Chapter Text
Money borrowed and money owed, an older, frailer man from a county where Taesan resided was their target. This was their initiation, this was something that would prove to them they could work well for Dongyeol and his men. Taesan’s eagerness proved he couldn’t handle this line of work whereas Harua’s quietness proved he isn’t fit either. Not that any of it had mattered to him, it was just one mission. To frighten. To scare someone into paying it immediately or to have it soon.
His name looks familiar.
In the rowdiness of it all, Taesan’s attention focuses on the outside, watching as Dongyeol’s instructions were given verbally to some chump who kissed ass, a fist raised to scare him enough to get what he wanted. He was never like that with the younger recruits, only… perhaps towards those who should’ve known better by now.
Though his attention is brought back when the rough voice of someone else disrupts him, Harua who was once behind him now against the wall with fright in his eyes, fear in his body.
“Do you know what it’s like to have a blade pierce through your skin?” One of Dongyeol’s men pressed a knife harshly against Harua’s chest; Harua’s face still with no emotion. He couldn’t handle another moment under that, his fist balling until Taesan conveniently steps between them. All that he thrived from was instinct, playing saviour wasn’t something he intended but it seems like that from an outside perspective.
The older man steps back, a ‘tch’ escaping his mouth in disbelief, Harua hadn’t looked him yet, perhaps too embarrassed he couldn’t do anything to protect himself in that moment. An act of nobility is often an idiotic thing to possess if one had nothing else to offer, the tongue of a man can get someone in to trouble more than he wishes. It could serve him unintentional hardship.
“I didn’t need saving.” Harua whispers, hitting Taesan in the arm softly, “There’s no need to save me every time this happens.”
If he couldn’t save himself, Harua was never going to survive. If he wasn’t going to save himself, Taesan knew he would never make it alone.
“Yeah?” Taesan made a motion with his fist as if he was going to punch Harua. Only for Harua to flinch at the sight. It proved to him that he wasn’t able to make it on his own.
“That’s what I thought, Harua.”
“Where is this guy anyway?” That’s right, Harua wasn’t familiar with the area they were in unlike Taesan who practically lived his whole life here. Taesan knew things like the back of his hand. He knew the ways to get in and out without being caught. He’d spent countless nights sneaking around with other kids his age and getting into some trouble; without getting caught he would make it back by twilight.
xx — xxx —
The closer he looked at the address, he knew. It was the store of a man he knew, someone who’d lost everything to an addiction of gambling. Placing bets on things that were questionable, trivial at best. It would never give him the luck he received and craved like before. Years ago the euphoric feeling of winning 600 million won brought him great joy, though foolishly he spent it all on things that did not serve him greatly. Any joy in his life now turned into the worst thing he could possibly imagine, trying to survive day to day.
An income could only take him so far, having borrowed money from gangsters to pay the debts to them; the man hadn’t been paying timely, causing questions to come in.
Dongyeol had last heard that he won a small sum of money though again, in his greed had spent it on things that did not matter.
✭
“You little shit, what the fuck have you done?” Perhaps this is the closest to death anyone has gone to, it’s bittersweet when it’s fed from the palm of it’s hand. The biggest mistake made by him was biting the hand that feeds. Hunger is surely a powerful force never to be messed with. Yet, the thirst to feel the thrill itself is a feeling meant to be chased in desperation.
Harua’s excitement in proving himself to be something, to be anything great like he wanted to be got him here. One moment they were threatening the man, the next Harua’s body lie here, in the middle of an alleyway away from the public eye. It was foolish for them to have left their devices, but no one had wanted them to be found. For his age, the man looked frail but his strength and experience had given him the upper hand, the blade Harua once held between his fingers excitingly now beside him. His own weapon used against him.
“Please stay awake, Harua.” Taesan pleads with him, though Harua cannot form coherent sentences, his bloodied hand wraps around Taesan’s wrist and using what little strength he has to apply pressure to his body.
His abdomen had a deep laceration, jagged edges cause more damage to the human body than something straight cut. Maybe fear is meant to be felt to this extent, to make him rethink the choices of his life. His hands hold over the bleeding wound, keeping blood from pouring out while the other hand shakes Harua awake.
“I’m saving you now.” He remembers the conversation the words that go against him as he’s trying his hardest to keep his friend alive. There are tears, there is laughter escaping– not out of humiliation but fearfulness of the unknown. A person’s function of their brain cannot work properly when they are panicking, jumping to the worst conclusions ever.
Anatomy of a memory is fully, pulling apart the conversations that led up to this moment. Harua said he never needed saving, is it a subconscious thought for Taesan not to scream? Is it because he can’t call out the words? He pleads for him to stay alive, but this is a path he cannot control. How did it become this way so quickly? He remembers having kicked the man down, his foot in his abdomen. Harua’s bright idea of drawing out his knife until his warm was grabbed, forcing the blade to press into him…
And then nothing but panic. Pain and agony in one.
“We’ll get you out of here, we can eat gomtang, your favorite. Right? Please stay awake.”
Straying from this path would cause him trouble, it is made of salt and he is steel, it is corrosive, but there’s no way out when all there is beneath him is a net made from thin strands of paper braided together. Blood pools beneath him, staining his hands and his clothes, there is no warmth in his body but he is not dead.
What the fuck?
✭
His head is in pain, unaware of his surroundings. Unaware of what happened, Taesan is uncertain where he is. He smells the mixture of foods within the air, soups and noodles, fried and boiled foods. There is no blood on his hands, the last he remembers is crying over Harua. Now he’s in some office of a restaurant unknown to him.
What… happened?
Beside him a bowl of beef broth, green onion and rice linger. Devouring as if starvation was something he endured for years. He had no second thoughts for anyone, until a familiar body steps inside, watching from the ledge of the door. A bottle of water fiddled between his fingers.
That boy. The boy from the tidepool.
Taesan is too ashamed to look at him, instead he turns his head away, the bowl placed in front of him as a sign of ‘thanks,’-- assuming he was the one who put it there.
“Your friend will be alright, the one bleeding out. He was taken away by the ambulance.”