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Chapter Text

Jisung lay curled against Minho in the quiet darkness, the steady rhythm of his breathing a balm against the twisting labyrinth of thoughts that wound through his mind. He traced the curve of Minho’s shoulder with a fingertip, marvelling at the ease in his breathing, the rise and fall of his body like it had never known the weight of the world. How did I get here? he thought, disbelief threading through awe. How did I get so lucky?

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Minho shifted slightly, murmuring in his sleep, and Jisung felt a small smile tug at his lips. He pressed a soft kiss to Minho’s temple, then closed his eyes, letting the warmth of the moment wash over him. And then, as he fell asleep, a strange, dizzying sensation gripped him, slow and infinite, as though the bed beneath him had given way entirely.

Falling, falling, falling…

The darkness behind his eyelids began to twist. Shapes and sounds from long ago seeped in, the first notes of a symphony he had tried to forget. The smell of smoke and wet earth. The echo of shouting. The taste of fear, sharp and metallic.

And just like that, he was somewhere else entirely.

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart. Until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

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Jisung was an intense child, to the point that some found him off putting. The way his eyes seemed to bore into anyone who caught his attention, the way reality narrowed to a single point when he was caught in concentration, the sly, almost fiendish grin that would creep across his face at unexpected moments.

He’d overheard a teacher once call him unnerving, and while his friends had been offended on his behalf, Jisung had felt a thrill go through him. He didn’t mind being different, as long as he was noticed.

His father was volatile, his temper short and his expectations impossibly high. The death of Jisung’s mother had changed him, or so people said, but Jisung couldn’t remember a time before her absence. All he knew was the cold, unyielding man who could never be satisfied.

When he was young, Jisung wasn’t hit or kicked, although that would come later, instead he was deprived. Whether his father thought this a gentler form of discipline, Jisung couldn’t say. All he knew was that he would have preferred the sharp clarity of pain over the suffocating nothingness.

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Jisung sat perfectly upright at the dinner table, his school uniform crisp and spotless, the tie lying straight against his chest. His hands were folded neatly in front of him, and he breathed slowly, deliberately, trying to keep the rising panic at bay. In the kitchen, his father was raging down the phone, sharp and furious. Jisung felt the familiar pulse of dread. He focused on the rhythm of his breathing, on his posture, on the small sip of water he took, careful not to make a sound.

His hand shook as he returned the water glass to the table and tried to convince himself that everything was fine. And then, the shout came again, louder this time, a rolling thunder of anger that made his stomach twist. Jisung flinched, the glass trembling in his hand before tipping. Water spilled across the table, soaking the cloth, the puddle spreading faster than he could blink. 

Horrified, he pressed his sleeve to the mess, frantic, his small hands smearing the water in a desperate attempt to erase the evidence. His eyes flicked between the table and the doorway, praying, calculating. Maybe, just maybe, if he was fast enough, his father wouldn’t notice.

But as was often the case, the universe was against him.

The phone was slammed down. Heavy footsteps thudded across the floor, and then the door burst open. His father’s face was flushed, veins standing out at his temples, eyes wild with anger. The volume of his voice filled the room, a torrent of hatred.

“You worthless, lazy little shit. Look at this! You can’t do anything right! God forbid you do a single thing properly without screwing it up!” He shouted, spit flying. 

Jisung shrank under the onslaught. Each word landed with a sharpness that made his chest ache. It wasn’t just the words themselves, it was the weight behind them, the way his father’s fury had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the day’s frustrations. A man taking out his bad day on a small, helpless boy, on someone he could dominate without fear of retaliation.

Jisung felt the old familiar knot of fear coil in his stomach. His hands shook as he tried to mop at the table again. He wasn’t surprised. Not really. This was nothing new. He had lived through it for years, had grown accustomed to the cruelty, the indiscriminate rage. And yet… there was a hollow ache that never dulled, a tired, quiet sadness that settled in his chest every time the door opened and his father loomed in the frame.

“You can’t even be reliable for five minutes!” his father roared, grabbing Jisung roughly by the arm. He went rigid, tried to draw himself smaller, but the hand was iron, unyielding. “You’re worthless, useless, a disappointment to everyone around you! Do you even deserve to sit at a table? Do you?”

“No, Sir.” Jisung whispered as he was dragged along the hallway.

He felt the shove before he could brace for it, stumbling forward into the room that had long since become a prison.

The door slammed shut behind him. The familiar dull lightbulb flickered overhead, the small room exhaling a quiet, oppressive darkness. He dropped to the floor, letting his shoulders slump. He hadn’t been able to hold it together long enough to get through dinner. The plate that sat in the kitchen, that should have been his, would be scraped into the bin tonight. No food would come. 

His father slammed the door back open, sneering at the tiny ball he’d curled into, and threw a plastic water bottle into the room. Then, the door slammed closed again with finality. 

Jisung stared at the bottle for a long moment before his mind caught up. It was Friday. Which meant he might be here until Monday morning. Outside of school holidays, when no one would notice his absence and he could be left for countless days, this was the worst timing possible. Long enough for the thirst to impose its sharp bite. Long enough for the silence to press against him, heavy and absolute.

He sank to the mattress, staring at the walls. The room smelled faintly of damp and dust. As though the years of his crying in this room had seeped into the walls themselves. Misery permeating to the very bones of the house.

The room was bare, windowless and unremarkable to anyone else. Jisung knew every inch of it, every crack in the paint, every scuff on the skirting board.  It was a map etched into his memory, a place he both feared and understood completely.

He also knew the room’s one and only secret. 

Behind the closet door, hidden in shadow, was an old trunk. Locked. Untouched. Forgotten by the world. Forgotten, that is, except by him.

It had taken years for him to discover it.

Jisung couldn’t remember exactly how old he’d been the first time his father had locked him in this room, four, maybe five, sometime after his mother’s death. Back then, too small to understand punishment, he had simply lain on the thin mattress and cried until exhaustion took him. 

As he got older he had grown sullen, quiet, refusing to give his father the satisfaction of his tears. 

Now, at eight, he had grown bolder and more curious, which was how he had discovered the trunk.

Today, he had come prepared. A small shard rested between his fingers, a key to something forbidden. He’d found it at school, a stray scrap of metal near the playground fence, and had carried it in his pocket for days, waiting for his next sentence to the room.

He crawled into the closet, the air thick and stale. Darkness pressed close on all sides, but he didn’t mind it. He had learned long ago not to fear the dark, it was quiet, constant, comforting. He would not risk removing the trunk from the closet, his father might return, and Jisung knew he’d take it away if he knew it was there. 

Working here in the shadows was safer. If his father came into the room, he’d assume he was crying in the closet, it wouldn’t be the first time.

The problem with this decision was that he had to work in total darkness. His fingers slipped and fumbled over the lock, the tiny sliver trembling in his damp grip. His palms were slick with sweat. He dropped it more than once, heart lurching each time as he groped frantically along the floor for it. He’d read about lockpicking in the school library, just a single paragraph in a book he wasn’t supposed to be reading, but the words hadn’t warned him how delicate it was, how maddeningly precise.

Still, he persisted. He steadied his breathing, whispering silent counts in his head to keep himself calm. Minutes bled into hours. The air grew hot, the closet close and stifling, his shirt sticking to his skin. His fingers ached, his eyes strained against the dark.

And then, at last, a sound.

A tiny, perfect click.

He froze, breath caught in his chest. For a long moment, he didn’t move, hardly dared to breathe. Then, trembling, he eased the lid open.

His hands slipped inside, cautious and searching. At first, he felt only smoothness, flat, cool surfaces pressed together so tightly it seemed the trunk might truly be empty. But as his fingers roamed, he found ridges and seams, a faint rise and fall. He stilled, closing his eyes to better picture what his hands had discovered. The realisation came to him slowly, almost like a vision.

Books.

Lots of them, packed tightly in neat rows. He ran his fingers along their edges, tracing each in turn, counting under his breath. Twenty-four. A hidden library, a treasure buried beneath dust and neglect. A feast.

Jisung wasn’t opposed to reading, but the school-assigned books always felt lifeless, thin stories about tidy children who never made mistakes, who never burned for anything. Even the library at school, with its sagging shelves and worn covers, had never stirred him like this sudden mystery did.

With careful hands, he chose one at random and drew it free, the sound of the covers brushing against each other loud in the silence. He shuffled toward the edge of the closet, where a faint thread of light reached in from the bare bulb in the ceiling. The glow caught the cover, turning dust motes to gold.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. 

Jisung opened the book carefully, as though afraid it might crumble at his touch. On the inside cover, delicate ink bloomed across the yellowed page, and he gasped. His mother’s name.

Beneath it, a note written in looping, graceful handwriting:

I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.

For my son, who deserves the world.

A sound caught in his throat. He blinked rapidly, willing his eyes to clear, tracing the words again and again with trembling fingers. He had never seen her handwriting before. Each letter felt alive, intimate, a ghost of her hand guiding his. He could almost picture her bent over a desk, the soft curve of her wrist, the way the ink must have gleamed wet before drying to this faded, perfect brown.

He didn’t want to close it, but curiosity tugged at him, fierce and aching. Maybe there were more. Maybe every book held a piece of her.

He set Anna Karenina aside with care and reached for another. 

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Heart pounding, he flipped the book open. More handwriting. His breath shuddered.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. 

I hope you never feel the suffering necessary to truly comprehend this story, my darling, my love, my Jisung.

The words struck deep, sharp and tender all at once. His chest hurt. He pressed the page to his face for a moment, breathing in the faint smell of paper and dust and something that might once have been perfume.

He ached to continue, to feverishly tear through each book, drinking in his mothers words, but he forced himself to slow. She loved these books, treasured them, so he would do the same. 

He placed Les Miserables back amongst its companions and took Anna Karenina into his lap, leaning against the doorway of the closet, the thin line of light falling across the page.

Then he began to read, and his world shifted on its axis. 

Somewhere deep within him, something changed, quietly, irrevocably.

His heart soared as he devoured the pages, paying special attention to the most dog-eared ones, wondering if his mother had come back again and again to read these words. Pausing to reread the sentences that had spoken to her heart.

He felt finally understood, finally seen, and finally connected to a woman who he knew loved him, but he had no memory of. They had something in common, a love for this book in his hands.

They had loved the same words. And that meant, somehow, that they weren’t strangers after all.

Jisung treasured it, committing quotes to memory.

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

He murmured the words to himself, turning them over, feeling their shape on his tongue. It was true, he realised. His classmates told stories filled with warmth and laughter, mothers and fathers who smiled, who asked about their days. Threads of love wove through every tale they shared.

But Jisung’s stories were different. Empty fabrications meant to keep pity at bay. He smiled and nodded and lied, pretending he belonged among them.

Now, with the book open in his lap and his mother’s words echoing in his mind, he understood: their happiness had a sameness. His loneliness was his own, distinct, unique and inescapable.

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

He traced the line with his finger, imprinting them to his skull so that when he closed his eyes, he could see them. When his father shouted about respect, he wouldn’t dare to speak this aloud and risk him asking where he’d learnt it, but he’d know, deep down, that he’d understood something fundamental that his father had not. He would know that he was not the one who was lacking. And that was enough.

For the first time since the room had become his prison, time didn’t crawl. It flew, carried forward by words, by the echo of his mother’s thoughts, by the quiet revelation that even in darkness, he was not alone. 

Till this moment, I never knew myself.

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. - Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart. Until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. - Agamemnon, Aeschylus

I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be. - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. - Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Till this moment, I never knew myself. - Pride and Prejudice, Emily Brontë

Chapter Text

Two years had passed since Jisung first found the trunk, and though he’d hoped time might soften his father’s rage, it had only sharpened it.

Jisung hit the floor hard enough for his teeth to clack together. The impact sent a dull shock through his skull, blooming behind his eyes. His father’s voice thundered above him, a wall of sound rather than words, fragments breaking through like glass shards.

“...useless, worthless…just like her.”

Jisung stayed very still, hands pressed flat to the cool floorboards. He’d learned that stillness could sometimes shorten the storm, that movement often invited another blow. The air was thick with the heat of his father’s anger, the stench of alcohol faint but familiar.

He didn’t look up. He didn’t breathe too loudly. He just waited for the next sound, the scrape of a chair leg, the thud of footsteps, the inevitable grab.

It came.

Fingers hooked into the collar of his shirt and dragged him upright so fast his feet barely brushed the ground. His father’s face was a blur of fury, red, sweating, veins raised like cords beneath his skin. Spittle struck Jisung’s cheek as the shouting rose again, meaningless noise dressed as language.

Jisung’s mind detached, floating somewhere above it all. He found himself counting the seconds between each word, like clock ticks. He wondered if the neighbours could hear. He wondered if they cared.

Then the shove came, sudden, hard. He stumbled backward, hit the doorframe, and was propelled through the threshold into the room. The door slammed behind him, the lock clicked home with a sound that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat.

Silence.

For a moment, he stayed on the floor where he’d fallen, cheek pressed to the boards. His mouth tasted of iron. His ribs hurt when he breathed.

He sat up slowly, wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt, careful to avoid the swelling lip. His father’s voice had stopped. The storm had moved on.

It wasn’t the pain that undid him. He’d long grown used to that, the quick, brutal rhythm of his father’s temper. What hollowed him out was the predictability, the routine. The way each punishment felt preordained, as if his existence alone was a provocation.

He thought, not for the first time, that perhaps his father was right. Perhaps he really was the ghost of his mother, a part of her his father couldn’t bear to look at.

That thought was worse than the blows.

Jisung drew his knees up and rested his forehead against them. The wood was cool beneath his skin, grounding him. He focused on the ache in his hands, the tremble in his limbs, proof that he was still here, still real.

The house beyond the door was silent now. No footsteps. No voices. Just the hum of the lightbulb above him and his own unsteady breathing.

The room was exactly as he remembered it, unchanged, unchanging, as though time itself refused to enter. The bare bulb hummed overhead, its light pooling weakly against the stained walls. The air was thick, but he no longer noticed the smell. It had become the scent of safety, in a twisted way, the scent of endings he already knew by heart.

The trunk sat open within the closet. He didn’t reach for the books right away. He rarely did anymore. He didn’t need to.

He knew every one of them, every frayed spine, every uneven page, every word that had once passed beneath his mother’s fingertips. He could close his eyes and see entire paragraphs unfurl in the dark, perfectly preserved. His memory had built her a library inside his mind, each book a room she had once walked through.

Sometimes, when the silence grew too heavy, he would recite them to himself. Not just the stories, but the cadence of them, the rhythm of her imagined voice. He couldn’t remember her speech, not really, but in his mind she spoke in melodic verses, her words soft and warm, shaped by ink and love.

He touched the covers anyway, running a finger along their edges, not because he needed to read them, but because he needed to feel them. They were proof that she had existed, that her hands had once opened these same covers, turned these same pages. That someone had loved him once, even if no one did now.

When he held the books, it almost felt like holding her hand.

He sat cross-legged, the faint light gilding the curve of his cheek as he traced the cracked leather of War and Peace. The story lived inside him now, whole and alive. He could quote it the way other children recited multiplication tables.

But for Jisung, it wasn’t repetition. It was communion.

“Life did not stop, and one had to live.” he whispered, voice rough from disuse.

He wished his life had stopped when his mothers had, that he could have followed her into oblivion, hand in hand. Instead… One had to live.

The walls didn’t answer. They never did. But in the quiet, he could almost pretend that someone was listening.

The books were more than just objects now. They were company, witnesses, guardians of a boy his father tried to erase. He arranged them neatly within the closet, spines straight, covers aligned, as if by doing so he could summon order into a life that had none.

The words clung to him like a protective mantle, a thread connecting him to a warmth he had almost forgotten. He did not simply read the books. He inhabited them. Each story was a world he could enter, a universe that operated by rules his father could never touch, never understand.

He often wondered if she had ever thought of him while reading. Perhaps, when her eyes lingered on a favourite passage, she had imagined a son who would one day love these words as fiercely as she did. Perhaps she had hoped he would find them when the world grew cruel and silent.

And now he had.

The books were not always enough. He knew every line, every paragraph, every story by heart, and yet there were moments when even the printed words could not hold him. Then, he closed his eyes, and the world behind his lids unfolded into something impossible, something that belonged neither to the trunk nor to the dark room he had learned to call home.

He imagined sunlit rooms, warm and golden, where light spilled across polished floors and dust danced in the air like tiny flames. He imagined laughter, soft, musical and endless, curling around him and filling the corners of a house he had never known.

Sometimes, when he imagined the warmth most vividly, he thought he felt a hand in his hair, brushing it gently, steadying him, a touch that promised safety and comfort. He reached for it, heart soaring, and for a split second thought he glimpsed a face, a man with dark eyes, warm, smiling. 

But when he opened his eyes, the vision vanished, leaving only the dim light of the bulb and the stark walls of the closet.

Even so, the memory lingered. It filled him with a strange, sweet ache, a reminder that the world beyond the darkness could exist. He could almost smell the air in these imagined rooms, faint cologne, the hint of wood polish, sunlight baking the scent of summer into it. He could almost hear voices that were not shouting, not angry, voices that cared.

“When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever.”

He whispered the words, a breath against his own lips, and let them guide him deeper into his daydreams. Reality, the cold, damp, lonely room, the blows and the shouts, became a distant murmur. Here, he could be free, even if just for a moment.

And sometimes, just sometimes, he imagined it wasn’t only a dream. He imagined that one day, maybe, the sunlit rooms would be real. That the hand in his hair belonged to someone who would never hurt him, someone who would laugh with him, someone who would notice the small twitches of his fingers and smile at them. He could almost catch his face, but it was always gone, like smoke slipping through his fingers.

Still, the possibility burned in him brighter than the dim light overhead.

Even in the heart of the closet, he could imagine warmth. Even in the silence, he could hear laughter.

Even in the dark, he could believe it might one day be real.

I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there, that is living.

The hours stretched thin, silent and endless. Jisung sat with his back against the closet wall, the open trunk beside him, the imagined warmth of his dream already fading. The light overhead buzzed faintly, a constant, low hum that filled the air like a warning.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small piece of metal, the same scrap he’d once used to pick the lock on the trunk. It had lived in his pocket ever since, a tiny shard of control in a life stripped bare of choice. The edge was dull now, bent slightly at the tip, but when he turned it in his fingers, it caught the light just enough to glint.

He stared at it for a long moment before pressing it to the doorframe inside the closet where the mark couldn’t be seen by his father.

The wood resisted at first, as though unwilling to yield. Then, slowly, fibres gave way under the steady scrape of metal. He worked carefully, carving each line with absolute precision, his breath shallow, the muscles in his forearm aching. It wasn’t an act of rebellion, not really. It was a devotion, a ritual. Something to do when the silence threatened to split him open.

He didn’t think about what he was writing until the words had already taken shape.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

The phrase surfaced from memory, as natural to him as breathing. He had read it long ago, the warning carved above the gates of Hell. It felt right here, on this door, a truth made visible.

He kept going, deepening the grooves until his hand cramped and the metal grew warm in his grip. The sound was rhythmic, soothing: scrape, drag, scrape, drag. He worked until the words stood out clean and sharp, until splinters bit his skin and blood welled in the grooves of his fingers.

Still, he didn’t stop.

He traced each letter again and again, pressing his fingertips into the cuts until they stung. Pain flickered at the edge of awareness, but it was distant, unimportant. The hurt grounded him. It made him real.

When he finally leaned back, the words stared at him from the wood, imperfect but alive, bleeding at the edges like a wound. He reached out and ran his palm over them, slow and reverent, whispering the line beneath his breath until the shape of it blurred into prayer.

Abandon all hope.

The phrase felt less like despair and more like surrender, not to his father, not to the world, but to something deeper inside himself. The quiet that followed was heavy, but not empty. It was filled with meaning, with rhythm, with the pulse of something forming in him that had no name yet.

His fingers bled freely now, but he only smiled faintly at the sight. The blood mixed with the carved grooves, darkening the letters, sealing them. He ran his hand over the words again, letting splinters lodge beneath his skin, unflinching, unfeeling.

In the soft hum of the bulb, Jisung felt something shift, a small, irreversible turn inside him. He could hurt, he could burn with the pain, but he could choose how to react to it, whether to care. He felt the cold depths and plunged in head first. Perhaps one day that sunlit room filled with laughter from his dreams might exist, but until then… 

It wasn’t peace exactly. But it was power.

When the trance broke, it did so suddenly, like surfacing from underwater.

The scrape of skin against wood had stopped without him realising. The silence rang in his ears, too loud, too sharp. His breath came ragged and uneven. Slowly, Jisung blinked, his vision swimming back into focus.

That was when he saw the blood.

It streaked across his hands in thin crimson lines, dried in the creases of his palms and dark beneath his nails. Tiny splinters still clung to his skin, embedded like thorns. He flexed his fingers, and pain flared up his arms, fierce, bright, real. Then came the ache in his cheek, deep and pulsing where his father’s hand had landed earlier. His ribs ached when he drew breath. His throat burned from the tears he hadn’t yet shed.

He stared at the carving, at the words etched into the frame.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

They stared back at him, darkened by blood, uneven in the glow of the single bulb. He thought they might have been beautiful, if they hadn’t felt so true.

The hopelessness pressed down all at once, crushing and complete. It was too heavy to fight. A sound escaped him, small, wounded, and before he could stop it, his chest tightened, and the tears began to fall.

At first, it was just a quiet tremor, a shudder of breath. Then the sobs came harder, deeper, until his whole body was shaking. His shoulders trembled, his hands curled into fists against his knees. The room seemed to tilt with each broken gasp.

He cried until his throat was raw, until his face burned, until the tears soaked through the thin fabric of his shirt. He cried for the blood on his fingers, for the ache in his bones, for the years that had passed and the ones still stretching out before him like an endless corridor.

And somewhere in that storm of grief, a thought came, faint, familiar.

Those who do not weep, do not see.

It could have been his mother’s voice, vivid in his imagination, and it steadied him. He pressed a shaking hand to his chest, whispering between breaths, “It’s all right to cry. It means I’m still alive.”

He wanted to believe that. He needed to.

Then, softer still, he spoke again, the words cracked and trembling:

“Bear up, my heart; you have borne worse.”

His voice faltered, but he repeated it, again and again, like a prayer. Each repetition gentled the edge of his sobs.

He closed his eyes. For a moment, just a fleeting second, he felt warmth. A hand in his hair, light as breath. The ghost of comfort. His mother’s hand, he thought. She would be proud.

He stayed like that for a long time, rocking gently in the dim light, his bloodied fingers resting over his heart, whispering the words until they lost their sound.

Hours passed in the still, dim glow of the single bulb. Jisung sat cross-legged on the mattress, humming tunelessly. He picked at the splinters embedded in his skin, using the edge of his t-shirt to clean the dried blood as best he could. The sting was sharp, immediate, but bearable.

The despair lingered, thick and steady, a shadow he could neither shake nor ignore. But alongside it, another presence had taken root: a quiet steadiness, small but unyielding. He had survived this long. He had survived the shouts, the blows, the isolation, the long, empty hours in this bare room. If he could find that cold uncaring river once more, and immerse himself in it, he might just continue to survive.

And the books, the books remained. Their spines lined neatly, their pages worn and fragrant with memory. They carried the voice of his mother, lives lived in words, worlds that could not be touched by his father’s cruelty. The knowledge, the language, the stories themselves, they made him feel a kind of power, a command over his own mind, a sovereignty his father could never claim.

Slowly, he reached for a book and opened it. His voice cracked at first, hesitant, uncertain, but soon it punctuated the silence of the room with something delicate and fierce: sentences, paragraphs, life. He whispered the words aloud into the darkness, each sentence a small defiance.

And in that small, windowless room, Jisung read, and the darkness could not quite swallow him whole.

Life did not stop, and one had to live. - War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever. - The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there, that is living. - The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. - The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri

Those who do not weep, do not see. - Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

Bear up, my heart; you have borne worse. The Odyssey, Homer

Chapter Text

Thirteen.

It should have been a number, a mark on a page, a simple passage of time. Instead, it arrived like a summons. The house felt smaller now, every wall pressing closer, every shadow sharper, every word from his father a blade. Jisung’s thoughts had begun to spin differently. They weren’t just his anymore, they were quotes, borrowed wisdom, lines that he carried like armour, lines that shaped the way he saw the world and the cruelty within it.

He argued back more now, voice trembling at first, then rising, a match striking against a storm. His father’s face darkened, veins pulsing in his forehead, hands curling into fists that had learned to strike with practiced fury. The beatings had grown worse, harsher, more precise, and the periods of isolation lengthened, stretching out into long, empty days that even the books could not entirely fill.

A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel.

The thought rose unbidden, a cold observation Jisung held onto while his father’s rage flared. He flinched, ducking beneath the swing of a hand, tasting copper on his tongue as the impact shook his teeth and rattled his skull. Pain rippled outward, cheekbone throbbing, ribs protesting, a crack somewhere deep in his shoulder, and yet his mind was a separate room, a room lined with words that could not be struck.

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School holidays were crueler than term time. No one was watching. No one would notice if he vanished for days, weeks on end. Freedom was a trap.

That morning, curiosity had won. The house was still, heavy with the smell of stale alcohol and strong aftershave failing to mask it. Jisung stood outside the bedroom door that had always been off-limits. His father was supposed to be at work. Supposed to be.

He pressed his ear to the wood, listening. Only the slow hum of the refrigerator downstairs, the ticking of the wall clock. He exhaled once, quietly, then turned the handle.

The air inside was stale and cold. Curtains half drawn, light slanting across dust that hung like a veil over everything. The room felt wrong, too neat in some places, too chaotic in others. An unmade bed, sheets tangled and sour smelling. A half-empty glass on the nightstand.

He began under the bed, opening shoe boxes full of bills, letters and warranties for long since broken appliances. Nothing of interest. He crossed to the bedside table and found more nonsense: pills, small bottles of alcohol. Useless.

He looked up. The dresser loomed in the corner.

He crossed the carpet on his tiptoes, every board creaking too loud. He tried to steady his hands as he opened the first drawer: socks, undershirts, a belt. The next: a jumble of receipts, loose change, the stub of a movie ticket. His heartbeat roared in his ears. It wasn’t just fear of being caught, it was the feeling of trespass, of digging into the private life of a man who already resented his existence.

He kept searching. Under papers, under faded letters that smelled faintly of mildew. And then, beneath a stack of envelopes yellowed with time, something different: glossy paper, edges curling with age.

A photograph.

He lifted it with trembling fingers. A woman, smiling, soft, radiant, her eyes bright and kind in a way that felt impossible. His mother. He knew it instantly, without memory, the same way a melody might be recognised even after years of silence.

Her smile was his. The shape of her mouth. The same tilt to the nose, the same dark silky hair. Something inside him twisted painfully, then bloomed. She looked alive, gentle. Not at all like the man who raised him.

He pressed the photo to his chest, breath stuttering. For a moment, the house wasn’t cold. The image seemed to burn against him, small and fierce and impossibly precious.
He told himself, no, he knew, he was more hers than his father’s. Whatever blood ran through his veins, whatever fear his father tried to carve into him, this, she, was stronger.

He slipped the photograph into his pocket, smoothing it out lovingly. The secret felt bright, molten. A sun small enough to hide but powerful enough to keep him warm.

He closed the drawers and crossed to the wardrobe, hoping desperately to find more of her. Then, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled to life.

He turned toward the door, and tensed.

The floorboards groaned, a shadow fell across the threshold.

His father stood there, eyes sharp, jaw tightening as they darted around the room, looking for disarray, then to Jisung himself.

The air cracked with silence. The trap had sprung shut.

“You’ve been snooping.” His father said, calm and poisonous. “Did you take anything? Money?”

Jisung’s chest rose, lungs burning. He looked up, straight into the storm, voice steady. “I want nothing you have.” he said. “There is nothing you could give me.”

It was deliberate, a spark to bait him. His father’s lips curled in something that might have been disbelief, maybe insult, before it hardened into fury.

Good. He needed his father distracted enough to not search his pockets, to not find this most precious treasure.

Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.

As he hoped, his father lumbered into Jisung’s trap, forgetting sense entirely as his rage overtook him, and he saw red.

The world narrowed to the strike of fists, the echoing cracks of kicks, the sting along his back, and the metallic taste of blood that pooled again on his tongue. He couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t curl tightly enough, couldn’t make himself small enough to be safe. Bones sang under impact, something deep in his skull reverberating, but his mind whispered lines from the books he had loved, and that kept him tethered.

“You’re ungrateful!” his father roared. “I should have thrown you out onto the street!”

It didn’t matter. His anger burned hotter than his pain. He felt it rise through his chest and settle there, a fire that could not be snuffed by fists.

Finally, after hours, his father forced him to his knees, teeth gritted through the pain, chest heaving, and made him apologize. He muttered the words through cracked lips, through blood and bruises, trembling but obedient in voice only.

But in his mind, he was still standing. I did not bow to you, he thought fiercely. I bowed to all the suffering of humanity.

As soon as the words of apology left him, the fire returned, obstinate and inexhaustible. He would continue to fight. He would continue to disobey. He would carry this rage, this defiance, this mind of his forward like a sword no one could dull.

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others.

He rose slowly, muscles trembling, vision blurred, back pressed to the wall, tasting blood and the bitter sweetness of anger. The house around him felt smaller, darker, but inside, the words, the quotes, the memory of his mother, the fire in his chest, they were growing, alive, unstoppable.

The door slammed behind him, a violent punctuation that left the air ringing in his ears. He hit the floor hard, harder than ever before, and the pain radiated through every limb. His arm throbbed unnaturally, every movement a fire, the taste of blood was metallic and constant. His head spun, light-headed and hazy, vision blurring at the edges. Nausea churned, the light burning his eyes and tiredness pulled at him. He stumbled upright, fumbling blindly for the light switch. The room tilted, the walls breathing. He fell to the floor, drinking in the blissful darkness.

Then he saw her.

The photograph from his pocket, pressed close to his chest, had been just paper, and yet now her face filled the space in front of him, clear as day, vivid in the dark. The mother he had longed for, whose touch he had never felt, whose voice he had imagined, was here. Her eyes were calm and infinite, her expression full of a patience and understanding he had never known.

He tried to speak, but ordinary words felt meaningless. Only the shared language from their books could carry him across this impossible distance.

“Do I not live? Badly, I know, but I live.”

The words trembled from his lips, a whimper, a prayer. And in his mind, he felt her move closer, comforting him, brushing invisible hands through his hair.

She soothed him, somehow. Jisung trembled with it, reaching for her with shaking hands closing on thin air.

“Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad. Only, do not leave me in this abyss.”

He sobbed, body shaking, blood streaking the boards beneath him. Desperation carved him open. If she left, if she vanished, he would be nothing, only pain and memory, left to the cruelty of a world that had always taken more than it gave.

A voice answered, though it was not hers. Low, distant, unfamiliar, almost kind.

“Someday, this pain will be useful to you.”

He lay there, soaking in the words, letting them mingle with tears and blood, letting the ache settle into his chest like a stone.

Finally, he thought of his father, the man who had struck him, broken him, isolated him. The man who had known his mother, who had been close enough to touch her, and yet had been incapable of learning compassion. Pity rose, sharp and sudden. If he had truly known her, truly loved her, surely such cruelty could not survive.

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.

The thought solidified the image in his mind, anchoring it. His father’s violence, his rage, his every brutal act, all born from a heart incapable of the one thing that might have saved him. And Jisung, small, broken, bleeding, trembling, he felt something beyond fear. A bitter, burning clarity: he would never be that man. He would never let cruelty define him.

And for a fleeting, miraculous moment, he believed his mother’s presence would see him through the night.

A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel. - The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man. - The Odyssey, Homer

I did not bow to you, I bowed to all the suffering of humanity. - Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Do I not live? Badly, I know, but I live. - The Oresteia, Aeschylus

Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad. Only, do not leave me in this abyss. - Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Someday, this pain will be useful to you. - Metamorphoses, Ovid

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love. - The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Chapter Text

A year had passed, and nothing had changed except the scale of the cruelty.

He had forgotten what he had done, or maybe it didn’t matter. His father’s fury made the cause irrelevant.

The first blow landed, and everything in the room contracted around him: the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the air itself. Pain flared along his ribs, a fire that made him gasp involuntarily. He raised a trembling hand, only to meet another strike. His cheek burned, stinging, and his vision shivered at the edges.

Something snapped. He hit back. Not with strength, not with hope, only with the instinct to survive, to strike once, a fraction of the fury that had been directed at him. And in that instant, everything changed. His father’s eyes went wide with disbelief, and then the rage erupted fully, more terrible, more calculated, more vicious than ever before.

The blows rained down like a storm, and he realised he could not fight it. Not with strength, not with words. The questions his father shouted were meaningless, impossible: “How dare you? Do you think you’re better than me? Do you think you can win?” There was no correct answer. Each attempt to reason, each flicker of explanation, would only feed the next swing, the next curse.

If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned.

He made himself small, curling inward, trying to become invisible within his own skin. His arms wrapped around himself, chest heaving, trembling as the blows landed with cruel precision. Pain radiated through every bone, every nerve ending, but he could not react, could not even cry out.

His father thrived on fear. On pain. On witnessing terror. Any display of defiance, any flinch of emotion, would only prolong the torture. Jisung forced himself to be boring, unremarkable, a body that existed but did not respond. He imagined himself sinking into cool water, a wisp of air, a thing not worth noticing, hoping it would spare him further injury.

He counted each breath, each heartbeat, each strike. The pain had a rhythm, the fear a cadence, and somewhere in that terrifying pattern, he found a kind of perverse order.

I will survive this.

His father’s grip was iron as he dragged Jisung to the old wooden shed at the edge of the property. The door creaked ominously as it swung open, revealing the clutter within: dry kindling stacked in uneven piles, splintered chairs, rusted tools, and the acrid, choking scent of old oil. Before Jisung could speak, his father shoved him inside and slammed the door with a decisive bang, locking it behind him.

Confusion surged first. Had his father discovered the books? Was that the reason for the new location of his enforced solitude, some punishment for daring to claim a piece of his mother’s memory? Panic clawed at him. Losing those books, losing that connection to her, would feel like losing the last thread of his own identity.

He pressed his back to the door, chest heaving, and tried to steady himself. No. His father would have bragged, shown off, or destroyed them in front of him if he had known. This was something else, something he couldn’t yet name.

The shed smelled of decay and oil, but it was not without interest. Piles of broken furniture, long-forgotten tools, and odd bits of metal and wood gave him a thousand possibilities. Hours could be whiled away here, he realised, exploring, inspecting, imagining.

Then a new smell hit him. Sharp, unmistakable. Petrol.

The first flame caught with a hiss, devouring the dry wood almost immediately. Sparks leapt like tiny devils, and the shed was suddenly alive with heat and light. Jisung stumbled back, heart hammering, chest tight with panic.

The message was clear. You want to defy me? Then burn for it.

The fire raced across the kindling, the old furniture, the oil-soaked rags, spreading faster than he could imagine. The heat struck him instantly, biting at his arms, his neck, his face, licking his skin with cruel precision. Smoke rolled in thick waves, choking and black, filling the shed with an chalky, bitter tang. Every breath was a battle, every gasp a struggle.

Outside, he could hear his father moving, slow, deliberate. Not calling for help. Not rushing in. Watching. Waiting. A predator’s patience.

The door was locked. The tiny windows offered nothing, too small, too high, mocking him. The flames hissed closer.

Pain tore through him, each second a thousand tiny betrayals to his body. And yet, beneath it all, a thread of defiance tangled with terror.

I exist.

He whispered it in his mind, again and again, the words a lifeline.

In thousands of agonies, I exist.

And in that moment, even as the heat pressed, even as the smoke clawed at his throat, even as terror threatened to swallow him whole, Jisung was aware of himself, wholly, achingly, undeniably alive.

The thought came to him with sudden, sharp clarity: his father wanted a performance. He wanted screams, pleas, terror on display, the proof of submission, the reinforcement of power. He imagined the scene outside: his father poised to swoop in at the last second, theatrically saving his son, cementing his control.

Jisung refused to give him the satisfaction.

He did not scream. He did not beg. Not a single sound escaped him, no trembling voice to feed the predator waiting beyond the walls. Instead, he watched. The flames climbed higher, licking at the corners of the shed, blackening the walls, curling around the piles of kindling. Smoke filled the air, thick and choking, each heartbeat was a drum of defiance.

Let me not die ingloriously and without struggle.

He whispered it only in his mind, turning it over like a shield, a mantra, a statement of will. The fire roared, the heat pressed, and Jisung felt every second stretch like a lifetime, each one sharpening him, testing him.

He would not yield.

Even as the flames encroached, even as the air thickened with smoke, he held onto that thought, letting it burn brighter than the fire surrounding him.

Jisung suppressed a cough, squinting through the heat, wondering why the fire within him was so stifled in the presence of roaring flames. 

Then it hit him, he did not want to be saved.

The fire was beautiful. Alive. Honest. For the first time, something in the world did not lie, did not pretend, did not strike him and then act as if nothing had happened. The flames twisted and danced with a rhythm all their own, and he watched, spellbound.

He reached out, letting the fire lick his fingers. The heat seared, bright and immediate, but it did not sting like human cruelty. He drew a deep breath, letting the smoke fill his lungs, letting it wrap around him. This is better than living like this.

Oblivion, what a blessing… for the mind to dwell a world away from pain… count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.

For the first time in his life, he felt a strange, dizzying kind of control. Not over the fire, it would never obey him, but over himself. Over how he reacted to it.

Everything else in his life was defined by powerlessness. His father controlled his body, his space, his thoughts, his very breath. The fire obeyed no one. It did not bow to cruelty, it did not calculate vengeance, it did not care. Watching it, he felt a kinship: I am like this. I can be like this.

His father’s cruelty was deliberate, measured, personal, endless. Fire was impersonal. It did not hate him. It simply existed, and in its existence, it was perfect.

Death is not an evil, because it frees us from all evils.

The smoke thickened, curling into his lungs, sharp and choking, but instead of panic, a rush of exhilaration surged through him. His body trembled, heat searing his skin, breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps. And yet, a wild, gleeful thought took hold: he would not die afraid. Not here. Not now. Not for his father.

Let it take him, let it consume him. Let it burn, and he burn with it. A lifetime of blazing with anger could only end this way.

He laughed. Maniacally. The sound ripped from his throat, harsh and raw, echoing against the blackened walls. He howled, letting it pour into the flames, a declaration, a challenge, a defiance. Even in what he thought might be his final moments, he denied his father the satisfaction of fear, the proof of submission.

Rest forever, tired heart.

Quiet now. Despair for the last time.

Fate gives us dying as a gift.

Smoke stung his eyes, fire licked closer, and he tilted his face toward the blaze, bracing himself. Every nerve burned, every inhale a struggle, every heartbeat a drum of inevitability.

And then he waited.

For the flames. For the end. For everything.

If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned. - Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

I exist. In thousands of agonies, I exist. - The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Let me not die ingloriously and without struggle. - The Iliad, Homer

Oblivion, what a blessing… for the mind to dwell a world away from pain… count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last. - Oedipus Rex, Sophocles

Death is not an evil, because it frees us from all evils. - Canti, Giacomo Leopardi

Rest forever, tired heart. Quiet now. Despair for the last time. Fate gives us dying as a gift. - Canti, Giacomo Leopardi

Chapter Text

Just as he felt peace draw near, the darkness and the flames eager to take him, the door burst open. His father’s boots slammed into the floorboards, and Jisung was yanked from the heat, dragged across the scorched planks. Jisung gasped, lungs still full of smoke, skin raw and burning, but fury surged hotter than the fire he’d left behind.

Not at the flames. Not at the pain. At his father. For denying him the one thing he had wanted. For robbing him of the final, perfect reckoning.

“No, no, no!” He gasped, desperate, writhing in his father’s grasp, battling to return to the flames.

The disappointment clawed at him, a sharp, bitter taste. The promise of annihilation, denied. The fire had been honest, his father was not. And in that moment, all the fury, all the betrayal, all the years of pain, of bruises, of isolation, crystallised into a single, burning thing inside him.

His father saw it too. The look in Jisung’s eyes was no longer fear, no longer the sullen resignation he had cultivated over years of abuse. It was something raw, something untamed. Something that wanted destruction, that wanted to set the world aflame.

“You…” his father began, voice tight, venomous. But he stopped.

Jisung laughed.

The sound was wild, unhinged, echoing off the trees and into the sky. It was not the laugh of a frightened child. It was the laugh of someone who had touched chaos and wanted more.

For the first time, his father hesitated. A flicker of fear crossed the brutal, hardened face. He knew, in that instant, that he had created something worse than a broken boy. He had created something that could never be tamed. Something that wanted to burn.

And Jisung, skin still scorched, lungs ragged, blood mixing with sweat and soot, felt it. The power. He could survive this. He could endure anything. And when he laughed again, the sound was a warning.

Not to the flames. Not to the world. But to the man who had tried to make him small.

He was no longer small. He was something else entirely.

Although changed, I arise the same.

The fire had altered him, yes, but it had not broken him. He was still himself, sharper now, and alive in a way that only the flames could make him feel.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

After that day, everything shifted. Fire was no longer merely beautiful, it haunted him. He dreamed of it in restless sleep, smoke curling in the corners of his vision even when the air was clear. The scent of burning wood would rise unbidden, teasing his senses, tugging at him like a memory too powerful to ignore.

He sought it out. Not just for warmth, not just for fascination, but for the taste of control it offered. The fire reminded him he was alive, even if only for a fleeting moment.

Matches vanished from drawers, stolen and pocketed. Small things burned in secret, scraps of paper, old rags, anything he could ignite, testing the edge, feeling the thrill. He would watch distant fires in the night, drawn as though by a lover’s call, heart hammering, mind alive with dangerous possibility.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

Jisung revelled in the new love that had taken root. The fire was no longer a threat, no longer a punishment, it was his companion, his mirror, the first thing in this world that understood him completely.

Every flicker was a promise, every spark a whisper: here, at last, he could be free.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The house shook with the force of his father’s anger. Jisung stood in the hallway, chest heaving, eyes alight. The man had always relied on terror, on punishment and cruelty, to bend his son into submission. But now… now, he saw something he did not recognise. Something unbreakable. Something dangerous.

His father’s face was twisted in disbelief and growing fear. “I don’t understand… I don’t know how you turned out like this!” he shouted, voice cracking. “How could you be so… so…”

“You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph.” Jisung said, letting the words slice through the room. His voice was calm, measured, but underneath it thrummed the years of pain, the heat of defiance.

His father, poor, stupid man, shook his head, uncomprehending.

He stepped closer, unafraid of the fists that had broken his body countless times before. “You made me this way. Revel in your creation.” Jisung said, his tone proud, the words rolling over his father like fire over dry grass.

His father recoiled slightly, taken aback by the audacity, the mania in his son’s eyes. Rage turned sharper, more explosive, more desperate. He struck Jisung, trying to claw back the control he had always assumed he possessed, but the blows landed against a boy who barely flinched. The pain registered faintly, more a nuisance than anything else.

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be,” Jisung said, voice cutting, “since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.” Each word was precise, deliberate, a mirror held up to a man who flinched at the reflection Jisung showed. 

His father’s face went pale, his usual cruelty faltering under the weight of recognition.

Jisung was a spark ready to ignite, and this man had no idea how to extinguish it.

Jisung stood in the aftermath of the shouting, the bruises, the fury. His fists unclenched, shoulders steady. The fire within him had given him control, given him belonging, and now it gave him the fear he now cherished in his father’s eyes.

He felt a rush unlike any before: he was no longer merely surviving. He was becoming something else. Something uncontainable.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Another day, the same argument, the same horror at what he was.

Jisung had started a small fire in their garden, throwing his fathers belongings into the blaze calmly. One by one, clothes, trinkets, notebooks, every single one of his father’s left shoes… anything he could find. He stared into the flames, amazed at the colours dancing before his eyes.

His father returned home from work and found him, crying out incoherently in frustration. Jisung was dragged inside, grinning, while the fire blazed on outside.

His father’s voice ricocheted off the walls, sharp and frantic. “You’re a freak! A worthless, ungrateful child! What has happened to you? I don’t recognise you anymore!”

Jisung’s eyes burned. Rage rolled through him, not the steady anger of before, but a wildfire, consuming, infernal. He did not flinch. He did not shrink. “Hate is a bottomless cup,” he spat, voice low, simmering, “I will pour and pour.”

His father’s hand shot out, a sharp slap across the side of his face. “You will not speak to me like that! I made you! I gave you everything!”

Jisung laughed, shaking his head. “Terror made me cruel.”

“You are more than cruel! You’re… wrong…” his father roared, but the words faltered. He could sense the danger now, the unpredictability, the boy no longer bound by fear.

“I am malicious because I am miserable.” Jisung said, his voice steady despite the pounding of his chest. Pain from the slap and the shoves barely registered. The fury, the heat, the power, swallowed it whole.

“You’ve gone mad!” his father screamed, voice ragged. “You’re ungrateful! You are my creation, my son, and you defy me at every turn!”

Jisung laughed, gathering the blood pooling in his mouth, then spitting it in his fathers face.

The room shook with shouts, with anger, with the thunder of two forces colliding. 

His father’s fists rose, but Jisung was already somewhere else.

His father pushed him into that familiar room.

“You are a monster!”

Jisung fell to the floor with a laugh, staring up at the ceiling.

“Accursed creator,” Jisung whispered, eyes closing, imagining his mother before him. “Why did you form a monster? I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel.” His hands curled into fists as the room seemed to tilt around him.

As calm finally found him, he missed his beautiful fire sputtering and spitting in the garden. He was sorry to have left it to his father’s cruel treatment. It was likely doused by now, but Jisung knew it was only a matter of time before he summoned it once more. But now, without flames to worship, he was bereft, cold once more.

I have to remind myself to breathe, almost to remind my heart to beat.

Although changed, I arise the same. - Metamorphoses, Ovid

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. - The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph. - Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. - The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis

Hate is a bottomless cup, I will pour and pour. - Medea, Euripedes

Terror made me cruel. - Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

I am malicious because I am miserable. - Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Accursed creator. Why did you form a monster? I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel. - Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

I have to remind myself to breathe, almost to remind my heart to beat. - Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Chapter Text

The final straw was comically small. After years of his father terrorising him, and a year of Jisung returning the favour in quieter, wilder ways, it hadn’t been the fire or the defiance or the endless shouting that broke the man. It had been something far more mundane.

Simple homophobia.

It almost made Jisung laugh.

Of course his father could survive a house full of smoke, a son who no longer flinched from his blows, who stared back at him with a kind of delighted hate. But happiness, that, apparently, was intolerable. It made sense, Jisung thought, that the man who had taken everything from him could not stand to see Jisung with even a fraction of joy left.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun was warm enough to make the grass smell sweet, thick and green, and Jisung thought he could feel it soaking straight into his bones. For once, he was neither cold and detached nor blazing with fury. For once, there was no shouting, no raised fists, just the lazy hum of summer and the boy beside him.

They sat shoulder to shoulder in the field behind the school, the air heavy with the perfume of clover and cut grass. The other students sprawled in clusters around them, laughing, eating, shouting to one another. It all felt very far away.

Jisung’s hand was in the boy’s, palm to palm, fingers twined in that tentative way that made his heart race. They had only been 'dating' a few weeks, if you could call it that, and still every innocent touch felt like discovery, a secret shared. The boy’s thumb brushed his knuckle, light and nervous. Jisung smiled, dizzy on the gentleness of it, the ridiculous sweetness of being wanted.

He leaned back on one arm, squinting toward the fence that lined the schoolyard, the street just beyond. The sunlight caught in his hair, warm and golden. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw something move, a flicker of dark fabric, a figure. Then his stomach dropped.

His father.

The man’s shape was unmistakable, even blurred by distance and glare. He wasn’t supposed to be here, ever, but there he was, walking along the fence-line like some omen pulled out of the shadows and dropped into the sun.

Their eyes met.

The warmth drained out of him so fast it almost made him shiver. The hand in his own was still there, small and trusting, but Jisung couldn’t feel it anymore. His blood felt thin, his heart too loud. He told himself: Don’t drop it. Don’t you dare. He doesn't deserve your shame.

So he didn’t.

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

He tightened his fingers, forced a grin, and with his free hand lifted in a jaunty, careless wave. A gesture of mockery, too bright, too easy. He even laughed, as if it were funny, as if he hadn’t just been pierced through by something cold and bottomless.

His father didn’t wave back. He just stopped, watched, then turned on his heel and stalked away.

The boy squeezed his hand, worry flickering across his face.

“You okay?”

Jisung shrugged, his smile not quite steady. “Yeah. Just… thought I saw someone I knew.”

He turned his face back toward the sun, but it felt different now, dimmer somehow, the light thinner, stretched over something hollow. He tried to remember how happy he’d been a moment ago, the easy brightness of it, but it was gone, burned out like a match.

Perhaps someday we shall look back on these things with joy.

He kicked off his shoes at the door, the sound too loud in the silence. The house felt wrong, thick with waiting.

Jisung stood in the hallway for a long moment, school bag slung over one shoulder, heart pounding like he’d run the whole way home.

Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself.

His father was in the living room, sitting in the dark, the television off. Only the late sunlight through the blinds striped the room in pale gold and shadow.

“Where were you?”

The voice was low, dangerous.

Jisung swallowed. “School.”

“I know that. Don’t play games with me.” His father’s voice cracked like a whip. “Who was he?”

Jisung stared at him. “Who was…?”

“Don’t act stupid!” He shot to his feet, face blotched with fury. “You think I didn’t see you? Sitting there, holding hands with a…” He choked on the word, spitting it out like poison. “With a boy.”

Jisung’s throat tightened. He should have stayed quiet, should have let the storm pass. But something inside him, something scorched and unbending, rose instead.

“So what if I was?”

His father blinked, stunned for a half-second before his voice turned venomous.
“So what if you were? So what if you were? You think that’s normal? You think that’s something to be proud of?”

“I didn’t say I was proud,” Jisung said, his voice trembling but steady. “But I’m not ashamed, either.”

“You should be,” his father hissed. “You’re broken, Jisung. Twisted. I should’ve known something was wrong with you. All that nonsense, all that hiding in your room, you were always wrong.”

Hiding in your room was an interesting way to characterise being locked into a windowless prison, Jisung thought distantly.

Jisung’s laugh was sharp, humourless. This old argument, back again. He hated repeating himself. “If I’m broken, you’re the one who broke me.”

His father’s eyes flared. “Don’t you dare…”

“You did!” Jisung shouted over him. “You made me this way! Every bruise, every night you locked me in that room, you made me!”

“Don’t you talk to me like that, you disgusting little…”

“Yeah?” Jisung cut in, breath ragged, trembling with adrenaline. “We have that in common, then. You disgust me, too.”

The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut. His father stared, mouth twisting as if he’d been struck.

“You’re sick,” the man said finally, voice shaking now, the fury fraying into something almost frightened. “You’re sick, and you don’t even know it.”

Jisung stepped closer. “No. I know exactly what I am. You’re the one who doesn’t.”

His father moved then, sudden and violent, grabbing Jisung by the shirt, shaking him once, hard enough to rattle his teeth. “I should’ve thrown you out when your mother died.”

Something inside Jisung snapped. The words came before he could stop them.

“My mother,” he said, low and shaking, “would be ashamed of you.”

The effect was instant. His father froze. His grip loosened, then he stepped back, releasing Jisung entirely. His mouth opened, then closed again, soundless.

Jisung blinked, chest heaving, realising too late that the blow had landed, that it was true.

She would have been ashamed.

The thought hit him like warmth after winter, a strange, fragile comfort threading through the ache. She would have loved him anyway. Even through this.

For the first time, his father looked small.

His father didn’t move for a long time. The room hung suspended, the air thick with everything they’d said and couldn’t take back.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low and hollow. “You’re no longer welcome under my roof.”

Jisung didn’t flinch. He only nodded, his body heavy with a strange, bone-deep fatigue. “All right.”

“You think I’m bluffing?”

“I don’t care,” Jisung said softly. It wasn’t defiance, not anymore. It was simple truth. “I’m done.”

His father stared at him, searching for something, remorse, fear, anything, but Jisung’s face was unreadable. Empty of the reactions that used to feed his father’s rage.

“I’m leaving,” the man said finally, voice sharp again. “When I come back in an hour, I want you gone.”

Jisung nodded once. “Fine.”

The moment his father’s car engine faded down the road, Jisung went straight to the room. His hands trembled as opened the closet and began to heave the trunk out. It was heavier than he remembered, full of his mother’s books, his books now, but he managed to drag it down the stairs, each thud of wood against step echoing through the empty house.

Outside, the evening was settling in gold and shadow. The field opposite the house was quiet, the grass long and whispering. He hauled the trunk through the hedge, wincing as branches scratched his arms.

It took effort, painful, slow effort, to lift it over and set it down gently on the other side. He could feel the minutes slipping away, his father’s return ticking closer, but the books deserved care.

He brushed the dirt from the lid with the side of his hand and rested there for a moment, chest heaving. Then he straightened, gaze fixed on the house.

There was still much to do.

He worked in silence, methodical as a craftsman.

The house was still, the air heavy with the ghosts of shouting and fear. Jisung moved through each room slowly, the can of petrol in his hand sloshing like a dark promise. He trailed it over the carpet, across the furniture, over the doorframes that had caged him for years. The scent filled the air, acrid, heady, and he breathed it in deeply, a lover’s perfume.

He was amused, in a distant way, that his father hadn’t seen it coming. That for all his suspicion, for all his bluster, the man had fundamentally misunderstood Jisung. He had left his son alone with the one thing he should have feared most.

He paused in his bedroom, looking around one last time. The small pile of clothes in the corner. His old schoolbag. A few books he could bear to part with. Enough to suggest a boy had burned here. Enough to be believed, should the fire not take as well as he hoped.

Then, with steady fingers, he reached into his mouth and felt the loosened tooth, his father’s latest gift. He tugged it free, the sting sharp and satisfying, and dropped it into the bathroom sink, closing the plug to leave it sitting bloody and jarring. A piece of himself to feed the lie. If anything survived the fire, ceramic ought to.

He moved back downstairs and looked around, breathing in the scent of petrol.

Death is the only water to wash away this dirt.

He struck the match.

It caught quickly. The first flames danced along the fuel line like a living thing, finding their way across the floorboards, curling upward in orange tongues. Jisung stood and watched, utterly still, as the first room was devoured.

It was beautiful. Honest. The fire didn’t scream. It didn’t judge. It only consumed.

Half of him wanted to stay. To let it take him, to join his mother in whatever soft oblivion waited beyond the smoke. If he looked into the flames too long he was sure he could see it, a figure waiting for him. The thought was sweet, seductive. But somewhere deep inside, a voice, his memory of her, perhaps, rose up and stopped him. She would not want this.

Sometimes, even to live is an act of courage.

Jisung turned, stepping out through the back door into the cool night air. Behind him, the windows were glowing, each pane a small, perfect furnace. The house crackled and sighed as if relieved to be ending at last.

He moved into the shadows of the field, the trunk waiting where he’d left it. From there, he watched as the fire began to climb the outer walls, flames licking greedily at the wood, rising higher, brighter.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t cry.

He simply watched, bathed in the orange light, and felt the past burn away.

How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.

He heard the neighbours before he saw them, gasps, cries, the sharp slam of doors thrown open. The street filled with the sound of panic, of running feet and shouted names.

Jisung slipped through the chaos like a shadow. One of the neighbours, the cold couple next door who avoided his eyes when his face was bruised, had left their front door ajar in their rush. He stepped inside without a sound. The smell of roses and old furniture met him, cloying and false. A set of car keys hung neatly by the door. He took them.

Then he was back outside, the night air sweet with smoke, the sky pulsing orange. He slipped beyond the hedge and sat down beside the trunk once more, wiping his palms absently on his jeans.

From this vantage point, the house looked almost majestic. The fire had found its rhythm, devouring room by room with greedy precision. The windows burst one by one, spraying embers into the air like fireflies. The roof began to sag, a red halo framing it against the dark.

Jisung watched, transfixed.

The flames reached through the windows, clawing at the curtains, wrapping around doorframes, swallowing furniture whole. It was as if the fire were reading the house’s memories, every scream, every slammed door, every broken thing, and burning them clean.

He could almost see it: the room where he’d been locked away, the mattress igniting in a bloom of blue light. The corner of the hallway where his father’s hand had first struck him. The kitchen where his mother’s laughter had once lived. All of it going, piece by piece, into ash.

He felt light. Lighter than he ever had before.

When the sirens finally cut through the night, wailing and shrill, Jisung didn’t flinch. He sat very still, hands clasped loosely around his knees, watching the bright red trucks arrive like interlopers come to ruin something sacred.

Firefighters rushed forward, uncoiling hoses, shouting orders. The first jet of water hit the flames with a monstrous hiss. Steam rolled upward, ghostly white against the black sky. The house shuddered under the assault, its final breaths smothered by efficiency.

And through it all, his father appeared, stumbling from the street corner, face streaked with soot and disbelief. He paced back and forth, barking at the officers, gesturing wildly at the ruin that had been his domain.

Jisung smiled faintly from his hiding place, unseen and untouchable. 

He stayed as the crowd gathered, as the whispers spread. In the shadow of the hedge, he was invisible, close enough to hear every word.

“We think his son might have been inside,” a firefighter said softly to a police officer, his voice heavy with pity.

The officer frowned. “Do you think the father set the fire? The neighbours have reported… disturbances. A lot of shouting.”

“I think so, yes. They say he left just before they noticed the fire, took off like a bat out of hell.” the firefighter murmured, shaking his head. “Poor kid, horrible way to go.”

Jisung’s smile widened, slow and satisfied.

He leaned back in the grass, eyes on the smouldering remains of the house, the smoke curling upward like a benediction.

Let them think what they wanted. Let them mourn.

He was gone.

And in his place, something new, something burning, had been born.

It was the early hours of the morning when the road finally emptied. The air still hummed with the memory of sirens, a faint hiss from the ruin down the street, steam rising from what had once been home.

Jisung moved through the stillness, the car keys clenched tight in his palm. He pressed the button, and a faint flash of headlights answered him from further up the road. The chirp was small, domestic, out of place among the ruins and the smoke.

He hauled the trunk across the damp grass, the metal scraping softly against the ground. His arms ached, but the ache felt clean. Purposeful. He lifted the trunk into the back seat, careful not to jar the books within.

Then, for a moment, he couldn’t help himself. He turned back.

The house stood in shambles, blackened and skeletal, its edges still smouldering, a heartbeat of ember pulsing beneath the ruin. The night air stung with smoke and petrol, and something in him ached at the beauty of it.

He stepped closer, until the warmth licked at his face. Tears stung his eyes, not from the smoke, not entirely.

“What I endured,” he whispered, voice breaking, “You endured. And now you’re free.”

He smiled through the tears, a strange and fragile joy blooming in his chest.

Then he turned away, slid into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. The car hummed to life, a low purr that felt almost alive beneath his hands.

He looked once more at the ruin in the rearview mirror, a house turned to memory, glowing faintly against the horizon, and then he drove.

Towards the city.

Towards something new.

Towards the fire waiting to be kindled.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid - Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

Perhaps someday we shall look back on these things with joy. - The Aenid, Virgil

Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself. - Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Death is the only water to wash away this dirt. - Medea, Euripedes

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. - Seneca

How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure. - The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. - Seneca

Chapter Text

Life was better in the city.

It wasn’t glamorous, not by any stretch, but it was his. No footsteps in the hallway to make him flinch, no slurred voice calling his name like a curse. The air smelled of petrol and bread, of rain on asphalt, of freedom.

He lived out of the car, which might have sounded pitiful to anyone else, but to Jisung it was serenity. The back seat was narrow and smelled faintly of dust and old perfume from its previous owner, but when he curled up beneath his stolen blanket and locked the doors, it was the safest place he had ever been. A fortress of his own.

He hadn’t planned any of it, no destination, no idea of what came next. He simply wandered. During the days he walked until his legs ached, through crowds that flowed around him like rivers. No one noticed him, not really. And that, he found, was a gift. Once, as a child, he had ached to be seen. Now he understood that invisibility was its own kind of blessing.

At night, he became a scavenger of small wonders. When cafes closed and restaurants stacked their trash out back, Jisung waited for the clatter of doors locking, then searched through the bins for scraps, half a sandwich, a bruised piece of fruit, a pastry with one bite missing. It should have felt humiliating, but it didn’t to Jisung who took pride in mere survival.

The other homeless were kind, in the quiet, weary way of those who have nothing left to prove. They taught him the best spots, where the bakery left its leftovers, which soup kitchen didn’t ask questions, which shopkeeper would chase you and which would just sigh. They shared what they found, called him kid or little brother, and gave him first pick when they could. He was fifteen now, but he looked younger, smaller, drowned in stolen clothes that didn't fit.

There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.

He gave back where he could, too. Small, light-fingered, and clever, Jisung found that shoplifting came easily to him. He stole the soft things: socks, underwear, toothbrushes. Not for himself, but for others. He’d hand them out with a grin, feeling almost like Santa Claus, pleased he too could contribute. Once, he helped a man wash his hair in a public bathroom sink before a job interview, humming quietly as the water ran black with city dust.

The community shifted constantly, new faces, old ones disappearing without a word, but it held together by a fragile thread of kindness. Jisung felt it wrap around him like warmth. It wasn’t love, not quite, but it was close enough.

I forgot the defective can be more than the whole. Jisung mused as he moved among the lost and the weary who remained better people than most he’d known.

Still, he kept his secret.

No one knew about the car. To them, he was just another boy on the streets, sleeping in doorways or shelters. Some had even warned him, gentle and concerned, about men who preyed on kids like him, who offered a warm place to stay, then took and took. The thought that they cared enough to worry warmed him, he drank it greedily, kindness like an elixir.

But each night, when the city began to sleep, Jisung would slip away. Down the alleys, through the backstreets, circling until he reached his little haven. He’d unlock the car door, slide inside, and relax under the neon city lights.

Home.

A sanctuary of steel and silence, where no one could reach him, and the world outside could burn or bloom as it pleased.

He’d been in the city three months when someone finally noticed him.

It was a mild afternoon, pale sunlight cutting through the thinning autumn trees. Jisung sat on a park bench in a too-thin sweatshirt, knees drawn up, watching pigeons peck methodically at crumbs on the path. The air smelled faintly of fried food from the vendors down the street and the sharp, metallic promise of rain.

Jisung didn’t look up when he approached.

“I’ve seen you around here before.”

He blinked, slow, dragging his eyes away from the pigeons. The speaker was a boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Clean hoodie, new shoes, hair styled deliberately messy, a different species entirely.

“I’m here sometimes,” Jisung said, voice mild.

“Do you want work?”

Jisung tilted his head, gauging. “Depends on the work,” he said after a moment. “And on the pay. I won’t fuck you.”

The boy’s mouth quirked into a grin, a short burst of laughter escaping him. “No, it’s not that kind of work. Jesus, that’s depressing, have you been approached for that?”

“Few times a week,” Jisung murmured, watching the pigeons scatter. He pictured the leering men, their greasy smiles, their smug, confident hands, and imagined them being set ablaze. Immolation. He liked the word. It felt good on his tongue.

“Well, it’s not that.” The boy sighed and sat down beside him, elbows resting on his knees. “But it’s not good work either.”

“I don’t care about good.”

“That’s what I need to hear.” A smirk. “I’m Woo-jae. It’s good to meet you…?”

“Jisung.” He took the offered hand, Jisung’s hand was cold, damp from the chilled air. Woo-jae’s grip was firm, professional.

“I deal drugs for one of the gangs,” Woo-jae said casually, like he was talking about a summer job. “I’m trying to bring in new runners. You’re the exact type I’m looking for.”

“Young?” Jisung guessed.

Woo-jae chuckled. “Sure. And innocent looking. But I’ve seen you around. You can look after yourself too.”

Jisung wondered what exactly he’d seen. He hadn’t started any fights, not recently, but he had ended one. A businessman had kicked filthy street water over one of the older men who spent his days quietly whittling wood on a park bench. Jisung had snapped the man’s arm cleanly. No one had interfered.

The man had stared at Jisung, at the small, thin child before him. When Jisung told him the police wouldn’t believe him, the man had nodded dumbly, then made his retreat. 

“What’s the money like?” Jisung asked, his tone flat but not uninterested.

“Good. Better than you’d think,” Woo-jae said, launching into numbers. Jisung only half listened. The details didn’t matter, he already knew he’d accept. Still, it felt like he should pretend to consider it, the way normal people did. “...And you can work your way up. We’re young, we’ve got a lot of life ahead of us. A lot we can give.”

Jisung snorted, low and amused. Then he held out his hand again. “Sure, Woo-jae. Let’s do it.”

Woo-jae grinned, rummaging in his hoodie pocket. “Glad I found you. I’ve been trying to track you down for days.”

He pulled out a small stack of notes, a cell phone, and a wrapped sandwich. Jisung stared at them suspiciously.

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“Consider it a signing bonus,” Woo-jae said easily. “Get yourself something decent to wear. Something you don’t have to steal.”

Jisung nodded suspiciously.

Woo-jae continued blithely. “My number’s in the phone. I’ll text you when there’s a job, you meet me, I give you the product, you drop it off, bring me the cash. Simple.”

“I’ll need a weapon.”

Woo-jae didn’t flinch. “Sure. I can get you a knife. Or a gun?”

“Both.”

Woo-jae gave him a look, half surprise, half respect. “Alright. I’ll text you. And, uh…” He hesitated. “Text me if you need anything. If something goes wrong.”

Jisung nodded once. “Which gang?”

“The Fang Syndicate,” Woo-jae said, quiet but proud. “You’re a Fang now.”

Jisung smiled, sharp and strange. “Guess I am.” He pocketed the phone, the cash, the food. “I’m gonna go spend this before you change your mind. See you.”

Woo-jae grinned, rising from the bench. “See you, Jisung.”

Jisung watched him walk away, then glanced down at the sandwich in his lap. He unwrapped it slowly, ate half, then tore the rest into pieces for the pigeons.

They swarmed around his feet, grey feathers and beating wings, and for the first time in a while, Jisung laughed.

All human wisdom is contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The first deals were easy.

College kids, mostly, jittery, over-eager, smelling faintly of beer and cheap cologne. They met him in café bathrooms or parked cars, slipping folded bills across chipped counters, eyes darting like they thought someone might care. Jisung learned to smile just enough to calm them, to move fast, to vanish before they could even second-guess the exchange.

He felt invisible again. Untouchable.

When he brought the first stack of cash back to Woo-jae, the older boy grinned wide enough to show a chipped canine. “See? I told you you’d be good at this.”

Jisung shrugged, pocketing his cut. “They’re not very scary.”

“That’s the point,” Woo-jae said, ruffling his hair. “You start with kittens before you handle wolves.”

The next week, the wolves came.

A pair of tattooed men in a smoky arcade, loud, mean, suspicious. They made him count the pills in front of them, made jokes about his size, his face, his voice. Jisung didn’t flinch. He slid the bag over the sticky table, collected the cash, and smiled with perfect, polite stillness.

When Woo-jae picked him up afterward, he was quiet for once.

“They didn’t scare you?”

“They tried.”

Woo-jae laughed under his breath. “You’re something else, you know that?”

He handed Jisung a bag of candy. Cola bottles. Jisung blinked, then accepted them with a childish grin.

“Sugar helps after adrenaline,” Woo-jae said simply, turning the car stereo up a little.

The next jobs blurred together, back alleys, stairwells, nightclubs pulsing with bass that rattled his ribs. A woman with diamond earrings and blood-red nails. A junkie crying on a stairwell. A dealer from a rival gang who made him wait, eyes flicking to the knife in Jisung’s sleeve before finally handing over the payment.

Each time, Woo-jae would text: You good?

Each time, Jisung would answer: Of course.

Sometimes Woo-jae met him afterward, checking him over like a parent might, looking for bruises or split lips.

“You don’t have to prove anything,” he said once. “You can say no.”

Jisung smiled faintly. “I don’t want to say no.”

Woo-jae looked at him for a long time, then sighed. “You worry me.”

He started bringing more small gifts, cheap headphones, a lighter with a phoenix on it, an old jacket that smelled faintly of cigarettes and detergent. Jisung wore it constantly.

The jobs kept coming, deliveries to rich kids in glass apartments, to grimy basements where men argued about debts, to bars where Woo-jae’s name earned him a brief flicker of respect before suspicion returned. Jisung got faster, sharper, quieter. He learned who to stare down and who to charm. He learned that fear was a tool if you knew how to hold it.

And every time he came back unscathed, Woo-jae smiled with something like pride, and something like worry.

“You ever get scared?” Woo-jae asked one night, the two of them sharing instant noodles in the park.

“Of what?” Jisung asked.

“Of dying.”

Jisung looked up at the stars, faint in the polluted sky. “No,” he said. “Just of being saved.”

Woo-jae frowned at that, but didn’t push.

He slid a chocolate bar across the bench instead. “Then let’s keep you alive, yeah?”

Jisung unwrapped it, took a bite, and smiled faintly. The chocolate melted on his tongue, sweet and fleeting. Like everything good in his life.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The job should have been simple.

A drop in a warehouse at the city’s edge, cracked concrete, broken lights, graffiti curling like old scars on the walls.

The buyer arrived late, where there should have been one, there were six. Older, the kind of men who’d long ago traded empathy for the rush of easy power. They laughed too loud, hands in pockets where guns surely waited. Jisung felt their eyes on him, small, thin, harmless-looking, and knew what they saw: prey.

“Kid’s shaking,” one of them snorted. “Don’t wet yourself, little guy. Just hand it over.”

He did. Calmly. Slowly. Letting the bag dangle from his fingertips, trying not to roll his eyes at their posturing.

They snatched it, tore it open to check. The smell of powder filled the air.

“Nice haul,” one said, grinning, turning his back on Jisung. “We’ll take it from here.”

“I need the money.” Jisung replied woodenly.

They laughed, barely looking at him, focused on their prize.

“No, no money for you.” They said, guns glinting in the light

The barrel pressed to his temple was cold.

Jisung smiled faintly. “You sure?”

They didn’t see his hand move.

The first shot echoed in the metal hollow of the lot, sharp, final. The man nearest dropped instantly, surprise still painted on his face. The second barely had time to curse before Jisung spun, fired again.

The others stumbled back, shouting, one dropping his gun in panic.

He didn’t flee.

He advanced.

Two more shots. Two more bodies. The gun clicked empty.

The last two froze, cornered by a child drenched in shadow. They turned to flee, but Jisung was already moving, pulling the knife Woo-jae had given him from his boot. He didn’t remember lunging. He didn’t remember the sound it made, or the heat of blood spilling across his hands. He only remembered the rhythm, the thud, the breath, the silence after.

When he came back to himself, it was over. Six men, a mess of limbs and blood, the air thick with gun powder and iron.

He stared down at them, not horrified, not proud.

Just… steady.

“Terrible people,” he murmured, almost absently. “To hold a child at gunpoint. All for a few ounces.”

He cleaned the knife on a sleeve, and searched their pockets for cash, finding more than double what the deal was worth. Then he arranged the bodies together, neat as offerings. 

“Smile.” He murmured as he took a photo.

Then he pulled out his lighter.

The descent into hell is easy.

The flame caught fast. Fire licked their clothes, then their skin, spreading like it always did, hungry, honest, beautiful.

He took another photo when the blaze climbed high enough to paint the concrete walls gold. He sent both to Woo-jae, figuring he ought to know.

His phone buzzed as he watched the flames dance. His face twitched in annoyance about being disturbed in his worship. It was Woo-jae.

Jisung sighed, wiping a streak of blood from his jaw before answering. “Yeah?”

“Jisung, fuck, what the hell is this?” Woo-jae’s voice cracked, panic spilling through the line. “I just got out of a meeting and, are you okay? What’s happening?”

“It’s fine,” Jisung said flatly. “They tried to rob me. I handled it. Got the cash. Although, don’t expect them to be repeat customers.”

There was silence, save for the faint crackling of flames.

“Jisung…” Woo-jae’s voice became smaller. “Are you still there?”

“Mm-hm. Want to see?” He snapped another picture, sending it before Woo-jae could answer.

He heard a sharp inhale. “Jesus Christ. Get out of there. Right now. You’re covered in blood, aren’t you?”

Jisung glanced down. His clothes were soaked through, tacky and dark. “Yeah,” he said mildly. “Next time I’ll stick to shooting. Stabbing’s messy when you don’t have laundry facilities.”

A laugh came faintly through the phone, not Woo-jae’s. Someone else was listening.

Then Woo-jae’s voice again, urgent: “Jisung, listen to me. Get away from the fire. Hide somewhere close. I’m coming to get you.”

Jisung turned back to the burning bodies, the heat kissing his cheeks, the light reflected in his eyes. “Okay,” he said softly.

He hung up, dropped the phone into his pocket, and kept watching until the faces turned to ash.

The blade itself incites to deeds of violence.

Woo-jae found him still standing there.

The fire was almost out, leaving only the glow of embers. Jisung’s face was streaked black with soot, his hair damp with sweat. He didn’t turn when the car screeched to a stop.

“Jesus Christ!” Woo-jae ran to him, grabbing his arm. “Are you out of your mind? You’re still here?”

Jisung blinked slowly, as though waking. “You said to wait.”

“I didn’t mean beside the fire.” Woo-jae’s voice cracked. He looked him over, hands hovering as if afraid to touch him. “You’re covered in blood. God, kid…”

Jisung let himself be guided to the car, docile, pliant. Woo-jae shoved him into the passenger seat and started driving fast, one hand white-knuckled on the wheel.

They rode in silence for a while. City lights blurred by. Jisung watched them pass, thinking distantly that maybe he’d be punished. Maybe he should’ve died instead.

But he wasn’t sorry.

Woo-jae kept glancing at him. “You, uh… you like chocolate?”

Jisung turned his head slightly. “What?”

“I mean…” Woo-jae cleared his throat. “I have some back at base, the good kind. The expensive kind. I’ll grab some later.”

Jisung only stared. His calm seemed to unnerve Woo-jae more than the blood.

After a long silence, Jisung said, “You shouldn’t have come. It’s upset you.”

“Yeah, well,” Woo-jae muttered, “I couldn’t exactly let you roast marshmallows over the corpses, could I?”

Jisung didn’t answer. He just leaned his head against the window and watched the city slide away behind them.

The car turned off the main road and into a stretch of dark industrial land. The buildings were hulking and empty, the streetlights dim and flickering.

They pulled into a gravel lot fenced with chain link, the crunch of tyres loud in the quiet. Woo-jae got out and motioned for him to follow. The air smelled of oil and rust.

He unlocked a side door with a key. Inside, fluorescent light hummed overhead. Men were leaving a meeting, voices rough and low. Their laughter stopped when they saw Jisung, a thin, filthy teenager standing calmly amidst them, eyes wild and sharp. He was bathed in soot and blood like a phoenix chick taking wobbly steps from its own ashes.

Woo-jae grabbed Jisung by the wrist and towed him toward three men at the far end of the room, two older, one young. The younger couldn’t have been much older than Woo-jae himself.

Woo-jae stopped a few feet away and bowed low, sharp and formal.

Jisung watched with detached curiosity, head tilted, wondering why Woo-jae was suddenly bending at the waist like that, until a hand landed hard at the back of his neck and pushed him down too.

The reflex to fight came fast. He almost twisted, almost snapped Woo-jae’s fingers just to make a point, but he caught himself, holding still, breathing through it. He liked Woo-jae, he told himself. 

He just didn’t like bowing. It reminded him of his father.

When Woo-jae straightened, Jisung did too, deliberately slow, and looked the three men over without flinching.

“This is Jisung,” Woo-jae said, his voice tight. “My… protégé.”

The oldest man stepped forward, sharp eyes and an easy authority. “Bang Kyu-wan,” Woo-jae added quickly. “The Boss of the Fang Syndicate. Hwang Byung-chul, head of security. And…” He hesitated, “Bang Chan. The Boss’s son.”

Jisung’s face was expressionless. “Hello.”

Kyu-wan smiled faintly. “So you’re the boy I’ve been hearing about. You have… instincts. That’s valuable.”

Byung-chul gave a short nod, assessing. “Efficient work. Brutal, but efficient.”

Chan said nothing. He just watched Jisung, eyes steady, curious.

“Am I supposed to be sorry?” Jisung asked, eyes narrowing at them, unsure what reaction they wanted from him. 

“Are you?” The Boss asked, eyes scanning him like they could see through his skin to his beating heart.

Jisung opted for honesty. “Pour everything out for the blood you have shed, you’re wasting your time in appeasing the dead.” Jisung said quietly, then blinked as the two older men smiled, satisfied.

“Poor Woo-jae here almost threw his phone across the room in panic when he saw what you’d done.” Byung-chul chortled, winking and Jisung. “Not everyone understands the necessity of violence, especially not at your age.”

“You’ll do well here, Jisung. We’ll find use for you, you’re built for more than drug running.” The Boss said firmly, reaching out a hand to pat his shoulder, smiling at the puff of ash that rose around his fingers.

“He’s still just a kid.” Woo-jae murmured, eyes concerned. 

The Boss waved him off. “You’ve been with us since you were young, Woo-jae. You know we look after our own.”

“I’d like to use him,” Chan said finally. His tone was calm, but there was something unreadable beneath it. “For a job I’m planning.”

Kyu-wan’s smile widened. “You see potential too. Good. You’ll have him.”

Woo-jae stiffened beside Jisung, but said nothing.

When they finally moved away from the three, Woo-jae exhaled hard. “You made an impression.” he muttered.

Jisung looked sideways at him. “They said you were freaking out about the texts. Is that why they wanted to see me?”

“Pretty much,” Woo-jae admitted. “They were… curious. Wanted to see the kid who wiped out six men without blinking.”

“You’d rather they didn’t.”

“No.” Woo-jae rubbed a hand over his face. “I wanted to keep you out of it for a while longer.”

Jisung’s mouth twitched. “You said we’ve got a lot of life ahead of us. A lot we can give.”

Woo-jae let out a weary laugh. “Yeah. I meant once Chan takes over. But I guess we’ll work with what we have. At least it’s him that’s claimed you, not any of the others.”

“Do you trust him?” Jisung asked.

“Chan?” Woo-jae’s answer came unequivocally. “Completely.”

Woo-jae went to find him a change of clothes. 

Jisung was left standing near the wall, sticky with dried blood, skin itching beneath his shirt. He was debating whether to sit on the floor or just walk out when he realised one of the three men hadn’t left.

The youngest, the one Woo-jae had called Bang Chan, was still there, watching him.

Jisung felt a thrill of… not quite fear… but respect. Knowledge that he was in the gaze of a predator, and he ought to keep very, very still.

Their eyes met, and Jisung was surprised that Chan didn’t look away. Everyone else had.

Chan stepped closer, slow, deliberate. His voice, when he spoke, was gentle, not soft, but steady.

“Are you hurt?”

Jisung blinked, caught off guard by the question. He looked down at himself, the soot, the smears of red drying to brown, then back up again.

“No.”

Chan studied him a moment longer, then asked, “Are you hurting?”

Jisung hesitated. No one had ever asked that before. 

He thought of the men in the room, of Woo-jae’s panic, of the flames still eating what was left of his work. Then he said, flatly, “Always.”

Something flickered in Chan’s expression, not pity, not disgust. Understanding.

Jisung went on, tone almost thoughtful now. “A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time.”

Chan nodded, slow, like he actually understood that too. “You read?”

“Sometimes.”

For a long moment, they just looked at each other, one boy burned hollow by his past, one boy already carrying the weight of a future he didn’t ask for. Something unspoken sparked between them, recognition, maybe, or the faint crackle before a fire takes hold.

Finally, Chan reached into his pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and held it out.

“My number,” he said. “If you ever need anything. I’ll text you soon.”

Jisung took it. Their fingers brushed, his cold, Chan’s warm, and for a heartbeat, Jisung thought maybe the world wasn’t entirely ash yet.

“Stay safe.” Chan said quietly.

“You too.” Jisung replied.

In the bathroom, Woo-jae tossed him clean clothes and ran the tap. The water turned pink as Jisung scrubbed his hands and face.

“Oh,” Jisung said suddenly. “The money.”

He held out the stack of cash. Woo-jae counted it, pocketed the amount he should have received, then pressed the rest back into Jisung’s palm.

“Keep it,” he whispered. “But keep it quiet.”

The city reappeared on the horizon as Woo-jae drove him back.

Jisung hid the extra money in the trunk with his books.

The air smelled faintly of smoke.

Things, he thought, might finally be looking up.

There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain. - The Oresteia, Aeschylus

I forgot the defective can be more than the whole. - Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

All human wisdom is contained in these two words: Wait and Hope. - Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

The descent into hell is easy. - The Aenid, Virgil

The blade itself incites to deeds of violence. - The Odyssey, Homer

Pour everything out for the blood you have shed, you’re wasting your time in appeasing the dead. - The Oresteia, Aeschylus

A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time. - The Odyssey, Homer

Chapter Text

Jisung’s phone buzzed just after midday.

10:02am
Chan: “Meet me at base. 2pm.”

Jisung stared at the message for a moment, thumb hovering over the screen.

Jisung: “Okay.”

A moment later, he switched chats.

Jisung: “Where’s base?”
Woo-jae: “Which one? Each crew has its own base.”
Jisung: “Whichever one Chan means.”
Woo-jae: “Okay, main base then. That’s where we were yesterday. You’re summoned? Already?”
Jisung: “Apparently. Can you send the address? Am I allowed to drive there myself?”

There was a pause before Woo-jae’s reply came through.

Woo-jae: “You can drive?”
Jisung: “It’s not hard to learn.”
Woo-jae: “You have a car?”
Jisung: “It’s not hard to steal.”
Woo-jae: “You’re giving me grey hairs.”

The drive took just under an hour. The city was beautiful at midday, the air sharp, glass and steel flashing like knives in the light. When he parked outside the base, he caught sight of himself in the rearview mirror: dark circles, tired eyes, but clean. The clothes Woo-jae had gotten him still fit like someone else’s life.

Before he got out, he twisted in his seat and looked at the back. The blanket was rumpled, the pillow uneven, his box of books and essentials wedged behind it. He tugged the blanket up to cover it all, as if hiding the evidence that he still didn’t belong anywhere.

Inside, the base was quiet, a warehouse converted into something halfway between an office and a bunker. Jisung followed the low murmur of voices until he found Chan standing near a table with a tall, sharp-featured blonde.

They both turned when Jisung entered.

Chan smiled faintly and crossed the room to meet him. “Didn’t recognise you without the soot.” he joked, shaking Jisung’s hand.

Jisung shrugged. “I prefer it that way.”

Chan’s smile deepened, and he gestured to the blonde. “This is Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin regarded Jisung with open curiosity, eyes sweeping over him like he was memorising every inch. “So this is the kid,” he said, voice smooth. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“Looks can be misleading.” Jisung replied mildly.

That earned him a grin from Chan. “Good. You’ll need that attitude for this. Anyway, don’t call him kid, Hyunjin, he’s your age.”

“Not that you could tell.” Hyunjin quirked a brow at Jisung, but there was a smile in his voice. Teasing… That’s what friends do, Jisung remembered vaguely.

In the conference room, Chan laid out the plan. His tone was calm, deliberate, the kind of authority that didn’t need to shout.

“The job’s important,” Chan said simply. “A rival gang member, been making our lives hell. The hit comes from above, but I want control over how it’s done. We do this clean, no chance he gets away, no chance it’s tied back to us.”

He leaned over the table, sliding a folder toward them, building plans, photos, notes scribbled in the margins.

“My role is generally in planning.” Chan explained to Jisung. “I’m also muscle when needed. Hyunjin’s our hitman.” Chan motioned to him, Hyunjin didn’t blink, face blank. “And Jisung, you’ll be back up and disposal.”

Jisung tilted his head. “Disposal?”

Chan looked up at him. “Fire.” he said.

A pulse of pleasure went through Jisung’s chest. “That, I can do.”

“After Hyunjin’s work is done, we want to burn the entire building. Do you think that’s possible?” Chan asked.

Jisung leaned forward, taking in the blue prints with new eyes. His hands shook with excitement, pointing at the blueprints, his words tumbling faster as he explained the structure’s weak points, the ideal accelerants, the air flow patterns that would make the fire both quick and complete. His mind blazed, each thought sparking another.

When he realised he’d been talking too much, he stopped short, breath catching, eyes flicking to Chan’s expression.

Chan was smiling, small, approving. “You’re really good at this.” he said.

“It’s kind of my thing.” Jisung replied warily.

Chan nodded. “That’s fine. I have no plans to put your flame out.”

Hyunjin leaned back in his chair, grinning. “Yeah,” he said softly. “We don’t do that here.”

Jisung didn’t know what to say to that. No one had ever said something like that to him before, you’re fine as you are.

Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth.

They met a few more times in the following days, planning, rehearsing, refining. Chan’s calm authority steadied him. Hyunjin’s easy humour drew him in. They spoke to him like an equal, not a child or a monster.

And slowly, Jisung began to orbit them, not yet part of their constellation, but caught in its pull.

He didn’t tell them what it meant to him, this strange sense of belonging. Didn’t tell them that every time Chan met his eyes, something inside him quieted, or that Hyunjin’s laughter made him ache with a loneliness he hadn’t known he still carried.

He suspected they knew.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

They gathered on the roof before dawn, the air sharp and cool. Below them, the target building stood in the half-light, deliciously flammable wooden walls tempting Jisung in.

Chan crouched at the edge, surveying the building, his expression unreadable. Hyunjin leaned against the low wall, spinning a knife lazily between his fingers. Jisung sat cross-legged, checking the contents of his bag: accelerants, lighter, wire, rag. The ritual calmed him.

When Chan finally spoke, his voice was quiet, but it carried.

“Alright. This one’s simple, but important. In and out. No witnesses. Don’t put yourself in danger.” That last part seemed directed specifically at Jisung.

“I’ve got him.” Hyunjin murmured, rolling his eyes.

“You ready?” Chan asked Jisung, touching his cheek gently. Jisung thought it might be the only gentle touch his face had ever received.

Jisung nodded. Chan’s gaze lingered, something between curiosity and pride, and then he asked, “Got anything to say before we start?”

Jisung’s mouth twitched, of course he did. “I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury, fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils.”

For a heartbeat, there was silence.

Chan nodded slowly. “I like it.”

Hyunjin squinted. “What the hell does it mean?”

“It means,” Jisung said, “I’ve thought about what I’m doing. And I’m doing it anyway.”

Hyunjin stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. “Cool. Guess it’s good one of us has brains, because it’s definitely not me or Chan.”

Chan snorted. “Hey.”

“Sorry,” Hyunjin said sweetly, utterly unrepentant.

Jisung laughed, small, startled. The friendly ribbing still felt foreign to him.

Chan slung an arm briefly around each of them, a solid, grounding weight. “Go work your magic,” he murmured. “I’ll watch over you from here.”

Hyunjin and Jisung moved down the fire escape, silent shadows. The city felt suspended, breath held.

As they waited in the alley for Chan’s signal, Hyunjin glanced sideways. “So that quote,” he said. “Where’s it from?”

“An ancient Greek play called Medea,” Jisung said. “She kills her kids.”

“Charming.”

“She had her reasons.”

Hyunjin’s mouth quirked. “Remind me not to piss you off.”

Before Jisung could reply, the night cracked open, a sharp, wet pop as one of the guards’ heads exploded in a spray of red. The other fell a second later, and Jisung giggled, high and delighted.

“That’s the signal,” Hyunjin said tiredly.

They slipped inside, stepping past the bodies, Halloween decorations, Jisung thought idly, for the kind of house no one should ever visit.

His role was simple: cover Hyunjin’s back. He did it with utter devotion, eyes flicking through every shadow, ears tuned to every breath.

They found the target in his office, unaware. Hyunjin moved with eerie grace, stepping forward and burying his blade in the man’s throat before he could turn. It was over in seconds.

Hyunjin looked up, almost apologetic. “Don’t look so disappointed,” he said softly. “You get to make it pretty now.”

Jisung smiled, slow, reverent. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I do.”

They stepped outside and grabbed the two bodies Chan had gifted them from afar, dragging them inside.

Jisung moved through the building like a priest preparing a shrine, precise and reverent. Every rag placed just so, every bottle uncapped with care. When he lit the flame, he whispered to it, sweet nothings, coaxing it to life.

The fire caught fast, greedy. Orange licked the walls. Smoke began to thicken, low and hungry.

Hyunjin stayed with him longer than he had to. His face shone with sweat, eyes darting nervously to the growing blaze, but he didn’t leave.

Jisung adored him for it. He swallowed that ever present temptation to stay, and gestured for Hyunjin to lead the way outside.

When they finally slipped back outside, the fire had become a living thing, roaring, unstoppable. They climbed back up to the roof where Chan was waiting, cross-legged beside a plastic bag.

A blanket was spread on the ground, food arranged neatly.

Jisung looked at him with wide eyes, realising it meant he got to stay, to watch his art come to life.

“Scenic picnic,” Hyunjin snorted, flopping down on the blanket with the unselfconscious ease of someone long used to Chan’s ideas. He reached for a tray of supermarket sushi and popped a piece into his mouth. 

Jisung hovered on the edge of the blanket, uncertain of his place. He waited for them to pick their food first, hands twitching in his lap.

“Your show’s on tonight, Hyunjin,” Chan said lightly, surveying the spread. “We should grab popcorn on the way back.”

Chan picked out a few things: sushi, crisps, a can of soda, and placed them deliberately in front of Jisung. There was no question in his movements, only quiet expectation.

Jisung gulped, willing away the tears. He couldn’t believe he could come undone so easily, he’d spent years training himself not to cry from pain or fear, but kindness… That was something else entirely.

“Thank you.” He whispered, throat tight as he snapped the cheap chopsticks Hyunjin handed him.

“We should get the microwave popcorn, it’s better when it’s warm.” Hyunjin replied, shooting Jisung a small smile.

Jisung settled in to eat, content to watch the fire and listen to the chatter.

“I can understand it now.” Chan said quietly, nudging him. “It is beautiful.”

“It’s rebirth, it’s cleansing…” Jisung trailed off, shrugging. “It’s control.”

“We could all do with a bit of that.” Hyunjin joked, winking at him.

When the sirens came, Jisung sighed like a child watching someone stomp on his sandcastle.

“Let them come,” Chan said, amused. “There’ll be plenty more fires.”

Jisung turned to him, expression softening. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

The drive back was quiet, companionable. Chan drove with one arm resting on the window frame, Hyunjin sprawled in the passenger seat with his head tipped back, humming tunelessly along with the radio. Jisung sat in the back, forehead against the glass, watching the city lights begin to flicker on, then slide by like falling stars.

“Do you live with anyone, Jisung?” Chan asked after a while, glancing at him in the rear-view mirror.

“No,” Jisung said, eyes still on the window. “Just me.”

His fingers worried at the seam of his jeans. He didn’t want to lie, but he also couldn’t bear to tell them the truth.

“We live together.” Chan said easily, flashing a brief grin at Hyunjin. “It’s pretty nice, although neither of us are very good at cooking so we eat a lot of ramen.”

Jisung nodded. “Ramen is good.”

“Woo-jae said you were new to the gang,” Hyunjin said, twisting in his seat to look back at him. “Are you new to the city too?”

“Yeah. Moved here about six months ago. Been working for Woo-jae for three.”

“Do you like it?” Chan asked.

“The city or the gang?” Jisung asked, then went on anyway. “Yes to both, I guess.”

“We’ve always lived in the city.” Chan explained. “Our fathers are fangs, so we both grew up in the gang.”

Jisung understood then. They were offering up morsels of themselves. He could feel the invitation in it, we’re trusting you, will you trust us back? He didn’t know how to answer that.

“Where should I drop you off?” Chan asked, drumming his fingers lightly against the steering wheel.

“Anywhere in the city centre is fine,” Jisung said quickly. “I can walk.” He tucked his knees up slightly, making himself smaller.

“Will it take you long to get home?” Hyunjin asked, curiosity threading through his tone.

Jisung forced a small laugh. “Not really. I’m pretty central.”

Chan glanced at Hyunjin. “He’s obsessed with this new drama,” he said, tone teasing. “Teenagers with superpowers. You seen it?”

Jisung shook his head. “No, I don’t watch TV. I read, mostly.” 

“Ooh, an intellectual,” Hyunjin said, mock-scandalised. “We’ll have to corrupt you with trashy television.”

Jisung smiled faintly, tracing fog onto the window with one fingertip.

“Did the storm wake you last night?” Hyunjin went on. “I barely slept.”

“Yeah,” Jisung murmured. “It was… loud.” He didn’t mention that the rain had sounded like gunfire on the roof of his car.

“It was pretty, though,” Chan said. “You get a good view from your place?”

“Depends on the night,” Jisung said after a beat. “But yeah. Not bad.”

His thumb found the lighter in his pocket. Click. A spark. Another. The tiny flame flared and vanished, over and over.

Hyunjin reached across and placed a hand on Chan’s arm. Jisung wasn’t sure why.

Jisung expected Chan to pull over and let him out somewhere quiet, but instead the car turned into the glow of a grocery store car park.

“Come on, let me buy you a snack for a job well done.” Chan coaxed him, leaning against the car.

“I guess.” Jisung mumbled, trying not to sound as pleased as he felt. Any excuse to stay with them a little longer.

Hyunjin whooped, stretching dramatically before heading inside, disappearing down the aisles the instant they passed the sliding doors. Chan stayed beside Jisung, hands in his pockets, moving at an easy, unhurried pace.

“So,” Chan said after a moment, “what are you planning to do with your evening?”

Jisung shrugged. “Haven’t decided.”

Chan didn’t need to know he was planning to head to his favourite hidden spot where his car was currently stashed, curl up in the backseat, and sleep for hours.

Chan didn’t press. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick envelope of cash. “Here. For the job.”

Jisung blinked at it, astounded. He had handled money before, but nothing like this. He fumbled with it, then shoved it into his pocket, glancing at the shoppers none the wiser around them.

“That’s a lot.” Jisung murmured, incredulous.

“A hit is good money.” Chan shrugged. “I’m The Boss’ son, they don’t give me the small jobs.”

“Still, surely this is… How much did you get? I can’t see any more envelopes in your pockets.” Jisung frowned. Then he fished out the envelope again, reading the scrawled handwriting which just said the date. “This is all of it, isn’t it?”

Chan rolled his eyes, lips curving into a faint smile. “Yeah, that’s the fee for the whole job. You need it more than we do.”

Jisung stilled, suddenly cold. “What does that mean?”

Chan sighed, placing a hand on Jisung’s shoulder, steering him out of the way of an older lady trying to pick up some cooking oil. Jisung began walking slowly again, eyeing Chan.

“It means… I suspect that you might not have a safe home to go back to.” He said eventually.

“No, I do.” Jisung objected immediately. Safe was exactly what it was.

“Home.” Chan emphasised, glancing at him. Jisung realised he knew, and his stomach dropped.

“You know?” He asked, voice thin and high, anxiety filling him, buzzing.

“I think you’re living out of your car. I don’t know anything.” Chan replied, eyeing the shelves around them.

Jisung felt a sting of heat rise to his cheeks, and tears threatened behind his eyes. “Am I off the team?”

“No, no, never.” Chan said, his voice firm but soft. He reached out, pulling Jisung into a hug. “We’re just worried about you. That’s all.”

Jisung sniffled, pressing his face into Chan’s chest. For a moment, he imagined that warmth as a shield from the world, and he felt a quiet, careful relief.

Chan pulled back then, looking at him closely. “You could move in with me and Hyunjin if you’d like. You’d be more than welcome.”

Jisung stared at him, shocked, amazed.

“I… Are you sure?” He asked.

“Of course. Jisung. We’ve gotten to know you while planning this job, and we like you, we trust you… Which we can’t say about a lot of people.” Chan broke off with a snort. “I want you on my team permanently, and I want you safe.”

Jisung grabbed both of his hands then, fingers pressing tight. “Yes please.” He whispered, eyes wide. 

Hyunjin rounded the corner and found them amongst the cans of soup, he snorted.

“Did he say yes?” Hyunjin asked, tilting his head.

Jisung grinned, realising they’d planned this, that they really did want him.

“Yeah, he did.” Chan replied, wrapping an arm around Jisung’s shoulders.

“Guess you’ll have to learn to be a TV person, I’ve got enough popcorn for you too.” Hyunjin replied with a smile, motioning to his basket.

Jisung stepped forwards to grab Hyunjin’s hand, holding Chan’s with his other hand. He pressed them both to his forehead, awash with gratitude.

“I will follow thee to the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.” He pledged, voice shaking, eyes wet.

Chan laughed lightly and wrapped him and Hyunjin into a tight hug, his voice was tender. “We’ve got your back too, Sung. Always. You're ours now.”

I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury, fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils. - Medea, Euripides

I will follow thee to the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. - As You Like It, William Shakespeare

Chapter Text

As they exited the supermarket and loaded Hyunjin’s choices into Chan’s car, Chan hummed thoughtfully.

“Hyunjin, why don’t you go with Jisung to retrieve his car and meet me back at the apartment?” He asked.

“Sure.” Hyunjin nodded, closing the boot with a thunk then hugging Chan tightly. 

Jisung was surprised to receive a hug too.

“See you at home.” Chan said to them both, then climbed into the car.

Home.

Jisung shook his head in disbelief.

With friends, one is well, but at home, one is better.

Jisung remembered struggling with this quote when he lived with his father, disbelieving that such a thing could possibly be true. Now, he wondered if he was on the verge of a new discovery, a new comprehension.  

Hyunjin fell into step beside Jisung as they threaded through the city’s tangle of alleyways, their shadows stretching long and thin beneath the street lights. 

Jisung led the way without speaking, taking in the sights and sounds of the city, saying a private goodbye. 

Finally, they arrived at the forgotten lot, hidden behind a row of shuttered shops. Jisung’s car sat half-hidden beneath a graffiti-tagged wall, old and battered but undeniably his. He gestured toward it. “It’s here.”

Hyunjin’s gaze drifted to the back seat as they climbed in. His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You’ve made this so cosy.” he said, tone impressed and curious, holding no judgement.

Jisung’s chest rose slightly. “It’s the happiest home I’ve ever had,” he admitted quietly, almost to himself.

“The happiest home you’ve had… yet,” Hyunjin said, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips. Jisung laughed softly, a sound that felt fragile and hopeful, and Hyunjin’s eyes crinkled in response.

The engine buzzed to life, Jisung felt the worn leather steering wheel beneath his fingers and took a deep, steadying breath. Hyunjin leaned back, directing him through the streets with calm, precise instructions. “Left here. Slow down, that corner’s got a pot hole.”

After a few blocks, Hyunjin cleared his throat. “So… there’s someone else at the apartment you haven’t met yet.”

Jisung’s grip on the wheel didn’t tighten. His voice was steady. “I don’t mind,” he said simply. “I’m just grateful to be taken in at all.”

Hyunjin tilted his head slightly, studying him with a mixture of admiration and surprise. “He’s… like Chan’s younger brother,” he said, careful. “Though they aren’t related. And you… you really shouldn’t mention him to the other gang members. Not at all.”

Jisung nodded once, sharply. “I understand. My loyalty is to you two, above all else.”

Hyunjin’s voice dipped lower, testing the waters. “Even above The Boss?”

“Yes,” Jisung said without hesitation, meeting Hyunjin’s eyes. “Above anyone.”

The words hung between them, and Hyunjin’s lips curved into the faintest smile. “Good.”

When evil come on those we dearly love, never shall we betray them.

When they pulled up outside the apartment, Jisung looked up in surprise. He’d expected somewhere dilapidated and forgotten by the city, given it was inhabited by people so young. Instead, the building was a little old but nice, normal looking. Hyunjin pointed out an empty spot so Jisung parked out front. Hyunjin led the way inside, pressing the button to call the lift impatiently.

“It’s so slow.” He complained, rolling his eyes. 

The lift took them up and up, spitting them out on the 14th floor. Hyunjin fumbled with his keys, slotting one into the lock then opening the front door with a grin.

“Honey, we’re home.” He called with a laugh.

Jisung followed him, toeing his shoes off then walking into the living room. It was cosy, small and warm with a sofa and a flickering TV. The sofa was covered in cushions and blankets, and currently inhabited by Chan and a small boy tucked under Chan’s arm.

The boy was young, certainly younger than Jisung or Hyunjin, and his wide curious eyes told Jisung he hadn’t been hardened by life in the way the rest of them had. Chan’s arm was draped lightly over him, protective and familiar, but the boy still seemed tentative as he looked up at Jisung.

“Hello, I’m Jisung.” He introduced himself with a slight bow. 

The boy giggled, his nose scrunching. “I’m Jeongin.” He replied, voice small, hands tucked tightly in his lap.

Jisung inclined his head slightly. “Nice to meet you, Jeongin.” he replied. Something about the boy’s nervous energy made him immediately protective, though he didn’t yet know why.

“Are you happy with ramen for dinner, Jisung?” Chan asked, hand rubbing Jeongin’s arm soothingly.

“Sure, I can cook it.” Jisung offered, eyes darting to the doorway through which he could spot a kitchen sink.

“Oh, that’d be great, actually.” Chan agreed, grinning at him. Hyunjin nodded then disappeared down a hallway, likely into his bedroom.

Jisung headed into the kitchen, quickly familiarising himself as he found packets of ramen and saucepans. 

A few minutes later, Jeongin joined him, hovering just inside the doorway. He didn’t speak, only watched, wide-eyed, as Jisung rifled through the cupboards and fridge, pulling out eggs and a small bunch of spring onions. Jisung worked quickly, chopping, stirring, cracking eggs. He’d often needed to cook at home as he grew older and his father grew more useless and resentful, he was glad of the experience now.

“Are you in the gang?” Jeongin asked quietly, breaking the silence.

Jisung paused mid-stir. “I guess so,” he replied, shrugging, a small wry smile on his lips. “Or… I was. But now it feels like I’m in Chan’s gang instead. That probably doesn’t make sense.”

Jeongin nodded slowly, the seriousness in his eyes giving him a maturity that belied his age. “It does. I’d follow him anywhere.”

Jisung glanced at him, surprised by the quiet conviction, and felt an unexpected warmth. He nodded emphatically. “Me too,” he said, grinning. 

A few minutes later, the front door banged and Chan’s voice caught their attention, groaning dramatically. “What on earth is making this thing so heavy?”

Jisung glanced up from the ramen he’d just finished ladling into bowls and saw Chan struggling with his trunk, sweat beading on his forehead as he hauled it into the living room. Without thinking, Jisung crossed the room in a few long strides and pressed his hands against the trunk, smoothing over its corners lovingly.

“I promise I was gentle,” Chan said, setting it down with a soft thud, looking slightly exasperated.

Jisung laughed softly, the sound light and pleased. “I know.”

Hyunjin appeared next, arms full with the remainder of Jisung’s meagre belongings from his car, a bag, a small box, a pillow, and a few blankets. All of it looked modest stacked together, but to Jisung it felt like the world's greatest treasures.

“I’ll show you after dinner,” Jisung said, his voice warm, eyes twinkling.

They all settled around the dining table, the bowls of ramen steaming between them.

“What are you, some kind of wizard?” Hyunjin mumbled between bites. “Why does it taste so good?”

“He added eggs and stuff.” Jeongin explained eagerly, his bowl already almost empty. 

“Thank god we decided to keep you.” Hyunjin said approvingly, nodding at him, mouth full.

Jisung laughed softly, the sound light and pleased. The room hummed with warmth, care seeping from every movement as Chan spooned extra bites into Jeongin’s bowl and Hyunjin ruffled his hair. 

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. Jisung thought as he looked around.

“How was school today, Jeongin?” Chan asked with obvious interest.

“It was okay.” Jeongin sighed, finishing his bowl with a satisfied slurp. “Biology was really boring, we’re doing plant cells.”

“Yeah that doesn’t sound very interesting.” Hyunjin agreed, squinting at him.

“You had maths today too, right?” Chan asked.

Jisung was amazed he could remember such things, his father would never have taken such an interest.

“Yeah. We’re still doing quadratic equations, it’s pretty easy.” Jeongin shrugged. “It’s literature that’s the problem, as always. I have homework today too.” Jeongin huffed.

“What’s your homework about?” Jisung asked, interest piqued.

“Shakespeare.” Jeongin whined, pouting slightly. “My teacher shouts a lot, and that makes me nervous.” He explained to Jisung.

“Hard to concentrate when you’re stressed out?” Jisung guessed, then smiled when Jeongin nodded. “I’ll help with your homework. I like Shakespeare.”

Jeongin brightened, face lighting up. “Really? Are you sure you don’t mind? The hyungs always help with my homework, but we all suck at this type of thing.”

“I’d love to.” Jisung assured him, trying not to get over excited, pleased to be able to contribute.

Hyunjin offered to wash the plates, grinning as he stacked them in the sink. “You cooked, I’ll clean.”

Jisung followed Chan to the sofa, where the trunk had been carefully dragged over so he could reach it. Chan shifted it just enough for Jisung to sit on the floor beside it, running his hands over it with no less adoration than the day he’d found it. 

He rifled through his pockets, finding that same metal shard he’d used all those years ago and worked it into the lock. The mechanism clicked open with ease.

Jeongin leaned forward, wide-eyed. “Wow!”

Chan made a vaguely offended noise at Jeongin’s awe. “Both Hyunjin and I can pick locks too!”

Jeongin’s eyes went sly. “Not that quickly!” he protested, smiling at Jisung.

Jisung carefully lifted the lid, letting his fingers brush over the spines of the books. His touch was worshipful, as if each one contained a fragment of his mother’s soul.

“These were my mother’s,” he whispered, unsure which to choose first.

After a moment, he settled on The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, sliding it out with deliberate care. He opened it slowly, revealing the handwritten inscription on the inner cover.

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.

I hope you find something worth living for, worth thriving for, my beloved son.

He passed the book up to Chan, open at her words. Chan read with delight, his expression soft. He traced the delicate script with a fingertip, mirroring Jisung’s own careful reverence. Hyunjin appeared from the kitchen and peered into the crate, eyes bright.

“There are so many. She left all of these for you?” Hyunjin asked.

“Yes.” Jisung said simply, a small smile lifting his face. He carefully returned the book to its place, smoothing the edges with loving hands.

Chan leaned forward slightly. “We’ll get a fireproof safe, big enough to keep them all in. Nothing will happen to them.”

Jisung glanced up, the smallest shadow of hesitation crossing his face. “I’d never set this building on fire,” he murmured, almost reflexively.

“No, of course not,” Chan said quickly, smiling. “I meant, they’re precious. They deserve protection.”

Warmth bloomed through Jisung’s chest, a tender, almost dizzying feeling. He traced the spine of another book softly, realising that this care, this protection, this understanding, was something he had never truly known until now.

Hyunjin leaned against the wall, glancing at Jisung with curiosity. “Hey… would you be happy sharing a room with me, or would you rather sleep in the living room?”

Jisung hesitated for a moment, scanning the apartment. “Wouldn’t it bother you to share?”

Hyunjin waved a hand dismissively. “Not at all. Honestly, it might be nice. Sometimes I go sleep in with Chan and Innie if I get lonely, now I won’t need to.”

Chan, who had been rearranging the cushions on the sofa, looked over his shoulder and smiled. “We’ll buy a proper mattress tomorrow, so tonight you’ll have to make do with an air mattress.”

Jisung’s eyes lit up. “It sounds amazing.” he said, thrilled. He pulled the envelope of cash from his pocket and held it out. “How many weeks of rent will this cover?”

Chan laughed softly, shaking his head. “Keep it. We’re doing just fine. You earned it. Get yourself something nice.”

Jisung’s lips twitched into a small, almost mischievous grin. “Something nice.” he repeated, immediately knowing he’d buy something for the rest of them, a gift for taking him in. 

Chan gestured toward Jeongin, who was peeking around the corner. “Jeongin, go grab your homework. Let’s all sit at the dining table.”

Jeongin’s eyes brightened. “Okay!” He ran off, and returned a few minutes later, setting himself at the table with a determined expression.

Jisung followed, settling beside him. Hyunjin and Chan took their seats, smiles warm but encouraging.

“Alright, let’s start with chemistry,” Chan said. “What’s the topic today?”

Jeongin pushed a sheet into the centre of the table. “Titrations.”

Chan nodded. “Okay, so question one is about burettes, do you remember what they are?”

“They’re the long tube things, I think.” Jeongin murmured, frowning. 

“Yeah. The question is asking why you’d use a burette to add a solution to something.”

Jeongin bit his lip. “Because… They have a tap you can turn on or off to measure how much solution you want to add… So you can change how much you add, unlike a pipette which is always the same amount.”

“Perfect, write it down.” Chan praised, smiling.

Jisung watched on as Chan gently led Jeongin through the homework, never giving him answers, just encouraging him.

It was obvious Jeongin’s issue wasn’t a lack of knowledge, but a lack of confidence.

“What’s the end point of a titration?” Chan read off the sheet. “You definitely know this one.”

“When… It changes colour?” Jeongin asked, head tilted.

“Write it down.” Chan prompted, nodding. “Okay, last one… What are concordant titres?”

Jeongin sighed at that, eyes going distant as he thought hard. Eventually, he admitted. “I can’t remember that one.”

“Don’t just give up. Go get your book.” Hyunjin instructed, poking his side.

Jeongin scampered away, returning with his school backpack, he pulled out his science book and began flicking through pages and pages of notes. Eventually he smiled. “Got it. Concordant titres are within zero point one centimetre cubed of each other.” He read off the page, then scribbled down his answer.

“Well done.” Chan said approvingly. “What’s next?”

“Geography.” Jeongin huffed, pulling out his next work sheet.

Jisung had nothing to add here either. He didn’t interrupt, just absorbed the rhythm of teaching and learning, the gentle guidance. Eventually, worksheet completed, Jeongin turned on Jisung with a small smile.

Chan and Hyunjin excused themselves, heading to the sofa to let them work.

Jisung’s lips curved into a grin the moment he saw the homework topic: Romeo and Juliet. 

“Ah,” he said softly, eyes lighting up. “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief. That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.” He murmured, the words rolling from him easily

Jeongin handed him the question sheet, cheeks flushed. “I… I’ve read it, but I didn’t really understand it,” he admitted, glancing down at the neat lines of text.

Jisung nodded eagerly. “Don’t worry. I’ll walk you through it.” He padded over to his trunk and carefully retrieved a thick, worn tome, the complete works of Shakespeare. The leather cover was creased, the pages slightly yellowed, but to Jisung it was a treasure chest.

He carried it back to the table and opened it with twitching fingers, flipping carefully to the story. The words seemed to shimmer under his touch, alive with promise.

“Alright,” Jisung said, leaning over the page. “So, Verona. A city full of families who hate each other. The Montagues, the Capulets…” His voice took on a dramatic lilt, curling and rising in cadence as he wove the tale.

Jeongin’s eyes widened as he listened, leaning closer. “Wait… he kills Tybalt? But why?”

“Because Tybalt kills Mercutio first,” Jisung explained, “and Romeo can’t stand by after that. It’s a tragedy of reactions, everyone doing the wrong thing for the right reason.”

He guided Jeongin carefully through every twist: the secret marriage, the banishment, the potion, the misunderstandings. Jeongin gasped at each turn, wide-eyed, mouth open at the betrayals and near misses.

Jisung noticed, almost in passing, that the TV had been muted and that Chan and Hyunjin were leaning against each other on the sofa, quietly listening. Their presence didn’t faze him; it added warmth to the storytelling, a sense of shared wonder.

“Wait, so… Juliet fakes her death? And Romeo thinks she’s actually gone?” Jeongin whispered, gripping the edge of the table.

“Yes,” Jisung said softly, eyes sparkling. “And the tragedy unfolds from there. Everything that happens is inevitable… yet preventable if only they had better information, more patience.”

He paused to let the drama settle, then continued, drawing out the tension, laughing when Jeongin gasped in shock at the most twisted moments, eyes round and completely captivated.

Jisung marvelled at the way Jeongin hung on every word, asking little questions throughout. “But… why did he fight Tybalt if he loved peace?” “How could she trust the potion would work?” “Why didn’t they just… tell someone?”

He answered each, carefully threading explanation with the narrative, making sure the story was not only comprehensible but thrilling.

By the time they reached the final, devastating scene, Jeongin’s hands were pressed to his mouth, his wide eyes reflecting both sorrow and awe. Jisung leaned back slightly, satisfied, noticing Chan and Hyunjin exchanging subtle smiles from the sofa. The room was quiet except for the soft turning of pages, the occasional exclamation from Jeongin, and Jisung’s calm, deliberate storytelling.

Jeongin wiggled in his seat, pen in hand, eyes bright as he read aloud the first question on the worksheet. “Explain the conflict between the Montagues and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet, and how it drives the story forward.” His voice was tentative at first, then gaining confidence.

Jisung leaned closer, nodding encouragingly. “Go on,” he said softly.

Jeongin’s pen hovered over the page. “The box is… so small,” he muttered, glancing up at Jisung, “but there’s… there’s so much to say!”

He began rattling off ideas, almost spilling them over in excitement. “The families hate each other, right? And that hate makes Romeo and Juliet meet in secret. And then, oh! The feud leads to Tybalt’s death! And Mercutio dies too! And then… the whole city is involved somehow! And the Prince is angry…”

Jisung smiled, keeping his voice calm and patient. “Those are all great points. You don’t have to fit everything, just pick the strongest one for this answer.”

Jeongin bit his lip, tapping his pen against the paper. “I… I think I’ll talk about Tybalt’s death. It’s… it really changes everything.”

“Perfect,” Jisung said, leaning back slightly, letting Jeongin take the lead. “Start writing, and remember to explain why it matters, not just what happens.”

Jeongin’s hand moved quickly, scrawling words across the page with the enthusiasm of a child finally able to pour his thoughts out. He looked up every now and then, eyes wide, gauging Jisung’s reaction, and Jisung would nod or offer a small, approving smile, letting him feel the pride of each sentence completed.

“This is… amazing,” Jeongin murmured after a moment, eyes sparkling. “I never… never thought I’d understand it like this.”

Jeongin practically bounced as he finished the worksheet, his pen scribbling faster than the paper could hold.

He ran to the sofa, waving the completed worksheet. “Look! Look at this!” he exclaimed.

Chan leaned back, eyes twinkling, and Hyunjin clapped lightly. “Well done.” Chan said warmly, ruffling Jeongin’s hair. “I know you find this stuff hard, this is great. Make sure you thank Jisung for his help.”

“Thank you, Jisung!” Jeongin called, turning to him with a smile, then turning back on Hyunjin, passing him the worksheet to read.

“I feel like I’m learning a lot just reading this.” Hyunjin said after a quiet pause, giving Jeongin a proud smile.

“Now tidy it up and make sure all of your homework is in your bag. I don’t want to bring it into school because you left it on the table again.” Chan instructed, pressing a kiss to Jeongin’s head. He stood happily, gathering his papers and shoving them into his bag. 

“Will you make the popcorn?” Jeongin asked Jisung hopefully. “The hyungs always get distracted and burn it.”

“Sure, I can do that.” Jisung agreed with a grin.

Hyunjin laughed. “The show starts soon, perfect timing. Thanks Jisung.”

Jisung stood beside the microwave, listening carefully for the pops, taking deep breaths for the faintest whiff of char. For once, he didn’t want burning, how odd.

When the popcorn was ready, he split it evenly into two bowls, careful not to spill a single piece.

Returning to the living room, he found Jeongin patting the empty space beside him on the sofa. “Sit by me.” the boy said happily. Jisung settled down, the warmth of the room and the steady presence of Chan and Hyunjin wrapping around him like a blanket.

They turned the TV on, the screen glowing with light, and Jeongin nudged the bowl toward Jisung. “Here, share.”

Jisung smiled faintly, taking a handful of the fluffy kernels. The sound of the TV, the quiet chatter, Jeongin’s occasional exclamations, the gentle laughter from Chan and Hyunjin, it was domestic, safe, ordinary, and yet extraordinary in its rarity.

Home, Chan had called it. Jisung was beginning to understand why.

We must cultivate our garden. The thought came to him quietly, like a seed settling in soil. Maybe this was how you began: not with fire, but with care.

With friends, one is well, but at home, one is better. - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

When evil come on those we dearly love, never shall we betray them. - Agamemnon, Aeschylus

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. - War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. - The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief. That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. - Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

We must cultivate our garden. - Candide, Voltaire

Chapter Text

Jisung was happy.

He had never thought such a thing possible, not truly, not for him. Happiness had always felt like something that happened to other people: the kind of fragile, fleeting luck that brushed past him in the street but never stayed. But now it was here, settled like morning light through the curtains, quiet and steady.

He had a home. A real one.

Not the backseat of his car, not one filled with shouting and then silence, pain and then neglect, but a place that smelled of soap and burnt popcorn and Hyunjin’s favourite vanilla candles. He had a family too, a real one, who he loved and who loved him. Chan, whose patience felt like gravity itself, endless and inevitable, drawing everything into calm order. Hyunjin, who watched the world with careful eyes but was the embodiment of warmth behind closed doors. And Jeongin, small and bright and good, who had no idea how much light he cast into the darker corners of their lives.

It verged on uncomfortable sometimes, too much warmth, too many unfamiliar emotions crowding his chest like guests who refused to leave. Joy, safety, tenderness, feelings that once belonged to other people, all jostled inside him now, clamouring for space. It was almost painful, the way his body didn’t quite know how to hold it all.

He’d confessed as much to Chan one quiet evening. They were curled up together on the sofa, the TV humming low in the background, half a bowl of sweets forgotten between them. Jisung’s knees were drawn to his chest, fingers restless against the fabric of his jeans.

“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions.” he murmured, almost to himself. “I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.” His voice trembled on that last word, his hands twitching like he wanted to seize hold of something invisible.

Chan turned his head, studying him with that calm, patient focus that always undid him. “I don’t think that’s really true,” he said softly. “I think it just feels strange because it’s new. Because you’re not used to being happy.”

Jisung’s breath hitched. He bit his lip hard, eyes darting down to where his thumb rubbed anxiously against his palm. “I’m afraid,” he whispered. “I’m afraid I’ll get used to it, and then it’ll all disappear. Like everything else does.”

Chan didn’t answer right away. He just reached over and pulled Jisung into his chest, firm and sure, his hand settling between Jisung’s shoulder blades.

“We’re not going anywhere, Sung,” he murmured against his hair. “You’re safe here. You’re ours.”

The words touched somewhere deep inside him, too heavy and too gentle all at once. Jisung exhaled shakily, his fingers clutching the fabric of Chan’s hoodie, letting himself believe it.

Sometimes Jisung would wake in the night and just listen, the hum of the fridge, the soft creak of pipes, Hyunjin’s steady breathing, and feel it settle into him again: the certainty that he wasn’t alone.

It still astonished him.

He would do anything to keep it that way.

I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The conference room was Jisung’s least favourite place to be, but it was where Chan needed to be, and Jisung would follow him to the ends of the earth. Around the table sat the gang’s Lieutenants, men more than twice Chan’s age, heavy with self-importance and gold watches that gleamed like medals for surviving the past.

Chan sat near the end of the table, calm and straight-backed, papers spread neatly before him. Jisung and Hyunjin flanked him, his chosen, his most trusted.

The meeting was supposed to be about the docks job, a warehouse shipment ripe for the taking, old money laundering through new channels. Chan had drawn up a plan that was clean, modern, surgical: hit fast, hit quiet, hit once. No unnecessary blood, no noise.

But the old guard hated it.

“It’s too soft,” one of them barked, a thick-fingered man with greying hair slicked back to his skull. “Back in my day, we showed them who owned the docks. Fear gets you respect.”

“Fear gets you increased police presence, making future jobs harder.” Chan said evenly, not looking up. “Respect comes from good work, well executed. There’s a difference.”

Another man snorted. “You think you can scare the city with spreadsheets and maps? You need a show of force. Make it bloody, make it loud, that’s how they remember who we are.”

Jisung’s jaw tightened. He could see Chan’s patience thinning by degrees, like paper held too close to a flame.

“It’s not about being remembered, everyone already knows who we are.” Chan said, his voice still calm but his fingers tapping once, sharply, against the table. “It’s about getting the job done, and not being caught.”

The oldest of them leaned back in his chair, smirking. “Spoken like a boy who’s never had to fight his way to the top.”

That did it.

Jisung leaned forward, his voice low but cutting through the stale air like a blade. “Spoken like a man who’s too afraid to let go of the past, to admit times have changed and he’s been left behind.”

Every head turned. Hyunjin inhaled softly opposite him, shooting him a warning glance.

Jisung didn’t care. His pulse thudded, his blood hot. “You keep saying you want the gang to thrive,” he continued, “but how’s it supposed to, if all you do is replay your greatest hits from thirty years ago? You want a war every time something shifts? Fine. But don’t pretend it’s strategy. It’s ego. And you’re not the ones bleeding in the streets when it goes wrong.”

The silence after that was heavy enough to bend the air.

Then one of the older men, the one with the watch so gold it was almost orange, leaned back with a snarl. “Chan, you’d better keep that mutt on a leash.”

Chan laughed. Not mockingly, but light, easy, the kind of laugh that carried confidence. “No thanks,” he said, flashing a grin. “I’d rather keep my fingers.”

Jisung turned his grin on them, sharp with promise. “Besides,” he added, “you’d be surprised how hard I bite.”

A few of the other members stifled laughter. Even Hyunjin looked down, smiling faintly into his lap.

The room shifted after that, the air less sure, the old men less smug. The Boss, who had been silent the whole time, finally spoke. “Enough,” he said mildly. “The boy’s right.”

Every eye snapped toward him.

“If I’d run this gang the way my father did,” the Boss continued, lighting a cigarette with steady hands, “we’d have been buried long ago. Times change. Survival depends on changing with them. Chan’s plan stands. And if any of you can’t stomach it…” He smiled faintly, exhaling smoke. “...then retire early.”

He stood, signalling the meeting’s end.

Chan inclined his head in silent thanks, gathering his papers. Hyunjin rose beside him, quiet as always.

Jisung lingered for a little longer, just long enough to meet the eyes of the man who’d called him a mutt. He bit the inside of his cheek hard, filling his mouth with blood, then he snapped his teeth at the man, giving him a bloody grin. The man blanched, then looked away, caught between fear and disgust.

As they stepped out into the hallway, Chan’s hand brushed against his back in silent approval.

“Thanks, Sung.” Chan murmured quietly once they were alone, voice low enough that only Jisung heard.

Jisung grinned. “Always.” he said. 

And he meant it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Jisung didn’t ask to come along the first time, he just announced it.

Hyunjin had been sitting on the edge of his bed, lacing his boots, sleeves rolled up, the gun laid neatly beside him. His face was calm in that practiced way that always made Jisung’s stomach twist, serenity stretched over something brutal and hollow.

“I’m coming with you.” Jisung said.

Hyunjin glanced up, one brow lifting. “Did The Boss approve it?”

“He hasn’t said I shouldn’t.” Jisung shrugged. “I’ll take the flak if he’s unhappy. I want to be with you.”

“I’m fine.” Hyunjin scoffed.

“No you’re not.” Jisung sighed, moving to sit beside Hyunjin on the bed. “I see you when you get back, you don’t have to hide it from me.”

“Hide what?”

“Well, right now you’ve got a stab wound to your thigh, what I think is a broken rib, and some irritating looking cuts on your forearms.” Jisung listed, voice cool and unemotional, knowing anything else would shut Hyunjin down.

“What… You haven’t told Chan?” Hyunjin asked, pressing a hand to where Jisung knew a wound lay.

“For the same reasons as you, I’m sure. He’s got enough to think about. But me? I have the capacity. Let me look after you.” Jisung entreated. “Let me be useful, I'll just lay here and wait for you to come home anyway.”

“Fine.” Hyunjin sighed with a tired smile. “Come on then.”

The house was an old two-story at the edge of a quiet street, its windows shuttered, porch light long dead. The air smelled of rain and rot, soft mist curling around the hedges. Hyunjin worked silently, tools neat and efficient, the click of the lock almost delicate.

Jisung followed close behind, gun drawn but pointed low, sweeping corners as Hyunjin moved with that eerie dancer’s grace. Inside, the world was still, a hum of electricity, the faint dripping of a leaky tap.

The target was upstairs, asleep.

It was quick.

Hyunjin’s movements were precise and mechanical, no flourish, no hesitation. The only sound was the wet, soft noise of a knife meeting flesh. Jisung didn’t flinch. 

When it was done, Hyunjin wiped the blade clean and nodded once. Jisung moved in, gloved hands efficient, checking drawers, and cleaning fingerprints. He found the files they were meant to retrieve, corporate documents, coded names, and the ring, heavy gold, still warm from the dead man’s hand.

They left without a sound.

As they drove back to base, it came pouring from Hyunjin, all the years of trauma before Jisung arrived. All the tortures clouded in the guise of training, all the tests and set ups and schemes. All the death. So much death.

Hyunjin told him about an assignment last year where he’d been told there was one target, only to arrive at the house and find four. They had clearly been warned, lying in wait ready for him. When he stumbled back to base, bloodied and half conscious, the boss had simply told him that being an assassin meant dealing with surprises, it was all part of the training. 

Another story came, when Hyunjin was twelve, The Boss had him kidnapped and interrogated, just to check he wouldn’t crack. Hyunjin hadn’t known it was fake and had been terrified for his life. Chan had been told Hyunjin had come down with the flu. This was before the two lived together, so he’d believed it, assuming Hyunjin was at home tucked in bed drinking soup, meanwhile he was beneath Chan’s feet shivering and alone in a basement cell.

Jisung hated The Boss, hated him with a loathing fiery passion.

Hyunjin whispered about enhanced interrogation techniques, his hands shaky on the steering wheel, voice raw. 

“I’ll kill him.” Jisung said quietly.

“No, it’s okay. I passed that ‘class’ so it’s over for now.” Hyunjin mumbled. He rubbed at the pale pink of scars fading toward silver, as if smoothing them might make the memory heal.

“If he ever looks like he’s heading that way again.” Jisung said sternly, grabbing Hyunjin’s hand tightly. “If he ever lays a hand on you, him or Byung-chul, you have to tell me. Promise me.”

Hyunjin swallowed hard, but nodded. “I promise.”

“I want him dead.” Jisung said quietly, staring at base as it loomed through the windshield.

“Chan isn’t ready.” Hyunjin replied calmly, shaking his head. “Byung-chul or Man-soo would step into the power vacuum and kill Chan to secure their reign.”

“I could kill them too.” Jisung muttered churlishly. “I’ll kill them all for you, Jin. I could make it look like an accident, or just take the fall for it. People would believe I’d just lost my mind.”

“Sung.” Hyunjin sighed, parking the car and turning to him with a sad smile. “It’s not your job to fix everything. I’m strong, I can survive this until it’s Chan’s time. It’s already better since you arrived, you distract them.”

Jisung grinned at that, batting his eyelashes at Hyunjin until he snorted. 

“Come on, let's go face the music.” He murmured, climbing out of the car.

At the base, The Boss was waiting. He looked up when the door opened, eyes flicking from Hyunjin to Jisung with mild surprise.

“Well, this is new,” he drawled. “It’s bring a friend to work day.”

Jisung smiled easily, slipping into the casual arrogance that always seemed to amuse men like him. “He tried to leave me behind, but I couldn’t stay home and miss all the fun. I heard there was killing to be done.”

The Boss laughed, low and sharp. “Ah, that explains it. Wild horses couldn’t drag you away from the promise of carnage.” He gestured for the ring and files, inspecting them with a predator’s leisure. “How did you find it?”

“Too quick for my liking.” Jisung said, voice smooth. “But that’s why you use Hyunjin and not me.”

He could feel it then, the way The Boss’s gaze lingered on Hyunjin, not with pride, but possession. Like a craftsman looking at his best tool. He spoke to him like he wasn’t there, issued orders like he was winding a clockwork toy.

Hyunjin debriefed quietly, details slipping from his tongue that Jisung hadn’t thought to notice. Towards the end, The Boss’ eyes narrowed on Hyunjin.

“Everything went smoothly?” He asked, studying Hyunjin.

“Yes, sir,” Hyunjin said quietly.

“Good.” The Boss didn’t look away. “No mistakes? No witnesses? No… hesitation?”

Hyunjin’s jaw twitched. “No, sir.”

Jisung could feel the discomfort radiating off him, could see the way The Boss savoured it, the pause before every question, the quiet violence of a man who liked seeing people squirm.

“You know,” The Boss said, finally looking away, fanning the papers out in front of him. “Our old assassin, before he died, had a style much different to yours.”

“He did.” Hyunjin confirmed quietly.

“Each of his kills had meaning, a message, some flair. But you…” He gestured at Hyunjin with a lazy flick of his hand. “You make it look like paperwork. No poetry. No passion.”

Hyunjin blinked, caught between confusion and unease. “…I’m efficient.”

“And as yet, not dead.” Jisung added, laughing lightly. “Anyway, I think if you’re going to send a message it should be bigger.” He grinned. “If we’re trying to say something… Why kill one when we could kill ten? Stronger message, right?”

The Boss laughed, taken in, as always, by Jisung’s bloodthirstiness. Hyunjin shot him a quick glance, a flash of gratitude, small and fleeting, but real. The Boss had turned his full attention to Jisung now, the predator distracted by a shinier lure.

“You know, Jisung, you may just be right.” He said, giving him a fond smile. “Perhaps that’s how it should work. Hyunjin for the quiet moments, you for the…”

“Loud stuff?” Jisung asked, grinning. “It makes sense. Hyunjin’s so skilled in slipping in unnoticed, if he starts leaving calling cards it cuts him off at the knees. If he’s easier to track, he’s easier to trap. Less useful for the gang.”

“I like it.” The Boss smiled. “Good work tonight, Hyunjin. You may go.”

Jisung grabbed Hyunjin by the arm and steered him toward the door before The Boss could say another word.

The moment the heavy door shut behind them, Hyunjin exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for hours.

“That was the fastest debrief I’ve ever had,” he muttered, half in disbelief. “Usually he keeps me there for hours. Just… talking. Or not talking. Making sure I know who owns me.”

They climbed into the car, Hyunjin rested his forehead on the wheel for a moment, gathering himself before turning the engine on.

“God,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “You’re out of your mind, talking to him like that, bossing him around.”

“Maybe,” Jisung said, grinning faintly. “But you’re not getting interrogated for the thrill of power anymore, are you?”

Hyunjin looked at him then, something like wonder flickering through his eyes. “You did it on purpose.”

“Obviously,” Jisung said lightly. “If I’m gonna be crazy, I might as well weaponise it.”

For the first time that night, Hyunjin laughed. Really laughed. It was quiet, but real.

“Remind me to bring you next time,” he said.

“Please bring me every time.” Jisung entreated. “I make an excellent emotional support lunatic.”

Hyunjin snorted, but it was love in his eyes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Jisung hadn’t expected to learn so much from someone younger than him.

Jeongin was made from soft edges and easy laughter, still half-boy, half-bright potential. He’d talk about school over breakfast, complaining about group projects and teachers with the same sincerity Jisung used when he talked about gasoline grades or ignition points. It baffled him that someone could live in a world small enough to be defined by classrooms and textbooks, and be so content.

And yet, Jisung found himself wanting to understand it.

He started waking early, before the others, secretly working his way through online classes in the darkness: chemistry, geography, maths, history and more, so he could keep up with Jeongin’s homework. The others were increasingly out of their depth, having been forced to leave school for gang activities around the age Jeongin now was.

Chemistry, unsurprisingly, was his favourite. He’d scrawl notes in a battered notebook, diagrams and half-formed ideas about reactions, accelerants, control. Sometimes his brain wandered from equations to possibilities, what could burn hotter, faster, cleaner. Then he’d force himself back on track. Jeongin didn’t need that kind of knowledge. 

He learned to cook too. Properly, not just instant noodles or reheating takeout. The first time Jeongin came home to the smell of something simmering on the stove, he’d looked startled, then thrilled.

“You made this?” Jeongin asked, peering over his shoulder.

Jisung shrugged, stirring the pot. “Hyunjin’s been saying you eat too much junk. Figured I’d fix it.”

“It smells amazing,” Jeongin said earnestly. “What is it?”

“Something edible, hopefully,” Jisung muttered, but when Jeongin grinned and set the table, something in him cracked open just a little.

He began to measure his days by Jeongin’s smile. The spark of pride when he solved a math problem, the shy excitement when he showed off a drawing or a grade. Jisung found himself chasing that light, the same way he’d once chased flame.

He even started practicing restraint.

He fidgeted with his lighter constantly, absently flicking the wheel while Jeongin talked, and sometimes, if he’d had a hard day at school, the boy would wrinkle his nose at the smell of smoke. On those days, Jisung would leave it in his pocket, fiddling instead with a pen or one of Hyunjin’s hair ties.

It was strange, he thought, to love something you wanted to protect from your own nature. The fire was still there, restless beneath his ribs, but now he imagined it caged, not extinguished, but banked, warm enough to light the home, not burn it down.

One evening, Jeongin came home with a scraped knee from a school football game, and Jisung practically jumped off the sofa. He fetched the first aid kit, muttering curses under his breath as he dabbed antiseptic with ridiculous care.

“You’re worse than Hyunjin,” Jeongin complained through a laugh.

“Yeah, well, Hyunjin’s smart and I’m still learning how to be responsible.” Jisung said, but his voice was soft, his hands gentler than he knew they could be.

When he finally sat back, Jeongin smiled up at him. “Thanks, hyung.”

Jisung didn’t answer. He just nodded, looking at the neat white bandage, then at the faint smudge of soot still clinging to his own fingers.

He was learning. Slowly. Painfully. But learning.

It wasn’t about putting the fire out, it was about learning how to keep someone else warm with it.

Still, his little family didn’t flinch from it, nor flinch from him. Healing old wounds was painful, like he needed to rip them open again in order to bathe them in the safety of his newfound home, but he witnessed himself slowly healing all the same. 

He knew he would never be untouched by his past, that he would never be someone who could ignore the itch beneath his skin, the temptation to burn, to devour, would always be a part of him.

But for the first time, he understood it didn’t make him unworthy. His perfectly unorthodox family loved him, fire and all, and that was more than enough.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Chan proposed the idea over cereal that morning, his eyes bright with a boyish light Jisung hadn’t seen before, something unguarded and almost giddy.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Chan began between spoonfuls, “we need to get Jeongin firearms trained, right?”

His gravitas was somewhat undermined by the chocolate milk dripping from his spoon.

Jeongin groaned. “You’ve been saying that for months. I don’t see why I need a gun when I’ve got you three.”

Hyunjin grinned around his coffee mug. “Because we’re not going to be with you all the time for the rest of your life.”

“Well, why not?” Jeongin shot back, pouting. “What could possibly be more important than hanging out with me?”

That earned a chorus of laughter. Hyunjin reached over to ruffle his hair. “I’m going to remember you said that when you’re older and calling me clingy.”

Chan cleared his throat, trying to steer them back on track. “Anyway. I was thinking we don’t have to start at the shooting range, you know?”

“No, I literally don’t know,” Jisung interrupted, shaking his head. “What are you plotting?”

Chan leaned back, smirk tugging at his lips. “Family day out. Paintballing.”

The reaction was immediate, Jeongin’s delighted shriek nearly sent milk flying across the table as he threw himself onto Chan, wrapping him in an exuberant hug.

“Yes! Oh my god, yes!”

Hyunjin caught the cereal bowl before it toppled, laughing. “I call Chan’s team.”

“Perfect,” Jisung said smoothly, peeling Jeongin off of Chan. “I wanted Jeongin anyway. We’re gonna destroy you, right, Innie?”

Jeongin flashed a bright grin. “Your ass is grass.”

Hyunjin pointed at him, laughing. “Try saying that again without smiling like an angel.” Then he grabbed Jeongin’s face and planted loud, obnoxious kisses on both cheeks as Jeongin groaned.

They piled into Chan’s car a half-hour later, music low, sunlight spilling across the dash. Jeongin chattered the whole drive, bouncing in his seat.

“I play, like, loads of video games, so maybe I’ll be good at this. You never know!” He pointed out. 

Jisung watched the two in the front seat smile indulgently, and felt his competitive spirit blaze to life.

The air at the paintball field smelled of grass and obnoxious teenager body spray. They were handed oversized jumpsuits and neon masks that made them look like cartoon soldiers.

Chan’s phone buzzed, dragging him away for a “quick call.” Hyunjin followed, muttering something about “Lieutenant’s who can’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag.”

Jisung nudged Jeongin’s shoulder, and tilted his head to follow. They sauntered up to the front desk where an employee was playing on their phone.

“Hey, man. Any chance we can get some practice in with the other guys are outside? This one’s never played before and they keep going on about how easy it’s gonna be. I’d like to surprise them.”

The employee looked up from his phone with a mischievous grin. “Sounds like fun, come through this way.”

Thus, the crash course began. The employee talked them through the guns and the layout of the course, pointing out the best hiding spots and best vantage points.

“Alright,” Jisung said, crouching down beside Jeongin. “Rule one: don’t aim where you’re looking, aim where they’re going to be. Think two steps ahead. Rule two: never stay still.”

Jeongin nodded fiercely, gripping his paintball gun like it was sacred. Within minutes, he was ducking behind cover, rolling, shooting with unnerving precision. When he nailed a paper target in the chest from twenty paces, Jisung cheered loudly.

“I created a monster!” Jisung giggled, watching as Jeongin swung around, finding another target, even more accurate this time.

The worker laughed, shaking his head. “Kid’s a natural.”

Jeongin’s grin was pure sunshine. “Guess all those video games paid off.”

By the time Chan and Hyunjin returned, the two of them were standing innocently by the fence, guns at their sides, the picture of angelic calm.

“You two ready?” Chan asked, slipping his gloves back on.

“Totally,” Jisung said, fighting to keep a straight face. “We were just admiring the scenery.”

The first round was chaos. Hyunjin moved like a dancer, graceful and sharp, while Chan barked orders like they were in a war zone. But the moment Jisung and Jeongin broke cover, the balance shifted, Jisung drawing fire, Jeongin flanking with uncanny precision.

Paint splattered across Chan’s vest, bright blue like spilled sky. Hyunjin tried to dart around a barricade, but Jeongin was already waiting, paintball gun steady. The shot hit him square in the shoulder.

Chan froze, looked down at his paint-streaked chest, then burst out laughing. “Yes, Jeongin! Well done!” Unable to be disappointed at his loss in the face of his pride in their youngest.

The second round took longer, their opponents moved more cautiously, sensing this wouldn’t be the home run they had expected. Jisung and Jeongin drew them into a trap, carefully backing them into a corner before popping up and securing another victory.

Hyunjin’s laughter was bright. 

“How did you do this? Did you train him? When?” He asked Jisung, bumping their shoulders together as they watched Chan hoist Jeongin onto his shoulders in victory.

“Literally the few minutes you two were on the phone.” Jisung admitted, shaking his head. “He’s a prodigy, genuinely.”

They played a few more rounds, not winning every single one, but a comfortable majority. Jeongin’s precision mixed beautifully with Jisung’s chaos and distraction. Chan and Hyunjin were too careful, too cautious, and it was their downfall. They continued until their arms ached, until everyone was breathless and streaked with paint.

In the car on the way home, Chan was reciting the match play by play, pointing out all the cool things Jeongin had done, the picture of a proud dad. Jeongin glowed in the back seat, leaning heavily on Jisung, exhausted. 

“There’s nothing in this world you can’t do, you know that, right?” Jisung said to Jeongin when Chan fell quiet, steering them towards the drive thru a fast food restaurant. 

“With you guys by my side, I can do anything.” Jeongin agreed sleepily, then perked up when the smell hit him. “Oh, can I get chicken nuggets and a burger, hyung? I did win after all.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Base looked different to Jisung now. What had been an intimidating building now almost felt too small, he strolled in after Chan and Hyunjin, grin on his lips as he saw members part before them, stepping away from his gaze.

He was building quite the reputation within the gang, the leaders praising his work to all and sundry. It helped that Jisung’s work was by definition, loud and eye-catching. 

“Literally everyone is talking about you.” Hyunjin murmured to Jisung, snorting lightly as a group spotted them and blanched.

“No other evil we know is faster than rumour, thriving on speed and becoming stronger by running.” Jisung replied with a proud smile.

“You’re loving every second of it.” Hyunjin accused.

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” He replied.

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, knowing he was getting quoted at. “Come on, the meeting starts soon.”

They took their seats and soon Chan joined them with an amused smile. “You’ll never guess what someone just asked me.” He murmured to them, leaning in.

“What?” Hyunjin asked.

“If Jisung is as scary at home as he is here.” Chan snorted.

“What did you tell them?”

“I said he’s even worse in private, I’m barely sleeping.” Chan replied with a laugh, shaking his head.

“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.” Jisung replied, eyes sliding around the room, watching the old men sweat as he regarded them.

“He’s in one of those moods today.” Hyunjin told Chan with a patient eye roll. “I’m going to have to start carrying a dictionary.”

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.” Jisung replied, laughing as Hyunjin groaned.

The Boss called the meeting to order, and soon they were deep in discussions about a disagreement with Infinite, a rival gang. 

“They’ve been trying to creep in and take over our territory in the south of the city for months.” One man complained, shaking his head. “We can’t let it stand.”

“We need to make a statement, stop them in their tracks.” Another replied.

“Well, statement expert?” The Boss prompted, eyes fixed on Jisung.

“It’s drugs, right? That’s what the turf war is about?” Jisung checked, tilting his head.

“Yes, it’s not our most profitable area of the city, but give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” The Boss replied.

“We find out where they store their drugs and blow it up.” Jisung said with a shrug. “It sends a message, you try to sell on our turf? You’ll have nothing to sell, there or anywhere else.”

The Boss laughed, shaking his head. “Bombs? We don’t deal in those.”

“Why not? It sounds like fun.” Jisung asked, seeing the way those nearby to him leant away. 

The Boss looked at him thoughtfully, then nodded.

“Chan, can you handle the intel for this or would you like some from the intel crew?” He asked.

“I can handle it.” Chan replied calmly, face twitching in barely repressed amusement as he reached to pluck the lighter from Jisung’s hands. He pouted.

“Well, that’s one thing settled then.” The Boss laughed lightly, crossing it off his list. “Next we need to discuss Woo-jae’s proposal for a safe house network.”

Jisung watched the meeting continue with a smirk on his face, brain whirring as he considered his options. A bomb. Finally. 

The leaders in the gang didn’t deny him much, he was somewhat of a golden child to them, although he was sure it wouldn’t last. They encouraged his most violent impulses and seemed to enjoy his particularly vicious brand of loyalty. It gained him both respect and fear. It was a duality he was happy with: Loved by few, feared by many. He cloaked himself in rumour like armour, encouraging people’s worst assumptions. It protected him, and by extension Chan and Hyunjin.

Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it ... one must have the courage to dare.

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them. - The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve. - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

No other evil we know is faster than rumour, thriving on speed and becoming stronger by running. - The Aenid, Virgil

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. - The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear. - Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit. - The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it ... one must have the courage to dare. - Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Chapter Text

The planning aspect of a job didn’t usually interest Jisung. He’d happily hand the reins to Chan and show up on the day, ready to be pointed in a direction and set off like a firework.

This job, however, required all hands on deck.

Hyunjin disappeared with Woo-jae each day for a week, tracking Infinite’s drug runners, working their way backwards through the network until they found the storage facility they used. Woo-jae moved like he owned the streets: a map of contacts and habits in his head that put them in the right alley at the right moment.

Chan brought Jae-hyun into the fold, someone from the drugs crew that Chan trusted, which mattered more than seniority or rank. Chan and Jae-hyun took the high-level work: blueprints pulled, cameras and alarm panels mapped, guard rotations drawn out until the blind spots looked like open mouths.

That left Jisung with Ha-jun from the weapons crew. Jisung liked Ha-jun a lot. He was another of Chan’s finds, relatively new to the gang, with a thirst to prove himself. Ha-jun didn’t know bombs the way Jisung did, but he could source anything: the cables, the casings, the odd parts that made a device clean and reliable. They worked side by side in a corner of base that soon smelled of oil and solder, working mostly in silence outside of their small checks. One reading a calculation aloud, the other tracing it again on cheap paper, until the charge they built had exactly the weight and bite Jisung wanted. Ha-jun understood his volatile nature, smiling patiently when Jisung became overwhelmed with excitement, needing to step away from their precise work to shake off the energy thrumming through him. 

Jeongin sat on the sofa, fingers worrying his phone, eyes skittering around the room while they finished getting ready.

“Won’t you tell me what you’re doing?” he asked, his voice soft and pleading, an act that usually made Chan melt.

“You know full well I don’t involve you in gang shit,” Chan said with a tired sigh, but he rolled his shoulders and pulled Jeongin into a tight hug.

“Chan…” Jisung began, biting his lip. “Perhaps, just this once…”

Chan squinted at him, confused why Jisung would falter when they were usually a united front. “What is it?”

“It’s just… He might… See. And worry that something went wrong.” Jisung said vaguely, motioning to the TV, then to the window.

Chan made a quiet, horrified noise, and nodded. “You’re right. Thank you, Jisung.”

Jeongin folded his arms and leaned against the sofa’s arm, chin up, waiting. Chan searched for words and came up empty, Jisung stepped forward.

“You know I’ve been studying up on chemistry and stuff?” Jisung offered.

“Yeah. Helps with homework,” Jeongin said, deadpan.

“You’re smarter than that,” Jisung pressed. “What have you noticed?”

Jeongin’s face split into a sly smirk, caught, and unapologetic. “You’re looking at explosives.”

“How do you know that?” Chan sputtered, scandalised.

“Come on, Chan. He’s clever, and I’m not subtle.” Jisung teased, shaking his head with a smile. “Yes, I’m working with explosives. I’ve built something that I plan to set off tonight. Big boom.”

“So if I see an explosion on the news, I shouldn’t worry, that’s the plan?” Jeongin checked, tone casually factual.

“Exactly.”

“What are you blowing up?” Jeongin asked, curiosity bright as ever.

“And that’s enough from you,” Chan interrupted with a playful flick to Jeongin’s nose.

They hugged Jeongin in turn, promising to come home safely, then trooped out of the door.

During the drive over, Jisung could feel the excitement creeping in, he fidgeted in the back, clicking his lighter over and over. He bit his lip, holding back the delighted giggles that wanted to burst forth. Tonight he was doing something new, something exciting, it set his blood singing with anticipation. 

When they climbed from the car a few streets away, and spotted Jae-hyun and Ha-jun heading their way, Jisung couldn’t contain it any longer. He crouched down, flicked his lighter on and touched the flame with his fingers, eyes rolling back as the heat singed his skin. 

The others talked, he could hear them distantly, but he remained crouched, caressing the flicker as he whispered the ingredients of the bomb to himself over and over, doing a final check of his workings. Ha-jun eventually joined him, reaching a hand out to run through the fire, copying Jisung.

“Huh, I thought it’d hurt.” He said in surprise.

“Only if you hold over it.” Jisung murmured, demonstrating. 

Ha-jun grimaced, watching with a flinch as Jisung hovered, enjoying the burning caress. 

Jisung recited the bomb details one final time, and at Ha-jun’s nod, he stood.

“Ready Sung?” Chan asked, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

“Ready.” Jisung agreed, letting himself be led closer to the target. The flame winked out in his hand, but the bright little charge that had been building inside him stayed lit.

They moved in shadows, creeping closer, avoiding roaming guards and cameras alike. Finally, they reached their side entrance.

Chan, Hyunjin and Ha-jun stepped forwards, each taking a guard, slitting their throats in unison with a gurgle. Hyunjin crouched, taking the radios from each body, then moved aside to allow Chan to begin lifting them inside, stacking them beside the door. 

When they entered the building, Chan took point. Jae-hyun was at the centre of the group, carefully carrying Jisung’s masterpiece. Jisung had expected that he’d be too excitable to carry it, too jittery and shaky, which was why he’d passed the honour to Jae-hyun, but he felt a calm wash over him as they walked further into the building. 

They reached the planned spot and fanned into a circle with Jisung and Jae-hyun within. Jae-hyun gently placed the bag on the ground, then stepped back. Jisung knelt before it, unzipping the bag carefully, smiling as his work was bared to the artificial LED light. 

“Ready?” He asked quietly, at Chan’s confirmation, he armed the bomb. They didn’t anticipate it being found, the security guards didn’t appear to venture this far into the building during the night, but even if it was found it was impossible to disarm, any attempts would just set it off sooner.

“Let's go.” Jisung whispered, stepping back with a proud sigh.

They moved quickly, wanting to put enough space between themselves and the building in the ten minutes Jisung had given them.

Back at the car, Chan peeled off, but didn’t steer them home. He took a series of looping roads, ending up on a bridge a few miles away where he pulled over.

Jisung gasped with delight as he climbed out of the car. There, standing alone, was the warehouse. The perfect view. 

He checked his watch, counting down the remaining minutes, breath catching excitedly in his chest.

“How long?” Hyunjin asked, leaning against the car beside him.

“39 seconds.” Jisung replied, fingers fluttering. 

He counted them down, heart racing, praying the bomb would work. 

With five seconds remaining, he whispered. “Let me rage before I die.”

Then the night became bright, the sound was deafening even from so far away, shocking in the silence of the night. 

Jisung relaxed against the car, relief coursing through him.

“It’s a bit more powerful than I expected.” Chan commented mildly, looking with interest at the crater where the building had once stood. 

“A bit?” Hyunjin snorted.

“Well, there’s no other buildings nearby.” Jisung murmured, gesturing to the now flat landscape. “So I thought… Might as well have some fun with it.”

“I’m really glad we warned Innie, that was loud.” Hyunjin said thoughtfully.

“Did you like it, Sung?” Chan asked eventually, taking him in. The excited twitching was gone from him, replaced with a creeping, lazy satisfaction of a job well done.

“I loved it.”

“This is going to be an ongoing thing now, isn’t it?” Chan asked, smiling.

“I think I like bombs almost as much as I like fires.” Jisung replied, grinning.

Jeongin greeted them with tight hugs when they got home, wrapping Jisung in warmth as the adrenaline faded and left him shaky and exhausted. That night, Jisung fell asleep within seconds of his head hitting his pillow.

Base the following day was buzzing with activity, the Lieutenants all in attendance as well as many of their crew members. Jisung leant against a wall, watching them work. Moving crates in and out, cataloguing, checking, chatting.

There were whispers too, not quiet enough to be lost to Jisung’s ears. They’d all heard about the explosion, it was all over the news, and they now knew who the culprit was. He received many nervous glances as he leant, watching them, fiddling with his lighter. Chan and Hyunjin were upstairs in the office, but Jisung wasn’t in the mood for bureaucracy. 

Byung-chul wandered over, a grin on his face, and clapped Jisung on his shoulder.

“Excellent work, kid.” He praised, eyes filled with a cruelty Jisung recognised well. “As usual, you impress.”

“Thank you.” Jisung replied sweetly, tucking the lighter away before he set the man’s hair on fire on a whim. “It was a pleasure, I look forward to more opportunities to blow up our enemies.”

Byung-chul laughed, loud and grating.

“I’d say we need more men like you, but I don’t think we could survive more than one of you.” Byung-chul grinned.

Footsteps approached, The Boss himself.

“Sir.” Jisung murmured with a bow. 

“Morning, Jisung.” The Boss said mildly, but his eyes betrayed him. He was pleased. “We’ll see you in there.” He said simply, giving Byung-chul a commanding look to follow. 

Jisung watched, a polite smile pasted on his face so his true emotions didn’t show. It was an odd position to be in, being lauded by people he hated. The Boss treated him with nothing but indulgent admiration, giving him anything he asked for, and yet Jisung loathed him all the same. 

While The Boss might be good to him, he was not good to Jisung’s family, and that mattered more than anything. In Jisung’s mind, Chan was the perfect son. Responsible, calm, thoughtful, methodical, ready to step into his father’s shoes, yet respectful through and through. What did this earn him? Certainly not the love or care that Chan obviously deserved. Chan was treated more like a useful amusement, an experiment that had performed better than had been expected. Hyunjin received worse, not even human in The Boss’ eyes, he was a tool, neither allowed emotions nor mistakes. 

He sighed in relief as Chan and Hyunjin re-appeared in his view, walking down the metal stairs, boots clanging. He pushed off the wall and moved through the melee towards them, ignoring the way people parted before him with frightened gasps.

“The Maniac.” He heard one of them whisper. He almost turned to snarl at them, but stopped himself. He’d chosen to proliferate the rumours, to give himself a larger than life reputation, it seemed fitting that he be given a name too.

Chan nodded at him, then led the way into the conference room where the Lieutenant’s were already seated, sipping their lukewarm watery coffees.

Jisung didn’t miss the expressions of the Lieutenants, they all regarded the three of them with barely disguised fear.

Good.

If it kept them off Chan’s back, he could create an atmosphere of fear so dense, they’d never see their plans through it. 

“Report.” The Boss instructed plainly, looking directly at Chan.

“The mission was a success.” Chan began, folding his hands calmly. “We entered through a side door, taking three guards before they could raise the alarm, then planted the bomb. Jisung gave us plenty of time to leave the area before detonation, the building is no more, their product is gone with it. We estimate it will take them at least three months to rebuild their stock.”

There was a pause.

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” An older man asked, leaning forwards, eyebrows pinched.

“Did you have any questions?” Jisung asked coyly.

The man slid a photograph into the centre of the table showing the remains of the building… or lack thereof.

“You did this.” He said, voice almost dull with horror.

“Yep.” Jisung replied, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously. 

“You’re unbelievable.” Another man breathed, shaking his head. “The death toll is up to twenty five. He’s out of control!” There were noises of shock around the room.

“How many civilians?” Jisung asked, leaning forwards.

“Well, I don’t…” He blustered.

“How. Many.” Jisung asked again, rage flitting across his face at their pointless blustering.

“None.” Byung-chul supplied, seemingly enjoying the show.

“Exactly. None.” Jisung replied, eyebrows raised. “Hardly out of control, was it?”

“The death toll is twenty five infinite members. That was the job.” Chan added, head tilted. “When did we start caring about rival gang members? Are your loyalties elsewhere?”

“It’s just… It’s unbelievable.” The man huffed, shaking his head.

“My will is mine, I shall not make it soft for you.” Jisung replied, lip curling. 

“What did you think would happen? You were here when we proposed this plan. Did you think we’d politely evacuate the area first? Don’t be naïve.” Chan asked coldly.

“You all are quick to decry Jisung’s actions, yet the kill count of every man at this table exceeds his… For now, at least.” Byung-chul said with an ugly grin. 

“It’s different!” A man burst out, cheeks red. “To kill a man up close, there’s a… responsibility to it. This… It’s too many, too quick, too far removed.” 

“I can do both. Would you like me to demonstrate?” Jisung asked, almost lunging from his seat before Chan’s hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“Enough.” The Boss said, voice low. Silence reigned, Jisung sat back in his seat, pouting. Byung-chul caught his expression and had to press his hand to his mouth to keep from laughing. “Jisung did exactly what was asked of him. As he noted, there were no civilian casualties, and he sent a message. We wanted a message.”

The nods around the table were forced and uncomfortable, but the topic shifted. 

As they stood to leave, Jisung snorted when he found his way blocked by the red faced man.

“You’re young. Too young to be this…” Words failed.

“Why are you so afraid of war and slaughter?” Jisung asked, voice light, a dangerous smile spreading across his face. “Even if all the rest of us drop and die around you, you’d run no risk of death. You lack the heart to last it out in combat, coward.”

The man gaped at Jisung, furious and afraid all at once. Then he stepped back, swallowing hard.

Jisung breezed past him with a smile. 

Outside, The Boss was waiting for him.

“Walk with me, Jisung.” He commanded, Jisung nodded and followed, ignoring Chan’s concerned glance.

They left the building to walk along the cracked concrete road, taking in the morning’s breeze.

“You did well. The others will realise with time. You’re shaking things up, which is a good thing, but it takes time for old dinosaurs like us to adapt.”

“You seem to adapt well, Sir.” Jisung murmured, hating the deference in his tone.

“Yes, well. There’s a reason I’m the boss, no?” He chortled at his own joke. “Are you satisfied with your place on Chan’s team?”

“Very.” Jisung replied shortly. 

“He’s a good person to show loyalty to. You’ll move up as he does. It’s smart. The others aren’t thinking ahead like you, they ostracise him, forgetting they’ll bow to him one day.” The boss shrugged.

“And you allow it?” Jisung asked.

“Chan will need to step into his own shoes, punish those who deserve it.” He replied with a small smile. “I’m only sad that I won’t be around to see it when it happens.”

Jisung nodded, unsurprised by the mind games The Boss always enjoyed playing.

“I do have a question for you, however.” The Boss said finally. Jisung sighed, grateful he was finally getting to the point.

“What is it?”

“That boy that lives with you.” The Boss began, and Jisung froze. “Yes, yes. I know about him, of course. I do keep tabs, you know.”

“What about him?” Jisung bit out.

“Don’t look so concerned. I’ve not mentioned him to anyone else, have I?” The Boss said mildly. “Goodness, you young men and your dramatics.”

“What about him?” Jisung repeated, voice cold.

“Well, simply put, I don’t understand it. I’ve followed him a few times now, he doesn’t appear to be doing any work for your crew.”

“No, he isn’t involved in any gang business.” Jisung said coldly, feeling slimy discomfort creeping across his skin at the thought of The Boss following Jeongin. 

“Well then, why on earth is he there?” The Boss asked, exasperated.

“I don’t understand.” Jisung frowned.

“No, neither do I. What’s the point of having him if he isn’t useful?” The Boss asked, seemingly genuinely curious. “Are you grooming him for a role when he’s older?”

“No. No, he’ll come nowhere near The Fangs.” Jisung replied. “As for why? Because we like him, it's as simple as that.”

“I see.” The Boss replied, voice thoughtful.

“I should make it clear that his happiness and health is key in my success. And given you’ve been rather enjoying my work recently, it’s in your best interests that he be left alone.” Jisung gritted out, attempting to instil the correct amount of respect in his voice, but it came out as a cold threat nonetheless. 

The Boss tutted lightly, shaking his head but clearly amused. “Ah, Jisung. They’re ruining you. Making you soft.”

“No. They saved me.” Jisung replied, then he turned on his heel and stalked back to the warehouse, leaving The Boss standing alone in the street.

“Home. Now.” He snapped to Chan and Hyunjin who were standing inside talking to Woo-jae. They nodded and followed him outside, alarmed.

“What is it?”

“Hush.” Jisung said, pulling out his phone with shaky hands as he climbed into the backseat, dialing Jeongin.

“Hi hyung, you okay?”

Jisung drooped in relief. 

“Hey Innie. We’re on our way back now, do me a favour and don’t open the door if anyone knocks, okay?”

He felt the tension in the car ratchet up a notch.

“Sure.” Jeongin replied, voice wary. “Will you be long?”

“Twenty minutes or so.” Jisung replied, feeling Chan accelerate rapidly, pushing Jisung’s body back into his seat. “Just be careful okay? We’ll be there before you know it. Love you.”

“Okay, put me on speaker.” Jeongin commanded. Jisung did. “Love you hyungs, I’ll be careful, see you soon.”

“Love you too, Jeongin.” Chan replied, voice tight.

“Love you more than there are stars in the sky, Innie.” Hyunjin said, eyes wide with concern.

Jisung hung up the phone.

“What happened?” Chan demanded.

“Your father wanted to let me know that he knew about Jeongin, and that he’d been following him.”

“He what?” Chan hissed, fingers tight on the wheel.

“He apparently wanted to figure out if we were using him for gang shit, or what other benefit he had to us.”

“He’s sick in the fucking head.” Chan growled, “That the only reason he can think of to care for someone is utility.”

“He’s been following him.” Hyunjin repeated faintly.

“We’ll figure out shifts, walk him to and from school.” Jisung reassured, shaking his head. “There’s three of us, we can keep him safe until The Boss moves onto his next object of interest.”

“You don’t think he’ll go after him… Will he?” Hyunjin asked Chan, blinking rapidly.

“If he thought there was any benefit to it, he would have already. He’s… This is a threat. He’s seen what we’re capable of together, this is him reminding us that he still owns us.” Chan replied.

“We’ll need to be careful.” Jisung said softly. “Toe the line, keep him happy.”

“We’ve been doing a good job of that so far. No reason to think anything will change.” Chan murmured, but he sounded afraid. 

Hyunjin was out of the car before it finished moving, mashing the lift button furiously.

“It’s so slow.” He hissed when they joined him, vibrating in place.

Jisung heaved a sigh of relief when they arrived at their front door, intact and blissfully normal looking. Hyunjin unlocked the door and opened it, then ducked as a frying pan swung for his head.

“Oh, sorry. You were faster than you said, so I thought…” Jeongin rushed to apologise, dropping the frying pan to the floor.

“You’re so smart, Innie.” Hyunjin murmured, grabbing him into a tight hug.

Jisung gently shoved them further into the flat so they could close and lock the door behind them, then decided he couldn’t wait his turn, so wound his arms around them both. He laughed when he felt Chan do the same, encircling them all in his arms. 

“I’m glad you guys are okay.” Jeongin’s voice came, muffled through their tight hold. 

It was 2am when Chan left his bedroom to find Jisung curled on the couch, notebook in his lap.

“What are you doing?” Chan asked, flopping to sit beside him.

“Trying to come up with some contingency plans.” Jisung replied. “Blackmail we could use on The Boss to get him to back off, or we could kill him, he said he hadn’t told anyone else about Jeongin.”

Chan chortled, rustling Jisung’s hair.

“We’ll figure it out together, Sung. You don’t need to do all of this on your own.” Chan murmured, pulling him into a hug. 

“I couldn’t sleep. I just kept thinking… I’ve been into your room like five times to check he’s still there. I probably woke you up, sorry.” Jisung felt the tears begin to fall. 

“Sung, it’s gonna be okay.” Chan soothed, smoothing a hand through his hair, laughing when Jisung’s eyes drifted closed at the comfort. “I actually read something that made me think of you earlier.”

Jisung nodded that he was listening, but didn’t pull out of Chan’s arms.

“Let me get my phone, I want to get it right.” Chan murmured, shifting slightly. “Okay…” He took in a breath.

“Violent fires soon burn out themselves, small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; he tires betimes that spurs too fast.” Chan read, his voice low and smooth. 

Jisung relaxed into him, smiling, grateful that Chan went to such efforts to communicate in Jisung’s language.

“You’re worried about me?” Jisung asked.

“You’re trying so hard to prove yourself, to impress so many people… I just don’t want you to blaze bright and burn out.”

“I’ll slow down once I’ve made my point.” Jisung promised, fingers crinkling in his notebook paper.

“Then let me help you.” Chan replied, finally releasing Jisung from his tight hug, leaning to read the paper in his lap.

Jisung fell into bed as the sky began to lighten, mind finally calm from Chan’s gentle reassurances. He’d do anything to protect this family, this life he had. This life he couldn’t believe he was allowed to have, to enjoy.

It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.

Jisung understood it now, remembering the fire creeping closer in the shed, remembering his quiet acceptance. Surviving had been hard, but it had been so worth it.

Things would work out, Jisung knew, because he would make it so. Jeongin would be safe, because he would ensure it. He fell asleep with a small smile on his face.

Let me rage before I die. - The Aenid, Virgil

My will is mine, I shall not make it soft for you. - Agamemnon, Aeschylus

Why are you so afraid of war and slaughter? Even if all the rest of us drop and die around you, you’d run no risk of death. You lack the heart to last it out in combat, coward. - The Iliad, Homer

Violent fires soon burn out themselves, small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; he tires betimes that spurs too fast. - Richard II, Shakespeare

It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live. - The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

Chapter Text

Jisung woke with a twitch and a gasp, sitting straight up in bed, the memories of his dream already flowing from his mind like sand. Only fragments lingered: the hollow ache of an empty room, the roar of flames devouring wood, his father’s shadow pacing before a burning house. The suffocating smoke then gave way to soft blankets, the hum of laughter, a warmth that felt like home. Love, acceptance. Relief. 

He swung his legs out of bed carefully, mindful not to wake Minho, who lay curled on his side, a faint frown creasing his brow. Even asleep, Minho’s hand drifted instinctively toward the empty space Jisung had left behind.

Padding softly into the corridor, Jisung breathed in the warehouse’s deep silence, the kind that only existed in the quietest hours before dawn. He knew this ritual well; it was one Chan sometimes indulged in when his own mind wouldn’t rest. Tonight, it was Jisung’s turn to walk the hallways and remind himself that everyone he loved was safe.

He went to Jeongin’s room first, slowly opening the door to peek his head in.

Jeongin and Seungmin were tangled in bed together, Jeongin’s mouth half open. It was hard to tell which limb belonged to whom. Jisung smiled, heart brimming as his mind summoned images of that impossibly young, incredibly shy boy he’d once met.

He moved back into the corridor, heading for Chan’s room. The door opened just enough to reveal Chan awake, blinking at him in sleepy confusion. Jisung raised a silent thumbs-up. Chan smiled faintly, understanding, and tugged Felix closer against his chest before letting his eyes drift shut again. Felix made a noise halfway between a sigh and a grumble, and Jisung’s heart ached with affection.

The final room was Hyunjin’s. 

It had been strange when they had moved into the warehouse to have their own bedrooms. Jisung found himself sleeping in Hyunjin’s room for weeks before he could manage a night on his own, the silence without the comforting sound of Hyunjin’s breathing had been too much for his racing mind. 

He opened the door slowly and smiled. Changbin curled around Hyunjin, an arm slung across his waist. Hyunjin’s face was peace personified, his hair haloed on the pillow beneath him. 

Ritual complete, Jisung padded back to his room, old memories still pressing against his eyelids, then disappearing before he could grasp them. When he climbed back into bed, he smiled as Minho half woke and shuffled over to him, murmuring his name sleepily.

Jisung watched as he blinked, then squinted at him.

“You okay, baby?” Minho asked, sitting up just enough to trace his thumb across Jisung’s cheek. His eyes were soft with concern, his touch was tender and loving.

“Yeah, just had a bad dream. Needed to check on everyone.” He whispered.

Minho hummed sympathetically, threading gentle fingers through his hair, that slow, rhythmic motion that always soothed the restless edges of his mind.

That sparked a memory. An imagined man with dark eyes, whose touch promised safety and comfort. Warmth spread through Jisung as he looked at Minho in wonder.

“I think I dreamt of you…” he whispered, voice trembling. “All those years ago in that lonely room.”

Minho’s smile was soft, adoring. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Jisung’s cheek. “Did I bring you comfort?”

“Yes.” Jisung croaked, throat tightening, tears burning his eyes. “I think I loved you even then.”

“The love that moves the sun and the other stars.” Minho crooned, chuckling as Jisung wiggled closer happily.

“Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.” Jisung replied. He wanted to carve devotions of love into his skin, into his very bones, to make sure Minho knew the depth of his love for him. 

“Must’ve been quite some dream.” Minho murmured, wiping tears from Jisung’s face tenderly. 

“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.” Jisung’s breath faltered.

“And you are the most exquisite thing I’ve ever known.” Minho replied.

Jisung giggled, tears still flowing. The flashes of memory felt stronger now, fire after fire, flame after flame, his life stretching behind him in flickering colour. Each threaded with that same temptation, the wish to stay, to burn. He hadn’t felt it for years, he realised. He couldn’t even pinpoint when it had gone away, hadn’t noticed its absence until now.

“What are you thinking about, love?” Minho asked.

“I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow, I am still in love with life.” Jisung whispered the confession into the dark, feeling Minho hum and snuggle his head into Jisung’s neck, pressing gentle kisses to his skin like promises.

Jisung had once believed fire was his only language, the sole way to speak to a world that refused to hear him. It had been his rage, his grief, his freedom, kindled in the ashes of the house he torched to break free from his father’s chains, honed on the streets where he learned to survive. He had thought he’d forever be alone with it, a boy forged in flames, fated to destroy or be destroyed. Consume or be consumed. 

But as he lay beside Minho, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, Jisung saw it anew. Fire wasn’t just destruction, it was warmth, it was light, it was the glow of the home they’d built. His mother’s books had taught him that life held meaning beyond mere survival, it was worth living for something greater, and he had found it in them. 

In Chan’s quiet strength, Hyunjin’s fierce loyalty, Jeongin’s radiant joy. In Changbin’s unfaltering support, Felix’s tender kindness, Seungmin’s sharp wit, and Minho’s enduring love that had reached him even in his dreams.

Jisung had learned to temper his flames, to let them warm rather than burn, to cradle the happiness he once thought he’d never deserve. The embers of his past still glowed faintly, but they no longer ruled him. He was still in love with life, not because it was perfect, but because it was his, theirs, and together, they made it glow.

The love that moves the sun and the other stars. - The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri

Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. - Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. - The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow, I am still in love with life. - Candide, Voltaire