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Dormitories are awful to live in, Seonghwa has predetermined. It’s a well-known fact, nothing surprising and newly discovered, but some days more than the others triggers Seonghwa’s fight-or-flight responses and he knows not how to deal with these desires.
His room’s walls are of a dull and boring grey, painted only once maybe a long time ago. A few generations down the line until the room reaches Seonghwa; who is residing in them currently, and the paint has now withered away, leaving the similar and boring but slightly darker grey concrete under them exposed to his roaming eyes. They’re cold too, despite it not being awfully close to winter. It’s always cold, these walls and these floors, that Seonghwa once thought to himself that he is just burning from the inside out for so many unsaid reasons.
That, or he’s actually the spawn of devil his mentors talk about a lot in spite of all their previous warnings. “Do not speak of the bad,” or so they have said, “for they will hear you and haunt you.”
Something along those lines.
Seonghwa can barely remember. He doesn’t think his mentors are the most holy of men, either, despite how highly they bring themselves on the hallways and the classes. Their chins are almost always upturned, and their demeanor is never more exciting than a cold piece of stale bread. They look and act as grey as their enormous school walls, and even then they like to think they’re high and mighty. Seonghwa can’t help but cuss them out in his brain, of course, though it was more than obvious if he lets even a single of these thoughts out in public, he’s going to get smacked. Literally.
The young man fought an incoming shiver when the sole of his feet met the floor, a biting sensation shooting right up his brain and waking him up at once. The showers should be quite empty by now, Seonghwa thinks, looking at his bedside table. The clock shows that it’s barely 3AM, and even if it’s still considered too early for anyone to shower and clean themselves, Seonghwa does it this early quite a lot. It gives him time to think in his room after he’s acquired enough hygiene, and before class starts he usually has papers and papers of ideas already. Of what in particular, he will never tell.
Or maybe he will, someday. When the time is right.
The matron’s room is on the far left of Seonghwa’s corner, and the enormous scary woman who is responsible for their curfew discipline is usually still half-dead sleeping in her chambers until at least five in the morning. But Seonghwa, a young man who never risks his life and doesn’t fancy a beating to his asscheeks; tried to listen in either way. Once he hears the rumbling of their matron’s snores, he proceeds to the showers.
It’s always dark and eerie in the asscrack of morning, the hallways illuminated with dimmed lighting from the non-renovated lights hanging from one edge of its entire being, blinking every now and then as if someone’s sending a morse code from the basement. Somehow, Seonghwa finds solace in how scary the building is left all alone, since usually, after everyone is up and busy, the scary building of their very much old school is underrated if compared to how insanely scary disappointing a mentor or teacher feels, at least for the young men who resides as students within.
To Seonghwa’s surprise, though, one of the stalls is on. There’s the familiar sound of water sprinkles hitting the tiled floor below their shower cubicles, and the far last parts of the shower room’s lamps were turned on. Which is odd, and who else had the thought of showering this early?
Must be someone his age too, Seonghwa thinks, since every other year have their own showering chambers in all those other floors - besides from the fact that it would be foolish to use another floor’s shower chambers since returning to your room as quick as possible would be too hard, since it’s too far.
Seonghwa’s eyes flicker to the curtain as it opens, and the one person who was in the shower room walks out. He’s a little smaller than Seonghwa, shorter too, and he’s got a towel around his hip bones, covering the lower part of his body. He’s seen this boy before, Seonghwa thinks to himself, but never actually talked to him. The other young man looks at Seonghwa for a while, calculating, before he turns around and heads toward the sink, hands rummaging around on his own hair. While the young man walks away, though, Seonghwa notices the wilted bruises on his back ascending down his lower parts - seemingly still red decorated with edges of blues around them.
So he’s freshly beaten, huh?
Seonghwa shrugs nonchalantly, entering his own shower cubicle. Maybe that’s what you get for having bright-ass blue hair.
--
Some days more than the others, their mentors are a lot more not forgiving. There’s this one old man who teaches them Math--one of the most impossible lessons there are--and he was in the army, apparently. He likes to flaunt that fact more than he actually likes to teach the boys Math, and because of that he has free tickets to taunt the young boys he’s teaching how much more flimsy and weak they are these days, compared to the older generations. Compared to his generation. But then his wrinkly frowny face seemingly gets ten thousand times worse when he enters the room after a test, with results hanging down his angered fingers.
For a guy who never taught the class anything, he sure loves making demands.
And these are one of the days where the mentors are less forgiving and not loving. . . at all.
Seonghwa notices how the blue-haired guy is in his Math class, and while his brain is still running a few miles per hour with how brave that little son of a bitch is to show up in class again with his still very brightly-dyed hair after getting his ass handed to him yesterday, the old ex-army mentor came into class, doors slammed and frowns tripled.
No one even as much as flinched anymore, their third year in these types of classes have led them to absolutely no escalating heartbeats at all, and if Seonghwa could chime in with an offhand comment, he’d say that they’re pretty much dead. He doesn’t understand how they think it’s okay to treat orphans the way they are treated just because they’re orphans.
It’s like they think the kids they know won’t grow up, ever.
“Here we go,” the blue-haired kid says, under his breath. Seonghwa didn’t even realize the kid was sitting exactly behind him until he said that, and while he’s still trying to look back upfront, the old man who is fuming in front of them slammed the thirty-pages-for-each-student test papers on Seonghwa’s table harshly. There’s an echoing sound of a hand slapping onto the desk when Seonghwa looks up at the nasty mentor of theirs with judgemental eyes, and the mentor grunts: “Everyone’s eyes up front.”
And then the public humiliation begins.
It’s almost an everyday food for the class of Mr. Ex-Army, hence why he grows even more pissed that his humiliation tactics doesn’t work and everyone’s faces are as bored as ever as he reads them their scores featuring some words that supposedly hits home.
“Ah ha, the infamous Kim Hongjoong,” the mentor blabbers, and from the corner of his eyes Seonghwa can see the blue-haired boy lean forward, chin rested on both of his palms. Oh, so that’s this kid’s name. “You sure like going around making trouble, don’t you. Last time we beat up your fingers for acquiring that abomination called nail polish and putting it on - but after your fingers healed enough, you decided to burn your own scalp, I see?”
“Some sacrifice is very much needed sir, don’t you think?” Hongjoong chimes in from behind Seonghwa, a smile obvious on his face. “It’s getting pretty dull in here-”
The mentor, apparently, didn’t ask for Hongjoong’s input. He made it clear as he rushed from the front all the way to Hongjoong’s seat, his right hand automatically curled around the back of Hongjoong’s head to take a fistful of his hair before he was launched forward, face-first onto the table. There’s a cracking sound loud enough so the rest of the class can hear before Seonghwa turns on his seat, disbelief written all over his face as the mentor says, in an even more disgusting voice than before: “Did we raise you to become a man, or a slut?”
Seonghwa felt that previous fire crackling in the pit of his stomach, and all of a sudden, a flash of his own thoughts of him being a spawn of the devil sparked in the back of his head as he watches Hongjoong’s head gets pulled back and his nose is most definitely crooked, with blood trickling out of his nostrils and his lips. Seonghwa can’t do this anymore, he definitely can’t. Maybe he just needed a little more push before. . .
“Young man, I never asked you to move from your seat,” the mentor referred to Seonghwa, and at once everything clicked.
So now is the right time.
“Why is it that you ask Kim Hongjoong that, Sir?” Seonghwa questions, and as someone who never speaks up against anyone--or speaks in general--the mentor was put off guard for a split second, tilting his head. “I wonder. Maybe you’re well-acquantained enough with these people you refer to as ‘sluts’, back in your days? If you use it in such a derogatory term, Sir, I think they’d be offended-”
Seonghwa was about to continue further, he really was. But the mentor’s heel came in contact with his nose next, and adding to the fact that this man uses insoles and hard-heeled shoes on a daily basis, Seonghwa was hit by a blow hard enough to topple him off the chair, and he lands on his back - trying his best to stifle a laugh at how flabbergasted the old man looks from down there.
“Go to the office, both of you,” the mentor barks a set of supposedly calm-sounding orders, and Hongjoong scrambles onto his feet to help Seonghwa out. They both avoided looking at each other or at the rest of the class at all, until they got to the hallways.
There’s a snicker.
Seonghwa looks over to where Hongjoong is staggering, dizzy from the loss of blood and the previous contact of his face against the table. He’s still grimacing from pain, and one of his eyes are closed, but he’s on the brink of laughter.
“You got yourself into this,” Hongjoong says, sparing a glance at the taller young man, “I didn’t ask for a thing.”
“Did you even listen?” Seonghwa rolls his eyes, still holding his nose in place, “I didn’t do it for you. I saw a chance to make fun of that fucker, and I took it.”
Hongjoong cackles by now, holding his side as if it’s also painful. Seonghwa has a slight flashback to the night before and how Hongjoong’s entire back is bruised and blue, and had an afterthought of ‘you should help this kid walk, then’ which made him stop trying to think. “You never said a word for an entire year and that’s the first thing you said? To a mentor, too. And a scary one, at that. Someone needs to give you a raise.”
Seonghwa shrugs.
“I mean. . .” he looks at Hongjoong up and down, his repressed ideas resurfacing. Should he tell. . . this kid he doesn’t even know? Or. . .
Well, fuck it. It’s not like Hongjoong gets any benefit from this education system. All he does is get beaten up.
“It’s not like I don’t think of anything when I say nothing,” Seonghwa continues, now looking back at the long and boring hallway. Hongjoong didn’t respond, and this was taken as Seonghwa’s cue to continue.
“Say, Kim Hongjoong. Do you envision living here forever?”
--
“Did you hear?” Choi San mumbles, his mouth full. The cafeteria is loud and boisterous, having the matron leave just a while ago to take care of one boy with digestive problems. The two of his friends are beside him, munching on their stale breads. “Two of our seniors got kicked out of Math class. Some people say it was bloody, too. I literally don’t know what the seniors are made of, man, I still cower when I see Mister ‘I’m-an-ex-army-member’,” San chuckles, dipping his bread into Kang Yeosang’s remaining soup. The latter glared at him, scratching at his overgrown hair.
“Kicked out of class isn’t new,” Jung Wooyoung responds, patting his rumbling stomach after he puts away his lunch tray, “literally no one can keep up with that old man.”
“No but, like,” San tilts his head to the side, “they literally get kicked. I overheard good ol’ matron laugh at them while she patched up their noses earlier, right. One got his head slammed onto a table and the other got kicked for defending him.”
“How- how do you keep sneaking up on people, San? I don’t get it,” Wooyoung shook his head, leaning against a very receptive Yeosang.
“I don’t do it on purpose,” San dons a pout, rolling his eyes at how Yeosang is mocking his pout in return.
“Maybe it’s time for you to calm down a little bit, San,” the oldest between the three begins, voice as stable and calm as the ticking clock. Yeosang has always been an angel, at least among these demons--or so the matron says--since he’s always looked exceptionally dainty and beautiful, unlike all the other boisterous young men. Aside from that, he’s also very much calm and has avoided eleven whole years of problem, since he’s never involved in them. He’s usually the one who bails both San and Wooyoung out of their punishments since he’s got enough good cookie marks for the entire school, and his two friends can literally do nothing without his existence.
“They’re beginning to mark you up as problematic,” Yeosang further implies, “and I don’t know how I can get you out of, let’s say probation.”
When Yeosang speaks like this, usually no one is able to deny him of what he wants. That’s just how powerful he is, most of the time. San and Wooyoung are no different. “I would cater to the demands of our orphanage if they would at least stop beating people up for fun,” San shrugs, and Yeosang purses his lips in dejection. He knows. He agrees.
“But it’s not like our opinions matter,” Wooyoung plays with the glass in Yeosang’s hand, looking up at the boy he’s leaning to, “right?”
Yeosang hums, looking between his two friends before he looks up at the hanging clock above all of them.
“If only we can make a difference someday.”
There’s no denying the fact that befriending Yeosang means you have successfully upped yourself in their student hierarchy. Even Yeosang himself doesn’t really understand how the entire hierarchy thing works, but one thing is for sure.
He never befriended San and Wooyoung because he wanted to protect them from other meddling students. And he would never want to befriend someone who wants him to protect them, since he’s put in such a high pedestal by both teachers and the majority of students around his age. If his existence is influential enough for people to spare his friends the pain and struggles of life, then so be it. He doesn’t want to grant that to a big group of people and be treated as a leader. That’s just not. . . him. At all.
But as we stated once before, sometimes undeniable things happen.
“KANG YEOSANG!” a shout follows the entrance of a tall, brown-haired young man and his friend who just happened to be equally as tall. Song Mingi marches in as if he’s a man on a mission, and Jeong Yunho follows suit, trying to hush him. “Mingi, not that loud-”
“Why not? The matron is successfully lured out. Yeosang!” Mingi finally reaches the table where the trio is at.
“Yes?” the aforementioned boy replies, unphased.
“Can you please follow us for a second? There’s something I think you’ll be elated to hear about,” Mingi says, almost literally grovelling on his knees after he landed on a seat across from Yeosang and Wooyoung. San looks at Yunho, whose face perfectly depicts the face of ‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ before he opens his mouth to ask a question.
“Only Yeosang?” San raises his eyebrows, “It’s a secret even from us?”
“No, no!” Mingi chuckles, looking like he’s overwhelmed beyond joy. “I personally think the more the merrier. Shall we go meet them, then? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind more help then we initially came out to get.”
Wooyoung looks at the two with confusion written all-over his face, and Yeosang is stunned. He looks like he already got the gist of what’s going on, but stays quiet.
“Please, Kang Yeosang,” Mingi tries once again when he sees them still seated on their chairs. “Our lives are possibly on the line,” he continues under a whisper.
Mingi doesn’t look like someone who says and does things on a whim, despite how he brings himself as someone who is brash and irrational. Yeosang knows this, since his observant and quiet nature provides him leeway into understanding what kind of friendship he could bloom in the all-boys dormitory he was placed in as an orphan, and Mingi is not excluded from his watching eyes. So, Yeosang concluded, something must’ve happened to him earlier today. It must be today, since Mingi is a quick-witted and loud-mouthed young man who cooks up ideas that would benefit anyone he’s working with in under 10 minutes and proceeds to go along with that exact plan of his, effective immediately - which would only tie it to a few possibilities.
And Yeosang is right.
Mingi was indeed approached by two older students that day. Two individuals with different plans who worked together and compromised to create a situation mild and adventurous enough for their aim to be in reach, and upon hearing this: Mingi simply lost his shit.
Earlier that day, the second-year called Song Mingi retired from his physical education class since he’s in trouble. It’s a long overdue punishment someone forgot to give him after he pulled a stunt of being his usual funnily overdramatic self in History, and so there he was, sweaty and gross after winning a marathon and scoring pretty high among his class’ pears, walking sleazily through the second floor’s hallways.
This second floor is indeed where the second-years reside in, two enormous rooms away from the stairs. Their rooms aren’t specifically like the third or first years since there’s a significantly smaller number of them when compared to their seniors and juniors; so all sixty-four of them stay in one empty room. There are rolled out futons and such for them, but beds are considered a luxury - since none of them actually are given any.
Since there’s only one room that is used by the residents of the second floor, everywhere else usually falls under the untouched region.
It’s dusty, simply said.
And Mingi was tasked to clean all of that before curfew.
So there he was, mourning to himself feeling like a deranged Cinderella without the step-sisters and step-mother, exchanged with an unholy supposedly religious orphanage and some abusive mentors. Mingi doesn’t even know what he wants to do after he graduates. He doesn’t know what orphans are allowed to do, since, as long as he’s in this orphanage and school dormitory it’s drilled into his brain over and over again how he’s useless. Orphans don’t deserve the right to do anything, or choose how their lives play out, nothing.
So when footsteps echo on the furthest hall from where he’s standing, Mingi panickedly picks up both his mop and his broom in the same damn time, looking at the floor like a fool.
“Is this the Song Mingi I’ve heard a lot about?” a voice calls out to him, sounding a little bit off. Granted, this gave Mingi immediate goosebumps. He never claimed to be the bravest when he’s all alone, in a dark and grim hallway, with nothing but wooden sticks of cleaning tools as his weaponry. He’s more scared of bullies than he is of ghosts, but ghosts scare him too from time to time. And the voice sounds weird. Is that how ghosts sound like? Constipated?
“Save the intimidating questioning, Kim Hongjoong. We can’t sound intimidating with our noses, we look stupid,” another voice chimed in, slightly lower but with that weird tinge to it, too. Mingi looks up from the floor to find two upperclassmen--he knows because their uniform colours are different for each year in highschool, though it’s shaped the exact same way--with their bandaged nose and a clip at the highest point of their nose’s bridge.
This, oddly enough, scared Mingi even more than ghosts.
Seniors.
“Yes, I am. . . him,” Mingi nods affirmatively, trying his best to not avoid eye-contact. “Good,” the taller between the two seniors shrugs, extending his right hand since his left is busied with holding three stacks of the library’s books. Mingi looks back up at the young man after putting too much attention to his outstretched hands, stuttering for a while before he accepts the handshake. “Park Seonghwa, class 3A. Nice meeting you, Mingi.”
“Uh- uh, nice-”
“Kim Hongjoong! Class 3E. But we shared the same Math class, you know. The two kids who got kicked out because we breathed,” Hongjoong interjects before Mingi could say anything, taking Mingi’s other hand which was once occupied with the broomstick. Talking about broomsticks, when did Mingi release his hold on the mop, too- oh- oh. Oh they’re just. . . on the floor. Okay, cool.
Mingi stood there, an awkward smile adorning his lip while both of his hands are still held by these two kids who appeared out of nowhere. Now this is a lasting first impression, he thinks to himself while he clears his throat, nodding cluelessly.
“H- Yeah, okay. Um. Nice to meet you too, I’m Song Mingi. I’m in class 2A,” he thinks for a second before continuing, “I’m a class rep.”
“Nice!” Seonghwa exclaims out of nowhere, startling Mingi in the process while both the seniors let go of their lasting handshake. Hongjoong nods to himself, proud. “I told you my resources are trustworthy. I go to the teacher’s office to read every student’s data most of the time. They can’t even catch me because I’m already there for punishment,” the blue-haired shorter one bluffs.
“Uh. . .” Mingi looks in between them, back and forth, still very much confused. “I don’t. . . get why you two are here.”
Seonghwa and Hongjoong gave him a lopsided smile, which grew even scarier by the second since they have their bandaged nose on the way of how they actually look.
“We’ll tell you only if you promise to help us,” they had said to Mingi as they said to every other person they’re going to meet.
Like Choi Jongho.
You know, the boy who told the matron he had digestive problems in the cafeteria to lure the enormous scary woman away so Song Mingi can storm in and talk to Kang Yeosang without any authoritative figure listening?
Yes, that boy’s name is Choi Jongho.
He’s a first year, almost as much as a mute as Seonghwa was for the entirety of his stay in the orphanage. Hongjoong checked out the facts that he went through enough traumatic experiences to last a decade before he was even orphaned, and he was bailed out of juvenile detention center because it was never proven that he was the one who set his household on fire.
But he definitely did it, Hongjoong added while he and Seonghwa discussed who to recruit - with a grim laughter, at that - since Hongjoong has seen the younger disappear here and there with the gallons and gallons of kerosene that was supposed to be stacked up for the teacher’s fireplace. “They’re stupid,” Hongjoong muttered, “after running a background check on Choi Jongho, all they do is sign the papers and put him in our dormitory, going far enough to task him with our winter supplies. As if they don’t realize winter supplies means a lot of useful things stacked up in the basement for an arsonist.”
“But how are you really sure he did it?” Seonghwa asks, hands folded in front of his chest as he looks at the opened files in front of him. God knows how Hongjoong goes in and out of places without anyone seeing him, but still gets punished for obviously mundane things in comparison to all the stealing he’s done in life. “Obviously,” Hongjoong rolls his eyes, scooting closer to Seonghwa’s bed, “listen. I can’t convince you of things that I see, but you can convince yourself. What if I just tell you to watch all of these kids I recommended for about a month before we actually approach them with our meticulously organized plan?”
“A month’s way too long,” Seonghwa groans to his hand, “we have test weeks coming up. That’s literally the moment these old men go on a feast while beating children up just because they can and they’re ‘pissed’. The student population goes down every year in test weeks by literally 3%.”
“Well you told me you don’t like to just obey things because people tell you they’re real,” Hongjoong reasons, looking up at Seonghwa’s ceiling. “How else would you prove to yourself that these are trustworthy people that are as much in pain as you are?”
Seonghwa grimaces at the question.
“I defended you after seeing you once, Hongjoong. Your argument is invalid,” the taller between the two runs his hands over the file’s pictures, his mind turning while his palpitating heartbeat grows quicker and quicker. “Well, yes. But you were in a minefield alongside yours truly,” Hongjoong made an exaggerated motion towards himself, “and I was literally getting beaten up. It’s only fate we appear to have the same aim in life. I could’ve reported you for betrayal back then but I didn’t. But you didn’t know when you told me, didn’t you?”
“I knew,” Seonghwa retaliates, “because I saw. Someone who gets literal markings on their backs for existing like a normal human being wouldn’t love this corrupt system more than I do. So I did know.”
“Exactly, Seonghwa,” Hongjoong messes with his own hair, stressed out. “You need to see them go through pain, too. You know it’s much easier to destroy the world with more people than less, right?”
Seonghwa once again pulled a dissatisfied face at Hongjoong, who was looking at him with his chin upturned. “We’re not destroying the world. We’re destroying our world.”
“You know that’s cheesy as fuck-”
“Shut the fuck up, Kim Hongjoong - I’m dizzy,” Seonghwa pushes the smaller’s shoulder away while the young man snorts, and Seonghwa took this chance to lie on his back, massaging his temple. There are scattered papers written in languages he’s oh-so-familiar with before, since he wrote it for himself. He had a plan, yet the plan was for himself. Seonghwa should’ve known he’s not suited for a plan that involves a lot of other people - yet he told Hongjoong about what he wanted to do. Why did he do that?
Maybe it’s because he wanted to give the blue-haired kid he saw on the shower cubicle that other day a chance of closure. A chance of soaring through the boring and inhumane world they’re currently stuck in.
Why would he blame Hongjoong if he wants to do the same, but for more people?
Wouldn’t that make him an oppressor too, to stop him from doing what he wants?
Seonghwa tsk-ed before he spares Hongjoong a glance, who has been looking at him with hopeful eyes ever since he laid down, apparently. “That’s scary, Hongjoong. Don’t look at me like that.”
Hongjoong mocked him with his tongue out, and for a split second an urge to boop his nose where it hurts came across Seonghwa and he laughed.
“Go over your recruits again,” Seonghwa says, finally, and Hongjoong’s eyes widen this time.
“Wait, for real?” The blue-haired asks, but spares no time to wait for Seonghwa’s response, whether it be spoken or not as he jumps back down to retrieve his files. Seonghwa had to remind him to be quiet since it’s early in the morning before he lets Hongjoong continue with his presentation, each one scarier than before.
“So you’ve heard about Choi Jongho. The scary one, looks like he beats people up for fun. Uses brute force in order to make his pears leave him alone. A first year, too, so he’s definitely needed if we want someone who isn’t suspected of crimes easily - no one trusts the seniors, obviously, since they’re ‘rebelling’ before they need to go slave themselves as someone’s insignificant garden worker, but juniors are: fresh off the fucking boat, yes? They’re easy non-targets,” Hongjoong sing-sung, clenching both of his hands together, “and since your plan is to burn the school down, Choi Jongho is talented. Trust me. We’ll catch him in the act and it’ll be fun.”
Seonghwa narrows his eyes and starts thinking that Hongjoong is downright crazy instead, but lets him continue.
“Song Mingi is a second year, and I’ve noticed that he’s voted by his friends as class rep since he’s tall and awkward - but also since no one else wants to do the representative duties - so he’s been getting a lot of cleaning tasks a lot, since the school can’t spare any more coins for cleaning workers, yes?” Hongjoong shoves a new file on Seonghwa’s lap, and continues talking, “For the plan where we definitely need to blackmail the school with my testimonies, some of us will need to go back and forth with horses since that’s the only thing we can use to move faster than on foot. Song Mingi takes care of the stables a lot, one of his multiple cleaning duties since he’s a responsible kid. No one’ll suspect anything if, you know, he brings one of us to the stable and we run away at night? No big deal. Next!”
Hongjoong gives a file that says Jeong Yunho, and Seonghwa looks at him expectantly.
“Hm. No explanation as to why I choose him, I just figured out that he’s a good liar and he makes up pretty diverse and believable stories. He fooled me once and got me in trouble even when he’s actually the one doing it, so,” the blue-haired shrugs, and he looks up at Seonghwa, literal sparkles blooming in his eyes.
“Right, right,” Seonghwa looks at the files as if he’s playing a card game, “now how are we going to do this?”
--
Mingi looks around as he leads two horses on their leash. Two hours ago was their curfew, and it’s half an hour to twelve a clock by now as he tries his best to not make any sounds. The stable is all the way at the back of their school, and there’s absolutely no windows except for one door leading to the kitchen from the back, which is still illuminated by a yellowish light accompanied with people’s murmurs, probably the maids who are retiring for the day.
The back gate was left open for them, and Mingi abandoned the horse’s leash to give them over to the people riding on the back of each horse.
The three people--two on one horse and one on the other--are clad with white coats all the way to their heads, pulled all the way to the front to cover their faces.
“Alright,” Mingi whispers to them after the horses are positioned outside the gates. One of the three individuals looks up to the dormitory they’ve been living in their entire life one last time before Mingi pats at their emergency bag. “Our lives are up to you. Good luck, you three,” Mingi continues, sparing anxious glances every now and then behind them.
One of the three dressed in white held Mingi’s hand for a bit before letting go as the other two waved him goodbye as they walked away on their horses as quietly as they could. Once they were far enough to be heard, the horses could run and they’d be at the city in the morning, at the very least.
“Live a good life out there, friends,” Mingi says, obviously directed to the three atop the horseback but not loud enough for anyone to hear.
The next few weeks was nothing new, nothing out of the ordinary. There are way too many kids to count on a usual day, but that day felt almost insanely chaotic. The mentors and matron look like they’re too tired to function, and however angry they are at the chaos that ensues with their incapability to ‘discipline’ the kids, they are unable to do anything. At one point, even one of the mentors rushed to the bathroom before they vomited in the hallways.
And then the day proceeds as further confusions begin to spread here and there, with rumours saying that the school is hiding something from everyone and that they’re going to be on lockdown.
Which was timed perfectly with the matron walking into the cafeteria one day, pissed off beyond belief as the symphonies of arguing old men in the hallways faded as the door closed.
“Some of your second years friends have disappeared into thin air,” she rolls her eyes, scratching at the back of her hair, looking like she’s out of focus. The second years begin buzzing in sync, which pisses the matron off even more, and as she orders for their mouth to be shut, Seonghwa looks at the door momentarily before he raises his hand high enough for the matron to see him. “Ma’am? Is Jeong Yunho included in this group of missing people?”
“Who?” the matron asks, her hand still holding her temple. “Jeong,” Seonghwa accentuates, “Yunho-”
The door slams open to reveal the mentors running towards something, away from the cafeteria, and Jeong Yunho is heaving and panting in front of the door, looking like he’s about to pass out any moment now.
“I saw blood in the shed beside the stable, ma’am!” Yunho exclaimed, and the buzzing grew even more frantic. “I told the mentors that and they all panicked, I- I don’t-”
Between all this mess, there are whispers about how this correlates to the disappearance of the second year students, and there are even some second years who explicitly mentioned their missing friend’s names.
“I mean,” one boy starts out, looking at Yunho’s confused state as he approaches the matron, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they killed Yeosang, you know. Hierarchy problems, or whatever the kids say these days. But Wooyoung and San is definitely the mentor’s fault, or something. They never liked those two because of something.”
“Is it really those three that are missing? What an odd combination.”
“No, I heard they’re actually genuine friends.”
“So they didn’t run away? This was murder?”
“I know this place is abusive, but. . . resulting to murder. . . I never even thought of that.”
Hongjoong and Seonghwa spared each other a glance before the blue-haired senior nudged Mingi in the side, inviting the detached boy’s attention back to him.
“Look at how much they’re enjoying this witch hunt,” Hongjoong cackles, “they’ve got a big storm coming.”
Which is funny, since exactly the next day, Kim Hongjoong disappeared.
“You’re his friend, aren’t you, Park Seonghwa?” the math teacher grabbed Seonghwa by the collar, pulling him in close enough that Seonghwa cringes when the old man spits on his face. “You stood up for him when I wanted to discipline him all those days ago. Tell me where he’s at-”
The mentor gets pushed back on his feet by a very much over-it Seonghwa, who is now wiping at his face, disgusted. “Shut the fuck up, old man,” he says as he shoves his mentor by the neck. No one else moved to stop him since, well, they’ve never had anyone fight them back. And it’s true that the third years are outgrowing them--if only Seonghwa and more of his taller friends come crowding them up, there’d be no fight left to live.
“Why the fuck do you think I’m friends with that smurf? He made you hit me. I still have problems breathing since you dug your heel into my nose. If anything, I’m glad he’s gone. What a useless magnet for trouble,” Seonghwa whispers the last part while walking away from the door. On his way to opening it, one other mentor caught his hand, and Seonghwa was already on his way to cause an even bigger scene when the door was knocked and the matron’s scared face popped in.
“Sir,” she whimpers, “why is there police in our doorway, Sir?”
Seonghwa stalked along with the rest of his mentors as they greeted the police in an overly-friendly manner. The two policemen are looking at them up and down until they’re face to face with Seonghwa, who is standing behind everyone else, looking confused.
Maybe interviewing a lanky seventeen years old is a lot easier than facing five religious-looking men, according to these policemen--but this was literally where they went wrong, and Seonghwa’s plans went smoothly.
“Tell me something, boy,” one of the police says, the short and stubby one who looks like he’s just finished smoking a few packs of cigarettes. He looks behind him to find Seonghwa, who is looking away from the crime scene. The shed beside the stable. There is blood painting everywhere, now dried and darkening, but the other policeman nods after he does. . . something with it. Something Seonghwa didn’t see since he had his back turned. “Are these your friends?”
Seonghwa spares the policeman a scared glance.
“No it’s not, Sir,” he denies with a shaking voice. “Hm?” the police inquire, “So who do you think this is?”
“No one I know, Sir. It has to be. That’s not anyone I know, Sir, I promise-” Seonghwa starts going off on a crazed rant before his voice cracks and he slaps both of his hands on his face, successfully gaining pity from the short policeman. He conversed with his partner for a bit before he pats Seonghwa’s back, trying to calm the miserable young man.
“Let’s step outside for a little bit, yeah?”
Seonghwa follows the police, rubbing at the corners of his teary eyes. “I just thought. . .” he hiccuped in the middle of his sentence while he leaned against a fence, “I just thought that if we do what they say. . . accept the beating, I- we- we would be able to at least graduate. And get out of. . . of here,” Seonghwa hides his face in his palm once again, breathing through his clogged nose as he takes in the scent of a cigarette, newly lit.
“Are you saying you think the teachers here are responsible, young man?”
Seonghwa jolts upright as he heard that, shaking as he denies that it’s what he just said. “No, Sir! I would never- I- I’m- ignore that, Sir, I wasn’t. . . thinking. Not with my head. I’m so sorry.”
The policeman hums knowingly, fixing his sunglasses as it sinks further down his nose bridge. “It’s quite alright son. We know. That’s why we’re here, actually.”
Seonghwa stops his shaking hands, tilting his head at this middle-aged man.
“Mmhm,” the police repeats, “me and my partner were only supposed to patrol around the city, yeah? But there’s just. . . a repetition of odd things that keeps happening to us these past few days. Our city is usually always calm and. . . meaningless. Being a police never really meant anything for us, you know? Not even a single robbery.”
Seonghwa nods carefully.
“But then a few days ago my partner got a visit from the local mailman who was petrified. He read a suspicious letter left behind by a kid who was dressed as if he was a member of a cult, right? The kid was described to be small and thin, all bones and covered in bandages with long overgrown hair. He thought it was a girl at first, but when he spoke it’s apparently a teenage boy. The boy asked this mailman to send a letter to the policeman, and the letter is simply. . . heart wrenching.”
“Ya’ wanna see, son? Maybe you’d recognize who it’s from,” the policeman asks, and Seonghwa stops himself from sucking in a deep breath. “I- I’m-” he stutters, “I’d be happy to be of help, Sir.”
Greetings.
My name is Kim Hongjoong, and I live in an orphanage nearby you. Near is an understatement, since it would not feel as if the city is as near as it is if you only have horses in your backyard.
I digress. I’m writing this to you as I plead for you to help me. This isn’t some kind of selfish wish, and this could never be selfish since I’m not only writing this for me, but for the hundreds of victims from where I came from.
Not only is it absolutely inhuman to break someone down mentally and physically, over and over and over again for twelve years and even more than that, I believe that if this cycle of torture continues and is left alone just because they ‘raise children who are lucky enough to have a home’, millions of death are not going to be noticed.
To die unnoticed is the worst fear someone like me could ever go through.
We live our entire lives unnoticed, and if we also die without at least being able to send a spark to the sky, it’ll all be a little too selfish of everyone else: to leave us to fight on our own just because we are different.
I’ve lived long enough to be used to the broken bones.
I’ve lived long enough that the bruises feel and look like my second skin.
I’ve been brutally beaten up and wrongly accused of a lot of things, enough for me to go through it without crying myself to sleep every night.
But please.
Millions and millions of other kids are going to have to go through what I went through, and it’s only a matter of time before unknowing innocent kids that were promised education and a stable enough home fall under the hands of these monsters.
Please.
I’m begging you.
If not for me, then for the rest of them.
They know nothing.
Please don’t continue letting them know nothing.
Please help them get out of this cycle of mess.
Please.
Please.
I don’t know what else to do.
I don’t know what else to sacrifice.
I’m desperate.
Help them.
The policeman watches attentively as Seonghwa’s previous dried tears return ten times the volume it was at before, and he’s clutching the paper as if they’re his lifeline.
“There are others like that, all from the same person,” the man continues, his voice lower than before, a decibel above a whisper. “I’m guessing you knew this Kim Hongjoong, hm?” he asks, not expecting an answer as he pats Seonghwa’s back comfortingly once again while the young man doubles over in pain over the fence, his sobs muffled and the paper on his hand vibrating as if an earthquake ran over them.
“I’m sorry,” Seonghwa has sobbed. “So, so sorry.”
The policeman spared a glance at his partner a few feet away, and they came to a mutual decision that they’re not going to show the young man Kim Hongjoong’s last letter.
Seonghwa calmed down a little bit and was ushered in by the two policemen, who have told him beforehand that they’re going to question his mentors further. Seonghwa grew afraid when they told him this, but the policemen calmed him down while saying that nothing will happen to him. They look so sad as they ushered Seonghwa to his room, and the young man would pay billions he doesn’t have to repeat over and over the scared look on his mentors’ faces until the day he dies. Unless they die before him.
These two policemen took the headmaster away, who is also the head of the orphanage - since he was the only mentor awake at the time. Everyone else is ‘sick’, as the old man has said, and is resting on their chambers. Even the old matron.
As the policemen promise Seonghwa they’ll come back, they left for the city.
The headmaster dropped dead after a week of questioning, and when the police returns to the orphanage and school to look for further clues, it’s burnt to dust with only five skeleton remnants inside.
--
“So everyone’s here,” Hongjoong greets them, a smile decorating his face. They greeted the newcomers with a lopsided smile and a wave, and so far the only one who responded was Choi San. Jung Wooyoung is hiding behind Kang Yeosang and the older one in between the three is just looking at Seonghwa’s mess of a room. Well, it’s not messy, there's just. . . a lot of papers.
“To be honest, Yeosang,” Seonghwa begins, automatically referring to the shoulder-length-haired second year, “I really didn’t plan for you to be here. But Mingi told me that having you under our wing is beneficial enough, especially for the last grand plan, even though you won’t even be there when it happens. So, I’ll give you an option.”
“Which is?” Yeosang answers almost immediately, sensing the danger in the senior’s tone.
“You help us murder the mentors,” Hongjoong spells out, and the snapping of San’s neck echoes the room, “and you three will finally get what you always wanted. A life that isn’t attached to this orphanage. At all. You can rebrand your life, start anew, and not even feel like you’re responsible over the murder. But you just have to do one thing for us. How’s that?”
“How is that even possible?” San asks, definitely morbidly curious.
“Our plan was to use mister arsonist baby over here, Choi Jongho, to burn the orphanage down. That’s it, that was my plan initially,” Seonghwa says, shrugging, “but then Hongjoong came up with a compromise that would save more people, and when we recruited some people, Song Mingi over there came up with a compromise that would save everyone. So here we are,” the oldest in the room continues, “saving everyone but the mentors.”
“So we’ll still burn the orphanage down, obviously. This could’ve been dangerous if we just proceed to murder with some other methods since traces are very hard to get rid of. But wait, you might be thinking, isn’t Jongho going to be traced if he’s done this before--because he’s called an arsonist? Well- do not worry, kids, for we will all be long gone before the police even notices that the orphanage is burnt to the ground, and his files? We’ll just bring it with us,” Hongjoong adds.
“So why not just tie all the mentors in a room, get everyone out and burn the orphanage down?” Yeosang questions, one of his arms still curled around a very flabbergasted Wooyoung.
“You two are the exact same, huh,” Hongjoong points at Yeosang, and then at Seonghwa. “Because, my love. Our file right here about Jongho isn’t the only one. If we commit arson and run away, let’s say, without our enormous matron who can burst through doors and call the cops on us while she’s dying in there - it’ll be too easy of a case to solve if they don’t have other, more unique cases to solve since looking for an ex-arsonist on their previous files would be a piece of cake. You see? Stacking cases on top of eachother is the key for survival! Usually, the police are too lazy to go through with five cases at once because it’s too much for them to bear, so while they procrastinate on which case to do first, all of us will be snuck safe and sound in our new lives. How about that?” Hongjoong clasps his hands together.
“Wha- so we’re doing some other type of crime while we wait to do this crime?” San narrows his eyes, confused.
“Why put ourselves out there when we can sacrifice the sons of bitches who beat us up our entire life, huh?” Hongjoong askes, and San replies with a “Huh?”
“We’ll report them. Anonymous letters, but not anonymous senders. That’s where you three come into play,” Seonghwa nods at Yeosang and his friends. “Hongjoong has observed that you three came during the same time, have been best friends ever since you were literal stumbling babies, and Yeosang here has bailed you two’s trouble-making ass every time. Wouldn’t you want a better life out there? Probably not less hardship, but at least less. . . pain?”
“You’re telling us to get out of here? How’s that going to help your plan?” Yeosang askes.
“Stay in the city for at least a week after we manage to get you out of here. The city nearby has a police station that is supposedly assigned to the area where our orphanage is located, too. Hide in alleyways, or if you can steal enough money from the treasury, stay somewhere cheap. Drop off three letters every other day, one person drops one letter just so they don’t know immediately it’s from the same writer. These letters are for the police in those police stations, and we’re not trying to rely on them because we know damn well how unreliable they are for us after all these years, it’s just to create even bigger chaos. Hongjoong is going to write the letter for us, since he’s been through a lot.”
“He’s going to pretend that he’s asking for help, or for justice, and once they are convinced enough to come to us to interrogate or just pass by or maybe even be convinced that these mentors are abusive and takes one of them away, we can proceed with our plans,” Seonghwa scratches the back of his neck, “and if they don’t come after a week, well. . . the plan goes as usual but we need to be running away faster.”
“After we drop the letters off, then what?” Yeosang looks at the people in that room, his brain weighing the options.
“Get out of that city with the horses we’re going to provide you with, since staying there would expose you to the chances of being caught to be interrogated, and as I have said: we do not trust and rely on the police. They might just treat you three as bad as the mentors do. Find another city, another place, or even a village where you can help the people at least until you acquire enough money to live on your own,” Seonghwa replies, eyes still raking over the papers he stapled on the wall.
“Well, what if all of this is stopped midway by some mentors and or the matron? You know how invested they are in our day to day life?” Wooyoung asks all of a sudden, his eyebrows united in the middle of his forehead.
“Kerosene,” Hongjoong takes over again. “Jongho has been planning to burn this orphanage down for a long time too, now, and when we asked him to do the honors, he’s very excited. He’s been stocking the kerosene the teachers were hogging all to themselves for their winter supply since Jongho here was tasked to keep an eye out for a winter supply thief - and he said there’s more than necessary to burn a whole city by now since they’ve been hogging it for so long.”
“Since smelling it in air could render everyone in this school useless, we’ll just give little tiny drops of kerosene on either their food or drinks that smells even more sharp than these oils. In less than a week they’d be too sick to even move, so maybe they’ll die by poisoning instead of the fires. Yunho’s going to infiltrate the kitchen since he’s nice and lies easily enough to enter those old maiden’s easily flustered environments. His only task is to flirt with old ladies, isn’t that nice of me?” Hongjoong chuckles, and Yunho gave him a dejected pout.
“Mingi here will bring you to the stable at night, since he’s very much familiar with the horses - you three can go in and out as quietly as possible. You drop the letters off, taunt them into pitying you a little bit with your small and scrawny bodies, get the fuck out of town, let dread settle in the police department and the people, and our plan will be in motion!” the blue-haired continue, punching a fist at the air.
Yeosang thinks very hard for the first time in his life, not knowing what else to ask. Maybe, since they think about his well-being so much. . . he has to think about theirs, too. Yes. There’s one hole in their plot.
“If we three gets to send the letters and run away to never return, what would you say about us being missing? If the police don’t suspect us as the kids who run away when they interrogate people--if they manage to do just that--won’t you all be suspected too? At least the ones I’ve interacted to,” Yeosang adds, looking around the room. “What if we pretend to be dead?”
“Huh?” it’s Hongjoong’s turn to question things.
“Me, Wooyoung, San, and Kim Hongjoong. We pretend to be dead. The three of us are going to go to the city, right? But if we’re just ‘missing’, we’re going to be either chased or reported. And we’re trying to avoid our mentors going to the police before our letters arrive, right? Because that’ll be too many signals for the police and an option where they could just not trust our words,” Yeosang continues, “But if we pretend to be dead, the mentors and their abusive nature are going to be too scared to report to the police since there are kids around who’s going to blame the ‘murder’ on them, and they’d be silenced until our letters get there. And the icing on top is going to be Kim Hongjoong himself disappearing into thin air after the policemen come over to find this Kim Hongjoong. After the murder and disappearance of three other students, with planted evidence--they’re going to have to at least take someone into custody. Once they take someone into custody, they’re going to interrogate him for leads long enough before they come back, but once they decide to come back the orphanage is going to be in ashes. How about that? You’ll all have at least three to four days to run away, minimum.”
“Where am I going to hide?” Hongjoong askes, definitely interested in seeing how the burning goes down later on. Yeosang shrugs. “Anywhere. Just don’t show up at breakfast and step away from your rooms. The attic, the basement, the stable, the empty room near the kitchen, just outside. Your disappearance isn’t going to be needed that long. Just don’t go in the shed beside the stable.”
“Why, Kang Yeosang?” Seonghwa is the one who’s asking now. “Because that’s where the planted evidence is going to be,” Yeosang shrugs.
That planted evidence turned out to be Yeosang, San, and Wooyoung’s own blood that they get by carving out their own hands and putting the substance into three separate bottles that they give to Yunho, who is going to ‘find’ this evidence a whole day after they leave. This was fully Yeosang’s idea since he became an orphan after he was left alone in a room by his parents’ murderer when he was twelve, and he sat there covered in blood as the policeman took a blood sample of the ones splattered on his body. From then on, he knew that the police take that blood sampling thing everywhere.
The one offhand sentence Seonghwa made about Yeosang, Wooyoung, and San being best friends since birth was an exaggeration.
“Another thing, Yeosang,” Seonghwa says. “We need you to make a secret announcement to the students. You’re high on the hierarchy list and they listen to you. Tell them that we’re going to need them to listen to us to stay alive, please? But don’t do it. . . explicitly. If you know what I mean,” the oldest mutters.
“I got you,” Yeosang nods, running a hand through his hair.
That night when the three of them left, Mingi wished them good luck on leading their new life, and they wished the rest of them luck to proceed with the rest of their plan.
After San delivered the third letter which consisted of Kim Hongjoong’s ‘suicide’ message, they ran away from the city in the exact same time a patrol car left for the orphanage. Yeosang spared one last glance to the direction the police car is headed towards before they ride on forward to juxtapose that particular direction.
The process of lighting the orphanage on fire was easy, since aside from the five of them left in the orphanage (yes, Hongjoong came out of hiding. He was in the stable, trying not to laugh at Seonghwa’s oscar-winning acting) everyone else helped pouring kerosene everywhere without question. Seonghwa didn’t ask Yeosang what he said, nor will he ever get a chance to ask, but he’s very grateful for their short lived friendship.
Hongjoong walked into the mentors’ rooms to ‘taunt’ them one last time and destroy their communication devices with the outside world, but Seonghwa knows better when the blue-haired kid comes out of the orphanage with half of it on fire and his hands are covered in substance they’re way to familiar with--that taunting is not the only thing Hongjoong did.
Maybe he deserved it. Maybe he didn’t.
Maybe their abusers deserved what was coming to them. Maybe they don’t.
Maybe Seonghwa and his peers deserved running away as criminals. Maybe they don’t.
It doesn’t really matter when it feels so good to finally run free from the crumbling damned building, now, does it?