Chapter Text
As a child, Lee Hyun did become curious about sexual pleasure, while not knowing, consciously, what it was. He wondered why being unclothed around someone meant something secretive and exciting. Then came puberty, and his fascination with the female body, at least the undercurrents of it, became less vague. Where it was the thought of kissing and tender touches that stirred his curiosity and he mostly was left wondering what it felt like to desire. Then, he did not have physical understanding of it, which was gradually manifesting itself in his body as it developed. In his dreams, he found himself overcome with the bubbling feeling in the pit of his stomach as his mind conjured images of curves and angles and the scent of a woman.
And came the sex talk. He knew what it was to procreate, the mechanics of it – and he learned about consent. And rape.
So while his adolescent mind busied itself in sexual imaginings, a thought, like a light, endless knock kept him on edge. He often consoled himself with his knowledge that he knew himself better – he was not a monster. That much he knew.
However, it made him fearful too – what his thoughts were capable of, how his sexuality forced his body to react. If he touched himself, and he pleasured himself at the thought of a woman – any woman his imagination could create – and what she would do to him (at least how his inexperience made of it); was that not also a violation of someone’s body? To imagine them in their most vulnerable, in their most carnal.
And he was not a monster. So sometimes he succumbed to the emotions; sometimes, he simply slept on them, and woke up in slight horror when his underwear was wet. But he was not a monster.
Despite knowing he was not feeling anything out of the norm, the emotional conflict existed.
My son is a monster.
But he wasn’t. He did not want to be one. He refused to be one.
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“You’re cold.” How do I react to your average account of the turning point as you decided your major?
“Do you even understand how I feel?” I sincerely do not. I want to, but I do not see why I should try to understand that I do not listen to you when I do, and no amount of attention seems to convince you otherwise.
“You’re so obsessed with serial killers and overall psychos” – a laugh – “I wouldn’t be surprised if you turn out to be one yourself.” Beats me.
“I don’t think we are compatible, you know?” That’s true.
“I was crazy to even think about sharing my feelings with you! I was stupid to even like an emotionless bastard!” Father would agree.
The blunt, the emotional, the one who communicated through jokes, the careful, the angry – he had seen them all. Been with them briefly. If there was ever an attraction, it evaporated. He had read here and there about the emotional high that was liking someone. He heard cheesy things about how love was like home. Singers sang about it. Artists yearned for it. It existed everywhere but not where he stood. He tried, mostly half-halfheartedly, to form a relationship. Yet he never could bring himself to care.
He was aware he was sexually appealing. He was popular back home, and he occasionally received emails from certain … breed of people who pledged devotion to him, a handful of them offering to sleep with him. He laughed at those – the unabashed expression of desperation that stole their rationality when they offered themselves to him was a blatant risk which they were willing to take. (Did people ever think twice before exposing themselves to possible predators?)
He knew he was attractive, but he also knew that he did not like people, and that was that. They always, subtly, created an image of him that he found to be his reflection – a warped reflection, but a reflection all the same. They worshiped him, but they also distanced themselves from him. Lee Hyun could never understand them. There were those willing to spend a night in his bed; those who looked at him warily, doing their utmost to not seem obvious. So many of them confused him – they were watchful and, in their cautiousness, aimed to appease him; and they were also shallow, obsessive admirers that overlooked any of his faults. (His faults… if they only knew that a criminal psychologist assessed he had the making of a ‘psychopath’.) He understood why they acted the way they did – he had achieved far beyond what an average man in his twenties did. He knew they were intimidated. He knew it was because he never sugar coated his words when he spoke. He knew they wanted to please him, sexually and intellectually (unfortunately for them, none of the invitations appealed to him).
But a small part of him, though it was unreasonable, a part of him that was still his ten-year-old self believed the reason to be different.
Perhaps they were scared; perhaps they had an opinion of him – an opinion based on his excitement when he discussed the minds of criminals. Perhaps they found him odd. Perhaps they felt the oddity derived from an ugly nature. Or ugly circumstances. Or both.
Perhaps they saw how frustrated he was about his identity. That, despite being well-versed in human psychology, he was still pushing against his own. That they sensed his mind, which, during his lowest points, took steps towards dim-lit corners that shook his very sense of self. That maybe, maybe they knew he was once called a monster.