Two Different Worlds// Minsung

o n e ⛓

Jisung's head throbbed painfully as he tried to look up, blinking in confusion.

The last thing he remembered was the inside of his father's van, dark.

He had just woken up in a dingy alleyway, sitting against a graffiti splattered wall.

He noticed that the cloth tied around his mouth had loosed slightly, and he shook it off quickly.

He spotted two men a few meters away next to the van, one he recognized as his father, the other was a stranger.

The two were in deep conversation, too far for Jisung to hear, but he could tell from their body language that it was an important matter.

He watched them for a moment, a pit of dread in his stomach.

The boy's breath hitched as the curly haired stranger slowly turned to walk towards him whilst saying in a slightly accented voice, "so that's him, huh?"

Jisung's father gave a grunt in reply and followed suit, gazing disdainfully down at him.

The stranger stopped a short distance away and knelt down to the boy's level.

"Im Bang Chan, the leader of Stray kids." He said, holding out a hand for the other to take.

Jisung hesitated for a moment, but shook Chan's hand, the older had an aura of kindness that the boy hadn't seen in anyone he had met for a while.

"My name is Han jisung." 

A moment passed, then the question he had been wanting to ask for a while slipped out before he could stop it.

"W-whats going to happen to me?" The younger cursed himself for stuttering but surprisingly, the other didn't criticize him.

"I-" Bang Chan started but was cut off by blunt reply from Jisung's father, Jaywon.

"Isnt it obvious, kid? Im throwing you to the mafia."

The boy searched his father's face for a long moment, hoping to find any hint of a joke.

No no no no, it cant be true. The boy thought in panic, he had heard all about the numerous gangs that lurked around the streets, provoking chaos and violence.

His mother had been killed by them.

The leader must of noticed Jisung's distress as he softly laid a hand apon the boy's shoulder whilst murmuring,

"It will be okay, you will be safe, i promise."

I have never felt safe since the day she left, I doubt I can now.

Jisung nodded.

Somehow, he trusted Chan, he believed the man he had only just met, even though he never gave away his trust so easily after his father had broken it.

Trust, what a complex word, it holds so much meaning in just five letters.

Jisung's way of seeing it is that you hand somebody the knife to stab you with and watch them hang it precariously over your heart.

🗡+📍·⛓•💔*🧨+🔪·🚨•🗞*❤️‍🩹+🗝

It was already night.

Jisung sat in the passenger seat of chan's car, propping his head up with his arm, watching the city lights pass by in a blur of brightness.

He heard his song, alien, start playing on the radio and hummed along instinctively.

He turned to look at Chan, and seeing that the leader had AirPods in, the boy quietly started singing the lyrics, pouring out all his emotions into his voice.

There's a fifty percent possibility that he actually isn't listening to anything, but ill take that chance, I need to have some sort of relief.

 As the song came to an end, the older looked at Jisung with an astonished expression, "Wow, you are the J.One?"

"I- uh yeah, i am." The boy answered, embarrassed that he had been caught.

"You're really good, you must love music very much?" Chan questioned.

"Yeah, i enjoy it." Jisung mumbled, choosing his words carefully.

"You can be honest with me, i heard the lyrics and how you sang it, it was..." the older trailed off, searching for the right word.

"Meaningful? Yeah, well I think music carries the weight of being human, takes it away so you don't have to think at all, you just have to listen. Music tells every story there is." Jisung let out, waiting for the other's reaction.

"I think so too, you may be younger than me but i can tell you've seen just as much."

What does he mean by that?

"Felix would be absolutely delighted to hear that he's going to meet his number one artist" He added, chuckling, and that brightened the mood instantly.

 🪓+⚖️·🛢•🪙*❤️+🔗·🖍•🔍+💌.🎤

"We're here." Chan announced as he stopped the car at the foot of a desolate alley.

The stone walls were brown and moldy, the dripping of water from a broken pipe could be heard echoing through the silence.

Jisung slid open the door and looked around, puzzled.

There was no sign of any sort of abode, the only thing he could see were trash bins and rubbish littering the grimy, cobbled floor.

He nervously hopped down from the car, It was quiet, so quiet that he could even hear his own heart thumping in his chest.

The older grinned as he stepped towards a wall, pushing a hidden button and a trap door flung open, revealing a wide passageway, lit by flickering yellow lights.

It looks like a scene from a movie.

Cliche much. Jisung thought in amusement as he followed Chan through the tunnel.

The boy had to slightly crouch in order to fit, even though he wasn't very tall.

He felt his back brush the cold stone roof and shivered.

The path led to a lightly rusty, metal door which was locked with a keypad.

The younger looked away in a gesture of respect as the Leader typed in the passcode, hearing a beep every time a button was pressed.

The entrance opened and the boy winced at the shrill creak of the hinges.

Jisung's jaw fell to the floor as they stepped into a room.

Numerous guns were hung on the wall whilst knives and daggers of all shapes and sizes were encased in glass boxes, displayed like precious artifacts in a museum. 

He had never seen anything like this, it was as if he was a child again, going to the park for the first time.

"Wow..." the boy breathed out as Bang Chan laughed at the expression on the younger's face.

"Come, you can explore all you want later, i need you to meet the others." The leader offered gently.

Jisung's blood ran colder than the wind in the alleyway.

Others? I had completely forgotten there would be others.