Chapter Text
When Han Seo is six - when he is still ‘Seo Jung Seo’, not ‘Jang Han Seo’ - he opens the door of their semi-basement apartment to a tall man in a severe black suit and sunglasses. The man’s expression is stony, a frown playing on his lips. Han Seo steps back, immediately unsure if he’d made the right choice, knuckles whitening on the door handle.
“Where is your mother?” The man’s words are crisp, formal. Nothing like Han Seo, with his rumpled shirt and lopsided haircut.
He swallows.
Han Seo considers shutting the door in the man’s face. He wasn’t supposed to open the door for strangers anyways, but when he’d looked through the peephole and had seen the suit he’d become curious. Someone like that didn’t stand outside their rundown apartment. Let alone be seen in this part of Seoul.
“Jung Seo?” Mother’s voice echoes down the hall, her footsteps growing louder and faster. She pushes her way between the man and Han Seo, standing in the threshold, petite frame attempting, and failing, to fill the doorway. She demands, arms crossed, “Who are you?”
He sees the man bow his head slightly as he peeks out from behind his mother’s back. His fingers clutch her ratty shirt.
“I work for Chairman Jang,” he says, offering a business card.
His mother inhales sharply and doesn’t take the card. She steps back half a step. “What do you want?”
The man motions something he can’t see and Mother turns to Han Seo and says, “Go to the bedroom.”
Han Seo opens his mouth to protest but the expression on his mother’s face stops him. It’s the same expression as when she’d sat him down, just days earlier, to tell him in between ugly sobs that she was really sick and that she was so sorry. He sits in the bedroom, the only one they have, and presses his ear to the door, straining to hear the conversation. At one point he remembers Mother’s voice sharpening before it breaks, poorly suppressed sobs filtering through the door.
He waits and he waits and he waits.
At last Mother opens the door, face splotchy and eyes red.
He looks up at her, a question on the tip of his tongue until he realizes the man isn’t gone and is standing at Mother’s shoulder. He swallows it.
Men like that don’t like to hear kids like him speak, or even come near them. He’s been pushed away too many times now to not know better.
“Pack your things,” his mother sniffles, bending down to pat his hair.
Han Seo looks up at her, eyes wide. “What’s going on? Where are we going?”
Her face contorts, sadness flitting over it. “Not ‘we’. Just you.”
He stares up at her, tears prickling as his brain tries to decipher what she means.
The kids at school had always said he cried too easily. (On top of saying he smelled and was dirty and would get them sick. Han Seo had learned to ignore them. There wasn’t anything else he could do about it. He wasn’t smart or strong or witty. He just was.)
“Mom?” His voice cracks.
She looks away, jaw clenched. “Get your backpack.”
He slowly moves to get it, looking between her and the man as he does so. He asks again, voice cracking, “Mom? What’s going on?”
She sniffs, tears rolling down her face. “You’re going to live with your father.”
He blinks and then shakes his head, sinking to the floor. Screwing his eyes shut he shouts, “No! I don’t want to! You can’t make me! You promised!”
“Don’t shout, baby.” She rushes over and cradles his shuddering body in her arms. Over and over she whispers into his hair, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Why can’t I stay with you?” he mumbles into her chest.
She breathes slowly - in and out and in and out. “I’m sick, baby. I can’t - I don’t think I can take care of you as well as you should be. You deserve so much more than I can ever give you. And your father can give you that.”
He shakes his head, face crumpling, “I just want to be with you. I don’t need anything else.”
She presses her forehead to his. “You can’t. You’re going to do so many great things, I can feel it. But you can’t do that here. I can’t give you that.”
“But -“
She shakes her head, inhaling deeply. Shoulders set, she pokes his forehead, “No more arguments. Get your things. You’re going to go with this man, and you’re going to live the life you deserve.”
And so begins his descent into hell.
—
Han Seo is immediately brought to an old man who introduces himself as his father and, wrinkling his nose at Han Seo, orders Han Seo’s things burned.
He screams.
They try to take away his backpack and he desperately holds it tight to himself, yelling when they try to pry his fingers off it. In the end, he’s allowed to keep his backpack, though they get rid of everything else he’d brought with him. He clutches it tightly to his chest as he’s ushered to his room. It’s bigger than their whole apartment.
People strip his clothes away and force him into the bath. They scrub him till his skin is red and raw and stings when they apply moisturizer.
Then it’s dinner time and he’s brought to a long table in what must be a dining room. It’s extravagant. He feels out of place. He knows that he doesn’t belong in a place like this. The man who calls himself his father is already sitting at the table, along with a woman and a boy who looks to be much older than Han Seo.
He’s sat across from the woman and he looks down at his lap, heart thudding in his chest. He doesn’t want to be here. He wants to go home.
“What’s your name?”
The question is directed at him and he looks up, eyes darting between his father’s face and his lap. He mumbles, “Jung Seo.”
“Not anymore. You’ll be Han Seo from now on. Jang Han Seo. I suppose I can let that woman give you one thing.” To someone else, “Make whatever changes are necessary.”
Han Seo bites his cheek to keep from saying something rude. He hates it here. He wants his mother back.
His first dinner is a mostly silent, awkward affair, punctuated by pointed questions about his age and grades. He’s told the woman is his father’s wife (his new mother - Han Seo recoils when he’s told that) and the boy is his brother, eight years older than Han Seo.
The food is too rich, settling heavily in his stomach as he pokes at it. He misses his mother and the ramen she’d make for him after a long day at work. He misses their easy conversation and the attention she’d given him as he rushed to tell her about his day.
Here, they ignore him.
The dinners never get better.
He learns to live with it.
His introduction to Han Seok, his brother(!), goes smoothly and Han Seo finds himself tentatively excited for the first time. He’s always wanted a sibling. Someone who would always be on his side.
His excitement lasts until the servants go away.
Then, it all goes so horribly, terribly wrong.
And it never stops.
He tries to run away at first, back to the only place he’s ever felt love. But the men in suits catch him before he can even leave the neighborhood.
Then he tries to tell his father’s wife. She slaps him and turns away, dismissing him with a wave of her hand.
(She hates him. Han Seo can see it in her eyes. The disdain and disgust whenever he’s in her presence. He learns to be silent around her, to never make a noise in her presence.)
He tries to tell a servant. They look down and mumble empty assurances, disbelief in their eyes.
Day after day after day it continues.
(He must deserve it.)
He’s put in a new school. A rich school. With uniforms that make his skin itch and bright walls that make him cringe. Everyone is too smart for him. He can’t keep up. His classmates there ignore him, whispering about ‘illegitimate’ and ‘too stupid’ and ‘trash’ whenever he passes. They all seem to unite in their hatred of him.
He ignores it. It’s not any different from the whispers he’d gotten at his old school.
He tries to tell a teacher; the faint memory of a boy who always showed up to his old school with bruises littering his arms spurs him to try to tell his home room teacher one afternoon. It comes out in a hurried, whispered tale, halted by broken sobs. His tongue stumbles over itself in his rush. He’s never had to put words to it before.
His teacher’s face pales as the words slip from his mouth. She grimaces and gives him a hug. A whispered promise echoes in his ear as he enters the car sent for him.
Hope curls in his chest.
The next day she’s gone.
He knows it’s his fault.
So he stops trying.
Bruises litter his body and Han Seo doesn’t know what it’s like to walk and not feel pain anymore. And then Han Seok discovers cigarettes.
The burns are never anywhere easily seen - his chest, hips, and thighs suffer the most.
The cold look in Han Seok’s eyes glints as he stares down, a smile playing at his lips while Han Seo whimpers.
It becomes a routine.
Han Seo learns to stop asking questions. To stop smiling. To be quiet. To never offer more than what’s asked.
In exchange he’s taught how the upper class lives. How brunches and late night parties disguise business deals. How what’s not said is more important than what is said. How there’s no place for kindness in this world. And, most importantly, how the law can’t touch them - money can solve everything.
(He doesn’t want these lessons. But he listens anyway.)
He lies awake, night after night, blood drying on his skin, and decides he doesn’t want this life. He wants the dim memories of a poorly lit semi-basement apartment and kind words and a soothing hand ruffling his hair.
But his mother left him.
He can’t escape.
If only he were smarter.
He goes to sleep with tears staining his face almost every night.
—
Three years later it takes a turn for the worse.
Cigarettes and harsh hands start to turn into wandering hands and caresses. The first time it happens Han Seo doesn’t know what’s happening. He retreats into himself, eyes unseeing till it’s over.
He cries himself to sleep that night, knowing in the back of his head that something horrifically wrong happened.
(It’s his fault, Han Seok always tells him. Han Seo starts to believe it.)
The next night he vomits up the too-rich dinner before he collapses on the bathroom floor.
Mi Sun, who had always stared at him with an inscrutable look while she dressed him for school, wakes him with gentle hands that have him jolting backwards, hitting his head on the porcelain tub. He trembles under her stare, looking at the cold tile.
She ushers him to his feet, quickly stripping the clothes left on his body. He flinches under her gaze, her eyes quickly tracing the mess Han Seok had made of his body. Her eyes stop at the blood on his legs.
“You’ll have to shower quickly or you’ll be late for school,” she whispers, eyes averted, as she guides him into the shower.
It becomes a routine.
Every night he’s ruined. And every morning Mi Sun tries to piece together his broken body.
Days blur into months into years.
Han Seo doesn’t live. He’s a puppet, subject to the whims of his father and Han Seok.
Somewhere in that time his father’s wife dies.
(Han Seo doesn’t know if he should feel sad or relieved.)
It makes it worse.
He learns to hide behind fake smiles and a blustering personality.
(Han Seok calls him dopey, a smile on his face as he pats Han Seo’s cheek. Han Seo doesn’t say anything.)
His grades are poor.
His father scolds him, a slap ringing through the air. It doesn’t even register over all the bruises and the limp he’s trying to disguise. He knows he’s not smart enough for this school. There’s nothing he can do about it.
He doesn’t make friends at school.
Han Seok laughs at him, voice lilting as he teases Han Seo.
Nothing interests him.
His thoughts echo loudly in his head. Disparaging, insulting, acidic. They sound like Han Seok.
The pain never goes away.
Then Han Seok goes to university and Han Seo holds his breath, thinking that he might be free, finally.
And he is.
For a short time. The first time Han Seok comes back on break, Han Seo screams for the first time in years. Han Seok laughs as he walks away from Han Seo’s bloodied body, sneering at Han Seo’s ‘weakness’, voice promising more.
He misses school the next day, the pain making it impossible for him to walk.
His father doesn’t ask why he’s missed school.
Han Seok’s visits home grow more and more frequent. Mi Sun spends longer and longer every morning, rewrapping his wounds and smoothing ointment on his bruises. He misses school more and more and shows up bruised and aching.
His classmates think he gets into fights. They avoid him. He doesn’t bother to correct them, even when his homeroom teacher tries to ask him about it. He knows what happens if he tries to tell someone.
He enters high school and he knows that it won’t get better, ever. He’s trapped.
And then he’s called to his father’s office one evening.
His heart thuds in his chest and his blood rushes in his ears. His father had never asked for him in the nine years he’d lived under this room. He doesn’t know what to expect.
(He doesn’t dare to hope.)
He waits in front of his father’s desk, weight shifting from foot to foot and hands clasped in front of him. His father stares up at him, expression stony and finger tapping his desk.
Han Seo doesn’t say anything.
“Your mother is dead.”
Han Seo breaks.
—
He’s permitted to attend her funeral, as he’s the only family she has.
Nobody attends.
He has no tears left to give. His heart wavers between despair at losing the one person who ever loved him and anger at the last bit of hope he’d held out for disappearing.
Han Seok comes home that weekend and laughs. He’s never sounded so cruel.
Something inside Han Seo burns with hatred.
He doesn’t know how much longer he can endure this. But there’s nothing else he can do but endure.
Han Seok comes home almost every weekend now.
His father doesn’t question it.
Han Seo is pretty sure he’s fractured at least half of the bones in his body at this point.
(He can’t bear to think about the rest of it.)
Then it all comes to an end, or at least a pause, one night. His eyes are squeezed shut, whimpers escaping him as Han Seok grunts above him. It’s the same routine as it always is. He bites his cheek, blood filling his mouth. He chokes down his desire to gag.
(Han Seok likes him still like a doll. It’s worse when Han Seo doesn’t keep still.)
The door swings open.
“What are you doing?”
Han Seok is pulled off him. He doesn’t move. If he moves, it’ll be worse.
There’s screaming going on above him. He can’t make out the words over the ringing in his ears.
More people file into the room and he wants to curl into a ball, to hide himself. But the pain is too much.
Han Seok bellows, “He’s mine!”
Han Seo flinches.
Someone drapes a blanket over him. He blinks the tears away and Mi Sun’s blurry face comes into view.
The shouting doesn’t stop.
Someone picks him up. His head rolls back as he’s rushed down the hall. His eyes flutter shut and he whimpers.
“Sir!” Mi Sun pleads, “You have to try to stay awake.”
He can’t.
He wakes in a hospital, furious whispers drifting through the door. He tries to move and groans. Pain shoots through his body.
He’s missing school. He can’t miss any more school.
The door slides open.
“How are you feeling?” Adoctor asks, hands moving busily to peer at the monitor beeping steadily beside him and check his IV line. Behind him, a younger looking man peers at Han Seo, jaw set.
Han Seo looks away and mumbles something.
The doctor pauses, looking at Han Seo over a pair of wire glasses. “Are you in any pain?”
Han Seo shakes his head once. He’s not supposed to be in pain. Han Seok had told him that he can’t tell anyone. He doesn’t want anything to happen to this kind-faced doctor. The doctor frowns but says nothing.
“I’m Dr. Kang Sung Won. I’ll be taking care of you while you’re here.” He turns slightly, “This is Lee Ik Jun, a resident at our hospital. He’s also in charge of your care. If you’re in any pain or need someone to attend to you, you can press the button at your side and a nurse will come to see you.”
Dr. Kang takes a breath to continue, but Dr. Lee clears his throat, interrupting him. “Who did this to you? Do you need help?”
Dr. Kang hisses and clicks his tongue, whirling around to gesture angrily at Dr. Lee.
Han Seo flinches and looks away, mouth dry.
Dr. Kang turns back to Han Seo and bow his head, “I apologize for my student, sir. Please rest well. Press the button if you need anything. I’ll be back later to check on you.”
With another hissed reprimand, Dr. Kang grabs Dr. Lee’s arm and pulls him out of the room.
Han Seo sinks his head into his pillow and clenches his fist, tears prickling his eyes.
He might have said something this time.
The next morning, Mi Sun is at his bedside, hands clasped in her lap carefully.
In quiet words, laced with horror and sorrow, she tells him that Han Seok has been sent to America and that his father is furious at his brother for what’s happened. But that it's because Han Seok killed someone that he's been sent away, not because their father found Han Seok on top of Han Seo, ruining him with scarlet. She says more but Han Seo closes his eyes and drifts, words and indistinguishable babble to his ears.
She talks as if it’s over. But Han Seo knows it’s not.
Nothing can stop Han Seok. They’re all deluding themselves to the extent of Han Seok’s madness. They speak as if distance and time will stop it.
Han Seo knows better than to think that.
His mother was wrong. This is not a better life. This is hell. And he will never escape.
He falls asleep.
—
He wakes to the worried face of Dr. Lee. Jolting back, Han Seo swallows down the whimper that threatens to spill from his lips.
Dr. Lee’s face crumples and he whispers an apology hurriedly. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
Han Seo nods carefully, eyeing the young doctor.
Glancing at the door, Dr. Lee whispers, “I meant what I said, before. Do you need help?”
Han Seo swallows. He looks at Dr. Lee’s white coat, thoughts whirling.
Something in him sparks to life.