Hello~

Chapter 6 of My Kitten and guess what? IT'S NOT THE LAST ONE!

Yep, I decided to make this one, another and then a epilogue. I just felt that if I ended the story right now things would be really rushed, and I don't want that. So yeah, you guys will have to bear with me a little longer ^^'... I'm sorry?

Carnaval is finally over (we have an reputation in making big, shiny costumes and alegoric cars and dance with tiny clothes... Oh, I'm so proud u_ú), and I swear people just get crazy -_-' My neighbors are partying for what feels like three days straight. Seriously, I don't see the need to party so much. It's not like the country is doing good, in fact, quite the opposite...

Anyway, this chapter is full of feels. Sorry if it's cheesy or confusing or just plain bad. I love angst (yeah, I'm a masochist *a big one* and a sadist for writing it) but that doesn't mean I can write it.

Thank you everyone who reviewed - I just cry in the Smithson's Corner... - and subscribed - we passed 100 subscribers! THANK YOU EVERYONE! - and keeps reading what I write.

Ps: Sorry for my mistakes. Victor-Oppa... he's a bit mad at me because he wanted a R-19 chapter and a giant 6th chapter... Just no, Oppa, just no.

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He lights a cigarette, lifting it to his mouth, in the nicotine hungrily. He doesn’t smoke, but now he needs something to calm down his nerves.

It’s October, and the weather it’s chilly, making him shiver; the light coat he wears is not near enough to stop the wind.

The smoke escapes his mouth and nostrils, and Hongbin still doesn’t feel better. In fact, he’s worst than before, now that the nicotine is starting to make him relax and think properly. The space that before was full with anger and frustration it’s empty, giving other feelings the opportunity to enter its place at any slip of his self-control. These are feelings Hongbin can’t afford to feel at the moment.  He thinks that if they make their way to this empty place, he will go mad.

But they keep forcing their way. Sadness, awareness, despair, panic and a crushing guilt he fears it will reach him at any second, settling in his being like a parasite; consuming him from inside out.

He finishes the cigarette quickly, and is even quicker to light another one.

Seoul’s street lights are as bright as always, and the street movement is continuous and unstoppable. A city that does not sleep; independent lights that try to outshine one another, lonely in their quests.

Hongbin is like it.

Restless and lonely.

He breaths in deeply, coughing when the smoke overpowers his lungs’ air and briefly cuts his respiration; it’s so intense that tears appear in the corner of his eyes.

One falls to the ground. And then another.

And another and another; they keep falling until Hongbin is a weeping mess in the middle of the street. Big transparent tears run down his handsome face, blurring the world for his eyes. His legs fail him, and he’s on the ground like his tears, back against a store’s wall. He brings his knees closer to his chest, embracing it as a meek tentative to hold together what’s left from him. A man with smile wrinkles asks him why he’s like this, but Hongbin can’t convey any answer, sobbing harder.

The sneaky feelings take this opportunity to enter the unfilled place inside him, and they do it with a dizzying power; Hongbin almost chokes in his cries when the weight of his earlier actions finally installs in his mind.

What did he do?!

Even better, how in hell could he do something like that to him?! To his adored Taekwoon?!

Oh, Taekwoonie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please, please forgive me.

He blamed the hybrid for something he hadn’t fault in; he screamed and mistreated him, made him feel unwanted and worthless. His Taekwoonie, who he knew had a painful past.

He was the worst with the sweet catboy. He’d hurt him, both physically and emotionally, and now Taekwoon would never forgive him. All the trust he took so long to build between them was shattered in mere minutes, and it would never be the same.

Hongbin is so sorry.

Taekwoonie, oh my god, please forgive me. I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry.

Please Taekwoonie, I will beg you if you want. I will worship the ground you walk by, but please, please, give me another chance.

Please Taekwoonie, I don’t think I can survive with you hating me. Beat me down, curse, ignore me, but please, forgive me.

How can I live knowing that the person I love hates me? Yes Taekwoonie, I love you.

I love you, I love you.

Realization is the next thing that fills his body.

What if Taekwoon really hates him?

What if he hurt him beyond forgiveness?

What if, what if… The thoughts are maddening.

He stands in his trembling legs, reaching for his cell phone, checking the time. 11:42PM. He’s been away from home for more than one hour, walking without destination; he calls home next, trying to talk to Taekwoon. As he expected, he doesn’t answer. One of those sneaky feelings – panic; revolting, frustrating, hideous panic – eats him, making his stomach churn and his heart beat at an accelerate pace and his legs wanting to run and run until he’s by the hybrid’s side once again.

Wiping his tear-stained cheeks – they don’t stop falling, though –, Hongbin does exactly this: he runs; long muscular legs setting a painful pace.

He welcomes the pain with outstretched arms, like she’s an old friend; she helps him to take his focus away from the panic.

It helps him to keep the tiny amount of control that remains inside him.

Control that shatters the moment he arrives in front of his apartment.

Panting, feeling the sweat running down his face, Hongbin sees the open door; the tears that never stopped falling from his – now burning, red and puffy – eyes seem to renew their forces; he can’t see things properly because of them.

“… T-Taekwoonie?” he calls tentatively, entering his house.

Jaehwan and Sanghyuk are in the middle of his living room, talking quietly in hushed tones, faces contorted in deep frowns. There’s glass on the floor, and for his crescent despair, a few drops of blood together with it. His already ragged breath hitches in his throat, millions of possibilities passing through his head as he walks with wobbly steps towards the mess in the floor.

Sanghyuk is the first one who notices him, and Hongbin shudders when brown eyes fixes in his own; feral and full of anger. It doesn’t take the photographer long to reach a conclusion: Hyuk heard him manhandling Taekwoon. Both catboys were never close, but the older is protective of the younger – something Hongbin believes it’s instinctive –, and the latter has a not-so-secret admiration directed to the former. And they are from the same specie and had hardships in their pasts; this automatically makes them close. “You’re back”

The older only nods weakly. Jaehwan turns his attention to him; differently from Sanghyuk, his eyes radiate confusion and preoccupation. “Hongbin-ah, where were you? Where is Leo-hyung? What happened here?” questions flood from his mouth.

Hongbin too wants the answer to them.

“I-I…” he doesn’t know what to say; he doesn’t have time to say something as one particular question picks his interest “W-Wait. You asked where is Taekwoonie? He’s not here?!” there’s desperation in his voice, even himself can notice it.

“He’s not here” Sanghyuk spits the answer, earning a confused look from Jaehwan and a guilty one from his former owner “He’s not here or in the neighborhood. I called Wonshik-hyung and he’s not there too” white sharp fangs are seen for a moment. The hybrid is angry.

“Something happened, right?” the older in the trio asks, tired of being left hanging in the conversation. He doesn’t understand the sudden aggressiveness Sanghyuk directs to Hongbin, or why the latter looks wrecked; tear-stained cheeks, disheveled hair, sweating and all “You guys could please tell me what’s happening?! Hongbin-ah, why Hyukkie doesn’t want to tell me what happened?”

Hongbin can’t gather the courage to explain, and he leaves the unwanted task in the youngest hands as he futilely runs past the duo.

Maybe Taekwoon is hiding somewhere. Maybe if he searches carefully the catboy will appear.

He hesitates in his room’s door; recent memories filling his head as the tears in his eyes threaten to fall again. His chest hurts – hurts so much – when he enters the place where everything collapsed. It’s paradoxically clean – paradox because of all of his dirty actions, because of the dirty words he spat on his innocent Taekwoon… – and the pieces of his broken Polaroid are on top of his desk. He kneels before it, touching a small piece in his hands; all this camera and he passed through… Days wandering Seoul – and Incheon, Busan, Daegu, Gwangju and others uncountable cities – taking pictures of the people, the sky, the streets and its stores, filling his bag with bits of each one. Precious recollections he still has.

Then it clicks.

Simply clicks.

I still have them, he thinks, covering his mouth with one hand, trying to muffle a sob. I have all these memories with me. They’ll always be with me.

His Polaroid was one of the most precious things to him.

But not as precious as Taekwoon.

Who’s not there. Who is somewhere outside his – their – home late at night, hurt. Who maybe won’t even come back.

For all gods, please, don’t let this be true.

I won’t bear his loss. I’m not ready to let him go; I will never be ready to let him go.

Please, please, come back.

I’m sorry, Taekwoonie, I’m so, so sorry.

Something under the Polaroid pieces catches his attention; a white shred of paper. Carefully taking it, Hongbin reads the single phrase written with a sloppy handwriting.

I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused.

Hongbin sobs harder than he ever did.

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I knew it. I knew, I knew, I knew.

The phrase keeps repeating itself inside Taekwoon’s mind as he walks blindly Seoul’s still busy streets. He’s been walking for the past one hour and a half, but he’s pretty sure he didn’t go as far as he wanted. His head screams at him to run, to get away, and to go as distant as he can from Hongbin’s house; his heart tells him another thing. His oh so soft heart, like Hakyeon used to say, begs for him to come back, to try harder. If Hongbin thinks he’s useless and troublesome, then he can try finding a job, can make extra effort in communicating, can… Do everything the younger asked – ordered – him. His heart is hurt, more than any other part of Taekwoon’s body – like his back, because of the harsh way Hongbin shoved him against the wall, or his eyes, burning after so many tears or his bleeding hand, because he couldn’t control himself and had broken a glass in pure anguish – and it continues to cry even when his eyes stopped.

The game of push and pull his mind and body are playing is driving him crazy.

The trust they’ve building with so much care and attention now it’s holding itself in a cracked foundation, just because his heart won’t let him shatter it; the tiny hope being sufficient to keep him near enough to be found.

The hybrid is not close to home, but he’s not far from it either. He desperately wants Hongbin to find him, to bring him back home.

This, if Hongbin ever wants him back.

His broken self doubts it.

He’s useless. He’s troublesome and disobedient.

He’s a toy.

And in the end, all toys are thrown away.

Taekwoon believed that Hongbin was different. That he was the one.

Someone who’d love him for what he was. Clearly, he was wrong.

The feelings become overwhelming in their intensity just when the catboy reaches a small park; he has to sit in one of the swings and breathe. Each puff of air burns his lungs, and Taekwoon chokes as he tears come back with full force. His head hurts – he stopped listening to it, always following his heart after all – as well as his back and eyes and legs and hand and heart.

He desires for it to end. Hurts so much; not even when he was burning he felt this kind of pain.

Consuming, burning ice pain, creeping through his skin and cutting his air.

Sly, wicked betrayal, whispering ‘I told you so’s in his mind; the sudden numbness he senses in all of his other sentiments. Nothing reaches him but those negative emotions.

I knew it. I knew, I knew, I knew.

Why, Hongbin-ah?

Why would you make me love you if in the end, you would be like the others who’d hurt me?

Why you made me love you?

Why, why, why?

Too preoccupied with his suffering state of mind, the hybrid fails to see several shadows approaching him.

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Hongbin is still drowning in his own pain and guilt when his bedroom’s door collides with the wall in a strong bang; he jumps and whimpers slightly.

Hakyeon is by the door, looking at him with so much anger that his whole demeanor is different; ears flat against his skull, white fangs clearly visible and tail as hard as stone. The catboy’s black eyes are burning holes in his body, and the tan skin of Hakyeon’s hands is white with the force he’s digging his nails in his palms.

“Lee Hongbin” his full name never sounded so wrong in someone’s lips. It drips with venom; rage “Lee Hongbin, I want an explanation. Right. NOW!”

“H-Hakyeon-hyung…”

“Don’t you even start with the pity show” the older growls, eyes turning into black crescents. “I will only rip you head off your damn shoulders quicker if you start”

Hongbin gulps, wiping the tears off his face. He gets up, feeling the pleasant pain in his knees – every pain different from the one in his heart is a gift, a sweet distraction – and sits on his bed. He stays silent.

He knows that if he opens his mouth, all that will come out are sobs and cries for forgiveness.

The hybrid is still waiting “I see you’re not going to tell me your version. Very well” he snaps his fingers, the sound acute and cruel to the younger’s ears “I don’t care about you in the moment, so I will make you answer me”

A sharp tug in his shirt and Hongbin is staring Hakyeon from below him. They’re so close he can feel the worry emanating from the catboy’s eyes. He’s almost as panicked as himself, Hongbin perceives.

“Sanghyuk told me you manhandled Taekwoon. Is that true?” irritated with the lack of response, Hakyeon tugs the fabric again, twisting it in his hand “Is that true?!”

Ashamed, the photographer only nods.

Smack.

The slap is so strong that its sound reverberates through the room and makes its receptor dizzy.

“I told you to take care of him! I said that Taekwoon was very sensible, and you promised… You…” Hakyeon’s voice breaks, and tears fills his eyes. With a hand in his cheeks, Hongbin can feel his own. He didn’t know that there were still tears to be cried. Never in his life had he remembered crying so much.

No, joining all the moments he cried in his life are not enough to cover all he cried today. The tears just keep running down his face in a pathetic manner.

“I’m sorry” he manages to say between hiccups “I’m so sorry, Hakyeon-hyung. I’m so, so, so sorry”

The older of the duo seems baffled with his reaction; his gaze immediately softens, and he’s Hakyeon-hyung once more, the ‘Umma’ of the group. “You didn’t mean to hurt him” it’s not a question, it’s a statement.

Nodding, Hongbin launches his body in the hybrid’s direction, in search for comfort “I never… I…” he cries, nonsense words mixing and forming nothing but confuse sentences.

“Shhh, its okay” gentle hands messes his already messy hair “I’m still mad at you, but you look pretty wrecked, Binnie-yah”

A humorless laugh escapes Hongbin’s mouth; the sound more similar to a wail than it should. It is truly pitiful. The hybrid cringes at it; it hurts his sensitive ears.

“I w-want m-my Taek-Taekwoonie back” he doesn’t care if he sounds like a spoiled kid; nothing matters but Taekwoon “I wa-want him back”

One very small grin tugs upwards the corners of Hakyeon’s lips “I know, I know. We will bring him back home, okay? Now, go wash your face, we have a lot of work to do” his motherly tone soothes – a little bit – the boy’s aching being.

“Yes ‘Umma’”

Determination is what makes him move.

He will descend to Hell if necessary; he will enter Heaven if Taekwoon is there.

He will find him.

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He runs, but this time, it’s not a dream.

He can see everything, can smell the stench of alcohol, mud, leather and silk; can hear all the dirty, provocative words being thrown at him.

“Where are you going, kitty cat? Are you scared?”

“Hey, calm down, we just want to have fun”

“Boy, you’re handsome, want to play with me? I don’t bite… a lot”

“Toys are supposed to pleasure others! Let’s see if you can do it well”

“Dirty little pet! Stop running! HEY!”

Ignore the voices, ignore it. Just keep running.

Taekwoon tries to accelerate, but his legs are tired from all the walking he did before. He thinks he really became a domesticated hybrid, not used to excessive exercise; when he lived on the streets, he could run like no other. Fast like the wind.

That’s not the case anymore.

 “Woah, he’s fast! Where are you going, toy? To your owner’s arms?!”

“We can have fun with him too if you want!”

Forcing then a bit more, Taekwoon’s legs are leading him back to his home. Hongbin’s home. Their  home.

Instinct indeed is a fascinating thing. No matter how much Hongbin harmed him, by his side is where he feels more secure.

But wait.

There are at least eight people chasing him, both boys and girls full of arrogance and prejudice. They’re very common these days; gangs formed with the simple objective of beating down, even killing, hybrids. It’s fun; it fulfills the human need for violence, it doesn’t have serious consequences. Hybrids have a minimal number of laws at their favor, nothing important or life changing. They’re pets in the eyes of the Law. 

If he brings this kind of people to his home, what would they do to Hongbin?

He stops and turns so abruptly that his chasers have the decency to look surprised.

“So I was right?” one of them singsongs “You were running to your master!”

“Why’d you stop?” a girl smirks, blinking maliciously at him “I bet you master is cute like you. I would love to wreck you both”

“Take us to him!”

Taekwoon growls; his posture changes as he bents his back, ready to jump and fight. His pearly fangs are exhibited in a threatening fashion, his ears move at the slightest noises, his tail swings slowly behind him, frizzled.

The look in some of the faces changed from smug to fearful. They’re not familiar with angry hybrids. Most are frightened, scrawny fragile things or lost domesticated ones; the others, the few real street fighters are only seen when they want people to see them. Taekwoon was visible and too dressed up to be a catboy street fighter, right?

“You wanna fight? Come!” there’s always the one who likes to fight; this group is no exception. “Like hell I’ll lose to a kitten”

“Let’s see if the kitten can scratch!” other male feels confident after his friend outburst. Soon he doesn’t have another option but to fight, the group surrounding him.

A hiss.

Taekwoon will fight.

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That's it. Hope you guys liked it.

Too many feels, too many. 

And I will already say sorry if the next chapter takes longer to be updated. School. Homework.Tests (already!) Devilish teaches who take pleasure in torturing their estudents. Oh, I'm just so screwed...

See yah all maybe not so soon~