Summary:
It had been nearly a decade since he had been on the other side of the estate wall. He was going to find out what was beyond it no matter the cost.

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“He’s spacing out, not completing his studies… The other night when he was supposed to be going over his piano lesson his eyes kept wandering around the room. What if he’s acting like this because he’s-”

“We don’t know that, and if you jump to those conclusions things are only going to get worse.”

“I know, I know, it’s just… what if he’s… Everyone says it happens in the third or fourth generation after, and no one from my generation showed any signs. We would have by now… What if he starts showing signs while he’s at school?”

“Then we’ll pull him out and be able to monitor him.”

“Won’t he ask questions?”

“People get home-schooled all the time; we’ll just act like it’s a normal thing.”

“What’s ‘home-schooled’ mean?” The pair sitting at the table jolted, looking back at Kihyun slowly, the little boy finding something about their smiles strange.

“It’s where you don’t have to get up early and ride on a big bus with those mean children that tease you about your height,” his mother replied, getting up from her chair to kneel down in front of him, reaching up to his cheek.

“But if I don’t ride the bus, then I have to wait until lunch time to trade things for lunch with Yoongi,” Kihyun stated, cheeks puffing out in a pout. The smile on his mother’s lips remained, while her eyebrows drew close together as she took one of his hands in her own.

“Sweetie, the thing is… You won’t be able to have lunch with your friends during the school week.” Kihyun stepped back, yanking his hand from hers.

“If that’s what home-schooled means, I don’t want it!” He exclaimed, the odd smile falling from his mother’s face. She opened to reply, the little boy bolting from the room before she had the chance to get another word out.

 

The harsh sound of a wrongly struck key snapped the dark-haired male from the memory, looking down at his still fingers. He wasn’t sure how long his attention had been fixed downward, lifting his head when he heard a voice call out to him.

“Kihyun, are you feeling alright?” Lips pulled into the best smile he could manage, and he turned his eyes back to the sheet music in front of him, starting the page over.

“Of course, mom, my finger just slipped,” he assured her, feeling her eyes locked on the back of his neck even after he reached out to turn to the next page of his book. “Is there something you needed?” he asked in turn, picturing the way she was likely fussing with her lower lip using her teeth.

“No, it’s nothing. I like watching you play.” The lie fell so easily from his mother’s mouth, Kihyun’s smile falling from his own. “Your dad will be home soon, come help me set the table,” she added, Kihyun’s shoulders relaxing as the notes filling the room came to an end and he closed the key case, fingers lingering over the smooth texture.

He knew he wasn’t the only child in his family that had watchful parents- one of his cousins had it worse with how often he got sick. That didn’t make things any easier, and he was often left wondering if this was normal. Most often his theory was no, considering how few children were subjected to being home-schooled; not to mention how weird his friends thought it was that he was learning English when he was seven. He had also been playing the piano since shortly after turning six giving him little time outside of school to run around with the other children in the neighborhood let alone the ones he made friends with in school for the first couple years he was allowed to attend.

He hadn’t set foot in a classroom in close to nine years, as much as he hoped to go to the same middle or high school as his old friend Yoongi if the other even lived around the town anymore. He was also pretty sure that most parents didn’t stare at their children as if they were some kind of alien creature when they did weird things that children did while figuring out the ways of the world. He didn’t think he would ever forget the panic his parents had been sent into when he a piece of chalk when he was three, or when he caught a firefly and brought it into the house to introduce it to them. It was as if they were there waiting for him to do something specific, while at the same time feared him doing whatever it was. Once when he was ten, his other cousin had told him about her parents; they were talking about her late at night, and she could only vaguely make out something along the lines of a sickness that their family got.

When he had in turn asked his granny about it, a sad look had entered her eyes and she patted him on the head telling him it was best not to worry – or tell his parents what he had been told. The latter part of her warning unsettled him, but the old woman had never steered him wrong in his eighteen years. What would make her start now? Turning on the piano bench, Kihyun stood, making his way from the room and to the kitchen, silent as he aided his mother in setting up for dinner.

 

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” he felt himself ask, the figure with a blurred face getting closer though their face didn’t become any clearer, and they instead passed him without a reply. They didn’t even seem to notice he was standing there trying to get their attention.

What was making him ask random people riddles? Let alone ones that didn’t make sense while something stirred inside him to answer his own riddle. Was it even his own? The voice coming from his mouth was much deeper that how he thought himself to sound… What was going on? He continued down the street, pausing outside an antique shop that had a couple of full-body mirrors in the main display window, flinching a little when his reflection was nowhere to be seen. His eyes closed against his will, feeling his shoulders rise with a deep breath, and when they opened once again there was a strange tanned skinned figure in the mirror, cheeks bunched up as he smiled, eyes turning to crescents.

“Mommy that man has bunny ears!” His attention shifted to the little girl tugging at her mother’s hand, pointing at him with her other, and he found himself kneeling down in front of her.

“Are you Alice?” The blank faced child tilted her head to the side, quickly pulled away from him to continue down the street and he stood, watching the two of them fade in the distance. “Alice, where are you?” he heard himself ask softly, crossing the street as car horns blared and he startled awake.

 

“‘Alice’?” he mumbled, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “Who’s Alice? I don’t know an Alice,” he continued, sliding his legs out from under his comforter, rubbing the bottom of his feet against the soft but cold carpet as he blinked his eyes into focus. The soft rattle of the door handle was the only warning he got before his bedroom door opened, his mother looking around the room as she peeked her head inside.

“Kihyunnie, are you… alone in here?” She asked, and his eyebrows scrunched together a little as he looked to her.

“Who else would I have in here?” he asked in return, pulling his cold feet back under the covers to cross his legs under them, facing his mother.

“I heard you talking to someone.”

“Mom, I’m not allowed outside of the estate grounds. Who would I be hiding in my room, I don’t know anyone,” he argued with a small irritated huff. Fussing with her lip she looked around the room once more, nodding as if she had finally decided that he was telling the truth and there wasn’t someone curled in one of the corners of his room, though her expression didn’t relax.

“Are you feeling alright this morning?”

“Aside from a weird dream, yeah I’m fine.” He tensed as soon as the words left his lips, groaning at the interrogation he knew would follow his reply, rubbing his face with one had as his mother entered the room and sat on the foot of his bed.

“Weird dream? What was it about? What made it weird?” she fired off question after question, reaching out to touch his forehead, assessing if he had a fever or not and he pushed her hands away, frowning up at her, thinking as fast as he could.

“Mom, it’s not something that I want to talk to you about.” Her expression turned from worry to shock.

“Kihyunnie, you can talk to me about anything, no matter what it is I’ll always be here to listen to you,” she stated, the dark-haired male gripping at the cover sheet of his bed.

“Mom, I don’t want to talk about it,” he tried again, cutting her off when she started to speak. “Mom, I am a growing boy, considered an adult to almost everyone. And as such, there are certain things that boys my age don’t want to talk to their moms about, and that is completely normal.” His voice was slow, doing his best to keep it firm as he felt a fire dusting his cheeks. His mother stared at him with an almost blank expression before she coughed a little, breaking eye contact, standing and stepping out of his room turning back to him as she took hold of the door handle.

“I’ll go get your father, how about that?” She asked, shutting the door before he could even open his mouth to start to reply and he groaned, flopping back onto his pillow.

Alice, whoever you are, I hope you don’t have hover parents like I do who watch you even when you sleep, he thought, tilting his head back to look at the morning sky through the window of the wall that the head of his bed was pressed up against. Perhaps if he pushed his dresser in front of his door he could get out and be far from the estate by the time that either of his parents were able to get inside to ask him why he had barricaded his door? The knock on his door pulling him from his escape plan, looking to his father as the door opened, groaning a little- he had hoped that his mother wouldn’t actually go and get him, and he rolled onto his side, pulling the comforter over himself to hide.

 

After nearly a week of dreaming of himself as a black-haired man with weird bunny ears and his mother somehow managing to become even more of a hover parent than she had been for the last several years, the brunet felt himself snap. Dressing himself in a pair of plain denim jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt, he tugged on a pair of sneakers, attention falling to his dresser once he was finished. Getting on one side of it, he grabbed a hold of the top while his other palm pressed against the flat side, and he took small steps in his attempt to push it in front of his door as quietly as he could. With the squeak of the dresser legs against his wooden floor he wasn’t sure exactly how quiet it ended up being, but at least he found some reassurance in how heavy the piece of furniture was.

Turning his back to the bedroom door he set his sights on the window above his bed, crawling onto and over the top cover, standing once he reached the headboard, using it to help him stand on the plush mattress, unlocking and sliding the window open. He grabbed onto the windowsill, pushing himself up until he was able to hook one knee up onto it, slipping his other leg over the edge, looking around the back yard. Taking a deep breath as there was no one around – not like he expected someone to be – and let himself slip off the edge and onto the grass. One wall jumped, one to go, he thought, keeping himself low to the ground as he approached the cold grey wall that surrounded the entire estate, reaching up and frowning as only his fingertips were able to hook over the top. He knew the wall had always seemed too tall to get over, but from his room it looked like he had a chance.

Letting his arms drop he glanced along both sides, the well-kept grounds offering nothing for him to climb on for leverage. He turned a mildly irritated glance up, bending his knees and giving a hard push against the ground, grabbing onto the ledge while his feet dangled, unable to reach the ground anymore. The first couple of attempts he made to pull himself up didn’t get him far, almost scraping his nose against the gritty wall as his hands started to sting from the texture. His feet found their way to the surface, looking for any and every shred of resistance between the rubber of his shoes and the wall, pulling himself slowly up so he was able to lean the top half of his torso over the top of the wall. Once he saw the other side he hooked one arm, then the other over to hold onto the outer side of the estate wall, finding it a frightening balancing act to swing his right leg over while avoiding toppling to the foreign side. Pushing himself up into a sitting position while straddling the wall he looked over the grounds once more, carefully slipping his left leg over as he turned, back to the house, taking one more deep breath before he pushed himself over the ledge.

A huff of breath left his lips as his feet hit the ground, stumbling a little from the force, looking up at the wall of the estate once he regained his balance. His open mouth pulled into a smile, a soft laugh falling from it as he stepped back, turning and making his way down the street. He had done it. He had really done it! He was beyond the border for the first time in- how long had it been? The brunet had lost track of the years that he had been kept inside, breaking out into a jog, putting more and more steps between himself and the prison his parents had locked him away in, eyes scanning over his surroundings to try and gather as much of it as he could.

Who knew how long he had before his parents noticed and sent out some kind of dramatic search party for him? One of the houses a few blocks down the road caught his eye, causing him to slow to a stop, hesitating for a long moment while he tried to remember how to get his legs to move and carry him up to the front door. It was an even longer pause between stopping and reaching out to knock on the door, stepping back once he had. He had only been waiting a moment when he heard muffled footsteps on the other side, causing him to perk up as the door was opened, eyes landing on a sheepish looking boy with short dark hair, only half of his face showing with how close he was standing to the door.

“Hi,” Kihyun started, holding up one had to give a little wave. “My name’s Yoo Kihyun. Does a boy by the name of Min Yoongi live here?” He asked, heart racing in his chest only to drop down to his stomach at the boy shaking his head.

“Gone. Moved away. We live here now.” The reply was just loud enough for Kihyun to hear, not making it any easier to take the news.

“Ah, alright. Thank you, I’m sorry for bothering you,” he said in return, offering another wave, turning and walking away from the house. Why had he thought that Yoongi would still be living in the same house? Just because his own family had lived in the estate for decades, if not centuries, didn’t mean that all families were going to be the same way. Still the news hurt, and he found the pep missing from his step as he continued down the road, both Yoongi’s house and the estate behind him. He ended up coming to another stop, staring down at the ground, then giving a harsh shake of his head.

So what if he wasn’t there anymore? That didn’t change the fact that here he was, on his own, for the first time. Lifting his head once more with the trace of a smile on his lips once more he continued towards the tall buildings with the assumption that was the way into the city. To say the city was louder than he expected it to be would be a drastic understatement, and the brunet found himself turning as he looked around, stumbling here, knocking into people there, losing track of how often he was offering apologies, eyes wide as if he would take in more of what he saw the wider they were. His foot even slipped off the curb, which ended up being a very good thing in that it got him to notice the crosswalk sign showing a red hand and he scrambled back up on the sidewalk as cars started zipping by him, and he let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair, then rubbed at his face.

When he opened his eyes, his vision was a little blurred, and he could have sworn that he saw someone in the crosswalk- rubbing at both of his eyes this time and blinking until they decided to focus, he felt his heart stop. Sitting in the middle of the crosswalk was a man with almost army-short black hair, looking like he was panting from exhaustion- but what stood out most was the floppy white rabbit ears. He didn’t seem bothered or concerned with his choice in a place to rest, the crosswalk soon flooding with people as the red hand turned to a white walking figure and Kihyun stiffly walked to the center of the crosswalk.

“I really don’t think that’s a good place to stop for a nap,” he stated, the figure looking up at him, making his heart jolt. That face- it was the same one that he had in those weird dreams he kept having, searching for whoever ‘Alice’ was. The rabbit-eared male stared at him for a second before his face lit up in a bright smile and he stood, turning to face the other.

“Alice!” he stated, Kihyun giving him a blank look.

“I’m- I’m sorry?” the brunet said, looking over his shoulder, finding no one behind him- as well as taking note that the timer on the crosswalk was nearing its end and he waved his hand to gesture the strange man to follow him out of the middle of the road. The other followed him, slow enough for Kihyun to start to panic about him getting hit by one of the cars, but fast enough to actually make it in time. Letting out a sigh of relief, he looked up at the tall bunny-eared male. “Why were you sitting in the middle of the road?” he demanded, the high-cheeked smile never wavering.

“I was looking for you.”

“I have no idea who you are, so how were you looking for me? Did my parents send you?” he asked, dread creeping into his stomach. Had they found his empty bed already? He took a step back from the black-haired male, watching the way confusion mixed with the look on his eyes, head cocking to the side a little.

“Parents?” he echoed, Kihyun eyeing him as dread turned to suspicion.

“Wait… Why were you looking for me? Who sent you?” The figure perked back up, confusion vanishing.

“I sent me, because I needed to find you, Alice.”

“My name isn’t Alice; I think you’re mixing me up with someone else. Glad to see that you’re not playing in traffic anymore, so I’m just gonna… go.” He stated, turning to walk away, the other’s voice making him freeze.

“How doth the crocodile improve his shining tail?”

“He pours water of the Nile on every golden scale.” Kihyun felt his lips move with the reply, one that made no sense to him, feeling foreign on his tongue while his mind itched as if searching for a long-lost memory. He stared at the black-haired male, who continued to simply smile at him, and Kihyun found himself taking a step back.

“Only Alice can offer the correct answer-” The words barely left the strange male’s mouth before Kihyun turned, running back down the road he had taken to get into town, slowing to a stop when his chest and legs began to burn and he bent in half at the waist, gripping his knees as he wheezed. He turned his head to look back the street, the panic that had bubbled up in his chest subsiding when he found it just as empty as it had been earlier when he had ventured towards the town. Coughing a little as he straightened up, Kihyun walked the short distance left to get to the wall of the Estate, starting the struggle of getting back over it and into his room once again.

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A/N: I'm working on trying to get back into writing with this! But if people don't seem interested, I might not, which is kinda sad because I have 5 chapters completed, and about 12-15 planned for this. But we'll see, if you like it comment or message me about it, quarentine is very lonely, lol