#park jay

summary : in which a teenager with a broken home life bugs the night shift convenience store worker

content : platonic jay! x reader, non-idol! au, found family, ft. juhoon from cortis

tw : abusive family, toxic home life, cursing, parents slut shaming reader, comments on weight, implied ed, mentions of bruises, shouting, angst w comfort, humorous takes on trauma, a little bit of sexism, favouritism, gender bias

001 002

My family life was normal.

But it wasn't the normal that everyone else had. It was my normal. My normal consisted of my parents forgetting about my existence. And the few rare times they did remember that they had a daughter, it would consist of them scrutinising everything about me, and yelling.

I had never considered it out of ordinary, maybe because I had been experiencing this for as long as I could remember. But feeling that it was ordinary and knowing that it was correct was different.

Because my brother's normal was very different from my normal.

Juhoon's normal consisted of parents doting over him even when he made a mistake. His normal consisted of being seen, of being heard, of being acknowledged.

Maybe that's why I hated him.

He wasn't a bad brother, no, but I never gave him a chance to be a good brother either. I just knew that anyone from this family wasn't some one I considered family.

Initially, he had tried. When we were young, he used to try play with me, to talk to me. He tried to introduce me to his friend. He tried to be a good older brother. But for me? It felt like him rubbing things that I couldn't have to my face.

Cause while Juhoon got new toys on Christmas, i'd be lucky enough to get a hand me down that barely worked. Sure, Juhoon would insist we'd share, I would hate that the only way I could play with those toys was by sharing.

For the longest time, I thought it was my fault. Maybe I wasn't good enough. I'd compare myself to Juhoon and I'd see why they liked him more.

Because while Juhoon used to get straight A +'s, my report card was full of A- and B's, not bad, but not like Juhoon- never like Juhoon

He was barely older than me by a year and 6 months, and yet he was just better than me.

So I tried. I really tried hard.

I studied for hours, until my eyes burned, until my head hurt. I studied until my nose bled, and still didn't stop, because I just wanted to feel acknowledged in my own house for once.

I remember the day when I decided that I was done trying.

It was the day I had gotten my 7th grade results. The whole walk back home, I had a huge smile on my face, naively thinking that I could finally make my parents happy at once.

I remembered opening the door, announcing that i'm home, not to hear any sort of response, not even a hum. But it wasn't like I wasn't expecting a response any way.

"Mom" I had called out once again, and in return heard an exhausted sigh, as if my presence itself was a burden.

"What?" My mom had snapped as she walked into the living room, her hand at her waist and she looked like she was counting down seconds till this conversation got over.

"I got my results back" I had grinned, proudly holding up the paper for her to see. She had hummed half heartedly, but still stepped forward to inspect my grades.

"You got a B in English?" She had scoffed, ignoring all the other A+ I had.

"But I got an A+ in-"

"Just shut up" She snapped, throwing back my results on my face

"Do you know your brother never got less than an A? And here you are proudly showing off your B! I knew I should've prayed harder for a son when I was pregnant" She shook her head, showing me her back as she turned around and walked back into her room, leaving me standing there with tears welled up in my eyes.

I sat at the dinner table with everyone. My mom had sat down on her chair after serving my brother and my father, leaving me to serve myself.

Juhoon had tried to pass me the rice bowl, but I had just scoffed under my breath, taking it myself. I had barely served myself one spoon of rice when my mom addressed me.

"You're gonna eat that all?" She pointed out, gesturing to my plate.

"Mom..." Juhoon muttered in a low tone, but that's all he ever did. Say 'Mom' like it ever stopped her and then continued to be a bystander to everything she was about to say,

Mom turned to him, her eyes softening immediately as she replied.

"I'm not saying anything, I'm just giving her some advice to cut down on some food. She's been gaining weight don't you think? She's not smart or pretty, the least she can do is put some effort into her physique" She spoke as if it was dinner table talk, and maybe to her, it was.

Her words usually didn't affect me, I had been experiencing them for way too long to even feel remotely bad about them anymore. But something about this comment hit me the wrong way.

Without a word, I pushed back some of the rice from my plate back into the bowl and sat down, pushing around the remaining rice in my plate for most of the dinner as the three other members of the family conversed with each other.

Everyone else was mid laugh when I got up from the table. No one stopped, no one even glanced as I picked up my plate, which still wasn't empty, and walked to the sink.

I dumped the remaining food down the drain as I walked back to my room. I laid on my bed, staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours, while fragments of my mother's words echoed in my ears.

After that day, I started making up excuses to skip dinner, as if they'd ask. Juhoon approached once when I hadn't come for dinner for the second day, but I had just scoffed on his face and slammed the door.

I started glancing in the mirror more, lifting up my t-shirt as I turned slightly to the side to inspect my stomach. The feeling of hunger slowly became something I got used to, if not enjoyed.

Each time that I stepped on the scale and saw the number drop down, I would feel this sensation through my chest that I couldn't describe in words. It wasn't happiness- but it wasn't sadness either. It wasn't like I felt numb, but I just didn't feel anything... exciting.

It was almost midnight when I stepped out of the house. I didn't even have to sneak down through my windows because I knew my parents could care less about my where abouts.

These late night rendezvous were becoming something I started to do on a daily basis. I didn't walk with a location in mind, I just walked until I didn't, and came back home sometime round dawn.

I walked down the familiar streets until they blurred into unfamiliarness. I stopped in front of a convenience store when I saw the employee leaning against the wall beside the entrance, a cigarette in hand.

As soon as he saw me, a customer approaching, he quickly put out the cigarette as he walked back inside the convenience store like he never left.

"Hello! Please feel free to look around!" His voice announced, that forced politeness employees carried coating his words. I had hummed in response, not because I actually needed something, but because I didn't know what else to do.

I went and sat at the stools convenience stores had for people craving instant ramen and just stared out the window. The store was enveloped in silence that neither me nor the employee were breaking. But even then, I could feel the employee's stare on my back.

After few excruciatingly long minutes, the employee finally cleared his throat before starting.

"Are you looking for anything?"

"No" I shook my head

"I don't have money" I added later, as if I needed to justify myself.

The employee just nodded, not replying straight away. But after a few minutes, he finally spoke again.

"You look young. How old are you?"

An amused laugh escaped me before I could stop.

"I'm sixteen" At my words, the guys eyes widened.

"Are you crazy? Do you know how reckless it is to be out alone at this time, that to when you're that young" He started to lecture. Something about this tiny lecture spread some warmth in me, because suddenly a stranger cared more about my wellbeing than the people who brought me into the world.

"And smoking while on clock isn't reckless, mister?" I bit back, but there was no bite in my words. In fact, I had a tiny smirk on my face, indicating that I was enjoying this exchange of words we were having.

The guy's face flushed slightly red in embarrassment, but he recovered quickly as he replied.

"Well- it's still not comparable to what you're doing right now. Plus i'm 12 years older than you, I don't think you can lecture me" He defended himself, and a small laugh burst out of me before I could stop myself.

The guy's expression softened a little, and then he added.

"Go home kid, your parents must be worried." You scoffed internally at his words, if only he knew. But you were smart enough to know not to trauma dump on a stranger, so with a mock salute, you turned around and walked out the convenience store back to your house, without a detour this time.

Those late night convenience store runs became something I started to do on a daily basis. Every night, around midnight I would walk out of your house to the convenience store.

It wasn't like I looked forward to seeing the employee, who's name you learnt was Jay, but sometimes it was nice to talk to someone who actually heard you.

"You again" Jay had groaned as I pushed past the entrance.

"Hello to you too" I grinned, putting my hand up in a lazy wave.

"Are your parents not worried? You sneak out every night" He had asked, sorting through the ramen aisle as he talked to me.

"As a matter of fact, they aren’t worried, mister” I lifted my shoulders in a shrug, snickering slightly as he just rolled his eyes

“My job description did mention about babysitting a stubborn teenager” He just sighed, but made no efforts to push me out. Instead he turned to the nearby counter and pushed a banana flavoured milk towards me.

“I could hear your stomach grumble all the way here by the way”

A wide grin broke out on my face as I happily accepted the banana milk, piercing the straw into it as I took a purposely loud and long gulp, letting out an exaggerated sigh of relief as I gave him a thumbs up.

“Are you perhaps looking to adopt a low cost low maintenance highly obedient 16 year old girl who is pretty decent academically when she tries to be” 

He shook his head as he looked down, having a small smile on his face which he tried to hide.

“Go home kid, don’t you have school tomorrow?” He changed the topic. It was now my turn to roll my eyes.

“Just say you hate me” I mumbled, feigning an offended look as I threw the now empty banana milk into the convenience store trash, before waving Jay goodbye and walking out the door of the store.

The walk back home felt the same- I mean it had already been a few times since i’ve been sneaking out past midnight. So when I opened the door to my house and saw my parents sit there on the couch, to say I was shocked was an understatement.

The second they heard the door close, their eyes snapped to me, not concerned- I wasn’t dumb enough to think that they’d be concerned for me, but rather they were swirling with what I could point out to be fury.

“You just have to spread your legs for everyone, right?” My mother spat, walking towards me. My eyes just widened at the words that came out of her mouth, confused as to what happened.

But before I could even open my mouth to inquire about what was going on, a sharp sound echoed through the emptiness of the walls of our home. My head snapped to the side as my mother’s hand came in contact with my face.

I heard a wince from the corner of the room, from a voice not belonging to mine and that was when I even noticed Juhoon standing in the room. But I could not bear to think about anything other than the stinging pain on my cheek.

Despite me fighting the urge to cry, my eyes welled up with tears anyways. My parents didn’t even give me a chance to defend myself before they started shouting more profanities directed at me. 

I didn’t even get a moment to dwell onto their words before my mother shoved me back, hard enough to make me lose my footing, enough so that I fell back with my ankle twisting in the wrong angle, sharp agonising pain radiating from the area that twisted. 

But even then my parents did not stop, rather my mom bent down and grabbed my wrist in a bruising grip, pulling me up from the floor, my weight falling onto the wrong foot as a pained yelp escaped my lips.

“Mom-” Juhoon tried to intervene, but her head just snapped towards Juhoon.

“Stay out of this, love” She muttered to him, even amidst all this, her voice dropping down an octave when addressing him. And maybe that hurt me more than any of the physical pain was.

“You have fucking ruined our family’s reputation! All because of you whoring around” SHe spat, shoving her phone directly to my face, showing me the content on her screen.

Despite the pain blurring my vision, I managed to squint hard enough to grasp bits of what was on her screen. The screen displayed a picture of me leaving the house in the dead of the night, sent into the neighbourhood groupchat, tagging my mom while being captioned ‘Look after your kids, everyone’.

My mother’s hand backhanded my face once again before she shoved me back, looking at me with disgust. “Get out of my sight! I don’t want to see your face anymore!” Venom laced her voice as she spoke, pointing towards my door.

With my head hung low, I walked back towards my room. On the way, I passed my Juhoon, who looked at me with empathy, pity, and guilt in his eyes. He tried to grab my wrist, but I flinched away from his touch before he could even reach near me.

jay park = mommae guy