Scars and Truth (1/2)
Woohyun was sitting on his bed.
The bleeding had stopped and his scars had been bandaged.
He felt a sense of relief wash through him
Once the bandages were covering his skin. He was grateful that he no longer had to look at the scars -
The scars that he was forced to live with
For not being a man -
For not being everything his father had believed he was
And his son was not.
But after the curtain blew open and his scars were severed,
They came to take on a new meaning,
One that Woohyun had been struggling with internally for seven months now,
Whether he realized it or not.
The scars were the past -
Sunggyu was the past.He hated to think of anything before Sunggyu,
And after all the physical, verbal, and mental abuse Woohyun inflicted upon himself,
He had repressed most of the memories of his father -
His beatings;
His insults;
His smug face that spit at him when he cried;
His big, muscular frame that never embraced him when he needed comfort;
His condescending laughter when Woohyun told him that he was wrong about him
And that he was much more of a man than his father gave him credit for being;
His raving mad face when he discovered that his bank account had been emptied
And Woohyun was standing at the door with his bags,
Ready to flee.
His father knocked him down
And pinned his shoulders to the ground.He hit his face a few times for good measure before he started his tirade.
"How dare you even think of walking out on me, boy!
How dare you empty my account and pack your bags
And stand here like you're all big and grown and are actually capable of doing something in this world.
You never touch my money, is that clear?"
He shouted so loud
Woohyun could feel his bones rattle.When he looked at his scars,
He could feel his bones vibrate beneath the skin
In memory of his father -
The father he had worked so hard to forget
And could be dead for all he cared.
"Get back in your room and unpack!" "No." "I said get back in your room!""I heard you.
I'm leaving." "You aren't going anywhere." "I'm eighteen now.
I'm grown and I don't need you.
I'm getting out of here." "You think you can take care of yourself, boy?
You won't last a day in the real world, if that.
Nobody has sympathy for the weak out there.
If you aren't on top, you aren't anything. You think people are gonna stop and offer to help you -
To hold your hand and walk you through the world like a child,
Like they're walking you through a field of flowers? Hell no they're not!
And you're gonna end up on the side of the road somewhere doing god knows what kind of sickening jobs just to keep your big, fat mouth fed and your spineless little body under some roof. Takes a man to survive out there, boy.
And you are the farthest thing from a man I have ever had the misfortune to see. I tried to bring you up right;
I tried to make you tough.
But what has all my hard work done?
Shit. Absolute shit. I'm still stuck with a little boy
With no hope of being a man. I see right through your little tough acts, boy -
You better believe it. I know how you think about your little friend at night
Because I can see it in your eyes and read it on your face. I tried to help you by beating those thoughts out of you!
I tried to be a damn good father! You think any good father would let their son love men?
That would be like a father giving his son to slaughter -
And society will chew on your meat and bones one by one until they're all gone,
Til you're all gone,
The you you knew and the you you could've been. You think I want to be the father of a son who loves men?
You think I want to be named responsible for handing my son over to the butcher -
To the world outside this home? I'm trying to help you, boy!
And I'm going to make you right even if I have to beat you to death. No son of mine is about to walk out that door a man lover!
You better be damn sure of that."
He hit his father with a vase.
That's how he managed to run away.
The glass broke all over his father's face. When he was at the door,
He turned around to take one last look at his father.Thinking back on it now,
He realized that if he really hadn't cared about his father...
He wouldn't have looked back at all.But he did. And what he saw was his father' face covered in blood -
Blood that was so dark it was almost black.Black with hatred.
Black with malice.
Woohyun knew that his father's face was scarred now. And in knowing that,
Woohyun had finally gotten revenge in the worst way possible.
His father wanted to hide his son and make him right,
Make him the man he honestly believed he was. But now that he had to walk outside every day with the scars on his face -
Scars made at Woohyun's hands -
He could not hide that he was imperfect because his son was imperfect,
And his son was imperfect
Because he was a man lover. And no matter how hard he tried,
He could not break his son
Or his man loving spirit.
He wondered if the scars burned his father's face. He had hated him so passionately,
And now that he could no longer erase the memory of the day his son left to disgrace the family name,
He was probably being driven insane,
Stark mad with questions and insults and pent up anger
And hands that longed to abuse,
Destroy,
And recreate.
But Woohyun was done thinking of his father now. He thought of his father's face
And chewed it with his teeth. He didn't want to think of his face ever again -
He didn't need to think of his face ever again.He had already gotten his revenge;
There was nothing left for him anymore in his father's house.
He looked back to his scars
And thought about their new meaning again.
The scars were the past -
Sunggyu was the past.
He hated to think of the past...
All of it,
Except for Sunggyu
With his smiling face and warm arms.
But even thinking of Sunggyu was dangerous...
Because he didn't want to be...
Ignored...
Rejected...
Ruined...
By society at large,
A monster of oppression.
When she came into his life,
He almost forgot that his scars even existed.
When he was with her,
The past never crept into his mind
Because he was always too busy thinking of her -
Too busy being absorbed by her and by thoughts of their future.
But now that she was gone,
He paid more attention to his scars -To the past;
To Sunggyu.Which was wrong. It was wrong to pay so much attention to him,
To love him so freely.
And the moment his scars were cut open,
The past came rushing back to him in an instant.
All of his father's shouts...
They penetrated his eardrums.All of his hits and slaps and punches...
He felt them in his stomach.
Sunggyu's smiling face...
He saw it in his eyelids.Sunggyu's hot breath...
He tasted it on his tongue.
Now that his scars were cut,
There was nothing left to stop the past from returning. She was disappearing ever quicker
Because the memories of the past overshadowed her face.
And the scars now represented, at least in Woohyun's mind,
The disjunction between the memory of Sunggyu -
His love of the past,
And the bliss that was Sun Hee -
His love for the future.
As he thought about his scars,
He stared out of his open bedroom door.
The curtain was still open,
And out of the corner of his eye,
He saw moonlight flood onto the floorboards.
Woohyun turned to face the open curtain and shattered window.
He marveled at the brightness of the moon's light.
The light was so beautiful,
But not as beautiful as her light had always been.
He wondered if she could see the moon too,
If they were even looking up at the same sky.
As the back of his mind searched through pictures of her and her light,
Woohyun felt a memory about to surface in his consciousness.
He turned his face to look at the wall
And watched as the memory ran its course on his eyes.
The air above the covers is cold.
Neither one of us wants to get up.
We are lying in bed together -
Her skin is touching mine,