Warning: there is a mention of nudity in this text and of sexual relations but it is light in fact in my opinion even if the subject can be very serious (I remind you that Seokjin is only a child at this moment of story but as we are in another era the moral is not the same).

Still, I moved this book to books with mature content although there won't be many mature contents.

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Meanwhile, Seokjin, who had finally managed to evade the vigilance of his parents and household employees when he was being punished for having already fled the day before, had arrived in Saengson and was looking for Jungkook.

There were always alleys in which he had not yet ventured and it was in an unknown street of the district that his steps had led him.

"Are you lost, love?" a woman asked, with an elaborate hairstyle and a very thin red dress – too thin for the chilly late autumn air.

Seokjin stopped to look at her with a curiosity that pleased the woman who frantically batted her eyelashes in a desire for seduction that the child did not perceive. If he looked at her with so much attention, it was only because he had rarely met women in Saengson and that these women were in the same state as the old alcoholic men who dragged themselves in the mud and threw empty soju bottles on him when he refused to give them money.

But in this street where there were mostly women in sight, some sitting on the ground caressing their long legs under their rolled-up petticoats and others standing to scan the street to stop the first passer-by, the women were beautiful.

Either way, beautiful like no other Saengson, though grimy when you got too close to their over-made-up cheeks and filed nails, and their voices sounded soft unlike the other gravelly voices of Saengson's women.

Besides, it wasn't just the women. Even this street was quite beautiful and inviting compared to other streets in the neighborhood. The buildings were not greyish plastered with mud over the cracks unlike the others but had been whitewashed and thick red curtains caulked the windows and made them opaque and added color to this area which lacked them cruelly.

Moreover, delicious fragrant smells reigned here and drowned out the fishy smells that smelled everywhere else. The woman also smelled very strongly of this perfume, even if underneath, she also smelled very strongly of sweat.

"Do you like my perfume that much, love?" the woman asked in a seductive voice seeing Seokjin sniffling as if bewitched by her scent.

"No," Seokjin said with honesty. His mother's perfume smelled much better even if it smelled less strong. "It's just that you don't smell like fish as other women in Saengson. That's nice."

"Oh."

The woman was offended because it wasn't the compliment she was expecting. She continued nonetheless:

"Did you come hang out with me? How old are you, love?"

"I'm eleven, I'll be twelve soon during this winter," Seokjin said proudly, because his father had told him that at twelve he would leave childhood to join the world of men.

He lost his proud smile when he realized that that would probably mean he wouldn't be allowed to have the fun he want, to become a more responsible person. He didn't want that.

"Oh, you're older than you look and some boys even turn into men at ten or eleven, maybe you do too. Did you get your first white snowflakes here, love?" the woman asked, pointing to Seokjin's lower abdomen.

"Snowflakes?" the boy said, puzzled as he watched without understanding what the woman was pointing at.

"I can help you check it out by touching you a little, love, it will be a pleasant experience for you," she promised him, cupping his chin with a caressing hand and even going so far as to caress his plump lower lip with her inch.

Even though Seokjin was curious, he remembered that he hadn't come for that and gently pushed his hand, especially since he didn't particularly like the woman, whose hands weren't very clean, to touch his face.

"Maybe I can come back later, but I don't have time now, I'm looking for my friend, he's hiding in Saengson but I don't know where," Seokjin replied absently, turning his head from side to side from the street to see if Jungkook didn't pop up from somewhere while he was busy chatting.

"All the buildings on this street are open to everyone," the woman explained to get his attention again, as she didn't like Seokjin ignoring her when she thought she was attractive enough to attract the attention of a young boy. "Your friend may have walked in, do you want to walk in with me to see?"

"I can go inside?" Seokjin wondered. It was the first time that a resident of Saengson invited him into their house and he was even more curious, whether Jungkook was there or not.

Usually, Jungkook hid in the streets or in abandoned buildings, but maybe that day, after being really pissed off by his words yesterday, he hid better by opting for places that were still unknown from Seokjin. Whether he hid well or not Jin had to find him as he had promised.

"Of course, love," the woman smiled at him, moistening her lipstick-covered lips with her tongue, catching the attention of a fascinated Seokjin who had never seen lips so red before.

However, in his eyes, her spoiled teeth spoiled the smile unveiled by her beautiful plump woman's lips.

She held out her hand and unsuspectingly, Seokjin grabbed it before willingly following her when she walked through an open doorway from which a long red sheer curtain swirled loosely and was lifted by the wind blowing through the streets.

Inside, however, in a small, dark corridor lined with open doors from which escaped sighs of contentment, the air was suffocating and a light but fragrant smoke made the air even heavier. It was warm. Very warm for the boy who was still wearing his velvet jacket, and who was even warmer when he saw a naked woman come out of a room and cross the hall to meet them. He suddenly blushed to the ears.

"Oh!" he cried in horror and his eyes widened at first before he clapped both hands over his eyes, amazed at what he had just seen.

"You can open your eyes, love, it's not forbidden to look here," laughed the woman who was holding his hand.

"W-Why are you naked!" he exclaimed, embarrassed, for he had never seen a woman's body. He had spread his fingers in front of his eyes so as not to look too much.

"Because you have to be naked to get, uh, snow out," the first woman holding his hand said.

The naked woman burst out laughing upon hearing that.

"He's so cute, very clean and well dressed with that," she appreciated, observing him from head to toe while on his side, he looked away so as not to let his gaze wander over her body, "he must be rich and healthy, I want to take good care of him myself, Youngim."

"Absolutely not, Eunjung! It was me who brought him here," Youngim flatly refused, refusing to have Eun-Jung steal his precious trophies for the day.

"And you think this little man will become your regular and give you nice gifts?" Eunjung asked, deliberately ignoring Seokjin but being aware that the boy full of curiosity was still watching her discreetly through his hands.

Youngim glared at her and Eunjung smiled before leaving with an excessive hip movement that made her body undulate in a sensual way. She passed by them, stroking the head of Seokjin who had closed his eyes again the time she passed. He opened them again when she whispered to him:

"Congratulations, you came in here boy and you will come out man. Once that's done, come back and see me, you'll understand that I'm better than her."

"Uh?" Seokjin said, puzzled.

However, she gave him no further explanation and disappeared from his field of vision, engulfed by the door of the room she had just entered and from which her loud chuckles soon erupted mingled with those of a man.

"I'll come out man?" Seokjin repeated, lost before asking Youngim: "How?"

"You really don't know anything about that?" Youngim asked a little annoyed, finding him too innocent for such a big boy and definitely proving he wasn't a Saengson boy.

Saengson's boys almost all passed through her brothel to become men at an early age and sometimes, it was even their fathers who sent them there. But for boys from good families, it was probably an aberrant practice.

Seokjin shook his head, still red from what he had just saw.

"I believed I just had to wait and become a man with the years of life I would gain, not by casually walking into a Saengson house with women walking around naked in front of everyone," 

"Yes, but there is another way," Youngim replied, thinking of a wording that wouldn't scare the boy away, "do you want to discover it? Do you want to become a man now?"

"I don't know, is that a good thing?" Seokjin asked with sudden excitement mixed with apprehension.

"Of course it's good! Otherwise people wouldn't come all the way to Saengson to see us," Youngim joked.

"Are there a lot of people from outside of Saengson that are coming here?" the boy wondered, who never saw a stranger in the other areas of the neighborhood he had visited for several months. Everyone was fleeing this neighborhood like the plague.

"What will you give me in return if I show you how to do it?' Youngim asked curiously.

"I have to give you something?" Seokjin asked, disappointed.

He didn't mind giving gifts to Jungkook, he even appreciated. But to this woman he didn't know? He found it weird.

"Yes, everyone gives me something back when they come to see me," the woman explained.

"Oh, hum, I don't know what to give. What you want, I guess?" Seokjin said uncertainly as he watched her pull out her pin and unleash a cascade of particularly long, dark hair.

The woman's red mouth widened even more into a wild smile that Seokjin found less and less pretty.

"Then follow me," she said, leading him upstairs, to one of the rooms that bordered another similar to the one on the ground floor and in which there was only a bed with unmade sheets and a dubious cleanliness which did not make Seokjin want to settle down there to sleep.

"I don't feel like sleeping," he protested.

"We're not going to sleep," Youngim laughed at Seokjin's puzzlement.

She left the door wide open as if privacy had no place between these walls and she pulled Seokjin onto the bed where she made him sit. There she began to remove the boy's jacket, which she stroked to appreciate the value of the fabric. Then she put him on the bed next to him. Seokjin wasn't really okay with her taking his jacket without his permission but he didn't say anything, being unusually nervous. 

She began to unbutton his immaculate shirt and Seokjin uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"W-What are you doing? he asked, grabbing his hand to stop him from continuing to undress him in this room that wasn't his.

"If you want to experience it, you have to take it all off, love," she breathed, starting to unbutton his shirt again to expose his chest.

From the ground floor, in the room where Eunjung Seokjin had entered, he heard lound moans which made him widen his eyes in surprise as they were so strong and Youngim giggled when she understood that Eunjung was purposely shouting as strong for the attention of the little virgin.

"Why is she screaming like that?" Seokjin asked, afraid.

"That, love, is what happens when you reach pleasure."

"Pleasure?" Seokjin repeated with a shiver as she stripped his shirt entirely and stroked his bare skin.

"Yes that's it. You have really silky skin, darling, I'll try not to leave too many traces," the woman said, admiring the boy's body with unhealthy lust.

Uncomfortable and seized with an anguish that was a new feeling for him, Seokjin began to wonder if he really wanted to be there doing this with this woman he did not know. He had just come to pick up Jungkook originally and now he let Youngim, a complete stranger, untie his pants in a house where there were other naked people who weren't ashamed of it in the least. It didn't seem right to him at all. 

He had never had any qualms about coming to Saengson despite his parents' ban and had never felt the slightest remorse. Yet he suddenly had a very strong feeling that he shouldn't be there and that his parents would be mortified to know what he was doing.

As Youngim was finally about to take off his pants and tights in stride, he suddenly stopped her.

"No, I don't want to do that after all," he told her, grabbing her wrist.

"What are you talking about, love, you said yes earlier, you can't back down now or else you'll forever be considered a coward and you will never be considered a man," the woman replied, annoyed. Her gaze suddenly changed and shone with an unhealthy glow that scared Seokjin who had never seen that look in a person. "You'll see, I'll make you appreciate this moment and you'll come back on your own to see me often and have more of it again and again."

"I-I was wrong," Seokjin insisted, preferring to be seen as a coward - it had never bothered him after all that we see him wielding a needle rather than a sword - and be able to leave this place where he felt helpless against this determined woman. "I do not want that."

But again, the woman didn't seem to want to stop, as if she expected her actions to change his mind. Her expert fingers slid down his stomach leaving soft tickles in their wake and would have continued their way to the inside of his pants and the pantyhose he wore underneath if a voice from the doorway hadn't stopped them and startled both Youngim and Seokjin.

"He said he didn't want to, so let him go, you pedophile!" 

"Jungkook!!" Seokjin exclaimed with relief as he saw his breathless friend approach and step between the two of them to push the woman away from Seokjin. He had obviously run to get here.

"You!" Youngim growled out of her, staring at Jungkook with an enraged look that distorted her face and made it lose all the beauty and charm Seokjin had been able to find in it. "So, you're the friend he was looking for?!"

"Yes, it's me and since I'm also your friend, I brought you a lot of customers," Jungkook told him with an evil smile.

Running footsteps of nine enraged teenagers were heard in the downstairs hallway, followed by cries of anger and indignation.

"What have you done again, Jungkook?!" Youngim yelled, alarmed as she left Seokjin shirtless on the bed and hurriedly exited the bedroom to find the downstairs hallway that had been overrun by the gang of Sanghoon entering each room one by one one, disturbing their occupants, looking for Jungkook.

Before Sanghoon and the others burst into the room where he was with Seokjin, Jungkook hurriedly closed an locked the door. Then, he opened the only narrow window of the room.

"Jung-" Seokjin began, still laying motionless and shirtless on the bed, but he was interrupted by the sound of fists pounding harshly on the door.

"JUNGKOOK, I KNOW YOU'RE HERE! GET OUT, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU THIS TIME, AND YOUR LITTLE ADMIRAL WITH YOU!" Ihnkyang roared causing Seokjin to jump up and stare at the door in dread, as they were locked up and not on the streets unlike their usual chases.

Jungkook did not let himself be discouraged. He grabbed Seokjin's hand to get him up and quickly handed his clothes back to him.

"Come on, quickly Jin!"

"Where?" Seokjin asked nervously.

"There's only one way to escape them," Jungkook explained, pointing to the window.

"EH?! But you're crazy, we're upstairs!" Seokjin exclaimed in fear, putting his shirt and jacket back on, not taking the time to button either of them.

Meanwhile, Jungkook jumped up onto the windowsill.

"If you don't want to go through this then you'll have to stay and face Sanghoon's gang and Youngim's friends, and you could hear that they were quite angry."

"Are they that much mad at us this time?"

"Uh... more to me than to you?" Jungkook sneered, "but since you're here with me and we are mates, you also have to face or flee their fury. "So, what do you prefer? Fight or flight?"

Jungkook gave him a knowing grin bcause he knew very well what was going to say, he knew his silly mate too well.

"Flight," Seokjin replied without hesitation, giving his friend a smile, regaining his usual composure.