Man - y.kh

five.

As Hyungwon slammed on his brakes and horn, I slammed my hand onto the glove compartment. "Fucking cocksucker," Hyungwon mumbled. "Are you okay?"

I nodded before hissing in pain as I brought my hands back to me. "Oh shit, I think I hurt my wrists." It was a sharp pain and I couldn't really move my hands. "Damn, sprained for sure." I sighed, reaching down into my bag for ace bandages.

As I wrapped my wrists up, we pulled into the parking lot of an Embassy Suites. "You good to go inside?" Hyungwon asked. I nodded, getting out and beginning to walk into the lobby. I wasn't in there for five minutes before some pervert came up to me.

"Baby, you low on cash?" He asked. "You can room with me."

I pushed him away. "No, not only is that disgusting, I have company with me. They're parking." I began walking toward the front desk, but the man grabbed me.

"That means we have a little time. Come on." I stood my ground, planting feet. I couldn't speak. Even if I did" I couldn't scream "rape", no one pays attention to it.

Suddenly, the man was away from me. "Hands off my boyfriend, you fucking pedophile. He's fucking 16, get lost." Hyungwon appeared by my side.

The man was relentless. "You don't scare me kid. I'm with the Liberated."

Hyungwon turned around and fully laughed in that mans face. He lifted up his shirt. "You little motorcycle club is cute. I'm a DK. Diamond Knife. You know what that means, shit for brains?" The man shook his head. "That means I will literally slit your motherfucking throat and feel not one damn bit of remorse. I specialize in getting rid of offenders. I suggest you leave the fucking hotel. Because I will find you." The man was visibly sweating by now. "Leave me and my boyfriend the fuck alone. Now!" He pushed the man away and he ran out of the hotel.

I stood in shock. For multiple reasons. "Uhm... Hello, one room. Preferrably not on the first floor." I decided to prepare the lady for Hyungwon's payment.

"How many days?" She asked.

Hyungwon checked his wallet again. "Three nights? Tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday? Check out on Thursday morning." I looked around to take in the artwork of the lobby. She put us in room 206.

The moment we got up there, I turned to Hyungwon. "You're a gang member?" I asked. "Dude, you should've started with that. What if we get in a fight and you kill me? What if someone hurts me and you get charged with multiple murders? What the fu-" Hyungwon gave me a kiss.

"I'm sorry, but you wouldn't stop talking any time soon." I nodded, laughing a bit. "I wouldn't hurt you. DKs protect. That's what our gang is. We get rid of the bad people on the streets. You're safe," Hyungwon smiled. "And we never get caught. Now, to continue our conversations."

I sat on the couch, shrugging a bit. "What do you want to know?" I asked.

"Why are you so afraid of me?" He asked.

I bit my lip slightly. Should I just tell him everything? "I just... Don't trust men easily. What happened in the lobby has never not happened."

Hyungwon's eyes widened. "Really?" I nodded. "People are so fucking gross, I swear to God..." He was kind of at a loss for words at that point. "If you don't mind my asking, how far has anything ever gone?" I didn't know if I wanted to answer. But I'd trusted him thus far. Why not continue on? What would the negative part be?

"As far as it can go, and then some." I bit my lip softly. "My father died before I was born, and my mom went into relationships easily. Like she never missed him. And the one she was going to marry was the worst one. For five years, he did any and everything he could. And Mama never saw it. She never noticed me wearing more and more clothing. Didn't notice that when she came home because she left something that I was always late from school. In reality, he just hid me in her closet or under their bed. Didn't notice that I complained of constant UTI pain. And just assumed I had a fucked up bladder. Didn't notice my change in behavior and pinned it on being an American bitch thing. Not a victim of sexual abuse thing. Even when I tried to end it, she just yelled at me." Hyungwon had stayed silent, even when I began crying. "She thinks I hated him so much that I lied about what he did to me and got him arrested for no reason. She thinks I want to transition and be who I really am, just to tell him that he changed me completely. I don't need a sex change to fucking tell him that. He knows. He got what he wanted. And every guy in fucking town tries to get what they want. I ride the city bus to school every fucking day and the damn bus driver refuses to notice me pinned to a window, being touched. I'm honestly so fucking tired of all of this. I want my body to match me on the inside. I want my mom to love me and believe her damn child over her rapist of a fiance, I want men to stop acting like they have a right to this body I don't even fucking want... It's just too much and I want to start over. And if I die and am born as a girl, maybe then I'll like me and having a vagina makes sense to me. Or maybe nature will get it right and make me a boy. Or maybe it'll be all sorts of fucked up and I'll be a non-binary gender that makes no sense to me or anyone else."

I took a deep breath, relaxing a bit. "I-" Hyungwon was speechless. "Shit, Ki... That's a lot." I smiled a bit at his nickname. He was the only person who called me Kihyun. "Like I said, I was left on a doorstep. My mother was apparently in an awful placs in her life and my dad was a dickhead. Ms. Lee took me in, fostered me. When I was 15, she got the little family we had, my foster brothers, Minhyuk and Jooheon, and my foster sister, Kyungwon. I was dancing in the backyard and they came out to me. And Ms. Lee handed me a box with an envelope. The box had a present for me. It was a necklace that had my name, Chae Hyungwon, engraved into it. My address. I thought it was weird. I didn't get why they gave me it. I thought it was a going away present. Then she told me to open the envelope. And inside of it? There were my completed adoption papers." He kept a straight face for the most part. "That was the best thing anyone had ever done for me. Then it turned into the worst thing. Everyone was happy about it except for Minhyuk. He's like two years older than me. And..." He stopped speaking. "You never did eat, Kihyun." I looked at him as he got up, going to his bag. He was shaking slightly and really antsy.

"What'd you stop for? You can tell me. Was it like my situation?" I asked. I didn't want to push, but I also wanted him to trust me.

Hyungwon grabbed a sandwich and tossed to me. "It was nothing like your situation, yet everything like your situation. But I need my medicine now, so let's just drop it."

I shook my head. "Hyungwon, whatever it is, I'm not gonna hate you. As long as you've never ever sexually abused someone, as of right now, there's nothing you can do to make hate you." I took a small bite of the sandwich. I was repulsed by the fact that I was eating.

Hyungwon sighed, taking his medicine before lighting a joint. "I need this," he shrugged as he caught me glaring at him, taking a huge drag. "Minhyuk was my favorite brother. He helped me with my schoolwork, math, reading. Helped me with everything." He took another drag. "Including puberty." I tilted my head to the side for a second. "He was... 17 when I was adopted? Something like that. And at that point, I was a boy in puberty. A primordial soup of horniness. And you live with someone for so long, you never see each other as related... Things happen. Serious things. He wasn't happy that I'd been adopted, because those things would have to stop." I nodded, acting like I hadn't understood it still. "It was love, he likes to think. I want to think it was love, but I know it was nothing but lust. Nothing but a rush of doing something so wrong that felt so right with the risk of being caught. It's how I figured out I was voyeuristic," Hyungwon shrugged.

"You had it good, why'd you leave?" I aaked.

He bit his lip a bit. "Minhyuk was quite angry. And he was bound to tell Ms. Lee that we were a thing. I had to leave. I still talk to Jooheon and Kyungwon, but Minhyuk considers me dead to him. Now finish that damn sandwich."

I nodded, forcing it down. "Goddamn it,"  I sighed.

"What?" Hyungwon asked.

I bit my lip, debating or whether or not to say this. "I think... I think I feel something with you. Safety, security."

Hyungwon nodded, taking another drag. "As long as it isn't love. You don't want that." He got up, heading to his bag to get an ashtray.

"Why is that?" I folded my arms.

Hyungwon sighed. "You don't wanna love me. You wanna love the things I do for you. I'm too much. Now, go back to sleep." Hyungwon left the room before I had a rebuttal. Why did he flip back and forth like that?