Taeyong didn’t like to give anyone the satisfaction of anything...ever, really. He knew he was stubborn and didn’t care if it pissed people off when he purposely ignored their advices and did things the difficult or long way. For him, he just always wanted to make sure all his choices were his own.

As much as he loved his older brother, Taemin, that was something that caused a big divide between them. Taemin’s wife wanted him to get a different job, move, cut ties with his raggedy family and even dye his hair honey brown for some reason. Taemin had done all of it with a big, goofy smile on his face, pretending he didn’t see how much it hurt Taeyong.

But Taeyong also wasn’t so stubborn that he’d deny what was true and real, right in front of his face. Standing on the porch of his one story home, contemplating running away, he knew damn well Minho wasn’t all the way psycho. No matter how ridiculous the notion of some alien prince living inside his body sounded, Taeyong had to accept what he’d witnessed the night prior.

He’d almost died from some sort of evil spider fog with big, menacing eyes that looked starved to their cores. He’d been chased through the woods, which seemed to be reacting to some invisible, unnatural entity.

Oh. And Johnny died. Along with more than a few other nameless innocent junkies. Well, the innocent part was up for debate.

Taeyong had given Minho a hard time so that he could get away and clear his head. Maybe they’d see each other again, and maybe they wouldn’t. But for today, Taeyong wanted to sleep. Then wake up and smoke a blunt. Then eat. Then sleep. Hopefully by that point the weekend would be over, or he’d be dead too.

From the outside of his house, Taeyong could already hear the old skool rap music that his mother’s boyfriend was always blasting. It was starting to seem like he only knew two songs. Both Tupac. Mixed with the music, there were the sounds of an action movie and all those obnoxious voices from the boyfriends’ gang members. “Home sweet home. Not.” Taeyong stepped inside, on the defense right away. It was always that way when the boyfriend, Ji-Sung was there. Him and his boys always sized Taeyong up, roughed him up, teased and taunted him. Then claimed to have his back if anyone ever ed with him.

It was annoying. But they weren’t the worst people to have on your side. Ji-Sung’s gang, Big Bang practically ran Generation City and as dangerous as they were, Taeyong and his mother were very safe with them. Until they weren’t.

Taeyong’s mother had a few enemies in the city as well, so maybe she felt even better being attached to Ji-Sung. Taeyong on the other hand, hadn’t done to anyone, so having a gang of criminals somewhat at his fingertips wasn’t that big of a deal. Mostly, it was just a headache and one less spot to sleep in his home.

“The Sketch is back!” Ji-Sung’s right hand man, San E said. They’d named Taeyong Sketch since he was...well, kinda sketchy.

And also since he usually just sat in one spot, barely moving or speaking. One time Ji-sung tried to be a spoonful of nice and claimed the nickname was based on how handsome Taeyong actually was. “Like one of them gay flower boys in the comics...” He’d slurred through a whiskey stained tongue. Taeyong had never said thanks .

The eleven or ten of them scattered yet stuffed inside the living room all turned to stare at Taeyong. They waited in expectant silence. Taeyong waited until the very last second...then he half bowed to them. “I’m home.” He peeped, kicking his shoes off. He took a fast glance around at their faces, some of them went back to sleep where they were and others went on playing cards, drinking and smoking.

Taeyong headed for the kitchen, knowing exactly where he’d left his box of fruit roll ups. He turned and ran smack dab into Ji-Sung’s chest as the older male was coming out of the kitchen, an empty fruit roll up box under his arm. “Toss this out, will ya, Sketch.” Ji-Sung shoved the box into Taeyong’s chest.

“Dammit.” Taeyong grunted.

“Aye, feeling a little swollen there.” Ji-Sung, intoxicated, slapped Taeyong on the chest a couple times.

“Sketch been working out?” San E shouted, eyes all squinted in amusement. Mixed with him being high as . “Who’s you tryna steal?” He blew out a thin line of smoke, his blunt nearly slipping from his fingers.

“es don’t care about body, Sketch, it’s about money and power first.” Ji-Sung leaned down to grab the side of Taeyong’s head. His fingers were long, each grabbing clumps of Taeyong’s locks. Immediately Taeyong wanted to shampoo. “Relationships are all about what you two can do for each other, how fast and how long it’ll last.”

“I’m not taking relationship advice from a man who eats a teenager’s afterschool snack.” Taeyong snapped back, but didn’t budge otherwise. He’d learned how far he could push Ji-Sung, sober or not, the man didn’t take sudden moves well.

“Oh those were yours?”

“No, they were my twin brother’s.” Taeyong hissed. Ji-sung chuckled, showing his pretty teeth. He wagged a long finger in Taeyong’s face then shoved the boy backwards by the head first.

“Smartass. Get outta my face. As a matter of fact, your useless mom is running late with our food, get in there and whip something up.” He lifted his black muscle shirt to scratch a spot. Taeyong noticed the gun on his hip. He wasn’t scared. In fact, guns sort of intrigued Taeyong. Not exactly a good fascination to have when you’re teetering on sucical. “I don’t cook.” Taeyong told him, passing up the kitchen.

“And I don’t like kids, but look at me!” Ji-sung held his hands up in a grand gesture. “Here I am, tolerating your nearly every day!”

“You’re in my house!” Taeyong countered, still headed up the steps.

“Name one goddamn bill you pay.” Ji-sung said, San E laughing in the background while he rolled a sleepy thug right off the couch.

“My father paid for this house.” Taeyong said, refusing to get emotional.

“Aw, cry me a river. Dumb kids these days...” Ji-sung turned up the music, waving Taeyong off.

Dismissed, Taeyong headed for his room.

The average person walking into Taeyong’s room would be scared less. He had masks of all his favorite horror movie killers lining his walls, along with the posters from each film. Friday the 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street, IT, Scream and Texas Chainsaw Massacre to name a few. His short-lived interest in heavy metal music also provided some scary art on his walls and laptop home screen. Everything else was dark. His closet looked like a black hole at first glance because everything was black except for something that might have a chain hanging from it. Oh, he had two denim jackets. One blue, one dark red.

His bedsheets and curtains were the same grey/black checkered print and the rug in the middle of his room had a cyborg skull head on it. Mainly black as well. The most colorful thing in Taeyong’s room was probably him, and he was pale as . He also had more than a few collector items from the Neon Genesis franchise, but like, whatever.

“Leave me alone!” Taeyong barked when there was a sturdy knock at his door barely ten minutes later. No doubt Ji-Sung coming to annoy him.

“It’s me!” Taeyong’s mother let herself in, walking all the way into the middle of the room. Taeyong went on changing his clothes in spite of her, barely making eye contact. “Uh hello? Explain yourself, little boy.” She whacked him on the back of the head.

“Explain what?” He searched for a shirt in his closet.

“Don’t play stupid games with me, Taeyong. Where were you yesterday night? I sleep hard, but not that hard. I heard your little leave and you didn’t come back.” Bo-young started to dig for her cigerette, her hands getting anxious when they couldn’t find the pack right away.

“Are you questioning me because you care or because you feel obligated to? I mean, I don’t have any missed calls or texts from you. Sure you cared?”

“My phone died, smartass.” She fired back.

“Lucky phone.”

“So where were you!? I swear to God if you were out running the streets with some ...” Bo-young emphasised that last word, showing her teeth.

“You’d be the expert on that.” Taeyong muttered, finally finding the shirt he wanted. A long sleeve, oversized sweater with Metallica across the front in a cool font. The right shoulder and bottom hem were fashionably distressed.

“Speak up!” She yelled.

“Nothing.” He said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She finally found her smokes, lighting one up right in the middle of his room. Relaxed, she blew smoke in his general direction. “You’re room is ing triggering.”

“Good.” He rolled his eyes. “Can you like, get out? I’m changing.” He started to slip out of the shorts and shoes from Minho.

“Listen to me, Taeyong, next time you go out that late, you need to let me or Ji-Sung know so we can have someone watching out for you.”

“I can watch out for myself.’ Taeyong half lied.

“I’m not gonna argue with you.” She pointed at him. “Just do as your told. For once. Stop worrying me out of spite.”

“That’s not it.” He shook his head, a little hurt that she would never ask him outright what was wrong with him. Why he only slept a few hours a night, why his grades were , why his friends didn’t come around anymore, why he didn’t eat and why he gave away all his nicer, brighter clothes months ago.

People only see the things they’re ready to confront, Taeyong supposed.

Stop worrying me out of spite

It stung. The ignorance of it almost burned the edges of Taeyong’s mind.

“I bought chicken by the way.” His mother headed for the door, running her free hand through her own pretty hair. “Yours in the microwave. Otherwise they’d eat it all.”

“Don’t want any.” Taeyong focused on squeezing into his black skinny jeans.

“Good, your skin’s already bad enough.” She puffed. “Where are you going anyway? Hot date?”

“To pay my phone bill. I have to make payment arrangements in person.” Taeyong groaned, annoyed that she’d forgotten about taking him. They’d only talked about it fifty times over the last week.

“Hm. Get home fast.” She shut the door after one last, bitter look at her son. “Cute sweater.”

Taeyong wasn’t only going to pay his phone bill. Really, he was going to keep spending the money on pills and beers from the corner liquor store until they sent him a warning text about his bill, THEN he would make the arrangements.

Besides the phone situation, he really needed a concrete answer about Johnny. “I’m taking this.” Taeyong grabbed a fried chicken from one of the boxes on the kitchen table, then saw himself out. The music and tv were still so loud, plus most of the crew had migrated to the garage where Ji-Sung had his meetings with Big Bang recently. Bo-young had only recently been allowed to sit in on them.

Once Taeyong listened with his ear up the door, and heard them talking about how to kill a young man. A few other times they talked about Limitless and how San E seemed to know everything about it.

Out in the breezy, but warm mid-day air, Taeyong power walked down the street, his raggedy shoes starting to hurt his feet from lack of cushion. He refused to wear the ones Minho had purchased.

After two and a half blocks, Taeyong got to the bus stop, paid his fare and sat in the very back of the bus. The other passengers were all around his age, looking bored or stressed. Either on their way to study sessions or part time jobs Taeyong figured.

“Hm, Kendrick or Foster the People....” Taeyong scrolled through his music app, trying to settle on an album. He finally picked Travis Scott, putting his earbuds in one by one. By the sceond track of the album, Taeyong was deep in thought about the night before.

Just what had happened? He went with Johnny to the woods and ended up finding a bunch of dead people. They got chased by a monster that probably ate Johnny in one bite, then Taeyong got saved by a man with shades and a ninja sword. In what world was anyone supposed to be able to make sense of that ? Especially when the next morning they were also told that a Heaven/Hell boy was living in their body? It was all too much and Taeyong wasn’t anywhere nearly high enough to laugh it off.

Taeyong kept wishing he could rewind, get super faded and then redo the Minho morning. For a flash, he pondered going back to the VELVET motel to see Minho again. Then again, if Minho wasn’t a huge liar, then the guy would probably find Taeyong sooner than later.

Had an hour gone by that quick? Taeyong’s eyes opened from the loght snooze at the same time his playlist ended. The driver was saying goodbye to some older man who moved slowly with a cane.

“It’s not safe to fall asleep on the bus, kid. It’s dangerous actually.” The driver smiled at Taeyong.

“Good to know.” Taeyong stepped off the bus steps, eyes slitted at the busy area of town. Lots of lights and nicely dressed people all looking like they had imporant or exciting places to be. There were groups of pretty girls in short skirts and expensive makeup laughing and taking selfies. Guys in sports cars, flexing at red lights. Even the bus on the other side of the street looked nicer than the one Taeyong had just gotten off of.

Taeyong rolled his eyes at all of it. He’d been here before with Hayi. When they were a couple. When they were dating or doing whatever the that was. , pills and house parties. In fact, all three of those things took place at Johnny’s place...where Taeyong was headed now.

Johnny’s house was pretty big. Not anything to go crazy about, but it took up a lot of space and had a modern, sleek feel to it. Taeyong wasn’t impressed, but then again, he wasn’t impressed easily by anything. And when he was, he didn’t admit to it.

He stood on the sidewalk for a few moments, chekcing social media. Johnny’s SNS had been inactive for about 48 hours and a quick scroll across his timeline showed nobody was really aksing or talking about him. Like Taeyong, maybe it was normal for Johnny to just vanish here and there.

However, Taeyong did notice Chittaphon, a somewhat popular and pampered student had changed his relationship status to IN A RELATIONSHIP. Taeyong wasn’t even sure why it stuck out to him. They weren’t friends.

He turned off his phone and started towards Johnny’s front door. There were two cars in the driveway, so Taeyong was sure someone would be home. What he wasn’t sure about was....what the hell he was doing there?

Hi my name is Taeyong, is yo son dead?

Hi my name is Taeyong, seen ya son lately?

Hi my name is Taeyong, I think your son dead as a doornail?

Taeyong didn’t get the chance to even knock on the door before someone grabbed him. An angry hand clamped around his shoulder and spun him around. Taeyong was already poised to fight before he even saw the person’s face.

“Back off!” Taeyong shoved Kyungsoo backwards with both hands.

“Oh, it’s you...” Kyungsoo’s heated expression started to water down some.

“What the hell was that about?” Taeyong loosened up a bit, even though he barely knew Kyungsoo. At least it hadn’t been a total stranger.

“I thought you were Daehyun from behind, sorry, dude.” Kyungsoo shook his head, yanking a cell phone from his bomber pocket. A snow white padded bomber with fleece around the collar. As always, Kyugnsoo looked like a saint in his grey cropped smart pants and sneakers. But Taeyond didn’t even have to wonder why Kyungsoo was at Johnny’s house.

“Have you seen him?” Taeyong asked, watching Kyungsoo walk back to his car parked on the curb.

“Johnny? no. That bastard owes me....something.”

“Drugs.” Taeyong figured it was easier to just say it out loud. No judgement zone.

“Whatever. But he’s not here, I already spoke to his dad.” Kyungsoo strapped himself into the driver seat. “Said Johnny just came home, grabbed some stuff and went to his classes at that Music Institution a couple miles from here.”

“The one owned by Chittaphon’s family?”

“Nobody calls him that. It’s Ten.” Kyungsoo said absentmindedly, his keys now in the ignition. The sleek white car came to life while Kyungsoo sent a text with one finger, dropping his phone back into his lap like he couldn’t stand the sight of it. “I’m gonna go there.”

Taeyong almost thought Kyungsoo was about to offer him a ride.

“Actually. it, I got better things to do. I’ll just catch his dumb at school.” Kyungsoo sped off without even checking his mirrors.

“How the hell...” Taeyong didn’t understand. Even Minho had mentioned Johnny being dead. So how the hell had he come home, pb&j and gone to class!? How had his own dad seen him? Taeyong couldn’t bend, wrap or twist his head around that notion.

It wasn’t that he wanted Johnny to be dead, it was just the last thing that made sense at this point.

Opening the Uber app on his phone (which was dying a slow death at 22%) Taeyong requested a ride to the Music Institution where a bunch of students from his school were enrolled by their parents so they could all compete with one another through....pianos and lyrics? Taeyong didn’t care. His driver was ten minutes away, so he sat on the curb, vacant in the face.

Taeyong didn’t think to call Johnny until his driver was only two minutes away. Hastily, he scrolled through his call log to find the number he thought was Johnny’s. He called it once and got no answer, so he redilaed only to find out it was actually the number to the Skate shop he’d tried to get hired at a week ago. He picked the number above it this time. The phone rang twice before being picked up.

“HELLO?” Taeyong shot up to his feet. “Hello, Johnny?”

“Hello.” A voice replied. It was more of a general greeting than an invitation to continue speaking.

“Is...is that you...” Taeyong’s voice dropped. “It’s me, Taeyong.”

“Wrong number.” The voice said each word with a couple seconds between them.

Taeyong didn’t have the time to call back before his driver pulled up right in front of him, looking cheerful. “Hey, how are you, I’ll be your driver.”

“I’m okay I think.” Taeyong answered, unable to relax in the backseat. Mostly because the seats were lumpy and a bit stained.

“Funny story, I actually picked a different boy up from this house a couple hours ago. Big, tall guy, said the exact same thing as you.” The driver’s shoulders shook when he laughed.

“Johnny?” Taeyong asked. “His name was Johnny?”

“Uhhh, no. At least that’s not what he told me, haha.”

Taeyong fell silent....watching his phone go dim as it hit 15%. It felt like a warning in more ways than one. Clicking his seat belt, Taeyong let the driver ramble on about gas prices. Taeyong knew where he was going, but not where he was going to end up.

HELLO! Big thank you to those of you who shared this fic or subscribed, that’s really cool to see!

I originally wanted to jump into some more action this update, but my ideas change a lot and I felt like I needed to this chapter so that I could present Taeyong’s family situation.

So yeah, you got to meet his mother and her boyfriend. Also some snippets about his father and brother, Taemin.

Do you think Johnny is really dead? We WILL find out in the next update!

Again, leave me comments and let me know what you think.

Believe it or not, this was supposed to be a one shot so there are some tiny details that were in the first chapter but won’t carry on. But for now, I just hope you like what I have for you! The cast is smaller to start off, which is new for me. I usually work with big casts of characters, but I like devoting all this time to Taeyong.

Anyway, see you soon