Chapter Text
It was the day after Valentine's. An insignificant day for most, but an anticipation-filled one for Kim Dokja, as he woke up to the dawn of his ninth birthday.
He had expected this birthday, too, to be celebrated the same way it had been ever since he could remember. His mother would dress him up in the set of clothes which didn’t have holes or tears in them, clothes that felt smoother and cooler on his skin compared to what he usually wore.
She would take his small hand in her calloused one, and they would walk together to the local bakery.
Kim Dokja liked the bakery.
He liked how it was small yet cozy. He liked the doughy smell of freshly baked goods which intermingled with the sweet scent of chocolate and red bean and filled the entire place, and the soft yellow lighting that embraced everything around with its warm hues.
He liked the old couple that ran the bakery; their kind eyes always creasing a little when they spoke to him.
He liked that the little bakery was always noisy and lively with the laughter of other children his age. He often found himself wondering why it was that he couldn't remember the last time he had laughed as heartily as them.
Something that always struck him as a bit odd was that many of these children would buy cake even though it clearly wasn't their birthday. Was it allowed to eat cake even though it wasn't your birthday? Was it common for others to indulge just because they felt like it?
He didn't know, for he only ever got to taste the precious confectionery on this one special day each year. He never dwelled on it; he didn't want to feel bad on a day meant for joy.
His mother would then gently stroke his head and tell him to choose a cake of his liking.
From a wide display of tempting flavours like silky red velvet, decadent chocolate, or fruity raspberry truffle, Kim Dokja always chose the most inexpensive one each year: a plain vanilla.
It was a choice his mother never argued, as the hints of a sad smile would start to form on her chapped lips, the hand caressing his head becoming even gentler.
It was a silent, yet mutual acknowledgement of their meagre existence.
Kim Dokja never regretted his choice though. He was quite content with the vanilla cake, which was just the right amount of sweet and always smelled lovely. After all, cake was cake. The old couple would specially write his name on the cake with chocolate sauce each year along with "Happy Birthday" and decorate it with rainbow-coloured sprinkles and soft tufts of cream on the edges.
Therefore, he always looked forward to his familiar birthday routine each year, excited to taste that delightful cake with his name on it once again.
And so, Kim Dokja now stared fixedly at the red thread attached to his left ring finger, something which he had certainly not expected to see this day.
He knew what this thread was, he heard people talking about it all the time.
He knew what it signified.
Just looking at it made him sick to his stomach.
Yet, he couldn't tear his eyes away from it.
A thin thread, barely hanging on, looking like it could be snapped with the faintest of movement; it ever so slightly reminded him of his own self.
How he wished it would.
He stared at it. Maybe, just maybe, if he stared hard enough, it would disappear.
Kim Dokja stared, and stared, the smallest of hope he knew to be pointless burning inside him.
It didn’t disappear.
Kim Dokja threw up.
When he stopped retching and finally got up to his feet, he heard his mother's panicked warning of his father's nearing arrival sound from the other room, which she had been able to foretell by the faint tugs on her own blasted string connecting her to that man.
Kim Dokja's world came crashing down when he heard her. Why? He wasn't supposed to be back so soon. Why, why today of all days?
He wordlessly followed the routine he was so used to by now, and went to his hiding place; a small and dusty shoe cupboard, but not before cleaning up the mess he had made.
He sat there, trembling and shuddering in the familiar darkness, his heart beating a mile a minute, as he heard the man he called his father enter the house, for he knew all too well how it usually went from here.
Once again he was forced to helplessly bear witness to his mother getting brutally beaten up by the same person her thread was so cruelly attached to.
Her screams echoed through the apartment's thin walls for a long time.
Screams Kim Dokja could only be a bystander to.
By the time the screams stopped, the sun had long set.
Kim Dokja spent that night tending to her wounds.
The medicinal smell of Dettol filled the cold and dingy room, which was lit by a harsh, pale yellow light, one which often ended up causing him migraines.
They didn’t go to the bakery that year.
******
When Kim Dokja told his mother that he could see his string, she didn’t say anything.
She knelt down till she was at his eye level, silently wrapped her thin arms around him and laid his head on her shoulder, smoothing his slightly messy hair with her hand.
It was common knowledge that children normally started seeing their threads in their late teenage years.
Unbeknownst to the young child standing still in his mother’s embrace, his small arms now wrapped around her narrow shoulders, being able to see his now could only mean that he had grown up fast, too fast.
That he wasn’t given a chance at childhood.
Kim Dokja almost would have missed her stifled sobs, had he not grown up so painfully accustomed to listening intently for any and every sound of movement—a skill acquired unintentionally through mere survival instinct.
He didn't know how to react, unsure of what to do to console her.
And so, as that familiar feeling of helplessness washed over him once again, he said nothing. He knew it was useless to.
As he quietly stood there, his head buried in the crook of his mother’s bruised neck, he wondered if he should tell his mother that he could see her string as well.
Her string, which inexplicably grew thinner with each passing day, threatening to vanish into nothingness.
He didn’t tell her.
Years later, when he would find himself teetering on the edge of his third-floor classroom’s window, looking down straight at the cold, hard, unforgiving cement he was about to jump onto, he would look back and reflect, if the trajectory of his life would have been any different had he not chose to keep his revelation to himself that day.
But that was a story for another time.
******
Kim Dokja had often wondered, that if he was the main character of the messed up novel he called his life, just where had the first chapter started from and when would it end?
If he really thought about it, then he had been living the same life every day ever since he had been born; a monotonous cycle of suffering, one that barely left any room to feel anything other than despair.
It was the same story every day.
Wake up, eat just barely enough to survive another day, endure his mother’s anguished screams as that man beat them both, go to bed in a bruised and battered body, bandaged shoddily due to a lack of proper medical supplies, rinse, repeat.
An all-too-familiar cliché of the young child in an abusive household, where his only defining character trait was being a pitiful victim of circumstances. A cliché he wasn't strong enough to contest.
The only highlight in his pathetic existence were the days when his father would pass out after coming home, his drunken stupor sparing them from his wrath.
Those days, his mother would sit by his side, sometimes seating him on her lap if her body wasn’t aching as much as usual, and cover them both with an old, worn blanket, one which carried the subtle smell of detergent; a smell Kim Dokja liked.
She would bring out one of the few second-hand books she had managed to secretly buy for him after saving for months, and place it down on his lap.
They would quietly read together in silence, one of her hands always stroking his small head, while the other would gently flip the yellowing pages.
Not a single word would be spoken during this time, and the shabby room would be bathed in soft, golden evening light streaming inside through tiny windows and tattered curtains, shrouding two frail, huddled figures within its glow.
In those hushed moments, Kim Dokja learned that certain words could be understood without needing to be read or heard.
And thus, Kim Dokja thought to himself, with a warmth that felt almost unfamiliar, ah, perhaps the first chapter in his life wasn’t all that bad.
Perhaps he was okay with this chapter lasting a little longer.
******
Kim Dokja stared.
He stared at the bloody mess that lay in front of him.
He stared at the huge shard of glass from the same bottle of beer his father had been drinking from and swaying at them moments before, now thrust deep within that very man's stomach, gushing blood all over the living room floor.
Someone had stabbed him. Somebody had finally done it.
Red, red, red.
Red everywhere.
Red on the floor, red on his hands.
Red, slowly seeping onto his small, white feet.
Red, blocking out any and all other colours from his line of sight.
A tapestry stained in scarlet.
The loveliest tapestry he had ever seen.
It had always seemed funny to Kim Dokja how this man had painted his and his mother’s body different colours his entire life.
He was the one who painted them black and blue from his unrelenting kicks and punches, and he was the one who painted them red and brown when he chose to smash bottles of beer on their cowering figures, like his wife and son were some sort of ready canvases he could unleash himself upon at any given time.
And now here he lay, the artist of their abuse, painting Kim Dokja’s feet with that familiar crimson once again, except this time, with his own blood.
His mother’s frantic whispers of something about self-defence and that he wasn’t responsible for this while she tightly hugged his tiny, trembling body barely registered as he continued to absent-mindedly gaze at the unmoving body in front of him, his mind numb in a way he had never experienced before, the heavy smell of iron rapidly filling the entire room.
The same man he had flinched all his life from now lay completely motionless, as if life had never, could never have, animated his cold heart.
Kim Dokja wondered, just what was it that he was supposed to feel at this moment?
When the authorities started filing in and started to escort his mother away, he noticed how unusually calm she now looked compared to mere moments before. Her muscles, ever tense from withstanding an unending cycle of abuse each day, were now relaxed.
It was the first time he had seen her like this.
As he continued to blankly observe her, his gaze fixated on her hands, her left ring finger to be exact, and his eyes widened.
Her thread, which he had so despised and subconsciously blamed for all the misfortunes in his life, was now slowly fading into the air in tiny fragments, reminding him of a little red dandelion getting blown away softly by the wind, severed completely from that man’s own, rapidly fading thread.
He didn’t know what to make of what he was seeing, nor did he understand why the sight made his chest feel so warm, yet so cold at the same time.
And hence, he shifted his gaze to his mother’s face. She was wearing an expression which he had never seen on her face before. A soft, serene expression, which made his heart ache for some reason.
In her dark eyes, eyes the same colour as his, Kim Dokja saw a hint of freedom, a peace she had never known.
She looked… liberated.
It was a foreign expression to him. He looked down at his own string. The string, which had always been on the brink of breaking since the day he saw it, yet, never did.
As much as he despised it still, he no longer wished for it to snap. He now understood the weight of a broken thread—the burden of another’s, his soulmate’s, life.
He stood there, quietly, in the middle of the pool of blood that had formed around him, eerily identical in hue to his own string.
Time seemed to blur as he continued to stand there, almost as stationary as the man’s corpse, his mind absent from the commotion about him, and stare at the red string which seamlessly blended in with the blood on the floor.
******
At some point, he had been draped in a sorry-looking coat much too large for him, a coat he recognised to belong to the one who had been lying motionless on the ground, and was being driven to a nearby police station, his mind blank as ever.
The musty coat felt heavy on his shoulders.
Whether it was because of its actual weight or the realisation of the fact that the person who once used to breathe while wearing it would never breathe again, Kim Dokja did not know.
He looked out of the foggy windows of the police car, blurry with raindrops that were trickling down gently, and was greeted with the breathtaking view of Seoul’s night sky, dotted with countless shimmering specks of lights he knew to be stars.
Stars, scattered everywhere like a handful of soft, white sand, with no specific pattern or arrangement to them.
Stars, which had no claret-coloured strings unwillingly binding them to each other, and floated freely on their own.
Stars that danced untethered, leaving the young boy’s anguished heart wondering if one day he'd find the freedom they embodied.
As he studied the magnificent view in awe, his pale cheeks wet from tears he'd held back forever, he thought to himself.
Just how long had it been since he had last looked up and wasn’t met with the gloomy, grey ceiling of the house he had never called home?
******
When they reached the district police station, a small brick building Kim Dokja had indifferently passed by many times but never in his life expected to visit, always treating it as nothing more than a part of the landscape, he found himself answering their questions with practised calm.
His mind was too distracted by the fact that he was able to somehow see these random strangers’ strings of fate as well.
A tangled web of lives interconnected and intertwined, all laid bare before his undeserving eyes.
A thick, red web, which so reminded him of the bloody scene fresh in his mind from just a few hours prior.
Oh, he thought, barely suppressing the urge to throw up on the gleaming marble floor of the questioning room, and struggling to stay focused while the policeman seated in front of him continued to question him.
So it wasn’t just his and his mother’s strings that he could see.
And so, as the first chapter in his life abruptly drew to a close, Kim Dokja was forced to wearily drag himself to the second one, with the added weight of his revelation.
And so, amid whirling thoughts, and the symphony of a thousand strings, he missed the faint tug of his own string.
******