The Car Crash Club • Monsta X

xxxviii.

Jooheon and Hyungwon come up with a plan. On Jooheon's insistence, they use a code word – Operation Disappear. They look up all the bus and train routes out of the city, and they pick several destinations that might work. Jooheon calculates how much fare will be, and they cross off a few more options. Jooheon also makes sure that, of the three destinations left, they're spread out across the timetable so Hyungwon will be able to leave nearly any time of the day.

Jooheon insists on putting his number into Hyungwon's phone, even though Hyungwon repeatedly refuses. He finally permits Jooheon to do so but doesn't let him see the other contact in his phone and makes Jooheon promise to never call or text him first.

Jooheon doesn't try to get Hyungwon to tell anyone his secret again. Instead, he just helps Hyungwon out in whatever capacity he can, and Hyungwon doesn't know how to tell Jooheon how much he appreciates it.

Father is growing angrier. Hyungwon thinks he's jealous of Jooheon, in a twisted way. He repeatedly tells Father that nothing is happening between them, but Father refuses to believe him. He grows harsher yet, and scars accumulate on Hyungwon's body. Everything is accompanied by a threat now because he knows Hyungwon won't respond otherwise. Father broke the relationship he'd carefully nurtured for all those years, feeding into Hyungwon's codependence.

Other things have changed. Before Hyungwon questioned Father about the wrongness of their relationship, Father had treated him with care. He wasn't always gentle, but he at least acted with love. Now, it seems as though Father is set on humiliating Hyungwon. The things he's forced to do and wear... and Father's camera is never far behind. He has never felt smaller, more insignificant. There are some days he doesn't even feel human.

But he has Jooheon, and he has Operation Disappear. His eighteenth birthday is only a year away now. He looks at bus and train tickets at every opportunity. If he can just make it until his eighteenth birthday, then he can get away and they won't be able to do anything about it.

Just a year away now.

--updated 08/03/20, part 3/3--

a/n: just checked my drafts - looks like only 9 chapters left (so you'll hit the end in 3 weeks!)