Chapter Text
Minho knew he was smart, but maybe smart in all the wrong ways.
Smartass, his father called him.
Smart, but listless, his teachers wrote in the little comment section of his report cards.
He’s smart, but there something ain’t right, Sheriff Childers said the night he dropped him off on the front steps.
Then there were all the other things people called him - sneaky, stubborn, creepy, weird , freak , loner , faggot .
Minho knew he was smart, he also knew he wasn’t smart enough.
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Minho slumped against the kitchen sink. The soft plunk plunk of water droplets into the basin just slow enough that it didn’t fade into the background. This was the soundtrack to his life, anywhere he went in the tiny apartment he could here the fucking leaky faucet. The duct tape he’d fixed it up with only worked for so long, and now they were back to square one. Plunk plunk plunk , Minho sighed and speared another few green beans onto his fork straight from the can.
Just to the left of the fridge, at the corner where the wall meets ceiling, a crack ran down about five inches. It was jagged, angled, and probably meant the whole roof would collapse on top of them one day. Minho zoned out and imagined it for a moment - him and his dad, crushed under the rubble. The last thing he’d taste would be the cheap drywall. He wouldn’t die on impact, either. There might even be minutes, hours, before he finally choked on debris, or before something slipped loose and smashed skull. He wouldn’t be lucky enough to go out fast.
Minho would be out of here before that happened. For now, he’d keep an eye on it.
“Hey buddy,” his dad shuffled into the small kitchen, robe open and only dressed in a pair of checkered boxers. He had an armful of empty beer cans pressed against his chest, and he lurched over to the sink to drop them all in. “You going to school?”
Plunk plunk plunk . The sound was worse now that the water hit the tin. Minho forced down his last mouthful of cold green beans “yeah, that’s what most 15 year olds do on Friday mornings,” he moved away to toss the can into the overflowing paper shopping bag they used for recycling.
“Thought it was Saturday,” his dad mumbled.
Minho watched him fiddle with the coffee machine for a good minute before the older man realized it wasn't doing anything close to producing coffee. Minho guessed he was too hungover to notice that none of the lights in the apartment were on, and the fridge wasn’t humming, and Minho just ate a can of cold green beans.
“The power’s shut off,” Minho said.
He’d found out when he ended up taking a cold shower in the dark this morning. He told himself it was fine, that it woke him up quicker, that he’d be better for it throughout the day. The green beans were fine too, they were good for him, and the cold made the texture better, and the lack of heat built character, and the food they would have to throw out of the fridge would - Minho was running out of flip sides, there was nothing more to flip.
The apartment, his life, his father, were all held together with bubble gum and dental floss and duct tape and some days Minho felt like he was running out of bubblegum. Those were the days when sudden clawing terror gripped his chest and he had to count his breaths.
Right now, however, he was just tired and irritated.
His father turned to him, coffee pot in hand, tassels of his robe flopping about with the sudden movement. “No, I paid the bill.”
“No, you didn’t,” Minho aggressively opened the fridge and grabbed all the cheese sticks, knowing they’d go bad anyways and he could eat them for lunch at least. “First, I know because my half of the bill is sitting in the ‘electricity’ envelope and distinctly missing the $200 we still need. Second, I know because I’m the one that takes the money down, and third, I know because if the bill was paid, we would have electricity,” he said all of this without much inflection in his tone, and his dad still managed to look like a beat to shit puppy when Minho turned back around and shut the fridge with his foot.
“Jesus,” his dad said, gesturing with his hands, still holding the coffee pot, robe still open. “Okay, I’ll get the money tonight.”
Minho held his ten cheesesticks in his arms and stared. “I need $400 for your part of the rent too,” there was a long silence, “that’s $600 total if you-”
“I can do basic math, smartass,” his dad cut him off.
The conversation didn’t need to continue, so Minho left through the archway that looped back into the living room. There was a tiny tv on a cardboard box against the wall shared with the kitchen, and almost pushed up against the back wall was their shitty little couch. Minho neatly folded up his blanket, then moved his pillow so that one was on top of the other, sitting against the arm.
The thing is, Minho’s dad was just as likely to not have the money as he was to have it. And when he did have it, Minho couldn’t help but be suspicious. The man had not worked a steady job in years, and there was no good way to feel about the sudden appearance of a large chunk of money in a short turn around.
No one had tried to take Minho for ransom, and the cops didn’t come looking for his dad, and no bank robberies had ever been reported in town, so Minho didn’t ask questions. Minho was smart, he didn’t want to know anything. Plausible deniability and all.
He liked taking hot showers, and if he had to eat green beans, he’d rather them be warm.
Behind the couch, Minho kept a couple of boxes with his clothes and other necessities, a backpack stuffed down with his one pair of sneakers on top (laces already done, ready to slip on). The money, however, was hidden. He never kept more than $10 on him at a time, 5 of which were quarters in case he needed to use a payphone. Everything else was hidden in various envelopes earmarked for bills. All except for one, his savings, which he stuffed into a slit he made and then covered up in the back of their god awful couch that doubled as his god awful bed.
He stuffed his cheese into his backpack, slipped on his shoes, and made for the front door.
“Hey!” His dad said from the kitchen, he came around to stand in the middle of the archway. “You want a ride to school?”
Minho paused with his hand on the brass door knob, paint faded from too many hands brushing over it. Minho wondered how many people had lived in this apartment, and where they all went.
The last time Minho’s dad had driven him to school, a group of girls out front tittered all about it. His dad laughed in the truck, puffing up like a fucking rooster. The girls, who had never talked to him in his fifteen years of living in this town, wouldn’t stop asking him the whole rest of the day about his ‘hot young dad,’ it was all ‘DILF’ this and ‘DILF’ that.
Also, Minho didn’t trust the truck had enough gas to get him there.
“No thanks,” he said, “I gotta work after school anyways, need to have my bike,” a half truth they’d both buy into. Minho did work after school, two jobs, but his bike could be thrown into the truck bed.
Minho ignored the look of relief on his dad’s face. They’d done this run around before. His dad offered something he didn’t mean, Minho refused and took care of himself, his dad felt good about trying.
Minho felt…Minho felt….
Tired, irritated - there was never enough of anything. Enough daylight, enough food, enough time, enough patience and money and hot water and sleep and
Minho gently shut the door on his way out. He grabbed his bike where it rested to the side on the wall and started to walk it down the stairs.
It was cold, but at least it wasn’t raining.
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The rumor that’d been around since DeerCreek highschool was built quick and cheap in the 1970s was that the architect for the school usually designed prisons. Minho didn’t think it too far-fetched, not with the looming gray walls, gated courtyard, and lack of windows. All schools felt like prisons, Minho supposed. Maybe that’s how the whole world was, actually, one big prison. Or maybe a billion individual ones. A trap inside a trap inside a trap.
Minho coasted into the parking lot, swung off the bike while still in motion, and roughly locked it to the chain link fence that split the asphalt from the football field.
15 minutes until class. 15 minutes that had to be spent in the cafeteria. DeerCreek’s Wild West.
The cold sweat on his back from the bike ride into town was almost completely dried as he made his way into the cafeteria, and out to his circular table at the edge. It made his shirt stick to his back uncomfortably, and the black hoodie he always wore was almost too warm with the temperature change. He put the hood up anyways.
He got himself comfortable in the hard plastic chair and carefully rifled through his backpack, coming out with his beat up walkman and second hand orange headphones. 15 minutes until class meant 15 minutes where he could close his eyes and listen to music. It meant 15 minutes to himself. He could pretend, but he knew other students watched him, knew they turned and snickered and said things to their friends they were not brave enough to say to his face.
Minho had always been a little strange, a little different. That was clear. He didn’t talk much, never showed a whole lot of interest in other kids - playing pretend, making forts, all that stuff. He sat and watched, or went off on his own, or managed to locate whatever stray cat was in the immediate area and entertained himself that way. He spoke to the cats all the time, as a kid. They were great listeners.
Somewhere along the way, somehow, Minho became more than just a little strange, a little different, because he didn’t grow out of it, and then there was that incident in the 7th grade.
In the 7th grade their tiny little middle school still had recess - they’d be free to roam around like aimless cattle for 10 minutes after class. Most of the boys played kickball or four square or shoved each other around and peacocked for the girls. Minho saved whatever scraps of his lunch he could and ducked around the back of the school as soon as they were let out of the cafeteria. The ‘playground’ was really just asphalt until you got out to the grassy field they used for sports. Minho ignored all of this and walked parallel to the brick building, then swung around out of sight at the corner.
He’d crouch down and make a few little noises with his tongue to the roof of his mouth, and there, crawling through a hole in the chain link fence, a little black cat would appear. She was small and skinny with big green eyes. Her right ear had a chunk missing, so that the tip ended in two triangles with a valley between them instead of just one point.
“Hey Kitty,” he said to her, voice as soft and warm as he could make it.
She trilled and trotted to him quickly, head rubbing up against his legs furiously. Minho laughed and pulled a napkin from his pocket, unwrapping it to reveal shreds of lunch meat from his bologna sandwich.
She’d wolfed each piece down in only a bite or two, and Minho laughed as he fed her, eyes crinkled up with joy. He fully sat down after sharing the last of his lunch, and let her climb into his lap. Against the sun warmed brick of the school he sat with her and talked in a quiet voice. The noise of the other kids, the whistles of the recess monitors, were all muffled back here. He could pretend, for at least 10 minutes, that this was his cat, that things were always this warm and sweet and quiet.
He got caught that day.
There was a boy in the class ahead of him, and he was always good at getting others to follow along with him, or keep quiet even if they didn’t participate in whatever awful torment he chose to bestow on one of the mentally challenged kids, or one of the strange kids.
Yun-Seo swung around the brick side with two others trailing behind him - Danny and Kevin - with a look on his face so delighted at the sight of Minho there in the sun, stretched out on the pavement with that sweet little cat.
“So you have a friend after all, of course it would be an animal - fucking weirdo,” Minho frowned, already curling the little thing closer to his stomach, stroking its back where the hair began to raise up. He didn’t trust Yun-Seo. Kitty didn’t either.
“So you can talk to the cat but you won’t say a word to anyone else?” Yun-Seo egged on.
Even at thirteen, Minho was rather unimpressed and unmoved by the cruel boy he’d grown up with, dogged by in school. The verbal barbs mostly hit his back and slid right off, sometimes he was even feeling nasty enough to throw something back, but it hadn’t gotten physical. Minho noticed that Yun-Seo and Danny and Kevin rarely let themselves have their real fun by physically assaulting others unless they were off school grounds, or at least somewhere hidden after classes ended. Minho didn’t catch their attention that often, he was nearly completely silent at school, hardly ever spoke to other students and generally acted unbothered. You had to care what other people thought of you to be bothered. He had his headphones on whenever he could manage it, wore dark clothes, and usually kept his face blank. He practiced that one in the mirror, the dead eyes, the relaxed muscles. He figured out how to be left alone pretty early.
He’s an odd boy Mr.Lee, we worry about him, the school principal said later that afternoon as Minho sat in front of the secretary’s desk, after he was done chewing through Danny and Kevin and Yun-Seo.
And he really did fuck them up.
Minho was fine waiting them out, staring through them and refusing to give a reaction, until Yun-Seo cocked his arm back and threw a good sized rock. Minho didn’t move in time, and it bonked the little cat in the forehead. It yowled and sprang from his lap, claws digging into his arms when she leapt away out of fear. Danny and Kevin chased after her, yelling and whooping, as she scrambled to get through the fence.
Minho remembered that feeling that gripped him then, or really, the lack of it. Contempt and anger and a chasm in his stomach that tied him in knots. He stood up, an uncoordinated and vibrating mess of limbs, and shook where he planted his combat boots on the concrete. He remembered his hearing going out, like everything was happening underwater, and he remembered moving, the smile slipping off Yun-Seo’s face as he realized he’d miscalculated.
Minho didn’t remember what exactly he did, just that he ended up in the front office with blood that wasn’t his smeared over his face, and the lingering, metallic taste of it in his gums, on his tongue, the backs of his molars. His knuckles scraped raw to all hell, a few fingernails broken, all of them fucked up and bloody.
No, he didn’t remember the specifics of what he did to Yun-Seo, but everyone else did. It won him the nickname ‘psycho’ among others, and a wide berth (and whispers) wherever he went. Minho hadn’t done anything close to that since recess in the 7th grade, but things like that stick in a small town.
Yun-Seo, and sometimes the meatheads who thought they needed to prove themselves in front of the other boys, got a little brave to feel good about themselves, and they’d poke Minho like little kids daring each other to run up and knock on the door of an abandoned house. Minho thought it stupid and annoying more than anything else.
Minho was past this already, he’d been past this ever since the summer after 7th grade when he started mowing lawns and walking dogs and running the morning newspaper on his bike just to push him and his father over the finish line every month.
God, the rest of them were all so fucking stupid.
Something bounced off the top of his head. He slowly lifted his head up out of the dark cradle of his arms, already knowing the table responsible, filled with the usual suspects. It wasn’t Yun-Seo this time, his face was turned towards the scene with interest, but he wasn’t grinning like he usually did when he was responsible for something awful. It was one of the bigger football players, John Anderson - senior, star quarterback, small town cliche.
There was another boy watching too. Minho knew him, maybe a bit better than he knew anyone else, if only because he’d been there in the office that day in 7th grade, had spoken to Minho before he’d been chastised by the head secretary, Miss Wang.
And because no one could get away without knowing Bang Chan, or at least the all American boy front he put up, a real pillar of the community he and his family were.
His parents were respected, intensely charitable people with family roots so deep if you pulled them up the town would come with it. Minho had been the shameful recipient of the turkey and Thanksgiving dinner boxes they put together for the less fortunate, the ones they handed out at the church in the middle of town. Minho strapped one to his bike and took it home every year. That first year, when he was seven, he’d burnt the turkey so badly it was inedible, and he’d cried and cried and cried and his dad went to the bar.
Chan’s family was one of those good families, or at least they were before his parents were killed in the car crash earlier that year. There were rumors, as people were wont to make them, big rumors that Chan had that farmhouse on the hill all to himself, and an inheritance of more money than anyone could know what to do with.
Chan didn’t take any time off from school, came back with that same good-natured smile and laugh. Minho’s disdain for Chan was different from the flavor of disdain he had for everyone else in DeerCreek. Everyone liked Chan, everyone , and his family legacy held sway. He shook hands and talked with adults and had a straight spine like a nice young man, addressed teachers with sir and ma’am and was ever so polite. He never did completely stop Yun-Seo with his bullshit, because Yun-Seo was smart and his father was the superintendent and nothing short of getting caught red handed at the crime scene could get him in trouble. But he could rein the other sports guys in a bit, could defuse a good fight when he tried hard enough. He was perfect, golden, and smart . Smart, smart, smart, with nothing else tacked onto it. He had money and friends and no parents in his way.
And he was watching Minho with a look he didn’t catch often enough. A look like a house with the lights off, like a curtain pulled back. Sometimes, Minho thought he caught something raw in the set of his mouth, the furrow of his brow, and then it was gone. Minho didn’t know if these looks were brief possession, or if it was a mask cracking and the real stuff leaking through.
Any time Minho caught himself lingering over it for too long, he scolded himself for it.
Why should he think about Christopher Bang?
John Anderson had thrown an apple juice bottle, it was heavy enough that it didn’t feel great when it hit Minho’s head, but not particularly painful. Minho stared and stared and stared at their table, face carefully blank, eyes unblinking.
He could tell the lot of them were growing uneasy, because John cleared his throat and said “Hey freak, bring that over will ya? I wasn’t finished with it.”
Minho ducked under his table to snag the half full bottle that’d rolled under after ricocheting off his head. While under cover, he quickly unscrewed the red cap and spit a large glob of saliva into the juice, capped it, shook it up, then casually rose back up to his feet.
Chan was whispering something to John, shaking his head while the other boy laughed and brushed him off. Minho set the juice on the table. Yun-Seo and Danny and Kevin and all the others lost interest, focussed on their food or packing up to get ready for class.
“Get the fuck out of here,” John dismissed him and took a long drink from the bottle.
Minho waited. When he was done, the bottle was empty.
“Are you deaf or just stupid?” John snarled.
“Dude,” Chan said, “chill out.”
“I just wanted to know if my spit tastes good,” Minho said in a flat voice.
“What?” John’s voice was low. “Did you just say?”
“I said,” Minho stretched out the second word, like he was speaking to a child, “did you like the taste of my spit?” He nodded to the empty bottle. Then, again in that cold flat voice “are you deaf or just stupid.”
The bell rang.
John made to stand up from his seat but Chan grabbed the back of his shirt and bodily dragged him back down, impressive considering John was a hulking mass at 6 '2 easy.
Minho turned and walked out of the cafeteria, not giving that table a second glance on his way out. It rolled off his shoulders, it always did. Minho was already thinking of his math exam, the english quiz, running the mile in P.E. He was thinking of work, and then more work after that, and then finding a way to get the power back on.
He thought of Bang Chan, dragging John back down to his seat, and then pretended he didn't let himself linger on it at all.