Car Crash Club • Monsta X

xxi.

-note: these next chapters are part of an extended flashback. it should be pretty clear, but i'll let you know when it's over-

--

Hyungwon is six when his father buys him a brand-new bicycle, his first ever. It's shiny and smells of factory and fresh paint, two distinct smells that excite him because they never buy brand-new things. Mother says they cost too much so he can't have them, and Father is normally not around to say otherwise. But Father is here today and the bike is new and it smells like adventure, and he loves it the second he lays eyes on it.

He runs around the bike in circles before crouching down next to it and running a finger along the lustrous red paint. It's bright red like a clown's nose or like the lollipops they give him at the doctor's office when he has to get a shot. For just a second, he thinks of the lollipop and then he thinks about licking the bike just to see if it tastes like cherry, but he grins when he realizes how silly that would be. Mother wouldn't like it if he licked his bike.

His bike.

He already likes thinking of it that way, as his.

"Well? Do you like it?" Father asks, setting a hand down on Hyungwon's shoulder and rubbing his thumb in circles over the top of his shoulder blade.

Hyungwon looks up, his grin wide, his lips bright and glistening from thoughts of lollipops. "I love it! It's mine? You promise?"

"It's yours," Father says with a laugh. "A bicycle for my good little boy."

And Hyungwon grins, because the good little boy is him. He is the good little boy, and Father loves him enough to buy him a brand-new red bicycle.

The bike is shiny, and so is he.