Yongguk watches as the final piece of stale, dry bread disappears into the boy’s mouth. The boy looks up, eyes wide and blinking, still chewing the bread. His blond hair is awfully ruffled and the grey dust has already gathered on his pyjamas. The fabric seems expensive, and Yongguk has to resist the urge to reach out and touch the soft cloth. He has never been able to afford a pyjama, let alone a good one. The boy’s bare feet is already dirtied by the browning blood of someone - not his, for sure, as Yongguk sees no evident wounds from the boy- and Yongguk doesn’t try to point it out to him.

He’s still a kid.

The boy swallows, eyes still fixed on Yongguk. Yongguk starts to feel uncomfortable; it has been a while since anyone paid close attention to him. How does normal socializing even happen? Is he supposed to ask a question, or introduce himself…

“Who are you?” It’s the boy that asks the question first.

“Is that how you thank someone who just gave you their only meal?” Yongguk stiffly answers. The boy purses his lips, looks down and shifts uneasily. Yongguk takes a breath. He’s still a kid, remember that. A traumatized kid.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” the boy says.

“Do you even know what you’re sorry about?” Yongguk mutters, barely audible. The boy looks up, his eyes again teary. A weight drops in Yongguk’s chest for some reason, the feeling that he’s done something wrong, the feeling of guilt.

“I don’t… know, but you’re mad-”

“Kid, I’m not mad.” Yongguk crouches down in front of the boy sitting on the ground so they meet their eyes. The boy blinks, looking confused. From closer-up, the boy definitely looks young. Staring at the boy’s eyes, Yongguk wonders how much filth of the world he has seen before the night of the raid. Wonders how much he has seen since then.

“I’m Bang Yongguk,” Yongguk says. “You?”

“Zelo,” the boy answers shortly. Then he adds. “Choi Zelo.”

“Zelo,” Yongguk repeats. Zelo nods. Zelo, Yongguk repeats again in his head. Yongguk can’t remember the last time someone told him their name. The safest way to live on the streets is to avoid people than to address another. Interactions only exist for deceit and conflict. And here sits this boy, probably raised as a spoiled rich child, telling him his name. Choi Zelo.

The way Zelo looks into his eyes is making Yongguk uncomfortable, so he sits down on the ground next to Zelo instead. Now they both face the field of the school. One soccer post has been demolished, but the other one stands lonelily at the edge of the field. Zelo quietly and intently stares into the thin air. Yongguk turns to check if the boy is crying; he isn’t.

“You, you play soccer?” Yongguk tries his best to make small talk.

“Used to,” Zelo answers.

“You like it?”

“Used to,” Zelo answers in the same tone. It sounds too reminiscent for a kid who’s probably around 16. Yongguk wonders if he should keep asking questions, or if this is making the kid uncomfortable, but Zelo continues talking.

“They didn’t like me.”

They? Yongguk asks in his head, but doesn’t speak out loud.

“They said dad put me in school because he didn’t like me.” Zelo’s tone is neutral. As if he’s reading out a passage in class. Monotone, no emotion. “I wasn’t supposed to be, born, you know. Wasn’t supposed to be his kid.”

Yongguk doesn’t know what to say. Zelo grabs a piece of broken cement and throws it. It hits the ground, bounces off, falls down on the ground again and remains stationary. Zelo continues talking.

“Like, I know, I mean… I know it’s true,” Zelo mutters like an old man. “My mom’s not… the lady. My dad’s real wife.”

Yongguk breathes in slowly, trying to grasp this reality of him sitting next to this young teenager, wearing pyjamas in the middle of the day, talking about his family issues to a total stranger. This was certainly not how he expected this day to go.

“They didn’t know at first, but you know, the higher elite class, gossips spread fast, especially when they’re true.” When Zelo says this he sounds like an actual adult, even older than Yongguk himself, talking about the life Yongguk has never known and never will know. “Didn’t take long for people to know.”

“But that’s not your fault,” Yongguk slowly speaks. Also not Yongguk’s fault that he was born to a poor man who lost his wife and his second kid at childbirth. Not Yongguk’s fault a car ran over his father running across the sidewalk one unfortunate day. Not his fault that he was forced to live alone on the streets. Not his fault.

“It is, though?’ Zelo turns to look at Yongguk with innocent eyes. “If I weren’t born the problem wouldn’t have existed.”

Yongguk is at a loss of words, but Zelo continues. “They didn’t want to sit with me, didn’t want to play soccer with me… So I stopped.”

I’m sorry to hear that, the words circulate in Yongguk’s mouth. But he can’t say them out loud. He doesn’t know how.

“But it’s okay.” Zelo smiles, although it looks forced. “They saved my life.”

“How?” Yongguk blurts out.

“They didn’t want to sleep in the same dorm as me.” Zelo shrugs. “I mean, they didn’t want me to sleep in the same dorm as them. So they locked me in the basement.”

“Oh,” Yongguk almost whispers, not knowing how to react.

“I… I heard it, I felt it,” Zelo says. “It shook the whole building. People were screaming. It went boom, then boom-” Zelo opens his hands as he says ‘boom’.

“But I lived.” Zelo stretches. “The bombs didn’t get me.”

“That’s… nice,” Yongguk manages to say.

Zelo smiles again, and suddenly the odd maturity that radiated from him is gone. He’s back to being ‘the kid’.

“So how old are you?” Yongguk asks impulsively.

“Just turned fifteen,” Zelo answers. Yongguk does a quick math in his head.

“Six years younger,” Yongguk says to himself.

“You’re 21?” Zelo’s eyes are wide.

“Yes, why?” Yongguk says.

“Wow, old,” says Zelo. Yongguk narrows his eyes. Zelo waves his hands.

“No, no, I don’t mean it like… like, being old is cool! You’re an adult, you can, like, go around alone, go buy alcohol... ”

“I could do that before anyway,” Yongguk shrugs as if it’s no big deal. It’s true, he’s been alone since nine, not nineteen. The freedom of adulthood was given too soon to his younger self.

“Whoa, really?” Zelo’s voice is full of pure astonishment and admiration, nothing more. “That’s so cool.”

“I suppose it is,” Yongguk reluctantly agrees, not ready to burst the happy bubble of the kid.

“Where are your parents?” Zelo asks innocently.

“Dead,” Yongguk answers bluntly.

Zelo opens his mouth, eyes again wider, and Yongguk waves his hand to dismiss him.

“It’s fine, it’s been more than ten years, I’m fine,” Yongguk says. “I’m used to it.”

“But, I…”

“Kid, you’re not at a position to feel bad about my parents,” Yongguk raises his eyebrows. “Parents don’t matter. Who you are, and how you’re living matters.”

“...Okay,” Zelo looks down to the ground.

Silence. Then Yongguk remembers. Reality.

“Kid,” he speaks. He’s still not used to calling people with their names. “Where are you gonna go? Do you have to go back to your dad, mom, whatever…”

“I don’t want to see my dad,” Zelo answers with absolute certainty.

“Mom?”

“Haven’t seen her for years,” Zelo answers nonchalantly.

Yongguk sighs.

“I, I can, uh…” Zelo stammers as if he sensed the discomfort from Yongguk. “I can maybe, maybe still call dad-”

“How much does this man dislike you?”

“He pretends as if I don’t exist unless I piss him off by existing,” The answer comes from Zelo quickly and easily. Yongguk frowns.

“Are you okay with sleeping on the streets?” Yongguk cannot believe he’s saying this to this kid he just met.

“...Sure,” Zelo answers reluctantly.

“Okay with eating crap?”

“Better than starving…?”

Yongguk pats Zelo’s back. “Good point there, kid. Good answer.”

Zelo looks up as if he’s asking what Yongguk meant by that.

Yongguk tries to put on the widest smile he can.

“You’re staying with me from now, kid,” Yongguk says.

Zelo slowly mirrors Yongguk’s smile.