Bulletborn, Chapter One
BULLETBORN; PG-13
*notes - au, very long chaptered fic written in first pov because i wanted to try something different and it takes a while for the other characters to come into play. rating will go up later! apologies! sorry for any loose ends in advance. ;)
Chapter 1;;
I sit on the side of a dilapidated street outside a rundown bar, feeling entirely helpless for only the second time in my life. The first time I had ever felt helpless was when I had been kicked out of my house, my last memory being my sister tugging at my hand, reassuring me to leave as she put it up with my abusive father for the both of us. I didn’t stay to see how it turned out as I ran down the street with nothing but the clothes on my back and a pocketful of stolen dollars. It’s somewhat the same situation this second time, except there are no tears of fear pouring down my face, only an empty feeling in my gut that won’t leave, even when I pull out my last unlit cigarette and keep it in my mouth, wishing it would magically catch on fire and keep me at ease.
“It’s dangerous out here for a girl like you, don’t you think? You could get murdered. Or worse.”
I turn around to see who’s imposing on my personal space and scoff. This stranger’s got a stoic face and an imposing build but his threats lay no meaning on me.
“If you were gonna murder me, you already would have.” I say, watching the way his eyes flicker as I speak. I can tell he’s not capable of killing me by the sheer fraction of a second he hesitates to answer - or maybe that’s just his game. I wonder if he thinks I’m some sort of a prostitute, although at this point I might as well accept that I am, but he looks too regal to be looking for that kind of fun. In fact, he’s too pretty overall to be even out here at this time of night.
In the time I stare at him trying to figure out his back story, he does the same, looking at me with precision, wondering why a fifteen year old girl like me is already broken beyond repair. I laugh, and turn back, watching the street in front, the seldom car flying by throwing dust in my face.
“You don’t belong here.” He says after minutes of pure silence. “come with me.”
“Why should I?”
“You already live in hell,” he says and I scoff again, but only because I agree, “at least with me you can live in a calculated one.”
I eye him down one more time, every piece of his 6’2” body, slowly imagining all the unholy ways he’d be capable of ending my life right then and there. My poor sister would be somewhere finally hearing the news and breaking down that all she ever did for me to escape had been for nothing. I can hear dry cries stirring in my ear drums so vividly. No, don’t do it, don’t do it! her voice stings. And then the stranger offers me an ivory lighter for my unlit cigarette and I smile.
-
Choi Siwon, my new mentor, my new brother, my new savior, takes me to his enclave deep in the outskirts of the woods and shows me around. There’s a bit of expectancy for me to gasp and flee when he reveals his assortment of weapons in his underground tool shed, but I do nothing of that sort, instead admiring the craftsmanship of some of the bows and arrows and knifes.
“Where are the guns?” I say, feeling underwhelmed but he shoots me back an equal look of disappointment.
“What,” I continue. “I’ve seen worse.”
And it’s not a lie really, because I have. Narrow escapes from drug deals gone wrong behind the curtains at various clubs, regretful encounters with men much bigger from me that I was forced to indulge with, brutality after brutality in places I shouldn’t I have been - being in a tool shed with a stranger with a collection of playthings didn’t seem that bad to me.
“You should be scared,” he says, and without hesitation he pulls himself around me, bringing a slick dagger to my neck, holding me back around my shoulders with one arm, the other bringing the dagger closer until he scratches my neck and lets go - not enough to leave a big scar, but enough to make me bleed. I hold three fingers to my neck and observe the fresh blood staining my fingers with care and a sour disposition. But before I can say anything he hands me a clean rag and throws the dagger down onto the table, in a pointed way that the tail sticks through.
“This is real life. You should be scared. Things aren’t going to be easy with me, so if you want to go you should just leave now, okay?” I wonder why he wanted me here with him in the first place if he was being so adamant that I could leave, but the insatiable part of me knew there was nothing left out there for me anyway. Besides, easy was something sort of overrated. I shake my head to say no, I’m not leaving, and place the clean rag on my neck to comfort my new wound.
“Okay. Let’s start then.”
-
Training is brutal. More brutal than I expected. We spend fourteen hours every day from mid-day to sunrise, learning and learning. Siwon goes over in insane detail the different methods of being a jedi, (as I like to dub him when he’s not aware), of core strengthening, stealth skills, yoga, military exercise, and weaponry. My hands itch to get to the weapon training the most but Siwon saves it for last, always telling me that I’m not ready when I clearly am, and soon I give up on the urge to ask. He asks a lot of me and sometimes I wonder if he cannot tell that I am young and female, but I don’t want him to think me of lesser so I never bring it up as an excuse; instead only asking him to buy me tampons on the harshest of days just to see him blush a furious red.
My muscles begin to ache by the first day and by the end of the first week after we finish twenty mile sprints I cannot walk straight, but we forge on. It’s not until my body goes limp and I faint over the course of several days during our night pool training that Siwon softens up a bit and lessens my load, with no sign of able mercy. And it’s not until my fingers are swollen and several gashes that refuse to heal up on their own is it that I get to sleep a full eight hours, even if it is during the day. And it’s only when I start to spit blood, my body unable to take anymore of the heat wave mixed with harsh drills is it that he tells me I am ready to lift up a first weapon.
-
It’s worth it, I think, worth the shutting up and holding my tongue and never complaining when my hands wrap around a bow and arrow and I get to shoot. I don’t know what I’m aiming for with all this training and Siwon never tells me what the goal is but I don’t care - I shoot the bow and hit the bullseye, satisfaction seeping through my pores. I look over at Siwon for praise, but all I see is his arms forever crossed and the slight resemblance of a non-frown. I take it, take the bow and arrow for now as a mere substitute for a gun and concentrate, hitting the bullseye again. I cheer for myself and breathe easy.
“What’s next? Martial arts? Knife throwing? Learning how to kill with one grip over the throat?”
“Back to pool training.”
I can feel my insides shutter at the upcoming hurt to be had.
-
Sometimes between the hours of 2 and 3 pm when the daylight still creeps in behind the sleek curtains and I know Siwon is for sure sleeping, exhausted from the all night training he induces on me, I sneak out of bed and take a look around Siwon’s room, curious about who the man behind the man really is. It takes me a couple of tries to get this right, mostly because I soon realize Siwon doesn’t really “sleep” ever, more so like dozes off and even the slightest sound of a finger bending could alert him to power on. He sleeps downstairs on his one modest tan couch, insisting I sleep upstairs in the loft where it’s safer - safe where there’s only one large window to escape from, something he’s even taken the chances away from by bolting the sides of it shut. Still, I take his bed with reluctance - it weirdly smells like him, the smell of musk and sweat and everything gentleman embodied into the covers. The rest of the room isn’t much better - it’s stark and bland - disguised to look impersonal and even the first few times I gather the courage to look around, I can’t find anything because there is nothing to find. Even his closet lacked imagination - the few shirts he owns hang dryly on one side, pants folded neatly on top, and now two shelves dedicated to his underwear and mine, some he had embarrassingly bought me much to my surprise, organized on the bottom.
It takes me about five weeks to try a new approach, to try and think under the fingernails of Siwon’s complicated mind and unloosen a couple of the floorboards with a spare screwdriver I nick during motorcycle lessons. I finally get somewhere when I go for a wiry looking floorboard behind the headboard of the bed, one screw already unlatched from where it should have belonged - something unusual for a man so precise as Siwon held himself to be. I undo the rest of the screws unquietly as I can, my ears peaked for any sound below. I finally move the floorboard to find a velvet green box - large in size and I take it out, undoing the crescent latch with care. There’s a couple of things; a printed scarf, a tooth-shaped pearl pendant, another little box and the thing that catches my eye the most - an old fashioned silver revolver. It’s beautiful and I can’t help but cradle it, admire its craftsmanship and wonder why Siwon would keep it tucked away in a box instead of downstairs with all his other treasures. I can almost hear the revolver clicking and the sound of a bullet whistling straight through as it finds its target deep in the woods and I find it hard to let go.
“You awake, Krystal? You should be sleeping.” Siwon shouts and I almost drop the gun in fright, instinctively throwing everything back into the box as quietly as possible, upset at myself for not even getting to the other little trinket. I lunge back into bed and dip my head low into Siwon’s pillow, ears still peaked for the tiniest sound of him coming upstairs to check on me. He never comes though and slowly I find myself able to sleep like this under the safety of Siwon’s overbearing yet comforting watch for the first time in months.
-
Maybe it’s because there’s now a permanent scowl on my face does Siwon tries to think of different ways on how to not come across as such a hard-ass. For the most part he is the very emblem of a gentleman; opening doors for me, keeping the house impeccable, always making sure he closes the toilet lid after he uses the restroom but I never keep eye contact with him for more than a minute ever since the knife stunt. I notice him trying to make a change immediately and embarrassingly so.
“You can call me oppa if you want.” he places a fresh plate for breakfast in front of me, warm toast and farm grown scrambled eggs- a joy to have. “Just think of me as your real brother from now.”
“Hmm,” I say, practically engulfing the food down - it’s not that Siwon ever starves me, quite the opposite, I just can’t help myself in front of good food from all those past years of starving - and I never felt more fortunate in my entire life even with my rich upbringing - “I kind of like the name I already have for you.”
“What’s that?”
“The man.” I laugh but Siwon makes a weird chortle, his cup of coffee almost slipping out of his fingers. “What? I think it’s fitting.”
“I think I’d prefer it if you call me oppa.”
“Okay. Siwon oppa.” I can feel his insides practically tingle when I say it, ignoring the fact that I said it dripped with sarcasm.
-
“Tell me about your childhood.” Siwon tries one day in between laps in the pool. The moon hangs over us, scowling.
“No,” I say back, starting another lap in the pool, deep into the other side away from his curiosity. I get to the other side when I remember to add, “oppa.”
-
There’s another day, another night of field training when Siwon finally hands me a gun, a small shiny pistol. I turn it over, waiting for some catch to occur, maybe for it to blow up on the spot, but it does nothing of the sort, just sitting pretty in my hand.
“Your target is that.” Siwon points to the ends of the tree line, high past the forest floor and into the night greenery. I can barely see where’s he pointing at and open my mouth to ask ‘what’ when I see the slightest sign of movement; a tiny furred owl perched on a branch. This is going to be easy, I breathe, thinking of all those practices with arrows, swords and knives that I clinched easily.
I prepare the gun into position, perfect from dry rehearsals, pointing and aiming just like I should. But it’s as if something whispers into my ear, telling me not to kill, telling me I’m not a stone cold fox, Jessica? The silent voice continues to negate my concentration and I watch the owl, sad. It looks so much more fulfilled than all those chicken and cows, like it tells a story with its late night cooing, as if its story is unfinished. Like me.
“Shoot.” Siwon commands and his tone tells me he won’t say it twice, so I cock the gun and shoot, breathing unsteady. I miss and hit the tip of the branch instead, a few crows flying scared. The owl still sits there, and I glance back at Siwon. I have to do this, I need to do this.
I take out the image of the owl meeting its young babies and flying off in the distance merrily from my mind, erase the sight of its beautiful wings and enlargement eyes from my view. All I must see is death. I shoot, and it falls to the ground with a sickening thump.
I feel dread, a pitying sorrow but I bury the feeling back into my bones and force myself to act the opposite and be elated with glee. I turn around to Siwon and leap into his arms and throw my weight onto his legs, catching him appropriately off guard.
“I did it!” I muster a girlish laugh from the depths of my stomach, shaking my hair into his face with good force. He doesn’t say anything, awkwardly keeping me up with one arm, patting my back with the other, slowly as if it takes him forever to process what is actually happening.
It’s affection.
“It’s time.” he says, carefully placing both my feet back on steady ground after a moment, being careful to show a stern expression even though he seems quite proud.
“Time for what? To steal a cookie? Rob an ice cream shop to celebrate?” maybe my smile is too loose but Siwon almost looks a little regretful, oddly.
“You’re ready.”
There’s a big gash on my arm to prove this, that I’ve become a warrior even with the baffled face I sport and Siwon starts walking around the lawn to pick up the assortment of weapons we used to practice. “It’s time for us to go out into the real world again. Together.”
“Okay, oppa.” My new fear fills the lawn as he picks up a stray arrow between the fences and I wonder if he’s fighting the instinct to feel the fear too.
-
*notes - au, very long chaptered fic written in first pov because i wanted to try something different and it takes a while for the other characters to come into play. rating will go up later! apologies! sorry for any loose ends in advance. ;)
Chapter 1;;
I sit on the side of a dilapidated street outside a rundown bar, feeling entirely helpless for only the second time in my life. The first time I had ever felt helpless was when I had been kicked out of my house, my last memory being my sister tugging at my hand, reassuring me to leave as she put it up with my abusive father for the both of us. I didn’t stay to see how it turned out as I ran down the street with nothing but the clothes on my back and a pocketful of stolen dollars. It’s somewhat the same situation this second time, except there are no tears of fear pouring down my face, only an empty feeling in my gut that won’t leave, even when I pull out my last unlit cigarette and keep it in my mouth, wishing it would magically catch on fire and keep me at ease.
“It’s dangerous out here for a girl like you, don’t you think? You could get murdered. Or worse.”
I turn around to see who’s imposing on my personal space and scoff. This stranger’s got a stoic face and an imposing build but his threats lay no meaning on me.
“If you were gonna murder me, you already would have.” I say, watching the way his eyes flicker as I speak. I can tell he’s not capable of killing me by the sheer fraction of a second he hesitates to answer - or maybe that’s just his game. I wonder if he thinks I’m some sort of a prostitute, although at this point I might as well accept that I am, but he looks too regal to be looking for that kind of fun. In fact, he’s too pretty overall to be even out here at this time of night.
In the time I stare at him trying to figure out his back story, he does the same, looking at me with precision, wondering why a fifteen year old girl like me is already broken beyond repair. I laugh, and turn back, watching the street in front, the seldom car flying by throwing dust in my face.
“You don’t belong here.” He says after minutes of pure silence. “come with me.”
“Why should I?”
“You already live in hell,” he says and I scoff again, but only because I agree, “at least with me you can live in a calculated one.”
I eye him down one more time, every piece of his 6’2” body, slowly imagining all the unholy ways he’d be capable of ending my life right then and there. My poor sister would be somewhere finally hearing the news and breaking down that all she ever did for me to escape had been for nothing. I can hear dry cries stirring in my ear drums so vividly. No, don’t do it, don’t do it! her voice stings. And then the stranger offers me an ivory lighter for my unlit cigarette and I smile.
-
Choi Siwon, my new mentor, my new brother, my new savior, takes me to his enclave deep in the outskirts of the woods and shows me around. There’s a bit of expectancy for me to gasp and flee when he reveals his assortment of weapons in his underground tool shed, but I do nothing of that sort, instead admiring the craftsmanship of some of the bows and arrows and knifes.
“Where are the guns?” I say, feeling underwhelmed but he shoots me back an equal look of disappointment.
“What,” I continue. “I’ve seen worse.”
And it’s not a lie really, because I have. Narrow escapes from drug deals gone wrong behind the curtains at various clubs, regretful encounters with men much bigger from me that I was forced to indulge with, brutality after brutality in places I shouldn’t I have been - being in a tool shed with a stranger with a collection of playthings didn’t seem that bad to me.
“You should be scared,” he says, and without hesitation he pulls himself around me, bringing a slick dagger to my neck, holding me back around my shoulders with one arm, the other bringing the dagger closer until he scratches my neck and lets go - not enough to leave a big scar, but enough to make me bleed. I hold three fingers to my neck and observe the fresh blood staining my fingers with care and a sour disposition. But before I can say anything he hands me a clean rag and throws the dagger down onto the table, in a pointed way that the tail sticks through.
“This is real life. You should be scared. Things aren’t going to be easy with me, so if you want to go you should just leave now, okay?” I wonder why he wanted me here with him in the first place if he was being so adamant that I could leave, but the insatiable part of me knew there was nothing left out there for me anyway. Besides, easy was something sort of overrated. I shake my head to say no, I’m not leaving, and place the clean rag on my neck to comfort my new wound.
“Okay. Let’s start then.”
-
Training is brutal. More brutal than I expected. We spend fourteen hours every day from mid-day to sunrise, learning and learning. Siwon goes over in insane detail the different methods of being a jedi, (as I like to dub him when he’s not aware), of core strengthening, stealth skills, yoga, military exercise, and weaponry. My hands itch to get to the weapon training the most but Siwon saves it for last, always telling me that I’m not ready when I clearly am, and soon I give up on the urge to ask. He asks a lot of me and sometimes I wonder if he cannot tell that I am young and female, but I don’t want him to think me of lesser so I never bring it up as an excuse; instead only asking him to buy me tampons on the harshest of days just to see him blush a furious red.
My muscles begin to ache by the first day and by the end of the first week after we finish twenty mile sprints I cannot walk straight, but we forge on. It’s not until my body goes limp and I faint over the course of several days during our night pool training that Siwon softens up a bit and lessens my load, with no sign of able mercy. And it’s not until my fingers are swollen and several gashes that refuse to heal up on their own is it that I get to sleep a full eight hours, even if it is during the day. And it’s only when I start to spit blood, my body unable to take anymore of the heat wave mixed with harsh drills is it that he tells me I am ready to lift up a first weapon.
-
It’s worth it, I think, worth the shutting up and holding my tongue and never complaining when my hands wrap around a bow and arrow and I get to shoot. I don’t know what I’m aiming for with all this training and Siwon never tells me what the goal is but I don’t care - I shoot the bow and hit the bullseye, satisfaction seeping through my pores. I look over at Siwon for praise, but all I see is his arms forever crossed and the slight resemblance of a non-frown. I take it, take the bow and arrow for now as a mere substitute for a gun and concentrate, hitting the bullseye again. I cheer for myself and breathe easy.
“What’s next? Martial arts? Knife throwing? Learning how to kill with one grip over the throat?”
“Back to pool training.”
I can feel my insides shutter at the upcoming hurt to be had.
-
Sometimes between the hours of 2 and 3 pm when the daylight still creeps in behind the sleek curtains and I know Siwon is for sure sleeping, exhausted from the all night training he induces on me, I sneak out of bed and take a look around Siwon’s room, curious about who the man behind the man really is. It takes me a couple of tries to get this right, mostly because I soon realize Siwon doesn’t really “sleep” ever, more so like dozes off and even the slightest sound of a finger bending could alert him to power on. He sleeps downstairs on his one modest tan couch, insisting I sleep upstairs in the loft where it’s safer - safe where there’s only one large window to escape from, something he’s even taken the chances away from by bolting the sides of it shut. Still, I take his bed with reluctance - it weirdly smells like him, the smell of musk and sweat and everything gentleman embodied into the covers. The rest of the room isn’t much better - it’s stark and bland - disguised to look impersonal and even the first few times I gather the courage to look around, I can’t find anything because there is nothing to find. Even his closet lacked imagination - the few shirts he owns hang dryly on one side, pants folded neatly on top, and now two shelves dedicated to his underwear and mine, some he had embarrassingly bought me much to my surprise, organized on the bottom.
It takes me about five weeks to try a new approach, to try and think under the fingernails of Siwon’s complicated mind and unloosen a couple of the floorboards with a spare screwdriver I nick during motorcycle lessons. I finally get somewhere when I go for a wiry looking floorboard behind the headboard of the bed, one screw already unlatched from where it should have belonged - something unusual for a man so precise as Siwon held himself to be. I undo the rest of the screws unquietly as I can, my ears peaked for any sound below. I finally move the floorboard to find a velvet green box - large in size and I take it out, undoing the crescent latch with care. There’s a couple of things; a printed scarf, a tooth-shaped pearl pendant, another little box and the thing that catches my eye the most - an old fashioned silver revolver. It’s beautiful and I can’t help but cradle it, admire its craftsmanship and wonder why Siwon would keep it tucked away in a box instead of downstairs with all his other treasures. I can almost hear the revolver clicking and the sound of a bullet whistling straight through as it finds its target deep in the woods and I find it hard to let go.
“You awake, Krystal? You should be sleeping.” Siwon shouts and I almost drop the gun in fright, instinctively throwing everything back into the box as quietly as possible, upset at myself for not even getting to the other little trinket. I lunge back into bed and dip my head low into Siwon’s pillow, ears still peaked for the tiniest sound of him coming upstairs to check on me. He never comes though and slowly I find myself able to sleep like this under the safety of Siwon’s overbearing yet comforting watch for the first time in months.
-
Maybe it’s because there’s now a permanent scowl on my face does Siwon tries to think of different ways on how to not come across as such a hard-ass. For the most part he is the very emblem of a gentleman; opening doors for me, keeping the house impeccable, always making sure he closes the toilet lid after he uses the restroom but I never keep eye contact with him for more than a minute ever since the knife stunt. I notice him trying to make a change immediately and embarrassingly so.
“You can call me oppa if you want.” he places a fresh plate for breakfast in front of me, warm toast and farm grown scrambled eggs- a joy to have. “Just think of me as your real brother from now.”
“Hmm,” I say, practically engulfing the food down - it’s not that Siwon ever starves me, quite the opposite, I just can’t help myself in front of good food from all those past years of starving - and I never felt more fortunate in my entire life even with my rich upbringing - “I kind of like the name I already have for you.”
“What’s that?”
“The man.” I laugh but Siwon makes a weird chortle, his cup of coffee almost slipping out of his fingers. “What? I think it’s fitting.”
“I think I’d prefer it if you call me oppa.”
“Okay. Siwon oppa.” I can feel his insides practically tingle when I say it, ignoring the fact that I said it dripped with sarcasm.
-
“Tell me about your childhood.” Siwon tries one day in between laps in the pool. The moon hangs over us, scowling.
“No,” I say back, starting another lap in the pool, deep into the other side away from his curiosity. I get to the other side when I remember to add, “oppa.”
-
There’s another day, another night of field training when Siwon finally hands me a gun, a small shiny pistol. I turn it over, waiting for some catch to occur, maybe for it to blow up on the spot, but it does nothing of the sort, just sitting pretty in my hand.
“Your target is that.” Siwon points to the ends of the tree line, high past the forest floor and into the night greenery. I can barely see where’s he pointing at and open my mouth to ask ‘what’ when I see the slightest sign of movement; a tiny furred owl perched on a branch. This is going to be easy, I breathe, thinking of all those practices with arrows, swords and knives that I clinched easily.
I prepare the gun into position, perfect from dry rehearsals, pointing and aiming just like I should. But it’s as if something whispers into my ear, telling me not to kill, telling me I’m not a stone cold fox, Jessica? The silent voice continues to negate my concentration and I watch the owl, sad. It looks so much more fulfilled than all those chicken and cows, like it tells a story with its late night cooing, as if its story is unfinished. Like me.
“Shoot.” Siwon commands and his tone tells me he won’t say it twice, so I cock the gun and shoot, breathing unsteady. I miss and hit the tip of the branch instead, a few crows flying scared. The owl still sits there, and I glance back at Siwon. I have to do this, I need to do this.
I take out the image of the owl meeting its young babies and flying off in the distance merrily from my mind, erase the sight of its beautiful wings and enlargement eyes from my view. All I must see is death. I shoot, and it falls to the ground with a sickening thump.
I feel dread, a pitying sorrow but I bury the feeling back into my bones and force myself to act the opposite and be elated with glee. I turn around to Siwon and leap into his arms and throw my weight onto his legs, catching him appropriately off guard.
“I did it!” I muster a girlish laugh from the depths of my stomach, shaking my hair into his face with good force. He doesn’t say anything, awkwardly keeping me up with one arm, patting my back with the other, slowly as if it takes him forever to process what is actually happening.
It’s affection.
“It’s time.” he says, carefully placing both my feet back on steady ground after a moment, being careful to show a stern expression even though he seems quite proud.
“Time for what? To steal a cookie? Rob an ice cream shop to celebrate?” maybe my smile is too loose but Siwon almost looks a little regretful, oddly.
“You’re ready.”
There’s a big gash on my arm to prove this, that I’ve become a warrior even with the baffled face I sport and Siwon starts walking around the lawn to pick up the assortment of weapons we used to practice. “It’s time for us to go out into the real world again. Together.”
“Okay, oppa.” My new fear fills the lawn as he picks up a stray arrow between the fences and I wonder if he’s fighting the instinct to feel the fear too.
-