Chapter Text
i. the boys
Hoseok doesn't remember how long he's been at Madame Choi's Happiness House. It's been too long, the painful memories blurring together into one disturbing montage of hopelessness and exhaustion. Out of the four boys, only Jimin and Taehyung choose to remember. For Seokjin and Hoseok, it's far too exhausting to recount the violations, the string of faces that come and go, and the listless pain that follows. But the boys cope in different ways, fitting to their personality.
Taehyung is still young. He is eighteen. Quiet and reserved, he brings in the most clients with his uncharacteristically charming smiles and alluring giggles. Hoseok feels sad to see a boy so full of life fall so low as to sell himself on the streets. Hoseok feels even sadder when he realizes that this boy is not even two years younger than himself. To cope, Taehyung writes letters to a boy from his hometown.
Jimin is beautiful. He's a chameleon that adapts to every client's wants and needs. Sometimes, Hoseok will see him eating until his cheeks are round. Other times, Hoseok will notice him skip meals, starving himself to retain his sharp cheekbones and his taut jawline. Perhaps it is because of his busy schedule--turning from boyishly cute, to manly and handsome in less than four days--but Park Jimin is always sick. Coughing, moaning, spending dinners on the couch in the living room that they all share, fatigued. He is beautiful, but he is also sickly. To cope, Jimin spends all his free time writing songs, hoping someday that his parents will be able to see him perform.
Seokjin is possibly the most conventionally handsome of them all. He's got wide, brown eyes and full pink lips. His smile is a mask that shows only what the client wanted to see. Hoseok has known him for almost a year now, and yet he still can't figure him out. Kim Seokjin is a mystery. To cope, he escapes the brothel through a younger boy named Namjoon. Through Namjoon's eyes, he is able to see the outside world. Smell the flowers, watch the sunrise, feel the breeze against his skin when he's on a beach--all the things he is no longer able to do.
And how does Hoseok cope? Well, he doesn't. Not really, anyways.
ii. every day, at two o'clock
The sound of porcelain cups clinking makes its way down to Madame Choi's Happiness House.
Hoseok likes the sound of the delicate china hitting against other cups. It sounds like music to his ears when the tin caddies join the symphony of noises, allowing him just a few seconds of peace each day.
It was a little sound of comfort every day. Sometimes he even felt like Pavlov's dog. Whenever the chiming started at the end of the street, Hoseok knew it was two o'clock, and the street boy was making his usual daily route through their brothel. If he wasn't occupied by a client, he would go to his window and watch the kids in the elementary school just around the corner run out of their classrooms, into their mom's arms, or an air conditioned car, or just . . . freedom.
After a few minutes, the music of the teacups would start again, this time moving away from Happiness House, and he would watch the street boy exit the doors and make his way down the street again.
And then, a client would come in, and the few seconds of peace would be over.
Perhaps this was how Hoseok coped. Watching the dark-skinned street boy come and go.
iii. the street boy
He came and went every day, sometimes while Hoseok was downstairs in the living room. In moments like those, Hoseok took the opportunity to steal glances at the boy.
He was darkened from walking around all day in the hot sun, short, and no older than Hoseok. There was nothing exceptionally good about this one street boy--nothing about him that made him more special than the vegetable seller across the road, or the drunken man that sometimes barged in thinking the brothel was his home. But for some reason, the other boys absolutely adored him. Whenever he came, they were always coincidentally brushing their hair, or putting on makeup. They showered him with affection--pinching his cheeks or fixing his hair, all the things a teenage girl would do to their boyfriend. They offered kisses for free tea, always earning a blush from the latter.
Hoseok knew from the few times he had seen him that the street boy was a good person. He brought Seokjin his favorite magazines, as soon as they were in stock; he gave Jimin tea, even if he couldn't pay him until the next day; and he often mailed Taehyung's letters to home for him.
And yet, Hoseok never spoke to him.
He seemed like a world too far away from him. And for boys like Hoseok, it was dangerous to have hopes.