HAVEN'T YOU NOTICED?

“you’re. not. helping.” he slapped raiden’s back, groaning at his friend’s annoyance attempt. “you try handling this shit, and tell me you wouldn’t be stressed as hell.” hajoon rolled his eyes, standing up and pushing the chair back. “ambushed?” then again, hajoon kinda liked the idea of letting off some steam, fighting and de-stressing. “have no clue but it… was a little fun. i feel like we haven’t fought anyone in a while, besides that ambush. kinda took me back to the academy days.” he wrinkled his nose, heading out of the office with the assumption of raiden in tow. “don’t jinx us though— the last thing i need is to report some secret ambush going on to kyumin and have him stressed out too. now that i think about it… you don’t think there’s some kind of bigger ambush being planned, do you? could be a coincidence that those assholes randomly attacked us but… it could also not be.” he paused. “y’know, i wish i was part of that spy unit, for real. would love to do some investigating and shit. maybe i should tell melody and hara to check into it.” hajoon hummed, making it outside of the home. “doing all this paperwork made me hungry. should we stop by lee’s house (chanwoo’s family’s restaurant)? or mgronald’s k?”

“Calm down princess. Did Kyumin actually leave you in charge of anything serious…? 👀” Based on how much Kyumin tended to baby Hajoon, Raiden had his doubts that Kyumin left him with anything to work on other than a coloring book. “Aye, that’s what I’m talking ‘bout bro!” He grinned widely hearing Hajoon agree with him. Though another part of Raiden hoped they wouldn’t get into too much trouble while Kyumin was away, since Kyumin would probably publicly execute him if he got his precious little ‘Hajoonie’ hurt. “Honestly man, I wouldn’t doubt it. It definitely seemed planned. Why would they attack us for no reason?” He rose the question. “Yeah that’d be pretty dope. Too bad Mister Kyumin-Jong-Un don’t wanna let you do anything fun. 🥺” Raiden pouted. He only half-heartedly nodded at Hajoon’s suggestion of Melody and Hara joining the spy unit; it still felt weird and unfortunate that they all were pretty much officially living in Kyumin’s world and had to accept it. “Hmm, I’d say Lee’s house but what if Chanwoo tries to make us work when we’re just stopping by to eat…? He’s SO annoying bruh. I wouldn’t put it past him. 😫” 

“i’m refusing to admit that this resturant might have the best food in the gold distrct.” yeosun huffed, taking another bite of the food regardless. it tasted so good on her tongue. food here in the gold district was amazing. with a mix of blue and red district cuisine– ugh, the taste was immaculate. it was even better that people with powers related to food were actually excited to use their powers in said restaurants. the woman was proud that she had been apart of backing this all financially. not only was it making her richer since her company was the sole source of clothing provided in the gold district (the apartment complex that she owned was makinga. pretty penny as well); but eveything had seemed to be going well so far. she wondered how kyumin was fairing in the black district. hopefully everything wouldn’t end with his aspirations growing too large. “and you know that deaf waiter of yours is actually really cute. you didn’t tell me that you had a twin brother.” yeosun did a tiny wave at yuno from across the room, to which the man about faced and went on to doing something else. 

at the mention of chanwoo’s cute brother her head snapped back to look at him. “crush on your brother? hmph! as if!” she denied. though he was really cute, yeosun absolutely refused to ever develop a crush on the man. if she did that surely meant that he was bad news. she liked nothing but bad boy/girl types. cruelty made her heart flutter and she wasn’t exactly sure that was too entirely healthy. “i mean, isn’t it going well so far? it seems like it has been to me at least. why push him as if they aren’t all adults? chanwoo maybe you should do a little something called ‘worrying about yourself.’” yeosun hummed, crossing one leg over the other and flattening out her skirt. “don’t you have more important things to worry about like i don’t know say––-actually going out to have fun? or actually how about your friend that you actually want to date, that like eccentric one that you think is cute? i forgot what his name is, maybe you should go out and look for him so you could stop being so fixated on your brother and parents problems.” 

“i was being sarcastic, or at least you know trying to be. i’m not that great at being…ah, never mind.” she muttered, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. “everyone knows who you are. well, not who you are but they know of you. you’re apart of hajoon’s brigade right?” everyone in the gold district had known about hajoon being the current leader of the gold district after all. everyone kind of knew everything about everything around here honestly. 

“b-busy?” well she wasn’t at all but perhaps she should have pretended to be. bora was trying her best to pretend that she wasn’t in the same boat as the other man but she was oh so nervous. all the woman could do is nod her head at her ex boyfriend’s suggestion. 

“Oh! ‘S all good. Y’know shit like that be goin’ over my head sometimes, ha…” Raiden awkwardly chuckled in return, unintentionally mimicking Bora’s same motion. “Uh huh.” Truthfully, a part of Raiden had wanted to just cut through the pleasantries and discuss where they had last left off since it was such a massive elephant in the room… But he also felt a bit relieved that Bora seemed willing to catch up instead of expressing contempt as he initially expected at the prospect of bumping into her again. “Cool.” He gave her a slight smile, gesturing her to follow him as they made their way to the closest bench. He shot her an ‘after you’ gesture to sit down first before sitting down himself. “So… Like I said, how’ve you been? I’ve heard little things here n’ there ‘bout whatchu been up to but I’d rather get an update directly from you, y’know? I’ve missed you…”

bora sat alongside raiden on the bench feeling everything but confident. she ddn’t really know how she wanted the overall result of their conversation to go. asta had told her to forget all about him but part of her just wanted to be able to forgive raiden for the things that he had done when he thought that she had passed on. perhaps this was something that any other normal person would have done. but to bora rationally she figured she hadn’t been gone that long for the man to just suddenly up and go sleep with someone else. but then again, they were barely dating when the two of them had split up anyway. ugh, but they were--- but then again they weren’t. the woman’s brain was going through an overload as it went back and forth with itself over some fight that raiden had been completely unaware of. 

with time it was decided that yuno would live with chanwoo in the home above the family restaurant. with time, yuno moved from a hate to his parents to a dislike. he barely spoke to them, just gave them slight acknowledgements here and there but that had been it for now. in the month that he had lived here, chanwoo’s sign language had gotten a lot better. it still wasn’t perfect but he could communicate a bit more fluently. to ease his brother into it he would try speaking to match what he was signing all the time. yuno was probably hard to understand but chanwoo seemed to appreciate it enough. for his parents though he would remain entirely mute. they didn’t deserve to hear his voice at all. they had gotten him to work as a server at the restaurant though, at least that had been a start. 

‘chanwoo i really like this sweet, what’s this one called?’ yuno signed before taking another bite of the pastry. he wasn’t really able to afford the luxury as much before. vanilla cake, vanilla ice cream and chocolate chip cookies had been the three sweets that he had sampled before in his life. with his family having a love for baking, he was experiencing all kinds of new things. ‘do you want to share? i feel like i’m eating too much. i don’t want you to think i’m greedy.’ yuno’s face flushed a bit pink, eyes darting off to a different direction so he wouldn’t have to meet eyes with his twin. 

toward a future that we choose!

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