on pieces of dyed rays | woosan

Chapter Twenty

San

Will you be at Wonderland tonight?

Wooyoung

No

Busy tonight

San

You've been slammed, huh?

Not exactly, Wooyoung thinks. It's he who decides to work, when and how much, as long as he makes the ends meet by the end of the month. And while he admittedly is behind his usual schedule, he isn't neck tight that he has to hammer away in just a week. He is good at his job, after all.

While wondering what he should reply or if he should at all, San sends him another text.

San

Miss you

There's a stir in his heart.

It's very San of him to be this straight forward and cheesy. And Wooyoung wants to remind him he's just a hookup, and if he wants a boyfriend to be openly clingy to, he should really find someone else. Because he's never going to be that person, and the reason he's seeing San is for how good he fucks him.

He ends up not sending it, though. He doesn't have to work his ass off for an entire week but does it anyway, and the deranged lures him into the dark alley and he wears the facade of the scurvy back.

Wooyoung tries to count the number of times this has happened but fails, because he sucks at commemorating events and it's not an exciting one to be exact. The thin alley he was summoned in was dark, but enough faint lights reach to reflect the glint of the knife the guy is holding. He should've guessed this was a possibility when the guy who had been a regular didn't contact him in months, suddenly asked to meet at the back of the narrow alley, which probably is more home to rats than humans.

"Give me all you got," the guy hisses, his eyes unfocused, his mouth gaped.

"I only got ten like you asked," Wooyoung says. "And even those I can only give you after you pay."

"Pay?" The guy cackles and sways the knife in his hand, right before his face. "Don't you see this?"

Wooyoung is no stranger to the situation. He's come across a few who increase their doses gradually until they can't do anything but take them, losing their control over drugs and letting drugs control over them. They eventually fail to do anything else, losing means to buy them, making them run to desperate measures. He's utterly intoxicated, his mind wholly infested by the crave and only the crave.

He's seen this before—the downfall of humanity.

Normally, Wooyoung would be able to dodge a person. Being in this world, he had to learn how to protect himself, as well as the drugs because they aren't cheap and he doesn't want to be cracked down on by his boss.

But Wooyoung senses a figure approaching from the back and decides, "Fine. I'll give you all I have."

"You only have ten."

"Look, you kill me here and you won't get anymore. You let me live, then I could get you some more, no?"

The guy rolls his eyes backwards, as if he's weighing the chances with his incapable brain, gives a twist on the wrist he's holding a knife in, and responds a dull, "Yeah."

Wooyoung smiles. "Good." He steps forward, takes out the condom resembling packages from his jeans pocket, a few more from his jacket pocket, and places them on the guy's free palm. "They're all yours. I'll bring you more soon."

He doesn't want to wait for a response, so he tries to slip past the guy and leave the place for good. He tries.

"Hot Muffin." There's a hot alcohol-infused breath at his ear, an arm wrapped around his neck and body heat aligned to his back. Wooyoung shudders in reflex, a cold sweat breaking out. It's warm—and it takes everything in him to not crumble down and gag.

"Not so soon, yeah? Let's have some fun." The guy from behind slurs his words, high on alcohol or drugs—or both.

His hand trails down and grabs Wooyoung's butt aggressively, and Wooyoung bites on his lip to hold back the acid lurching in his stomach. The guy at the front is still flaunting his knife with a smirk plastered on his face, safely tucking the packages he's just got in his jacket pocket.

Wooyoung shuts his eyes, draws in a long breath before he snaps them open again.

He swings his arm, strikes his elbow at the side of the guy behind as strong as he can, and slips out when he groans and weakens his hold around his neck. The guy in front lurches forward and swings the knife towards him but he dodges it, then kicks him in the balls. He screams in pain, and Wooyoung, being a man himself knows the immense pain he's going through but he doesn't have time to pray for the guy.

He finally slips away from the space the guy crouching created and runs. After a ten minute sprint, when he thinks he's far enough, he texts the names of the guys to Mr. Seo, knowing he'd take care of them and Wooyoung wouldn't see them ever again.

He walks for another twenty minutes, sweat making him shiver a little in the cold air, and imagines Jongho wearing that scary face for him again, if he ever finds out. He won't, and neither would Hongjoong. He's had enough lectures on what the job comes with, Hongjoong sounding like a hypocrite—as if he wasn't there himself—and doesn't want them to worry over him. What's there to worry about Jung Wooyoung? It's a waste of time.

Wooyoung doesn't bother taking a shower or changing when he reaches his home. He just collapses on his bed from his face, and sighs. He hears his neighbour belting out some old Korean song somewhere and someone else yelling at a stray dog for sniffing their garbage.

They're the usual sounds he hears. It's usual, it's normal—even if he gets almost hurt, raped or killed, people will keep on living their usual life—life goes on.

There's a numb pain on his cheek, and raising his head a little, he sees blood stain on his white sheets. He trails his finger and there seems to be a cut, one he didn't realise but must have received earlier. It's not a big deal, he thinks, but reaches out to the first drawer of the bedside table, recalling he must have had a bandaid there. There's an unusual rattling sound when he pulls it, that doesn't sound like a box of bandaid sliding, so he stretches out his arm and lets his hand do the research, and when it hits something solid and long, he pulls it out.

It's a kaleidoscope.

It takes him a minute to remember why he has it. But when he does, it comes in waves of warm orange. Two giant silhouettes with a smaller one in the middle, warm laughter from the family bathing in afternoon sun, and San's radiant smile directed to him.

He slowly brings the kaleidoscope to his eye, and looks into it. The room is almost dark except for the street lights slipping through his slit window, and the vision isn't as colourful as he's seen that afternoon. But he chases the slightest glow at the end, and when he holds it close to his chest and sleeps that night, his dream shimmers in warm pink, orange, blue, purple, white and silver.