V

"And here we have the beans!"

Eunhyuk stopped in front of a shelf and smiled at Donghae who followed him with the usual basket in his hands. "I need one of these", the brunet said lowly and grabbed a can to put it into the basket.

"There is a special offer on them, though." Eunhyuk smiled and winked at him. "Buy one and get one free."

Donghae frowned and looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"It means you can take two cans and only have to pay for one. The second one if totally free."

"But…" He shifted from one foot to another, was uneasy. "I only need one..."

"You don’t have to take the second one if you don't want to; I just wanted to explain it. If you do though, you can take the second can with you and store it somewhere until you need it again." Eunhyuk grabbed one of said objects and turned it around, tapped on the date that was written on the bottom. "You can keep these in stock for about a year so you don't have to worry that they expire."

Donghae frowned slightly. "So… taking two cans is okay? I don’t want hyung to be mad at me for wasting money…"

"He won't be mad. Trust me."

Another smile and Donghae hummed. With two cans in his basket they continued their little shopping trip – Eunhyuk also gave him other small things for free, simply because yes – until the basket was nicely filled. Once at the counter, Donghae watched with big eyes how Eunhyuk summarized the total, still blushing slightly whenever Eunhyuk sent him a smile.

"Okay, this is-"

Donghae shoved his wallet into the other's hands before he could finish his sentence. Eunhyuk blinked his eyes in confusion. "You can take the amount out of it", Donghae said. "You won't fool me, right?"

He was a bit flabbergasted. "Of course not", he answered and still was a bit dumbfounded as he hesitantly lowered his gaze towards the wallet. Donghae watched every step he made so he tried to make every movement as obvious as possible. He pulled out some bills and coins, placed them on the counter and showed them to him. "See, you've even got the exact amount of money", he explained.

Donghae's gaze slowly travelled over the counter. "This means I don’t get anything back, right?" he asked carefully.

"That's right. You only get something back if you pay too much."

Donghae hummed. "I'm sorry, but I don’t know much about money."

Eunhyuk gave the wallet back and grabbed a plastic bag, started packing in the food Donghae had just bought. "I thought you see a lot of money every day. I mean, the pole dancers get a lot of bills, at the bar there are bills too…"

"Yes, but I… never really understood it. I can't count well. Most of the time I pay with big bills because that's never too little money. But when I get the change back, sometimes some money is missing. Hyung always scolds me for it…"

"Why doesn't he give you counted money then? Or writes you a shopping list so you don’t have to remember everything that you should bring home?"

He bit his lip. "Most of the time we only have big bills… And he can't write a list for me because I can't read."

Eunhyuk paused for a moment, a package of apples in his hand. "You can't…?"

Donghae shook his head and answered with a voice that was even lower than usual. "No."

"But in school-"

"I didn’t go to school."

This was the second time that Eunhyuk thought he didn’t hear right. His mouth was open and he speechlessly stared at him for a while. "What?" he just muttered.

"I didn’t go to school", Donghae repeated.

"Why not?"

Donghae shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody ever asked me to go to school."

This had to be a joke, Eunhyuk was sure of it. How else was it possible that a child in a country like South Korea didn’t go to school? Education was one of the most important things at all, parents got arrested if they didn’t send their children to school – but then again: hadn't Donghae said that he didn’t have a family? Even if: this just wasn’t possible. There were people who took care of children without families and stuff like that.

Another thought crossed his mind. Donghae didn’t know how old he was – shouldn’t he own a passport or ID with a birthdate?

"Donghae, do you have an ID?" he asked straight forward.

The other slightly tilted his head to the side. "A what?"

Eunhyuk pulled out his own wallet and showed him his identification. "Everyone owns one of these. It contains all the important information about you like your name, birthdate, address, a picture of your face…"

Donghae gently took the little card out of Eunhyuk's hand and held it with both of his own. Once again he looked surprised, just like he had never seen anything like that before. And indeed – as he opened his mouth he said exactly this.

"I don’t have such a thing… But you look nice on that picture."

Eunhyuk couldn’t fight the heat travelling up to his face. "Thank you. Um…" He needed a second to find back to his train of thought. "You have to own it. Everyone does."

"Why?"

"Because every baby gets registered after birth and once you do that, the baby has an identity-"

Donghae's index finger slowly ran over the edge of the card. "What if the baby didn’t get registered?"

"…Well, I don’t know if that's possible because at a hospital-"

"What if the baby was born at home?"

Eunhyuk's gaze darted to the side. "If no one knows that the mother is pregnant and she gives birth to her baby in secret, never gets it registered and never sends it to school then… this child officially doesn’t exist."

Their gazes met – and Eunhyuk knew that this was the story of Donghae's life. Yet it was nearly impossible for him to believe that it really was like this; without ID there were so many things that Donghae couldn’t do. He couldn’t leave the country, couldn’t get a real job or an insurance – and that last point surely was the worst. Donghae couldn’t go to a doctor; maybe he could but then he would've to pay so much money if he was sick… Now he understood that Donghae's "boss" had him wrapped around his finger. He could do whatever he wanted with him. And if anything would happen to him, nobody would start searching for someone who never existed on paper.

"Hyung says it's alright", Donghae stated and shrugged his shoulders. "We won't live long anyway."

Eunhyuk's stomach dropped. "Yah, don't say that! Isn't there any doctor you can go to when you're sick or hurt?"

"Dr. Choi. Hyung knows him well… He is very nice."

Eunhyuk sighed in relief. "Do you have to pay anything when you go to him?"

He shook his head. "Hyung says he helps us because he is a friendly person. But I shouldn’t tell anyone."

Donghae sent him a quick gaze and made him nod. "You can trust me. I won't tell."

The brunet looked relieved, but there still was no smile. Eunhyuk slowly started doubting that Donghae was even a