Allegiance (Minho x Reader) Hunger Games AU

Chapter One: The Reaping

In the fall, a few brave souls sneak into the woods to harvest apples. But always in sight of the Meadow. Always close enough to run back to the safety of District 12 if trouble arises. "District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety," I muttered. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you.

When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Harper might begin to repeat my words and then where would we be?

I saw a deer, I grabbed an arrow and was ready to shoot the deer until someone scared it off. Thomas Edison. "What are you gonna do with that when you catch it?"

"Damn you, Thomas, it's not funny." I snapped.

Thomas smirked, and took an arrow out of my sheath. "What are you gonna do with a hundred pound deer, Jackson, it's Reaping Day the place is crawling with Peacekeepers."

"I was gonna sell it to some Peacekeepers." I snatched the arrow back from him.

"Of course you were."

"Like you don't sell to Peacekeepers."

"No. Not today."

"It was the first deer I've seen in a year, now I have nothing." I muttered angrily.

He grabbed a rock and threw it at a tree, then a few dozen birds flew up and I pointed my arrow then shot one, I watched it tumble down a tree onto the ground. We were sitting at the edge of the Meadow, not really it stretched on for miles and miles, but it was nothing but grass for several yards.

"We could do it, you know," Thomas said quietly.

"What?" I asked.

"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it," Thomas said.

I don't know how to respond. The idea is so preposterous.

"If we didn't have so many kids," he added quickly.

They're not our kids, of course. But they might as well be. Thomas's two little brothers and a sister. Harper. And you may as well throw in our mothers, too, because how would they live without us? Who would fill those mouths that are always asking for more? With both of us hunting daily, there are still nights when game has to be swapped for lard or shoelaces or wool, still nights when we go to bed with our stomachs growling.

"Harper in the woods?" My sister was too gentle and soft spoken to live in the woods.

Thomas sighed. "Maybe not."

"I'm never having kids."

"I might, if I didn't live here."

"But you do."

"I know but if I didn't."

The conversation feels all wrong. Leave? How could I leave Harper, who is the only person in the world I'm certain I love? And Thomas is devoted to his family. We can't leave, so why bother talking about it? And even if we did . . . even if we did . . . where did this stuff about having kids come from? There's never been anything romantic between Thomas and me. When we met, I was a skinny twelve-year-olds, and although he was a year younger than me, he already looked like a man. It took a long time for us to even become friends, to stop haggling over every trade and begin helping each other out.