「I am alone in the night
been tryin' hard not to
get into trouble, but I
I've got a war in my mind」

♫ lana del rey; ride

✩ s a n ✩

San sniffed a few times, fighting to hold back the tears that kept blurring his vision. His cheek was still burning from the hard slap he had received in his father's office, for the bad scores on his report card. The last thing he wanted to do now was to cry, he had to stop being so weak all the goddamn time - just as his father would say.

"Hey," a soft voice said behind him, and San made sure to ruffle his hair down in attempt to cover up the redness on his skin. "San? What happened?"

Ren looked at him with sad eyes, as it had happened before, but the older boy knew better by then than to expect an honest answer.

"I'm fine, just fell on my way here," San lied - another day, another lie, and Ren only narrowed his eyes a bit with his lips closed shut, well aware that was far from the truth.

They sat down next to each other, watching the stream that passed by at the bottom of the mountains, with the calm breeze dancing through their hair and the sun shining from above.

"You know, it's okay to cry sometimes," Ren then said calmly, with a worried look in San's direction.

The stupid tears had been impossible to hold back, and they were now clinging onto his lashes while San stubbornly kept his own eyes away from the pretty blonde's. He quickly dried his eyes with the back of his hand, sniffed one last time with a tickle in his nose that told him he could break down any second, while his other hand stroked the cold grass under him.

"No, I can't be weak like that," San finally mumbled.

"Sannie..." A gentle touch was placed against San's warm cheek, and he looked at Ren for long enough to lose himself in the eyes that held promises of a better world. "It's also okay to be weak."

But San chose to shake his head in disagreement, repeating his father's words in his mind - over and over and over - as he had done so many times before. He was weak, he knew that, he would never be like Seonghwa or Jongho even - determined and with a mind so strong they could achieve anything they wanted to. He was just a failure full of weaknesses that would bring him to his knees at any given chance.

"Don't let the fear of weaknesses hold you back from living your life as you want to," Ren continued with a wry smile. His fingertips stroked San's cheek and down his chin, and his touch was slowly making the pain go away. "- from being the person you are destined to become."

A sudden but soft kiss on his cheek caused San's eyes to widen up, and his heart raced in his chest while he was blushing like mad.

The kiss was like magical stardust that took away the last pain, and made him believe that one day he would escape from his horrible family.

And that he would end up being nothing like his devil father.

✩

A low groan rolled through San's throat as he straightened his back. His body hadn't quite been the same since the fall, although everything had been well prepared and they had made sure he wouldn't fall that far - or hard, it still hurt from time to time.

In the dimmed light and with silence playing its familiar uncomfortable song in his ears, he watched Hongjoong who struggled to collect himself after his break down. Looking at him now felt like a dream - an illusion too good to be true. They had been apart and things bigger than both of them had set into motion, but San's feelings had been growing steadily in the darkness.

San grew up thinking that love was a weakness, and right now he felt like that was the only truth in the world. His cynical and cold, self-centered and hateful old self had had to move aside for emotions that would sway him away in a dance he couldn't step out of.

Or maybe, he simply didn't want to.

When Hongjoong finally looked at him again, San noticed how the look in the brown eyes had changed, but was it enough? Things had happened to him, which San had no clue about, but he knew his brother enough to know it had been something absolutely horrible.

"I never meant for you to end up in that place," San half-whispered. "But Seonghwa messed up our plan, and we had to act fast when he sent you to the construction site. I apologize, it wasn't supposed to happen like that."

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" Hongjoong replied with one last tear wiped away by a shaking fingertip. "Nothing matters anymore... Even if Seonghwa dies, things won't ever go back to what they were. We can't go back to whoever we used to be."

Kneeling down on the floor in front of Hongjoong, San carefully placed his hands on the other's thighs and looked up at him. "But we can try to become a new version of ourselves..."

But Hongjoong just shook his head, biting into his lower lip as tears began to show in the corners of his eyes again. His voice was low, struggling to leave his trembling lips.

"I killed someone. I... I am just like him..."

"No!" San instantly grabbed Hongjoong's hands and pulled them close to his own chest. "Listen to me, you are nothing like him!"

"But I am!" Hongjoong cried out, tears streaming down his cheeks. "I killed Wooyoung and in the moment I didn't even care!"

"W-Wooyoung?" San let go of Hongjoong's hands as he was taken by surprise of the name. He didn't know Wooyoung on a personal level, but he was aware of the meaning that blonde junkie had had in both Hongjoong and Yeosang's lives.

"Someone I knew... Someone I used to hate, but he-he didn't deserve to die like that..." The regret was cutting crystal clear through Hongjoong teary eyes, and his faces pulled into a painful grimace as he spoke.

San raises both hands, placed one on each side of Hongjoong's face and looked him deep into his eyes.

"You're going to be okay. You are," he said with a promise he so badly wished would come true himself.

Wiping away the tears, San didn't let go of Hongjoong's eyes for even one short second. As Hongjoong started to calm down again, San straightened his back and left a small kiss on the tear-soaked cheek.

It was a desperate move, a desperate wish - but it was the only thing he had left.

Magical stardust.

✩

San led the way through the woods, from afar they could still hear the calming sound of the ocean, but there was no time to feel calm or enjoy the beauty of nature.

In between the trees, in an opening hidden away from the world surrounding it, was Seonghwa's cottage house. San had been giving the information that his older brother had stayed there since the tragic incident with Yeosang happened. He was isolated and by himself.

Days had passed by, more than San had liked, but seeing Hongjoong break into pieces in front of him had given him the hope that the other could still be saved. With no updates of Seonghwa leaving his private get away, the nerves had calmed down, but only a tiny bit.

San had waited patiently, held Hongjoong tight at night when the tears wouldn't stop falling. They had shared the bed, felt the comfort of each other's bodies - but one thing was clear; Hongjoong wasn't in love with him, and if he ever had been was something San didn't even dare to wonder.

"We will go in first," San said over his shoulders, looking at the armed guards he had brought with him. "He should be alone, but stand ready outside the door."

Grabbing Hongjoong's hand, San gave it a little squeeze but the pretty face had turned completely pale on the way there, and the brown eyes kept flickering about full of anxiousness.

"We will reveal everything to him," San said with a nod. "Everything I know about him, everything he has done. He will get the choice to go to jail for his crimes, or to end it right away. It'll look like a suicide."

Hongjoong let his head fall in a hesitant nod, but his lips were pressed shut as he followed San the rest of the way. Behind them was Jongho, and the youngest Choi brother was stronger than any of the armed men, San had experienced that good beating on his own body already.

Although he looked calm and collected on the outside, San was freaking out inside. His heart was pouncing in his chest as he reached out for the door handled, but when the door suddenly opened up from the inside - all of them froze.

Flowers in his hair, small and petite and in colors of pink, blue and yellow, hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and with two locks waving at the sides of his face. Eyes as they all knew them, but something was different this time.

"... Yeosang?"

✩

A/N: my stupid brain keeps changing up the storyline I had made for this... I hope you're still enjoying it though, and that things are starting to make sense ^^;; I'm working hard on trying to tie everything together the way I want to - and I hope you aren't too bored with the flashbacks (because another one is coming lol....)
Much love xx