Chapter Text
The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else. Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
It takes courage to become who you really are.
– e.e. cummings
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
A lone leaf falls on Seongje’s shoulder, straight from the oak tree perched in front of his new–temporary–apartment building. The rough texture tickles his bare neck so he reaches with the hand that is free of his travelling bag to brush it off his body, falling apart on its own brittleness in the process. The old oak tree has started to dull down to a reddish-brown tint, several leaves hanging marcescent from the long branches—a telltale sign that winter is approaching, if the second bag full of padded clothes and heat packs slung across his body wasn’t an already obvious hint.
The weather app he had installed out of boredom says the first snow in Nevada County won’t be until the 20th of December, in about a month. Although, the pilot did announce over the plane intercom that they were expecting a drop in temperature for the rest of the day so he’s relieved he had half the mind to pack his windbreaker in his carry-on bag. He knows now that it runs colder in this foreign land than in Korea during autumn, and Seongje’s body never got used to the cold. Fuck, he could use a cigarette right now if only to warm up a little.
He hears the cracking of the dried fallen leaves beside him as his companion walks ahead to enter the lobby, but not before giving him a small nod, signaling him to follow her in.
Lee Jinah—or at least that’s what it says on the file–is supposedly his forty-two year-old mother who, after his parents’ apparent divorce, left South Korea to work as a Travel Nurse abroad. After receiving her most recent assignment in a small county in California this year, she finally decided that she can’t be without her only son any longer, and took him with her. Seongje remembers barely concealing a snort after reading that part in front of his agent—a firm no-nonsense man in his early fifties who peered at him through his square glasses. Out of every detail the agency came up with for his new fake back story, this one felt the furthest away from his own truth; Not once did a parent feel such deep longing for him the way his new pretend mother did. But he guesses that was the entire point of it all, if he is going to participate in this statutory game of hide and seek.
When he reaches the lobby, Jinah is already chatting merrily with the concierge with a bright toothy smile, the same one she wore at the Immigration Desk back at Incheon as she answered questions about her, Seongje, and her job in fluent, slightly-accented English. Seongje had been asked a few questions himself, albeit not as fluent as the elder. He was never the best-performing student in class, but he at least took his English lessons seriously and even adapted some more advanced slang from his online games so he at least feels confident in providing the Immigration Officer some fake answers about his new fake life.
“..And this handsome young gentleman here must be your son!” The snub-nosed woman gasps as she spots him. Seongje feels a sudden jolt of irritation rising at the screechy tonality of her voice and he doesn’t miss the way she deliberately speaks slower, pausing shortly after every word as if she wanted to emphasize each one of them clearly for him to understand. “What is your name, dear?”
“This is Junyoung,” Jinah answers in lieu of him; Not that he planned to answer in the first place, lest he’d snap a testy remark like he’d been itching to do since way back at the Immigration. It’s been almost over twenty-four hours for him without a single cigarette in his mouth and he’s been getting really fidgety. But of course, apparently Lee Junyoung is somewhat of a poster child for good manners and right conduct, being raised by an Ethics Teacher for a Father and a Nurse for a mother, wounded only by divorce. All his lighters were confiscated and thrown away before he could even pack a bag for a flight that was scheduled not even 72 hours after he was informed that a powerful gang leader is after his ass.
“Of course, of course! June-young!” The concierge claps, as if finding the name amusing. Seongje—Junyoung—hangs his head with a sigh, already dreading how his next few months (or years, depending on how long the fucking gang leader decides to run away from the Korean National Police or if the bastard gets to Seongje first) is going to be like. He won’t be getting his cigarettes anytime soon.
Jinah nudges him, and he flashes her a sarcastic smile before straightening again, ready to address the concierge with a greeting so sickeningly polite enough for Lee Junyoung when the latter opens her mouth again. “And where is June-young going to attend? I don’t think the High School District accepts students this late in the school year, especially with uhm…. special cases.” She eyes him warily with a strained smile on her face. “I would know, my sons used to go to the charter high school just a few blocks from here. Students like June-young—anyway, there are language classes offered online so I think—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Jinah cuts in, her smile looking more forced than it was earlier. “He’s going to be homeschooled. He just needs to catch up on his last year of High School. Junyoung is more than capable.” She directs her gaze to Seongje.
This, Seongje already knows. His agent had briefed him and it was type-written clearly on his file: He will have a professional academic tutor who will help him catch up with both the Korean and US High School curriculum, and a separate English tutor. When he agreed to testify against Cheongang in court and the South Korean Government placed him in the Witness Protection Program, he never thought that meant he’d have to go through the notions of going to school again. After the dissolution of the Union, Seongje had stopped showing up to class altogether. The teachers at Ganghak didn’t seem to care when he’d skip classes to chill at the PC Cafe anyway. For the last year he’d been around, even going as far as leaving Seoul, jumping from one city to another and spending every last bit of the trust fund his parents left for him and leaving his income from the Union untouched. That was, until the Police caught up with him at a small convenience store somewhere in Gwangju and told him about the leaked video that would end the most powerful gang in Yeongdeungpo.
He must have tuned out the rest of the conversation because the next thing he knows, Jinah is already dragging him through the elevator and they are going up to the fourth floor of the building where their supposed unit is.
It’s spacious and fully furnished, not to mention fully paid for by the Korean government so essentially Seongje could live lavishly under the care of a whole country who only wants his words and presence in a courtroom in return. If he were a better person, Seongje would be thankful; But then he remembers all the things he had done to get to where he is today.
Seongje and goodness are two things that can never be in the same sentence.
Jinah shows him the door to one of the two rooms in the unit, presumably his room. She tells him to drop his things there and meet her in the kitchen shortly. He then sits in front of the coffee table where a lidded porcelain ashtray is conveniently perched atop. As if a trigger to an alarm in his system, his hands start shaking, itching to have a stick between his fingers. He mindlessly taps on the table and he bounces his leg, suddenly feeling the restlessness from the last twenty hours or so.
Suddenly, a pack of red Marlboro is slid underneath his tapping fingers. He freezes for a second and once his brain catches up, he grabs it and rips through the packet in a rush only to find one lone stick inside. He stares at it then raises his head to find Jinah sitting in front of him with her hands together on the table, gone is the fake smile she wore all day, replaced by an unreadable gaze directed at him. But what really catches Seongje’s eyes is the lighter that sits in between her hands for which he flashes the older woman a cheeky smile.
“Only one stick a day,” Jinah says sternly, English completely forgotten, toned down to an accent that he vaguely recognises as belonging to someone from Busan. “You shouldn’t be smoking as much as you have been at your age.”
Seongje merely grins. “You would too if you lived my life.”
He snatches the lighter from the woman’s hands and lights up the stick in between his fingers. He exhales in relief when the smoke finally enters his lungs, relishes in its comfort for a few minutes before taking off his glasses and setting them down on the table. “So, this is the new me now? Mom?” He lets his voice drawl at the last word, tilting his head as he looks at her stubborn poker face.
Jinah merely looks at him with a sigh and thrusts a black leather wallet towards him. Seongje stares at her as he opens it, revealing several cards and some small cash.
“It’s all your new identification cards and your passport. Your birth certificate, residential documents, other major papers are here,” she brings out another folder. “You can look into it now, but I’ll be holding on to it. As for your real cards and documents, they’re all tucked away with the agency. You’ll have it back after the trial.”
“Damn, all my bank cards too?” Seongje clicks his tongue as he digs through the wallet.
“All the money you’ll need will be provided for by the agency. You already have some cash in there to start with but if you need more, just ask me.”
Seongje pulls out the bills, playfully inspecting the print. “Regulation, huh. It’s like I’m a kid again.”
At this, Jinah’s eyes soften slightly. “You are a kid, Junyoung-ah.”
His eyes flicker back to her as he takes a deep drag and exhales it slowly. “Haven’t really been feeling like one.”
The woman doesn’t say anything in response. They stay sitting across from each other while Seongje finishes his stick and Jinah watches him silently. Two strangers brought together tolerating each other’s company and would be for the next few months. For a moment, Seongje sees himself in the same exact spot, sans cigarette, sitting across from an image of his real mother with kinder eyes and a softer smile.
Then he blinks—the fantasy he conjured is gone, so is the hope that it will ever come to life.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Na Baekjin died on a Thursday.
Seongje had been staying overtime at the PC Cafe that was just a short walk away from the bowling alley that doubled as the Union’s hideout. He was in the middle of a campaign when his phone lit up with a text. He ignored it, focusing on the game when it started vibrating endlessly: Baek Dongha was calling.
Without pausing his game, he dragged his headphones down to put his phone against his ear. “What?”
“Seongje-yah,” Dongha’s voice on the other line was rough and strained. “You have to come to the hideout, now.”
“What the fuck, man, are you crying right now?” Seongje jeered. “Did you get your ass beat so hard you had to cry in pain?”
“Yah, Geum Seongje!” the other boy gritted out with a shaky exhale. “Na Baekjin is dead.”
The line crackled between them, and all that could be heard was heavy breathing: Dongha’s—Seongje couldn’t remember how to.
He didn’t go to the funeral service. At least, not inside. But he hovered: pressed himself against the wall at the side of the building, keeping himself hidden as he watched people walk inside to mourn. He’s seen most of the Union—mostly Baek Dongha and Do Seongmok, some kids wearing Yeoil uniforms, and some older lady he recognized from the picture in Baekjin’s wallet that one time he left it lying around in his office. Hell, he even caught Park Humin and his group, including the sad-eyed newbie, Yeon Sieun. And when they came out with the pale-faced Park Humin being held upright by Go Hyuntak, he willed himself to look away, for the first time ever not finding jubilation in seeing the other man in suffering.
Na Baekjin is dead and Seongje—
—Seongje feels lost.
He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t mourn. No, he feels angry.
How dare he die? How dare he leave so carelessly, without thinking of the others?
The Union inevitably fell, with their leader gone and neither Seongmok nor Dongha wanted to step up to keep the operations going. After all, if anyone were to operate the Union in Baekjin’s stead, it would be Seongje. Geum Seongje of Ganghak who stayed loyal to Na Baekjin of Yeoil ever since the creation of the Union; Who was feared and listened to by all the members regardless of which school they belonged to, whether it be Daehyeon, Ganghak, Yoosun or Hyeongshin—all understood that the Union was Geum Seongje just as much as Na Baekjin.
So Seongje is angry.
In his anger, he flees Yeongdeungpo on the day of Baekjin’s final rites. He started wandering aimlessly since then until it got him to where he is now.
Seongje is forced to stop wandering but his anger stays. And he thinks of that anger as he grips his new ID card in his hand, the information etched foreign to his eyes. On this Korean national ID he holds, a familiar but strange boy stares back at him under the name Lee Junyoung, who was born in Gangseo-gu, Busan. He will turn eighteen in February, eight months later than his real birth date. With a picture taken literally just two days ago after a full morning of briefings, the Seongje on the card stares at the camera donned in a white collared shirt and his hair shorter, reaching just on his nape and sides trimmed neatly, leaving some bangs on his forehead. Gone was the shaggy wolfcut that he’d grown used to for a few years. They’d given him a quick makeover in that hotel they kept him in while his papers were being processed. They even replaced his semi-rimmed glasses with fully rimless ones that made Seongje look more admittedly kept together… but so far removed from himself.
He has felt this way since last month. His knuckles stopped bleeding after the lack of therapeutic punches on random alley walls. The last time he had someone by the neck was five weeks ago, a man at a parking lot who yelled too loud when he walked too slowly in front of him. He stopped going into PC Cafes, too, no longer finding adrenaline in shooting NPCs through a screen. Instead, he lay motionless all day in his hotel room with nothing to talk to but the dull grey ceiling.
It all started when an anonymous new account entered several chat rooms and sent links to a post; In it was a video.
It began with a slide show of records, data–all proof of the money laundering businesses headed by a man named Choi Changhee under different names—names of high school students. Then it showed pictures of the bowling alley and Daesung-fucking-Motorcycle. But what really unnerved Seongje in the chaos of it all, was the voice that narrated everything in the background.
So when the video cuts to black, Seongje holds his breath, and stops breathing altogether when Na Baekjin appears on the screen three seconds later, sitting stiffly in his office at the bowling alley with his usual turtleneck and coat.
“I have more proof of the corruption Choi Changhee has done behind these fake businesses and more importantly, his exploitation of misguided children in exchange for superficial power.” The Baekjin on the screen gulps before continuing, “This includes me. I admit, I have been taken over by my pride and desperation to prove myself to–” he clears his throat. “By the time this video reaches you, I might be dead. So my one request is that when this video comes out, you protect the kids like me whose minds were poisoned by the adults that were supposed to guide us.”
Then, Baekjin leans closer to the camera. “And when you find the right people, assure them that they are safe and they are not alone in this fight. Only then will they lead you to the remaining pieces of the puzzle you need to be looking for.”
The video cuts at that, the screen fading once again to black but all Seongje sees is the look in Baekjin’s eyes when he stares right into the camera…
….As if he was looking directly through him.
And it haunts Seongje every day.
The unpacked bags remain scattered across the floor of his new bedroom. Seongje moves from his place on the bed to open the handbag he’s been carrying all morning. Digging deep through the pile of clothes, his hand latches on to a tightly sealed wooden box.
It took the police a month to find Seongje. They sat him down in the investigation room, telling him everything he already knew and begged him for his cooperation, telling him they’ll have his back all the way.
But as Seongje sits in the silence of the half-empty room, he never felt more alone.