Line 49 (Chapter 31)
Title: Line 49
Pairing: Yulsic, Taeny, Hyoyoung, Yoonhyun, Sunsic
Rating: G - NC-17
Genre: Drama, romance, angst, high school AU
Summary: The struggle is different for everyone; we all take different measures to deal with our problems. Friendships are created and tossed upside down, love is found, love is lost, and trust is formed and betrayed as these nine girls find their places in each other's lives.
Chapter wordcount: 6,377
Prologue
Chapter 1: "Would you have said paranoid or socially retarded, I would have done a dance of joy."
Chapter 2: "Line 49 for homo- and bisexual youngsters."
Chapter 3: "Do you know what kind of relationship Jessica and Yuri share?"
Chapter 4: "A real fight? With like claws and stuff?"
Chapter 5: "You were acting like a crazy person today."
Chapter 6: "Do you even know my name?"
Chapter 7: "Ask her if she's straight? Are you kidding?"
Chapter 8: "Did somebody hurt you?"
Chapter 9: "Stop this before it's too late."
Chapter 10: "I found something that moved me."
Chapter 11: "This is who you are, Taeyeon."
Chapter 12: "If it helps you, it's not a waste."
Chapter 13: "I'm going crazy thinking about her."
Chapter 14: "I-- I want to be with you too."
Chapter 15: "And what if there are no solutions?"
Chapter 16: "Will you go out with me?"
Chapter 17: "So I'll have to marry you before you finish telling me this story?"
Chapter 18: "Oh, Taeyeon... It changes everything."
Chapter 19: "You're just so cute when you get excited."
Chapter 20: "What's happening to us?"
Chapter 21: "There's always time for miracles."
Chapter 22: "I don't want to live without you."
Chapter 23: "I have some things I want to say."
Chapter 24: "It's powerlessness."
Chapter 25: "What are you scared of?"
Chapter 26: "Did your mother kick you out because you're gay?"
Chapter 27: "That's the most important thing, right? Happiness?"
Chapter 28: "I love her."
Chapter 29: "Everything that's happened... It's making me confused."
Chapter 30: "You lied to me."
- 34 -
When Hyoyeon woke up, her head felt heavier than it ever had. She must have had a really long night's sleep, she gathered, and it was comfortable; her whole body seemed softened and refreshed. Whatever she was lying on was soft too, like a real bed, and it wasn't until she noticed this that she realized something must be off. How long had it been since she slept in a real bed?
She opened her eyes and found herself in a brightly lit room surrounded by light grey walls. There was a window on the wall the head of her bed was facing, and a door on the opposite side of the room. Though the door was open everything was quiet, and the room felt calm. Hyoyeon blinked a couple of times, trying to take in the hallway outside the door and the sunlight that welled in from between the white curtains. Except for the bed she was lying on, the room seemed empty as well - until she managed to take in the second bed placed opposite hers. There was a boy lying on his back on top of it, immersed in a worn little book. He was dressed in shabby, black clothes and hadn't noticed Hyoyeon waking up.
Fear came even though she ordered it not to. The boy looked a few years younger than Hyoyeon at the very least, skinny, hardly much of a threat. She sat up slowly, trying to decide in her hazy mind whether or not she should just get up and run, but realizing to her surprise that her left arm was in a cast. She couldn't remember breaking her arm, but bits and pieces of memories from the night two men had attempted to kidnap her started coming back in little flashes. She shook her head and pulled her duvet up towards her chin. The boy still hadn't looked up from his book.
"Who are you?" she asked, and had to stifle an unexpected laugh as the boy threw his book into the air in surprise, glaring at her through comically big, round eyes. Without replying he launched himself off the bed, leaving the book in a sad little pile behind him, and dashed out the door. Hyoyeon frowned but immediately felt more scared; were there other people here? Where was 'here', exactly, and how had she ended up there? What if the men had come back for her during the night? She started sliding her tired body out of bed, but had barely made it to its edge before an unfamiliar face appeared in the doorway and she froze. He appeared to be in his late twenties; significantly younger than her kidnappers, but something about his eyes made her uneasy.
"Oh, you're awake?" the man said. "Mind if I come in?"
Hyoyeon stared at him, dumbfounded. "I... guess not?" She instinctively inched back into the bed, closer to the wall when he entered the room, watching him carefully as he sat down on the bed opposite hers.
He smiled at her, and it didn't ease her discomfort in the slightest. "I take it you're wondering what's going on." Hyoyeon nodded. "I found you lying in a ditch with a broken arm and brought you home with me yesterday morning," he explained calmly. "You have nothing to worry about. You're safe."
Hyoyeon gripped her injured arm. "I guess we'll see about that."
The man looked down the floor, nodding with a half-hearted smile. "My name is Yunho. I live here with many friends that I've been lucky enough to meet, friends that don't have anywhere else to go."
Hyoyeon frowned. "So you've kidnapped other people too?"
Yunho tilted his head. "No, they stay here willingly."
"Willingly?" Hyoyeon repeated. "I wasn't even conscious when you took me here." She gave him a glare. "Sounds illegal."
"I'm not going to keep you here if you don't want to stay," Yunho said firmly. "If you want to leave, all you have to do is walk out the door." He glanced at her cast for a second. "But I would recommend staying for at least a few days while you regain your strength."
Hyoyeon scanned him from top to bottom a few times. In his sweatpants, t-shirt and messy hair, he truly didn't look very threatening. But she knew looks could be deceiving; she wouldn't let her guard down for a long time yet. She reached up to touch her hair, but all she felt underneath her fingers was a big ball of a tousle. She winced as she realized it was so thick she couldn't even push a finger through it. "Sorry about that," Yunho said, seeing the look on her face. "We tried to sort your hair out a little bit after your bath, but-"
Hyoyeon tensed. "You gave me a bath?!"
Yunho's eyes widened in reply. "Not me," he hurried. "The girls. The girls who live here. Sulli and Krystal and Amber."
Hyoyeon opened her mouth and closed it again. She didn't like the thought of strangers handling her unconscious body; God only knew what kind of people they were. "This whole thing still sounds perverted to me."
"I hope you'll change your mind when you meet the others," Yunho said, looking a little hopeful. "They're... special, to say the least."
Hyoyeon was just about to spit out a reply when another new face appeared in the doorway. "Is everything alright in here?" asked a man with a slimmer face than Yunho, longer hair and more feminine features. Yunho turned to him, and Hyoyeon didn't miss the pleading look on his face. "Could you go make some coffee, Yunho?" the man said, and Yunho nodded. Hyoyeon had to hold back a laugh again as she watched Yunho scramble from the room with his tail between his legs.
The other man walked into the room and took Yunho's place on the bed. His calm appearance seemed infectious, and Hyoyeon instantly felt more at ease than she had before. "Did he make a complete fool of himself?" the man asked.
Hyoyeon hesitated, then shrugged. "This whole thing is just a little weird."
The man nodded. "I can't imagine. I'm Jaejoong, by the way." Hyoyeon nodded in acknowledgement, and he continued: "You don't have to tell me your real name. I'd be surprised if any of the kids here ever have." He gave her a small smile, and she almost felt a little safe. Which, of course, was incredibly dumb.
"I'm Hyoyeon," she said, despite that.
Jaejoong nodded again. "You can stay in here and rest for a while longer if you want. I've told the others to keep it down and not disturb you, but they seemed excited to meet you." He paused, an affectionate smile playing on his lips. "They always are when someone new arrives." Hyoyeon nodded, suddenly feeling nervous. "For as long as you choose to stay here, you have nothing to worry about. We all clean and do laundry together, and we eat dinner together every day."
Hyoyeon scratched at her neck. "I don't have any money."
Jaejoong shook his head. "None of the other kids do either. That's why they're here." Hyoyeon nodded again, but a feeling of insecurity remained. She didn't like mooching off others' hospitality, even less after having lived as a beggar. "I'll leave you alone for now," Jaejoong said. "Just come out into the living room when you feel like it, and let me know if you're hungry, okay?" He stood up from the bed with a creaking sound. "Oh, and your clothes are in the washing machine right now. I apologize about the fashion, or lack thereof..." Hyoyeon lifted the duvet she was under and looked down at herself, only now realizing she was wearing a matching top and bottom; faded pink with waves of yellow, green and blue splashed every here and there. She grimaced, looking up at Jaejoong, who laughed. "I guess we have to buy more clothes one of these days."
Hyoyeon felt her regret flow over as Jaejoong walked towards the door. It had been so long since anyone showed her much kindness, and she knew that Yunho had no reason to be there for her as selflessly as he had. She opened her mouth to speak before she even knew what to say. "Yunho..." she said, and Jaejoong stopped, looking over at her. "His eyes remind me of my father's." She swallowed dryly. "He... he doesn't seem so bad, really."
Jaejoong leaned against the door frame. "He's kind," he replied quietly. "Perhaps the kindest person I've ever met. Much more so than I am." He smiled a little when Hyoyeon didn't reply, as if to reassure her. "He'd never harm a fly. Spend a little time with him, and you'll see."
Hyoyeon bit down on her bottom lip. She had a million questions to ask, the most pressing of which seemed to be "What about the future?" Yet, at the same time, it seemed like she indeed was safe where she was, for the first time since she had left her father's house and its relative safety. Her mind wanted to shut down on her when she thought back on the rainy night in the van, so maybe this wasn't the time to think about the future either way. Perhaps what she needed now was to process the things that had happened until now, especially considering the speed with which it all had happened.
Jaejoong gave her a knowing smile from where he was standing, as if he could hear her internal turmoil. Hyoyeon guessed he probably understood it all too well. He gazed at her for a few seconds longer before he finally walked out of the room, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Hyoyeon dragged herself out of bed, feeling much too aware of the sound of her own heart to sleep any more. She walked up to the window and looked out to see what appeared to be the backyard of the house. All she could see was a small lawn, and beyond that, a sparse forest. Everything was still. Everything was quiet. And though she knew she would have to meet the other people in the house eventually, the last thing she wanted was to find new people, a new place, yet another way of life. She felt full, like she had already experienced too much without having time to process any of it.
She wanted to either fall asleep forever, or have life stand still for a while. Like it did in that bright grey room.
The reading boy came back into the room after a few minutes. He only gave Hyoyeon a cautious look before hurrying over to his bed. There he lay down, picking his book back up and went back to reading as if Hyoyeon wasn't in the room, standing between their beds.
She let him read in silence for a few minutes in which the silence was only broken by the boy turning pages. "What's your name?" she said then, and the boy gave her an almost frightened look.
"Jaejoong said I shouldn't speak to you," he mumbled.
Hyoyeon frowned. "I'm sure he only meant in case I wanted to rest."
The boy huffed, eyes fixed on his book. "I don't think so."
Hyoyeon looked out the window again, shrugging a little. Even after just spending a few minutes in the same room with the boy, she was sure he had some kind of disorder. She glanced at him for a few seconds until he suddenly looked back, and she straightened out her back, feigning nonchalance.
"Do you like games?" the boy asked then. "I used to play all the time, but Jaejoong and Yunho only let us play for thirty minutes a day now, cause there's so many of us."
Hyoyeon nodded. "Sure, I like games."
"Once, I got so mad when I couldn't defeat this boss that I accidentally kicked the computer so hard that it broke," he said, looking up at Hyoyeon with big eyes. "Changmin told Jaejoong and Yunho it was him, but it was really me." His worry melted away as he smiled. "It's okay though, they bought a new one that's much better than our old one." The smile died as quickly as it had come. "Changmin wasn't allowed to use it for three weeks. He said it was okay, but he really likes games, too, so I felt bad. But Changmin said I couldn't tell."
Hyoyeon listened, feeling speechless and, in a way, alienated. The boy didn't seem to expect an answer from her, though, as he went back to his book. "Now, I want to do what they tell me, I can't talk to you anymore."
"That's okay," Hyoyeon breathed, making her way towards the door. She was suddenly very uncomfortable again, and she knew why; she had just had her first taste of true family life.
The room outside of the door turned out to be a combined hallway and living room. To Hyoyeon's right she could see a slightly outdated TV set propped up against the wall, an overfull bookcase placed beside it. Jaejoong was seated on the couch in front of it, lazily flipping through a book, and he looked up the moment Hyoyeon walked through the door.
She looked around, and the first thing she noticed was the front door. Through the window beside it she could see out into the front yard, a tired-looking car, a gravel road leading away between the trees surrounding them.
"The kitchen's over there," Jaejoong said, pointing to Hyoyeon's left. "And that, over there, is the bathroom. The rest of the doors are all bedrooms." Hyoyeon nodded, slowly taking in the doors as Jaejoong pointed them out to her. "Do you want me to make you something?"
Hyoyeon shook her head. "No, thanks. I thought I'd... just... take a look around."
"Most of the others are in there," Jaejoong said, nodding towards the door closest to her. "Or you could come sit down here if you want. Maybe there's something good on TV."
Hyoyeon watched him scoot over on the couch to give more room, but shook her head again. "I... I think I'll go say hi to the others." The house had a safe feeling to it, but something still didn't seem right. Could there be places like these? If there were other people her age that had ended up here the same way she had, they probably had more to tell her than Jaejoong did. So she walked up to the door, not giving herself time to be nervous, and knocked on it firmly.
"Come in," a voice replied instantly, and she pushed the door open.
Five unfamiliar faces greeted her in the room. To the immediate right of the door was a desk, and a black-haired boy was sitting in front of it, a blonde boy standing behind him, apparently fixing his hair. There were three beds in the room, upon one of which a girl with short hair was propped with her legs crossed. Two boys occupied the other two, one of them tall, looking slightly older than the others, the other sporting dark red hair.
"Look!" the blond boy with his hands in someone else's hair exclaimed. "The new girl's awake! Come in." Hyoyeon smiled stiffly, but did as she was told.
"How are you feeling?" The boy in front of the desk asked. "How's your arm?"
"Uh," Hyoyeon hesitated, looking down at her cast. "I can't really feel it. So, good, I guess."
"We all saw how it looked before you got your cast," the blond boy said. "It didn't look good. I'm surprised you aren't vomiting from the pain right now."
Hyoyeon swallowed. "I guess someone did a good job with me."
"Oh, yes," the boy replied. "One of Yunho's friends. He brought you to his hospital last night, all sneaky, all walking in the backdoor and doing things secretly." He sighed dreamily. "It's been a while since we went on an adventure like that." Hyoyeon forced out a chuckle, confused but slightly comforted.
"You can come sit down here if you want," the short-haired girl said, moving to the foot of the bed. "You're probably tired, right?"
Hyoyeon nodded. "Thanks." As she walked over to the bed, she remembered what Yunho had said about the girls giving her a bath, and she felt unstoppably embarrassed.
"I'm Amber, by the way," the girl said, flashing her a smile.
"Hyoyeon."
"Right, right, introductions," the blond boy said. "I'm Key. This guy, right here, is-"
"Jonghyun," the boy on the chair interrupted. "I'm Jonghyun. Sometimes Key forgets I have a mouth of my own and that I don't need him to-" he stopped himself and winced as Key pulled a little too hard on his hair.
"I should be paid for all the times I saved your ass after you said stupid shit," Key said, amusement obvious in his voice. "It's like a full-time job."
"And I should be paid for the damage your ranting has done to my brain over the years," Jonghyun muttered.
"I'm Changmin," the tall, older-looking boy on the bed next to Amber's said, interrupting the quarrel loudly and pointedly. "And I'm very sorry about those two." Hyoyeon laughed slightly, waving her hand dismissively.
"And I'm Eunhyuk," the redheaded boy said at last. "There are others, too, but they're not here. Let's see..." He started counting on his fingers. "There's Krystal, Sulli, Onew, Ryeowook, and... I guess you met Kyuhyun?" Hyoyeon nodded.
"There are so many of you," she said carefully.
"I wouldn't bother too much with learning all the names," Key said nonchalantly. "Everyone uses a fake name here anyway."
"I don't," Jonghyun interjected.
Changmin shrugged. "Me neither."
"Yeah?" Key said, staring Jonghyun down in the mirror on top of the desk. "You got an ID to confirm that for me?" Jonghyun glared back at the other. "Thought so."
"Have you decided if you're gonna stay yet?" Amber asked from beside her. Hyoyeon gave a half-shrug.
"I only woke up about half an hour ago," she said. "I still don't understand... what this place is, really."
"None of us do," Changmin said, laughing quietly.
"But, so..." Hyoyeon began, "you all live here?" She looked around as the others nodded. "Did Yunho kidnap all of you too?"
"More or less," Amber agreed. "Some of us owe our life to him and Jaejoong. Others, like me, were just lucky enough to meet them at the right time."
"All of us either ran away from home or got kicked out," Key filled in, not seeming embarrassed or ashamed in the slightest. "I'm assuming it's the same for you?" He gave her a questioning look in the mirror, and she nodded, looking away.
"But you all just... choose to live with these people who you have no connection to?" she asked.
"The longer we stay, the bigger our connection to them becomes," Changmin said calmly.
"I can say without a shadow of a doubt that they've taken care of me a thousand times better than my parents have," Eunhyuk added with just a hint of bitterness in his voice.
"But I don't really get it," Hyoyeon said, considerably more relaxed. "You stay here and they feed you and buy you clothes, or?"
"Pretty much," Amber said, nodding.
"How do they even afford that?"
Amber and Changmin shared a look. "We don't know," Changmin said then. "They have money, we just don't know how much or how."
"It's probably worth mentioning that Yunho and Jaejoong both got kicked out of their homes when they were kids," Jonghyun told her. "They haven't told us about it, but what from what we've understood they've known each other since they were very young."
Hyoyeon scratched her head, and Changmin shot her an amused look. "I get that it's hard to understand. It's weird until you get used to it."
"Changmin would know," Eunhyuk said. "He was the first one to move in."
Hyoyeon looked up at him, suddenly interested. "Yeah," he confirmed, meeting her curious eyes. "They were so careful, tiptoeing around me all the time and assuring me over and over that they weren't forcing me to stay," he smiled. "And they constantly offered me things to make sure I was happy, probably the way they are around you now?" Hyoyeon smiled softly, nodding. "Honestly, it was unbearably awkward at first."
"Yeah," Key laughed. "I could tell. I moved in second." He flicked his hair a little, staring down intently into Jonghyun's as he tried to make sense of it. "He was so happy to have someone else like him here, he was like a little puppy on speed."
Changmin raised his eyebrows behind the other's back. "That didn't last very long though."
"Sorry, what did you say?" Key said, voice rising in volume, and Changmin held up his hands.
"Nothing, nothing."
Hyoyeon gave in to her need to laugh, and it felt strange and heavy in her stomach; how long had it been since she last had the will to laugh? She cleared her throat when Key shot her a look in the mirror. "Why did you all decide to stay, though?" she asked, still confused. "I mean, you'd think at least someone other than me would be freaked out by all of this."
"Oh, several of us have left before," Eunhyuk said. "There was Henry, for example."
Amber huffed. "We don't talk about Henry."
"We do," Eunhyuk said. "You don't." Amber snorted, and Eunhyuk turned back to Hyoyeon. "He was too freaked out, like you. Didn't leave us a way of contacting him or anything." He sighed. "Nowadays we just hope he's okay."
"So..." Hyoyeon said, trying to gather her thoughts. "There's no hook here?" She looked around, carefully observing their reactions. "No one's forcing anyone stay, no one's abusive or anything like that?"
They all looked at each other, faces open and honest. "No," Changmin said. "Like I said, I can understand if you find it weird. But it's only weird until you get used to the idea that your family doesn't have to be the people you're related to by blood."
"Affection is too precious to waste on people who abuse you," Amber added quietly, staring down at the floor. She looked up when she felt Hyoyeon's eyes on her, and took a deep breath. "It's true."
"God, I can't do anything with this bird nest," Key hissed, ruffling Jonghyun's hair to look like he'd just stumbled out of the jungle. "Fix it yourself." He walked over to the bed Changmin was sitting on and sunk down, huffing.
"I never asked you to fix my hair, remember?" Jonghyun replied, wincing as he looked over himself in the mirror.
"Yes, you did. Not in words, but you were walking around looking like you were begging for help."
"So how about you?" Eunhyuk asked. "You know some stuff about us now, how about you tell us about yourself?" Hyoyeon looked at him and realized with a start that his accent was similar to her own, which meant he was from about the same area as her.
"Ha!" Key exclaimed. "Tell Jaejoong he said that and he'll go crazy."
Hyoyeon raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
Eunhyuk rolled his eyes. "He thinks the past shouldn't matter once you move in here," he muttered. "Because you get to start a new life, or whatever. That's why he doesn't mind us not telling him our real names."
"Well," Hyoyeon said, "there's not much to tell. I'm Hyoyeon. I'm 18." She wrecked her brain trying to think of something else to tell them, but coming up all blank. "That's pretty much it, I guess," she said, and somehow she felt a sense of relief sneak up on her. A couple of months ago she could have said she had an abusive father, a school she hated and a life she loathed -- and now? Now she was on square one. She had nothing, but at least she had nothing to hate.
"Speaking of bird nests," Key said, lowering the volume of his voice a little, "you probably need to do something about your hair."
Hyoyeon reached up to touch her ruined hair. "I know."
"One of us could help you, if you want," Amber said.
"Yeah, it doesn't need to be Key, even if he likes to think so," Jonghyun interjected. He ducked when Key jumped up to smack him on the back of his head,
"Would you do it?" Hyoyeon asked, turning to Amber. Something about the other girl made her feel calm; her mind seemed as trouble-free as Hyoyeon wanted to be.
"Sure," the other girl replied. "Let me see." She gestured for Hyoyeon to turn her head away and show her hair, and 'hmm'ed softly as she looked her over. "I'm no expert," she said, "but I could get rid of the worst parts for you."
"Thanks," Hyoyeon said gratefully. "Later today?"
"Sure."
"Touching," Key said, snorting.
"I wanted to ask something else, too," Hyoyeon said, lowering her voice into an almost-whisper. "The guy I met earlier... who was in the room with me..."
"Kyuhyun," Changmin told her.
"Yeah. Is he...?" She tried to think of a way to ask her question that wouldn't seem too judgmental or offensive, but ended up gesturing aimlessly with her hands.
Eunhyuk and Changmin exchanged a look this time. "We don't really know what his deal is," Eunhyuk said. "He has some disorder, but we don't know which. Maybe he's autistic? Maybe he has Asperger’s?" He shrugged. "We don't know. Jaejoong told me he has a really crappy family history. Kyuhyun's own brother drove him up here almost a year ago and dropped him off."
"His own brother?" Hyoyeon repeated, disgusted.
"Yup," Eunhyuk nodded. "That kid has probably been through a lot of crap. And he's the youngest here."
"Changmin's the only one who's managed to get really close to him," Jonghyun said.
"The rest of us will manage, too," Amber argued. "Just give it time."
"Krystal and Sulli won't," Key said. "I heard Kyuhyun tell Yunho that they remind him of the twin girls in The Shining with the way they walk around silently hand in hand all the time." He laughed, and Changmin gave him a slap on the arm.
"Be nice to Kyuhyun."
Hyoyeon swallowed. These people were obviously protective of each other, and it left her with an unidentified fluttery feeling in her stomach that she didn't want to acknowledge. "Just one more question," she said, voice coming out choked. The others looked at her expectantly. "What about the future?"
Silence followed her questioned as nobody seemed to know how to reply. Seeing it as most of him looked to him as the eldest, he cleared his throat. "Most days we don't think that far ahead. After everything, it's nice to just live in the now for a while." He smiled uncomfortably at her, and she understood this was an issue neither of them had finished dealing with. "Someday we'll be able to get jobs of our own, I don't doubt that. We'll start our own lives, maybe figure out what we'd like to work with, maybe finish our education at some point..." He trailed off. "Maybe. For now, this is enough."
Hyoyeon let his words wash over her, and listened as everything turned silent. Soon enough, Key and Jonghyun started bickering again, and she wondered if it could ever really be like that, if she could go back to a more normal way of life and be happy just for now, without thinking about the future and all the ways it could go wrong.
There was happiness here. Safety. That was all she knew, and perhaps that was all she needed to know.
"Since we only have two bathrooms, we're going to have to hurry a little," Amber said as she pushed Hyoyeon ahead of her, closing and locking the bathroom door behind her. The look Hyoyeon gave her must have seemed a little too frightened, because Amber waved her hands dismissively as she said: "Don't worry, I won't mess it up. Sit down."
"Alright," Hyoyeon said slowly, faking suspicion just to see the look of outrage on the other girl's face. The hint of playfulness in her own heart startled her for a second; it had been so long since she had last seen that side of herself. She was resolute not to let it bother her.
When Hyoyeon had sunk down on the closed toilet lid, Amber looked over her hair a few times, scissors in one hand. Her soft touches and brushes along her hair made Hyoyeon feel sleepy where she sat, and she had to fight to keep her eyes open to not creep the other girl out. "I think I'm gonna have to cut it off just above your shoulders," Amber said thoughtfully. "Is that okay?"
Hyoyeon nodded. "Sure."
"It's a shame, though," Amber continued. "Your hair must have been really pretty when you could still pull a brush through it."
Hyoyeon hummed in acknowledgement. "It'll grow out again."
She looked up at the other girl and received a nod in return. "Alright, turn around," Amber said, pushing a little at her shoulders, and Hyoyeon spun around on the seat, facing the wall. "Let's do this." She heard the creaking of scissors open and close a couple of times as Amber gave her one last look-over. "I've gotta say, you're taking this whole thing so well. It's pretty impressive."
Hyoyeon frowned. "What whole thing?"
"You know," Amber said, and Hyoyeon could feel the scissors in her hair now. "Suddenly being thrown in here to live with the rest of us. Most of us freaked out at first, but you're so calm about it."
"I don't know," Hyoyeon replied, thinking hard. The scissors clicked, and a chunk of her hair would have fallen to the floor if it wouldn't have been stuck in the endless tousles in her hair. "I was pretty weirded out when I first woke up, but talking to you guys helped."
Amber snickered. "How?"
Hyoyeon laughed along, shrugging. "You just made it seem like it was nothing to weirded out about. Besides," she bit her lip for a moment, wonder if she should keep talking, "I think I'm way past the point of freaking out about things anyway."
"Really?" More creaking noises, yet her hair only seemed to be getting heavier.
"Well, anything that doesn't involve being tossed into a van and dragged off by two strangers, throwing yourself out of the car, breaking your arm and ending up in a wet ditch," Hyoyeon said emotionlessly.
Amber hesitated for a second before answering, not stopping to work on her hair. "So that's what happened, huh?"
"One of the many, many things," Hyoyeon replied, sighing. "But we probably shouldn't talk about it."
"I know what you mean," Amber said. "For me... I started doing drugs while I was still living with my parents." The tone of her voice told Hyoyeon that she, too, was unsure of whether or not she really wanted to broach the subject. "I did and said some stupid stuff to my family while I was high, and they ended up kicking me out." There was another click, more creaking, and Hyoyeon saw out of the corner of her eye how a bunch of hair finally fell to the floor. The pulling on her head eased a little. "I know they were never really fond of me anyway, so they were probably happy for a reason to kick me out."
"I can't imagine that," Hyoyeon mumbled.
They fell silent for a moment before Amber spoke again. "Did you run away or get kicked out?"
Hyoyeon frowned again, as she wasn't truly sure. "It was sort of a mutual thing? I ran, he told me not to come back."
"Ah," Amber said. "Well, you know, I don't think I did anything wrong against my parents until I started doing drugs, and they still disliked me. I don't think either of us did anything wrong, you know? It's not our fault."
"I honestly haven't a clue," Hyoyeon said, not wanting to think about her father more than necessary.
"I mean, sometimes we meet people we really can't stand, and that can't stand us," Amber continued. "Who's to say that can't happen with someone just because we're related by blood?"
"Oh, you're right about that," Hyoyeon agreed. "How's it going by the way? Are we done soon?"
"About halfway done, yeah," Amber replied. "But what I'm trying to say is, unless we're doing something to hurt another human being, what does it matter if they dislike us? It's not our fault, there's nothing wrong with us. The problem lies in the connection between you and the person who doesn't like you. Know what I mean? You just don't match."
"Yeah," Hyoyeon said, laughing joylessly. "It's just... Somehow I think I want my dad to have beaten me up all my life for a better reason than just 'we don't match'."
More hair fell to the floor, and Hyoyeon suddenly realized how much she would miss having long hair. Amber laughed a little, but she too sounded unhappy. "Call me a hippie, but... I don't believe there's a good reason to ever beat anyone up."
Hyoyeon snorted. "You're making me sound like the bad guy here."
Amber laughed, heartily this time. "I swear, it wasn't my intention."
"By the way," Hyoyeon said, happy to change the subject, "who sleeps where in this house?"
"Oh, right," Amber said, moving to her right to reach her hair better. "I room with Changmin and Jonghyun in the room we sat in earlier. Then Eunhyuk, Ryeowook and Onew share a room, and Key rooms with Krystal and Sulli."
"Right."
"And, I guess, you're supposed to share with Kyuhyun. He's had his own room until now." Amber grabbed Hyoyeon's shoulder. "Was your bed okay, by the way? Yunho had to pull some seriously quick strings to get ahold of another bed."
"Yeah, that part was fine," Hyoyeon said, unable to hide how weirded out she was by the thought of rooming with Kyuhyun.
Amber let go of her and went back to working on her hair with a 'hmm'. "You know," she said, "you could probably ask Changmin to switch rooms with you if you feel weird. I know it would make Kyuhyun happy, at least."
"You think so?" Hyoyeon asked, feeling much calmer at the thought of sharing a room with Amber.
"Sure. Want me to ask him for you?"
"If you want," Hyoyeon said with attempted nonchalance. The scissors clicked a final time. A mess of tangled hair fell, and Hyoyeon reached back to touch her now shoulder-long do. "Ah, that feels better," she said. "Thank you."
"No problem," Amber said, and Hyoyeon turned back around to face the other girl as she leaned against the sink. "Oh, and I forgot. Yunho and Jaejoong room together too, though they like to pretend they don't."
Hyoyeon gave her a questioning look, trying to figure out if she meant what Hyoyeon thought she did. "Ah, it's like that?" she said, raising an eyebrow.
Amber widened her eyes at her. "You don't have a problem with that, right?"
And Hyoyeon laughed, finally, from the bottom of her stomach. Amber remained leaning against the sink and watched her, eyebrows raised and a small smile slowly spreading over her face. "What?"
"Ah, nothing," Hyoyeon said, shaking her head. "But no, I don't have a problem with that. Trust me." Amber nodded, but gave her a funny look for a few moments longer. "So is this like their own personal adoption agency or something?"
Amber laughed softly, shaking her head. "Mostly I think they just want to help people like themselves. Getting a family while they're doing it was just a bonus." She flashed Hyoyeon a smile that quickly faded into a serious expression. "I wish they would tell us what happened to them when they were younger," she sighed. "I'm sure it's a touching story."
Hyoyeon nodded, looking down. "Probably," she said, but her gut told her otherwise. "How long have you lived here?"
"Let's see..." Amber said, tilting her head back and staring up at the ceiling. "About ten months?" she said, scratching her head. "Yeah, just about ten months."
"Is there nothing... no one you miss from home?" Hyoyeon asked, forcing herself not to think too much about her own question.
"Sure, I miss my friends," Amber said, shrugging. "But it's not like we can't ever see each other again. And I can contact them, only one the ones I trust not to tell my parents, of course, since we have a computer here. Though we're only allowed on it-"
"For half an hour each per day, Kyuhyun told me so," Hyoyeon cut in, for some reason smiling at the memory. "So how often-"
A firm knock on the door interrupted her and made her jump in surprise. "Are you done in there soon? I have to shower," Eunhyuk's voice asked them from outside.
"Uh," Amber said, looking around at the mess of hair on the floor. "Sure. Just bring me the broom first, would you?"
Eunhyuk lingered outside of the door for a moment. "If you clogged the toilet again, you can't clean it up with a-"
"It's not that!" Amber half-shrieked. "And what do you mean 'again', that was Jonghyun, not me."
"True, but you were the one who-"
"Just go get the thing!" Amber yelled, obviously flustered, and Hyoyeon smothered her laughter with her hand. "That guy has serious mental problems, I swear," Amber said, shaking her head as they heard Eunhyuk's footfalls disappear. "Not that that would be anything special here, of course." She smiled fondly at Hyoyeon, who returned the gesture. "So," Amber said then, "are you any clearer on whether you'll be staying or not?"
Hyoyeon tilted her head, searching through her soul to figure out what she was really feeling, but coming up with a blank.
A/N: Hmm... Let's just say this chapter is based on something I heard about a few years ago. I have most of the Yunho & Jaejoong's backstory worked out, and I'll write it someday. Hopefully. Probably.
Chapter 32: "I just thought you should know."
Pairing: Yulsic, Taeny, Hyoyoung, Yoonhyun, Sunsic
Rating: G - NC-17
Genre: Drama, romance, angst, high school AU
Summary: The struggle is different for everyone; we all take different measures to deal with our problems. Friendships are created and tossed upside down, love is found, love is lost, and trust is formed and betrayed as these nine girls find their places in each other's lives.
Chapter wordcount: 6,377
Prologue
Chapter 1: "Would you have said paranoid or socially retarded, I would have done a dance of joy."
Chapter 2: "Line 49 for homo- and bisexual youngsters."
Chapter 3: "Do you know what kind of relationship Jessica and Yuri share?"
Chapter 4: "A real fight? With like claws and stuff?"
Chapter 5: "You were acting like a crazy person today."
Chapter 6: "Do you even know my name?"
Chapter 7: "Ask her if she's straight? Are you kidding?"
Chapter 8: "Did somebody hurt you?"
Chapter 9: "Stop this before it's too late."
Chapter 10: "I found something that moved me."
Chapter 11: "This is who you are, Taeyeon."
Chapter 12: "If it helps you, it's not a waste."
Chapter 13: "I'm going crazy thinking about her."
Chapter 14: "I-- I want to be with you too."
Chapter 15: "And what if there are no solutions?"
Chapter 16: "Will you go out with me?"
Chapter 17: "So I'll have to marry you before you finish telling me this story?"
Chapter 18: "Oh, Taeyeon... It changes everything."
Chapter 19: "You're just so cute when you get excited."
Chapter 20: "What's happening to us?"
Chapter 21: "There's always time for miracles."
Chapter 22: "I don't want to live without you."
Chapter 23: "I have some things I want to say."
Chapter 24: "It's powerlessness."
Chapter 25: "What are you scared of?"
Chapter 26: "Did your mother kick you out because you're gay?"
Chapter 27: "That's the most important thing, right? Happiness?"
Chapter 28: "I love her."
Chapter 29: "Everything that's happened... It's making me confused."
Chapter 30: "You lied to me."
- 34 -
When Hyoyeon woke up, her head felt heavier than it ever had. She must have had a really long night's sleep, she gathered, and it was comfortable; her whole body seemed softened and refreshed. Whatever she was lying on was soft too, like a real bed, and it wasn't until she noticed this that she realized something must be off. How long had it been since she slept in a real bed?
She opened her eyes and found herself in a brightly lit room surrounded by light grey walls. There was a window on the wall the head of her bed was facing, and a door on the opposite side of the room. Though the door was open everything was quiet, and the room felt calm. Hyoyeon blinked a couple of times, trying to take in the hallway outside the door and the sunlight that welled in from between the white curtains. Except for the bed she was lying on, the room seemed empty as well - until she managed to take in the second bed placed opposite hers. There was a boy lying on his back on top of it, immersed in a worn little book. He was dressed in shabby, black clothes and hadn't noticed Hyoyeon waking up.
Fear came even though she ordered it not to. The boy looked a few years younger than Hyoyeon at the very least, skinny, hardly much of a threat. She sat up slowly, trying to decide in her hazy mind whether or not she should just get up and run, but realizing to her surprise that her left arm was in a cast. She couldn't remember breaking her arm, but bits and pieces of memories from the night two men had attempted to kidnap her started coming back in little flashes. She shook her head and pulled her duvet up towards her chin. The boy still hadn't looked up from his book.
"Who are you?" she asked, and had to stifle an unexpected laugh as the boy threw his book into the air in surprise, glaring at her through comically big, round eyes. Without replying he launched himself off the bed, leaving the book in a sad little pile behind him, and dashed out the door. Hyoyeon frowned but immediately felt more scared; were there other people here? Where was 'here', exactly, and how had she ended up there? What if the men had come back for her during the night? She started sliding her tired body out of bed, but had barely made it to its edge before an unfamiliar face appeared in the doorway and she froze. He appeared to be in his late twenties; significantly younger than her kidnappers, but something about his eyes made her uneasy.
"Oh, you're awake?" the man said. "Mind if I come in?"
Hyoyeon stared at him, dumbfounded. "I... guess not?" She instinctively inched back into the bed, closer to the wall when he entered the room, watching him carefully as he sat down on the bed opposite hers.
He smiled at her, and it didn't ease her discomfort in the slightest. "I take it you're wondering what's going on." Hyoyeon nodded. "I found you lying in a ditch with a broken arm and brought you home with me yesterday morning," he explained calmly. "You have nothing to worry about. You're safe."
Hyoyeon gripped her injured arm. "I guess we'll see about that."
The man looked down the floor, nodding with a half-hearted smile. "My name is Yunho. I live here with many friends that I've been lucky enough to meet, friends that don't have anywhere else to go."
Hyoyeon frowned. "So you've kidnapped other people too?"
Yunho tilted his head. "No, they stay here willingly."
"Willingly?" Hyoyeon repeated. "I wasn't even conscious when you took me here." She gave him a glare. "Sounds illegal."
"I'm not going to keep you here if you don't want to stay," Yunho said firmly. "If you want to leave, all you have to do is walk out the door." He glanced at her cast for a second. "But I would recommend staying for at least a few days while you regain your strength."
Hyoyeon scanned him from top to bottom a few times. In his sweatpants, t-shirt and messy hair, he truly didn't look very threatening. But she knew looks could be deceiving; she wouldn't let her guard down for a long time yet. She reached up to touch her hair, but all she felt underneath her fingers was a big ball of a tousle. She winced as she realized it was so thick she couldn't even push a finger through it. "Sorry about that," Yunho said, seeing the look on her face. "We tried to sort your hair out a little bit after your bath, but-"
Hyoyeon tensed. "You gave me a bath?!"
Yunho's eyes widened in reply. "Not me," he hurried. "The girls. The girls who live here. Sulli and Krystal and Amber."
Hyoyeon opened her mouth and closed it again. She didn't like the thought of strangers handling her unconscious body; God only knew what kind of people they were. "This whole thing still sounds perverted to me."
"I hope you'll change your mind when you meet the others," Yunho said, looking a little hopeful. "They're... special, to say the least."
Hyoyeon was just about to spit out a reply when another new face appeared in the doorway. "Is everything alright in here?" asked a man with a slimmer face than Yunho, longer hair and more feminine features. Yunho turned to him, and Hyoyeon didn't miss the pleading look on his face. "Could you go make some coffee, Yunho?" the man said, and Yunho nodded. Hyoyeon had to hold back a laugh again as she watched Yunho scramble from the room with his tail between his legs.
The other man walked into the room and took Yunho's place on the bed. His calm appearance seemed infectious, and Hyoyeon instantly felt more at ease than she had before. "Did he make a complete fool of himself?" the man asked.
Hyoyeon hesitated, then shrugged. "This whole thing is just a little weird."
The man nodded. "I can't imagine. I'm Jaejoong, by the way." Hyoyeon nodded in acknowledgement, and he continued: "You don't have to tell me your real name. I'd be surprised if any of the kids here ever have." He gave her a small smile, and she almost felt a little safe. Which, of course, was incredibly dumb.
"I'm Hyoyeon," she said, despite that.
Jaejoong nodded again. "You can stay in here and rest for a while longer if you want. I've told the others to keep it down and not disturb you, but they seemed excited to meet you." He paused, an affectionate smile playing on his lips. "They always are when someone new arrives." Hyoyeon nodded, suddenly feeling nervous. "For as long as you choose to stay here, you have nothing to worry about. We all clean and do laundry together, and we eat dinner together every day."
Hyoyeon scratched at her neck. "I don't have any money."
Jaejoong shook his head. "None of the other kids do either. That's why they're here." Hyoyeon nodded again, but a feeling of insecurity remained. She didn't like mooching off others' hospitality, even less after having lived as a beggar. "I'll leave you alone for now," Jaejoong said. "Just come out into the living room when you feel like it, and let me know if you're hungry, okay?" He stood up from the bed with a creaking sound. "Oh, and your clothes are in the washing machine right now. I apologize about the fashion, or lack thereof..." Hyoyeon lifted the duvet she was under and looked down at herself, only now realizing she was wearing a matching top and bottom; faded pink with waves of yellow, green and blue splashed every here and there. She grimaced, looking up at Jaejoong, who laughed. "I guess we have to buy more clothes one of these days."
Hyoyeon felt her regret flow over as Jaejoong walked towards the door. It had been so long since anyone showed her much kindness, and she knew that Yunho had no reason to be there for her as selflessly as he had. She opened her mouth to speak before she even knew what to say. "Yunho..." she said, and Jaejoong stopped, looking over at her. "His eyes remind me of my father's." She swallowed dryly. "He... he doesn't seem so bad, really."
Jaejoong leaned against the door frame. "He's kind," he replied quietly. "Perhaps the kindest person I've ever met. Much more so than I am." He smiled a little when Hyoyeon didn't reply, as if to reassure her. "He'd never harm a fly. Spend a little time with him, and you'll see."
Hyoyeon bit down on her bottom lip. She had a million questions to ask, the most pressing of which seemed to be "What about the future?" Yet, at the same time, it seemed like she indeed was safe where she was, for the first time since she had left her father's house and its relative safety. Her mind wanted to shut down on her when she thought back on the rainy night in the van, so maybe this wasn't the time to think about the future either way. Perhaps what she needed now was to process the things that had happened until now, especially considering the speed with which it all had happened.
Jaejoong gave her a knowing smile from where he was standing, as if he could hear her internal turmoil. Hyoyeon guessed he probably understood it all too well. He gazed at her for a few seconds longer before he finally walked out of the room, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Hyoyeon dragged herself out of bed, feeling much too aware of the sound of her own heart to sleep any more. She walked up to the window and looked out to see what appeared to be the backyard of the house. All she could see was a small lawn, and beyond that, a sparse forest. Everything was still. Everything was quiet. And though she knew she would have to meet the other people in the house eventually, the last thing she wanted was to find new people, a new place, yet another way of life. She felt full, like she had already experienced too much without having time to process any of it.
She wanted to either fall asleep forever, or have life stand still for a while. Like it did in that bright grey room.
The reading boy came back into the room after a few minutes. He only gave Hyoyeon a cautious look before hurrying over to his bed. There he lay down, picking his book back up and went back to reading as if Hyoyeon wasn't in the room, standing between their beds.
She let him read in silence for a few minutes in which the silence was only broken by the boy turning pages. "What's your name?" she said then, and the boy gave her an almost frightened look.
"Jaejoong said I shouldn't speak to you," he mumbled.
Hyoyeon frowned. "I'm sure he only meant in case I wanted to rest."
The boy huffed, eyes fixed on his book. "I don't think so."
Hyoyeon looked out the window again, shrugging a little. Even after just spending a few minutes in the same room with the boy, she was sure he had some kind of disorder. She glanced at him for a few seconds until he suddenly looked back, and she straightened out her back, feigning nonchalance.
"Do you like games?" the boy asked then. "I used to play all the time, but Jaejoong and Yunho only let us play for thirty minutes a day now, cause there's so many of us."
Hyoyeon nodded. "Sure, I like games."
"Once, I got so mad when I couldn't defeat this boss that I accidentally kicked the computer so hard that it broke," he said, looking up at Hyoyeon with big eyes. "Changmin told Jaejoong and Yunho it was him, but it was really me." His worry melted away as he smiled. "It's okay though, they bought a new one that's much better than our old one." The smile died as quickly as it had come. "Changmin wasn't allowed to use it for three weeks. He said it was okay, but he really likes games, too, so I felt bad. But Changmin said I couldn't tell."
Hyoyeon listened, feeling speechless and, in a way, alienated. The boy didn't seem to expect an answer from her, though, as he went back to his book. "Now, I want to do what they tell me, I can't talk to you anymore."
"That's okay," Hyoyeon breathed, making her way towards the door. She was suddenly very uncomfortable again, and she knew why; she had just had her first taste of true family life.
The room outside of the door turned out to be a combined hallway and living room. To Hyoyeon's right she could see a slightly outdated TV set propped up against the wall, an overfull bookcase placed beside it. Jaejoong was seated on the couch in front of it, lazily flipping through a book, and he looked up the moment Hyoyeon walked through the door.
She looked around, and the first thing she noticed was the front door. Through the window beside it she could see out into the front yard, a tired-looking car, a gravel road leading away between the trees surrounding them.
"The kitchen's over there," Jaejoong said, pointing to Hyoyeon's left. "And that, over there, is the bathroom. The rest of the doors are all bedrooms." Hyoyeon nodded, slowly taking in the doors as Jaejoong pointed them out to her. "Do you want me to make you something?"
Hyoyeon shook her head. "No, thanks. I thought I'd... just... take a look around."
"Most of the others are in there," Jaejoong said, nodding towards the door closest to her. "Or you could come sit down here if you want. Maybe there's something good on TV."
Hyoyeon watched him scoot over on the couch to give more room, but shook her head again. "I... I think I'll go say hi to the others." The house had a safe feeling to it, but something still didn't seem right. Could there be places like these? If there were other people her age that had ended up here the same way she had, they probably had more to tell her than Jaejoong did. So she walked up to the door, not giving herself time to be nervous, and knocked on it firmly.
"Come in," a voice replied instantly, and she pushed the door open.
Five unfamiliar faces greeted her in the room. To the immediate right of the door was a desk, and a black-haired boy was sitting in front of it, a blonde boy standing behind him, apparently fixing his hair. There were three beds in the room, upon one of which a girl with short hair was propped with her legs crossed. Two boys occupied the other two, one of them tall, looking slightly older than the others, the other sporting dark red hair.
"Look!" the blond boy with his hands in someone else's hair exclaimed. "The new girl's awake! Come in." Hyoyeon smiled stiffly, but did as she was told.
"How are you feeling?" The boy in front of the desk asked. "How's your arm?"
"Uh," Hyoyeon hesitated, looking down at her cast. "I can't really feel it. So, good, I guess."
"We all saw how it looked before you got your cast," the blond boy said. "It didn't look good. I'm surprised you aren't vomiting from the pain right now."
Hyoyeon swallowed. "I guess someone did a good job with me."
"Oh, yes," the boy replied. "One of Yunho's friends. He brought you to his hospital last night, all sneaky, all walking in the backdoor and doing things secretly." He sighed dreamily. "It's been a while since we went on an adventure like that." Hyoyeon forced out a chuckle, confused but slightly comforted.
"You can come sit down here if you want," the short-haired girl said, moving to the foot of the bed. "You're probably tired, right?"
Hyoyeon nodded. "Thanks." As she walked over to the bed, she remembered what Yunho had said about the girls giving her a bath, and she felt unstoppably embarrassed.
"I'm Amber, by the way," the girl said, flashing her a smile.
"Hyoyeon."
"Right, right, introductions," the blond boy said. "I'm Key. This guy, right here, is-"
"Jonghyun," the boy on the chair interrupted. "I'm Jonghyun. Sometimes Key forgets I have a mouth of my own and that I don't need him to-" he stopped himself and winced as Key pulled a little too hard on his hair.
"I should be paid for all the times I saved your ass after you said stupid shit," Key said, amusement obvious in his voice. "It's like a full-time job."
"And I should be paid for the damage your ranting has done to my brain over the years," Jonghyun muttered.
"I'm Changmin," the tall, older-looking boy on the bed next to Amber's said, interrupting the quarrel loudly and pointedly. "And I'm very sorry about those two." Hyoyeon laughed slightly, waving her hand dismissively.
"And I'm Eunhyuk," the redheaded boy said at last. "There are others, too, but they're not here. Let's see..." He started counting on his fingers. "There's Krystal, Sulli, Onew, Ryeowook, and... I guess you met Kyuhyun?" Hyoyeon nodded.
"There are so many of you," she said carefully.
"I wouldn't bother too much with learning all the names," Key said nonchalantly. "Everyone uses a fake name here anyway."
"I don't," Jonghyun interjected.
Changmin shrugged. "Me neither."
"Yeah?" Key said, staring Jonghyun down in the mirror on top of the desk. "You got an ID to confirm that for me?" Jonghyun glared back at the other. "Thought so."
"Have you decided if you're gonna stay yet?" Amber asked from beside her. Hyoyeon gave a half-shrug.
"I only woke up about half an hour ago," she said. "I still don't understand... what this place is, really."
"None of us do," Changmin said, laughing quietly.
"But, so..." Hyoyeon began, "you all live here?" She looked around as the others nodded. "Did Yunho kidnap all of you too?"
"More or less," Amber agreed. "Some of us owe our life to him and Jaejoong. Others, like me, were just lucky enough to meet them at the right time."
"All of us either ran away from home or got kicked out," Key filled in, not seeming embarrassed or ashamed in the slightest. "I'm assuming it's the same for you?" He gave her a questioning look in the mirror, and she nodded, looking away.
"But you all just... choose to live with these people who you have no connection to?" she asked.
"The longer we stay, the bigger our connection to them becomes," Changmin said calmly.
"I can say without a shadow of a doubt that they've taken care of me a thousand times better than my parents have," Eunhyuk added with just a hint of bitterness in his voice.
"But I don't really get it," Hyoyeon said, considerably more relaxed. "You stay here and they feed you and buy you clothes, or?"
"Pretty much," Amber said, nodding.
"How do they even afford that?"
Amber and Changmin shared a look. "We don't know," Changmin said then. "They have money, we just don't know how much or how."
"It's probably worth mentioning that Yunho and Jaejoong both got kicked out of their homes when they were kids," Jonghyun told her. "They haven't told us about it, but what from what we've understood they've known each other since they were very young."
Hyoyeon scratched her head, and Changmin shot her an amused look. "I get that it's hard to understand. It's weird until you get used to it."
"Changmin would know," Eunhyuk said. "He was the first one to move in."
Hyoyeon looked up at him, suddenly interested. "Yeah," he confirmed, meeting her curious eyes. "They were so careful, tiptoeing around me all the time and assuring me over and over that they weren't forcing me to stay," he smiled. "And they constantly offered me things to make sure I was happy, probably the way they are around you now?" Hyoyeon smiled softly, nodding. "Honestly, it was unbearably awkward at first."
"Yeah," Key laughed. "I could tell. I moved in second." He flicked his hair a little, staring down intently into Jonghyun's as he tried to make sense of it. "He was so happy to have someone else like him here, he was like a little puppy on speed."
Changmin raised his eyebrows behind the other's back. "That didn't last very long though."
"Sorry, what did you say?" Key said, voice rising in volume, and Changmin held up his hands.
"Nothing, nothing."
Hyoyeon gave in to her need to laugh, and it felt strange and heavy in her stomach; how long had it been since she last had the will to laugh? She cleared her throat when Key shot her a look in the mirror. "Why did you all decide to stay, though?" she asked, still confused. "I mean, you'd think at least someone other than me would be freaked out by all of this."
"Oh, several of us have left before," Eunhyuk said. "There was Henry, for example."
Amber huffed. "We don't talk about Henry."
"We do," Eunhyuk said. "You don't." Amber snorted, and Eunhyuk turned back to Hyoyeon. "He was too freaked out, like you. Didn't leave us a way of contacting him or anything." He sighed. "Nowadays we just hope he's okay."
"So..." Hyoyeon said, trying to gather her thoughts. "There's no hook here?" She looked around, carefully observing their reactions. "No one's forcing anyone stay, no one's abusive or anything like that?"
They all looked at each other, faces open and honest. "No," Changmin said. "Like I said, I can understand if you find it weird. But it's only weird until you get used to the idea that your family doesn't have to be the people you're related to by blood."
"Affection is too precious to waste on people who abuse you," Amber added quietly, staring down at the floor. She looked up when she felt Hyoyeon's eyes on her, and took a deep breath. "It's true."
"God, I can't do anything with this bird nest," Key hissed, ruffling Jonghyun's hair to look like he'd just stumbled out of the jungle. "Fix it yourself." He walked over to the bed Changmin was sitting on and sunk down, huffing.
"I never asked you to fix my hair, remember?" Jonghyun replied, wincing as he looked over himself in the mirror.
"Yes, you did. Not in words, but you were walking around looking like you were begging for help."
"So how about you?" Eunhyuk asked. "You know some stuff about us now, how about you tell us about yourself?" Hyoyeon looked at him and realized with a start that his accent was similar to her own, which meant he was from about the same area as her.
"Ha!" Key exclaimed. "Tell Jaejoong he said that and he'll go crazy."
Hyoyeon raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
Eunhyuk rolled his eyes. "He thinks the past shouldn't matter once you move in here," he muttered. "Because you get to start a new life, or whatever. That's why he doesn't mind us not telling him our real names."
"Well," Hyoyeon said, "there's not much to tell. I'm Hyoyeon. I'm 18." She wrecked her brain trying to think of something else to tell them, but coming up all blank. "That's pretty much it, I guess," she said, and somehow she felt a sense of relief sneak up on her. A couple of months ago she could have said she had an abusive father, a school she hated and a life she loathed -- and now? Now she was on square one. She had nothing, but at least she had nothing to hate.
"Speaking of bird nests," Key said, lowering the volume of his voice a little, "you probably need to do something about your hair."
Hyoyeon reached up to touch her ruined hair. "I know."
"One of us could help you, if you want," Amber said.
"Yeah, it doesn't need to be Key, even if he likes to think so," Jonghyun interjected. He ducked when Key jumped up to smack him on the back of his head,
"Would you do it?" Hyoyeon asked, turning to Amber. Something about the other girl made her feel calm; her mind seemed as trouble-free as Hyoyeon wanted to be.
"Sure," the other girl replied. "Let me see." She gestured for Hyoyeon to turn her head away and show her hair, and 'hmm'ed softly as she looked her over. "I'm no expert," she said, "but I could get rid of the worst parts for you."
"Thanks," Hyoyeon said gratefully. "Later today?"
"Sure."
"Touching," Key said, snorting.
"I wanted to ask something else, too," Hyoyeon said, lowering her voice into an almost-whisper. "The guy I met earlier... who was in the room with me..."
"Kyuhyun," Changmin told her.
"Yeah. Is he...?" She tried to think of a way to ask her question that wouldn't seem too judgmental or offensive, but ended up gesturing aimlessly with her hands.
Eunhyuk and Changmin exchanged a look this time. "We don't really know what his deal is," Eunhyuk said. "He has some disorder, but we don't know which. Maybe he's autistic? Maybe he has Asperger’s?" He shrugged. "We don't know. Jaejoong told me he has a really crappy family history. Kyuhyun's own brother drove him up here almost a year ago and dropped him off."
"His own brother?" Hyoyeon repeated, disgusted.
"Yup," Eunhyuk nodded. "That kid has probably been through a lot of crap. And he's the youngest here."
"Changmin's the only one who's managed to get really close to him," Jonghyun said.
"The rest of us will manage, too," Amber argued. "Just give it time."
"Krystal and Sulli won't," Key said. "I heard Kyuhyun tell Yunho that they remind him of the twin girls in The Shining with the way they walk around silently hand in hand all the time." He laughed, and Changmin gave him a slap on the arm.
"Be nice to Kyuhyun."
Hyoyeon swallowed. These people were obviously protective of each other, and it left her with an unidentified fluttery feeling in her stomach that she didn't want to acknowledge. "Just one more question," she said, voice coming out choked. The others looked at her expectantly. "What about the future?"
Silence followed her questioned as nobody seemed to know how to reply. Seeing it as most of him looked to him as the eldest, he cleared his throat. "Most days we don't think that far ahead. After everything, it's nice to just live in the now for a while." He smiled uncomfortably at her, and she understood this was an issue neither of them had finished dealing with. "Someday we'll be able to get jobs of our own, I don't doubt that. We'll start our own lives, maybe figure out what we'd like to work with, maybe finish our education at some point..." He trailed off. "Maybe. For now, this is enough."
Hyoyeon let his words wash over her, and listened as everything turned silent. Soon enough, Key and Jonghyun started bickering again, and she wondered if it could ever really be like that, if she could go back to a more normal way of life and be happy just for now, without thinking about the future and all the ways it could go wrong.
There was happiness here. Safety. That was all she knew, and perhaps that was all she needed to know.
"Since we only have two bathrooms, we're going to have to hurry a little," Amber said as she pushed Hyoyeon ahead of her, closing and locking the bathroom door behind her. The look Hyoyeon gave her must have seemed a little too frightened, because Amber waved her hands dismissively as she said: "Don't worry, I won't mess it up. Sit down."
"Alright," Hyoyeon said slowly, faking suspicion just to see the look of outrage on the other girl's face. The hint of playfulness in her own heart startled her for a second; it had been so long since she had last seen that side of herself. She was resolute not to let it bother her.
When Hyoyeon had sunk down on the closed toilet lid, Amber looked over her hair a few times, scissors in one hand. Her soft touches and brushes along her hair made Hyoyeon feel sleepy where she sat, and she had to fight to keep her eyes open to not creep the other girl out. "I think I'm gonna have to cut it off just above your shoulders," Amber said thoughtfully. "Is that okay?"
Hyoyeon nodded. "Sure."
"It's a shame, though," Amber continued. "Your hair must have been really pretty when you could still pull a brush through it."
Hyoyeon hummed in acknowledgement. "It'll grow out again."
She looked up at the other girl and received a nod in return. "Alright, turn around," Amber said, pushing a little at her shoulders, and Hyoyeon spun around on the seat, facing the wall. "Let's do this." She heard the creaking of scissors open and close a couple of times as Amber gave her one last look-over. "I've gotta say, you're taking this whole thing so well. It's pretty impressive."
Hyoyeon frowned. "What whole thing?"
"You know," Amber said, and Hyoyeon could feel the scissors in her hair now. "Suddenly being thrown in here to live with the rest of us. Most of us freaked out at first, but you're so calm about it."
"I don't know," Hyoyeon replied, thinking hard. The scissors clicked, and a chunk of her hair would have fallen to the floor if it wouldn't have been stuck in the endless tousles in her hair. "I was pretty weirded out when I first woke up, but talking to you guys helped."
Amber snickered. "How?"
Hyoyeon laughed along, shrugging. "You just made it seem like it was nothing to weirded out about. Besides," she bit her lip for a moment, wonder if she should keep talking, "I think I'm way past the point of freaking out about things anyway."
"Really?" More creaking noises, yet her hair only seemed to be getting heavier.
"Well, anything that doesn't involve being tossed into a van and dragged off by two strangers, throwing yourself out of the car, breaking your arm and ending up in a wet ditch," Hyoyeon said emotionlessly.
Amber hesitated for a second before answering, not stopping to work on her hair. "So that's what happened, huh?"
"One of the many, many things," Hyoyeon replied, sighing. "But we probably shouldn't talk about it."
"I know what you mean," Amber said. "For me... I started doing drugs while I was still living with my parents." The tone of her voice told Hyoyeon that she, too, was unsure of whether or not she really wanted to broach the subject. "I did and said some stupid stuff to my family while I was high, and they ended up kicking me out." There was another click, more creaking, and Hyoyeon saw out of the corner of her eye how a bunch of hair finally fell to the floor. The pulling on her head eased a little. "I know they were never really fond of me anyway, so they were probably happy for a reason to kick me out."
"I can't imagine that," Hyoyeon mumbled.
They fell silent for a moment before Amber spoke again. "Did you run away or get kicked out?"
Hyoyeon frowned again, as she wasn't truly sure. "It was sort of a mutual thing? I ran, he told me not to come back."
"Ah," Amber said. "Well, you know, I don't think I did anything wrong against my parents until I started doing drugs, and they still disliked me. I don't think either of us did anything wrong, you know? It's not our fault."
"I honestly haven't a clue," Hyoyeon said, not wanting to think about her father more than necessary.
"I mean, sometimes we meet people we really can't stand, and that can't stand us," Amber continued. "Who's to say that can't happen with someone just because we're related by blood?"
"Oh, you're right about that," Hyoyeon agreed. "How's it going by the way? Are we done soon?"
"About halfway done, yeah," Amber replied. "But what I'm trying to say is, unless we're doing something to hurt another human being, what does it matter if they dislike us? It's not our fault, there's nothing wrong with us. The problem lies in the connection between you and the person who doesn't like you. Know what I mean? You just don't match."
"Yeah," Hyoyeon said, laughing joylessly. "It's just... Somehow I think I want my dad to have beaten me up all my life for a better reason than just 'we don't match'."
More hair fell to the floor, and Hyoyeon suddenly realized how much she would miss having long hair. Amber laughed a little, but she too sounded unhappy. "Call me a hippie, but... I don't believe there's a good reason to ever beat anyone up."
Hyoyeon snorted. "You're making me sound like the bad guy here."
Amber laughed, heartily this time. "I swear, it wasn't my intention."
"By the way," Hyoyeon said, happy to change the subject, "who sleeps where in this house?"
"Oh, right," Amber said, moving to her right to reach her hair better. "I room with Changmin and Jonghyun in the room we sat in earlier. Then Eunhyuk, Ryeowook and Onew share a room, and Key rooms with Krystal and Sulli."
"Right."
"And, I guess, you're supposed to share with Kyuhyun. He's had his own room until now." Amber grabbed Hyoyeon's shoulder. "Was your bed okay, by the way? Yunho had to pull some seriously quick strings to get ahold of another bed."
"Yeah, that part was fine," Hyoyeon said, unable to hide how weirded out she was by the thought of rooming with Kyuhyun.
Amber let go of her and went back to working on her hair with a 'hmm'. "You know," she said, "you could probably ask Changmin to switch rooms with you if you feel weird. I know it would make Kyuhyun happy, at least."
"You think so?" Hyoyeon asked, feeling much calmer at the thought of sharing a room with Amber.
"Sure. Want me to ask him for you?"
"If you want," Hyoyeon said with attempted nonchalance. The scissors clicked a final time. A mess of tangled hair fell, and Hyoyeon reached back to touch her now shoulder-long do. "Ah, that feels better," she said. "Thank you."
"No problem," Amber said, and Hyoyeon turned back around to face the other girl as she leaned against the sink. "Oh, and I forgot. Yunho and Jaejoong room together too, though they like to pretend they don't."
Hyoyeon gave her a questioning look, trying to figure out if she meant what Hyoyeon thought she did. "Ah, it's like that?" she said, raising an eyebrow.
Amber widened her eyes at her. "You don't have a problem with that, right?"
And Hyoyeon laughed, finally, from the bottom of her stomach. Amber remained leaning against the sink and watched her, eyebrows raised and a small smile slowly spreading over her face. "What?"
"Ah, nothing," Hyoyeon said, shaking her head. "But no, I don't have a problem with that. Trust me." Amber nodded, but gave her a funny look for a few moments longer. "So is this like their own personal adoption agency or something?"
Amber laughed softly, shaking her head. "Mostly I think they just want to help people like themselves. Getting a family while they're doing it was just a bonus." She flashed Hyoyeon a smile that quickly faded into a serious expression. "I wish they would tell us what happened to them when they were younger," she sighed. "I'm sure it's a touching story."
Hyoyeon nodded, looking down. "Probably," she said, but her gut told her otherwise. "How long have you lived here?"
"Let's see..." Amber said, tilting her head back and staring up at the ceiling. "About ten months?" she said, scratching her head. "Yeah, just about ten months."
"Is there nothing... no one you miss from home?" Hyoyeon asked, forcing herself not to think too much about her own question.
"Sure, I miss my friends," Amber said, shrugging. "But it's not like we can't ever see each other again. And I can contact them, only one the ones I trust not to tell my parents, of course, since we have a computer here. Though we're only allowed on it-"
"For half an hour each per day, Kyuhyun told me so," Hyoyeon cut in, for some reason smiling at the memory. "So how often-"
A firm knock on the door interrupted her and made her jump in surprise. "Are you done in there soon? I have to shower," Eunhyuk's voice asked them from outside.
"Uh," Amber said, looking around at the mess of hair on the floor. "Sure. Just bring me the broom first, would you?"
Eunhyuk lingered outside of the door for a moment. "If you clogged the toilet again, you can't clean it up with a-"
"It's not that!" Amber half-shrieked. "And what do you mean 'again', that was Jonghyun, not me."
"True, but you were the one who-"
"Just go get the thing!" Amber yelled, obviously flustered, and Hyoyeon smothered her laughter with her hand. "That guy has serious mental problems, I swear," Amber said, shaking her head as they heard Eunhyuk's footfalls disappear. "Not that that would be anything special here, of course." She smiled fondly at Hyoyeon, who returned the gesture. "So," Amber said then, "are you any clearer on whether you'll be staying or not?"
Hyoyeon tilted her head, searching through her soul to figure out what she was really feeling, but coming up with a blank.
A/N: Hmm... Let's just say this chapter is based on something I heard about a few years ago. I have most of the Yunho & Jaejoong's backstory worked out, and I'll write it someday. Hopefully. Probably.
Chapter 32: "I just thought you should know."