Chapter Text
Han Yoohyun is fourteen years old and having what is probably the worst day of his life.
It’s not like the day started out bad at all. He woke up at the normal time, had a breakfast Yoojin prepared for him, and went to school.
It was when he was going home—taking the route he’d always taken—when one moment he was going to put his foot on the ground, and suddenly, he could only see the sky.
The change had happened so quickly that Yoohyun didn’t realize what was happening at the time. And now he’s here, somehow not sprawled out on the ground but still feeling like he can’t lift his head.
There wasn’t any time for panic when whatever happened happened, but now, he can feel its roots.
His brain argues that the only thing this could be is a car accident. But if it was, he’d be hurt, no? And besides, he can’t be hurt or dead, because that’d make hyung sad.
Yoohyun blinks and the blurry pavement before him sharpens.
What is it that Yoojin says? One step at a time.
He pushes himself up, expecting to have to stabilize shaking knees, but instead, rising easily. There’s a large crowd gathered around, which is weird, considering he chose this route for how empty it usually is.
He looks around, and people are pointing at him. He turns behind him and sees a car with a Yoohyun-sized indentation in it.
Yoohyun knows what the evidence points to. His guess was right—it was a car accident, pure and simple. Some person sped on the road and hit Yoohyun, because Yoohyun triple-checked and the road was clear before he crossed. Then, the crowd gathered because it was a car accident.
Yoohyun’s body only ached the slightest bit. But it felt more like growing pains than being hit. It really did not feel like Yoohyun had been in an accident.
Except, how else would there be that dent in the car if Yoohyun didn’t hit it?
Yoohyun stares at the car, and almost instantaneously, sound rushes back into his ears. He hears, with a start, all the conversations of the people surrounding him and the car. They’re staring, some have phones out and Yoohyun cannot keep this news from hyung now.
He needs to get out of here. It’s too loud and he wants to claw his ears off and that would mean blood would get on his clothes. Yoohyun’s created enough work for Yoojin as it is, so he just needs to get out of here .
Yoohyun stumbles to the side, but before he can get far, he trips.
This time, though, there’s a hand pulling him back up by the arm.
Yoohyun’s skin crawls as the man pulling him up is joined by other men.
They’re just concerned citizens, he tries to think as they all act as a shield against the attention of onlookers. That’s what hyung would say—people can be nice, and when they are, it’s best to repay them.
Yoohyun abruptly dumps the thought when the men move from only surrounding him to pushing him into a car that has just pulled up.
Really, Yoohyun should be running right now. Instead, he just collapses into a seat and stares in horror as the car starts to move.
Some old guy next to him—the one that first pulled him up—asks him if he remembers anything. Somehow, he knows Yoohyun’s name. How does he know Yoohyun’s name?
It takes a few moments for Yoohyun to have a strong enough grasp on his voice to answer.
“I don’t know you,” he says, narrowing his eyes and backing away as much as he can in a car. Shit, why’d he let them get him into a car? Maybe he hit his head, because he’s not this slow, normally.
The man doesn’t seem to pick up Yoohyun’s discomfort. That, or he doesn’t care. So, Yoohyun shoots the man with one of his more frightening stares. It’s the kind Yoojin always sighs at and one that always gets others to leave him alone.
The man does not move away, so Yoohyun adds, “My hyung is expecting me at home. If I’m not back home, he’ll call the police on you.”
Yoohyun doesn’t really expect that to work, but reminding these men that Yoohyun will be missed might do something to them. Plus, he was taken in broad daylight, with a bunch of bystanders. It wouldn’t be hard for Yoojin to find him.
The men in the car startling violently is not what Yoohyun expects.
“ Hyung? ” the guy in the passenger seat lets out in a strangled voice.
“He’ll find me,” Yoohyun adds. He’s not sure why these people seem to be upset with the mention of his brother, but Yoohyun isn’t an idiot. Sometimes Yoojin leaves at strange hours and sometimes they seem to have more money than a high-school dropout should be able to earn. “And when he does, he’ll be pissed as fuck with all of you. You don’t want to be on his bad side then.”
“He won’t be mad at you?” the driver coughs and Yoohyun blinks.
“Why would he be?” he asks. “You’re the ones who fucking kidnapped me.”
That causes the men in the car to wince and Yoohyun lets out a scoff. There’s no sign of the car stopping and honestly, this conversation is grating on him. He just wants to get home and wait for his brother to get home.
Yoohyun lets out some breaths resolutely, ignoring all further attempts at conversation, watching the car’s movement all the while. The adults are having their own crisis, but it doesn’t seem like they’ll try anything other than continuing to kidnap him. So he’ll leave them to that and focus on actually getting away.
That also greatly annoys Yoohyun. Most people leave him alone and yet it’s when he most needs to be left alone that these guys won’t let him go. Besides, he really does not like the idea that these men know Yoojin somehow.
But Yoohyun is smart. He knows which battles to pick.
So he waits and only when the car is at a stoplight does he push the car door open and run out onto the street, sprinting the length to the sidewalk and then down the sidewalk.
He doesn’t focus on how easily the door caves underneath his hands or how fast the street is passing him by. He doesn’t pay attention to the times he almost trips, as if instead of flat ground, he’s running among holes and hills.
The adults are yelling after him but he doesn’t stop. Yoojin always does say he should be polite to people, but he also taught Yoohyun about safety. It’s why he doesn’t head home immediately, just in case these weird guys are following him.
Yoohyun doubts it, though. He’s always been the fastest, strongest, and scariest one around, even if Yoojin never completely recognizes that. That initial sprint is going to be enough to get them off his trail.
He’s already calming down as he runs down a few streets, thinking about the reassurances he’ll have to give his hyung about his dirtied and slightly torn clothing.
As he’s thinking about how to explain the delay without scaring Yoojin, he hears something behind him. It’s almost like footsteps. Footsteps that are also moving quickly.
He looks over his shoulder and sees one of the men in the car running after him.
Yoohyun, of course, speeds up. He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t wonder how the fuck this old guy is managing to even marginally keep up with him. He just runs and ignores how it feels like he’s been running around the whole country with how long this has been going on.
It’s only after many, many twists and turns does he lose the people following him, but he’s still jittery. Just because he can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there somewhere. Doesn’t mean they don’t know where he lives.
… They knew where to pick him up. So they knew what route he was taking from school, at least.
At least he still has his backpack. It’d worry Yoojin a lot if he lost that.
Yoohyun stands there, on an empty sidewalk on a street he doesn’t recognize, trying to collect himself.
Right. Yoojin. He needs to get home, because it’s almost dark now and Yoojin will definitely be heading home soon. Yoojin works late these days—he’s been working late ever since their parents died—and if he gets home and Yoohyun isn’t there…
Yoohyun picks up the pace even though his body feels like it’s groaning and studiously keeps his head down as he heads home. This time, it’s not only to not attract attention, but also to keep his paranoia down.
There is, of course, the worry that whoever those people were, they’ll find him again. They know his name, they know his brother. And Yoohyun does keep an eye out.
But worse than that is a developing sense of wrongness that is clawing at Yoohyun’s nerves.
Everything feels different and he’s not sure how. He somehow gets lost in the city he’s lived his entire life and it takes an embarrassing amount of time to get orientated correctly. He tries to use his phone, at least to check any messages from Yoojin and maybe check a map, but for some reason, it’s not connecting to the internet properly. It probably got damaged in all the chaos.
That’s definitely all that it is. His phone is broken, is all. He doesn’t need to worry about anything else, just getting home and getting his phone fixed. The car, the people, the getting lost, he can worry about that later. Preferably never.
He lets himself into the apartment building with no problem and he starts to relax as he heads to the door he knows leads to home. He pauses, for a moment, when he hears sounds inside.
Is Yoojin home already? Yoohyun shifts from foot to foot, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t just wait until Yoojin messages him. He hasn’t received any messages from Yoojin at all so far, which could mean that Yoojin isn’t worried, but could also mean that Yoojin is stressed beyond belief at why Yoohyun isn’t answering messages that aren’t being received. Yoohyun didn’t text him when he was supposed to get home, after all, and his phone could very well be broken.
So maybe he should just go in now?
Ultimately the decision is made for him when the door opens of its own accord.
“Wh—”
“Hyung, I’m sorry,” he blurts out and to his astonishment, starts to feel his eyes burn. Yoojin’s figure is in front of him, completely still outside of Yoohyun’s blurring sight, and things are silent between them.
Shit, is Yoojin mad? Yoohyun really didn’t mean to be out so late. It really wasn’t his fault at all, and he was trying to get back quickly. He really hopes that Yoojin isn’t mad. He doesn’t know if he can take Yoojin being mad at him.
Yoohyun opens his mouth to apologize again when Yoojin pulls him inside.
“Here, sit down,” Yoojin’s voice says, and it also sounds off. Yoohyun focuses on taking off his shoes as he bites down on the insides of his cheeks and screws his eyes shut to keep himself from crying. It’s hard though, because this is supposed to be home and instead, the otherness has seeped into here too, into his own brother.
It’s not even as if Yoohyun can explain what’s off. This is his brother. Yet at the same time…
“I’m going to get some rags to clean you up with,” Yoojin says. Yoohyun nods, even though he’s wondering why his brother isn’t asking how he is or what happened or anything of the sort.
Yoojin leads Yoohyun to the couch and he sits there, trying to control his breathing. Soon enough, he feels a wet cloth scrub his cheeks, his hands, and his forearms. His backpack is taken from him and a hand feels his forehead.
“Do you want a new change of clothes?”
Yoohyun nods tightly, eyes shut. Even Yoojin’s walk sounds wrong, but that was definitely hyung’s hand on his forehead, so Yoohyun pushes past the concern.
Eventually, Yoojin comes back and taps Yoohyun’s head.
“I can’t put on your clothes for you,” he says and Yoohyun blinks his eyes open. His vision is still a little blurry so he keeps his head down and goes through the motions of taking off his school uniform and putting on his clothes.
… Except, these aren’t his clothes? They’re not clothes he’s ever seen Yoojin wearing, either. He wants to believe that Yoojin just went shopping, that these are new, but he also knows that that is most definitely not the case.
He looks up and the wrongness clicks into place. Because while that’s Yoojin, the face is older than his brother’s should be. He’s not wearing anything he owns, and even the apartment looks radically different from what home is.
Yoohyun stands up in a hurry and the fake Yoojin sighs.
“We have a lot to talk about, it seems,” he says, getting up from where he was sitting in front of Yoohyun, and wincing slightly. “I’ve got to call something off, but wait here, okay?”
Since his brother’s voice still exists in the imposter’s, Yoohyun obeys. He hears the fake Yoojin talk about canceling some “dungeon” trip on the phone to someone else.
“Who are you?” Yoohyun asks, straightening his posture and tensing in his stance when the fake Yoojin comes back and sits on the couch. He wants to be intimidating, but instead his voice wavers.
“Han Yoojin,” he says. “But I would guess about a decade older than your Han Yoojin.”
The only reason Yoohyun doesn’t hit the ground is because a pair of hands catches him, and then helps him sit down.
“I was surprised too,” fake Yoojin, older Yoojin, says. “How about you tell me how your day has gone on so far?”
Yoohyun tells him everything.
&&&
Han Yoojin is nineteen years old and having what is most definitely the worst day of his life.
It starts when he’s at work and he doesn’t receive a text from Yoohyun saying he’s gotten home, which usually happens at about this time.
Yoojin doesn’t do anything at the moment. His brother is getting to the age where he wants some space, and so Yoojin doesn’t want to be an overbearing hyung.
But five minutes pass, then ten, then half an hour, and he texts. Just a little check-in text, asking about Yoohyun’s day and if he’s had the snack that Yoojin made and left for him in the fridge.
There’s no response. Yoohyun is such a good little brother that he generally responds promptly. Even when he’s in the midst of studying, if it’s important, he will break his concentration to answer a question.
There are plenty of reasons, Yoojin knows, for Yoohyun not to answer immediately or even within the next five minutes. But then another five minutes pass and then fifteen, and then it’s a full hour from when Yoohyun was supposed to be home.
That’s when Yoojin caves. He goes on break and, foot tapping impatiently, he calls Yoohyun.
He is sent directly to voicemail.
Normally, Yoojin thinks he’s been doing a decent job with his parenting. He is probably screwing up Yoohyun in a million ways, but at least he’s not one of those guardians who want to monitor everything about their charge, from their grades to who they’re friends with. He cares a lot about what Yoohyun is doing, but he’s not a helicopter parent. He respects Yoohyun’s privacy.
At this moment, he kind of wishes he respected Yoohyun’s privacy a little less. Just so he has someone to contact now, at the least. Some friends that Yoohyun walks home with, maybe. Someone that Yoohyun checks in with when he enters the apartment.
He calls Yoohyun again and this time leaves a voicemail, asking Yoohyun to let him know where he is once he gets the chance to listen to the message.
It proceeds to occupy his mind for the rest of his shift, so much so that he forgets to say bye to his coworkers once it’s over.
Yoojin almost runs all the way home and he’s not even sure how he does it, but soon he’s lunging up the stairs. Only when he’s in front of the door does he stop to catch his breath.
This is ridiculous. Maybe Yoohyun is taking a nap. He’s been working harder these days. To burst in like he’s sure that Yoohyun is missing would be stupid. Anyways, he’s trying to be the cool hyung, but he can’t exactly do that if he’s getting upset that Yoohyun isn’t keeping him in the loop for everything.
It’s fine, he thinks as he unlocks the door calmly.
It’s fine, as he flicks on the hallway light, because it’s been turned off.
It’s—
The rest of the apartment is dark.
Yoojin already knows there’s no Yoohyun here, even without looking to see if his shoes are by the door or checking to see if his backpack is neatly tucked in the corner.
He knows, as soon as he turns on the light, that there is absolutely no sign of anyone coming home prior to him.
“Shit,” he whispers, his throat constricting, his keys falling from his grasp.
Han Yoojin is nineteen years old and his day has just become a nightmare.