They never met till that night in the alleyway. Pushed into contact without reason, they must learn to deal with each other to survive the rocky roads of the many cities in South Korea. As the world seems to crumble every so suddenly around everyone...
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Hongdae was as full as it had been last night. Drunks everywhere, throwing up and trying to hold on to walls. Their friends trying to hail taxis and shoving sprawled out friends into the backseats. Thinking of how that was me just hours ago made me smirk. My mom said someday I'll get alcohol poisoning and when I die she won't come to her failure of a son's funeral. She doesn't really mean it though; she still checks up on me and sends me all kinds of foods when I don't show up to family dinners.
She just doesn't want me to turn out like my Hyung; shot dead on the side of the road for messing with the wrong people. But that's exactly what I want to be. Dead. Gone. Somewhere where my mom won't have heart attacks seeing me laying in front of our family home, covered in blood from getting into street fights.
I just can't help it. I enjoy putting myself in harm's way. The thrill keeps me going.
Looking across the street, I see Bitna and Byeongsu in a bar, hitting on girls who clearly have boyfriends who were at the moment stomping across the street getting ready to rip off their arms.
There's my cue, I think to myself as I run to help my idiot best friends.
"Were you hitting on our girlfriends, walking sticks?" The built guys grab their girlfriends by their waists and pull them behind them.
"Walking sticks? W-what does t-that even mean?" Bitna wavers on the sidewalk, barely able to hold in his insides. He looks like he's about to chuck his guts out on these guys.
"Means I'm about to bang your heads on the ground, dumba-"
"Woah, woah, woah. That's enough guys. I'm sorry, man. They're super drunk; they aren't good enough for your girls anyway. We'll just leave." I grab my friends by their forearms and start walking away, the bodybuilders staring daggers at our backs as we leave before they can say anything else.
I hail a cab and push them in, Telling the driver my apartment address.
"Hyung, why'd you stop them? I was just about to kick some a-" Byeongsu starts before he covers his mouth, trying not to let out whatever he ate earlier.
"You weren't about to kick anything. Shut up until we get home." I lean their heads on my shoulders as they start drifting off to the bumps in the road.
These guys are so naive. I've told them over and over not to get this drunk; they don't have steel livers like mine. They're not even technically old enough to drink anyway, but I know some club owners who let us in. I'm already nineteen so I don't have to worry about it. But if they get caught it would be my fault.
We get to my complex and I pay the driver extra to help me get them to my door. I lay them on their beds, put Advil and water bottles on the desk in the corner, and close their room door.
There's nothing in the fridge except for some beer bottles, and some kimchi my mom gave me last week. I grab a bottle and sit on the couch. The alcohol burns my throat, bobbing around in my stomach with the bottle I had before I left the house.
