Stealing Heaven 1/3
Saving Him
I remember the first time I was in that house. I was crouching under the window sill, waiting for Jaejoong’s signal. Peeking in, it looked like a normal house; dining table, home theater system, cutlery in a hutch, the works. Whoever lived here spent a fair amount of time with the décor. I had seen better but I had also seen worse.
I felt a bug climbing up my jeans and I cringed, brushing it off as quickly as possible. My legs were cramping up and I was fucking hungry.
“Jae,” I whispered. I wasn’t supposed to whisper this loudly but the house was empty and it was dark, there wasn’t another house for a good 2 acres. “Jae, will you hurry up already?”
“Shut up,” he snapped at me. I knew he was just embarrassed to admit that an alarm system was giving him as much trouble as this one was.
I rested my back against the brick wall and felt around my pocket for a cigarette. Jae would kill me for it and maybe that’s exactly why I lit it up. I liked inviting danger; we practically played with danger every minute of our lives so why not make it more interesting. And if he was going to stop me from smoking because it was too distracting, I would just remind him of the fact that he had been on that damn alarm system for two hours already.
Most systems were a piece of cake; it was amazing how many time Jae and I got in just by pressing the number one, four times. Dogs were no harder; I remember one of them biting me and that was only because I tried to save Jae. He’s hopeless with dogs.
We don’t spend more than a month or two in one town because, for one thing, there aren’t any more slightly decent houses to get and of course the police aren’t that stupid; they start to catch onto us after a while. We were probably going to hit the road after we cleared this house and sold whatever we could out of that.
The only problem with working with Jae was that he never told me where we were going next. He would always plan that without me. I tried asking him why but he ignored it and I knew better than to ask again.
I inhaled the last of my cigarette and felt around for another one. No luck. I swore and whisper-yelled at Jae again.
“Shit, can you just hold on for one second? I don’t know what these people did with the system but it’s fucking complicated.”
I tried not to laugh out loud.
Jae and I had been together since the beginning of forever. All I remember is waking up one day and finding him sleeping next to me in the tunnel of a really big jungle gym. I couldn’t have been more than 7 years old but then again I wouldn’t really know how old I was. I consider that day my birthday and so does Jaejoong. He says he doesn’t remember his birthday either so I thought one day would be easier to remember for both of us and we couldn’t complain about how one of us didn’t get to celebrate their birthday and the other did because we were serving time or something.
The first time I stole something was for Jaejoong too. He was hungry and I was out of money. And why wouldn’t I be? We worked all day at the coal mine for a couple of measly wons. The owner wouldn’t give us anything because he thought we were young and stupid. And he just pissed me off when he tried to touch Jaejoong all over the place. So I stole from him.
When I showed Jaejoong the money I got from selling the glass vase in his office, something struck him. And call it addiction, or call it hunger. Call it greed; I sometimes do. Either way, we were hooked.
“Yoochun,” Jaejoong hissed and I looked back. He had the window on the other side open and he gave me the signal that meant I was supposed to take this house from the back and then meet him in the middle somewhere. I was on my feet in less than a second and running out back, trying to make as less sound as possible. It wasn’t easy, twigs were snapping all over the place. I had told Jaejoong to get some sleep or something before going out today. If I was fresh, I would have done this a lot smoother.
I felt for the crowbar under my jacket and took it out to open the backdoor but I didn’t have to work hard, it was already open. My face scrunched up in confusion. Ok, next time Jaejoong takes long with the alarm system; I have to check all doors to keep myself from starving.
I closed the door behind me and slithered into what looked to me like the family room. My eyes automatically filtered the cheap stuff from the originals and the worthless stuff from the oh-my-holy-shit-we-can-buy-leather-covers-for-cars-with-this-stuff stuff.
I could hear Jae’s feet shuffling in other corner of the house and I would have to yell at him about those boots he’s wearing. They look good, but they make a lot of noise.
People would think we take shots in the dark with picking our houses but that’s not how it is. It’s all planned. We circle the house for days, judging the size and worth of the family. We try to follow them around to see what times the house is completely empty and how much time we potentially have until they come back.
From what I knew about this house and family, I knew they’d be out the whole night. Jae said there was a little girl, about the age of 6 or 7 who came here every other day with an older woman that looked like her grandma’s age. Other than her, there were no visitors here and the man who lived here looked middle-aged; on the days he had work, it was a 9-5 thing and on the days he didn’t, he would spend his nights at a bar, coming home way after midnight.
I had questioned Jae on that because the house looked too big for just one person to live in but you don’t question Jae on his research. And besides, if we went down, we’d go down together.
The first time I served time was because of and for him too.
As planned, Jae had the truck over to the side of the house, parked out on the road not too far but far enough from the house. I opened up the duffle bag I had in my hand and started filling it with stuff I thought was worth something. There really wasn’t much but with the way Jaejoong dealt with the dealers, I had learned that even a little was a lot.
I heard Jae’s feet shuffle again and this time they were closer to me.
“Chun.”
“Yea, I’m here, find anything good?”
“I don’t know if he’s good but I found something alright.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Walk straight for about 20 feet and then turn right.”
I did as he said and found a staircase. I dropped my duffle bag on the foot of the stairs and followed the sound of his voice. We had a rule about two-storey houses…it’s complicated. Jae makes everything complicated.
I ended up turning into a room that wasn’t bigger than the back of our truck and our truck was really small. From what I could make out with the limited moonlight, there was a bed and that was it. And the room smelled really bad.
Something touched my hand and after getting a good hold on it, I knew it was Jae.
“What?”
“He’s curled up in the corner of the room. I don’t think he’s conscious.”
“What? Who is it?”
“It’s a little boy, Yoochun. Look closely.”
I didn’t want to look closely. Whatever, whoever it was did not smell good and if there was somebody in this house, we shouldn’t be.
“Jae, let’s get out of here.”
“Yoochun,” he said, pinching my side, “how can you say that, just look at him. He could die or something. We have to help. Just look closely.”
Jae said the last few words like he was going to kill me if I didn’t look closely or something. I inwardly sighed.
I took a careful step towards the direction Jae turned me in and sure enough, as I got closer, I saw the outline of a person. Definitely male, long legs and arms that were folded into his body and hair that fell over his face.
I extended my hand to try to touch him but Jae smacked me again.
“Ow, what the fuck?”
“Don’t touch him, what if you hurt him? I’ll turn the light on.” Oh, so Jae was allowed to break his own rules. Hypocrite.
The light flickered on; again, it wasn’t much, and it was sort of depressing too. I simply hated when a room wasn’t lit up properly.
“Oh my god, poor baby,” Jae said and rushed towards the little boy, crouching right next to him.
I sat on the other side of the body, keeping my distance. He wasn’t bloody or anything but there were bruises on his face and cuts that I knew were at least two or three days old. He looked like a teenager, soft features and smooth skin underneath the imperfections. I almost wanted to touch him but then I remembered what Jaejoong said. We might hurt him. His clothes were completely ripped and there were fresh welts on his back between the shreds of fabric. I cringed and met Jae’s eyes; I caught the flash of pain in his eyes.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know.”
Fuck, Jae always knew.
By the tone of his voice, I could tell he wanted to save this kid. But trying to save him would either make us kidnappers or get us arrested for breaking and entering. There was no way to get out of this. Sometimes I hated him for being so sentimental and generous. He once made me go back into a house because I took some chick’s jewellery that apparently belonged to her deceased grandmother.
“Seriously, Jae. Let’s just get out of here. We won’t rob this place because I know whoever lives here is going to blame this kid for it. But we have got to leave.”
Jae sighed. And then started getting up slowly. I almost didn’t believe that he was listening to me and leaving this kid here but I wasn’t going to fight it. I grabbed at Jae’s shoulder and patted his back a bit before turning the light off.
“You go wait in the car, I’ll clean up.”
Jae nodded and didn’t turn back even once before running down the stairs. I knew this was hard for him and I knew exactly why too. I would pay for it later when he had his breakdown. He hardly cried, I could count on one hand the times he did but this time, I saw it in his face and heard it his voice. And as corny as it sounded, I kind of felt it. He was devastated at the sight of this little boy.
I sighed and started walking out of the room when I heard a murmur. The boy stirred.
Shit. I had to get Jae back here.
“Jae, he’s moving.”
I heard him run back up and he was by my side in record time. He gave me a nod that solidified the fact that we were going to do what Jae said. I knew he meant it as a request but it came out as order. Not that I minded his orders, he was best when he was in control.
I smiled a little and then nodded back.
He lightly squeezed on my hand and then kneeled beside the kid again. I had a feeling the kid would get freaked out seeing two strangers hovering over him like we were. I motioned to Jae to step back a little but he did the exact opposite. He leaned in closer and just barely pressed his hand to the side of kid’s face.
The little boy stirred again and moved into Jae’s touch. Jae looked at me and smiled. I huffed. He was such a snot sometimes.
His eyes opened slowly, slow enough for me to contemplate whether this was a good idea or not. Jae’s eyes never left his but I looked around. Under the twin bed that was pushed to one corner was a small box that looked like it was decorated by a 5 year old, complete with glitter and stickers. I wanted to open it but it looked too private. Beside it, there was a bigger, transparent box that had some clothes in it. I opened it and almost winced. This kid didn’t live on much.
I sat on the bed and bounced on it, leaning back and watching Jae rock the kid back and forth in his lap. God, he was such a mother. The kid seemed to like it though; he leaned more into Jae with every breath. His mumbling got louder and clearer. We still couldn’t understand what he was saying but it wouldn’t make a difference to Jae, he responded with the general reassurances.
“Jae, how much longer? It’s been so long, what if the dud who lives here comes back?”
“He’s almost awake. You go get something to eat if you want.”
“Rules.”
“Screw the rules.” The boy moaned and turned in Jae’s lap. “Alright, keep the rules, just go get some water, I don’t think we’ll be here for much longer.”
By the time I got back with a glass of water in my hand, the kid had crawled to another corner of the room and Jae was trying to talk to him. He looked at me, eyes wide and full of fear. I set the water on the ground beside him.
“Have a drink of water and relax, okay? We’re not going to hurt you.”
“W-What are you guys doing here? Are you a friend of Junsu’s?”
“No,” Jae said and laughed, “We want to be friends with you. If that’s okay.”
The boy looked confused.
“My name’s Jaejoong and this is Yoochun. What’s your name?”
“Seriously, what do you want?”
“We want to help you. You want to get out of here, don’t you?”
He looked down, avoiding Jae’s watery eyes. I wanted to say something reassuring too but I couldn’t think of anything between the kid’s pain and Jae’s eyes.
“Min. Ch-Changmin.”
“Hi, Changmin. You want to come with us?”
“N-No, you guys can just go, Junsu won’t like it if I’m gone.”
“Is Junsu your father?”
“He’s…umm…he’s my brother.”
Jae and I looked at each other. “He’s not nice to you is he?”
“Jae, you’re talking to him like he’s 5 years old.”
“Shut up, Yoochun.”
“No.”
“We’ll do this later.”
“Whatever.” I stepped closer to the boy, closer than Jae was and spoke directly to him. I had no idea where this sudden rebellion came from but I knew we had very little time and if we did things the Jaejoong way, we would be here all night and then spend the rest of the days in jail when this so-called Junsu got back.
“Look, Changmin. We weren’t here to make friends, we were here to rob your house and we happened to find you like this,” I said. “You don’t look so good, with the bruises and the cuts and the welts. You need to come with us and we need to get you to safe place. If we don’t get out of here soon, we’ll both be in trouble and you know it.”
“He’s going to find me, no matter where I go.”
“Not if we can help it.”
Jaejoong beside me and put his arm around my shoulder. “Trust us. He’s not going to hurt you anymore."
He held his hand out for Changmin and Changmin looked at the hand, then back at me. He looked so scared, his eyes were completely empty. I reached under the bed and pulled out his little box. “I think this is about everything you need. Other than a fresh pair of clothes. Let’s go.”
“I don’t even know you. How do I know you won’t hurt me?”
“You don’t.”
Jae sighed and nudged me. Maybe I was being a little too scary. I gave Jae a look that said ‘fine, you take over now’.
“If we wanted to hurt you, we wouldn’t have spent the whole night here waiting for you to gain consciousness so we could ask you if you wanted to come with us. We would have just taken you. I’d call the police but I don’t want to spend the next few months in jail.”
Changmin looked like he was about to cry.
“Baby, you know you want to run. I know you want to run. It’ll be a lot easier if you have somebody to run with.” Jae spoke softly; with a tone I had only heard come out of his mouth after sex, in the middle of snuggling. The kind of smooth that made you want to hold on tighter and never let go.
Changmin didn’t look at him but he took his hand and Jae helped him up. His face scrunched in pain and I reached for him. He flinched and I stepped back. He took his box from my hands and pressed it against his chest, looking at nothing but the ground.
“Let’s go.” Those were the only words that came out of his mouth as we erased all traces of us being there, grabbed a few of his clothes and climbed in our truck.
Jae drove, I sat in the passenger seat and he sat in between us, looking straight ahead. I didn’t even realize when he’d started crying but I saw the glint of tears on his cheeks. Jae put his hand on Changmin’s thigh.
“Nightmare’s over now. Don’t worry.”
Changmin’s breath quickened and he let out a sob that he was holding in since they left the house. He lowered himself and rested his head on my lap, his feet lifting to meet Jae’s lap. He cried. I stroked his hair and whispered reassurances at him but looked out the window. Jae watched the road. I knew if Jae and I looked at each other, one of us would break.
I didn’t know where Jae was driving to and that mattered less and less as he hit the highway and set the truck on cruise. I watched countless billboards and flashing signs pass and the steady warm breath on my knee, Changmin’s chest rising and falling against my thigh lulled me to sleep.
Part 2: Wanting Him
I remember the first time I was in that house. I was crouching under the window sill, waiting for Jaejoong’s signal. Peeking in, it looked like a normal house; dining table, home theater system, cutlery in a hutch, the works. Whoever lived here spent a fair amount of time with the décor. I had seen better but I had also seen worse.
I felt a bug climbing up my jeans and I cringed, brushing it off as quickly as possible. My legs were cramping up and I was fucking hungry.
“Jae,” I whispered. I wasn’t supposed to whisper this loudly but the house was empty and it was dark, there wasn’t another house for a good 2 acres. “Jae, will you hurry up already?”
“Shut up,” he snapped at me. I knew he was just embarrassed to admit that an alarm system was giving him as much trouble as this one was.
I rested my back against the brick wall and felt around my pocket for a cigarette. Jae would kill me for it and maybe that’s exactly why I lit it up. I liked inviting danger; we practically played with danger every minute of our lives so why not make it more interesting. And if he was going to stop me from smoking because it was too distracting, I would just remind him of the fact that he had been on that damn alarm system for two hours already.
Most systems were a piece of cake; it was amazing how many time Jae and I got in just by pressing the number one, four times. Dogs were no harder; I remember one of them biting me and that was only because I tried to save Jae. He’s hopeless with dogs.
We don’t spend more than a month or two in one town because, for one thing, there aren’t any more slightly decent houses to get and of course the police aren’t that stupid; they start to catch onto us after a while. We were probably going to hit the road after we cleared this house and sold whatever we could out of that.
The only problem with working with Jae was that he never told me where we were going next. He would always plan that without me. I tried asking him why but he ignored it and I knew better than to ask again.
I inhaled the last of my cigarette and felt around for another one. No luck. I swore and whisper-yelled at Jae again.
“Shit, can you just hold on for one second? I don’t know what these people did with the system but it’s fucking complicated.”
I tried not to laugh out loud.
Jae and I had been together since the beginning of forever. All I remember is waking up one day and finding him sleeping next to me in the tunnel of a really big jungle gym. I couldn’t have been more than 7 years old but then again I wouldn’t really know how old I was. I consider that day my birthday and so does Jaejoong. He says he doesn’t remember his birthday either so I thought one day would be easier to remember for both of us and we couldn’t complain about how one of us didn’t get to celebrate their birthday and the other did because we were serving time or something.
The first time I stole something was for Jaejoong too. He was hungry and I was out of money. And why wouldn’t I be? We worked all day at the coal mine for a couple of measly wons. The owner wouldn’t give us anything because he thought we were young and stupid. And he just pissed me off when he tried to touch Jaejoong all over the place. So I stole from him.
When I showed Jaejoong the money I got from selling the glass vase in his office, something struck him. And call it addiction, or call it hunger. Call it greed; I sometimes do. Either way, we were hooked.
“Yoochun,” Jaejoong hissed and I looked back. He had the window on the other side open and he gave me the signal that meant I was supposed to take this house from the back and then meet him in the middle somewhere. I was on my feet in less than a second and running out back, trying to make as less sound as possible. It wasn’t easy, twigs were snapping all over the place. I had told Jaejoong to get some sleep or something before going out today. If I was fresh, I would have done this a lot smoother.
I felt for the crowbar under my jacket and took it out to open the backdoor but I didn’t have to work hard, it was already open. My face scrunched up in confusion. Ok, next time Jaejoong takes long with the alarm system; I have to check all doors to keep myself from starving.
I closed the door behind me and slithered into what looked to me like the family room. My eyes automatically filtered the cheap stuff from the originals and the worthless stuff from the oh-my-holy-shit-we-can-buy-leather-covers-for-cars-with-this-stuff stuff.
I could hear Jae’s feet shuffling in other corner of the house and I would have to yell at him about those boots he’s wearing. They look good, but they make a lot of noise.
People would think we take shots in the dark with picking our houses but that’s not how it is. It’s all planned. We circle the house for days, judging the size and worth of the family. We try to follow them around to see what times the house is completely empty and how much time we potentially have until they come back.
From what I knew about this house and family, I knew they’d be out the whole night. Jae said there was a little girl, about the age of 6 or 7 who came here every other day with an older woman that looked like her grandma’s age. Other than her, there were no visitors here and the man who lived here looked middle-aged; on the days he had work, it was a 9-5 thing and on the days he didn’t, he would spend his nights at a bar, coming home way after midnight.
I had questioned Jae on that because the house looked too big for just one person to live in but you don’t question Jae on his research. And besides, if we went down, we’d go down together.
The first time I served time was because of and for him too.
As planned, Jae had the truck over to the side of the house, parked out on the road not too far but far enough from the house. I opened up the duffle bag I had in my hand and started filling it with stuff I thought was worth something. There really wasn’t much but with the way Jaejoong dealt with the dealers, I had learned that even a little was a lot.
I heard Jae’s feet shuffle again and this time they were closer to me.
“Chun.”
“Yea, I’m here, find anything good?”
“I don’t know if he’s good but I found something alright.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Walk straight for about 20 feet and then turn right.”
I did as he said and found a staircase. I dropped my duffle bag on the foot of the stairs and followed the sound of his voice. We had a rule about two-storey houses…it’s complicated. Jae makes everything complicated.
I ended up turning into a room that wasn’t bigger than the back of our truck and our truck was really small. From what I could make out with the limited moonlight, there was a bed and that was it. And the room smelled really bad.
Something touched my hand and after getting a good hold on it, I knew it was Jae.
“What?”
“He’s curled up in the corner of the room. I don’t think he’s conscious.”
“What? Who is it?”
“It’s a little boy, Yoochun. Look closely.”
I didn’t want to look closely. Whatever, whoever it was did not smell good and if there was somebody in this house, we shouldn’t be.
“Jae, let’s get out of here.”
“Yoochun,” he said, pinching my side, “how can you say that, just look at him. He could die or something. We have to help. Just look closely.”
Jae said the last few words like he was going to kill me if I didn’t look closely or something. I inwardly sighed.
I took a careful step towards the direction Jae turned me in and sure enough, as I got closer, I saw the outline of a person. Definitely male, long legs and arms that were folded into his body and hair that fell over his face.
I extended my hand to try to touch him but Jae smacked me again.
“Ow, what the fuck?”
“Don’t touch him, what if you hurt him? I’ll turn the light on.” Oh, so Jae was allowed to break his own rules. Hypocrite.
The light flickered on; again, it wasn’t much, and it was sort of depressing too. I simply hated when a room wasn’t lit up properly.
“Oh my god, poor baby,” Jae said and rushed towards the little boy, crouching right next to him.
I sat on the other side of the body, keeping my distance. He wasn’t bloody or anything but there were bruises on his face and cuts that I knew were at least two or three days old. He looked like a teenager, soft features and smooth skin underneath the imperfections. I almost wanted to touch him but then I remembered what Jaejoong said. We might hurt him. His clothes were completely ripped and there were fresh welts on his back between the shreds of fabric. I cringed and met Jae’s eyes; I caught the flash of pain in his eyes.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know.”
Fuck, Jae always knew.
By the tone of his voice, I could tell he wanted to save this kid. But trying to save him would either make us kidnappers or get us arrested for breaking and entering. There was no way to get out of this. Sometimes I hated him for being so sentimental and generous. He once made me go back into a house because I took some chick’s jewellery that apparently belonged to her deceased grandmother.
“Seriously, Jae. Let’s just get out of here. We won’t rob this place because I know whoever lives here is going to blame this kid for it. But we have got to leave.”
Jae sighed. And then started getting up slowly. I almost didn’t believe that he was listening to me and leaving this kid here but I wasn’t going to fight it. I grabbed at Jae’s shoulder and patted his back a bit before turning the light off.
“You go wait in the car, I’ll clean up.”
Jae nodded and didn’t turn back even once before running down the stairs. I knew this was hard for him and I knew exactly why too. I would pay for it later when he had his breakdown. He hardly cried, I could count on one hand the times he did but this time, I saw it in his face and heard it his voice. And as corny as it sounded, I kind of felt it. He was devastated at the sight of this little boy.
I sighed and started walking out of the room when I heard a murmur. The boy stirred.
Shit. I had to get Jae back here.
“Jae, he’s moving.”
I heard him run back up and he was by my side in record time. He gave me a nod that solidified the fact that we were going to do what Jae said. I knew he meant it as a request but it came out as order. Not that I minded his orders, he was best when he was in control.
I smiled a little and then nodded back.
He lightly squeezed on my hand and then kneeled beside the kid again. I had a feeling the kid would get freaked out seeing two strangers hovering over him like we were. I motioned to Jae to step back a little but he did the exact opposite. He leaned in closer and just barely pressed his hand to the side of kid’s face.
The little boy stirred again and moved into Jae’s touch. Jae looked at me and smiled. I huffed. He was such a snot sometimes.
His eyes opened slowly, slow enough for me to contemplate whether this was a good idea or not. Jae’s eyes never left his but I looked around. Under the twin bed that was pushed to one corner was a small box that looked like it was decorated by a 5 year old, complete with glitter and stickers. I wanted to open it but it looked too private. Beside it, there was a bigger, transparent box that had some clothes in it. I opened it and almost winced. This kid didn’t live on much.
I sat on the bed and bounced on it, leaning back and watching Jae rock the kid back and forth in his lap. God, he was such a mother. The kid seemed to like it though; he leaned more into Jae with every breath. His mumbling got louder and clearer. We still couldn’t understand what he was saying but it wouldn’t make a difference to Jae, he responded with the general reassurances.
“Jae, how much longer? It’s been so long, what if the dud who lives here comes back?”
“He’s almost awake. You go get something to eat if you want.”
“Rules.”
“Screw the rules.” The boy moaned and turned in Jae’s lap. “Alright, keep the rules, just go get some water, I don’t think we’ll be here for much longer.”
By the time I got back with a glass of water in my hand, the kid had crawled to another corner of the room and Jae was trying to talk to him. He looked at me, eyes wide and full of fear. I set the water on the ground beside him.
“Have a drink of water and relax, okay? We’re not going to hurt you.”
“W-What are you guys doing here? Are you a friend of Junsu’s?”
“No,” Jae said and laughed, “We want to be friends with you. If that’s okay.”
The boy looked confused.
“My name’s Jaejoong and this is Yoochun. What’s your name?”
“Seriously, what do you want?”
“We want to help you. You want to get out of here, don’t you?”
He looked down, avoiding Jae’s watery eyes. I wanted to say something reassuring too but I couldn’t think of anything between the kid’s pain and Jae’s eyes.
“Min. Ch-Changmin.”
“Hi, Changmin. You want to come with us?”
“N-No, you guys can just go, Junsu won’t like it if I’m gone.”
“Is Junsu your father?”
“He’s…umm…he’s my brother.”
Jae and I looked at each other. “He’s not nice to you is he?”
“Jae, you’re talking to him like he’s 5 years old.”
“Shut up, Yoochun.”
“No.”
“We’ll do this later.”
“Whatever.” I stepped closer to the boy, closer than Jae was and spoke directly to him. I had no idea where this sudden rebellion came from but I knew we had very little time and if we did things the Jaejoong way, we would be here all night and then spend the rest of the days in jail when this so-called Junsu got back.
“Look, Changmin. We weren’t here to make friends, we were here to rob your house and we happened to find you like this,” I said. “You don’t look so good, with the bruises and the cuts and the welts. You need to come with us and we need to get you to safe place. If we don’t get out of here soon, we’ll both be in trouble and you know it.”
“He’s going to find me, no matter where I go.”
“Not if we can help it.”
Jaejoong beside me and put his arm around my shoulder. “Trust us. He’s not going to hurt you anymore."
He held his hand out for Changmin and Changmin looked at the hand, then back at me. He looked so scared, his eyes were completely empty. I reached under the bed and pulled out his little box. “I think this is about everything you need. Other than a fresh pair of clothes. Let’s go.”
“I don’t even know you. How do I know you won’t hurt me?”
“You don’t.”
Jae sighed and nudged me. Maybe I was being a little too scary. I gave Jae a look that said ‘fine, you take over now’.
“If we wanted to hurt you, we wouldn’t have spent the whole night here waiting for you to gain consciousness so we could ask you if you wanted to come with us. We would have just taken you. I’d call the police but I don’t want to spend the next few months in jail.”
Changmin looked like he was about to cry.
“Baby, you know you want to run. I know you want to run. It’ll be a lot easier if you have somebody to run with.” Jae spoke softly; with a tone I had only heard come out of his mouth after sex, in the middle of snuggling. The kind of smooth that made you want to hold on tighter and never let go.
Changmin didn’t look at him but he took his hand and Jae helped him up. His face scrunched in pain and I reached for him. He flinched and I stepped back. He took his box from my hands and pressed it against his chest, looking at nothing but the ground.
“Let’s go.” Those were the only words that came out of his mouth as we erased all traces of us being there, grabbed a few of his clothes and climbed in our truck.
Jae drove, I sat in the passenger seat and he sat in between us, looking straight ahead. I didn’t even realize when he’d started crying but I saw the glint of tears on his cheeks. Jae put his hand on Changmin’s thigh.
“Nightmare’s over now. Don’t worry.”
Changmin’s breath quickened and he let out a sob that he was holding in since they left the house. He lowered himself and rested his head on my lap, his feet lifting to meet Jae’s lap. He cried. I stroked his hair and whispered reassurances at him but looked out the window. Jae watched the road. I knew if Jae and I looked at each other, one of us would break.
I didn’t know where Jae was driving to and that mattered less and less as he hit the highway and set the truck on cruise. I watched countless billboards and flashing signs pass and the steady warm breath on my knee, Changmin’s chest rising and falling against my thigh lulled me to sleep.
Part 2: Wanting Him