In September of 2007, Jeongguk has just barely turned ten years old. In September of 2007, his mother passes away.

Orphan. This is what that makes him. Technically, he has a father. Realistically, his father doesn’t know he has him. Jeongguk doesn’t quite understand what the system is, but it sounds all big, governmental and, frankly, scary. If it weren’t for people telling him that he was going in the system, though, perhaps it could have sounded cool. The system.

The System. Sounds like something out of an action film, and currently, at the vulnerable age of ten, that is his genre of choice, favorite movies necessitate a large dosage of action. The System. He imagines spies when he hears it, doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t let fantasies run too wild in his head, because he starts picturing the bad guys as well and he doesn’t know how to fight them without his mother.

The System.

It’s him that’s going in it. Him. Alone. Without his mother. He’s always had his mother. His mother has always held his hand whenever he needed it, at the dentist, when he had to get shots done, when he watched that horror movie he wasn’t supposed to and she was marginally angry, but she still let him sleep next to her because he was scared.

He doesn’t really understand death. But he knows it means she will no longer be there. Like it was with his grandfather. He died and he was no longer there. When a person dies, Jeongguk knows, they become a memory. They become as virtual as the movies he watches, conceptual, they join the fantasies in his head as a figment of his imagination. They still exist, if he thinks of them, they do. But they can say nothing new, do nothing new. They can no longer hold his hand.

The lady smiles at him and he doesn’t know what she means to gain out of it, however it does anything but put him at ease. She speaks to him in a voice he is not dumb enough to think is her natural one, but he doesn’t tell her to stop. He doesn’t tell her anything. He doesn’t speak. For three days straight he says nothing. 

It annoys the woman who takes him in. A foster home for boys, that’s what he’s taken to. Currently there are six more of him there, of orphans, he’s told. He’s an orphan now. That means he doesn’t have a mother and a father anymore. Most of the boys there, most of the orphans, are around his age. The lady explains all this to him with that same voice and that same smile. When she hasn’t taken it off her lips for two days straight, it starts to border on creepy, like it was in that one movie he wasn’t supposed to watch but he did. His mother isn’t there to hold his hand this time when the grinning lady’s lips pull and her shiny teeth bare with a sparkling glint. 

Dinner is when he is supposed to meet everyone. People he is apparently going to live with before they find him an actual home. This is temporary, the grinning lady promises as she steers the wheel, but Mrs. Park will do anything to make him feel comfortable.

Quite frankly, Mrs. Park does not at all make him feel comfortable. Her palm is very wide and her fingers are short but big and he does not at all want to hold her hand.

Not that she offers. 

Without introductions, he is put at a table with six other boys and this woman and he already feels she hates him. She has asked him seventeen questions. He has been counting. He counts, sometimes. He’s answered none. Zero. Still, she puts him at the table. Some other boy places the food in front of him, in a ceramic patterned plate that is chipped off at one side. He isn’t exactly hungry, but his mother would want him to eat, so he does. He stares down at the plate and eats. 

The house he is in is big, but it isn’t huge. It’s old. The floor is authentic wood and it makes a very distinctive creaking noise when people step. All eight inhabitants eat together. The tables are two, pressed together, and the chairs they sit on aren’t a set. They’re different. Jeongguk wants one with a cushion, but he doesn’t get one, and he certainly isn’t about to ask for it, so he settles on hard outdoor McDonald’s metal and struggles not to move too much, because it makes sounds. The boys are not loud, but they aren’t quiet either. The noise of their presence is like a buzz to him. It’s unintelligible to his ears, just a noise, perpetual and humming, a very solid presence in his senses. 

Senses. He sees bland food, tastes bland food, smells a myriad of indistinct scents, touches the rigid metal of a rusting fork, hears the sound of those boys. 

Jeongguk stays there for two days before they find him an aunt.

He stays there for two days and yet he still manages to miss it, or rather, him. He manages to miss him. The him who sits across from him on the table, watching him with wide, glazed eyes. His face is round, cheeks full and his hair is cut wrong and crooked over his forehead. The him has a pout on his lips when he chews. His lips pucker up, press together as his teeth move over whatever he’s stuffed puffy cheeks with. He’s barely blinking and Jeongguk wants to tell him to look away, he can almost feel the glassy gaze on him.

The eyes make him wary when Jeongguk himself is gnawing down food. The first bite makes him aggravatingly aware of his hunger. As he swallows and food slips down in his stomach, he feels it shift, bowels growl and suddenly he wants to maul it all, no matter how it tastes of nothing other than the overwhelming salt of soy sauce. 

All the boys eat fast, shoveling down food, directly into their throats. Some of them fail to even chew. The boy in front of him is slow. He savors the food in his mouth. His lips smack a bit with it, it’s almost noisy, but the chewing doesn’t bother Jeongguk. The incessant looking does.

He raises his own eyes to him under bangs several times, peaks at him to question with a gaze why this ceaseless observation is necessary, but the boy simply remains—shameless and staring. Jeongguk cannot hold his eyes for too long, meets them for barely seconds before he stirs his chin down brusquely, hair falling over his forehead and he remains focused on the food in his broken plate. 

Chores. Mrs. Park explains to him about chores first thing after dinner. He has to do his part for this household, she instructs most sternly, looking at him nearly haughty over a raised chin and a long nose. And to teach him the importance of chores she assigns to him dish duty that very night. Some other boy carries the dishes from the table to the sink. He has to wash. 

He nods when she speaks, but he stands helpless and confused before the sink as the others pile out of the room, chatter erupting as their mouths are no longer full of food. There is something so very lonely about it all. He thinks he didn’t feel as lonely when he was alone the past three days. Today when all the others speak and he stands, mute and perplexed, unfamiliar, the stranger to these strangers, he feels the solitude blur into harsh loneliness.

He used to help his mother with the dishes, yet a sink was never as intimidating. He stares ahead with his lids stretched to the very corner. His mouth quivers. It’s ridiculous. He’s not really a crier, he has hardly cried during his first ten years of life, and he has not shed a tear since the death of his mother. His sadness is poignant, perhaps too much to be channeled into just salty water. But right now he simply cannot find the detergent and he has to ask where it is, but he can’t and he doesn’t think he has ever felt so helpless before, so utterly helpless and he knew neither loneliness nor helplessness before and his whole chin is trembling with his need to just break down, but he holds it.

He holds it until a hand pushes at him gently. Long, thin fingers touch at his shoulder. They allow him to flinch as he turns, blinks away moisture as his gaze finds the boy from across the table. He says nothing, just permits his hand to gently suggest he moves away. The boy pushes him until he frees the space in front of the sink, and squats before it. He opens a drawer underneath it, takes out the detergent Jeongguk desperately needs and straightens on his feet.

“Here,” he says, stretching his hand forward. Big eyes blink at him. The boy has an inch or two on him certainly. Tall, he’s tall. He’s incredibly skinny, bony and tan, the bone of his wrist protrudes as he holds it out towards him.  

Jeongguk layers his eyes over him, searching for any clear sign that he is one of the bad guys, but by all indication, he seems to be just a boy. He’s wearing a big, grey t-shirt, certainly not his size and there is something mildly comforting in how bad his haircut is. His eyes are big, but he isn’t scary.

So, Jeongguk reaches forward, wraps his fingers around the detergent, careful not to touch his own. He wants to say thank you, but he doesn’t, only nods. The boy lets go, long fingers peel off and he lets his arm fall down to his thigh. Jeongguk’s eyes trail after if for some reason. His hand perhaps looks a bit nicer to hold. 

He pries his eyes away, snaps them up to his face to venture another nod that he hopes conveys enough of his gratitude. The boy grins back at this as if he has spoken to him. His lips stretch to corners, stretch so far back Jeongguk thinks he sees all his teeth. It makes his eyes crease slightly, his cheeks getting even rounder to accommodate the pull of his mouth.

Jeongguk blinks at him, confused. He hasn’t seen a genuine smile in a while. He’s uncomfortable with how it makes him feel comfortable, so he spins away, gets on his tip toes to reach the faucet and starts the sink. The sound of water running blurs the boy’s presence, blurs his exit from the room. 

“Find a bed.” That’s what Mrs. Park says. Find a bed. She doesn’t tell him where to sleep, doesn’t take his hand and lead him to a warm bed. Find a bed.

There are two rooms for the boys, both of which are full. There are six beds and he doesn’t know if she knows this. There is no bed for him. He has never felt more awkward in his life, hanging by the door of one room, head tilted down toward the floor as his eyes take subtle glimpses around the space to find an empty bed. His fingers coil around each other, pulling at the end of the fabric of his shirt. He’s twisted it so much at this point, palms sweating into it and it makes it all the more wrinkled. His mother didn’t use to like it when he walked around with wrinkles in his clothes, but he needs to do something with his hands.

He shuffles his feet across the hallway to the next room. He doesn’t lift them too much off the floor because it creaks loudly if he does and he would rather his own presence was as small to the others as he feels himself to be. He would very much like to disappear completely if he could. He wants to be where his mother is, he misses her. He wants her to hold his hand and he doesn’t understand why she can’t come back and do just that. She’s always there when he needs her and he has never needed her more, never felt more alone. 

He hovers with raising emptiness at the doorstep of the other room, his fingers twirling restless, palms stretching the fabric of his shirt. He doesn’t know how emptiness can be so full. He knows little about feelings as a whole, mainly the basics, so he cannot put into words what goes on in him entirely. Mostly he feels lost.

Slowly, he does start to learn about emotions like this, one by one. He feels as if he forgets all he knows by now and he needs to start all over. Today he learns loneliness, learns helplessness. He learns loss. 

There is one empty bed in that room, but the sheets are thrown off as if someone had been recently there. Two of the boys in the previous room had been murmuring to themselves, but both that are currently in this one are asleep, one of them whistling a soft snore in his slumber. Jeongguk thinks he remembers from the dinner table that he had a runny nose. 

He rubs at his own, chasing away a curious sensation there, too. It feels itchy. 

The sound of a toilet flushing makes him jump slightly where he stands, his eyes peeling wider as he hears running water and then a door open. The steps are distinctive on the parquet flooring. They near. Jeongguk’s heart runs wild in his chest, thumpthumpthump, and he keeps his head down. If he looks down, maybe they won’t notice him.

He counts. Counting helps, counting always helped. He simultaneously counts the steps taken and the beats of his heart.

He loses the number when he feels a palm on his shoulder. He sinks his body immediately down, ducks away from the touch and spins. He’s almost not surprised to see the boy with the big eyes standing there a few inches from him. His eyes shine in the darkness of the hallway, but he recognizes him with the dim light of a night lamp that is turned on in the room he had been observing.

“Hey,” the boy murmurs quiet. It’s a whisper, sounds private. Jeongguk cocks his head, stands there silent, but he is almost convinced by now this boy is not one of the bad guys, so he lingers, nods to him again.

“What are you doing up?” The boy asks yet again in a murmur. “Bed time has passed,” he shakes his head, his wide eyes growing somehow wider, “Mrs. Park doesn’t like it when we’re up past bed time.” 

Jeongguk’s teeth gnaw at his lip, eyes finding the floor once more. He inadvertently sees his palms rub into his shirt, twist more wrinkles into it, nervous.

The boy’s eyes dart behind him through the opened door, flash across both full beds before they land on his own. He raises his brows slightly and glances back at Jeongguk. “You don’t have a bed, do you?”

Jeongguk’s teeth sink into the flesh of his mouth harder. He shakes his head, blinks at the floor. 

The boy watches him silently for a couple of moments which to Jeongguk are filled with the sound of his own heart drumming loud into his rib cage. The boy taps a finger on his chin, once, twice, mulls it over. 

“Come on,” he says next, and Jeongguk’s eyes spark up just in time to see the motion of his head, small and inviting towards the room. “You’re small,” the boy nods to himself. “You’ll fit. Sleep next to me.”

His hand raises a tiny bit and Jeongguk thinks maybe he will offer it for him to hold, but he seems to change his mind, draw it back to his thigh, perhaps because Jeongguk flinches away from all his touches, anyway. He doesn’t think he would have pulled away from this one, but it’s too late for that.

Jeongguk’s eyes are a bit wide as an aftermath of the suggestion, but his heart seems to relax in his chest. He pulls his lips fully into his mouth, makes them a thin line on his face, a short moment of hesitation, contemplation, but he nods. He has no other place to sleep and this boy with the big eyes is the only person he knows who definitely isn’t a bad guy. 

He isn’t, Jeongguk establishes. Bad guys tend to be distorted, unshapely, often they are ugly, and their eyes are certainly not so big. They are slits, evil like a serpent. The only unshapely thing on this boy is the hair. 

The boy juts his head again and starts walking. Jeongguk bends his head down but follows, taking exactly the same steps that the boy takes, same pace, same width. 

The boy pauses in front of a short wardrobe of drawers, turns to him again. “Do you have a change of clothes for tonight?” He whispers to him.

Jeongguk shakes his head. He has a suitcase of his things but there is apparently some adult stuff, as the grinning lady had so maturely put it, in fact some legal procedures to take care of, before she can give him anything that was taken out of his mother’s apartment. 

The boy nods, turns back and pulls at one of the drawers. They’re old and wooden like the rest of the house, noisy like the rest of the house, it creaks, and the boy’s lips hiss a bit with it, draw back and flinch as he tries to do it as slow and quiet as he can muster. He rummages a bit through it before he pulls out something with a tug that messes up a couple of the nicely folded fabrics above it. He hands it to Jeongguk, who takes it with minimum reluctance. The boy presses his palm on top of the rest of the clothes, stuffs the fabrics back in and simply closes the drawer with the mess in it. 

He glances at Jeongguk again, sees his nervous stare downwards as he shifts the shirt he’s given from hand to hand, rubbing it together. He blinks at him, pulls his lips slightly into his cheeks. “I won’t look,” he promises, reaches a lanky arm up and turns the night lamp off. Jeongguk is shy enough to want the boy to turn away. He’s too shy admit it and it is a bad combination, so he is very much glad the boy reads it on him, though it does make his cheeks heat up a bit that he is that obvious. 

He changes his shirt, slips off his jeans. His boxers are long enough to fall over half of his thighs, so he doesn’t mind it all too much, although the prospect of getting into the bed does make him gulp. 

“Do you want the inside?” The boy whispers and Jeongguk is quick to shake his head. The bed is pressed up against the wall and sleeping on the inside will leave him essentially trapped. 

He only sees the boy nod in the outline the moon creates of him where it peaks through a light curtain in front of the window. He hears him move more than he witnesses it himself, the shuffle of fabric, somehow distinctive as sheets sliding into place. 

“Okay,” the boy says when the sound halts. He’s settled, he means. It’s Jeongguk’s turn. He needs a moment, but he’s tired, so awfully tired. His body is desperate for the warmth of a bed, his eyes needy for a long rest.

He presses a palm into the mattress, lifts one knee up and gingerly gets into the bed, as far away from the shape he sees of the other boy. It’s virtually impossible not to touch him at all. The bed is single. They share a blanket; they share a pillow. He knows the boy has his back almost entirely pressed into the wall, flush against it to allow for the most space possible for Jeongguk. When he lies down finally, sideways and facing him to track with his eyes how far he is, to know he isn’t touching too much, the boy lifts the blanket and throws it over Jeongguk’s shoulder.

Their opposite cheeks rest into the same pillow. 

Jeongguk thinks his eyes adapt to the darkness because slowly he starts to see more of his face. He sees his lashes as they fall over his big glinting eyes. Mostly, he sees them, those enormous eyes. They seem to shine. 

He feels more comfortable than he reckoned it was possible for him, but the darkness makes it all easier. The fact that there is someone next to him, whose smile is genuine and who doesn’t keep him away from adult stuff makes it easier. This boy is not one of the bad guys in The System.

“My name is Taehyung, by the way,” he mumbles to him, mouth squished slightly by the pillow. His cheek is mushier like this. “What’s yours?”

He isn’t one of the bad guys.

“Jeongguk,” He says. Speaks for the first time since he was told his mother was dead. He can barely recognize his own voice. It’s dry and it gives him the incentive to clear his throat, but his name feels easy to pronounce, nevertheless.

“Goodnight, Jeongguk,” the boy yawns, his mouth stretching as wide as his eyes. They close easily in the darkness.

He has to learn so many things anew. That first night teaches him gratitude. Sadly, it also teaches him trust, trust for this boy. He should know better. 

He’s ten. He can’t know better. 

In that very moment, after all, all his senses become him, that him, Taehyung. He sees him, sees the outlines of his face and body in the moonlight. He feels him, feels the heat of his presence and their toes knock together. He hears him, hears him breathe as his breath shallows and evens. He thinks he can also taste that breath. Jeongguk doesn’t brush his own teeth that night, but the taste in his mouth is that of mint. And he smells him. The most powerful sense, the scent. It is entirely encompassed by this boy and it shapes a memory in his head, the memory of Taehyung being there where he was most alone, of Taehyung giving him a shirt to sleep in, a bed to sleep in, of Taehyung giving him a presence beside him. 

“Goodnight.”

Sometimes, in retrospect, Jeongguk wishes that following morning he had known waking up next to Kim Taehyung is a unique experience. He wishes that boy had somehow hinted to him that he needed to savor because life will teach him not to allow it. But at this point Jeongguk doesn’t care who he wakes up next to as long as they don’t have a twisted grin with shiny teeth bared.

The boy smacks his lips twice when he wakes up with his eyes still closed. Jeongguk has been awake for two hours and thirty-four minutes before the other’s lids blink to awareness. He has been counting.

The boy—well, Taehyung, now he is Taehyung—is extremely difficult to raise off of bed. He groans, he rotates around the sheets, bundles the blanket and clutches at it with both his arms, stripping it off of Jeongguk to raise one leg on top of it. 

He is a messy sleeper as a whole. Jeongguk at that age believes he would never want to sleep next to him if it weren’t for necessity and the comfort of a warm, human presence. Jeongguk at that age is wistfully wrong. 

Breakfast is cereal. There are two types. Jeongguk chooses for himself the less sugary one. Taehyung who gets up seventeen minutes after everyone else has finished eating chooses the other.