It wasn't one big thing that sent him out the door, it was the accumulation of small things, mostly words, that had spread through his bloodstream until they had become a part of him, much like a virus, spreading and mutating and reproducing until it had obliterated everything in it path. In quiet moments, when he was alone, he would pluck the words from the air and let them linger on his tongue and lips, tasting them, then spitting them back out. Bastard. Useless. Stupid. Those were the kindest and the least painful. The harshest words would crawl down his throat like an expensive liquor, burning their way into his belly to simmer, warm and unforgiving. 

It took only a brief moment of clarity for him to break. When the breathing next to him had evened into a faint snore he carefully unwound himself from the sheets and dressed in the dim light of the bathroom nightlight. He grabbed his wallet and shoes and let himself out into the night.

The city was alive and impersonal, a perfect distraction from his grief. He kept mostly to the busiest streets, a stranger in a strange land, his Japanese just barely passable. It was not surprising that when he saw a piece of home etched across a storefront he went in. Two Moons was written in English and Hangul large enough to obscure the details behind the plate glass, but the door was open, so he took the invitation.

The walls inside were covered in art and lettering and the glass cases held jewelry that sparked under the bright lights. It was clean and orderly and smelled faintly of orange and antiseptic. A brief jingle signified a door being opened and a man, roughly the same age as himself, bowed and greeted him as he stepped into the front room and closed the door behind him.

*

He was used to vagrants and drunk college students wandering in at various points of the night, it was one of the downfalls of keeping late hours, but the man who stood in the middle of his shop was neither. He was on the small side, dressed neatly in black skinnies, an oversize red sweater, and well worn black converse hi-tops. If it weren't for the haunted look in his eyes and the careful way he carried himself, he would think the man was a high school student, but this was someone past the awkwardness of late adolescence. He liked the way the man's lips formed into a pout as he took in the art along the walls.  When he finally spoke, his voice was rich and surprisingly deeper than he had been expecting.

"Do you speak Korean?" he asked in halting Japanese.

He responded in his native language to set the man at ease.

"Yes, I do."

"This is a tattoo parlor?"

"Yes. We do piercings as well."

The man just absently nodded his head.

"Did you want a tattoo? Or a piercing?"

"Yes?"

"Are you drunk?"

"No. Definitely not."

"I didn't think so, but I have to ask. My name is Kai." He bowed and then offered his hand in a western style greeting. There was something about this man that was intriguing. Kai was rarely curious. He was content to run his shop and let people drift in and out of his life, collecting stories from his customers and turning them into art. But there was something about this man, he was like a lost little boy and Kai wanted to help him find his home.

"Baekhyun." He also bowed and gently shook the hand that had been offered to him.

*

A/N: I started this for a contest but missed the deadline and never finished. But I like the beginning