Ship/Member: Minghao, Vernon, others mentioned Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: the wisp of a corruption arc from afar, network fishery-esque setting ((aka Network Love members have a store that handles fish and people)) Permission to remix: Yes
*** i started out writing this in a very different direction and then i got a postype notification and my brain got hijacked. please forgive me Fish were small. Familiar. Easy to clean. But sometimes he plunged his hands into the cool water of the basin and couldn’t quite remember where the eddies of red had come from, this time; was the metal on his tongue from a fresh arterial spray, or the rising gorge of an old, old memory?
But eventually it recedes, and he nags Hansol to remember to scrub underneath his fingernails, too, keen to instill the habit of using a bristled scrub brush early. It just wouldn’t be right to let him get used to the sight of thin lines of red crusting underneath his nails, against the base of his skin, even if it were just from the persistent guts of one too many fish. Should always be, if the world was fair.
*
The first time he killed, he had no choice. And the next, and so many that followed thereafter, even if he had been the one to choose to keep Junhui’s back pressed against his every time. His only port of safety in the merciless Shanghai streets they had been dragged to.
(That very first time, he had cried and cried and not even the beating it had earned him had stemmed his tears. The pure tears of a child, ceaselessly pouring out as if they were sufficient to wash off the splatters of red still clinging to the creases of his palms, the side of his face.
In the end, he merely drained himself of all his tears with nothing else to show for it.
The next time they dragged him out, he didn’t cry at all, even when they pointed him towards a child smaller than him.
It took him until meeting Junhui to stop throwing up after the deed was done, though.)
*
Whenever they asked him, in private, Joshua always maintained that he had only kept Hansol around because he needed someone to speak English to—for the sake of his sanity.
Accordingly, with him in the shop they made sure to keep their jokes in Korean about benign fish, maintaining that the basement was off-limits to untrained hands, toned down on the pace of their extra activities until the four of them had fallen into enough of a routine together to begin to relax.
Perhaps a little too much—was Minghao’s thought, when he first caught sight of the smaller tail following him one night, watching him clean up after himself.
The process of getting blood out of his work clothes was all the same no matter the source, but with his watcher in mind he was more diligent about pulling on latex gloves to apply peroxide to the stains, letting it soak.
The least he could do was demonstrate the correct way to do things, if he would be sneaking out either way.
*
The first time Hansol really comes to him for help, he’s got a half-dried smear of blood on one side of his face, flecks of it still determinedly clinging beneath his fingernails.
Minghao gently scrubs the underside of each nail clean and lets Hansol tell him about the boy he had rescued in the alley, who looked to be the same age as him. He lightly probes into how he’s feeling, after such a violent experience, only to have Hansol blink at him and say he felt good.
He was glad to have protected the boy—he’d do it again.
(Hansol explains that he had only knocked the thugs out after sneaking up on them, before pulling the boy after him as they made their escape.
Minghao thinks about sharp rocks and head wounds, and will finish what Hansol started.)
*
Joshua is the most opposed to his proposition, when he brings it up, but in the end even he agrees it’s better for Hansol to be supervised where they can see him—learn the right way of doing things from them—rather than getting into more trouble on his own.
Even so, Joshua never speaks plainly around Hansol—always using euphemisms to allude to the nature of the work. In Korean, at least; Minghao isn’t sure if he ever addresses any of it when he talks with Hansol in English.
*
One night, Boo Seungkwan sneaks around the back of a storefront, and sees something he was never supposed to. The boy he remembers as Vernon hears his gasp and turns around with adrenaline thudding through his veins and blood on his face and tells him not to worry—he already killed him.
[FILL] don't you know who i think i am?
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: the wisp of a corruption arc from afar, network fishery-esque setting ((aka Network Love members have a store that handles fish and people))
Permission to remix: Yes
***
i started out writing this in a very different direction and then i got a postype notification and my brain got hijacked. please forgive me
Fish were small. Familiar. Easy to clean. But sometimes he plunged his hands into the cool water of the basin and couldn’t quite remember where the eddies of red had come from, this time; was the metal on his tongue from a fresh arterial spray, or the rising gorge of an old, old memory?
But eventually it recedes, and he nags Hansol to remember to scrub underneath his fingernails, too, keen to instill the habit of using a bristled scrub brush early. It just wouldn’t be right to let him get used to the sight of thin lines of red crusting underneath his nails, against the base of his skin, even if it were just from the persistent guts of one too many fish.
Should always be, if the world was fair.
*
The first time he killed, he had no choice. And the next, and so many that followed thereafter, even if he had been the one to choose to keep Junhui’s back pressed against his every time. His only port of safety in the merciless Shanghai streets they had been dragged to.
(That very first time, he had cried and cried and not even the beating it had earned him had stemmed his tears. The pure tears of a child, ceaselessly pouring out as if they were sufficient to wash off the splatters of red still clinging to the creases of his palms, the side of his face.
In the end, he merely drained himself of all his tears with nothing else to show for it.
The next time they dragged him out, he didn’t cry at all, even when they pointed him towards a child smaller than him.
It took him until meeting Junhui to stop throwing up after the deed was done, though.)
*
Whenever they asked him, in private, Joshua always maintained that he had only kept Hansol around because he needed someone to speak English to—for the sake of his sanity.
Accordingly, with him in the shop they made sure to keep their jokes in Korean about benign fish, maintaining that the basement was off-limits to untrained hands, toned down on the pace of their extra activities until the four of them had fallen into enough of a routine together to begin to relax.
Perhaps a little too much—was Minghao’s thought, when he first caught sight of the smaller tail following him one night, watching him clean up after himself.
The process of getting blood out of his work clothes was all the same no matter the source, but with his watcher in mind he was more diligent about pulling on latex gloves to apply peroxide to the stains, letting it soak.
The least he could do was demonstrate the correct way to do things, if he would be sneaking out either way.
*
The first time Hansol really comes to him for help, he’s got a half-dried smear of blood on one side of his face, flecks of it still determinedly clinging beneath his fingernails.
Minghao gently scrubs the underside of each nail clean and lets Hansol tell him about the boy he had rescued in the alley, who looked to be the same age as him. He lightly probes into how he’s feeling, after such a violent experience, only to have Hansol blink at him and say he felt good.
He was glad to have protected the boy—he’d do it again.
(Hansol explains that he had only knocked the thugs out after sneaking up on them, before pulling the boy after him as they made their escape.
Minghao thinks about sharp rocks and head wounds, and will finish what Hansol started.)
*
Joshua is the most opposed to his proposition, when he brings it up, but in the end even he agrees it’s better for Hansol to be supervised where they can see him—learn the right way of doing things from them—rather than getting into more trouble on his own.
Even so, Joshua never speaks plainly around Hansol—always using euphemisms to allude to the nature of the work. In Korean, at least; Minghao isn’t sure if he ever addresses any of it when he talks with Hansol in English.
*
One night, Boo Seungkwan sneaks around the back of a storefront, and sees something he was never supposed to. The boy he remembers as Vernon hears his gasp and turns around with adrenaline thudding through his veins and blood on his face and tells him not to worry—he already killed him.