Work Text:
Sangwoo stood in the corner of his room as instructed, head dipped down as his dad grimaced at the wall.
He could still feel throbbing - the bruises over his knees and arms stung at the slightest movement. He winced from touching over his newly split lip but suppressed a whine, as to not distract the one responsible for it.
He should’ve expected his father’s reaction when he came back from work earlier that afternoon and saw the drawing in Sangwoo’s room. After he was done shouting and striking the boy, he had gone after his mom downstairs. In between the man’s angry thudding and demands for her to go clean up, Sangwoo had heard her meekly questioning his orders - that simple cleaner agent wouldn’t do anything against the markers the boy had used, according to her. Being the stubborn man he was, his dad had pushed her out of the little way she already took up and had growled something about how she couldn’t even teach her son to not make a fucking mess of our house and how he’ll just do it himself.
The room had fallen silent since the man walked in to take care of the wall. With every minute Sangwoo watched him get more frustrated with how little he managed to erase the drawing with nothing but a lathered towel. In another situation a grown man getting angry over a stubborn smiling doodle that just wouldn’t wipe itself off would’ve been a comical image. The thought of a cartoon character with steam coming out of its ears popped into Sangwoo’s mind and he couldn’t keep down the silent chuckle that left him, breaking the silence of the room. His dad’s head snapped towards him and Sangwoo immediately straightened.
The man’s gaze lingered, intimidating the boy into lowering his head down. His dad looked back at the wall and, seeming to finally consider a different method, he whipped the towel to the ground.
“Stay right there” he intoned coldly to the boy then headed to the door, floor creaking under his feet. “And if I hear another fucking sound from you I swear to god.”
“Sorry, dad.” Sangwoo had no intention to disobey either of the orders.
The door shut violently behind the man, its echo the only audible thing for a good while.
With nothing else to do, Sangwoo looked at his drawing again. None of it had been scrubbed off yet - the doodles of apple trees, their house, the portrait of his mom were still intact.
If Sangwoo was honest with himself, it stung a little that she hadn’t noticed her own portrait earlier.
He replayed in his mind how he had gotten startled when the door had suddenly burst open in the middle of his doodling. Seeing it was his mother, he had relaxed, curious what she might think of the drawing. With a quick step she fetched some clothes - laser focused as if she’s the only person in the room - without paying neither Sangwoo nor the scribbled wall any acknowledgement. On her way out of the room, Sangwoo had finally asked her what she thought of the drawing. Snapping out of her daze, she had let out a quick “oh” and promptly left the room.
Lost in the memory, Sangwoo didn’t notice when his dad was back at the door frame, a toolbox in one hand and a bucket in the other. Instead of turning to the wall right away, the man walked over to the corner Sangwoo huddled in.
“Come over.”
His tone didn’t give away what mood his dad was in, but from the more casual steps he took towards the painted wall Sangwoo assumed that he was less angry, at least. He followed his father to the other side of the room, but stood a few steps behind him. He watched cautiously as the man kneeled down to the drawing’s level and clicked open the toolbox. He took out a tool Sangwoo couldn’t name - one with a sharp flat metal surface attached to a handle. As his dad twisted the tool casually in his hand, the lamp’s light reflected off it and caught in Sangwoo’s eye. It looked like it could function as a mirror.
His dad brought the tool’s sharp end to the wall, poked a hole into it and began scraping off thin chunks of its surface. Sangwoo crouched down as well, not to look at the new formed cavity as much as to glean what was behind it. He hadn’t known that behind the creamy coloured paint of their rooms, a wall made of bricks held up the entire house.
For a bit, the only sound in the room was of small chunks crumbling down in a messy pile. It might’ve been a grating sound, but Sangwoo found something calming in it. Maybe not necessarily the sound itself was soothing as opposed to the atmosphere of the room. Now that this new method worked, his dad seemed calmer.
Slowly more of the drawing got scraped off - the trees, little smiley faces, random scribbles - until his dad got to a centrepiece of the drawing: mom’s portrait. He didn’t immediately push the tool into the cavity of the wall, instead putting the tool to the side and staring at the doodle. It was a concentrated stare - much more than his mother’s earlier, for sure. Sangwoo readied himself for some disapproving comment about how childish or crude the drawing was. Certainly not for what the man said instead.
“You caught her mug pretty well.”
Sangwoo blinked up at him, taken aback. His dad was nodding at the portrait, jutting out his lower lip impressed. What did he see in this? Even Sangwoo knew that for an eleven year old his drawing was nothing special. It was pretty wonky honestly. Nothing worthy of a compliment from his dad, for sure.
“The messy hair, the mole…” the man’s eyes darted around the crude scribble, amused smirk making way on his face. “She looks like she’s spacing out or some shit, that wretch…”
The last word stuck with Sangwoo for some reason. He held an expression he didn’t notice until his dad eyed him oddly and slapped him on the back, making the boy flinch. “Take a compliment! I said it looks good.” he gruffed it out in a surprisingly friendly tone, foreign to Sangwoo. He patted the boy’s back kind of rough but good-naturedly, after which he got back to his work, small smirk still in place.
“Thanks.” Sangwoo muttered, running a hand down the bruise his dad had unknowingly slapped over. It wasn’t often he saw him this lighthearted about anything - indifferent and calm when he was working from home, sure, but barely ever enjoying his time like this. It was a nice change. It took away some of the disappointment of having to get rid of his own art, at least.
Scraping off the last of the drawing, his dad opened the bucket, revealing a pasty liquid inside. “What’s that?” Sangwoo asked, not even recognising how carefreely he let the question out.
His dad turned to him. “It’s spackle.” He dipped the tool in the bucket and started applying the liquid to the cavity. “After you make a hole with your chisel-“ So that’s what the tool is called. “-you cover it with spackle and leave it to harden. Takes a few days with a hole as big as this one, so no touching OK?”
He then continued applying it over the cavity, relaxed smirk still there as he have Sangwoo more tips, tapping at the exposed bricks to accentuate his point. The boy couldn’t quite follow most of the advice, but he listened to it all the same. He had to admit his dad had very skilled hands when it came this, at least compared to Sangwoo’s jittery brush strokes and especially compared to his mother with her trembly hands in general.
At least she’ll dust off the scrapes after dad is done with the real work - he thought, looking down at the small debris which dad hadn’t cared to put a sheet under.
His dad suddenly tossed him a look. “Wanna try?”
Sangwoo’s eyes lit up. “Here.” His dad handed him the chisel and stepped back to give the boy space. Sangwoo got on his feet wonkily, a light throbbing still in his legs. He grabbed the brush and started plastering this spackle - trying to be precise like his dad. It didn’t feel too different from when he scribbled over the walls earlier - and with this fancier tool it was almost like he’s a real painter. He got a little too loose with his use of the chisel until he remembered the eyes on him.
Looking back at dad though, Sangwoo was relieved to see the man give him a nod as if to say “Go on”, no berating in his expression. With restored enthusiasm the boy turned back to the wall. With dad’s approval, Sangwoo let his strokes become more vigorous and free, playfully biting his lip in concentration. The scar on it still stung a lot, but Sangwoo tried to dismiss it. He didn’t want to let a split lip or his bruises distract him from this moment he was having with his dad. Teaching him something new, something in his element, he seemed to be enjoying himself just as much as his son was, and Sangwoo didn’t want to ruin that. Turns out it wasn’t so bad to spend time with the old man.
And, if not for anything else, at least now he knew how to plaster a wall back shut.