Chapter Text
Minho shivers violently against the hard ground. He opens his eyes and is met with a dimly lit brick wall. His gaze scans up the wall for a moment before settling on the graffitied brick. He then lets his eyes droop closed as he lets out a shaky sigh.
Home.
Another harsh shiver racks his body as a gust of wind filters itself down the alleyway, but he makes no move to get up. He feels wrecked; like every last bit of energy he had was used up. His limbs feel loaded down with lead weights, and his head feels as if a fog had swept through and hovered, obscuring any response he could muster to escape the situation. He could do nothing but surrender to the limits of his own body and wait for the damp weight to pass. So, he waits, and he listens.
The city always teems during the day. It’s filled with people on their way to work, to class, to play. People talk and laugh and live under the warmth of the daylight, their bright faces always looking ahead, awaiting the next moment that makes it all worth it. During the day it’s charged with ferocity, with expectation and standard. It’s boundless energy and productivity. It’s everyone working to earn their worth, to prove themselves, to provide for those around them, to strive to be better than they are. It’s relentless.
But that’s not what Minho is listening to now. Minho listens to the city at night; his city. Known to those who belong there and to those who don’t. It’s protection to those who work under the cover of darkness. It’s privy to long walks through sleepy neighborhoods and visits to abandoned skate parks. It’s the shroud around secrets shared in unspeakable places and the glue on memories you never want to forget. It immortalizes your best moments and lets the others quietly slip away. It’s calm but fluid; it’s still but dynamic. It’s sanctuary.
Minho breathes out slow. The feeling in his body has all but returned. He sits up, wincing at the ache in his neck as he does. Suddenly, the events of the past few hours come drifting out of the fog and he immediately brings his right hand in front of his face to inspect his palm.
When he does he is met with the same burn he remembers seeing before. The flesh was still lacerated and weepy. Minho hisses through his teeth as water drips off an overhead awning and seeps into the wound. He brings his hand to cradle by his chest as he makes it off the ground the rest of the way. He sways slightly after standing up, his body adjusting to the abrupt change of position.
Once the dizziness fades, Minho looks to his left down the end of the alleyway. The street in the opening is quiet, and he immediately recognizes it as the street where his building is; the street he grew up on.
His feet start moving before his brain can process what his body is doing. He makes it to the end of the alleyway and turns in the direction of his building. Before he knows it, he is standing in front of the short staircase leading to the door of his apartment.
He glances briefly up to the windows on the second story and sees that the lights are still on.
He then looks down at his right hand still held tightly against his chest. His mind begins to clear as he furrows his brows at his scorched fingers, and he takes a moment to consider his situation.
The last time he saw his parents was at dinner before he snuck out of his window and down the fire escape. After his parents took away his skating privileges and hid his board God knows where, Minho had taken to sneaking out and taking walks around the neighborhood. The convenience store a couple blocks over was open 24/7 and the high schooler working the night shift had come to expect him at least a couple times throughout the week.
On that particular night he had decided to pay the poor kid a visit. What was his name, Matt? Martin? Mason? He couldn’t be bothered to remember. He had seen him a few times around school, but honestly he only went there because they happened to make really good ham sandwiches and Minho always got hungry around two in the morning.
But there was something different about this visit. Mark- or whatever the kid’s name was- wasn’t there. Instead, there was a girl behind the counter. Minho didn’t pay her much attention that night, but looking back on it he remembers dark hair and bangs, a rosy blush on her cheeks and soft features, eyes with glints of fire behind them, and a now familiar grin that’s sharp around the edges. Minho feels his stomach drop.
He shudders harshly against the soft street breeze as his breath makes wispy clouds form and dance in the air. The racing questions in his head had stolen his attention from the aching chill that had seeped into his bones, but his body’s insistent shivering brought him back to reality. To the foot of the steps of his building. To his parents.
Minho surveys the state of their tiny front garden. It’s covered in multicolored leaves as the trees finally gave up on sustaining them through the cold season. There’s no snow on the ground yet, but he knew that was soon to come.
He then drags his eyes out to the street. It’s still empty and quiet like it was when he first emerged from that back alley. He stares into the mouth of the alley as a horrifying thought enters his mind.
What if he was followed?
Minho’s breathing stills for a moment as he whips his head around to ensure that he was truly alone, hissing at the way the action makes his neck ache.
His search proves fruitless as there is no sign of anyone nearby. He relaxes a little at that and drags his gaze back up to where the lights of the second story apartment were shining dutifully.
It feels like no time has passed since the night he left and the present as he stands before his building. Although, he figures that there is no real way to gage how long he’s been gone.
He then levels his gaze upon the door to the building. This was it. Once he crosses this threshold he commits himself to whatever fate lies on the other side. Will his parents be happy to see him? Angry because he didn’t come home? Scared because he stayed out so long?
Minho lets out a deep sigh, watching the condensation curl around in the air before him. He knows he can’t stay out here much longer. He’s already shivering so bad it feels like his muscles are in a permanent state of tension, and he needs to do something about his hand.
He already gets enough looks due to the various other scars littering his body- some from skating, most from the accident- he definitely doesn’t need a huge one across the expanse of his palm for people to whisper about.
He silently weighs his options in his head. He could go through the front door and face his parents head on- a terrifying prospect to say the least, not to mention his parents would definitely see the burn on his hand. Or he could sneak up the fire escape like he always does after his nightly escapades and face his parents in the morning. This would allow him to avoid his parents until he could sleep off the exhaustion weighing his body down, and he could find a way to hide his burn.
Needless to say, Minho finds himself at the side of the building trying to figure out how the hell he was going to climb a fire escape with one hand only a few moments later. He eventually begins climbing using his right elbow and forearm in place of his hand. It isn’t terribly efficient, but he finds himself at his windowsill after a few minutes of climbing as quietly as possible, which wasn’t the easiest task even disregarding his handicap.
After silently lifting his window up on its hinges and slinking into the quiet of his room, Minho lets out a sigh.
The familiarity of his room is welcome after everything he just experienced despite its promise of future familial turmoil. For now, he simply gets up and makes his way towards the bathroom. His room and Seokmin’s room are both at the end of the hallway, and they’re connected by this small bathroom. It’s longer than it is wide and has a door on either side leading to each sibling’s respective bedroom.
Minho flicks on the lights and closes the door behind him as silently as possible, making sure it’s locked before proceeding. His eyes meet with the door across the room for a few fleeting seconds before he shakes his head and turns towards the vanity. His reflection catches him off guard as he takes in his appearance.
His hair is damp and matted, his face is darkened around the edges with grime from the alleyway, his clothes are drenched and ripped in a few places, but what stands out the most is the ring of red and purple splotches standing stark against the skin of his neck.
He tentatively takes his left hand and ghosts over the bruised skin in withdrawn amazement before he redirects his attention to his burn and grimaces at the sight. Now that he’s under good lighting he can finally see the extent of the damage.
The burn is in a stripe up his right palm, starting in the lower left corner by his wrist and extending diagonally upwards hitting the skin of both his middle and pointer fingers up to his finger tips.
The skin of the burn, or what is left of the skin, is depressed compared to the healthy skin and is an alarming shade of red with a yellow mottling of decayed flesh throughout its expanse. There are a few blisters along the stripe on his palm, but they seem small and manageable.
Minho watches silently as clear fluid pools at the base of the burn before spilling over the edge of the ruined skin and trickling down his wrist.
Minho lets out a tight breath before turning on the tap. After making sure the water pressure isn’t too high with his left hand, he slowly puts his burn under the water, hissing as it makes contact with his skin.
Once he figures the burn is as clean as it’s going to get, Minho turns off the water and dries the area with a hand towel, careful not to go over the burn itself. He then fumbles through the drawers to look for anything he could put on it.
After digging through what seems like fifty bags of unused spare toothbrushes and toothpaste he and Seokmin had accumulated from the dentist's office over the years, he finally finds an old tube of antibiotic cream.
It barely has anything left in it and it’s so old that the pristine white packaging of the tube is turning yellow, but Minho figures he really has no other choice. So, he unscrews the cap and squirts the remainder of its contents out onto his left index finger before cautiously spreading it across his palm.
The first stripe of antibiotic cream hurts like hell, prompting Minho to grit his teeth and inhale a quick breath. He quickly spreads what remains of the cream across as much of the burn as he can before clenching his eyes shut and waiting for the pain to subside a bit.
He opens his eyes a few minutes later after the insistent burning sensation has passed, and begins sifting once again through the drawers in search of some kind of dressing. He finds a bandage rolled up at the back of the cupboard under the sink and, upon taking in the state of the bandage, decides that using it might actually cause infection rather than prevent it.
A quiet noise of discontentment raises in the back of his throat, but he wraps his hand with the bandage anyway, wincing at its contact with his burnt skin.
With his hand taken care of, he walks back into his room to change out of his ruined clothing. He easily changes out of his jeans and into a pair of sweatpants he had left lying on his floor and then grips at the hem of his shirt. He pulls it over his shoulders and head in a fluid motion, glad to be rid of the damp garment, but his joy only lasts a few moments before a searing pain begins to spread over his back.
“Gahhh,” he grinds out through clenched teeth, his eyes watering at the sensation. He scans the inside of the shirt he just took off, discolored patches of flesh run all along the inside of the back panel. He rushes to the bathroom with soft steps and cranes his neck to get a good look at his back in the mirror.
“What,” he breathes, barely a whisper.
A plethora of burns, all identical in composition to the one on his hand, litter his back and shoulders. One long burn snakes its way along his spine, starting from his lower back and ending right before the start of his neck, curving left and right at every vertebrae as if they were outlining his skeleton. The burns along his shoulders branched off from the one adorning the length of his spine. They weaved and twirled around each other as they ran from the center of his back all the way up to the points of his shoulders in a fan. It was an intricate design, one that seemed like it should be on a canvas and not skin. If it wasn’t so macabre it would be pretty, but Minho couldn’t admire the handiwork adorning his back at the moment, all he can think is a mantra of-
That pain was real. This is real. Real real real real real-
Minho hears movement in the hallway outside of his room. He immediately freezes up, holding his breath as if that would prevent his parents from finding him in the bathroom shirtless. He mentally curses himself for not checking to see if the door to his room was locked.
When nothing else happens, he releases the breath he had been holding. He then quietly makes his way out of the bathroom and pads softly over to the door of his room, hyper aware of the sting on his back as his skin stretches through his movements.
He has his hand hovering over the latch when he hears-
“Shit-”
Minho’s breath catches in his throat.
The voice isn’t recognizable to Minho. It’s definitely not the voice of his parents- it sounds too young. He's about to lock his door and call the police when the person in the hallway starts coughing.
Minho winces at the wet, strangled coughs which are followed immediately by uncontrolled heaving. He closes his eyes and curses the voice in his head telling him to go help the intruder. A loud thump mixes in with the sounds of the person’s painful breathing, and Minho knows he can’t just sit here in his room and listen.
He glances around wildly for a moment before his eyes land on a disused curtain rod lying by his window. He had taken his curtains down months ago in order to make his late-night escapades more quiet and efficient. Now he’s thankful for his past delinquency. He walks silently over to his window to retrieve his weapon of choice. It feels flimsy, but he figures that the person in the hallway can’t put up much of a fight at the moment. He then hastily throws on a shirt left at the foot of his bed and makes his way back to the door.
He steels himself for a moment, curtain rod clutched tight in his left hand and the back of his bandaged right hand on the doorknob. The gravity of his plan began to set in then; there was someone in his house, and he was going to face them. All alone and injured. With a curtain rod.
The air of reflection only lasted a few more seconds before he was drawn back to reality by another outburst of coughing from the person in the hallway. Minho felt his heart clench at how pitiful they sounded.
With that, he opens the door in a swift movement, curtain rod at the ready, and comes face to face with-
A boy?
Minho peers down at the boy on the floor cautiously.
He's sitting on the hardwood with his back against Seokmin’s door, his right hand coming across his stomach to clutch at the left side of his ribcage. His head is tilted up and his face is pulled tight in a grimace. Dark hair falls down across the boy’s forehead. The dim light coming from the kitchen at the other end of the hallway reflects soft yellow hues across his face. He’s clad in dark clothing; a black hoodie, dark cargo pants, and boots.
Minho cocks his head in amazement.
The boy takes in a sharp hiss of breath before opening his glossy eyes and landing his gaze on Minho.
Minho freezes.
The boy’s irises are flecked with a deep amber and they glow faintly in the dim hallway. Minho stares blankly back at the boy, suddenly feeling as though he were pinned down by the intensity of his gaze. His mind races to bright rooms and white coats and red eyes and sharp smiles and burning and pain and fear and fear and fear and fear.
Minho shrinks back towards the doorway, his heart racing and his right hand searching aimlessly for the door handle. He can’t tear his eyes away from the golden hues dancing around the boy’s irises, holding him in a tactless deathgrip.
The boy’s eyes waver from Minho’s to the pole in his left hand and then to his right hand stretched out behind him. He watches the boy’s eyes pull back into focus and widen, as if he had just woken up from some trance. He brings the hand that previously clutched his chest down to support him as he leans towards Minho from his place on the floor.
“Wait,” the boy speaks into the still hallway, his voice strained.
Minho pauses, heart caught in his throat. His eyes dance down to the place where the boy’s hand had been holding his side. The dark fabric makes it hard to see any discoloration, but Minho can make out faint glints of light reflecting off of liquid as it drips down his torso and pools on the floor below. His eyes grow helplessly larger at the sight.
“You’re bleeding,” Minho whispers before he can stop himself.
“I’m-” the boy pauses, furrowing his brows and tilting his head at Minho, “yeah, but-”
He pushes off of his hands as he speaks to reposition himself against the wall from where he had slid down slightly. Minho’s stomach clenches when the boy lets out a tiny gasp at the movement.
“I need to get to this park. I’m supposed to meet some people,” the boy is interrupted by a fit of wet coughs. Minho wonders if the kid could even breathe properly. He takes a few rough gasps before continuing, “I must’ve overshot it...”
Minho lowers the curtain rod and takes in an apprehensive breath.
“A.. a park? You need to get to a park?” He meets the boy’s gaze now, his eyes have stopped glowing, but Minho can still make out hints of gold.
“Yeah, it should be close by here?” He pushes off his hands once again to rock forward onto his feet. His right hand reaches behind him to gain purchase against the wall before he leans his shoulder against it and stands up the rest of the way with a grunt, his hand then coming back to apply pressure to his side.
Minho watches the whole scene silently, eyes flitting up and down the boy almost feverishly. He stands about as tall as Minho does, maybe a little shorter, with a small frame. Although, he decides, the boy could look smaller due to his state. He leans heavily on his right side, folded over a little at the torso and his chest rises and falls quickly, breaths tearing their way out of his mouth in rough pants.
He raises his curtain rod a bit, a little intimidated at the sight of the stranger now standing in front of him.
“I- I should call someone. You look injured and… and I don’t even know how you got in here and-”
The boy’s eyes blow wide open at that.
“No!” he shouts.
Minho visibly flinches, his grip on the curtain rod tightening.
“No. Sorry, no,” the boy says softer this time, his expression relaxing a little and his left hand coming up as if he was calming a scared animal.
“It’s just, you can’t. Please, I swear I didn’t mean to end up in your apartment. I just messed up. If you know where this park is I can just-”
“The skate park?” Minho barely breathes out.
“Yes! It’s a skate park. If you could-”
Another round of coughs. Minho swears he sees red on his hand when he brings it away from his face this time. He takes another hesitant breath.
He knows this is insane and that the most logical option would be to call the police or even his parents, but the boy seems to be young- probably even close to Minho’s age- he got jumped by God knows what and here he is, bleeding out in Minho’s hallway by the grace of whatever powers are at be.
Minho sighs.
“Take a left after you leave the building. It’s down five blocks and on the right.”
The boy’s head whips up to meet Minho’s gaze again, his eyes wide and searching.
“Thank you,” he manages to rasp out.
A few tense moments pass as they stand and stare each other down. Minho is the first to break as he looks down at the boy’s injury once again.
“Um,” Minho starts, flicking his gaze back up to meet golden-flecked eyes, “the door is just down the hall...”
The boy creases his eyebrows together for a moment, his mouth falling open slightly as if to say something before he shuts it again.
“Right,” he mutters and nods curtly.
The boy then turns and begins walking down the hallway to the front door. Well, he staggers at best.
Minho watches the stranger struggle. His side doesn’t seem to be the only thing he’s injured- his left leg looks stiff and causes him to have a slight limp as he walks.
Once the boy reaches the door, he leaves without so much as a glance behind him.
After the door clicks, Minho is left standing in his hallway holding a curtain rod limply, his heart racing.