Chapter Text
Heajoon wondered, one foot in front of the other, are there any gods? up above or down below even? Would it matter.
One foot in front of the other, dragging along the pavement. His head bowed down. People having left the streets.
The neighborhood doesn’t resent his existence anymore, they no longer bully him. They fear him. They fear for the bones he will break and the bruises he will leave.
He is just so angry, huffing he stomps along. The kids bullied him, his anger is justified. The adult let them. Anyone would lose it eventually. Probably. Maybe. When others push he just pushes back, he has to. Otherwise he will turn back into that little kid who could do nothing but take it.
They put bugs, like grasshoppers in his lunchbox “Leeches should just eat bugs” they laughed, repeating the words they had heard from their parents. The teachers knew. But stayed silent and would turn their heads away to hide their grins.
Strangers would look at him with cruelty and indifference. Back then when he was so young he couldn’t recognize those faces for what they were.
he would still hope, and pray even that one day someone would help him when he was tripped. Or that his stuff wouldn’t be damaged. Or maybe someone would smile at him, even while knowing the rumors about them.
So Haejoon walks. His head bowed, shoulders turned inwards, eyes clouded over and his feet moving on auto pilot.
One foot in front of the other. The pavement having turned dark gray from the rain now. His hair sticking to his forehead, his face wet and his clothes soaked.
That house. Not his home. It will never be his home. It is just filled to the brim with junk, bought with money they don’t have. Why does his mom think they need it, why does she keep buying it?
The yellowing poster that is sealed with purple bewitched seals that only release when handed from one person to another whose love is reciprocated.
The freckled, red eyed doll. Being the size of an arm. With the bloody overall and black shoulder length hair. It apparently moves on its own at night.
The old wooden box with four drawers that shouldn’t be opened between 2 and 3 pm or a small fire would start in your home. But if you opened all four of them for an hour between 2 and 3 am you won’t twist your ankle for a week.
The brown curry pot with the fingers inside of it from someone who died 100 years ago. Neither of them even checked if there really are fingers inside, it does rattle but it might not be bones.
The cracked bowl that if filled with water heals small wounds better. But rattles when left to get dusty.
The red inked scroll with the Egyptian on it that if hung on the wall will make a guardian angel appear.
The picture with the silhouette of a boy that needs to be turned around after 9pm so that laughter fills the house but raccoons stay out.
The straw doll that has to sit so that the room doesn’t get humid and sticky but can’t lay down or people will get stuck together.
All of it junk. It fills the rumors and leaves their stomachs empty.
Everyone who knew where he lived would sneer at him. They would trip him. Accuse him. Assault him if they felt like it.
It’s not his fault.
Everyone gets too a point eventually where anger turns from burning, into something so ugly, that it makes hurting others so god damned easy. And relieving. It’s nauseating.
He isn’t a bully. He never starts a fight or so Haejoon likes to believe. Sometimes he does punch first tough. He has to, to get the upper hand, he can’t ever turn into that weak little kid again.
So he shuffled along, shoes soaked. One foot in front of the other. The house far behind him. Maybe he never gave it the chance to be a home.
And it never will be now. There truly are no gods. Haejoon believes for certain now.
‘The only person who loved me unconditionally is gone forever’.
He is just so empty.
The fury he felt about the injustice of it all has long ago left him.
So he walks, the rain mingling with the tears that have left his eyes cloudy. His body long past shivering now preserving what little heat is left in him.
Every promise between the two of them will forever remain unfulfilled. Haejoon’s heart squeezes, his face no longer held his signature grimace. His forehead creased, eyes red, nose wrinkled, mouth twisted and jaw clenched.
Even in his sadness and devastation Haejoon seemed angry.
She would never smile at him again. Never tell him how much she loves him. He can never tell her how much he loves her.
Haejoon is truly proud to have her, as his mom. He might not belief in any gods, and he will never pray again. But maybe the one blessing they ever gave him was to have her in his life. Too bad.
She will now be forever out of his reach.
‘I’m sick of living with you’ he screamed at her and like the coward he is he ran. He hurt her. Not even when they talked about his so called father has Haejoon seen her that hurt.
And yet she still apologized. Screaming so that her wavering voice could reach him ‘it’s all my fault’, It isn’t. and it wasn’t. Haejoon was being childish. He learned long ago he doesn’t get to be childish.
He should have known better.
It was his fault.
The screech of tires, the dull thudding sound between car and human and the slam of a body crashing to the ground.
Slowly, with knowing hesitance Haejoon turned around. His vision turned foggy from his brain trying to tune out an traumatic event.
People leaning over her, screaming, someone calling 112. A black car.
And the red, red, red oozing along on the sun warmed ground.
Mom, who would always only talk about curses and strange things, suddenly left the world in a common meaningless accident.
With wooden limps, a foggy head and incapable of saying words people approached him.
He doesn’t remember getting to the hospital, maybe he was in the ambulance too, maybe he wasn’t.
He remembers standing in front of the blue fence gates, leading back to the house.
He doesn’t remember the first two weeks passing. He doesn't remember the funeral.
Haejoon felt like he snapped back into existence after what he later found out to be three weeks.
Like a doll he moved through the motions.
Wake up to silence, brush his teeth with the one of two toothbrushes that belongs to him, get dressed in the ironed uniform he didn’t iron, cook for one, eat the food in silence, leave the house without saying ‘I’ll go and be back’.
Haejoon couldn’t bear living in that house anymore.