Chapter Text
“You know,” Zhang Hao says, hands folded neatly on the table in front of him, posture immaculate. “When you said we should have our next meeting somewhere different, I wasn’t exactly expecting jail.”
Ricky’s breath all seems to come out of him at once, tight wound wires in his muscles loosening and leaving him slumped in his chair. He’s not actually slumped, his posture is as good as Zhang Hao’s when he wants it to be, but he no longer feels quite like someone has strung him up on some sort of medieval torture rack, wires holding him up like a marionette. His hands aren’t cuffed, but he realises he’s been holding them in front of him as if they were, with his wrists pressed together and his fingers laced. He unlaces them, and he wants to stretch his fingers out, but he worries how it might look more like he’s flexing his claws.
Zhang Hao fusses a little with his left sleeve. Ricky watches him for want of anything else to look at, takes in the way his social worker sits in this interview room in a police station as though it’s a Michelin star restaurant. Ricky has seen this man scream back at cicadas, yell at a sudden rainfall, and pout and pretend to cry when his favourite cheesecake was sold out at the café they usually have their one-to-one catch ups in. He knows he is not unflappable. But when crises strike, when the situation is serious, Ricky has never seen him be anything less than poised.
“Where’s your solicitor, are they on their way? I’m surprised I managed to get here first,” Hao asks after a little quiet interlude.
Ricky shrugs. The only solicitor he knows, the one whose number was in his phone, is a friend of his adopted father’s which… yeah. He’s not going to pick up.
Hao’s face suddenly loses all its warmth, and his eyes go shrewd and calculating. He stands without warning, chair legs scraping horribly on the floor and marches toward the door, fluffy tail sticking up behind him. Oh, he’s pissed. Ricky would not want to be whichever under-paid copper is picking their nose on the other side of that door.
“Could somebody please tell me why the fuck my client hasn’t been provided legal representation, given he’s obviously in no position to acquire his own?” he hears him shout, far louder than he normally would, meaning he’s very deliberately trying to shame them into acting by airing their incompetence to anyone else present.
Ricky feels himself relax a little more, enough to feel the strain in his muscles from holding himself so tight together, enough to feel the dull ache in his right ear every time it moves to follow a sound. He wants to reach up and massage it but there’s still something screaming not to draw attention, to just keep still and maybe they won’t even notice they’re there.
There is some time, (exactly thirty-four minutes, the clock is the only thing to look at in the room) during which Zhang Hao instructs Ricky to say precisely nothing unless it’s to ask for a drink or the bathroom, not even to him. It’s the worst mix of boring and nerve wracking, and over these thirty-four minutes, Ricky is brought a plastic cup of water, an actual mug of tea, and then finally a solicitor by the name of Terazono Keita. He’s short, earless and tailless, handsome and a little scary. He walks into the room like he owns the place and sits down next to Hao, who greets him with a tight lipped smile. Ricky feels himself relax just that little bit more.
“So,” he says evenly. “Hao-hyung tells me you’re in a bit of bother.”
A bit of bother is certainly one way to put it. Ricky raises an eyebrow. It feels foreign, and he thinks he maybe hasn’t moved his face very much for a while. He knows he’s prone to stop emoting when he’s stressed, and he knows it makes him seem cold, and that it probably hadn’t helped him with the police, but there's not much he can do about it now.
“I clawed my adoptive father across the face,” he corrects, and Keita hums, looking in the little file in front of him.
“Well,” the solicitor starts. “You have no history of violence. You have no criminal record at all, not even anything petty or boring. Hao-hyung says there’s been no serious issues raised by your school, or by your family, prior to this. He also tells me you aren’t a particularly impulsive person, and that you hate getting things under your claws.”
Ricky, who has been staring at his own hands, looks up at him sharply. Keita’s eyes glint with something, and his mouth twitches at the side.
“I imagine they don’t feel very clean right now. Bits of skin and dirt under them, dried blood too. It’s a bitch to clean out of anything. I’m sure they swabbed it and let you wash your hands, but you want a nail brush and a bar of soap, don’t you?” he says, and then hums quietly to himself again. “This wasn’t for fun, and you weren’t testing a hypothesis on the durability of his skin against cat claws. So I can only imagine that you did it in self defence.”
Hao’s mouth looks tight. His lips always turn down at the corners, even when he smiles, but now he looks upset, and also like he’s trying very hard to look like he isn’t. Ricky thinks Keita seems ok, and Hao obviously trusts him, but he’s finding it more difficult than usual to maintain eye-contact. He looks back down at his hands, picking at his nails. Keita’s right. He wants a brush, and soap, and some kind of sterilising liquid. He wants a long, hot bath. He wants to know that not a single drop, not a single molecule of that man’s blood is still on his body.
“Ricky? What did he do?”
— — —
Ricky walks out of the police station with a criminal record and a date for a sentencing hearing. He also walks out without anywhere to live.
“Ge, will I have to go to a home?” he asks as they make their way through the dark car park towards the flash of headlights that occurs when Hao beeps his car keys.
“No,” Hao says decisively. “You’re going into emergency foster care.” At whatever look crosses Ricky’s face, he carries on. “Hanbin is a friend. I know him well. He’s long-term fostered one of my other clients. It might just be for a few nights, or a few weeks. You might both decide you want to stay longer. But you’ll be alright there, I promise.”
Ricky supposes people who attack their adoptive parents don’t really get to choose where they spend the night once the police let them go, so he gets into the car without saying anything more. He doesn’t even bitch about Hao’s driving as they traverse what seems to be the entire length of the city in his Classic Mini.
“Am I the worst client you’ve ever had?” he wonders aloud.
Hao snorts, ears twitching in amusement.
“Quanrui,” he says, and mostly manages to keep the condescension out of his voice. “I’m a Social Worker. I get some of my clients when they’re admitted to Juvie, or to the Psych Ward. You don’t even make the scale.”
Eventually, they pull into what technically declares itself a "village", right on the edge of the city. It's too late and Ricky's too tired to have actually tracked which direction they went in, but he knows he's far away from where he had been, and that's good enough. There are actually houses here, as well as small mansions and one tall apartment building towering over the rest. Hao pulls up in front of a three storey building and kills the engine, and a man emerges from seemingly nowhere, appearing in the middle of the outside steps to climb down. It takes Ricky a concerning few seconds to realise he must have been sitting on the steps and stood up when he saw them arrive, and he does very briefly entertain the possibility that the place is haunted. With no other option, he follows Hao out of the car to greet the shadowy figure.
He's handsome. It's a stupid observation to make, it's probably the least important thing about him, but it's the most obvious. He's ridiculously handsome. Different to the way Hao is handsome, because Hao just doesn't look like a real person, he's in a league of beauty that transcends humanity. But still. This guy is stupidly good looking.
"Hyung," the guy says as he approaches them, and oh sweet baby jesus. The look he gives Hao is… it's inappropriate. It's not remotely for public consumption, Ricky does not want to be witness to this.
"Hanbin-ah," Hao practically sighs next to him and that. That is so much worse.
Ricky is used to seeing people fawn over Zhang Hao. He is a great deal less used to seeing Zhang Hao respond in kind.
Friend my arse.
"You must be Ricky. God, come in, you've had a hell of a day, you must be exhausted."
His eyes crease up kindly, and his cheeks dimple below them. He looks safe, which is a ridiculous thing to think about a person, especially one he met about thirty seconds ago, but it's true. The tight knot of anticipation and anxiety in Ricky's chest is starting to loosen, and as he's ushered up the stairs and in through the first floor doorway his brain starts to function, finally.
"Ge, how will– my stuff, I don't have anything, what if they–"
"Keita and I are sorting that. I'm going to drive back there as soon as you're settled here. The only thing I want you to do is move any money in your bank account somewhere else. You're a minor, so it's technically their account, and they could take it or shut it down."
“Hang on,” Hanbin says, pulling his phone out as he walks through the hallway.
It’s messy, but it’s clean, and it doesn’t look cramped, but it does feel full. There are coats spilling over the rack, shoes piled up in the entrance, several sets of slippers lined more neatly through the inside door. Ricky is too tired to figure out which ones might be for guests, so he just kicks his shoes off and walks through in his socks, following Hao into what reveals itself as the kitchen. It’s not huge, but it’s big enough, fitted countertops round two sides, a table in the opposite corner, a washing machine in the other. There’s a casserole dish in the drying rack and a red-stained wine glass next to the sink, and tea-towels hanging off the drawer handles. One wall hosts a big corkboard, pinned full of papers that seem to range from school letters to crayon pictures, and the magnetic letters on the fridge spell the words “bag” and, lower down, “poop”. Ricky assumes only one of those is a memo.
It feels like a home, and Ricky’s insides are at war with the simultaneous feeling of safety and the deep-rooted fear that he’s intruding somewhere he isn’t wanted.
Hanbin hands him a glass of water and a torn off piece of notebook paper with a name and a string of numbers scribbled on it.
“Move your money there. We’ll set you up a new account tomorrow and have Gyuvin transfer it back straight away.”
Ricky’s halfway through doing as he’s told before he even thinks to ask the obvious question.
“Who’s Gyuvin?”
“My eldest,” Hanbin says, briefly looking up from the paperwork he and Hao are filling in to flash him a smile, dimples pressing in as he does. “You’re going to have to borrow his pyjamas too, I’m afraid. They’re freshly washed, I promise.”
“Oh,” Ricky says. “Thank you, but, my tail–”
Hanbin chuckles fondly.
“Gyuvinnie’s a hybrid too. A labrador, and he eats like one as well. He’s gangly as hell so they should fit you, and I’m sure the size won’t be quite right for your tail but it’ll be better than nothing, hmm?”
Suddenly the faintly canine smell lingering in the place makes sense.
“Is he–”
“The other client I told you about? Yes,” Hao answers, reading through the forms again and then pointing with his pen for Hanbin to sign. “I’ve worked with you both nearly the same amount of time. He’s been with Hanbin for most of that.”
“Almost four years now,” Hanbin says. “He’s your age, I think?”
Hao nods and shuffles the paperwork back into order, scooping up the brown envelope he had taken them from.
“Ricky’s a few months older. Hanbin-ah, can I use your scanner to send these to the office? I’ll drive past and drop them in the box anyway but I’d rather have it logged sooner.”
As soon as Hanbin nods Hao stands and leaves the room, clearly familiar enough with the place not to need directions to the scanner. It’s perfectly possible this is entirely from situations like this one, and not for any other more interesting reason, but Ricky notices and mentally jots it down anyway.
"Are you hungry? Or do you want a bath first?"
"A bath?"
He knows he's visibly perked up, can feel his ears twitching, and the ache the action produces in the right one.
"That answers that question," Hanbin laughs softly. "Come on, I'll show you the bathroom and find you some towels. We don't have anything for dyed hair so you'll have to make do with regular shampoo, but we can fix that tomorrow too.”
Ricky has always had something of a daily limit for words. After a while it tends to get hard to produce them, so he just nods and follows quietly after Hanbin. The bathroom is a lot like the hallway, crowded with stuff but with at least a vague sense of order, and a general sense of cleanliness. The towels Hanbin appears with after a moment’s disappearance and a whispered conversation down the hall are large and fluffy, and he places them over a towel rail along with a neatly folded pile of what Ricky assumes are Gyuvin’s borrowed pyjamas. He reaches past to the cabinet above the sink and pulls something out.
“Hao-hyung mentioned you might want one,” he says, holding out the wooden nailbrush. “Take as long as you want, I think we can give up on you waking at a normal time tomorrow. If you’re hungry when you’re finished, there’s jjajangmyeon in the fridge. And no,” he says hurriedly, “That’s not a stereotype. Sunday nights are take-out nights and it’s Yujin’s favourite.”
Ricky nods again. There are words he can say to that, he knows, and he knows they’re easy ones, but they sit idle in his throat, mouth resting closed all the while. Hanbin just smiles at him again.
“Hao-hyung will come back tonight with as much of your stuff as possible. You might not be awake when he does, I don’t know how long it will take him, but he’s heading over to the house to meet Keita and collect things. If you think of anything that might not be in your room, tell me so I can text him, ok?”
Another nod, and Hanbin disappears through the doorway, leaving Ricky to lock it behind him.
He scrubs his hands in the sink while the bath is filling, digging the brush under his nails for longer than he should, until they’re tender, but at least he knows they’re clean. He’s similarly diligent in the bath. He cleans every inch of his body, his hair, winces at the dull throb of his ear as he massages shampoo into the fur there, obsessively rubs a wash cloth over his tail from base to tip over and over until he feels satisfied that he is entirely, thoroughly clean of all traces of what’s happened. He doesn’t want to smell like the body wash from their bathroom, doesn’t want the chemicals of their air freshener clinging to him, doesn’t want any tiny dust particles of their hair or skin hiding and contaminating him.
When he got in the water was crystal clear, and blissfully hot with steam curling up to the ceiling. By the time he gets out it’s murky with soaps and approaching luke-warm. He dries himself carefully, no dampness to cling to the new pyjamas when he pulls them on. Hanbin hadn’t been lying– they’re a decent fit, if not a style he would choose for himself. But they’re clean, dry and comfortable. Usually he would rub moisturiser into his skin, meticulously apply oils and serums to his hair and fur. But he has none of that here, and he’s not comfortable to go poking around in other peoples skincare cabinets (if there even is one, but there must be, Hanbin looks far too good not to maintain himself), so he rinses his face with cold water and pats it dry with a towel.
Hanbin sits up abruptly, yawning into his fist, when Ricky walks into the living room. He needs to speak but the part of his brain that does that is asleep already, or on strike, so he just blinks. It doesn’t seem to matter.
“Food?” Hanbin asks, and he nods, and follows him into the kitchen.
A tupperware is removed from the fridge, and its contents dumped into a sauce pan waiting on the stove. A few tablespoons of water, a few minutes of stirring over the gas and then a bowl of hot jjajangmyeon is on the table before him. Ricky takes a tentative slurp, and it's like all of a sudden his stomach realises that it’s completely empty. He doesn’t know how long it's been since he last ate. He remembers breakfast, but he tries to remember whether he had lunch and it's just blank, a void where memory should be. Concerning, maybe, but no more so than a criminal court date, disownment and homelessness, so he tries not to let it bother him.
“Is your ear hurting?”
Ricky freezes, a deer in headlights, with one hand reaching up to his head.
“You keep touching it. Do you want an ice pack, or something? Do we need to go and get it seen tomorrow?”
It takes a minute, but he manages to lower his arm and clear his throat.
“Ice. Please.”
Hanbin goes to the freezer and pulls out a weird jelly tube that he starts squishing in his hands, and Ricky hears the crackle of a larger chunk of ice breaking into pieces. Then he brings it to the table and folds it around Ricky’s right ear.
The relief from the cold is so immediate he audibly sighs, and Hanbin’s expression dials up to worried.
“I’m gonna take you to the walk in centre tomorrow and get that looked at, okay?” he says, letting Ricky take hold of the ice-pack. The bowl is nearly empty, just a few noodles and stray puddles of black sauce. “You done?”
At Ricky’s confirmation, he whisks the bowl away and puts it in a cupboard which it takes Ricky a few too many seconds to realise is actually a dishwasher.
“Hao-ge just texted to say they’re nearly done getting all your stuff, and that he’ll be heading over here soon. When you wake up in the morning it’ll all be here. But you need to go to bed, come on.”
He’s gently shepherded down the corridor to the only open door, which is revealed, when the light is switched on, to be a medium sized bedroom. Not as big as his old one, but it’s clean, the sheets look fresh, and most importantly it’s here rather than there. Ricky would’ve slept on a sofa. On the floor. In a cupboard, probably.
“Need anything?”
He needs lots of things, but nothing that Hanbin can provide this minute that he hasn’t already given in spades. At the shake of his head, Hanbin smiles, whispers his goodnights, and closes the door behind him.
The bed is comfortable, the sheets are soft enough, and Ricky feels safe enough to sleep. But there’s too much running through his brain, too much to wonder about, too many unknowns with too many variables. How long will he stay here? Will they drop the assault charges? Will his adopted parents be arrested? Will he have to testify in court, or defend himself? What’s he going to do about school, because he doubts that being back in the system he’s going to be able to continue at the private international school he had been attending. Will Zhang Hao and Keita manage to get all of his belongings? Will they bring–
He stops. He can’t think about it, can’t register the empty space between his arm and body because if he does he’s going to cry and once he starts crying he won’t stop. He tries to think about safer things, easier anxieties to lean into, ones that don’t feel like a gaping hole has been cut in his body.
He doesn’t even have his phone. He doesn’t have any of his documents, his Chinese passport or his birth certificate, his old residence card or the Korean passport that he finally acquired a few years ago. His clothes and jewellery collection are worth a lot of money, if he sells them, but he needs to have them first. It’s a horribly frustrating thing to realise that despite being rich in his lifestyle he has very little resources to his own name (at least until he turns twenty and comes into his inheritance, but that’s over a year away, he has to get through high school yet).
He lies awake long enough to hear the drag of footsteps through the apartment and the door open. The conversation that ensues is too quiet to hear, but after a while the noise changes and he can tell they’re carrying things in– the heavier thump of footsteps, the drag of suitcase wheels on the floor, a quiet ‘oof’ as something heavy is set down.
“How much—- shit— rich— fit in your car?” Hanbin’s whispers dip in and out of audibility, like a radio in a remote valley blacking out for seconds at a time. “Did you— you wanted— find it?”
“Bitch— hiding it—- swung for her— give— can’t sleep without it.”
Hao’s voice gets clearer, approaching the door to Ricky’s room, and he scrambles off the bed and wrenches it open. It’s embarrassing, but he can’t stop his hands when they reach out and snatch the stuffed toy cat from him, clutching it to his chest. The emptiness in his arms is finally soothed, some of the rolling boil of anxiety in his body calming. Anything else would be difficult, a financial blow, probable decades of mind-numbing paperwork and humiliating visits to the city hall or embassy or immigration office or whichever one it would be now. But this would be irreplaceable. He’s not sure what he would even do, is scared of how he might have reacted if Hao had come back and said he couldn’t find her, or worse, they’d done something to her.
“I would never have left there without her,” Hao says seriously, reaching out to brush a knuckle down the fur of Ricky’s ear. It’s rare that he’s touchy in any way, and Ricky’s never sure if its just his personality or if it’s a professional thing, but he can clearly tell Ricky needs the reassurance now. The tension that had rebuilt in his body over the hour or so of spiralling in bed is starting to dissipate, muscles loosening and leaving an ache behind.
Embarrassed by the childish display, Ricky tries to ask the sensible questions, but his brain gets stuck halfway between the Chinese and the Korean words and neither make it out of his mouth, so he just holds his hand in a phone gesture near his head.
“Phone, laptop, all your documents, earphones. Emptied your wardrobe and got all your jewellery, your easel and paints. I even got your skincare and fur products from the bathroom, the ones I knew were yours. When I say we got everything I really mean it. Keita’s very good at his job, and the two policemen stationed there were very helpful.”
“The police were helpful?” Hanbin asks, disbelieving.
“Hmm. A fun combination of Keita knowing the law better than them, them being bored and pissed off with Mrs Park, and me batting my eyelashes and being helpless in the face of heavy boxes,” Hao admits shamelessly. “Anyway. Do you want everything in there with you or do you just want to go back to bed?”
“Um. Phone, please.”
Hao wanders off and comes back with a backpack that turns out to contain not just his phone but also a bunch of other electronics and a folder of what he assumes are his documents. He’s too sleepy to check, the rush of relief leaving him drained and droopy-eyed, but he trusts Hao, so just drops it on the floor beside the bed. They both bid him goodnight, and he curls around his companion and falls asleep to a whispered argument over whether or not Hao should just stay the night instead of driving all the way home.
Ricky hopes he will.