#ncwonil

send “✉” for a text that WASN’T SENT. 

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝ haven’t seen you in a while, , finally kicked the habit?

send “☎” for a RUSHED text. 

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝ i m o tw  ➝ i overslept juist stay rigjt@there!!

send “⁇” for a DRUNK text.

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝  here s a haiku those are alwaus sex i  ➝ i am so dru nk  ➝ i did not think this thr u why   ➝  u are so cu te fcuk

send “✿” for a SUGGESTIVE text. 

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝ so abt visiting hours  ➝ whats the policy on conjugal visits  ➝ 🤠  ➝ jk u wish man 

send “ø” for a LATE NIGHT text.

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝ my car broke down so im waiting :) roadside  ➝ sober? : )  must be mercury in retrograde :)

send “✘” for a HATEFUL text.

( SMS — won-der boy )

 ➝ i really hate this phone restriction thing  ➝ what are you -- thirteen?  ➝ nvm ur never around when i need u anyway 

send “#” for a RANDOM text.

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝ how many pumpkin spice lattes till i graduate to being a basic 

send “@” for a SCARED text.

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝ i cant come  ➝ my fucking uncle is freaking out   ➝ actually can you come here instead 

send “&” for a LOVING text.

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝ o...  ➝ i didnt mean to ss that @ snap /: \: /: \: /:  ➝ just shut up!!!

send “%” for a CURIOUS text.

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝ im pretty corssed so  ➝ tbh u can ignore htis  ➝ but kwe should run away tgt hahaha  ➝ can u imainge that!! 

send “ツ” for an EXCITED text.

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝ i got the day ofFFFFFFF   ➝ no hurling today for me!!!! :)

send “$” for an ACCIDENTAL text.

( SMS — won-der boy )

  ➝  idk might fuck around and do some bath salts before i ask him out

send “♀” for a HEARTBREAKING text. 

( SMS — won-der boy )

rw: raewon slouches back in his seat and stares past the glass, gaze faraway. “how’ve you been sleeping?”

wi: how do you think? is wonil’s initial thought. he grins instead. “what do you wanna hear for an answer, hyung?”

rw: “the truth, i guess.”

wi: “hm. well it’s not too bad for being without a mattress. gotta get used to it either way,” he tilts his head “don’t i?”

rw: he wonders why it’d never occurred to him to ask in his first visit. “that right?” he asks, furrowing a brow and leaning forward. just blankets and a pillow, probably. “and the others?”

wi: “the others...” he trails off, as if he needs to give it some thought. give up the act, wonil. juwon and sunho, transferred a week in, with euntaek left raising hell like he has nothing to lose in cell three. which isn’t far from the truthㅡtaek hadn’t been the one nailed with the almost two-decade long sentence. 

“dunno.” a shrug. “why, wanna make them your charity cases or something?”

rw: never a peaceful day in the penitentiary. his brother’s slight rolls off like the wind and slaps him like a fallen branch. cold and dry. "not interested.” he returns. “more just. wondering if they’re the ones affecting your sleep more than the floor.” he folds his arms across his chest. “guess that isn't the case though.”

wi: “aw, bummer.” at this point his taunting couldn't be more obvious. “they could use a couple more years. you’re an expert at making that come true, aren't ya?” the elites’ very own fucking genie. “floor or not, i'm sure you won't hafta worry about experiencing it ever. so.” so rings with a sense of finality. “did mom call you yet?”

rw: he smirks, lopsided, tilted glass. “you could say that,” he nods with his lips poised upwards. 

so. the base of the cup is heavy and raewon lets his words graze over like tinkling fingernails along the rim. “not yet. believe it or not,” he starts, mirroring his brother. “i’m not the first person she wants to talk to.”

wi: the news brings a blink of surprise. even the success of the older, more evidently put-together son wasn’t enough to have her spare so much as a thought his way. he thinks back to the one and only time she had stood silently where raewon is sitting, but doesn’t go forward in mentioning it. once a cunt, always a cunt. 

“y’know they have a personal lawyer now?” wonil says instead, absently scratching at the side of his neck. “he called me. said to not expect a single penny out of her or dad.” 

his hand falls to his lap. “so that makes two of us.”

rw: raewon hums. matters of the will. dad might have mentioned them in passing, but that was well over a year ago, and not long after he’d made first contact again to tell them he’d somehow shoed himself into a law firm and that he’d be setting up a transfer payment system. “well that sounds familiar.” raewon can’t help but grin. “didn’t they say the same thing to you about me?” when i left?

wi: wonil raises a brow. “what the hell would they tell an eight year old?” on the contrary, he'd had something to say to them. 

(morning after, at the dining table. mom's eyes are bloodshot, but not from crying. she taps her spoon absently against her cup saucer. 

“where's hyung, ma?” he asks. 

“well he's not here now, is he?”) 

he takes in raewon's expression. can't buy it. 

“bet you have something different to say, though.”

rw: “you think age ever mattered to them?” raewon laughs. “c’mon, wonil. you know better than i do.” 

a hitch. it doesn't catch him off guard so much as it itches at his brain, something curious and persistent. the pause lingers as he narrows his eyes and leans in. “about what?”

wi: “if you’re expecting some shit like ‘don't you ever do what your brother did,’ it didn’t happen.” wonil crosses his arms. “they’re neglectful assholes. not walking cliches.” for better or worse. he doesn't have the patience to consider what it could've been like had they had the decency to be the latter. or at least pretend. 

he flashes a smile, a full show of teeth. menace doesn't suit him, but it's something like it. “c’mon, hyung,” he parrots. “you know better than i do.” there's a singular question that's been picking at him since the very day, the very second raewon decided to show up the way that he did. “what're you getting out of this?”

rw: wonil’s voice scrapes rough like chipped toenails and he’d be a lousy professional not to detect it, gruffness betraying something that whiffs of tender flesh. he saves the laughs but maintains a smile just barely there. that’s not it, baby bro, but “for some, that’s as good a cliche as any.” he returns. 

taunting’s never been his strong suit; taunting back less so. in this circumstance and the last and the next. he swallows wonil’s words down whole and lets them churn and writhe in his stomach until they tire out. “nothing, apparently.” he states simply.

wi: “so you’re part of that ‘some’ then.” 

raewon’s words, understated as they may be, hit, then miss. you could pull out the pliers and the real answer wouldn’t ever be pried from his damn mouth. a lost cause from the onset, from how much he knows, how little they know of each other. 

his mouth loosens back into a softer smile. “great! you’ll get something outta spending your time elsewhere, i’m sure.” the chair groans as he gets up. god. what were the fucking odds, anyway?

rw: “it was meant to be ambiguous but thanks for pointing it out.” he says, bracing himself. that’s what it boils down to between the shallow pauses and unreadable expressions and a ticking clock that’s evidently gone for lunch. they’ve barely made a dent into the hour. 

there’s the punch. whining grit of the chair against the floor and raewon’s eyes drag down and up. wonil is getting ready to go back in now. raewon follows in suit, careful as he scoots his chair with back legs lifted off the ground, standing without bumping his knees against the low table. he’s not greedy for time, even if his brother is. raewon places his hand onto the table, taps it twice. 

kang wonil is born to a couple looking to escape the painfully mediocre doldrums of the lower middle class. fast-forward a couple years, and his older brother makes his exit before any of them can.

while mom and dad work all odd hours to make their startup well...start up, wonil is left to his own devices; this only takes him between school, the playground, and the bowl of overcooked ramen that waits for him to come home.

boredom and resentment becomes inevitable. nothing a sense of humor and a devil may care attitude can’t take care of, right? 

when the kangs do end up striking gold, it’s time to bid adieu to the shitty two-bed-one-bath hell and to say hello to the ritzy two-story bird cage in apgujeong.  

a ritzy two-story bird cage also means a ritzy high school. the new money smell never really washes off of him, for better or worse. 

for the kind of trouble he decides to tangle himself up in, wonil decides it’s for the better because hey, no one would suspect that face in that uniform to have stolen from kwon jiyong’s (yeah, that one) house last night.

his stint comes to a screeching halt when the victim of his last robbery is a big-shot politician. wonil and three other accomplices are arrested on site. 

it doesn’t take the police all that long to crack his m.o. and to trace back previous incidents to be of his doing; on the cusp of nineteen, he has no other way to explain himself other than “just wanting to have a hell of a good time.” 

wonil is charged on june 5th, 2043 on ten counts of second degree burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary, and five counts of felony possession of stolen property and is sentenced to 18 years in prison. in a dramatic turn of events, hyung steps back into his life only to be the prosecutor to send him to jail. 

he’s completing his first year behind bars when the tinker chooses him to be part of the new k9 division, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect.

when they escort him into the paddy wagon from his cell in seoul penentiary center, he has nothing more but the clothes on his back and a small wooden carving of a wild mongoose in his pant pocket.

in another life, this would be the portrait of a young man who has shed the weight of all his wordly possessions. the first kicker: they’ve already moved the rest of said possessions into his new home. the second: with the shit he’s caused, karma probably has him slotted to being an actual dog instead. maybe a mutt with three legs, so if he were to continue to commit crimes, he won’t have the four to get away with them.

talk about tough luck.

but that doesn’t deter him, and instead spurs his steps forward into the vehicle. it’s only when the guard suddenly steps in front of the entrance that he’s forced to stop.

“what?”

a baton is taken out to gingerly lift the lapels of his jacket, the left followed by the right.

when it clicks, wonil has to laugh.

“ah, this? i actually bought this one.” he flashes him a grin, a full display of teeth before giving the guard’s shoulder a firm clap. “can’t be caught stealing this soon, you know.”

though it’s hard to blame him: within those four walls, crooks don’t even deserve the air they breathe. that much they’d made clear, from the very first day to the last. in retrospect, not all that different from the things hurled at him through the wire during visitation hours. safe to say then, he’s used to it, and he absolutely cannot be fucked to care.

the paddy wagon speeds on. in the dark, wonil can feel the vibrations hum beneath his feet as wheels spin over the freeway. outside, the sprawl of the metropolis zips by in a cold neon blur.

“hey ahjussi.”

the driver locks eyes with him through the rearview. “what?”

“i’m a free man today.”

a chuckle. “that right?”

“i like to think so.”

“whatever helps us to sleep better at night, huh?”

“oh yeah, absolutely.”

in the front, the radio is tuned into the 6 o’ clock news:

the politician, who just last year was at the center of attention for being the latest target of a series of robberies, turns out to have been accepting bribes from large corporations. these ranged from money to jewelry, some of which had been the stolen items.

tough luck and karma, it’s all coming together now.