Somewhere We Lie

Daehyun looks through the window at the beauty sitting beneath it. On the driveway, just under the moon and a dysfunctional streetlamp stood his father’s Chevrolet Camaro, bright and black, gleaming with great pride and affluence. His father had brought it only a few weeks ago and ever since, Daehyun has had the urge to drive it. To run his hands over the steering wheel, to inhale the scent of fresh leather and hear its engine rumble down the highway. He wants to feel it come to life under his very own hands, to take control of it and push it under a sky full of stars with, perhaps, someone special by his side. He lets the curtain fall back into place and turns to look at the time, his heart pounding with a sense of rebellion as he came up with a plan.

It’s a few minutes before midnight. Knowing that his father is asleep in his room on the other side of the corridor, Daehyun slips carefully out of his room to enter the one beside it which belonged to his innocent little stepbrother, Youngjae. He opens the door to see a lump under the duvet and several comics scattered around his bedside, their pages crumpled against the floorboards.

“Youngjae,” Daehyun whispers, moving closer to the boy curled up beneath the covers. “Youngjae, wake up.” Daehyun reaches out and gives the lump a few taps before tugging the duvet down to reveal his small face shielded between two arms. The boy lets out a groan, opening one eye to see what the older brother wanted. “Come on, get up,” Daehyun whispers, gently removing the covers off Youngjae’s body.

“What’s the matter with you?” Youngjae peeks at the digital clock beside his bed and gives Daehyun a look of reluctance. “It’s almost midnight—”

“Come on, I promise it’ll be worth it,” Daehyun urges, pulling his younger brother out by the wrist.

“But I’m tired,” Youngjae whines, allowing himself to get dragged along down the hallway. His bare feet tingle from the cold flooring and he almost couldn't see with the fog in his eyes, but he moves along anyway, just because he has no energy in him to fight back. As far as Youngjae is concerned, Daehyun is never up to any good. There have been many times in the past where Daehyun got caught doing something he isn't supposed to at the dead of night. Youngjae thinks it's because Daehyun was a natural born troublemaker who has a constant itch to do something stupid. 

They both clamber down the stairs in a mess of tired limbs and blurry eyes until they reach the front porch where Daehyun kicks on a pair of battered converses and pushes another pair towards Youngjae.

“Put those on,” he instructs, grabbing something from behind his stepbrother. He wraps a loose hoodie around Youngjae’s shoulders and goes to snatch some keys off the rack before he is leading them both out into the night, making sure to close the front door as gently as possible. And then he is taking Youngjae by the wrist again, lugging him towards the driveway where his father’s antique stood on four wheels. 

“Daehyun, we can’t do this,” Youngjae warns, realising what the 17-year-old was up to. His eyes grow wide and he tries to pry Daehyun’s fingers off his arm, just wanting to dash back into the house but he's too weak and ends up going against his will. If their father found out about this the pair of them would get into huge trouble.

“Of course we can.” Daehyun unlocks the car and opens up the door to the passenger’s seat, shoving Youngjae inside.

“But you have never driven a goddamn car before!” Youngjae cries, almost waking the entire neighbourhood. Daehyun tells him to hush, jabbing a finger to his brother’s lips before settling him down against the seat.

“Keep it down,” he hisses, eyeballing his surroundings.

“Dad is going to kill you—”

“He doesn’t have to know.” Daehyun finishes, sending his brother a smirk before slamming the door and cutting out his voice. He throws himself into the driver’s seat and looks around, examining the different parts of the car and trying to figure out how he was going to work this thing. “Buckle up,” he says, sticking the key into the engine. Youngjae doesn’t hesitate to throw on the belt and brace himself against the seat. After learning which pedal goes into reverse and which pedal moves forward, Daehyun sets the gear and begins to roll out, belatedly remembering to flick on the headlights. Youngjae clings onto the armrest for dear life, counting down the seconds he had left to live.

“Relax,” Daehyun chuckles, expertly steering onto the road and moving forward. Youngjae hugs his knees to his chest and looks out of the window, surprised that they were moving at a considerably safe speed down their neighbourhood. He was starting to doubt that this was Daehyun’s first time in driving their father’s car. There was no way he could be this good on his first try. He turns to look at the older boy and scrutinizes his smug profile, disbelieving. “How many times have you done this before?” he asks, genuinely impressed. 

Daehyun shrugs nonchalantly. “I’ve never driven this baby until now.”

Youngjae gapes, looking at the road then back at his incredulous brother. He remains wordless, just taking in the fact that his brother hasn’t crashed into anything as of yet. As Daehyun smoothly rolls the car onto the main road, Youngjae feels his nerves begin to relax. It was a miracle— Daehyun being able to drive without a single lesson in his life, so he opts to sit still and quiet, just watching as the trees and the buildings moved by.

“I always watch him. What he does, how he does it…” Daehyun fixes the gear and begins to gradually increase his speed, becoming more and more confident with himself. “It’s not that hard, actually.” He concludes, relaying the many times he watched his father work the gear and control the car. After several years of close observation, Daehyun was sure he knew what he was doing without a shadow of doubt. The roads were pretty much empty at this time of night and there weren’t many people out either. When they come to a red light, Daehyun turns to his little brother and smiles at him, removing his hand from the gear stick to mess up Youngjae’s hair. “You okay?”

The younger teen hesitates a little, but eventually nods. “Where are we going?” he timidly asks, blinking up at his older brother.

Daehyun thinks for a moment, contemplating the different places they could visit. They can't really do much at this time of night since all the shops are closed. After some thought, he flicks a mischievous smile in Youngjae’s direction who swallows in nervousness at the playful look in Daehyun's eyes. “Ever wondered what the city is like at night?”

---

Daehyun does an awful job at parking the car, but its 1AM so it didn’t really matter. It’s not like anyone is going to care. He pulls Youngjae out by the arm and closes the door after him before dragging him away towards a high street. The pair of them amble along the damp sidewalks hand in hand, both looking around themselves in awe. All the shops were closed and not a single soul meandered anywhere nearby. It was just them, under the streetlamps, in what seemed to be a ghost town. “At least we have each other,” Daehyun teases, looking down at the way his brother held onto his arm for protection. Even if the high street looked scary at night, Youngjae knew he could trust the older boy.

“What are we doing?” Youngjae asks, still clinging onto the older boy’s sweatshirt. Daehyun looks over his shoulder, not really sure of the answer to that himself. It didn’t matter where they went, or what they did. As long as he was with Youngjae it was worthwhile. Giving his brother a playful smile, Daehyun slaps Youngjae on the shoulder and shouts “tag, you’re it!” before he runs off, leaving the younger boy to chase after him.

“Wait! Slow down!” Youngjae cries, doing his best to keep up with the other boy. More than he wanted to get him back, he just wanted to be by the elder’s side. It was late and he wasn’t too fond over the fact that they were messing around at this time of night. The last thing he needed was to get lost. 

Hiding himself around the corner of a building, Daehyun waits until Youngjae catches up so he could jump out.

“Daehyun?” At the sound of footsteps, the said boy pounces out of his hiding spot and grabs Youngjae around the waist, scaring him out of his skin. “Yah, this isn’t funny!” Youngjae pouts, smacking the older boy on the chest. “I thought I lost you.” He complains, pushing his arms off his waist. He hated it when the older boy played tricks on him like this. Daehyun thinks Youngjae’s pouting face is the cutest thing he’s ever seen so he leans in and gives his nose a peck, churning out a laugh when the other boy reclines in disgust. He apologises, but its not serious as they walked in no particular direction at all.

Eventually, they end up standing side by side at a lakeside, looking out at the water as it shimmered under the luminescent pearl in the sky and folded by the early morning draft. As they filled their lungs with fresh air, Daehyun tightens their fingers and gently bumps his head against Youngjae’s who does the same, wearing an unconscious smile.

“It looks almost like a beautiful nightmare,” he breathes, roaming his gaze over the lake's inky surface, and the thin wisps of fog that floated above the water's surface and through the trees. Youngjae leans into his stepbrother’s touch but says nothing, just giving the slender fingers between his own an approving squeeze. They stay like that for a while, enjoying the silence that coated the evening breeze until the cold started to work its way through their clothes. When Youngjae begins to fidget from the chill, Daehyun takes that as their cue to head back to the car.

Just as he gets back into the driver's seat, he spots something small and silver in the glove compartment which has him reaching out to pick it up. He pulls the box out of it's confines and examines the silver lines running around the edges. A small gasp escapes Youngjae’s lips when he sees what Daehyun is doing.

“Hey, put that back where you found it,” he bleats uselessly, watching as his older brother out a cigarette. “Those are dad’s!” he tries again, but the older remains unfazed as he flicks open the compartments at the front of the car in search for a lighter with the cigarette pressed between his lips. When he finds one, he uses one hand to shield the flame and uses the other to try and light the . Youngjae gives up in trying to stop his brother and simply slumps against the cushion, keeping his mouth shut. Daehyun had never smoked a cigarette before, so Youngjae isn’t surprised when he hears the older boy cough pathetically at his first intake of the poisonous fumes.

“You’re going to get us into so much trouble,” Youngjae huffs, crossing his arms against his chest. Daehyun thinks otherwise, planning ways to cover up their tracks.

“What he doesn’t know won’t kill him,” he mumbles, placing the lighter back where he found it. With the cigarette between his lips, Daehyun reverses them safely out of their parking space and begins to head towards the highway, his stance oozing with confidence. Youngjae believes his brother has gone completely insane.

Taking one long drag out of his cigarette, Daehyun lands both hands over the steering wheel and tiredly throws his head back against the headrest.

“What are you so afraid of?” he slurs, without a single care in the world of what he was doing. Not only does he lack a driver’s licence, but he is underage and smoking. Youngjae tries to stay calm. He knew this was a death trap the moment he sat in the passenger’s seat beside his brother who has a few, if not a lot, of loose screws in his head. Daehyun offers his brother a puff, who immediately declines the moment the stench of smoke hits his nostrils. He shoves Daehyun’s extended arm away and turns to look out the window, agitated. Did his brother really just offer him to smoke a cigarette when he’s only the age of fourteen? Youngjae scoffs, disbelieving. His brother has totally lost his mind.

When the car slows down to a halt, Youngjae looks around him to find that they had pulled over in front of a Seven Eleven store. He gives Daehyun a look of askance, even though he kind of knows why they’re there. Daehyun has an unhealthy habit of eating in the middle of the night.

“Kind of craving a midnight snack,” the brunet confirms, pushing himself out of the seat. Once he’s outside, he pauses to lean down and look back into the car, raising an eyebrow in Youngjae’s direction. “You coming?” he asks, and with that, Youngjae throws the door open and follows Daehyun who moved straight towards the isle filled with frozen dairy products. He swings the door open to the shelf full of Ben and Jerry’s and picks out the cookie dough flavour, looking to Youngjae for approval. Youngjae just shrugs and the pair of them check out the tub of ice cream, Daehyun’s arm wrapped around Youngjae’s lower back as he led them to the car.

“You okay?” he asks, popping the lid open. Youngjae presses his lips together in a tight line and hugs himself, still feeling a little cold. “Just tired,” he answers, tucking his hands under his hoodie. Daehyun nods, throwing away the wrapper to his ice-cream and piercing it with the spoon. He takes a chunk out of it and shoves it between his lips, enjoying the way it melted along his tongue and rid the bitter taste of cigarette smoke.

“Thought I could maybe drive us further out before we head back home.” Daehyun mumbles, planting his backside down. He starts the engine up with one hand and eats another mouthful of cookie dough ice cream, all too relaxed. Youngjae thinks about it. He’s cold and he’s tired, he wants to go home but he also doesn’t mind being out here a little longer with Daehyun, witnessing the city lights and the empty roads. Honestly, it was a nice feeling, he weren’t going to deny it.

The midnight breeze in his auburn strands of hair and the quietude that followed…it was all too dreamlike. He might never get to experience something like this again. Weaving his fingers between Daehyun’s and resting their hands on the gearstick, Youngjae tells him that he doesn’t mind staying out for a little while longer, as long as Daehyun knew his way back home and drove carefully. The said boy nods, handing Youngjae the rest of his ice cream before driving out of Seven Eleven.

---

The car stood on a hard shoulder. Youngjae sits still, playing with his fingers whilst Daehyun watches him from the corner of his eye. He hasn’t told Youngjae why they stopped, he feels like there’s no need.

Youngjae waits for an explanation anyway, peering out of the window shortly before looking over at his brother who stared at him with wild eyes. He then flinches when Daehyun breaks eye contact, grabbing the lighter from the glove compartment and lighting up another . Youngjae feels suffocated.

“I always wonder if dad regrets it…” Daehyun mutters after taking a long drag of his second cigarette. The younger teen doesn’t quite understand where his brother was going with that statement, but at least now he understood why they stopped. Daehyun just wanted to talk. He probably just needed to let out some steam before they returned and Youngjae didn’t mind. He was willing to listen if thats what his brother wanted.

“Regrets what?” he timidly asks, blinking up at the older boy. Daehyun blows a trail of smoke into Youngjae’s face, causing his eyes to tear up and his lungs to spasm. Daehyun pays no heed as he takes another drag. “You know,” he mumbles, “…the adoption.” Youngjae looks up at Daehyun in alarm.

“Of course he doesn’t. Father loves you just as much as he loves me.” Youngjae defends, moving closer to touch Daehyun’s arm.

“Just because you’re not biologically related doesn’t make you any less important to him.” 

Daehyun shakes his head, feeling sorry for himself. “It’s not that it’s just…I cause so much trouble. I’m afraid he might… just give up on me.”

“He wont,” Youngjae whispers, cupping Daehyun’s cheek. The older boy gives his younger brother a lazy, lopsided smile, happy that the younger boy sounded so sure, and so positive. “He would never do that.”

Daehyun thinks the protective tone in Youngjae’s voice is sweet and suddenly finds himself lost within those chocolate coloured irises. The hand cupping his cheek is warm and friendly and in that short moment, Daehyun sees a friend. Not a brother, but a close... friend. A friend who he could share all his deep, dark secrets to without feeling ashamed and someone who he can just be himself with. Daehyun shifts in his seat so that he is looking the fourteen year old in the face, whose hand had fallen limp to his side.

“Would that still be true if I did this?” he asks, leaning closer. Youngjae forgets to breathe and he goes cross-eyed when their noses bump into each other. He wants to ask what Daehyun meant but sees no point when he feels the elder’s breath fan against his lips. Just before he could recline, Daehyun pulls him closer from the back of his head and their mouths collide, the bitter taste of smoke mixed with sugar from the Ben and Jerry’s burning past Youngjae’s lips. He can’t move, nor pull away because Daehyun is holding him from behind his head, his fingers threaded through his hair and wrenching him forward. Youngjae wants to scream but he doesn’t have a voice in him to do so, so he keeps still until its over, his fingers turning white from the clutch he had on his clothes.

When Daehyun pulls away, the pair of them spend a few seconds just staring at each other, their eyes looking from one to the other as they tried to find the right words to say. “Y-Youngjae…” Daehyun breathes, his voice laced with apology from the look of shock in his younger brother’s face. Before he could even utter another word, a knock on the glass causes them both to jump, turning their attention to the window beside Daehyun.

To their misfortune, it was the cops.

---

Youngjae walks back and forth in the waiting room, biting nervously onto the back of his knuckles. He and Daehyun were going to be in so much trouble once their father arrives and he was dreading it. Daehyun sits slouched forward in one of the seats with his hands clasped together, his eyes following the troubled teen as he paced to and fro, muttering worries under his breath. He couldn't understand why he was so worried when none of it was any of his fault. 

“Would you relax?” Daehyun sighs, staring tiredly up at his younger brother. Youngjae, too lost within his own thoughts, doesn’t respond and continues his pacing, now nibbling on his nails. Daehyun hates it when Youngjae does that. Reaching out, Daehyun grabs him by the wrist and tugs him down until he is falling into his lap, his fingers no longer between his lips but against Daehyun's chest. “Stop that,” Daehyun says, his voice tender. Youngjae blinks down at his brother, almost forgetting why he was in a state of panic and feels himself fall undone. It's almost as though history is repeating itself when Daehyun leans forward, his hazy eyes focused on the plumpness of Youngjae’s open mouth. The fact that there were cameras in this room, and perhaps a few officers watching the footage for any misconduct, didn’t seem to have an affect on the older boy’s decision as he moved in to press his lips onto Youngjae’s.

But just before anything could happen, the door is unlocked and pushed open, leaving Youngjae to stand abruptly and shove his older brother away from him. A female officer walks in, looking suspiciously between the two as they shifted uncomfortably from where they stood. “Someone is here for you.” She says, holding the door open for the two boys. Daehyun follows after Youngjae who seemed to slow down more and more the closer he got to their father, his head hanging low in shame. He was always the better child, Daehyun thinks, taking the lead. He grabs Youngjae by the hand and walks up to their father who wore a look that didn’t spell happy. The officer at the desk sends the two boys a funny look and Daehyun guesses he was the one keeping an eye on them in the waiting room. He finds himself unable to care.

“S-Sorry, dad.” Youngjae stutters, his bang covering the tears in his eyes.

“It wasn’t his fault. It was mine.” Daehyun interrupts, pulling Youngjae so that he stumbled behind Daehyun. If anyone were to be blamed for this it would be Daehyun, after all he was the one who dragged Youngjae out of bed and brought them out there even when the younger boy warned him. Acting as his brother’s shield, Daehyun looks up at his father in determination, his grip on Youngjae’s hand tightening possessively.

“I know who’s fault it was.” Comes Mr Yoo’s icy reply, giving Daehyun a pointed look. He turns around, expecting the boys to follow and leads them both to the car which had been left in the parking lot. He holds his hand out to Daehyun and the teen plops the keys into them without another word, guilty for putting him through the hassle, and for almost causing him and his little brother to spend a night in jail. He helps Youngjae into the back seat and gets in after him, making sure he was comfortable before wrapping an arm around him.

“Are you okay?” he whispers, wearing a small smile. The boy nods, avoiding eye contact. He couldn’t get himself to forget what happened between him and his stepbrother not too long ago, in those very two seats at the front. Mr Yoo looks at them from the rear-view mirror, his brows still knitted into a frown. Because of Daehyun he has to pay a fine for his recklessness, and he wasn’t happy about it in the slightest.

“I hope you know that you’re in big trouble, Jung Daehyun.” He asserts, his tone of voice powerful. Even Youngjae begins to feel intimidated, despite it being a threat towards his brother. Mr Yoo never used Daehyun’s full name, but when he did, it was never a good sign. Sometime during their journey back home, Youngjae falls asleep against Daehyun’s shoulder, his head lolling cutely forwards and backwards due to the bumps on the road.

Somehow, it makes Daehyun feel a little more at ease for what was to come a little later on during the day.

---

Youngjae tries to muffle back a laugh when he sees Daehyun enter the lounge with the hoover in one hand and a duster in the other. He sends the boy a sharp look from the corner of his eyes, his right arm still pushing the hoover back and forth over the carpet. He tries to resist the urge to just storm over there and wrestle Youngjae into the ground but he fails when Youngjae places the comic he is reading face down just so he could openly laugh in Daehyun’s face. Not only was Daehyun grounded from leaving the house (apart from going to school), but he was also made to do all the chores in the house as a consequence for taking his father's car out without permission.

Youngjae felt bad, but only a little. He knew the older boy deserved it for doing what he did that night. He would help Daehyun on the occasion to share the burden, but a lot of the time he would watch, mocking his stepbrother with cheeky remarks like “I told you so” and “you look so funny in that apron.” It’s not that he didn’t get away with receiving a punishment though, because after all, he did accompany his older brother in the act, and Mr Yoo liked to keep things just. It wasn’t as severe, but only because Daehyun came to his defence.

“Do you think this is funny?” he taunts, unable to hide his smirk. Youngjae nods, resting his hands behind his head and kicking his feet up onto the armrest. “You think this is funny, huh?” Daehyun asks again, more darkly this time. He switches the hoover off and closes in on the teen sprawled along the couch, watching as he curled into himself from fear. “Here, I’ll give you something to laugh about.”

Shrieks of laughter fill the lounge as Daehyun attacks Youngjae’s sides, his tongue simultaneously tickling the shell of his ears and down the veins on his neck. “This is gross!” Youngjae whines, trying to push Daehyun’s mouth off him. The fingers attacking his sides eventually stop and he is left to feel cold trails of Daehyun’s saliva coating the sensitive skin beneath his jaw, continuing down his collarbones and around the small dark mole that lay in the junction between his neck and shoulder.

“Not so funny now, is it?” Daehyun mumbles, gliding his hands up Youngjae’s shirt. The boy gasps when Daehyun’s teeth sink into his flesh and he lets out a squeak, feeling his ears grow hot and face burn red. By now he has completely silenced, his mind trying to work out the time and when their father will be back. He didn’t want him to walk in on them when Daehyun was behaving this way. He’s been doing things like this since that day they stole the car.

But for a reason unknown to him, he didn’t mind. Whatever it was, Youngjae just went along with it.

Because he liked the way daehyun looked first thing in the morning, and he liked it when Daehyun kissed him along the mouth, along his ears and along his neck in the back of their father's car when he wasn't looking. 

a/n: gonna stop it there since its meant to be a "drabble" lol 

i know it's really badly written and im so sorry about that (    /-\) 

i'll probably end up deleting it rip

or fixing it. meh. 

4.5k words wtf /tries not to cry/