Word Count: 1,472

It was devastating when he heard about the plane accident. Both of his parents were gone and he was left with a massive compensation from the state with a generic “Sorry for your loss” card attached. He was ten years old when the sixty lives were snuffed out in the blink of an eye. He ran to the door when the bell rang, wondering why his parents would be ringing when they had their own keys.

“I’m sorry but your parents are dead,” the man in the black suit informed him when he opened the door. “Your parents left you in the care of an aunt who agreed to care for you until you are of age. She agreed to care for you for the next five years. She will be coming to live with you in the next few days. That is all I have to say except that you have received a compensation of €15,000,000, which will be going into a trust that you can access in five years.” The man his heels and left the small boy staring after him.

This couldn’t be true. It absolutely couldn’t be true. His parents couldn’t possibly be dead. He closed the door slowly and locked it like his parents had always told him to. He slowly slunk back to his room and pulled the covers over his head, thinking that mayhaps when he woke up it will have turned out to be all a dream and his parents would be home. He cried himself to sleep just thinking of the possibility that his parents couldn’t come home. At that age, no one really understands the concept of death.

When his aunt came, two days later, she looked around with disdain. “So this is where you’re living now. It isn’t terrible.” Baekhyun’s mother had always called her a gold-digger but he didn’t quite understand what it meant until two years later.

His aunt didn’t really do very much. She mostly brought home men and took them to her room. She also told him to never go into her room while she was still in there. He heard loud noises but simply covered his ears with a pillow in hopes of drowning out whatever it was. She wasn’t really a guardian and Baekhyun ended up shopping for food, doing the cooking, and also cleaning the two-story house.

After about a year of this abuse, he met a boy by the name of Jongdae. Jongdae caught Baekhyun’s attention one time when he was out grocery shopping.

“Hey there, you, kid.” Baekhyun looked over and saw a kid not much older than himself leaning against a wall.

“Em. Hello,” he said, politely bowing. “Is there something wrong?”

“I was actually wondering the same thing. I always see you here but you’re always alone. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with an adult. Why’s that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well every time I see you walk by, you never have a mum or a da with you.” Baekhyun looked down. “Like no guardian whatsoever. I was kind of curious. You look about eleven or something?”

“Em. Yeah. I’m eleven, how old are you?”

“I’m eleven too. My name’s Jongdae,” he replied, grinning.

“Baekhyun. Pleasure to meet you. And about my mum, I don’t have one. I don’t have a da either, and my aunt doesn’t really like to go shopping, so I go for her.”

“That’s not how it’s supposed to work. She’s supposed to be the one going shopping for you. Adults are supposed to take care of us at least until we’re fifteen if not further.”

“I don’t really mind...” Baekhyun replied.

“Hey. Do you want to come over to my house and play some games or something,” Jongdae asked, rather forwardly.

“I don’t know whether my aunt would like that...”

“Based on the fact that she makes you do her shopping, I doubt she really cares.”

“If I’m out past 22:00, she gets mad...”

“Well, seeing how it’s 16:00 right now, you’ve still got a good six hours right?”

“I guess so... But I should probably tell her or something at least...”

“Oh come off it. I doubt she actually cares as long as you get the groceries and return at some point, right? You can do that in a couple hours, after we’ve hung out a bit. You look really pale and like you don’t get out a heck of a lot.”

“Well... I kind of self-study programming and stuff.”

“Really now?” Baekhyun nodded. “Would you be will to help me with a project? I know we’ve just met and all, but it will be really fun. You’re going to need to blindly follow me so I can explain it in a more comfortable environment. A busy street where we’re being constantly jostled isn’t really optimal is it?’

“Not really.”

“Good, then let’s go.” Jongdae really didn’t give Baekhyun any choice, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him along after him.

“Are you going to keep what we’re doing from me until we arrive at our destination?”

“Yeah. It’s too noisy and I don’t really want anyone to overhear us.”

“It’s a secret?”

“Of sorts.”

“And you’re telling a complete stranger?”

“I’ve seen you around so you aren’t exactly a complete stranger.”

“It’s still weird.”

“I get that a lot.” Baekhyun simply followed along until they came to his home. They were out of breath from weaving through the crowd. At some point, Jongdae decided that they should run despite not having any particular time constraints. The air conditioning inside was a relief.

“So are you going to tell me why you basically kidnapped me off of the streets?”

“I wanted to know whether you would be willing to help me build mecha. You said you’re a programmer, right?”

“Yeah...?”

“And you have really long and dextrous-looking fingers, not in a creepy way.”

“So?”

“Well I was wondering whether you would be willing to help me build and program them. I know how to build them, but mine are all rubbish because I don’t have the small motor skills to do it. You’d get a cut of the commission money and all too.”

“Why would you ask me to do this?”

“I don’t know. I feel like you’re a good person and you wouldn’t really mind doing it.” Jongdae grinned victoriously when Baekhyun pulled a face implying that Jongdae had hit the nail exactly on the head. “So what do you say?” Jongdae extended his hand.

“Sure,” Baekhyun replied in resignation.

“And I’ll even go shopping with you for this witch aunt of yours.”

“We can work in this little studio I have beside my house,” Baekhyun suggested.

“That sounds great! I was just planning on us working in my room but that sounds like a much better idea! Where do you live?”

“Just up the street a couple of blocks.”

“Great! It’s a deal then.”

“Whom do you live here with?” Baekhyun wondered out loud before he could stop himself. He didn’t see any signs of anyone else living in the place.

“I live by myself.”

“But you’re eleven, right?”

“I may or may not have hacked the database and changed my birth date.”

“So you’re pretending to be fifteen?” Baekhyun asked incredulously.

“It’s not like I’d want to get thrown into the foster care system.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“That’s why you withstand your aunt right?” Jongdae asked.

“Well she’s family too... I couldn’t just kick her out on the streets or something like that.”

“That’s true. ”

“I think that she might not have a house outside of mine right now...”

“That’s really no excuse for her to treat you the way she does! Well whatever. If you think that it’s not important, I’ll just leave it. So you want to meet up tomorrow and start on this project?”

“Sure. Should I come over here?” Baekhyun asked uncertainly.

“That’d be fine,” Jongdae replied.

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow. But come by at like noon because I don’t like getting up before then.”

“Okay,” Baekhyun replied, giggling.

--

Luckily he remembered that he still needed to buy groceries before going home, elsewise his aunt would have a fit.

“Ms. Kim. I’m home.”

“And what took you so long?” she snapped from a place at the top of the stairs.

“I met a friend. I promise I won’t be late next time.”

“Whatever. Just make some dinner and then go up to your room. I have a guest coming in an hour.”

“Okay.”

“Is it okay if my friend and I use the back studio?”

“Sure whatever. Just remember your curfew and stuff like that.” She turned back and went into her bedroom. Baekhyun sighed and went to the kitchen to prepare food.

A/N: So all of the chapter titles to this point were lyrics from Kokoro or Kokoro Kiseki but for the second Jongdae arc, I'm using lyrics from the song "Lost Time Memory". There will be three more chapters in this Jongdae arc. The story is winding down and I hope you had fun reading!

Thank you for all of your support and sorry for not updating this. Thank you for comments, upvotes, subscriptions, misc other, and for reading.