Little Crooked House
Title: Little Crooked House
Pairing: None/implied Changjo&Ricky I guess?
Rating: PG
Genre: AU
Notes: This is all Serena's fault. Actually it's inspired by the Little Crooked House chapter of the manga Godchild, but it's still her fault anyway.
Disclaimer: As much as I wish I could make things happen, I cannot.
Changjo is always lonely. Always. His mother says the world is too dangerous for him to go outside; he's too young, too innocent. He'll get hurt. He'll be tempted to do things he shouldn't. He'll be taken by the worst sort of people.
He doesn't understand the world, and so he stays locked away from it. He roams the family's large house, and the gardens, but he does not step beyond the high stone walls that surround both.
His entire world is enclosed in these walls, his existence bound by brick, mortar, and wrought iron gates.
Sometimes he sits in the yard, arms resting on his knees, shoes abandoned to allow his toes to feel the soft tickle of the grass, and just watches the gate. Cars pass by, and Changjo tries to remember the last time he was in one. People walk past, and he feels a twisting sensation in his stomach. The urge to run to the gate and engage them has been dampened by years of suppression, but it's still there. He longs for conversation beyond that provided by his often-absent mother, the nurse who has taken care of him forever, and the handful of tutors and household servants.
But the world is not safe, and so he remains behind the walls, just waiting. Waiting until it is.
It happens when his mother returns home from one of her trips. She brings him another book as an apology for being gone so long; Changjo quietly adds it to the shelf of books he has never touched, the shelf so full of topics he cannot muster the enthusiasm to be interested in. She questions his quietness; why, dear one, are you frowning so hard?
It's the same every time she comes back.
Changjo's questions about her trip, about the world beyond the walls, irrritate his mother, and she does her best to dodge having to fully answer. However, he is persistent. Living inside this place with very little freedom has given him a seemingly infinite amount of patience. Try as she might, his mother cannot escape his constant queries. The curious eyes of her son refuse to let it go, and finally she snaps.
Her shouting, her insistence that he will never pass through those gates, is finally enough to draw out his own anger. He shouts back at her, something he has never done before. He is grown enough. He can take care of himself. He is going to see the city that is spread around the barrier, whether she allows it or not.
He storms out of the house, leaving his shocked mother behind. The gate, opened to allow her car passage, has strangely not been closed, and Changjo finds himself running toward it as his annoyance chokes his breath and nearly draws a sob from him. His mother's voice echoes around him, calling for him to stop, and he hesitates just inside the wall.
She says it isn't safe. He'll get hurt. Changjo looks back at her, back at everything he has ever known. The house, the lawn, the gardens that are fading into the twilight behind everything. He sees familiarity. Safety.
He abandons them for the unexplored world beyond his own.
He runs for what seems like forever, putting distance between himself and his home without pausing to look at anything or anyone. His mother will send people after him. The nurse, the servants. They will all be looking for him, and if he stays close by, his attempt at freedom will be for naught.
He doesn't stop until his body threatens collapse. Prickles run along his skin as he finally catches his breath and surveys his surroundings; he fights the sense of panic that comes with the realisation that he has no idea where he is. He's never known unfamiliarity, never felt the way it wraps around a heart and squeezes it tight and makes it hard to breathe. This discomfort is new to him. It takes hold for a moment, drowning him in uncertainty, before he chooses to embrace it and takes control.
He will not be afraid.
He has run to a residential area. The houses, he notices, aren't extravagant like the one he's spent all his time in. They are much smaller, and their entrances are much closer to the street than he's ever seen before. The few people on the street, children, are dressed in clothing like nothing Changjo himself has ever worn before. They all stop to stare at him, and he understands suddenly that he is as strange to them as they are to him.
A woman calls to him from a front porch to ask if he's lost, and a man in a car gives him a strange look before driving away. Changjo shakes his head; he's not lost. One cannot be lost if one has no specific destination in mind. The woman, however, seems unsure, and Changjo decides to move on. The children playing on the sidewalk are much younger than he, and as excited he is to interact with others... Changjo longs for people his own age.
He walks, not knowing what lies down the street he's found himself on. A young mother with a stroller approaches him, her eyes conspicuously taking him in head to toe, and he feels his cheeks pink at the look on her face. She says hello as she passes, and he mumbles a greeting in return, his tongue turning to lead in his mouth.
He's never felt flustered before, either.
After walking for a while and having short conversations with the few people he's encountered, Changjo notices the houses are getting bigger again, and further from the street. Not as large as his home, but nicer than the few blocks he'd walked previously. Some are surrounded by high stone walls and heavy gates; he worries that he's moving in the wrong direction, possibly heading back toward his own prison.
His worries are confirmed when he sees the nurse knocking on the door of a house. Changjo freezes in horror as someone opens it to speak to her, again not knowing what to do. It's too soon to go back. He doesn't want to yet. He won't.
He quietly turns and moves around the corner, pressing against the high brick walls surrounding a yard. As he passes the gate, an arm reaches through and grabs his, making him jump and struggle to pull away as panic hits him.
A young voice asks if he's the one they're looking for. If he wants to hide. Changjo stops fighting the gripping fingers and nods, looking back to make sure the nurse hasn't caught up with him yet. The gate opens, and he's dragged inside.
The boy is smaller than Changjo, and relies on a set of crutches to stay up and move around. There is a brace on one of his legs, starting with his foot and extending all the way up to his thigh. The way the boy moves on the crutches is fascinating; he leads Changjo inside with small hops, a friendly smile tipping his lips as he closes the door.
His name is Ricky. His life, Changjo finds, is eerily similar to his own; Ricky's parents passed away when he was a child, and he has been raised inside these walls by nurses and family members who merely check on him rather than taking him in. His leg was injured in an accident when he was small, and so the crutches have been his life ever since. He's a beautiful, sweet little sparrow with a broken wing, tethered to this house by his inability to fly.
His caretaker brings tea for them, and they sit together in the foyer to share it. Changjo hasn't stopped smiling since he arrived, but slowly he begins to realise that there's a strange knot of uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. Something about the house just doesn't seem right. There's an unexplainable presence around the place, the feel of invisible eyes upon them and ghostly whispers. Changjo tries to brush it off. Surely it's only because the house is unfamiliar to him.
The sun begins to set as Ricky and Changjo talk. Ricky is explaining that he has no friends other than his caretaker. He gets lonely. Just like Changjo. He wishes he could leave the house, as Changjo left his, but his injury makes it too difficult for him, and the children of nearby families ignore him as they pass by his gate. Changjo promises that they will be friends.
A happy, impish smile brightens the small boy's face, and he offers Changjo another biscuit. He is Changjo's first friend, and Changjo wonders about his mother's assertion that the world is not safe. Ricky is not one of the terrifying monsters she seems to believe the world is filled with. Surely she has been wrong all these years. Surely she just doesn't know. Their conversation is light and happy, full of Ricky's delight over their new friendship.
It is dark outside. The streetlights have come on, and Changjo finally thinks it might be time to return home. His mother, he says, might die of worry if he remains missing for an entire night. He stands, hands brushing over his clothes to tidy them. He doesn't notice it right away, the sudden change in Ricky's demeanor. The dark frown that has crossed his face, and the way his fingers tighten into fists around his crutches. He is clearly unhappy.
Changjo is confused when Ricky speaks again. Why is his voice so laced with anger? He says that Changjo is a liar. That he's abandoning his new friend already; Ricky knows Changjo is going to leave and never come back. Just like all the others have. He's going to go back to his big house and forget all about his vow of friendship.
Changjo swallows hard and steps back as Ricky shouts at him. The injured little sparrow has become a hawk, an angered predator, and Changjo is afraid again. He's never experienced anything like this before. He wants to run; everything inside him calls for him to flee, but the caretaker is in the doorway, watching.
Ricky says that he won't let Changjo abandon him. His new friend isn't allowed to leave. The scared child bolts for the door, caretaker or no caretaker, and tries to slip past the man, but his arms are caught and he is not allowed his escape.
One of Ricky's crutches hits Changjo in the back of the head, swung with all the force the deranged boy can muster, and Changjo loses himself in sudden darkness.
Changjo's life is very different now, but in some ways it remains unchanged. He is still a prisoner, but his prison has shrunk. He longs for the prison of stone walls and gates, for now he is a captive in his own body, paralysed by a poison administered by the caretaker. He cannot move. He cannot speak. Ricky dresses him, and feeds him, and decides which games they will play, all while Changjo sits silently in his chair and watches. He has become the boy's doll, his favourite plaything and his very best friend.
At least he isn't lonely anymore.
Pairing: None/implied Changjo&Ricky I guess?
Rating: PG
Genre: AU
Notes: This is all Serena's fault. Actually it's inspired by the Little Crooked House chapter of the manga Godchild, but it's still her fault anyway.
Disclaimer: As much as I wish I could make things happen, I cannot.
Changjo is always lonely. Always. His mother says the world is too dangerous for him to go outside; he's too young, too innocent. He'll get hurt. He'll be tempted to do things he shouldn't. He'll be taken by the worst sort of people.
He doesn't understand the world, and so he stays locked away from it. He roams the family's large house, and the gardens, but he does not step beyond the high stone walls that surround both.
His entire world is enclosed in these walls, his existence bound by brick, mortar, and wrought iron gates.
Sometimes he sits in the yard, arms resting on his knees, shoes abandoned to allow his toes to feel the soft tickle of the grass, and just watches the gate. Cars pass by, and Changjo tries to remember the last time he was in one. People walk past, and he feels a twisting sensation in his stomach. The urge to run to the gate and engage them has been dampened by years of suppression, but it's still there. He longs for conversation beyond that provided by his often-absent mother, the nurse who has taken care of him forever, and the handful of tutors and household servants.
But the world is not safe, and so he remains behind the walls, just waiting. Waiting until it is.
It happens when his mother returns home from one of her trips. She brings him another book as an apology for being gone so long; Changjo quietly adds it to the shelf of books he has never touched, the shelf so full of topics he cannot muster the enthusiasm to be interested in. She questions his quietness; why, dear one, are you frowning so hard?
It's the same every time she comes back.
Changjo's questions about her trip, about the world beyond the walls, irrritate his mother, and she does her best to dodge having to fully answer. However, he is persistent. Living inside this place with very little freedom has given him a seemingly infinite amount of patience. Try as she might, his mother cannot escape his constant queries. The curious eyes of her son refuse to let it go, and finally she snaps.
Her shouting, her insistence that he will never pass through those gates, is finally enough to draw out his own anger. He shouts back at her, something he has never done before. He is grown enough. He can take care of himself. He is going to see the city that is spread around the barrier, whether she allows it or not.
He storms out of the house, leaving his shocked mother behind. The gate, opened to allow her car passage, has strangely not been closed, and Changjo finds himself running toward it as his annoyance chokes his breath and nearly draws a sob from him. His mother's voice echoes around him, calling for him to stop, and he hesitates just inside the wall.
She says it isn't safe. He'll get hurt. Changjo looks back at her, back at everything he has ever known. The house, the lawn, the gardens that are fading into the twilight behind everything. He sees familiarity. Safety.
He abandons them for the unexplored world beyond his own.
He runs for what seems like forever, putting distance between himself and his home without pausing to look at anything or anyone. His mother will send people after him. The nurse, the servants. They will all be looking for him, and if he stays close by, his attempt at freedom will be for naught.
He doesn't stop until his body threatens collapse. Prickles run along his skin as he finally catches his breath and surveys his surroundings; he fights the sense of panic that comes with the realisation that he has no idea where he is. He's never known unfamiliarity, never felt the way it wraps around a heart and squeezes it tight and makes it hard to breathe. This discomfort is new to him. It takes hold for a moment, drowning him in uncertainty, before he chooses to embrace it and takes control.
He will not be afraid.
He has run to a residential area. The houses, he notices, aren't extravagant like the one he's spent all his time in. They are much smaller, and their entrances are much closer to the street than he's ever seen before. The few people on the street, children, are dressed in clothing like nothing Changjo himself has ever worn before. They all stop to stare at him, and he understands suddenly that he is as strange to them as they are to him.
A woman calls to him from a front porch to ask if he's lost, and a man in a car gives him a strange look before driving away. Changjo shakes his head; he's not lost. One cannot be lost if one has no specific destination in mind. The woman, however, seems unsure, and Changjo decides to move on. The children playing on the sidewalk are much younger than he, and as excited he is to interact with others... Changjo longs for people his own age.
He walks, not knowing what lies down the street he's found himself on. A young mother with a stroller approaches him, her eyes conspicuously taking him in head to toe, and he feels his cheeks pink at the look on her face. She says hello as she passes, and he mumbles a greeting in return, his tongue turning to lead in his mouth.
He's never felt flustered before, either.
After walking for a while and having short conversations with the few people he's encountered, Changjo notices the houses are getting bigger again, and further from the street. Not as large as his home, but nicer than the few blocks he'd walked previously. Some are surrounded by high stone walls and heavy gates; he worries that he's moving in the wrong direction, possibly heading back toward his own prison.
His worries are confirmed when he sees the nurse knocking on the door of a house. Changjo freezes in horror as someone opens it to speak to her, again not knowing what to do. It's too soon to go back. He doesn't want to yet. He won't.
He quietly turns and moves around the corner, pressing against the high brick walls surrounding a yard. As he passes the gate, an arm reaches through and grabs his, making him jump and struggle to pull away as panic hits him.
A young voice asks if he's the one they're looking for. If he wants to hide. Changjo stops fighting the gripping fingers and nods, looking back to make sure the nurse hasn't caught up with him yet. The gate opens, and he's dragged inside.
The boy is smaller than Changjo, and relies on a set of crutches to stay up and move around. There is a brace on one of his legs, starting with his foot and extending all the way up to his thigh. The way the boy moves on the crutches is fascinating; he leads Changjo inside with small hops, a friendly smile tipping his lips as he closes the door.
His name is Ricky. His life, Changjo finds, is eerily similar to his own; Ricky's parents passed away when he was a child, and he has been raised inside these walls by nurses and family members who merely check on him rather than taking him in. His leg was injured in an accident when he was small, and so the crutches have been his life ever since. He's a beautiful, sweet little sparrow with a broken wing, tethered to this house by his inability to fly.
His caretaker brings tea for them, and they sit together in the foyer to share it. Changjo hasn't stopped smiling since he arrived, but slowly he begins to realise that there's a strange knot of uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. Something about the house just doesn't seem right. There's an unexplainable presence around the place, the feel of invisible eyes upon them and ghostly whispers. Changjo tries to brush it off. Surely it's only because the house is unfamiliar to him.
The sun begins to set as Ricky and Changjo talk. Ricky is explaining that he has no friends other than his caretaker. He gets lonely. Just like Changjo. He wishes he could leave the house, as Changjo left his, but his injury makes it too difficult for him, and the children of nearby families ignore him as they pass by his gate. Changjo promises that they will be friends.
A happy, impish smile brightens the small boy's face, and he offers Changjo another biscuit. He is Changjo's first friend, and Changjo wonders about his mother's assertion that the world is not safe. Ricky is not one of the terrifying monsters she seems to believe the world is filled with. Surely she has been wrong all these years. Surely she just doesn't know. Their conversation is light and happy, full of Ricky's delight over their new friendship.
It is dark outside. The streetlights have come on, and Changjo finally thinks it might be time to return home. His mother, he says, might die of worry if he remains missing for an entire night. He stands, hands brushing over his clothes to tidy them. He doesn't notice it right away, the sudden change in Ricky's demeanor. The dark frown that has crossed his face, and the way his fingers tighten into fists around his crutches. He is clearly unhappy.
Changjo is confused when Ricky speaks again. Why is his voice so laced with anger? He says that Changjo is a liar. That he's abandoning his new friend already; Ricky knows Changjo is going to leave and never come back. Just like all the others have. He's going to go back to his big house and forget all about his vow of friendship.
Changjo swallows hard and steps back as Ricky shouts at him. The injured little sparrow has become a hawk, an angered predator, and Changjo is afraid again. He's never experienced anything like this before. He wants to run; everything inside him calls for him to flee, but the caretaker is in the doorway, watching.
Ricky says that he won't let Changjo abandon him. His new friend isn't allowed to leave. The scared child bolts for the door, caretaker or no caretaker, and tries to slip past the man, but his arms are caught and he is not allowed his escape.
One of Ricky's crutches hits Changjo in the back of the head, swung with all the force the deranged boy can muster, and Changjo loses himself in sudden darkness.
Changjo's life is very different now, but in some ways it remains unchanged. He is still a prisoner, but his prison has shrunk. He longs for the prison of stone walls and gates, for now he is a captive in his own body, paralysed by a poison administered by the caretaker. He cannot move. He cannot speak. Ricky dresses him, and feeds him, and decides which games they will play, all while Changjo sits silently in his chair and watches. He has become the boy's doll, his favourite plaything and his very best friend.
At least he isn't lonely anymore.