$ t h r e e $
summer 2006.
The Jackals were looking for a new member to complete their growing Pack. They only had four people, and their leader Jinki thought they needed one more person. They had been looking around their immediate area, in the lands that they owned in Seoul, and they had heard of two boys who lived under a bridge, both of them washing car windows or carrying grocery bags to customers' cars for spare change. He thought of offering one of them a spot in their organization, and he arranged to meet up with them one night by the Han River.
He had gone with Kibum and Taemin, the other member of their pack had stayed in the car nearby, and when they arrived the two boys were waiting for them. They made brief conversation with them, evaluating all of their responses.
By the end of the night, Jinkin had come to the realization that he appreciated Junmyeon the most. He was more honest and appeared to be more loyal than his friend Yifan. Though Yifan seemed to be polite, there was a growing resentment and poison in his heart that seemed to shine through every so often.
In front of Yifan, they had offered Junmyeon a place at their organization.
He told of the vast amounts of money he would make, the houses he would be able to afford, the luxurious cars he'd be able to buy, the brand name clothes he would wear. He told him how his life would be better if he accepted their offer. He would no longer have to live on the streets like he'd been doing his whole life. But most of all, he would gain a family. It was a tempting offer, but it was not enough to sway Kim Junmyeon.
Junmyeon had thanked them for the offer, but looked to his friend Yifan as he spoke. "I'm very sorry, its a generous offer and all, but I thought you wanted take both of us. Fan is my brother and I can't just abandon him like that. You either accept us both together, or not at all." Yifan instantly felt a prick in his chest because he felt bad. He knew that if it had been he who was offered the opportunity, he would have taken it in a heartbeat. He would have used his new money and power to help out his friend, but he would have taken it without hesitation.
Junmyeon was different. He would rather take the position with Yifan by his side, than to take it without him. He didn't know if that was honorable of Junmyeon or just plain stupid of him. But he settled on thinking that it was honorable and loyal of him.
Yifan nudged his friend and said to him in a whisper, "Maybe you should take their offer, Jun."
But Junmyeon gave a firm shake of his head. "Not without you."
There was a sigh that escaped Yifan's lips as he responded, his words still a whisper. "Think of all the money you'll make with them. You won't have to clean windows for loose change, or get chased away from the super market parking lot by the workers. When you've made it with them, you can come back for me if you still want to."
"You're my brother. We promised we wouldn't throw each other away." Junmyeon argued, trying to keep his composure. But his words were starting to come out as louder than whispers in his outrage.
"Don't think about it like that." Yifan insisted.
"So, what do you say, Junmyeon?" Jinki wondered. He and the other two members of his Pack had taken a liking for Junmyeon. The three had agreed that the fifteen year old would be useful for their Pack.
With his lips forming a tight line, Junmyeon gave a vague answer. "I'll think about it."
The Jackals nodded in understanding and had promised to come back the following week for his answer. But Junmyeon still wasn't sure that he wanted to leave his best friend behind.
-
By the time the Jackals came back, Yifan had convinced Junmyeon to take the offer. By the end of the week, Junmyeon had been given his own apartment by his new family, and was told that he would be taught the rules and the way that the organization was run. They told Junmyeon that he could have whoever he wanted at his apartment, and he immediately went in search of Yifan.
Both boys were thrilled to be living in a real home for the first time in their lives. Junmyeon started making money quickly, which they used to give each other the good life. They bought expensive clothes, cars, and all the food that they could ever eat. They had gone overboard at first, but Junmyeon had seen it as okay because for a long time they had nothing. Now they had everything they could ever want. But Yifan wanted more.
He became ambitious and went to the Jackals, asking them for an opportunity to prove to them that he wanted to be loyal to them. But they turned him down a second time. They were happy with five members in their organization and Jinki still believed there was too much poison in his heart. He would soon end up betraying the one person who had ever been good to him. For an entire year, Junmyeon was a part of their organization.
During that time he had amassed money and weapons that had been given to him by the Jackals as presents. After his attempts at joining the Jackals too, Yifan convinced Junmyeon to leave them behind. To ditch them because they didn't want him in their family.
Because of his loyalty to Yifan, Junmyeon agreed.
He met up with Jinki one day, and told him everything without holding back. He was grateful to them for taking him in. But it was time for him to go. Jinki knew his time with them was coming to an end, he could sense it. But he understood Junmyeon and was grateful that he had been honest enough to let him know that he was leaving, rather than taking his leave like a coward and disappearing.
Junmyeon promised he would find a replacement for his position, and he ended up finding him in another homeless boy he and Yifan had known while they were living on the streets.
His name was Minho, and he lived in an alley with his twin sister Minha. They became orphans one day when they had been on the road with their parents and a truck hit their car. Their parents had died on impact and the twins had survived miraculously. They had been taken to an orphanage where the children were often badly mistreated and abused by their care takers. It wasn't long before the two decided to make their escape and were living on the streets since then. That had been when they were ten years old.
Both of them were good kids--only fourteen years old--and needed somewhere to live, someone to help them. Junmyeon put Minho in contact with the Jackals and they had liked him almost as quickly as they had liked Junmyeon. They immediately asked him to join their organization.
With the money and the possessions they now had, Yifan and Junmyeon vowed to become the most powerful people in Seoul. Jinkin had promised to be their allies, warning Junmyeon in their last meeting together that he needed to be weary of Yifan. He saw that Yifan was a good person, but often appeared conflicted with the poison in his heart.
Junmyeon assured that Yifan was good, and that he had been hurt a lot before. All he needed was for someone to love and trust him.
But Jinki warned him to be careful.
He thought that Yifan would one day betray Junmyeon.
-
i haven't updated this in a while, so i thought i would upload a chapter. with this i have updated all of my lotto universe ongoing stories. i wanted to upload something for the q&a part too. but its getting late and im afraid i wont have the time tonight.
so i'll try really hard to upload something tomorrow when i get out of work.
thank you all so much for reading and voting on my stories. i also know i havent updated anything from my exoplanet 1 series. but i'll try hard to post something too.
-clary
