Not Too Late | Choi San

CHAPTER ONE

he's broken, he's scarred, and fixing him would take a little bit longer than a lifetime.

•••

Winter; a month that he used to like, but now he dreads it with his whole entire heart. he shivers dreadfully as he steps out of the warm café, the harsh wind biting at the tip of his nose as he takes small steps away from his workplace, in no hurry to reach his temporary home, or who knows, maybe it's not temporary, and he will live there until his very nearing doom. his battered shoes drag against the pavement as he hides his hands in the holed pockets of his old jacket, where he hopes to find any mean of warmth.

it's nearing one after midnight, and he's so tired he can actually sleep on this very pavement. his day started right before the dusk has broken, and now he can't wait to shut his eyes for the two hours he has to rest before going to one of his way too many workplaces.

he stumbles a couple of times, passes by junkis and creepy-looking-men, but he doesn't give them much attention. this part of town isn't considered very nice after all, and he knew what he was getting himself into when he started living here. but there were two perks of living here, #1, everything is cheap and he can afford a cup of ramen with four days' savings only. and #2, he can get killed by any of these junkis at any given moment and be freed from his misery, so it's not all that bad.

soon, he reaches his makeshift home, the alleyway tucked between two tall buildings. but he doesn't live there alone, three other kids do as well, all with different background stories as to why they became strays. he never bothered asking about their backgrounds, nor any of their basics, and he knows nothing about them. well, except for Yang Jeongin who has been sticking to him like a chewing gum for as long as he can remember living here for. he also heard Jeongin call the other boy Jisung, but as for the third boy, he knows next to nothing about him.

"oh, San hyung!" Jeongin smiles brightly once he sees the other male approaching his temporary bed, and when he says bed he means a cardboard on the floor, wet at the edges and very much dirty. he fishes his tattered blanket from his backpack on his way there, and Jeongin is quickly walking towards him like a puppy who has been waiting for his owner at home all day. "did you hear the news?"

San shakes his head as he plops down onto the hard cardboard, very much ready to fall asleep and not at all in the mood for Jeongin's blabbering. but he hasn't got the heart to shoo him away either, the boy is way too young and bright that San sometimes forgets that they share the same lifestyle. but who is San to talk anyways, he's lived this lifestyle for a lot longer than he can remember, he was only 13 when his old life came to an end and this one full of suffering and pain begun.

"KQ, an entertainment company, is opening their first auditions," Jeongin says excitedly as San's eyes waver and start to droop. he really wants Jeongin to go away right now, he doesn't care in the slightest about idols' companys and whatnot, unlike the excited teenage before him. "i heard people say the standards aren't that high, and anyone can audition! it's so cool, hyung."

"cool," San mumbles, head lulling to the side every few seconds before he catches himself.

"right?" Jeongin sits next to him, although he keeps his distance, which is something San is thankful for. "i think i will audition tomorrow, maybe i'll have a chance! and you should come too, hyung. you have the looks of an idol."

San snorts, "me? Jeongin-ah, go to sleep."

"i will, only if you promise to come with me!"

San honestly can't stay up any longer, way too exhausted from washing dishes and cleaning bathrooms. so he doesn't think much and just agrees to going there with the boy, which he knows he won't do, but only said that to make him shut up for now.

soon, San falls asleep on the hard bed he's been using for quite sometime now, with Jeongin next to him counting something on the floor quietly, and the two other males who share his little alley also fast asleep.

San wakes up to the annoying sound of his alarm. he groans as he fishes his phone out of his backpack and presses stop, the cracked screen grazes the tip of his finger as he does so. the phone is old, cracked everywhere and quite unuseful. he found it one day when he was cleaning a table in a café he used to work at, and after two days of waiting for the owner to come and pick it up, which never happened, he decided to use it. put it on factory mode and bought a number to use to call his managers at work if he's going to be late or something. but mostly he uses it as an alarm to wake up everyday.

Jeongin is fast asleep on his proclaimed side of the alley, next to Jisung, and the third boy is gone. San stands up tiredly as he looks up at the dark sky. it's an hour before the sunrise, and San has thirty minutes to get to work. he dreads every second of the day already, wants it to end before it has even started.

he ends up arriving ten minutes early, only to be greeted by his almost all the time angry manager, who orders him to left some heavy boxes from down here and up a ladder leading to a third floor of a building still in the process of being built.

San sighs as he looks at the floor he has to take all these boxes to, and thinks that his day can't get any worse.

on his second job of the day, he gets fired for arriving ten minutes late, but honestly, he knew the manager hated his guts anyways and would be kicking him out at any second. so cleaning shines bars bathrooms was now out of his scheduled work and he has to find another job to fulfill it's place.

but he's already too tired after all the labour work he's done, and he decides that he can go job hunting tomorrow and for now he can go back to his alley and sleep until his next shift starts, which gives him five peaceful hours to drift to his dreamland.

alas, not all San's dreams come true, if any ever does really, as when he gets back he finds Jeongin waiting for him once again, grinning widely when he sees him.

"hyung! i thought you ditched me," he skips happily towards San, who wants to bury himself in the nearest trashcan right now as he remembers his empty promise from last night. "it's almost time to go, here, i... i borrowed these clothes so we could look cool and all. you should wear them."

San looks down at the folded pieces of clothes in Jeongin's hands, and only then does he realize that the boy is wearing something not dirty and holed himself. he has a white shirt beneath a jean jacket and ripped jeans. simple yet fitting for the audition.

"borrowed?" San raises a brow as he looks back up at the boy, eyes dancing with amusement at the boy's sheepish reaction.

"well, stole, but i promise i'll give them back! or like— if we get into the company and make enough money i'll pay them back!"

Sna chuckles. he takes another look at the clothes in Jeongin's hands. maybe it's not a bad idea? he knows he won't get in, and he can't say whether Jeongin will or not because he's never seen him do anything idols do, neither dance nor sing. but his life has been constantly filled with the same boring routine every day for the past couple of months, and a little bit of fun wouldn't do much harm, right?

besides, the look on Jeongin's face is hard to say no to. that look of a pleading puppy, of a lost kid who doesn't have someone next to him to encourage and support him, of a perfectly hidden broken soul begging for love and attention— San can't say no to him. he admits he has a tiny soft spot for him in his heart, after all.

"alright, gimme these," he takes the clothes from the younger's hands. a black blazer, a white shirt, and black pants. San wonders where he stole these clothes from. Jeongin's grin goes ten times wider.

he goes to change and then follows Jeongin to the KQ entertainment building.