oh, can you hear me? do the words i scream mean anything?
but no, i can't hear a thing, well, maybe it's best I give up.
@ppllvns / raehwan & sangwoo / son family compound / past & present.
it was sunny. raehwan can remember the tumultuous landslide of events perfectly. there’s not much else for him to cling to. not much else to think about. not much else for him. not much else to him. it was sunny. it didn’t match the mood. it’s supposed to do that, isn’t it? for a dramatic turn of events there should be storm clouds rolling overhead to foreshadow your poised misfortune. for the reveal there should be a crack of thunder. something to match the shudder of fear shaking at your bones. an onslaught of rain should be released when everything’s come to the surface. when it’s this terrible, twisted thing. when you’re gasping for air as panic drags you under there should at least be a monsoon swirling violent around your ankles to match.
but life isn’t a movie. so it was sunny. and there was sangwoo. even then, he looked angelic. in that peculiar way where you know, you just know they’re not made up of sugar-floss and hope filled dreams and baby tears, or whatever the fuck. the sort where you know there’s something beneath the surface. a sliver of something dangerous. in a far more subtle way than the rage that raehwan wore. he was all obvious. bloody knuckles and a caustic snarl. but sangwoo was never like that. just perfectly timed quips that made you feel not quite up to the standards of humanity. nimble fingers that pulled at the strings behind the scenes. raehwan wasn’t built for that. he was too busy trying to fight the world to begin to understand the art of a subtle destruction.
so there it was. sunny, with sangwoo looking like a fucking angel. his head downturned, hands clasped stoic in front of him. he wouldn’t meet his eyes. raehwan can remember that, too. he wouldn’t look at him. not with the head of the family there. harsh words spilling out. not that sangwoo had to worry about that, either. they were meant for raehwan. cruel things, and blame unfurled like a sticky-trap of a carpet at his feet. there was no other option but to step forward into it. meet his fate. and what did it matter, really? sangwoo didn’t care. his eyes glued to the floor, an occasional nod when it was, once again, reiterated that it was raehwan’s doing. this cat-beast of a thing (because the status of person was far out of his reach). that he’d gone and tried to trick the poor, precious rat again. that he was vile, infectious. that sangwoo would be fine if they cut him out of his life. he was a metaphorical tumor. and sangwoo was all nod, nod, nod. he is a tumor. nod, nod, nod. it is entirely raehwan’s fault. nod, nod, nod. like we weren’t falling over each other all hands and lips and voracious intentions a day ago.
sangwoo chewed on his lead, let it settle in his stomach. painted on that angry-smear of a face he wore so often. a startlingly disgusting sort of look. he took it. he shoved down his heartbreak. he shoved down his self-loathing. he shoved down all that fucking love and let his anger rise. that’s all he’s ever had. he thought, maybe, he could have sangwoo too. when he would whisper, soft, into his ear. we should run away. really. and raehwan would half believe he was telling the truth. and that was half too much.
so he swallowed it down. and he took his punishment in the form of words that burrowed into his mind, made a home there. and he took his punishment in the form of fists. was left bruised and bloody-nosed in his walled off square at the compound. a cage of a thing impossible to venture from. he took it all, and he hoarded it.
because there was nothing left for raehwan anymore. not with sangwoo gone.
what was he, but an imitation person? a misguided, cursed soul. a wretched thing. a wretched being.
he folds to his knees, like he’s supposed to worship at the altar of this boy. the funny thing is, he used to. genuinely. but now it’s coated in something bitter and poisonous. like it’s his purpose in life to be beneath him. he’s supposed to swallow it down and ask for more. stay on his knees. keep praying, and begging, and apologizing. ask for mercy. pretend he’s a god.
raehwan had only been informed a day ago, that sangwoo was coming back. that his forced exile-of-sorts was over. not that it really was. raehwan had collected bits and pieces of what had happened to him. they sent him away. to university somewhere. set him up in a nice-enough apartment. sangwoo got to live, and a forced separation was driven between them. hammered down over and over again while he was gone so that they would break. so that raehwan would break. sometimes he thinks they might’ve succeeded. and sometimes he shoulders his old spirit, maybe out of some contrived sense of stubbornness. he spits out anger, he gets put in his place, and then he spits out blood. it’s a little funny in that dark sort of way. breaks up the monotony, anyway. maybe he’s starting to enjoy the taste of violence the same way one might learn to palate the taste of black coffee.
the first thing they do is drag him back out by the theoretical leash they’ve got looped around his neck. tug hard enough and it’ll become a noose. he’s learned that lesson well enough. so he goes. he goes to that room. with sangwoo standing there. all grown up, filled out. a wide-shouldered reminder of his past. bright eyed and tousled hair. he’s imprinted the image of sangwoo before, at eighteen, in his mind. flipped back through that collection of memories so often it’s all but burnt into place. the same way the image used to freeze on those age-old tv’s. a movie left on pause for too long. now etched into glass. just like that. and now it shatters. because he’s real again, in front of him. different and not.
but raehwan didn’t mention that. because it wasn’t what he was there for. they’d dragged him out to apologize. apologize for fucking up sangwoo’s life by going and fucking around with him. raehwan not-so-privately thinks he got the shorter end of that stick, the sharp-ended spear version.
that’s where he sits now. floor pressing hard under his knees. his chest an angry, heaving rise-fall that everyone pretends to ignore. but they’re all half aware of. his fingers curled into his palms. misshapen fist with nails pressing too deep into thin skin. at least this time sangwoo has the gall to meet his eyes. raehwan holds his stare. a shuttered window to a soul he once willingly bared for him.
“i’m sorry. for what i did. made you do. i’m sorry.” the words pool like bile on his tongue. he feels sick. it’s wrong. it’s fucked up. everything’s fucked up, and it always has been.
the cat never deserved love. raehwan will never find it. he’ll just continue paying for his past sins.
and for other’s too. sangwoo, guiltless. because they’d swept it all off and left it scattered at raehwan’s feet.
go fuck yourself.
that’s what he wants to say. he hopes sangwoo can read it off his face.
