Be Brave
I can hear crunching, feet louder than my frantic ones on the leaves.
"Stop," I cut out as I whirled around, and he stood there, illuminated by the streetlamp. "Stay there. Let them find you. I don't want to be entangled in this mess anymore." Sirens wailed in the distance, and I fought back my instinct to run. He couldn't follow me anymore, and I had to make sure he didn't. He needs to grow up, and he needs to accept the consequences for his mistakes.
He looked so alone, and took a hesitant step towards me, his sneaker crunching the leaves on the deserted road. "But, hyung, I-"
I cut him off. "No. This is all your fault. Not mine, not his. Yours. And you have to pay the price." He looked as if he were about to protest again, but I spoke before he could. "This is your mistake. It is not mine. Do not make me suffer for you. Do not make me think lower of you than I already do." The police were getting closer; the sirens were becoming louder and louder with every word.
He finally stopped, and stood still, one elbow caught in his white-boned grip. "Hyung, I... I don't know what to do," he said, voice growing smaller and smaller until the last word was a whisper.
I closed my eyes, and took a breath, and released it slowly. I needed to leave him behind. Not matter how much it hurt, I needed to do this. For both of us.
"Turn yourself in." I was quieter than I had been in a long, long time. "Admit. Plead guilty."
He swallowed. "I'm scared, hyung."
It broke my heart. "I know. I know. But you will survive this. You will make it through this. And when you're all done, when you've learned your lesson, please find me." I know it's too much to ask. I know. But I don't think that I could bear to never see him again, never to know what has happened to him after I abandoned him past midnight, in the middle of a lonely street.
He looked so, so alone, and he didn't answer for a stretching second. Finally, he spoke, so quietly I could barely hear him. "Okay."
And then it was me who took a few steps forward, until I was right in front of him. I took his head in my hands, and kissed his forehead. "Be brave, Brother. Be strong. I love you."
And then I left my brother, alone, afraid to face what he had done, in the darkness. I turned a corner just as the flashing lights glittered in the neighbor's windows, and shouts rang out, the song of the sirens piercing the night. I could see it, clear as day, in my mind; Guns, half a dozen of them, pointing at my little brother, who only loved.
Weirdpersonwhowritesrandomstuffwhenshesbored/N: I made a cake.
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