The life we live (ATEEZ)

Chapter 3

(TW: Blood (Not that much) and minor suicidal thoughts)

The darkness of the hallway creeped him out, it always did especially at this late hour. The empty boxes that had been piled up in every single corner were housing different rat breeds in them and the number of spiderwebs was nicely said embarrassing.

Yet, he couldn't complain. He was part of the least rich Lilys and for that, he was lucky to even have a place at all. The rent was all of the money he made from his job in the motorcycle factory.

There had been times he couldn't fully cover the rent because he needed to eat at least something in a week but luckily his landlord was an old lady who just wanted peace in her last years which was something Yeosang had a deep respect for. Both of his parents were anything but peaceful before their passing.

He shoved a few boxes aside, ignoring the scratches he heard and made his way to the front door, It was that time of the month when he had to check up on the windmills to make sure they were functioning properly.

The Roses had 'given' him this job even though it was forceful and it was very dangerous, it was placed outside of the city in the wasteland that was known to house those people. The so-called Rats. 

There had been countless encounters in the years he had been doing this monthly process where those outsiders would attack him and try to steal things like his clothes,  he even got mistaken for being one himself once by the hunters and almost got shot before he could yell that he was on his way to the windmills. He had been lucky enough to be given some sort of weapon which was better than nothing and had helped him stay out of the arms of those people countless times.

He didn't get paid a cent for the missions, it was unfair but he knew better than to complain about it.

Complaining meant betraying and betraying meant death, he wouldn't suffer the same fate as his parents. No matter how much life sucked in these circumstances, he believed there would be a time when it would be better. 

He would feel ungrateful when he thought bad about his life, it was partly the typical 'Roses give you food, water, homes and you only have to work in return.' that had been engraved in his brain for as long as he could remember but it was also partly because he knew the people outside suffered a way worse fate.

Even when they had tried to attack him whenever he came across them, he saw how bad their situation was. The dried-out air made them look more exhausted than possibly healthy, the unwashed clothes that they had probably been wearing for years, the unwashed skin and scars that littered every part of their face...

But most of all, what would always haunt him were the desperate and lost expressions, those were the moments that Yeosang would realise that they are so much more than the Roses make them out to be.

They are human.

He didn't waste any more time and left the house, feeling a cold breeze softly hitting his face, the air was thick and sandy but that was the norm with him practically living in the industry district. He even lived right next to a factory that made refrigerators.

The streets weren't as empty as he had expected with a group of clearly drunk people that he recognised to be the group of high schoolers that lived down the street without their parents, the only times Yeosang would see them was late at night when they were drunk again. 

Further down the street was another group of people, a bit older and they were wearing hoodies, wearing them with the hood up was disrespectful in their society because it would hide their hair colours, and it made people anxious because that would meant they might talk to a Rose as an equal when they weren't, the hair colours were the only thing different about them after all.