TARGET

열두

Joshua wore an inquisitive expression as he looked at the different brands of rice flour-

Do I just pick the regular one or the one used for Chapssal-teok? I never used the special kind of flour and I usually make it with normal rice flour, but then again-

It was a day before Christmas eve and the streets of Seoul bustled and hummed with life, scrambling to buy last minute gifts and groceries for the said holiday.

Joshua was stuck with buying the groceries they would need for the dinner they where holding on Christmas, he was also taking the rungs in cooking most of the food as well.

He didn't mind of course, being out of the dorms for any reason was undoubtedly, a breath of fresh air. The dorms weren't exactly in the best state since that episode with Renjun. The discombobulated presence still lingered in the air, the trainees became more reserved and adopting the tendencies that separated them as a divergent entity from their elders.

Joshua was troubled, communication was a vital component in organizations such as Ursula Minor, and as Jeonghan said, it could also be a safety concern.

Who knew what else the trainees hid behind their playful demeanors and childish smiles?

Joshua gripped the bag of rice flour in his hands, the tension between the group was thick and most likely stay that way if someone didn't take action.

It was common that people didn't share much about their background nowadays- attributed to the fact that most couldn't remember. Even people with Stargifts allegedly don't remember much pre-nova.

Joshua somewhat had memories pre-nova but there were always missing pieces in the puzzle of his memory. He had already been an orphan pre-nova. He recalled living at an orphanage at a church, the church strangely had a lot of orphaned children from America, which made Joshua learn the english language- that he remembered.

The children had vague personas in his memory, he couldn't make out the faces of the most of them, but he did miss living in such a carefree environment. The nuns, contrary to every movie created about orphanages ever, where extremely nice and loved all the children at the orphanage, he also couldn't recall the names, but vividly remembered the faces of nearly all of them akin to their motherly aura that was ingrained into his memory.

The fact that hurt him the most, how ever, was that he was the only one who remembered.

Days following the Nova, waking up among the sea of fallen bodies, Joshua, being a extremely confused teen made his way back to what he could remember as home.

The nuns where cold, looked at him strangely when he begged for them to hold him in their arms one last time- shooed him away, not being able to remember him or the orphanage.

For years on end, he was homeless, a beggar, lived in scraps of clothing, stole using his stargift, shivered in the cold-drawn out winters with no shelter.

He was alone.

Until he decided to mug the wrong person.

The sweltering sun beat onto his exposed skin. Clothes in tatters as always, bruised and sore all over, Jisoo trudged on nonetheless.

In his peripheral vision, Joshua watched as a well composed yet frail boy walked through the decomposed streets where all the rag-tag homeless folk would reside, walking along the sidewalk parallel to the one Joshua walked on.