Family (Mafia Stray Kids AU)

And followed her heart she did

Dae slept well that night, for the first time in a while. She woke up feeling refreshed, ready to focus and be productive.

She wouldn't allow herself to overthink anything today. Today she would go with whatever happened.

"And I'm not going to shrivel in fear. That's not what Stray Kids do." Dae motivates herself as she looked in the mirror one more time before leaving her dorm.

"So," Jinyoung starts, sitting across from Dae during breakfast. JYPE has free breakfast every morning, but Dae had usually eaten with her family at home, so she's never had it. "What's going on with you and your family?"

"I'm not sure." She admits truthfully. "I'm leaning toward one side, but I'm going with the flow until my mind is truly ready."

Jinyoung smiles, pride glowing. "I'm sure you'll work things out, you always do."

Dae surprised Itzy by coming into class with a grin on her face and a warm greeting. For the past week, she's been moping into class, almost falling asleep during lectures.

"Ah! Good morning Yeji! Ryujin!" She bows her head respectfully. "Are you two the only teachers today?"

"Oh, um yes." Yeji acknowledges. "The rest are doing testing from a past mission 2 PM did recently."

Dae's good mood did falter when entering 3Racha's class, but she did her best. Making eye contact with them and bowing her head. She did smirk at their aghast faces when she proceeded with her respectful gesture.

"Today will be a simple monthly evaluation." Changbin starts. "We will draw your name from a randomizer then you'll pull a stick from these 3 sticks here. Whosever stick you pull will be who you are sparing. Bystanders will judge you."

Monthly evaluation commenced. A lot of students failed, but a few held their own and some won. Dae got really into it. Cheering and wincing throughout the fight.

"Dae," Chan announces, looking up at the girl. "I'm sorry but I can't bend the rules for you, you have to complete your evaluation."Dae jumps to her feet. "Alright." she shrugged.

"Please come up here and select a stick," Jisung instructs.

She walks up to the 3 men and looks down at the jar containing their names. She smirks and grabs all three sticks, reading their names aloud. "Chan, Changbin, and Han. Weird, I guess I'm fighting all of you."

"You can't do tha-" Jisung bellows, before being interrupted.

"No, it's fine. If she wants to lose, let her lose." Chan instructs.

"I'll put up a good fight." Dae taunts. "One that'll make you realize how much you'll regret putting me into detention."

A fire lit in all of their eyes.

And the fight began.

Dae realizes that she needs to focus on getting rid of Chan first. She punches him in the nose, his nose bursting with blood on impact. She turns around, kicking Jisung in the head, the sound of their collision loud. Dae kicks Chan down, before turning around and punching Changbin in the jaw. He catches her fist and twists her arm around. Chan, still on the ground, catches her feet and knocks her to the floor. The wind is knocked out of her. Jisung goes to ground his foot into her breastbone, but Dae catches his foot, determination in her eyes.

"I don't want to lose that quickly."

She twists his foot around. While doing that, she uses her full force and kicks him in the nether region. He doubles over, letting Dae quickly collect herself and stand up. Quickly, she grounds her foot into Jisung's breastbone, rendering him out.

She kicks Changbin in the jaw, then kicks him down, stepping on his breastbone as well.

Chan comes forward, Dae has her fists up in defense.

"Show me what I regret," Chan states sympathetically.

Dae lost the fight, but Chan ended up with a horribly broken nose. She was asked to stay behind after class.

"What do you need from me?" She questioned, wanting to leave.

"Thank you," Jisung confessed in a fatherly way. "You looked at us, you talked to us, and you gave it your all. Thank you."

Dae starts to tear up but blinks her tears away. "No problem. You're my teacher, that should be something you expect from your students. But I must get going now. Bye." Dae bows again and runs out of their room.

During lunch, Dae excuses herself from Jinyoung to go in the teacher's lounge, but not for Stray Kids.

She opens the door, everyone looking at her, her fathers staring at her with hopeful eyes.

She doesn't spare them a glance, instead, heading for the Twice table.

"Mina, can I talk to you for a second?" She faltered kindly.

Mina smiles sweetly and stands up from her spot, taking the girl's hand.

"Of course, let's go in my classroom and eat together, yeah?"

The older girl collects her lunch, bids the other teacher's goodbye before leaving with Dae.

"What did you need to speak with me about, sweet thing?" Mina questions when they got to her room.

"I think I'm ready to go back to Stray Kids," Dae confessed.

"You are?" Mina inquires cheerfully.

"But I don't know if they are particularly ready to have me back? Like what if they got used to being without me?"

"Dae, it's been a little over a week." Mina kindly deadpans.

"Not the point. My point is, I think I'm ready. But what if I'm actually not? And how do I tell them?"

"Dae, I'm not going to help you with this part. You have to do this alone. But all I can say is follow your heart."

At the end of the day, she sat in her dorm, thinking of how to do this.

"They're your dads Dae." She attempts to motivate herself. "You can do this."

She picks up her phone and clicks on a certain contact.

It answers at lightning speeds.

"Dae? Are you alright?" Jisung questions.

"Yeah, everything's fine. I'm just" She starts to choke up.

"You're just what? Love, spit it out."

"I'm just really lonely right now."

She hears Jisung sigh through the line. "Yeah? and whose fault is that?"

"Han-"

"Han?" He questions. " Are we in class right now?"

"Are you my dad right now?" Dae reiterates.

"Dae why did you call?" Jisung retorted.

"I-I wanna go home. I'm done being lonely and I thought you would understand."

Silence on the other line.

"I know why you don't want me anymore. So I'm sorry, I-I'll be going now."

"No, wait!" Jisung pleads on the other line. "I'll be at school in 20 minutes. Pack anything you need for the night in a backpack. I'm taking the motorcycle."

And he hung up.

Dae sprung up and started throwing things in an empty backpack.

"I'm going home." She breathes out, relieved it was over.