Broken (MinSung 18+)

Backstory: Jeongin

TW: mentions/allusions to trafficking

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Jeongin had a decent life- he couldn't complain too terribly much. His family wasn't great, but they weren't awful. He bounced from family to family, feeling unwanted and unlovable every time they gave him back to the government workers. He didn't understand.

He was a good student, he didn't talk much, and he did what he was told at home. Yet... it wasn't until fifteen that a foster family finally said they would keep him. Even then, they didn't pay attention to him. They didn't love him. They loved the checks the government provided them with because of him.

His family had died in a fire when he was younger- he didn't even know them enough to miss them, but he missed the thought of what they could have been like. He missed them in his head, wondering if they could be like other families. If they'd be loyal to each other- to a fault. If they'd go shopping together and watch movies together and have family dinners. If they'd go out and take little vacations into the mountains- maybe he could even learn how to ski.

He couldn't miss them, but he missed the possibility of what their lives could have been.

His foster father kept to himself, working and coming home to drink a beer, watch TV. He was... a typical middle-aged man. Nothing special about him, nothing terrible. Their house was the same, his foster mother was the same.

When he turned eighteen, he told them he wanted to go to college. His foster father just shrugged. His foster mother said that if he paid for it, himself, he could go. They didn't save for him, but that was fine. He didn't need their help.

The checks stopped coming when he turned twenty, and they stopped calling to check on him. It was fine, though. He was doing well on his own- taking accelerated courses to try and get through school as quickly as possible. His degree was science with a focus on forensics, and it was easy to acquire and keep grants and scholarships as long as he kept his grades up and did a set number of volunteer hours for non-profits.

So Jeongin worked diligently, his days blending into nights as he buried himself in textbooks and lab reports. College provided him with a type of sanctuary he had never experienced before. Here, among the microscopes and fingerprint powders, he tried to find some way to felt like he belonged- this would be his profession. His life. His professors noticed his hard work, his keen eye for detail that made him exceptionally good at piecing together the silent stories told by the smallest traces left at crime scenes.

Occasionally, he allowed himself to dream bigger than his circumstances. He imagined graduating at the top of his class, being recruited by a prestigious government agency or maybe even leading a forensic team in solving high-profile cases. Yet deep down, there lingered a melancholy for the family experiences he knew only through movies and stories from classmates who spoke of siblings and holiday traditions with casual affection- he didn't even know that presents on Christmas where a normal event to experience.

What started as a simple way to fulfill volunteer hours for his college requirements, turned into his way of trying to fill the void. He volunteered at an equestrian therapy riding camp on weekends, helping special needs children with their coordination, developing a routine, and learning responsibility in a fun way they could adapt to. These children, much like himself, were looking for someone to notice them- to truly see them- and he was all too aware that was was trying to satisfy his own unmet needs by spending his time on them.

Jeongin's relentless pursuit of excellence at school did not go unnoticed. In his final semester, he was approached by a recruiter from an elite forensic investigation team that partnered directly with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Department's homicide squad. This was the big break he had been dreaming of- a chance to be part of something meaningful, to contribute to solving cases that mattered, to meet people who might think he mattered.