He wasn’t sure what he had done to make her love him so much; it was almost as if just him breathing was enough to make her happy. She peeled another piece of bread off and attempted to feed it to him, pouting when he shook his head and gave it back to her. He wondered if this was what it was like to have a sibling that loved you; he was so used to Seok-jin and his hating ways. When he was sure she was full, he quickly ate the rest of it, constantly checking to see if that woman would appear.

He hadn’t meant to forget to buy them lunch; he had been so preoccupied with finding the school and getting off at the right stop that buying food had been the last thing on his mind.

“N,” she said as she climbed onto the bed, pulling the tray off his lap and placing it on the floor. He turned to look at her and flinched when he saw how close her face was to his. But she didn’t seem worried about that, focused on something else entirely. She reached out and grabbed a lock of his hair, tugging on it. “Why is your hair changing color?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your hair was gray when you first came. That’s why I thought you were an ahjussi at first. But now your hair is turning black. Why?”

“Shoot, does it look bad?” He looked around the room for a mirror, biting his lip when he couldn’t find any. He’d been so overwhelmed with everything else that his hair had been the last thing he thought of. He wondered what his school thought when he came in with his half dyed head.

“You do look funny. I was just wondering why your hair changes colors. Mine doesn’t do that.”

“My hair is naturally black; it’s just turning back to its natural color.”

“But how did you change colors? Could I change mine?”

“I don’t think your mom would let you. I can imagine her beating you silly if you came in with gray hair.”

“But why did you do it?”

“I didn’t do it. Seok-jin did. He put hair dye in my shampoo, so when I went to shower it turned my hair gray. It’s been over a month since that happened, so it only makes sense that it’d start coming out.” She climbed to her knees and grabbed his hair in both hands, running her fingers through his thick hair. He hadn’t thought about it in a while, but his hair was getting a little long. He’d been meaning to cut it before he came here, and now it was almost to his shoulders. “Do you have scissors?”

She didn’t answer as she ran over to the boxes in the corner of the room, rummaging through them until she pulled out a huge pair. She handed it to him and watched him curiously when he got up. “Where are you going?”

“To cut my hair.”

“What?” she asked in alarm, running after him to the bathroom across the hall, thinking nothing of following him inside. “Why are you cutting your hair?”

“It’s getting too long. Don’t you cut your hair when it’s too long?” She didn’t answer him again, so he turned his attention back to his hair, wincing at how bad his hair looked. The next time Seok-jin was brought up he’d have to give him a stern talking to.

As much as it hurt him, he cut off every gray strand he could find. He hated cutting his hair this short, but since he wasn’t able to go out and buy hair dye, this would have to do. As he worked, Saet-byul made it a mission to pick up every strand of hair, collecting it in her tiny hands and stuffing it in her pockets. Eventually, there was no trace of gray in his hair, though he was barely able to run his fingers through the strands. Saet-byul clapped her hands.

“You look so different N.”

“Yeah, well, this probably won’t happen again. I don’t like my hair this short.”

“I liked your hair when you first came.”

“You just liked that I looked like an old man.” She giggled as she followed him back into her bedroom, jumping back onto her bed. “Hey…what are you going to do with my hair?”

“Secret!” she laughed as she dived under the covers, peeking her head out to stick her tongue out at him. Chuckling, he tossed the scissors over to the boxes and launched himself on her, wrapping her tightly in the blankets to keep her from moving and squeezing her tight. She shrieked with laughter, fidgeting as she tried to free herself. “Stop! That tickles!”

“Tickles? You mean like this?” He started tickling her sides and she started snorting, rolling over in his arms as she tried to get away. “Ah, now I know you’re ticklish.” She finally freed an arm, fruitlessly trying to hold his hands back, and she was just starting to laugh for real-

“What are you doing?” Both froze when the door slammed open, their eyes slowly trailing up to the furious looking woman in the doorway. He quickly pulled away and Saet-byul unraveled herself from the blankets, sitting up solemnly. The woman’s eyes fell on him, an eyebrow rising. “What happened to your hair?”

He lowered his eyes, avoiding her gaze. “It was getting long.”

She ignored him as she looked back to Saet-byul, the sweet, sickening way she had been treating her gone. “I thought I told you to do your homework.” Saet-byul silently jumped down from his lap as she grabbed her discarded bag, pulling out all of her books and throwing them onto the bed. “I’m giving you one last chance to get your things done. If not, you’re sitting in the family room and doing it in there, understand?” The blood drained from both of their faces as they nodded, only able to relax when she was gone.

Neither spoke as they silently pulled out their homework, his hands pausing as he looked down at his textbooks. “Are you not going to do your homework?” He looked over to see Saet-byul staring at him, her books strewn across her lap.

“I will.”

“Is your stuff really hard too?” He gave her a quizzical look and she sighed dramatically, throwing her pencil down. “I didn’t understand a single thing in class today. I’ve never felt so stupid. Why are there letters in math? Isn’t math just numbers?” He reached over and picked up her workbook, flipping through the pages. “We had a reading class and English class too. They used so many big words; I didn’t know any of them.” She was watching him flip through the pages, biting her lip. “Do you know what that all is?”

“Of course I do, I’ve taken all these classes before. But for you not to know…how much has your mother taught you?”

Her cheeks reddened as she lowered her head, almost as if she was embarrassed. “She said it wasn’t important to learn that kind of stuff. I only know how to read and write.”

His mouth dropped slightly, shocked that something that seemed to only appear in movies was actually sitting right in front of him. How did that woman get away with doing this to her daughter, keeping her sheltered and teaching her nothing? And now she was literally throwing her under the bus, expecting her to catch up with her peers all on her own. He couldn’t help but pity her. “Here, give me your pencil. I can help you.”

He could almost see the sparkles in her eyes as she scrambled to sit right next to him, laying the blanket over their laps and scattering her books over it. She rummaged her bag for a pencil and handed it to him. He glanced down at her sunny smile, just shaking his head before pulling out her reader. “Well, you know how to read and write, so we’ll start from there.”

Bad mistake; when she said she could read, she could read, but she had no idea what anything meant. More than half the words she didn’t understand. What’s worse, her handwriting was so bad he could barely read what she wrote. Whenever she finished, she would look up at him with the most expectant, pleading look, nearly begging for praise. It hurt every time he had to tell her she was wrong or that he couldn’t read what she wrote.

It took a good two hours to finish what should have been a half hour assignment, and when he finished he felt like he had completed a marathon. When he finished, she handed him her next book, his face paling at the subject. “M-math?”

“They kept saying things like multiplying and dividing stuff, but I don’t know what that is.”

“Do you know math at all?”

“I can add on my fingers!” she shouted proudly, wiggling her fingers at him.

His heart dropped.

He was just about finished checking over the last of her math questions when her pencil slipped from her fingers, a slight snore escaping her lips. He sighed softly as he cupped the side of her face and rested it against his shoulder, clicking his tongue. She was already tired out, but they’ve only finished half of her homework assignments.

“Leave her to sleep and come here.” He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice, though his anxiety didn’t lessen when he saw who it was. Carefully laying Saet-byul down without waking her, her reluctantly stood up and followed her out. He kept his mouth shut as he silently sat in his chair by the fireplace, his eyes watching as she pulled out the medical kit. With just one look from her, he pulled off his coat and ed his shirt. He winced when she pulled off his bandage, cleaning it with alcohol and wiping it down.

“This should be one of the last times we have to clean it,” she said sternly, her eyes focused on her work. “It’ll always bother you, but it shouldn’t give you too much pain.” She put another bandage on him, patting it down. “Put your clothes back on.”

He was in the middle of buttoning his shirt when she spoke again. “How is she doing?” He paused, and she looked up at him with one of the most expressive looks she’d ever given him. “Was she struggling?”

“Of course she’s struggling. She doesn’t know anything. She’s behind in everything.”

“She can catch up, can’t she? How was she doing when you were helping her?”

He slipped his coat back on, shivering. He didn’t know how these two could live here for years without any heating. He was barely surviving. “It’s going to take a long time before she’s able to be anywhere near where she needs to be.” Her upper lip curled back as she angrily slammed the box closed, her fingers shaking.

“As much as it kills me to say it, I’ll have to depend on you with her education. Make sure you teach her well.”

He scoffed disbelievingly as she shamelessly got up, not caring about the fact that she had pretty much just ordered him to tutor her daughter. As exasperating as it was, if she was only a little behind it wouldn’t have been so bad. But he was teaching her from scratch; there was no way he could catch her up to the hours upon hours that her peers would have studied. He ran a hand through his hair, almost jumping out of his skin when a piece of bread was shoved in his face. He peeked up at her, waiting it to be a trick or something, but that only seemed to annoy her as she grabbed his hand and shoved it in his grasp.

“I know she gave you some of her food. But you should still eat more.”

He watched her carefully as he slowly took a bite, rolling it over in his tongue as he waited for some kind of poison to set in. He wouldn’t have put it past her. When nothing happened, he took another bite. “Did you have any problems with the school?”

Without hesitating, he whipped out his wallet from his back pocket, pulling out his ID card and slamming it down on the table. Her face wrinkled as she made her way over and picked the card up, scanning it before her eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with this?”

“What is that supposed to be?”

“Excuse me?” She threw the card back on the table and he watched it bounce onto the floor, landing neatly at his feet. I should have known better than to be decent to you. I actually gave you a decent name; of course you wouldn’t be considerate enough-”

“I don’t care about the name,” he cut in boldly, his insides the exact opposite of his composure as they twisted nervously. “You listed my age as seventeen.”

“What about it?”

“I told you I was nineteen! You put me two grades lower than what I actually am.”

She laughed outright at that, looking down at him with a mocking, condescending look. “That’s what you’re worried about? You’ll just be going to school a couple extra years then.”

“But I was ready to take the college entrance exam! I would have been-“

“Look, if you want to figure out how to make your own documents and label yourself as nineteen, then be my guest. But,” she went to the back of the room near a stack of boxes, rummaging around until she pulled out a small file, “as of now, your name is Yoon Woo-jin, seventeen years old.” She threw the file down into his lap, and with shaking hands he opened it up to see his face on numerous documents. A birth certificate, elementary and middle school graduation documents, a passport –all with the name Yoon Woo-jin and the birth year of 1990. “You better have been smart. I had you listed as the top of your class.”

His fingers hovered over the name, his breaths short as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing. “Do…do you do this with all the people you kidnap?”

She didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by his question, shaking her head. “You’re the only one who’ll get this treatment. The others don’t need anything. They stay with me.”

“My name…”

“Forget your old name. That old life doesn’t exist anymore.” She snatched the file out of his hands and stuffed it back into the box, covering it with the lid. “Here your name is still N; don’t think you got out of that.”

He wobbled as he leaned over to pick up the ID card, his whole world rushing to a halt. Up until now, a small part of him was still connected to his old life, wondering how his mother was holding up and his friends back in school. He had thoughts of one day escaping with Seok-jin and returning, this whole thing becoming just a bad dream. Even when Saet-byul continuously called him his doll and her mother tending to his wound every night, there was always an aspect of everything that made it seem almost unreal.

But here was the reality hitting him; he now had a new identity and life.

There was no going back.

“I know you’re special to her, it’s why I went to all this trouble to get you a new identity. Make sure you treat that girl well.”

“Saet-byul.” He could see her stiffen at the mention of her name, her eyes suddenly full of fire, a signal that he had crossed a line. He cut her off before she could yell at him. “Her name is Saet-byul. I haven’t been here that long, but even I can tell how much she loves hearing her name. You should try saying it some time.”

“Did she say that to you-?”

“There’s a reason she’s always making me hug her and kiss her head. She’s lonely. You should start saying her name a few times; it’ll make her happy.” He didn’t know why he was trying to help her, he still hated her for what she did and was still scared of her. Even now, the look she gave him was enough to make his skin crawl. But it was for Saet-byul. This was all for Saet-byul; that was what he told himself as he quickly ran out of the room and back to the safety of Saet-byul’s arms.

--

“Good morning Saet-byul. Did you sleep well?” He could feel his arm yank back, and he looked back to see Saet-byul frozen in place, her wide eyes focused on her mother. She looked back between him and her in confusion, and he could almost see her mind trying to make sense of everything. Her mother glanced at him uncertainly before hurrying to the rice cooker and scooping out rice. He felt a tug on his hand and felt himself pulled down, Saet-byul cupping his ear and her hot breath tickling his skin.

“S-she said my name…”

“What’s wrong with that?” He gave her a smile, though that only seemed to worry her more, a thin line as she peeked around him at her mother again. She shivered.

This time he had to drag Saet-byul out of the house, the girl having absolutely no desire to go to school. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it weren’t for the fact that she refused to leave even after her mother told her to; that was just something Saet-byul didn’t do. He refused to drag her by the wrist, instead standing outside waiting for her. It eventually worked, the girl not able to last two minutes away from his side. In no time they were standing at the bus stop, her shaking hand holding his and her eyes glued on the others waiting.

“Don’t get so worked up. You’ll be fine.”

“But I don’t want to go back,” she said sadly, leaning her hand against his arm. “I don’t like it there.”

“Well, you can’t stay at home anymore. And if you stay home, you’ll have to stay alone. I still have to go to school.” He could see her panic at that, her hold on his hand tightening. “You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

“Why couldn’t Mommy have put you in the same class as me? I could go if you were with me.”

“I’m not always going to be able to be with you.”

“Where would you be? You’re my doll, you’ll always be with me.” He took a deep breath, trying to tell himself that she didn’t realize how much he hated being reminded of his current position. He forced a smile on his face, thanking whatever gods there be when the bus arrived at that exact moment. She proved to be a quick learner, scanning her card perfectly and looking up at him with her scared, expectant look. He just patted her head before leading her to the back of the bus, this time just having her hold his waist instead of offering her the empty seat.

It took about another half hour before two seats opened up together, and he wasted no time pushing Saet-byul to take them. They sat down, him sending her a breathless smile. She smiled back.

“Do you know why Mommy said my name?” He blearily looked around, having almost fell asleep when he heard the question whispered into his ear. He turned to see Saet-byul leaning on his arm, her thumb caressing his hand.

“What?”

“Mommy said my name earlier. I thought…I thought she had forgotten my name.”

“Don’t think like that,” he said softly, pushing her head gently. “Your mom loves you a lot. Why do you think she forced me to come here with you and watch over you? She just never thought you wanted to hear your name.”

“I like it when you say it better.”

“Hey, hearing your mother say your name is an amazing thing. As scary as your mom is, you should still love her more.”

“But when you say it, it sounds so warm. I like it.” She lifted his hand to her face, tickling his palm with the tips of her fingers. She giggled, and when she wasn’t looking he sent her a concerned look.

He had to nearly pry her off of him when they arrived outside her classroom, the girl not wanting to step one foot inside. He had purposefully arrived earlier today; yesterday he had been late to class because it had taken him so long to get her to class. She fiercely shook her head, whining for him to stay with her, when another voice came from behind him.

“Saet-byul?” He whirled around, ready to protect her, only to be faced with a boy nearly as tall as him. Saet-byul peeked out from behind him, and he noticed how she didn’t immediately shy away.

“Is this someone you know?” he asked kindly and she nodded, keeping shut tight. He sighed; one of these days he was going to work on getting her to speak in public.

“She sits next to me,” the boy offered helpfully. “…are you her brother?”

“No,” he said quickly, “I’m just a friend. Okay, Saet-byul, I’m leaving okay? I’ll be back when classes are over. Wait for me here, okay?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer, bolting out of there before she tried to grab and hold on to him. He was just about to turn the corner when he suddenly felt guilty; he looked back to see her staring at him miserably. Cursing his soft heart, he waved with a smile, one that she returned with a hiccup.

He was met with a hard stare when he slid the door open to his classroom, everyone’s eyes on him. He tried his best to block them all out as he sent his teacher an apologetic bow. “Not even caring you’re a good ten minutes late?” the man asked annoyed, and he tried to ignore the glare sent his way. “This will be the last time you’ll get away with this. If you continue being late, there’ll be punishment.” He nodded silently before heading straight to the back of the room, sliding into his seat.

He glanced over to see the guy sitting next to him leveling him with a hard stare, and he inhaled sharply as he tried to ignore it. He wasn’t sure what the guy’s problem was, but he was pretty sure he’d been glaring at him yesterday.

Finally, “Hey, do you have a problem with me?” He watched amusedly as the guy next to him stiffened in his chair, his eyes refusing to look up at him. The guy glanced at him before slowly sliding his books back into his bag, his shoulders hunched up. “I’ve been seeing you glaring at me this entire time.”

“…I wasn’t glaring at you.” His voice was surprisingly timid, as if he was afraid to speak.

“Really?” He leaned forward with his chin on his palm, snickering inwardly at how the guy pulled back, trying his best to avoid eye contact. “What are you so worried about then?”

“I’m not worried,” he said in a somewhat stronger voice, turning to look at him with that same glare he always had been.

“That!” he shouted, pointing at him and watching the guy quickly look away. “You call that not glaring?”

“That’s how I normally look,” he muttered, the poor guy’s confidence shot.

“Here, look at me,” he said, nudging the guy until he finally looked over at him, and it was then that he noticed. He actually had quite a baby face, with a large amount of baby fat in his cheeks that almost looked like he was pouting. But his eyes had a natural glaring look to it, and couple that with his pouting mouth it gave the look of being angry. He couldn’t help it; that annoying older brother part of him reached out and pushed the guy’s bangs from his face, forcing him to turn his head back and forth.

“You should pull your bangs from your eyes. It’ll help take away that mean look.”

The guy hurriedly pulled away and fixed his bangs, drawing in on himself again. “Stop, don’t do that.” He reached out again and forced the guy’s shoulders back, pushing his chin up. “Don’t hunch up on yourself. It’ll only make your image worse.” He noticed how the guy was silent, staring at him in such a way that he quickly pulled away, coughing as he tried to salvage his image. “J-just keep that in mind.”

It took the guy a few seconds to realize he wanted to stop talking, and he could see him deflate as he instinctively turned in on himself again. He buried his face into his hands, refusing to look back at him. While he had no intention of making friends with anyone here, he couldn’t help but try and help this poor guy next to him. That pout…that misunderstood glare; it reminded him so much of what Seok-jin used to be like.

Seok-jin used to be such a cute little boy; he had a baby face until about a year ago and would cutely follow him around all the time. Everyone in their small neighborhood had known about Seok-jin being a bastard child, and all the boys would for it. He hadn’t understood what it meant, nor did he want to believe it, and would always try to play with the others. It was only after his mother sat him down and explained to him what really happened that Seok-jin changed into the angry boy he was today. She still regretted telling him till this day.

He just had to sit next to the one guy that reminded him of his brother.

Throughout the whole lunch, he thankfully having bought the two of them food this time, he noticed the guy didn’t touch a single bit of his food, instead dutifully taking notes. He wouldn’t admit he was curious, but he couldn’t help peeking over and watching him.

If only Seok-jin had stayed like this.

When classes were done, he hurriedly shoved his things into his bag, his mind already whirling as he tried to remember the fastest way back to Saet-byul. He could see how flustered she was when he’d picked her yesterday, and he had been only there fifteen minutes late. He threw his bag over his shoulder and was ready to leave when “…um, Woo-jin ssi?”

It took him a second to register that that was his name, and he turned to see the same guy fidgeting next to him, his hands clasped around a notebook. He hesitated before shakily ing the notebook into his arms. He spluttered as he took it, blinking incomprehensively. “What is this?”

“I-I noticed you didn’t take notes during class. I wrote them down for you…if you don’t want it I can-” The guy made a move to grab the notebook back but he hurriedly took a few steps back, holding it close to his chest.

“Hold on, that was what you were doing during lunch? You didn’t have to do this.” He flipped through the first couple pages to see some of the neatest notes he’d ever seen, marking each point the lectures had covered. There were even some graphs drawn; he must be one of those perfectionists. The guy’s face was bright red, and he realized the other was embarrassed. He smiled as he reached out and ruffled the guy’s hair, laughing at the absurdity of it all. He couldn’t very well tell him he already learned all of this before. “Thank you…what’s your name?”

“J-Jung Taek-woon.”

“Thank you Taek-woonie. I have to go, but I’ll copy these down and return it to you tomorrow, okay?” He barely gave the guy a wave before running out of there, missing the small smile that grew on the other’s lips.

--

“N…what is kissing?” His eyes widened as he spluttered, looking down to see any indication she was joking, only to be met with that damned curious expression. He turned away as his mind went into overdrive, trying to figure a way of explaining something like that without her mother finding out and skinning him alive. He decided to cop out.

“Where did you hear that?”

“These girls were talking about it in the bathroom. They wanted to ‘kiss’ someone from another class, and they got really embarrassed about it when they realized I was there. I wondered what it was that could have gotten them so embarrassed.”

“Well….kissing is…” She leaned in closer and he quickly pushed her away. “It’s something you only do with someone you really love.”

“But what is it?”

“It’s when you touch lips with someone else.”

“Like this?” She placed her bag on the floor as she crawled up onto her knees, leaning over his arm to place a quick kiss on his lips. He barely registered the touch, his mind completely blanking as she pulled away, giggling. He’d never kissed before, not even kissing his mother; he’d held onto that first kiss for the day he met the love of his life. Even for the brief dating stints he had, he had never kissed them.

However Saet-byul, the thirteen year old daughter of the woman who kidnapped him, had stolen his first kiss.

She noticed his lack of reaction and quickly frowned, her fingers hovering over her lips. “Y-you said it was something you did with someone you love. I love you, isn’t that okay then?” An ajumma behind them disapprovingly cleared , snapping him out of his reverie.

“T-that’s a different kind of love. The way you love me is different from how you love somebody you kiss.”

“I don’t understand. There’s only one love, right? How can I love someone more than you? What kind of love is that?”

“It’s because you haven’t loved anyone else yet. You’ll understand one day.”

“But you’re saying I can’t kiss you?”

“No, you can’t.”

“Is it a bad thing?”

“No…it’s not. But you don’t do it in public; it’s something only done in private.”

“Why?”

“It’s something very special, so you share it only between the two of you.”

“So I can kiss you at home?”

“What? No! I told you, you can’t kiss me.”

“But I don’t understand why the way I love you is not special enough.”

He leaned in until he was only inches from her face, watching how closed right up. “You only love me because I am your doll. That love is not special.” He could see her face crumble, and while he knew in the back of his mind that what he said was harsh, he knew it had to be said. She pulled away and sat as close as she could to the window, her eyes avoiding his gaze.

He knew she tried to hide how she wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.

Her mother honed in on her tears the moment they stepped into the house, her eyes narrowing dangerously as she grabbed both of their arms. “What happened? Why is she crying?” Saet-byul just shook her head as she broke away, running straight to her room. His heart dropped when he realized he was alone, alone with the mother of the girl that cried. Her grip on his arm tightened, and he winced. “What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do anything to her.”

“Don’t lie to me. What made her cry? I know it was you.”

“I did what you said,” he snapped, pulling away before she had a chance to slap him. “I reminded her that I was just a doll.”

She was furious as she lunged forward and grabbed at his hair, her fingers slipping through his short strands. She frustratingly grabbed his ear, pulling him down, growling when he yelled out. “Yes, you’re her doll,” she hissed, her voice so low and close that it made all the hairs on his body stand on end, “but your job is to make her happy. You are never to make her cry. Do you understand me?” He weakly nodded his head and she flung him away; he tripped over his own feet and toppled to the ground. “Don’t you ever let her come into this house again like that. Next time you make her cry, I’ll kill you.”

“I promise,” he muttered, watching as she huffed before walking towards Saet-byul’s room. He waited until he heard the door shut and muffled whispering on the other side before he reached up and rubbed his throbbing ear.

He would never win with that woman. If Saet-byul comes home crying, he gets beaten and threatened. If Saet-byul came back with the biggest smile on her face, he probably would still get beaten and threatened. Nothing he did would ever please that woman; every day he walked around her on eggshells, afraid one day she’d follow through and cut him down. But not only him; anything he did came with the veiled threat of affecting Seok-jin. She knew she had him wrapped around her finger, him willing to bend over backwards for his little brother.

He glanced over to the hidden basement door, his eyes lingering on the deadlock hanging under the handle. He had harbored so many fantasies of pushing the woman and Saet-byul aside, breaking open the lock and rushing down to save his brother. Cradling his little brother in his arms, he would fly back up out of the stairs and out the door. Sometimes he even imagined himself saving the other dolls. His fantasy would always end with him running home, his mother bursting into tears as she hugged the two of them, holding them as tightly as her weak arms could.

He blinked back tears as he pushed the fantasy away, knowing that it would never be any more than that –a fantasy.

He was just about to pull his blazer tighter when he felt his body rise on its own, his feet moving awkwardly as they headed in the direction of Saet-byul’s room. It took a few tries, at one point he snickered to himself at how hard she was trying, but he eventually ended up at the door, his hand reaching out and turning the doorknob.

Saet-byul was sitting in the corner of her bed wrapped like a cocoon in her blanket, only a partial amount of her face able to be seen. While the doll was hidden, he could tell she wanted to be held, his hands shaking as if fighting the urge to hug her. But his eyes were focused on something entirely, her mother sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes narrowing on him. The air was full of tension until Saet-byul couldn’t handle it anymore, having him walk past her mother to sit by her side. She didn’t waste any time crawling into his arms.

“You shouldn’t have him hug you so much,” her mother snapped, though curiously there was no malice in her voice. Saet-byul didn’t respond, only digging herself deeper into his lap. Her mother scooted closer onto the bed, and he stayed absolutely still in fear while Saet-byul pushed herself closer to his chest, reflexively pulling the blanket tighter. He couldn’t tell if the action bothered the older woman, though her eyes went between the two of them with tight lips.

“Where are you clothes, N?” she asked suddenly, and he had to blink at the sudden change in attitude and voice from the other woman. He and Saet-byul shared a quick glance between each other before he hesitantly nodded his head in the direction of the group of boxes left in the corner. The woman didn’t spare him a second glance as she got up and grabbed the thread-bare clothes he’d been wearing since the day he made the mistake of stepping inside for Seok-jin. “Is this it?”

“Y-yes,” he said slowly, unsure of what she was trying to do.

“Good. I’m using it for the fabric for a doll I’m making. I’m running low.” She made a move to leave and he panicked.

“Wait! What am I going to wear if you take that?”

“You have your school uniform don’t you? Just wear that.”

“But-” He blinked when his voice cut off; he looked down hurriedly to see Saet-byul quickly shake her head, her fingers around the doll shaking. He watched helplessly as she left with his clothes, and only when she was gone did the locks on his body disappear and his shoulders slumped down, defeated. Saet-byul shifted in his lap so to better look at him, bringing his hand to the edge of her chin.

“It’s best not to say anything. She would have punished you if you said any more.”

“But what am I supposed to wear?” he asked sadly, glancing down at his school uniform. While it worked for the brief walks to school, there was no way he could sleep in this freezing house with just his blazer. Not to mention everyone would eventually be able to tell when his new uniform was suddenly completely worn down. “It’s so cold in here.”

“Some of the older dolls have left over clothes, maybe Mommy means to give you one of those.” He wrinkled his nose at the thought of wearing someone else’s clothes, and she seemed to notice. “Mommy cleans them, so they’re all clean. Come on, we can look at them.” Quickly wiggling herself out of her blanket cocoon, she climbed off the bed and grabbed his hand. He immediately tensed, shaking his head.

“Not now Saet-byul. Your mother-”

“She probably went into the basement. We should be fine.” She pulled on his arm a little harder, her lower lip sticking out slightly in a pout, and he sighed as he allowed her to drag him away.