The first card

If the War Goes On
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Seungwan jogged along the sidewalk, hands hooked into the straps of her backpack to stop it from bouncing. She dodged passers-by automatically, sometimes hopping into the road when the street got too crowded, which tended to happen around the subway station exits as clusters of people on their lunch break sought the food courts and cafes. Seungwan had a couple of triangle-shaped kimbap in her backpack along with her taekwondo uniform. She was supposed to throw out the dated food from the 7-11, but she usually managed to slip it into her bag instead. It was such a waste, when the food would be perfectly fine for at least another day.

Her taekwondo dojang was only a five-minute jog from where she worked and lived. She arrived at the building and hopped up the stairs to the second floor, only to find that the door into the dojang was closed and there were no shoes in the shoe-rack. She was the first one there. She kicked off her sneakers and dug her key out of her backpack, hoping her brother had been able to get off work on time today. They usually tried to synchronise their lunch breaks so they could train together, but it was a lot easier for Seungwan to do this, with her regular shifts, than it was for her brother. Some days he never showed up at all, but Seungwan didn’t hold it against him. That was just the nature of his job.

She bowed as she opened the door, as was proper etiquette when entering the dojang, then flicked the lights on and padded barefoot across the red-and-blue mats to the women’s changing room. Calling it a changing room was actually pretty generous, as it was nothing more than a cleaning cupboard they’d stripped the shelves out of. If more than two girls wanted to change at once, they had to take turns. The men’s changing room was slightly bigger, having once been a small office, but that was only fair, as there were a lot more boys training here than girls.

She was knotting her red belt around her waist when she heard the main door open and a familiar, teasing voice call out.

“Who could possibly be here already?”

She smiled. He’d made it after all. She yanked her belt knot tight, kicked the changing door open and jumped out, fists raised.

“Surprise!”

Baekhyun pretended to drop his training bag in shock. “If it isn’t Wendy Darling!”

“I thought you’d never show up, Peter Pan,” she teased.

“Start warming up,” Baekhyun told her, picking his bag back up and jogging over to the men’s changing room. “I’ll only be a minute.”

“No Chanyeol today?” she asked, but he was already pulling the door closed and didn’t hear. Her brother’s partner often came to train with them at lunchtime, but he’d been coming less lately. He was a good martial artist, though not as good as Baekhyun, who had a third-degree black belt to Chanyeol’s first-degree. But lately the tall detective seemed to be turning into a workaholic.

Seungwan sat down on the hard mats and started stretching. Jogging here had warmed her muscles up enough, and she knew by the slight sheen of sweat she’d noticed on Baekhyun’s forehead that he’d also run the longer distance from the police station. She put her legs out in front of her and leaned forward, grabbing her heels and folding at the waist until her head rested on her knees, enjoying the stretching sensation in her hamstrings. With her head buried in the white fabric of her dobok pants, she smiled to herself. Baekhyun didn’t often call her Wendy Darling these days, and the childhood nickname never failed to warm her heart. Baekhyun’s voice calling that name was linked with her first happy memory, though the day it had begun on had been one of the worst in her short life.

She remembered the tall lady standing in the doorway smiling at her when the social worker had brought her to the orphanage, but Seungwan hadn't been able to smile back. She'd barely known how to smile, especially now, when she’d been taken away from the single room she’d lived in all her life and propelled into this large, noisy building that seemed full of kids. Seungwan had never even spoken to another kid, and the sounds of them shouting and laughing scared her. The only people who ever spoke to her were her mommy, and sometimes mommy’s clients, though mommy didn’t like them to see her. Usually when clients came mommy made her hide quietly in the dark corner under the table for what seemed like hours and hours at a time, listening to the banging and grunting sounds mommy’s clients made. Seungwan was very good at being quiet.

“This is Shon Seungwan. She's five years old. She hasn’t said a word in the three days we’ve had her,” the social worker said. He gave her a little push on her back, making her step over the threshold and into the building. “She’ll probably talk when she feels more confident.”

“They mostly do,” the lady said, and sighed. “Seungwan, you can call me Auntie, all the children do. I’m the housemother here. Take off your coat and hang it on this peg, please.”

“I’ll leave her with you, then,” the social worker said. “I’ve three abandoned babies to pick up from the church.”

“Three.” The housemother shook her head. “What is this country coming to?”

Seungwan looked up at her, but she didn’t seem to expect an answer to her question.

The social worker went away, and the housemother led her through a corridor that seemed vast. She looked around. There were pictures all over the walls. Some were childish paintings, but lots of them were photographs of children, hundreds and hundreds of them it seemed to Seungwan. Did they all live here?

“This is the common room,” the housemother said, opening a door into a huge, shabby room, where a handful of kids were doing activities or playing. “Now, who’s going to be your buddy?” She glanced around, her gaze stopping on a boy who was sitting curled up on a beat-up sofa, watching cartoons on a TV. Seungwan’s eyes widened. She’d only ever seen a TV in the windows of shops before, when she had to take mommy out to buy groceries. Mommy said only rich people had TVs, and this orphanage had one all of its own. It must be a very rich orphanage.

“Baekhyun,” the housemother called. The boy looked around. Curiosity kindled in his eyes when he saw Seungwan standing beside the housemother.

“This is Seungwan, she’s five years old. Seungwan, this is Baekhyun. He’s thirteen and he’s lived here for four years. Baekhyun, can you be Seungwan’s buddy, please?”

Baek-hyun, Seungwan thought, repeated the syllables of his name in her head carefully.

Baekhyun stood up from the couch and walked over. He crouched down in front of Seungwan and tilted his head to the side as he looked into her face. His eyes were very bright.

“Sure,” he said. He held out a hand, and Seungwan surprised herself by putting her own smaller one in it.

“Turn off that cartoon and put something suitable on,” the housemother instructed. Baekhyun nodded and led Seungwan over to a cabinet. Opening the door, he revealed a row of thin, colourful boxes lined up on the shelf. They all had the markings on them that Seungwan knew were letters, though she couldn’t read them.

“Something suitable,” Baekhyun repeated, frowning in concentration. Then he selected one of the boxes and opened it. There was a disk inside and he put it into the machine underneath the TV.

“I think you’ll like this,” he said, leading her over to the couch. He sat on it in a cross-legged position and patted the cushion beside him invitingly. Seungwan copied him, climbing onto the couch and crossing her legs like he did. She stared up at him, wide-eyed, and he laughed.

“Watch the movie, not me,” he said, pointing at the screen. “It’s called Peter Pan.”

Seungwan watched the movie. It was the first one she’d seen, and the magical adventure fascinated her. It made her forget the sadness and worry that hung heavy over her, the worry that she’d done something wrong, she hadn’t looked after mommy well enough and that was why she’d started shaking and jerking on the floor and then gone all stiff and cold for hours and hours and hours, until Seungwan had to finally break one of mommy’s big rules and go outside on her own, because there was no food in their room anywhere and mommy wouldn’t wake

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midaexiu
Dear readers, can just say that I had Chanyeol zoom in on Xiumin and I both love and hate myself XD

Comments

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areytrea #1
Chapter 23: story seemed pretty good to me when i last read it, but now when i just read the seungwan and jongdae scene it seems too weird and like out of nowhere? Knowing seungwan is baekhyun's little sister, it's just insanely weird that they kissed idk but whatever it is i am just gonna pretend it didn't happen (maybe it's also my bias cause i came for wenrene) but the plot is good really cool
Rshinichi
#2
Chapter 28: I've been wanting to say this but... unnie, can i marry your brain? can i? can i? can i?
Rshinichi
#3
Chapter 1: re-reading, AGAIN! this masterpiece needs to be turned into a movie!!!
maryam411 #4
hellooo, just stopping by to say how much of a masterpiece this is
dusktide #5
Chapter 28: i haven’t read a fanfic in years and only came across this fic when it got promoted.
i have to say i’m so glad i did. this was a wonderful read and it was extremely difficult to put down. i’ve been screaming at my s/o all my predictions and i really thought i figured out who the sniper was… only to be proven wrong. amazing work, author! thank you for writing and sharing!
ashtrielles
#6
❤️❤️❤️
robin5
#7
Chapter 28: Wow - I’m so impressed by this story! It really drew me in and kept me on the edge of my seat a few times worrying about the characters. I’m so glad I’ve discovered your work - I’m off to read another. Thanks for sharing your wonderful stories with your readers. I can’t wait to see where you’ll take me next. XOXO <3
Rshinichi
#8
Chapter 8: im re-reading this. i just love to torture my poor soul 😭 also because everytime i read a fic i find my self comming back here cuz this jist set the bar waaay too high for me!!!
Rshinichi
#9
Chapter 28: I just finished reading it... after staying up all night... a-and... im at loss of words... BUT IM FULLLLLLL OR TEARS OMG THAT WAS AN EMOTIONAL ROLERCOASTER!!!!.
But I'll talk abou the story more professionally,
the au you created was not only very VERY well written, but moooost importantly you choice of words. YOUR CHOICE OF WORDS!!! some of the lines literally made me want to stand up and so a slow clap.
then the plot. its extremely well planned and its evident how much effor you put into this.
the characters all have stories, emotions of their own.
The theme. THE THEME! is just MIND BLOWING! veeeery realistic. this whole contrast between good and bad which just made me realise that there is a very thin line between them. no one can truly be good or evil. most of us have one foot on each side. which leaves us to the fact that you cant really categorise people at all. everyone is human and every deserves to be acknowledged as human being.

ps. this is my first time reading any other fic besides kaisoo. and chen is my bias wrecker❤️
i just dont have words to describe how much i loved it!!!!!