that he could ask for.
 
It was hours later when he finally got chance to ask, and anticipation was
radiating from the other two in waves. Hansol didn’t know if they were nervous
for him, or simply bored of everything else and curious about the response, but
it only served to enhance his anxiety.
“Hyung,” he said, when they were sitting around a table in the rec room, and
out of the corner of his eye he saw Wonwoo tense up like he did when Mingyu was
about to hit him.
Seungcheol looked up from his cards and raised his eyebrows, a signal for
Hansol to go on, before turning his attention back to the game he was playing
with Jeonghan.
“There’s a new guy, r-right? A bit taller than me, maybe, I think, colourful
hair-”
“Xu Minghao,” he confirmed, without any further description needed, “Chinese,
twenty-one, probably a dancer.”
Hansol nodded. That sounded about right. “I was, uh, I was thinking, about,
about, maybe you could not take tax from him?”
It wasn’t a question, not really, but with the upwards intonation it was close
enough, and the only sound that followed was the rest of the group collectively
taking a breath. Jeonghan and Mingyu stopped bickering about whatever against-
the-rules stunt Jeonghan had performed in their game, and Dino cut off where he
was explaining some kind of movie franchise to Wonwoo.
Jeonghan’s hands froze. Wonwoo’s eye twitched.
No one spoke - as if they couldn’t bear to, lest they break through thin ice -
and Hansol wasn’t even sure if all of them were breathing.
For almost a full minute, Seungcheol didn’t say anything. He seemed to revel in
the silence, seemed to hold pride in the idea that they were all so afraid of
him that they didn’t dare speak.
It wasn’t even a minute, but Hansol felt like he had aged days when Seungcheol
finally opened his mouth.
“Does he have a disease, Hansol?”
He swallowed around nothing. “No, hyung, but-”
“Ah, you want Mingyu to take him? You want him to be in pain? Has he offended
you, Hansol?”
“No, no, hyung, I just-”
“Dino is no longer enough for you, then?”
The impatience in Seungcheol’s tone made Hansol’s stomach churn. He hung his
head, eyes fixed on the edge of the table, and chewed on his tongue. He
shouldn’t have asked, not in a situation like this: Seungcheol didn’t like to
appear weak, especially not in front of Mingyu, and here Hansol was, playing on
his soft spot to ask him to do just that. He shouldn’t have even thought about
asking, he knew Seungcheol, he should have known.
“Hansol,” Seungcheol said, coolly, and the voice alone was enough to make him
want to cry. “Hansol, look at me.”
He obeyed, the rest of his body stationary as he raised his head, not quite
managing to lock eyes with the elder. He winced but didn’t move when Seungcheol
reached over to cup his cheek, and he didn’t miss the flicker of darkness in
Wonwoo’s eyes.
Seungcheol sighed. “Have I ever hit you, Hansol-ah?”
Trick question, Hansol thought, but would never be so bold as to say aloud.
Never, never, was the answer, but such a word didn’t account for bruising or
biting, the harsh tugs to his hair or at his pants.
“No, hyung,” he said.
“No,” Seungcheol reiterated, “never. I hate it when you act like this.”
He didn’t specify, but Hansol was sure that everyone at the table knew what he
meant nonetheless. Seungcheol liked people to be afraid of him - he thrived on
their terror - but his and Hansol’s relationship wasn’t like that. They were
something like equals, not quite but close, and Seungcheol had never enjoyed
any blatant displays of fear from him.
“Why do you want the Chinese boy?”
I want to save him from you. He has no one to protect him. He’s afraid of his
own shadow.
Hansol swallowed again. “He’s pretty,” he said, voice cracking.
Seungcheol leant back in his chair. “That’s not all.”
He was right, he often was, but when Hansol made no effort to revise the
statement, he slammed his hand on the table to get his attention. The sound
made all of them flinch - even Mingyu, who had until then been looking entirely
unbothered by the conversation - and Hansol pretended not to see the corner of
Jeonghan’s lips twitch or the muscle in Wonwoo’s lower jaw jump.
“Why don’t you talk to me? I’m asking you! You tell the others, huh? Everyone
knows your secrets but me? Have you forgotten who-”
“He’s pretty,” Hansol whimpered desperately, eyes squeezed shut in an attempt
to block the tears that were welling up in his eyes.
Other than the movement of his lips, Hansol stayed completely still, as if the
slightest motion could set Seungcheol off further. There were two ways that
this could go, really. On the side of optimism, Hansol had interrupted a flow
of words that would have otherwise only riled Seungcheol up even more - but on
the side of reality, it was unlikely that the man would take kindly to being
interrupted by the very person he was upset with.
It was something of a miracle that Hansol seemed feeble to Seungcheol in that
moment, enough to act as some sort of reminder of his vulnerability. His
expression softened, and he looked like a different man as he relaxed his
posture again.
He wasn’t as volatile as Mingyu, nor as intense at his extremes, but Seungcheol
was far more capable of slaughtering everyone in the room than Mingyu would
ever be, so the unpredictability made him terrifying.
“Yes, fine, you can have him. I’ll get he and Dino to switch cells, alright?
But you better use this one, Hansol. I’m not going to keep getting you toys if
you’re not going to play with them.”
Hansol did not say human beings are not toys. He did not say you can’t treat
people this way. He bowed his head in submission, and muttered a weak, “Yes,
hyung.”
“We’re going to talk about this.”
“Yes, hyung,” said Hansol, although they all knew that it hadn’t been anything
like a question.
The chatter picked up again gradually, Jeonghan the first one to deem the
conversation officially over and returning to the card game. Hansol tried not
to jerk away as he felt Seungcheol’s hand slip down to his thigh, squeezing it.
A warning, a reminder of his place, a promise that something would come in
retribution for the conversation today - it was one of them, if not all, and
Hansol didn’t know which was worse.
 
~
 
There were too many things in the world that Wonwoo was afraid of.
It was a relatively new thing, the fearing his own shadow and every sound that
went bump in the night, but he had taken to it quite well in his time before
prison. If anything, it made the movement from the outside world to this place
easier: he already knew to be alert at all times, even though it didn’t help
him much in the end.
It was the paranoia that drew his attention to approaching footsteps, tonight,
and he lay still on his side, marking his place in the library book by dog-
earing the page and closing it over. They weren’t Mingyu’s heavy-footed
strides: which, on one hand, meant that it couldn’t possibly him - but, on the
other, meant that it could be literally anyone else. Hansol’s steps were
cautious, and Dino’s were lighter still. Jeonghan would call out if he was
visiting, which left three options.
S.Coups - he’d still be smouldering after Hansol’s outburst this afternoon, and
there was no doubt that he’d blame Wonwoo for putting the idea in his head.
He’d beat Wonwoo around a bit, remind him of his place, but keep it discreet so
as not to alert Mingyu to what had happened. When the monster asked, later,
Wonwoo would say that he whacked his stomach when getting up from the table,
and the monster would be satisfied with this.
Wen - he’d be bringing more sleeping pills, he never came to Wonwoo for
anything else, and they had run out a few days ago. He’d ask for something in
return for the smuggling, if he’d had a particularly frustrating day, and
Wonwoo might not like it but he needed those pills like he needed air.
The idea that it would be a stranger was unlikely, but still possible. A
different guard, maybe, or another inmate come to ask about something. It was
perhaps the worst of the three, because the others were at least foreseeable.
He had stopped wishing a long time ago for the warden to appear at his cell one
day and announce his innocence, and had since then memorised the routine and
learnt to appreciate predictability.
Other inmates with indistinguishable footsteps threatened the routine that
Wonwoo had worked so hard to perfect.
“Jeon,” said their leader’s voice, and Wonwoo was glad for the lack of
surprise.
He needed to get better at recognising Seungcheol’s movement.
He remained still, as if pretending to be asleep would deter the man. It
wouldn’t, Wonwoo knew, but it was worth the try anyway.
The footsteps grew louder, and so did the voice when he repeated, “Jeon.”
Wonwoo had barely even rolled over before a hand was fisted in his hair,
yanking him upright and out of bed. He made a sound of anguish but didn’t fight
back - it was only more trouble than he needed, Seungcheol would always win in
the end.
He wheezed as his front hit the metal frame of the bed, and fell to the ground
with little resistance, offering no more than a grunt when Seungcheol’s foot
pressed down hard against his ribs.
“He’s pretty,” Seungcheol drawled, pressing his foot down harder and making
Wonwoo croak out a plea. “You encouraged him, Kitten?”
He knew better than to talk back. When he closed his eyes, he swore he could
hear the bones beginning to crack under the pressure.
“You give Mingyu trouble, and now you encourage my boy to give me trouble?
You’re on thin ice, Kitten, very thin. We wouldn’t want your brother to have
another accident, would we?”
Wonwoo stopped squirming, frozen like a deer in the headlights. His brother. He
had never forgotten about that, but he had tried to imagine that it wouldn’t
happen again - and now here Seungcheol was, making the same threat that he had
the first time.
He knew better than to talk back, but now he couldn’t stop himself, apologies
and pleas for mercy spilling from his lips like prayers.
“It won’t happen again, never, never again, hyung, I swear, I won’t let it
happen again, I swear-”
Seungcheol sneered, “The grovelling is getting old quickly, Jeon. Next time you
might not get so far.”
The pressure against his ribs was removed, though, and Wonwoo exhaled shakily.
“It won’t happen again, hyung,” he whispered, but Seungcheol was already
halfway out of the cell.
He lay there until the footsteps faded, listening for any kind of pattern - but
it was difficult, Seungcheol walked so deliberately that there were no distinct
details for Wonwoo to latch onto. He wondered if it was on purpose: he wouldn’t
put it past the man to make even his walking pattern as generic as possible.
When Wonwoo was certain that there was no risk of the man returning, he forced
himself to his feet and climbed back into bed. He’d look for bruises tomorrow,
he promised himself, and although there was no chance of him falling asleep
like this, he lay back on his side and picked up his book again.
If he was lucky, he could finish the chapter before Mingyu got back.
He was rarely ever lucky.
Chapter End Notes
     this chapter didn’t really turn out the way I wanted, especially in
     regards to the dialogue, but I spent so much time rewriting different
     parts of it that I eventually just decided to put this final version
     up!
     idk it came across as well as I intended, but the inconsistency with
     seungcheol not leaving wonwoo be is due to mingyu, chan and
     especially hansol’s ignorance to what’s actually going on with them,
     if that makes any sense
     ofc this is unbeta’d so if you spot any spelling/grammatical errors
     feel free to let me know
     as always, thank you for reading, hopefully the next chapter will be
     up within less than two months!! please comment to tell me what you
     liked/what you want to see with other chars/what you think could be
     better!
     -dan xx
     OCTOBER EDIT: I know that it’s been forever without any sign of an
     update, but I want to assure anyone who’s still interested in reading
     that I am writing still! I didn’t want to add a chapter as an
     author’s note to make excuses, so I’m just going to take this down
     when the next chapter is up, but I promise it is in progress. My
     motivation to write these past few months has been unfortunately low,
     but I am getting there! -dan xx
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