L.Joe's POV

sniffle, sniffle.

I looked up at my mother's face as I held tightly onto her hand. She was crying. But I didn't understand why. Did she miss my dad? He just went to stand in line to get some food for us. He'll be back soon.

The back of her free hand continuously wiped her moist cheek, letting go of my hand before kneeling down to meet at my six years old height level. Her eyes looked so sad, it made me feel sad that I didn't know what to do.

She gave a faint smile. "Byunghun-ah," she said in a low, whispered tone, "you want to play hide-and-seek while we wait for appa?" Her eyes grew watery again. I looked around, seeing people walking around the streets. Maybe she just wanted to play. Maybe that will make her happy and stop crying. I nodded my head. She took both my wrists in her shaking hands and brought it up to my eyes. "You can count. I'll go hide, and no peeking," she squeaked.

I only nodded my head, a weird feeling growing in the pit of my stomach as I counted. "One," I said, pausing for a while. Something churned in my stomach. "Two." I frowned. "Three." I started to feel a little sick so I pulled down my hands and opened my eyes to tell my mother but...

It was all in slow motion.

She was running, pushing and shoving past people, getting farther and farther.

"Eomma!" I screamed out for her. Where is she going? "Eomma!!" I shrieked as my legs jolted after her but she just kept getting farther. I felt more sick and I needed her. "Eomma, come back! Eomma! Eomma!" I was still running until I tripped and fell to the ground, scraping my knee. Tears dripped down towards the ground as I looked up through the tears in my eyes; a blurred image of my mother's back disappearing into the crowd.

The tears stinging my eyes, I closed them and rubbed the tears away.

I opened my eyes back to a dark room. I was staring at a ceiling. But it wasn't just any room. It was my room.

I sat up straight, feeling my heart rate beating fast. I instinctively reached up to my forehead, my palm wiping away the sweat. My eyes shot towards the clock on my bed side table that blinked 3:34 AM. I let a low groan escape my lips as I snatched my pillow and threw it back down but I was still angry; Angry that my mom left me and my dad when I was six.

I blinked hard, feeling my eyes well up until I got distracted by the sounds that emitted from the room next to mine.

"Ooh, yes. Harder," an unfamiliar female's voice panted. Loud moans of pleasure muffled passed the wall, followed by a grunt and a man's voice that spoke to her. "Let me hear you moan for daddy." Hard wood knocked rhythmically at the wall—the headboard, perhaps—as the bed creaked. 

I gritted my teeth as I balled my fists and pounded on the wall. "If you're gonna have in the middle of the night, can you at least try to keep it down? People are trying to sleep!" I yelled, but they probably couldn't hear me as the sounds didn't pause for a moment. Who the hell am I kidding. My father never cared about who he ed or how loud him and his new toy were in the middle of the night. "ing !" I pushed down my clock onto the floor and threw open my closet doors, trying to find a pair of comfortable jeans I could put on.

After finding one, I put on my pair of vans and threw on a sweatshirt before grabbing my phone and a beanie to pull over my head. Maneuvering over several tossed clothing and slamming every door on my way out, I pulled out my phone to text C.A.P and crossed the street, making my way towards his apartment. 

One knock was all it took before the door swung open, revealing a messy haired C.A.P in nothing but a white t-shirt and his boxers. "Old man's at it again?" He asked unsurprised and then stepped aside to let me in.

I stepped over the threshold. "Third one this week."

"Damn," he exhaled exhaustingly and shut the door. He yawned once before he walked back towards his bedroom. "Blanket and pillows are already on the couch. See ya in the morning."

I yelled out my thanks as I slipped off my shoes, following suit with my jacket and beanie, laying them on the small coffee table in front of the couch. I fixed the pillows and crawled under the blanket, trying to get rid of all thoughts of my dad and any negative feelings that came with it in order to get back to sleep.

I woke up to the ray of sunlight that passed through C.A.P's —god forbid— curtain free windows. I squinted, getting blinded by the bright light and covered my eyes with my arm when I heard a door open and close. Then C.A.P's voice sounded.

"Are you gonna get your lazy up or do you intend to sleep the whole ing day?"

I gave a low groan to answer his question.

"Alright then," he replied. "But I ain't feeding you later since I don't get off 'til eight. So if you get hungry that's your problem." I heard him scuffle towards the door, grabbing his apartment keys from the counter. He put on his shoes and opened the door, pausing. "If you leave, don't forget to lock the door, aiight?"

I waved my hand up, dismissively and said, "yeah, whatever. Just let me sleep." I heard him mutter something but I didn't catch it, not bothering to dwell on it even for a split second.

I continued laying on the couch, my arm slung over my eyes to shield the sun for a little while longer until the sun disappeared behind some clouds and the room grew a bit dimmer. Then I sat up straight, looking over at the wall clock that hung on the wall of the kitchen's little bar table. It was 1:48 PM. What am I supposed to do?

I grabbed my phone off the coffee table, unlocked it and called my speed dial #2. I waited until the line clicked.

"Yeoboseyo?" The person on the other line greeted.

"Yo, Chunji." I spoke. (a/n: I see all you chunjoe shippers ¬‿¬) "I'm bored out of my mind. What are you doing?"

I heard some shuffling on the other side. "I was just getting ready to go to the bar."

"Well thanks for the invite."

"You can come if you want. I was just gonna swindle some people at pool."

"I'm down."

"Alright then, meet me at Vinyl," Chunji said before he hung up.

I locked my phone and stuffed it into my back jeans pocket and then grabbed my jacket and beanie, pulling both of them on before heading out the door, making sure to lock it. 

Vinyl wasn't that far but then I remembered that I didn't get a chance to eat anything, or even raid C.A.P's cabinets, so I stopped by a near convenient store for a small sandwich and a drink. Taking time out to sit outside on one of the tables available, I scarfed down my sandwich in no time and popped open my can of soda when someone interrupted my peaceful day.

"Well look who it is," the female voice said.

I rolled my eyes, not bothering to turn around to greet her since I knew who it was. Hearing the click of her heels on the sidewalk, I could tell she was right behind me, walking closer and I could literally feel her evil presence. I felt her lean down near my ear.

"You know I really hate being ignored, L.Joe," she hissed, straightening up again and walking towards the seat across from me. "Hasn't anyone ever told you to respect your elders? You do remember I'm your noona, don't you little Joey?"

I scowled at the stupid nickname she uses to try to break me. But I wasn't in the mood to play any little games she had up her sleeves right now, or any other time for that matter.

"What do you want, Sungkyung?" I looked her straight in the eyes.

She gave me a half smirk and laced her fingers together, resting her chin on them. "I just wanted to see how my little saeng and his oh-so-wittle gang is doing."

"Thanks for your concern," I spat, each word dripping with sarcasm. "But we don't need you worrying about us, noona. We're doing just fine. Now why don't you go run off to Sunggyu, I'm pretty sure him and his boys are the ones that need to be taken care of."

Her smile didn't falter as we continued staring each other down. "Now, now, Mr. Hot-Temper," she cooed. "No need to be pugnacious."

"Look," I said, setting down my can of coke, "no offense, Sungkyung. But ever since you cut ties with C.A.P hyung for that scumbag named Sunggyu, you cut ties with all of us. So whatever friendship you think you still have with Teen Top," I leaned forward in my seat, pressing my palms onto the table, "is over." I stood up, my chair grazing on the pavement, and walked away. Every passing second around her made my blood boil.

Chunji's POV

After I hung up my phone call with L.Joe, I threw on a white t-shirt and grabbed my black jacket before scurrying downstairs to get out of this house as fast as I can.

Much to my dismay, my mother was sitting at the dinner table with two bottles of Scotch—one already empty, the other, one-third gone. She had her head down, supported by her hand as she stared at her half cup of Scotch. I would've thought she fell asleep like that if she wasn't swirling the contents in her cup.

I crept down the stairs as fast as I could, trying to be discreet without any sounds. I only stepped off the last step when my mother spoke without her head lifting up.

"Where do you think you're going?"

. I loosened up since I was already caught. "Out," I answered.

"Out, where?" She took another sip from her cup.

"Just out." I'm pretty sure my mother had a vague sense of where I stood in my life. I always came home with bruises, cuts, dirty and ripped up clothes, but she never once got up from where she was sitting with her bottles of alcohol to aid me. All I ever got from her was insults and bad accusations.

I shoved my shoes on as I tried to tune out my mother's constant nagging that always followed any conversation I had with her. "Out," she spat, "Out, out, always out. You're just like your father. Never home." She downed the rest of the Scotch in her cup and reached for the bottle. "Go and get yourself beat up again. Can't even take care of yourself, no wonder why you're still living here. You think I'm s'pposed to cater to you like a little baby?" Her eyes were blood shot red, probably from drinking late at night again.

I reached for the door handle and opened it to fresh, crisp air, and freedom.

As I stepped over the threshold, about to close the door, I heard my mother shout at me. "Don't forget to pick up some more Scotch or you're sleeping outside tonight!"

I opened the door to Vinyl and stepped inside. The room was a bit dim, voices and hoots ricocheting off the walls. I sat down on one of the bar stools, ordering a drink for myself while I wait for L.Joe. Unlike my mother, I knew my limits and stopped whenever I wanted.

Before I could even take a sip of my drink, I was interrupted by someone taking the seat to my right.

"Hey."

Surprised that the voice belonged to a female, I turned my head to be greeted by a woman with long, brown hair. I quickly skimmed over her body, admiring what I saw before cracking a small smile. "Hey, yourself," I greeted back.

Halfway through the bottle of soju I agreed to share with her and closing whatever gap we had between us so that our elbows and knees were touching, a shadow fell upon us.

"Am I interrupting something?"

I looked up to see L.Joe who took an unamused glance at the girl next to me. "Just a little," I replied and drank the rest of the soju that was in my glass.

"My bad," he said, "I don't remember being invited to be a third wheel."

The girl stood up, fixing her skirt and then gave me a small smile. "I think I better go." I was about to protest when she grabbed her clutch but she slipped a few folded dollar bills into my hand, catching my eyes. "Thanks for the drink and company. I hope we meet again." She gave a wink as we locked eyes for a bit before she sauntered out of the bar.

I turned to L.Joe with a scowl on my face. 

He gave me a questioning look. "What?"

"You totally just ed me, bro."

"Then that means I'm doing my job right." He cackled and then grabbed the soju bottle, pouring himself some into the glass that belonged to the girl. "Besides, how much you wanna bet she slipped her phone number in that wad of cash? You can call her up later."

I unfolded the bills and found a small piece of paper with a phone number scribbled on it. A smug grin spread out across my lips unconsciously.

"Alright, lover boy. Snap out of it." L.Joe snapped his fingers in front of my face. "We came here to hustle money from people, not prance around with desperate girls."

I scoffed at him and poured myself a little of the soju into my glass. "Why can't I do both."

He gulped down his glass before setting it down on the bar and walking towards the pool area. "You coming, or nah?"

I finished the content of my glass, paying the bartender before I left, and followed L.Joe.

We both took a house cue and made our way to a pool table surrounded by a group of Japanese teenagers, casually making conversation. "Hey, man," L.Joe greeted in English, with a nod towards one of the guys that probably used his whole tub of gel or hairspray just to get his hair to stand like a character in an anime. "You guys speak English? How about Korean?"

The guy with the anime hair raised his hands and shook his head, speaking in English as well. "No Korean. Uhh... English, ohk. Little." He pinched his index finger and thumb together with a small gap and then pointed at another guy with his hair in a ponytail. "Good English."

"Yo, wassup?" The guy with the ponytail nodded towards us and held out his fist for us to pound. "You guys want to play?"

Since I wasn't exactly fluent in English, I remained more quiet than usual and let L.Joe speak. "Yeah, are you guys good?" L.Joe asked. 

Ponytail nodded a bit, "Pretty good, I guess. You?"

As L.Joe shook his head, I scratched the back of my head and stared down at the pool table, trying to look as intimidated as possible.

"It's ohk, s'ohk," Ponytail said. "We'll just play. Losers buy the other beer?"

I looked to L.Joe as he relayed the wages to me and we both nodded. Ponytail's crew fixed up the balls and allowed us to shoot first. I took the first hit, pocketing stripes. The game went pretty bad in our favor, but we had purposely lost and bought them all beer. We played a couple more games, betting some small amount of money, only to purposely lose. Then that's when Ponytail started whispering something into one of his friend's ears before they both nodded.

"How does one more game sound?" He asked. "Double the previous amount?"

"Sure, what have we got to lose?" L.Joe nonchalantly shrugged with his hands behind his back, holding one of his hands out. I crossed over behind, giving him a high five as I inwardly smirked before I moved to the end of the pool table to take the first hit, again; this time, getting ready for the real game.

Too easy.

• 20 years old
• Unemployed but a self proclaimed hustler
• Mother: Lee Junghee
  Father: Lee Yuchan
• Mother is an alcoholic (due to the fact that she had been laid off her job and her husband is never around)
• Father is a workoholic (almost never home; sometimes crashes at his work place and is always stressed)
• Supposed to work alongside his father at his company but refuses to
• Known as the "ladies' man" among his friends; resident flirt
• Can be very hot tempered if pushed
• A bit vain and impish

yay, another update.

I decided to add in these FULL character profiles after some chapters cos I don't want to give anything away in the foreword.
so if you see a "+(P)" at the end of the chapter's title, it means there's a character profile in the chapter.

I worked out some details about each boys' families (excluding infinite cos damn, that'd be too much) but each teen top member gets a little story.
and I'll somehow incorporate their story in some chapters and then give them a full profile at the end
and I know I incorporated a little bit of l.joe and chunji's story in this chapter but I'm gonna hold off on l.joe's profile until later

oh and speaking about profiles: sungkyung's profile has been added into the foreword.

anyways,

comment, subscribe, and stay awesome gotham.