Use Me Like A Drug

I Don't Know

HueningKai's foster parents had learned that sometimes, HueningKai came home late, and sometimes, he didn't come home at all. They'd learned to accept that. It was something they couldn't change no matter how many rules they set in place. He was not afraid to break them. It was like he had set out to shun them in every possible way, to exclude them from every part of his life. In part, he had out of pure pettiness.

  He heavily debated bringing you to the house, but the more he thought about it, the better of an idea he thought it was. Beomgyu's house was a no no. As far as his family was concerned, Beomgyu had no friends. Yeonjun's house was a no for obvious reasons, although HueningKai believed you would prefer yelling over staying in a strange hotel room with strange people. He figured if he brought you to Soobin's home, Soobin would be so worried about accommodating you that he wouldn't get any rest, so with the power of deduction, he concluded that bringing you to his house would be the best option.

"Before we go in..." he hesitated momentarily, his hand hovering over the door handle. "I apologize for any possible questioning you may be subject to."

Before you had time to change your mind, he opened the door, gently placing his hand in the middle of your back to usher you into the house.

Ms Eunyoung eagerly rushed to the steps to meet him, welcoming him home as she always did, a glass in her hand as she dried it. Her words got caught on the tip of her tongue as she caught sight of you, her own breath catching in her throat in pure surprise.

  Rather than dwelling any longer, after you had taken your shoes off, HueningKai let his hand slide to yours and he pulled you upstairs, muttering a cold 'hello' to Ms Eunyoung. He pulled you into his room as you reeled from the experience. It was only then that you truly understood how different HueningKai was when he wasn't around others. You'd come to understand his generally curt nature and thought it to be introversion, but rather as you'd come to observe him more around those he was comfortable with, you realized it was a front he'd put up.

  He grew up in the foster system and never remained in the same house for extended periods of time. His room was proof of that. His clothes that lay in a messy, wrinkled, unfolded pile on his suitcase, not a decoration in sight save a framed picture of him and his four other friends, looking happier than you had ever seen them. He had acted the same way to you at first. It had made you wonder what about you was different.

  You wondered if he ever got to be himself inside one of these homes. How he managed to adjust without immense difficulty. Did he even get to adjust?

As HueningKai sat on his bed, covering his flushed face with a hand, you realized that you'd done exactly what he did. In front of your biological parents, you'd put on a cold exterior to make yourself seem more independent. You'd shoved your discomfort away and allowed yourself to hide in order to put up a front of maturity.

  "You can sit," HueningKai said, as he looked into his lap, covering his eyes in embarrassment.

  You felt awkward as you stood by his closed door, clutching your bag at your shoulder. You were stiff and your heart pounded so hard you could feel it in your throat. For a reason that you couldn't quite place your finger on, you were nervous. You sat down on his bed, right beside him, letting your bag rest on your lap, ensuring that you took up as little room as you could. You kept your eyes down with the nervousness of a stranger worried about invading HueningKai's privacy.

"Here, let me take your bag," he offered, taking it by the strap as he stood, itching for something to do. "Do you have any homework to do?" He asked, hoping to create a scenario in which the two of you could grow more comfortable in each other's presence.