A/N: I originally wrote this for frankiewenttohollywood in 2013 but because I am a terrible person I never finished it.

“Unnie, where are you going?”

Yoona’s chest clenches as she sees her little sister’s wide, innocent eyes, her tousled head of hair peeking above the thin blanket they share.

“I’m just going for a walk.” The lie comes easily, too easily, to her. She doesn’t lying to Ara, but she’s learned to sacrifice many things for her family over the years, and morality will just have to be one more on the long list. “I can’t sleep.” That, at least, isn’t a lie.

“You should drink some warm milk.”

Yoona gives a wan smile. She doesn’t mention that they finished the last of the milk yesterday. Honestly speaking, milk is a luxury that they shouldn’t splurge on, but Ara is a growing girl and Yoona is determined to give her at least that.

“Go to sleep,” Yoona says softly. “I’ll be back soon.”

Ara gives her a look that’s surprisingly keen for an eight-year-old. “That’s what you said last time too,” she mutters, but she obediently huddles beneath the blanket again. Yoona tucks the edges in around Ara’s thin frame and kisses her gently on the forehead.

Yoona hesitates by the mattress, her legs as heavy as leaden weights, and it’s only the sound of Ara’s quiet snores that spurns her to move. She puts on her thickest jacket, a sturdy black one that’s been through a lot, and tugs the hood over her head. She follows that up with a pair of heavy duty gloves and laces up her trusty hunting boots and she’s ready.

For all the times that she spends breaking into other people’s homes, she feels just as much of a thief sneaking out of her own. Her breath fogs in front of her, and she watches an exhale dissipate, hopes that the people who spend their nights on the streets can find shelter at least for the night.

“I’ll be back,” she tells the door, shutting it quietly behind her.

Hopefully she would be before Ara woke up. She doesn’t know how much Ara knows about what she gets up to on nights like this, but she thinks that her sister is more aware than she would like. She wishes that she could shield Ara from all the cruel truths in the world, and one of them is that her beloved unnie is a thief. She doesn’t do it out of selfishness or greed, but stealing is stealing and there’s no way around that.

“Maybe not that soon, but I’ll be back,” Yoona promises.

She tugs the collar of her jacket higher and steps out into the cold, agile and almost silent, a dark shadow that fades away into the night, with only the stars as her witness.

Yoona runs her thumb along the line of pearls in her first. She’s no stranger to fine jewellery, but it still amazes her sometimes, the kind of luxuries these people have in abundance while a few streets down, families are rationing food down to the last crumb. The families that have enough food to ration, that is; she hasn’t forgotten about the rail-thin people huddling on the side of the roads, although she’s sure that the wealthy rarely even spare them a glance, if they see them at all. It’s amazing how much ignorance can cloud your eyes.

She takes the pearls, along with a heavy gold watch, tucking them into an inner pocket, where they rest heavy and cold against her chest, an icy weight against her heart.

“You know, I could get into a lot of trouble for this, Yoona,” Mr. Lee says conversationally, accepting the package Yoona passes to him, as he always does. “If people find out where these come from…”

Yoona meets his eyes with a calm but strong stare. “You can give them back to me, tell me not to come back again.”

His voice is gentle. “You know I won’t do that.”

“Then…” She trails off, not wanting to say the wrong thing, to give the impression that she’s impatient or ungrateful, because she’s not. She knows how much he’s risking by doing this, pawning off the goods from the most powerful and influential people in town, so he could help her help people at the other end of the spectrum. She knows he’s a good man, but even now, she doesn’t know his exact motives for helping her.

“You know I’m careful,” she says finally. “You know how good I am at what I do.”

“I do know,” Mr. Lee acknowledges, “but even the most careful and discreet can get caught. Have you ever thought about what would happen if you got caught, Yoona? What you would lose?”

She thinks of Ara, small and thin, utterly reliant on her. Ara doesn’t have anyone else; they only have each other.

“I have thought about it,” Yoona says. “I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve told myself to stop doing this a hundred, a thousand times.”

“But?”

“But then I walk down the street, and I see them.” People who have much less than her. People who need her. “And I can’t – I can’t just walk away.”

“You have a good heart, Yoona,” Mr. Lee says. “One hard to find around here.”

Yoona gives a wry smile. “If only a good heart could buy food, huh?”

“If only,” he says, a phrase that she’s familiar with.

Yoona picks out the few shreds of meat in their soup and puts them in Ara’s bowl.

Ara doesn’t touch them. “Unnie, you caught the rabbit.”

“You’re the growing one.”

“Unnie.” Ara’s face is set. They look so alike that sometimes when Yoona looks at Ara, she feels like she’s staring at an image of herself years ago, a reflection of the past. But when she was Ara’s age, their parents were still alive, and she was well-fed and apple-cheeked, not the thin, frail thing that Ara is.

It hurts Yoona that she can’t give her little sister any more than this, the scantiest leftovers of the meat she trades at the market for all the things that she can’t find in the forest.

“You’re going to be thinner than me,” Ara says. “I can see your ribs when you’re changing.”

“I’m fine,” Yoona says, ignoring the hollow ache in her stomach. “If you don’t eat, you won’t grow. Didn’t you say that you want to be as tall as me one day? How will that happen if you don’t eat?”

“Unnie…” Ara’s eyes are bright, but she eats the rabbit.

Yoona chews on her piece of the tough, slightly burned bread that she salvaged from the bakery’s waste pile. Her stomach whines plaintively to her, but she ignores it, which is becoming easier and easier these days. She isn’t sure if that’s a good thing.

“Joohee asked me to come over tomorrow,” Ara says.

“Yeah?”

Joohee, the tailor’s daughter, is a good friend of Ara’s. She often invites Ara to her house, and Yoona is grateful for those nights because it means that Ara can actually have a good dinner. (She doesn’t ask why Ara doesn’t invite Joohee over – their home probably looks like a hut compared to Joohee’s house.)

“Can I go?” Ara asks, even though Yoona has never denied her anything she wanted before.

“Of course you can. Just don’t come home too late.”

Ara hesitates. “She asked me to sleep over.”

Even better. Joohee will probably give her breakfast too.

“Sure, sleep over if you want,” Yoona says with a smile. “Have fun, okay?”

Ara suddenly darts out of her chair and throws her arms around Yoona, burying her face in the crook of her neck. “Unnie, I love you,” she says, muffled into Yoona’s shoulder.

Yoona Ara’s hair, having to fight back the warm prickle behind her eyes.

“I love you too, Ara,” she murmurs. “I love you too.”

Yoona has been watching the house for days. It’s a nice house, not too big but more than sizable enough for the couple who live in it. His family owns the only apothecary in town, and every day he leaves early in the morning and comes back some time in the evening, dappled in the dying colours of sunset.

The wife rarely leaves the house. Yoona has seen her once or twice, and only in passing. She’s a small, meek thing, quite a few years younger than him, but no longer so young.

They have no children.

One night, the apothecary owners are hosting a party to celebrate the success of some new poultice they made (of course, the boy a few houses down from Yoona who broke his leg collecting herbs for them wasn’t invited), and Yoona watches as the man leaves the house with a cheery gait, a pale, petite woman on his arm, looking more like an accessory than a companion.

At the party, he’ll talk a lot, brag a lot, and most importantly, drink a lot. By the time he comes home, Yoona will be long gone, and with her, several of his most valuable possessions.

She waits until it’s dark and Ara is sleeping soundly before slipping out of her door and towards his house.

The door is easy enough to pick, and she looks at the main room – her house could have fit here – and mentally catalogues all the valuables she sees: the large, ornate vase holding several wilting flowers, the gold-plated watch on the table, the crystal wine glasses set upside down by the counter.

She can’t take anything that would be immediately missed. It’s better to dig up something that they don’t usually look at or use, something whose absence they wouldn’t notice.

On a whim, she takes the watch and holds onto it as she heads for the bedroom. (She’s always had a soft spot for watches.) She’s so occupied with her mental cataloguing that it takes her a few seconds to see that the large bed is occupied.

There’s a woman lying in it. She looks pale and sickly, her face small and white against the raven tumble of her hair, but her eyes are bright as they fix on Yoona.

“So, you must be Robin Hood,” she says in a low, husky voice.

Yoona’s mind is whirling. Who is this woman? No, girl – she looks so young, barely older than Yoona. What is she doing in the bed? The logical conclusion would be that she’s the man’s mistress, but he just left the house with his wife, so that makes no sense.

And most importantly, how does she know about Yoona?

“I’m not stupid, you know,” the girl says, as if answering her unspoken question. She straightens up, muffling a cough into her blanket. She has to be at least fifteen years younger than the man. “Everyone is ‘misplacing’ their gold or silver, and the pawn shop owner is always busy, and there are less people on the streets now.”

Yoona swallows. She knows this could and would happen one day – she couldn’t hope to keep what she was doing secret forever. But she didn’t expect to get ousted like this.

“I’ve seen you around before,” the girl says. Yoona has never seen her around, and it makes her wary to hear her say that. “You have a little sister, right? My friend is a teacher, I go to the school sometimes.”

“If you want to turn me in, then cut the chatter and do it,” Yoona says in a hard voice. “Leave my sister out of this. She doesn’t know anything.”

“I’m not going to turn you in.” Unexpectedly, the girl smiles: a bright, disarming expression. “Why would I do that?”

Yoona stares at her. She looks so frail cocooned in the blankets, eyes big and dark in her pale, pretty face. Yoona could take her out with a single punch. But what would she do next? There’s nothing she can do to stop the girl from talking.

“Are you going to kill me?” the girl asks, sounding amused. “You don’t look like a killer.”

“What, because I’m young? And female?”

“You don’t look like a killer,” the girl repeats, unfazed. She settles back into bed and closes her eyes. “You should go. If you take something, I’ll look like the prime suspect.”

Yoona’s mouth is dry. Her tongue flicks out to wet her lips, but it doesn’t help. If the girl turns her in, it’s all over, not just for her, but for Ara, and probably for Mr. Lee as well. It’s all over.

“Please,” she whispers.

The girl opens her eyes. “Can you pass me my tea?” she asks politely, gesturing to the mug on the table beside her.

Yoona’s body moves on its own. She picks up the mug and hands it to the girl, who takes a sip and grimaces. “It’s one of his special brews,” she explains. “It helps me sleep.”

Yoona just stares dumbly at her. She finishes the tea and strains to reach over to put the mug back. Yoona takes it from her and sets it down on the nightstand.

The girl smiles. She has a very pretty smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Yoona replies automatically. She has no idea what to make of this girl.

She yawns. “I told you, I’m not going to turn you in. If I had any intentions of doing it, I would have screamed.”

“Everyone around is off at the party.”

The girl smiles again. If she keeps doing that, Yoona won’t know what to do with herself, stare or jerk her eyes away.

“You’ve done your research, I see.”

“I…” Yoona falters. “What do you want from me?”

“Right now? I want you to put that watch back where you found it and leave.”

“Or what?” Yoona asks coolly.

“Or nothing.” The girl looks at her. “What can I do against you? I’m sick, and even if I weren’t, I’m sure you could knock me out easily.”

“Then why do you think I’ll listen to you?”

“Because,” she says simply, “you don’t look like a criminal.”

Yoona’s mouth twitches up. “I look like a Robin Hood?”

“Please.” This time it’s the girl who says it.

Yoona can’t explain why she listens to the girl, but she nods and takes a step back from the bed, towards the door.

“I won’t tell anyone you’ve been here.”

“If you do, there’s nothing I can do,” Yoona says dully. “They’ll kill me, after a beating first, and who knows what they’ll do to my sister?”

“Are you emotionally blackmailing me?” the girl asks with a smile.

“No, I’m just telling you the truth.”

The girl looks solemn. “I won’t turn you in,” she repeats, “and I won’t tell anyone you’ve been here. I can’t give you anything other than my word.”

“I’ll hold you to your word then,” Yoona says, overtaken by recklessness and something she can’t describe.

She leaves the watch where she found it, her pulse lurching, her heart beating twice for every tick of the watch.

A/N: I have no idea or recollection of what is happening after this point lmao.

“You—” Yoona breaks off. “Will this get you into trouble with your husband?”

“I’m his new wife, and I’m ten years younger than his other one. Trust me, he would shower me with jewellery if he thinks it would please me.”

Ah, that explains it, then. Some men – the especially wealthy and privileged ones – take more than one wife, usually when their first one can’t give them a child.

Yoona feels another stab of emotion for the girl. The second wife. The baby maker.

“Does he?” she blurts out. “Please you, I mean?”

The girl’s mouth lifts at the corners. This expression isn’t a smile. “What’s your name?”

Yoona blinks. That was nowhere near her question.

“I’m not going to turn you in,” the girl says. Promises. “You can trust me.”

“I don’t even know you,” Yoona points out.

“I don’t know you, and I’m going to sleep in front of you knowing you plan to steal my jewellery.”

“Even if you were wide awake, you couldn’t stop me.”

The girl smiles with her eyes as well as – they curve into crescents, but they still manage to glimmer – and Yoona thinks that if she smiles like this at her husband, no wonder he wouldn’t mind lavishing her with riches. A smile like that is priceless.

“My name is Tiffany.”

“Yoona,” she says, before she regrets it. “Your name is – interesting.”

“I’m not from around here,” Tiffany says. That makes a lot of sense. She’s nothing like the girls Yoona knows. “It’s nice to meet you, Yoona.” She yawns. “I’ve always wanted to meet Robin Hood.”

Tiffany drifts off to sleep, leaving Yoona standing there with nothing in her way, nothing to stop what she came for.

Yoona’s thoughts immediately drift to the jewellery box. Tiffany had practically told her to go through it. But she finds herself incapable of moving. It feels wrong, somehow. She had rarely felt guilty about stealing – they had so much, they would barely miss what she took, and if they did, it wasn’t a real ache, like hunger gnawing at your stomach, or an untreated wound festering into infection because medicine was too expensive – but guilt is weakening her resolve now.

She remembers Ara, and the boy with the broken leg, and the starving people on the street who’ve been reduced to flesh and bones and burning eyes. She ducks down and fishes the jewellery box out from under the bed.

The box is made of beautiful, polished wood, with golden buckles and a pink stone set into the lid. It looks like a gem on its own.

Yoona hesitates for a heartbeat, two, before she opens the box. There’s nothing of worth in it. There are letters, carefully tied up with pink string, the paper yellowed with age.

A/N: Guess there’s some kind of time skip here where they’ve grown closer?? I DON’T REMEMBER ANYTHING.

“He doesn’t care about me. To him, I’m just a pretty face and a pair of legs that are supposed to open at his command.”

“Does he hurt you?” Yoona whispers. “Does he raise his hand at you?”

“No, he’s not violent.” Tiffany pauses. “I would rather have him hit me than – how he touches me. But he’s my husband, right, so I’m supposed to ‘serve’ him. I’m bad at cooking, and cleaning, and I have no idea what to do with kids, so there’s really only one thing I’m good for.”

“Don’t say that,” Yoona says fiercely. “That’s not true. You’re much more than a pretty face and – and a nice body.”

“Yoona.”

“You’re worth ten of him,” Yoona says. “He doesn’t deserve you at all.”

“I knew what I was getting into, marrying him.” Tiffany says. “I did it for money, and he gives me a lot of it, so I shouldn’t complain.”

“He doesn’t deserve you if he doesn’t respect you.”

A flicker of a smile dances across Tiffany’s face. “Yoona,” she says softly, patiently. “He never even married me officially; I’m not even his wife, really, just someone he bought from a starving village. I’m just a , really.”

“You’re not!” Yoona shoots to her feet, anger filling her, hot and acidic in the pit of her stomach, almost burning through her skin. “Don’t ever call yourself that again. You’re kind, and brave, and generous, and beautiful – you’re not a , or anything like that. Don’t degrade yourself with a name like that. Don’t.”

“Yoona,” Tiffany says quietly.

“Don’t,” Yoona repeats stubbornly. She isn’t even sure what she means by don’t anymore. Don’t put yourself down, definitely. Don’t go back to him, maybe. Don’t be his, wistfully.

“Yoona,” Tiffany says again, like a promise. “I won’t.”

A/N: ...Yes I can't believe I wrote YoonFany either. 2013 me was a different person, evidently.

Ara is Yoo Ara formerly of Hello Venus, who people have said looks like YoonYul's love child. Her briefly mentioned friend Joohee is Alice from Hello Venus. These are the only two facts I remember from this fic lmao. I have no clue what I wanted to do with it??