Chapter Text
The coat was where he’d left it.
Jisung let out a slow breath, the cold night air turning it to fog, and pulled aside the damp cardboard and layers of tatty plastic bags. He shook it out. Not especially warm, but crucially clean. The dark grey jacket was the kind of thing that said absolutely nothing about the person wearing it and caught no one’s attention.
He shrugged off his own grubby torn padded coat, which said far too much about his lack of both money and laundry facilities, and pulled the thinner one on. He tucked the padded coat back into the plastic bags and pushed it under the cardboard.
It was only November but he knew from bitter experience just how brutal Seoul winters could be, and even with his hoodie underneath the thin slightly damp jacket did nothing much to stop the wind.
Yanking his hood up he couldn’t quite repress a shiver. Jisung lingered in the shadows beneath an old metal fire escape that clung stubbornly to the derelict building. Eventually satisfied no one was watching he carefully squeezed back through the gap in the security fencing.
The abandoned gym rose behind him, nobody much came here. As he walked his eyes flicked nervously up and down the dark and now mostly empty street. In the distance someone shouted and a door slammed, his ears twitched reflexively. The small feline ears that poked through his hair were his most persistent problem. His only other obvious hybrid feature - a tail, curled hard against his leg, was concealed as best he could manage beneath baggy jeans.
In Seoul’s crowded streets Jisung’s survival depended on going unnoticed. Remaining invisible was frankly his main aim in life. Anything that drew attention destroyed his chances of getting close enough to swipe a wallet and therefore eating and nothing brought more attention than hybrid features.
He froze for a second as his sensitive nose caught the musky scent of another hybrid, canine probably he thought. He veered left, crossing the road and widening the distance between them. Hybrids had good senses; you didn’t steal from their kind unless you wanted to regret it.
He glanced over as the guy passed under a streetlight. An older guy bald head uncovered despite the cold, nothing visible that would give him away to anyone without a nose. One of the “passing” hybrids who got to just exist, in a crowd, without anyone looking twice. Good for you buddy Jisung thought bitterly his cat features meant everyone saw him for what he was.
Human society didn’t like hybrids, didn’t trust them. “A genetic experiment gone wrong”. Of course, plenty of humans still desired them, hybrids where ‘“exotic” he shuddered at the thought.
Pulling in a deep breath of cold night air he climbed the steps toward one of his usual spots a narrow alley that squeezed pedestrians close together. His side throbbed with every step he climbed, bruises blooming beneath his clothes where Jaeho’s fists had landed days ago when he hadn’t met quota.
Jisung slipped through the side streets, eyes sharp, fingers quick. A businessman busy with his phone. A tourist fumbling with a leaflet. A distracted student. Wallets, phones even watches vanished into his jacket.
There was no guilt. Not anymore. Years ago, there had been, when they first dragged him to Seoul ripped from his family, still just a teenager. But now he didn’t look at faces long enough to turn them into people. Didn’t read the names on the IDs. Thought only about what the contents of the wallet meant for whether he ate, and what happened if he came back with too little.
The tempting smell of tteokbokki and fishcakes curled into his nose. He ignored it, the hunger clawing at his stomach was an ever-present familiar ache. Jisung pushed on, not a single won could be wasted tonight if he wanted to avoid another set of bruises. Hours later, exhausted he crouched in a side alley, it was the early hours of the morning now and few people were left on the street. Jisung examined the phones he picked up and counted notes with cold trembling hands, it might be enough.
Gathering his small haul, he walked the familiar path back to re-hide his clean coat. Jaeho would never let him keep it if he saw it. Then he trekked back to the basement below the neon-lit bar that was ‘home’. Raised voices and a waft of stale cigarette smoke greeted him as he descended the steps.
“You’re late.”
Jaeho’s words slurred, the American twang in his voice stronger when he was drunk. He was slumped in a plastic chair, shirt half‑untucked, eyes red rimmed. The second he saw Jisung, his mouth twisted into a mean grin. “Took your damn time, huh?” he said, tapping his ear like he was checking a microphone. “You understand me today, pussycat? Or do I gotta dumb it down again?”
Jisung kept his head down as he offered the wallets and phones he’d collected. Jaeho snatched them flipping through the wallets. “Jesus that’s it?” His voice rose. “This? This is all you got?” Before Jisung could brace, a backhand cracked across his face. Jaeho leaned in, breath hot and sour with soju. “Every goddamn day I tell you the same thing. If you wanna stay here pick up the pace.”
He yanked Jisung’s hood back, grabbing a fistful of hair. His fingers twisted, hard. “Look at these ears,” he said in English again, voice slipping into a mocking drawl. “Cute as hell. No wonder people buy your kind. Bet some rich CEO would love a little hybrid pet to warm his bed.” The room buzzed with laughter from the onlookers. “Maybe it’s time we stop wasting our time, we could get a good price for a little cat like you” he twisted the hair further until Jisung’s eyes watered and it felt like it might be pulled from his head.
A deeper voice cut through the noise. “Enough, Jaeho.” Jaeho froze. His expression shifted instantly, still angry, but tempered by the wariness that only Seokjin could bring out in him. “He brings what he brings,” Seokjin said. “If you want more, do the work yourself.” Jaeho’s jaw clenched. His fingers uncurled from Jisung’s hair. “Tch.” He shoved Jisung backward. “Whatever, man. You should just sell your little pet before he loses what looks he has left.”
Seokjin eyes were shadowed and lined he looked annoyed, but then Jisung wasn’t sure he had ever seen the man smile. Seokjin’s hybrid blood gave him a subtle strength advantage over most of the human men here, though he “passed” easily. Jisung’s nose picked up the sharp tang of anger on him. Jaeho muttered but he pushed Jisung away turning back to his card game, not drunk enough to challenge Seokjin. Relief flickered through Jisung he kept his head down, ears flattened tight and edged to the back of the room.
Seokjin, for whatever reason, would sometimes do this, step in to prevent Jaeho and his cronies from tormenting him. It wasn’t exactly kindness, but it was as close to it as he had experienced in the last few years. A while later Seokjin lingered briefly by the door to the storeroom Jisung slept in, without looking him in the eye, he tossed a bruised apple towards him, “Eat”. Jisung bit down on the fruit, sharp juice stinging a loose tooth.
He didn’t thank Seokjin he never did. He couldn’t trust or understand why the man protected him at all. Perhaps it was sympathy for a fellow hybrid? But he had seen him gut enough of his own kind to doubt that. Seokjin had been part of this gang for decades, and human/hybrid trafficking was their bread and butter. He didn’t understand Seokjin’s protection, maybe he just thought Jisung was useful? He didn’t trust it to last.
Jaeho’s words about selling him circled on repeated in his mind, fear soured his scent. With the rotten smell of his own misery in the air, he finished the apple and tried to ignore the gnaw of hunger still in his stomach, curled onto his scavenged bed of cardboard sheets, exhausted he finally slept.