Wild Smoke

37. Fire and Ice

Hoseok

Sometimes I wonder how my life would have shaped up if I hadn't met Seokjin that day. On the verge of exhaustion, panting and dying for breath, my body was way beyond its limits that time. I still remember that day, as clear as hell.

"Get this, you fuck-face!" Youngchul screamed as he kicked me with his pointed boots straight on my stomach. The action doubled me over and I wheezed harshly, curling myself into a pathetic ball to curb the pain coursing through my body.

All I did was give him my lunch money a tad less than I usually gave him daily. It wasn't my fault I lost the money somewhere in school. Still, saying that wouldn't have stopped him into beating me because he would have found another reason to do it anyways.

One kick wasn't enough and he started kicking me relentlessly as if his whole life depended on it. The pain was becoming unbearable but I couldn't bring myself to tell him to stop. Fuck, I even refused to scream or shout in pain.

He would curse at me sometimes, grabbing my shirt and shoving me anywhere he deemed fit, when he would run out of breath after raining punches and kicks at me.

'Why don't you fucking scream, horse head?'
'Don't you feel any pain?'

I would just lay there, my body battered and bruised, with no energy left in me. A weak pathetic boy, with no self respect.

But I was determined in being stubborn. I vowed to myself that I would never make him feel victorious in abusing me. I refused to cry in pain. I would never allow myself to cry in front of him.

I fucking refused to give him that power, no matter how insignificant it seemed.

And that was the reason he wouldn't let me go.

Usually a bully finds himself a target and does whatever he wants with him. Sooner or later, he gets bored and moves onto the next one. Thanks to me, Youngchul never found a reason to get enough from me. On the contrary, he found himself a challenge in me and tried every fucking thing in the book to make me bow down to him.

Pushing me from the stairs, holding me down and burning my arms and legs with cigarettes, dunking my head in toilet bowls, parading me naked in front of his whores, almost killing me by hanging me from a tree and what else..I don't really remember.

Like I said, every fucking thing in the book.

And I never cried.

Just like now. He was getting tired and I kept looking at him. My eyes were closing from pain and exhaustion but I kept on looking at him.

"Fucking piece of shit! Die already!" He screamed when a few moments later I heard a sound of an object dropping on the ground with a thump. I turned my head and saw a silhouette of a person at the end of the alley. I couldn't make out who it was because my eyes were partly swollen due to the punches.