Chapter Text
A whole new world
That’s where we'll be
A thrilling chase
A wondrous place
For you and me
He crept cautiously and extremely quietly along the store shelves, trying not to make any unnecessary fuss or noise that might draw the cashier's attention to him. Luckily for him, there was only one employee today, which meant that everything was going to work out today. Even as he entered the store, he habitually took a quick look at all the cameras, so that he would know exactly which side had fewer of them, and where the risk of being caught would be very low. But there wasn't much risk anyway, given that the store he'd chosen was quite small, and Zayn knew from experience that cameras for small establishments like this were a rather expensive option for the budget, and so there weren't very many here.
Zayn gets his back to one of the surveillance devices mounted in the ceiling and with a deft move stuffs a couple of pretzels into the inside pocket of his denim jacket, which looked quite hearty. The sight of them made his stomach rumble and his mouth already filled with saliva. He buttoned his jacket and, pretending not to be interested in anything on offer, instantly walked out of the cool room, where he was greeted by the scorching heat of the street.
Although, if he had the chance, Zayn would probably buy up everything here, and live happily ever after without worrying about filling his empty stomach. But unfortunately, that was something he could only dream about in his extremely meager situation, and it was unlikely that would ever change. Though Zayn did allow himself to dream of a carefree future ahead of him, where he wouldn't have to look all the time for odd jobs to pay for the room he lived in and resort to illegal ways to feed himself so he wouldn't starve to death.
But he did not allow himself to grieve over his fate and how terribly unlucky he had been in this life. Zayn was always grateful for what he had, even for the fact that he had a roof over his head, and that, in his humble opinion, was a definite plus.
On his way out of the store, he was greeted by Loki, his most faithful and loyal friend, a Staffordshire terrier dog that Zayn had miraculously found one rainy afternoon outside in a box. If he hadn't then heard the pitiful whimpering coming from the cardboard box near the trash cans outside his house, Zayn was afraid to imagine what would eventually become of him. When he carefully peeled back the edges of the soggy cardboard, he was greatly surprised to see a tiny black and white puppy inside. It trembled very much like marmalade jelly left out in the sun, looking at him like its long-awaited salvation, and Zayn just couldn't resist. His heart ached at the sight of the sweetest creature, looking at him curiously with eyes as black as two little buttons, and he didn't hesitate to take the soggy lump in his arms and never let go. A year later, Loki had grown enormously, but at heart he was still the baby in the box, rescued one rainy evening by Zayn.
“Did you really miss me that much?”, Zayn turned to the dog, smiling broadly and stroking his head.
Loki turned quiet, but kept wagging his tail, jumping up and down on him with both paws as if sensing that he had a tasty treat in his pockets.
“Who's the sly one?’’, Zayn shook his head at the dog's overzealous enthusiasm and removed his paws from his body, “okay, you're right, we won't go hungry tonight. Let's just get away from here.”
Zayn moves away from the premises and walks further down the street, accompanied by his faithful friend. After a couple of dozen yards, he finds a more or less decent nook and pulls out a stolen pastry to the dog's demanding bark, the sight of which leaves an unpleasant residue on his mind. The feeling that he was a criminal invariably appeared on such occasions, but there was nothing more he could do. He still had a couple of cents in his bank account, though his previous job, where he'd been scrubbing cars from morning till night, had promised a couple of hundred bucks in cash. But two days had passed without the promised pay for his hard labor, so Zayn had to at least adapt to the difficult circumstances by stealing food.
He unwrapped one pretzel, lavishly glazed with sugar, and gave it to the patiently waiting Loki, and then began his share, but no sooner had he enjoyed his meal than he heard a child whimpering nearby.
Zayn looks curiously around the shady alleyway, and his gaze is immediately drawn to a woman and child sitting nearby by a tree. He could tell by their slightly ragged clothes that they were homeless, and his heart sinks at the thought of how unfair life can sometimes be to people who are just a little unlucky in it.
The woman tried her best to reassure the child, a girl of about five, no more, but she was not very good at it for some unknown reason to Zayn.
He unwittingly listens to her words and realizes that her little girl is just hungry. Zayn doesn't hesitate for a second and walks resolutely toward them, hoping he doesn't scare them with his enthusiasm and desire to help.
Loki is too engrossed in his lunch, so he stares questioningly at his owner for only a few moments before returning to the remains of his meal, staying exactly where he is.
“Good afternoon,” Zayn turns to them, suddenly feeling a little shy, “here, please take this.” He holds out his food to the woman, who has a look of consternation in her eyes, and then it’s replaced by obvious relief as she realizes that Zayn has just decided to help them.
She gratefully takes the pastry from his hands while smiling charmingly, and Zayn insists that it costs him nothing. Loki's wet nose nips into his hand, and he turns to him, rubbing him behind the ear.
“Is that such a handsome dog of yours?”, hears Zayn, and he turns his gaze to the girl who is staring at the two of them with obvious curiosity in her gaze.
“Yes, this is Loki,” he replies, “do you want to pet it?”
The girl readily nods her head, which makes her little pigtails twitch sweetly, and, getting permission from her mother, cautiously moves closer to the dog, but still a little wary of him.
“Don't be afraid,” Zayn encourages her, “see how he wags his tail funny. It means he doesn't mind.”
The girl puts her palm more boldly on Loki's head and begins to stroke his dark, white-spotted fur more confidently when she sees no resistance from him.
Loki squints contentedly, enjoying the little contact, and Zayn realizes that part of the reason is that he's satiated with food.
“And my name is Jasmine,” the girl introduces herself, removing her hand and looking fully at Zayn now.
“Nice to meet you, Jasmine. You have a very pretty name,” he was touched by her genuine enthusiasm and childlike sincerity, which brought a smile to his face. “And my name is Zayn,” he holds out his hand to her and feels a warm palm in his hand, “I hope you won't be shedding tears now, only smiling, okay?”
Jasmine nods eagerly and, after stroking the dog once more, goes back to her mother, who thanks Zayn again for the food.
Zayn nods and, calling for Loki, walks out of the alley, feeling an incredible warmth in his soul that no amount of money can buy.
*
Liam sharply closes the door of his room in frustration and heads for the wide windowsill where he used to love to sit, cushioned and looking out over the spacious courtyard outside the window, or rather the garden that occupied almost its entire area with a beautiful fountain in the center.
He pulled out his worn-out sketchbook from under the pillow and opened it to a page with an unfinished drawing of that very garden. Drawing always gave him comfort and relaxed his agitated nerves after his conversations with his father, who kept telling him that he needed to make up his mind and find the right partner. Liam was extremely angry about these conversations, which ultimately led to nothing good, but only drove him and his father further apart. He was well aware that his father was only concerned about his future, as perhaps all parents do, but he couldn't understand why he should be forced to do something he didn't want to do at all.
Liam ran his hands irritably through his disheveled hair and, picking up a pencil, began to draw careless lines that gradually developed into a sketch of the rose bushes that covered practically the entirety of their enormous garden.
Tonight, he was to meet another "bride," the daughter of his father's friend, who was a prominent politician, and Liam had to have time to prepare mentally for it, though his whole being desperately resisted it.
The dinners at which these interminable "trysts" were held have become a custom in their house, and Liam was tired of them. He was damn exhausted of being a diligent son and pretending to be very happy to deal with all the "brides" who came and went, but that was his harsh reality, from which, alas, he had no recourse.
Realizing that he was unlikely to be able to finish his painting today, he got up from his seat and decided to take a walk around the outskirts of town to get some respite from the stuffy castle-fortress atmosphere in which he was imprisoned.
Liam was well aware that he was taking a big risk, given the fact that he was rarely allowed to go out into the city by himself without a whole bunch of guards. But nothing could stop him now, so he put on a hoodie and dark jeans and quietly made his way out of his bedroom, hoping he'd manage to slip through the guards the first time after all.
Once in the garden with ease, Liam quietly makes his way to the high stone fence and, carefully climbing the fence, the benefit of his rock-climbing training, jumps to the ground, which was no longer the property of his family.
Inwardly rejoicing at such a small but important victory for him, Liam walks quickly to the exit of the suburban village where their house was located, to the cab already waiting for him.
After a while he finds himself in the center of town and asks the cab driver to drop him off near a small square. Liam takes a deep breath of the city air, rich with a mixture of different scents, and feels overjoyed that he has finally succeeded in his task. He had a couple of hours at his disposal, and he wanted to spend them well, strolling through the city streets and enjoying the noise of the metropolis, sounding like pleasant music to his ears.
Looking around the busy avenues, Liam realized that he wanted to live here: rent an apartment in one of these buildings, go to the university here, like all the other students, and work as a waiter in some cafe after his studies. But the fact that he was the son of the mayor of the city meant that from birth his whole future was scheduled almost by the minute, and it was incredibly depressing for Liam. In his world he could not make his own decisions and live as he wanted, and all his actions and deeds were built on his father's desire to provide him with a bright future.
Liam goes to the park near where the cab driver dropped him off, and sits down on one of the benches with his hood over his head. He could easily be recognized here, given the fact that his face appeared in almost every newspaper article, where sensation-hungry reporters vied with one another to see which of the women he was going to choose and which of the companions he would make happy, and this was not at all part of his plan for the day. Liam just wanted some time alone, reveling in the longed-for solitude he so desperately lacked where he'd temporarily escaped from.
He looks up at the sky, covered with small, fluffy clouds, and is completely absorbed in his thoughts, but they are interrupted by the vibrating of the phone that was in the pocket of his jeans. He looks at the screen and, seeing that it was his dad, rejects the call and places the phone on the bench beside him. Liam easily guesses that everyone in the house has already found out about his escape, but nothing can dampen his happiness at the moment, and so he leans back on the bench and closes his eyes, soaking in the pleasant warmth of the sun, spreading goose bumps over his body.
But his peace is ruthlessly interrupted again, and this time not by his father. Liam only has time to open his eyes, and the next thing he sees is happening literally in slow motion: a lanky guy in a funny cap walk past his shop, grabs his phone as if it were his property, and speeds away. Liam jumps up sharply from the bench and hurries after the insolent robber, but his leg, which he hurt on the run yesterday, was clearly not on his side, and he is forced to slow down, feeling an unpleasant tingling sensation in his ankle.
“Hey!”, Liam yells frantically, already losing all hope of catching the thief and getting his thing back, but the very next second he sees some guy on a skateboard with a dog swiftly catching the villain and snatching the phone from his hands, leaving him standing there with his mouth open. But in time, the thief runs off as fast as he can from the park, and his savior and his faithful friend approach Liam on a skateboard.
Liam becomes terribly nervous, afraid of being recognized, but he realizes that if he keeps his hood on, it will be hard to see his face. The thought makes him feel much better, and now he's ready to face this tall but confident guy on a skateboard, wearing slit jeans and a white T-shirt with a cartoon Looney Tunes print. His dark hair was pulled back into a little bun, a few strands of which fell out around his face, making him even more attractive.
And now he was standing across from him, holding out his phone, and Liam didn't know where to take himself from that magnetic gaze of absolutely stunning eyes, taking him immediately into their captivity.
“This is yours, isn't it?” the boy turns to him, holding it in his outstretched hand, waiting for Liam to come back down to earth.
“Yes," he says and takes the smartphone and puts it in his pocket. But Liam immediately gets hit by the thought that he forgot to thank him, and he mentally slaps himself on the head, “oh, and thank you very much,” he meets his gaze again, and there is an awkward pause between them, interrupted by the dog standing next to him with its resounding bark.
“No worries, I did what I had to do,” the man tells him, trying to calm his agitated dog.
Liam reaches for the dog and is just about to ask the name of his savior and his faithful friend, when he hears the loud sound of a car klaxon cutting through the peaceful atmosphere of the park. He turns around, somehow sensing that it's meant for him, and Liam is right: Paul, his father's head of security, and his two assistants are getting out of the huge SUV parked near the entrance to the park.
The dog, as if sensing the impending danger, starts barking even louder, and Liam turns again to the stranger, desperate to be somewhere else as soon as possible.
“What the hell?” asks the boy perplexedly, looking behind Liam's back at the approaching guards.
“Please help me get away from them,” Liam grasps his hand unconsciously, clutching it from the nervousness that shackles his body like an icy shell, “please.”
The man looks at him with obvious incomprehension at first, but when he sees that Liam is completely serious, he nods briefly and, without a second, grabs his skateboard and, holding Liam's hand tightly with his other hand, rushes away with the dog out of the park toward the exit.
They miraculously escape the chase, and Liam's adrenaline spikes are more intense than he's felt in a long time. All of his emotions are running high, and he can't hold back the smile that's begging to come out. They're still holding hands and rushing along the noisy streets, almost knocking over passersby who look at them with bewilderment, and Liam has probably never felt so free in his life.
After crossing the long sidewalk, they find themselves near a multi-lane road, but the light for pedestrians is now red, and Liam turns around, watching in horror as the familiar car with tinted windows rapidly narrows the distance between them.
His savior notices this, too, and turns to Liam. His eyes are burning and his face is focused on a thought, causing his eyebrows to frown slightly.
“Do you trust me?” the guy asks, squeezing his fingers a little, and that brief movement sends an electric shock through Liam's whole body.
“Yes,” he answers firmly to the complete stranger against him, and he suddenly realizes that he would have easily trusted him with his life.
The guy pulls a leash from his jeans pocket and quickly attaches it to the collar of the dog, out of breath from the fast running. Before Liam can catch his breath, he's on a busy highway, guided by a guy with a skateboard and a dog who can't keep up.
Liam's heart goes into a cartwheel with a pervasive fear for his life, but he concentrates on the hand clutching his palm tightly, and the panic that was looming over him vanishes into the sun-warmed air.
They run across the crosswalk, into the red light, ignoring the shrill signals of cars and the rude shouts of drivers forced to stop because of negligent pedestrians who could not wait for the green light.
Luckily, they don't get hit by a car, and so they keep running until they end up in a residential neighborhood Liam doesn't know.
The stranger lets go of his hand and bends down and places his hands on his knees, trying to recover his labored breathing. Liam, meanwhile, breathing heavily, walks over to one of the benches and sits down, lowering his hood.
He looks around at the low red-brick apartment buildings, the small garden in the center of the courtyard, and the small playground. The quiet and peaceful atmosphere of the neighborhood fascinates Liam from the first minutes he stays here, and he realizes that if he had the chance, he would love to live here.
Liam wipes his forehead, and suddenly a sharp pain pierces his leg from a recent marathon. The strange thing is that when he ran, he didn't feel any discomfort, the adrenaline must have overridden any discomfort, but now he's in incredible pain, and he even cries out because of a throbbing, grasping his leg.
“Are you alright?” he hears and sees the guy straightens up and comes closer to him.
Liam can clearly see the concern in his eyes, and at first, he thinks he's imagining it, because they don't even know each other enough for that.
“No, I'm not,” Liam replies, “I sprained my ankle yesterday. It clearly wasn't ready for the marathon we just did.”
“Let me take a look," the stranger asks, and Liam, not knowing where to put himself from the pain, easily agrees and pulls up the cuff of his jeans, exposing his swollen leg.
The guy sits down in front of him and gently takes his leg, looking over it and groping a little, which makes Liam feel a little ticklish, but he doesn't let on.
“We need to ice it and bandage it," he gives his verdict and stands up, “I live in one of these houses, so I can give you first aid,” the stranger offers and adds with a cheeky smirk on his face, “If you trust me, of course.”
Liam is lost for a moment in his smile and his gold-tinted eyes, but still finds himself with an answer.
“I hope getting help to get to your flat is included in your service as well,” Liam jokes, holding out his hand.
The guy silently puts his hand in it, helps him up, and they slowly cross the yard toward the stranger's house.