WARNING: Contains domestic violence and other very sensitive and explicit scenes. Some suicidal thoughts too(that is not mentioned directly but if you could figure it out, good for you.) Please refrain from reading if you can't handle it.

AND cursing!

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⟨Juŋkøøkˈs pøʋ⟩

I knew I was dead the moment I stepped in through the doorstep. My eyes were locked with dark, black orbs. I shivered, freezing in my spot. She was standing there, arms by her side, looking straight in my direction.

My heart stuck at my throat, I held up the grocery bag with my shaky arms.

"I'm sorry, I w-was stuck in the crowd."

I say with a stutter. She remains quiet as she approaches me and snatches the bag from my hand. She harshly throws it in the corner of the room, where the groceries are usually kept. Thankfully, none of the groceries falls out. She grabs my arm and drags me to the basement-the 'discipline' room.

The room stinks of blood. I'm surprised I never smelt that before, because I've been to this room at least eight hundred times in my life and I've never seen it being cleaned.

She throws me by the window and leaves. My limbs still shake and I'm scared, but I refuse to cry. I'll be eighteen in a few months, and legally free to move out.

She returns with a knife in one of her hands and a container of salt in the other. My heart almost stops, but I didn't let it show in my expression.

Okay, she had done this to me before. I can do this again.

She sits silently in front of me and holds my left arm. I look away. If I don't look while the torture is being done, I feel like it'd hurt less.

I feel the sharp edge of the knife digging through my skin and it hurts. I grit my teeth, trying not to whimper. I'm pretty sure the cut was long. I could feel blood trickle down my forearm.

She makes another, perpendicular to the previous one and right on top of it, making a cross. She waits for a bit, trying to get a reaction out of me, but won't let her have that anymore. Not like my crying makes her have any mercy for me anyways.

She picks up the container of salt. I did not know how longer I keep my demeanour calm. I hear the salt crystals in the container as she shakes some out, and seconds later, my forearm starts to burn.

Like really, really burn.

My eyes start to tear up. I couldn't hold back a gasp. She smirked. Of course, my pain brings her pleasure. My right arm slams itself over my mouth to muffle my whimpers and stop them from turning into screams. I shut my eyes tight, not being able to help the tears that made their way down my face anyways.

I'm pretty sure death is better, even though that's probably what I'll end up being if I don't take action soon. She presses her palm on the wound she created. I can feel myself start to tremble. It's too much.

The pain's too much.

Too much.

No. It's fine. It's okay. I've been in this situation before. Plenty of times. I've made it through before. I'll make it through now.

She threw the knife and the container of salt, kicking them away. She sat beside me, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket.

Okay, so the 'punishment' isn't over yet.

She knows I couldn't bear the smoke of it, yet she lights up one and holds it in her mouth, puffing out the smoke. My right hand still stays in my mouth as my left hand still stings.

I close my eyes again.

One, two, three, inhale. Four, five, six, exhale.

I felt something burn the skin of my left arm, but it was different from the previous one. I look down at my hand, where she held the burning side of the cigarette. The moment I looked at it, her face frowns up into a fake concern. She removes the cigarette quickly, gasping as loud as she can.

"Oh my! I'm so sorry!"

She says, but when she looks away, she couldn't help the laughter that escapes her mouth.

She continues poking me with a cigarette many more times, and I let her. Why? Because I'm nothing. I'm powerless and incompetent. I have nothing. It doesn't help either, that I live in the middle of nowhere. My screams are lost in thin air, and so is my life.

I wonder what Jimin is doing right now. How lucky he is to be able to smile. I hope I had a life like him. But then again, he is such a nice person. He looks like he'd never caused any trouble. And then there's me, who's always bringing pain and suffocation into people's life.

I'd often thought, about how life would be in heaven. I'm curious though. I want heaven to take me soon. But I'm scared to do it myself. I'm really a wimp, aren't I?

She grabs my arm and hoists me up to my feet, then drags me out of the basement. I thought she'd leave me in the kitchen, which smells like rotten eggs, by the way. But instead, she dragged me to the front door. She kicks the door open and pushes me outside.

"If you're gonna roam around for ages like an animal, then be outside like one."

Saying this, she slammed the door shut in my face. The cold air hit my back. It was starting to get dark.

Now that was something new. But it's not something I'd whine about. At once, I climbed down the porch. Trees filled my vision line. There were almost no houses. One building stays abandoned a few feet away. It had been there for a while. I initially planned to stay there after I'm out of the hell hole, but I'd still be too near to Jihun.

I walked the opposite way and throw a small glance at the door to my-I'm mean, Jihun's house. I'm partially worried that if she doesn't find me when she finally decided I'm not an animal, I'd be dead meat.

I don't know what to do. The Nakdong River's a few minutes away. Yes. I think I'll go there. The main street appears. Now, it's just a few steps. There. The tar and pitched streets start to turn moist the further I go. It feels like soil. I look up. Clearwater sways lightly in front of me.

I'm surprised nobody's here at this time. Usually, old people come here for their evening meetings. Talking and laughing. I never get what's so funny in those lame old jokes. But I'm happy to be here alone right now.

I fall to my knees near the riverside and look down at the clear water. The fishes swim and randomly stops, then flinches and swims away again.

I roll up my sleeves, exposing the nasty stains on my arms. The burn from the hair curler stays prominent on my right arm, while my left arm is filled with today's new ones. I submerge both of them in the water. The cuts burn again, and I can see the salt particles coming off, along with some blood.

I stare. And keep staring. The fishes seem scared and bewildered to approach this sudden shift to their habitat, as the small amount of blood that escaped the wound in my arm coloured the water surrounding my arm in a shade of crimson red.

I pull my arms back, streaks of blood trickling down, but it doesn't look that scary, because the water mixed with it had lightened its shade a little.

I think of the abandoned building again. The view from its terrace is pretty nice. I know that since I've been there several times, but I could never do what I initially planned to do there.

This time, however, I have a different purpose to go there. It's not what it used to be for, I've realized. I'm too scared of it.

So I walk back there. By this time, it's completely dark. I wonder what time it is. I wonder what everyone is doing. The main streets still have a lot of running vehicles. But it's empty here. Just how I like it. Silence is the only thing about my home's location that I don't despise.

I walk up the stairs. It's gotten really dusty. I think I'll do a little dusting here someday. I haven't been here for quite a long time, so it's no surprise that I find it hard to open the door to the terrace where I find rust deposited.

But I do open it at last. The sky is not pitch black yet and some of the clouds are still visible, floating. I see half of the moon, a crescent. It's beautiful. Every single thing about it is beautiful. A tiny star stays atop it. The Oak tree grows past all the other surrounding trees. That's beautiful too.

I lean against the railing, letting the air hit my face. I wonder if Jihun had searched for me. I wonder if she's mad again.

"Jungkook!"

I hear a sweet voice calling. I must be hallucinating. The voice is too sweet to take my name.

"Jungkook!"

It repeats, but louder and clearer this time, along with some footsteps. I swirled around, and I'm sure my eyes had popped out. He had a smile, but it dropped, as soon as I turned to him.

Jimin?

I stared at him. He stared at me. Expect for the fact that his eyes didn't meet mine. It rather travelled down. To my arms.

Shit-

I swiftly pull the sleeves down and turned my back at him, my heart thumping wildly against my chest.

What was that?

I don't know why he's here, but I'm certainly screwed. He saw it. He saw it.

Shit. Shit. Shit!

The footsteps were heard at a slower interval. I was too scared to look at him. I messed up again. I felt him grab my left arm and before I knew it, he'd pulled the sleeve up.

And stood still.

Staring.

And staring.

I took the chance to yank his hand away and pulled down my sleeve, turning away from him and leaning on the railing again. The most I could do to avoid the upcoming conversation was to just ignore it.

"W-What di-"

"How did you hurt your head?"

I ask him. I've noticed the blood-stained bandage on his forehead just now. Does he go through the same thing as me?

No. It can't be. He doesn't seem like that. He's so jolly and happy. He doesn't reply to me for a while, but then, I hear him shuffle.

"I f-fell. That's all."

Ah. That must be the case. Of course, he wouldn't tolerate abuse like me. He's strong. He'd stand up against it.

I'm glad he isn't going through something like me.

He got hurt because he just fell. Quite literally. I wonder what it's like. Looking down at my arms, I don't really know what it's like to just fall literally, if it hurts more than how I fall.

I look back at the sky, the moon slowly being covered by the clouds. I realized that 'falling' doesn't literally quite always mean falling down physically. In that case, I fell more than anyone could ever count. I fell more than I should have let myself fall. People don't quite understand me when I whine to them, so instead of venting about my pain, I rather now let the words slip,

"I fell a lot too."