Okay it wasn't that far.

Byun Baekhyun studied the tiny garden that was four stories below him. He stared from one of three windows that belonged to the top floor of the New York City brownstone of Steven and Tiffany, his guardians. Not that they 'guarded' him very much. Steve was a CIA friend of his dad's from way back when. "Way back when" was the type of vagueness he was used to growing up in a spy environment.

"Baekhyun?"

He flinched at the sound of his own name. Tiffany's voice was breathy and full of fake intimacy, yet reached all corners of the house without losing any volume.

"Baek-hyuuuuuun!" Tiffany sang impatiently from one floor below.

Baekhyun pushed the window open and it creaked with age.

"Baekhyun? Our guests will be here any minute! Come down now! Steve asked you to set the table half an hour ago!" She was so whiny.

Baekhyun smelled bland casserole flavours drifting upstairs towards him, mixed with Tiffany's too-strong perfume. Steve was sweet and a terrible cook but he was no doubt better than his airhead wife. The unofficial rule for when company was arriving was that Steve prepared the food and Tiffany prepared herself.

Baekhyun grabbed five dollars, stuffed it into his pant's pocket. Keys or no keys? That was the question. No keys, Baekhyun decided before carefully climbing out of the window. Even if Tiffany wasn't aware of it, Baekhyun had zero intentions of eating dinner with the guests, they were certain to have a lot of questions for the blow-in off the streets about his parents, his past, his parents, his future, his parents, his parents and Baekhyun just could not answer those types of questions right now. People over the age of thirty had a need to ask 'young people' far too many questions. In fact, Baekhyun had never agreed to show his face at this dinner, he had told Tiffany that he would rather jump out of the window and he hadn't been kidding.

Baekhyun could smell autumn in the air as mid-October had arrived and the overwhelming stench of garlic came from a nearby Italian restaurant. He missed his old life with his parents in a normal suburb where he would leave the house and smell a fire from the chimnies of the houses around him. That life felt like it belonged to a different person.

He knelt on the windowsill and slowly lowered himself, looking for somewhere for the tip of his shoe to grip onto. His arms were trembling from the difficulty of having to hold up his entire body weight on the tiny ledge. At last, he found somewhere to put his foot and now all he had to do was find another. Suddenly, the piece of brick his foot was on snapped and broke off as he had just released his fingers from the ledge and he went down. He didn't scream but merely winced, not losing his cool just yet. He fell to the first floor before his hands managed to grab the windowsill there which hurt like a , his arms wouldn't be without pain now for a couple of days. However, he did not panic and kept his breathing at a normal pace since he was a freak who didn't feel fear. Any other normal human being would have their pants out of fear but of course he didn't. He would never be afraid of anything, ever. Scientists had done some experimenting on him when he was a kid and had come to the conclusion that either the gene that controlled fear was missing or just inactive.

Baekhyun heard a noise from inside the window and swore to himself in his head. It was Tiffany. She had heard the noise that Baekhyun had made and was looking out of the window into the darkness. Baekhyun despised her and had to control himself from shoving her into the wall every time he saw her stupid, plastic face. 

Baekhyun's fingers were really struggling to hold him up now and were cramping up. Somewhere in a perfect alternate universe, Tiffany would have just thought it was a pigeon and ignored the noise, leaving Baekhyun to escape the house in peace. But no, not in this universe. She came right up to the window where Baekhyun hung from, trying to open it but struggling since it was a bit old and dingy. Baekhyun glanced over his shoulder to see the distance between his feet and the ground. It was much closer now than it had been before. By now, Tiffany had unlocked the window and caught sight of the young boy dangling there.

"Jesus Christ! Baekhyun? Is that you? Baekhyun!"

Baekhyun pulled himself up slightly and caught Tiffany's eyes for a second. The anger in those green eyes was like seeing a starving tiger chasing prey and her fingers were so close to Baekhyun's.

it, he thought and dropped himself from the ledge landing on his feet but then his hips were brought down and his  landed too followed by his hands. He stood, wincing a bit at the pain before wiping off his hands and .

"Baekhyun! You get back in here this instant!" Tiffany's shrill voice screeched down the street. Baekhyun really and truly hadn't wanted to make a big deal and he pitied leaving Steve behind to deal with the banshee. "Baek-hyuuuuun!"

He ran out of the back garden, climbing over the fence and onto the streets of New York City, hearing Tiffany's yells for him all the way to Bleecker Street where it was drowned out by the crowds of people. On this street you could buy so many different things whether it was the best and most expensive cup of coffee in the world or a statue of fertility from somewhere in Laos or even just Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Baekhyun wanted the doughnuts. He walked past the stores that were selling fruit out in the open, racks of cheap clothing being sold for ten dollars and a weird looking salad bar before he arrived in front of the doughnuts.

He stared at all of the different flavours and options, his mouth watering as he took them all in. He didn't know what he should get, sugar coated jam ones, glazed, boston cream, some fancy oreo looking ones? Who was he kidding? He wanted triple chocolate and nothing else. Those were his favourites. Baekhyun gave the cashier his five dollar bill and took the change after ordering, having to stop himself from drooling as he watched the woman fill up a box of them. They barely exchanged a hello even though they saw each other pretty much everyday and Baekhyun loved that. He loved that in New York city people weren't as friendly or prying as in other places. It was perfect for Baekhyun since he himself wasn't very friendly and had lots of secrets as well as a huge hunger for doughnuts.

He denied the bag he was offered and proudly took his doughnuts in just the box. What kind of man were you if you were gonna get four dollars worth of doughnuts and not even show them off to the world? His feet went into auto-pilot mode and led him to Washington Square Park, his favourite place in the world. He sat on one of the benches and started to happily eat his doughnuts. This place was perfect and in comparison to that brownstone with Tiffany and Steven which was hell, this was his heaven.

 

~

 

"Don't move."

Alright. Baekhyun didn't turn his head but looked through the corner of his eyes to try and see who this man was. He could feel the cold metal of what seemed like a gun pressed against the back of his head. He strained his eyes enough to see that it was that guy AJ that he'd beaten the crap out of a few weeks ago as well as identify in the police line-up as the guy who had slashed Do Kyungsoo. He understood why this man would want to scare and intimidate him but did he want to really kill him?

"Don't move even a centimetre you stupid piece of !"

Baekhyun sighed and looked longingly at his doughnuts on his lap.

"I mean it!"

Jesus, he was going to dig a hole into his head with the amount of pressure he was putting on his skull. He smelled like alcohol and he was breathing heavily onto Baekhyun's head.

"I know you killed Joey."

Ah, so that's what this was. Baekhyun had noticed from the way the swastikas had been newly painted around the park that one of the gang members must have been killed or died or something.

"You're gonna pay for killing him."

Baekhyun swallowed, unsure of himself. This was serious, it wasn't just a guy looking to frighten him anymore, this guy genuinely wanted to kill him and would do it. He remembered Joey as one of the most recognisable of the Neo-Nazi white supremecy group that often hung around in the park. He remmebered that he had also beaten him up as well as AJ though on seperate occasions. It made sense to Baekhyun now, Joey was dead and the group all thought that Baekhyun was the one who had killed him but he knew that there probably a lot more people who would have wanted Joey dead and not just himself.

"I didn't kill Joey," he said slowly in a clear voice.

"Bull!" AJ shouted and moved the gun to press it against Baekhyun's temple with even more pressure than previously. "Don't try to mess with me. You're gonna die because you killed him and I know that you did it."

Baekhyun felt his pulse beating against the gun and AJ put both hands on the gun to keep it steady. This wasn't looking too good for Baekhyun. This meant that the whole group were out to kill him, even if AJ wasn't succesful right now his life was a prize to be won by the group. Baekhyun slowly moved his hand along the park bench.

"Don't ing move!"

Baekhyun felt a wave of anger course through him as the gun was pushed harder against his temple. He would so love to break this guy's arm but he knew that in this vulnerable position there was no way that that was going to happen. He took a deep breath to try and calm his anger before he opened his mouth to speak to AJ.

"AJ, don't do it," he whispered. "This is a mistake. You're wasting your time-"

"Shut up!" he screamed. "Don't say anything!"

Baekhyun silently prayed that something would come along to distract the man. An ambulance driving buy or even a simple car honk but it seemed like the world around them had frozen to a standstill. It was unbelievably calm when all he needed was the slightest intervention from something, anything. He felt himself drift off into a state of dreaming, like an out-of-body experience where he could ask himself questions. Is this the end? Is this how it feels to die?

The gun was shaking in his hand so he tightened his grip on it, his finger moving towards the trigger. Baekhyun could see the muscles of his arms tightening as he tried to steady the gun in his hands. Everything was silent and still like no one else even existed in this world that he and AJ lived in. His muscles pulled and Baekhyun's heart stopped. The trigger was pulled.

Baekhyun's mind was free from anything in that moment. Nothing was happening, it was just completely blank. So much understanding, regret and other emotions came into his head in the space of half a second it didn't seem to make any sort of sense-

Click.

His whole body was shaking. He turned to AJ who was also in shock.

It hadn't fired. His brain was still safely inside his skull.

For now, unless he didn't get up and take his chance while he had it. He quickly stood and grabbed AJ, flipping him over his shoulder and forcing him to the ground with a loud thud. The gun skidded off over into the bushes and Bakehyun took off as fast as his legs would take him. In any other circumstance he'd have stayed and