𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐈𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐝 ● 𝐉𝐉𝐊

• 22 • pourquoi elle?

When will a sense of security surround you and take you whole?

Will you ever be that safe?

Such questions often come to your mind, they hold an incredible warmth which you didn't know existed in you. You figured it must have been lost somewhere in the events your life had laid out but not really. No. These questions gave proof that you, indeed, have a beautiful longing for warmth and can be, if needed, a warm person.

Safety held such value, for you it did. Every second of your life, you had felt unsafe. Lost -in a bad way. As a little girl, you'd never been given time to cultivate as your own person. It was always the same: fear for your mother, wishes to see your mother when you missed her, unbearable hunger, inflicted pain, a struggle on the empty, ruthless, cold ocean floor. Your early life was a bedlam of struggle, insecurity and zero warmth.

Why would you wish to see your mother -as a kid- when you knew she never treated you right? Because how much ever of a bad person she was, you knew from deep down, she loved you. In her way, she did. Once she pulled a guy's hand out with a rusted iron rod because he tried to take you away from her. She protected you that one time. Drugs drown a lot of people and she was one of them. You sympathized with her situation because growing up the way your mom did was not easy either. As far as you had ever got to know or remember, you had an uncle and an aunt. Both of them were second cousins to your mother. None of them came forward for your adoption.

Family issues. You had understood well as a young girl that your family was problematic. The whole family.

The sense of protection, safety and warmth you longed for was because of this very reason.

Normal kids got presents under the Christmas tree. You got a slap from your mother and breakfast which was two days old as the Christmas "feast".

Your mother never cared she bore a child, she was too heartbroken with the death of your father to draw out her maternal side. But when you somehow found out she was pregnant with Jimin, you tried to be on high alert. It was impossible to control her, she had her own mind. Sometimes you knew she tried to stop herself but she couldn't, it hurt her, physically, mentally, in every way, to stop her flow of drugs. Her body revolted against her. Ended up drugging herself higher each time. She was in jail for a 28 days, it must have been her seventh month of pregnancy when that happened. The police always freed her by the end of a month or somebody would definitely bail her out. You never got around to knowing who that was.

When she returned after those 28 days, blood was oozing from her arm, you didn't knew why, you didn't ask. She reeked of urine and a pungent, sour smell which you had come to place as meth. Yes, you were aware of many drugs she consumed at such a tender age. Nothing around you was genuinely censored, you lived in that part of Busan where even the police didn't bother to show up. It was a run down dump, usually occupied by dark, black businesses, robbers, thieves, drug lords and such. Learning about drugs actually came in handy considering your situation at home.

The smell was meth and marijuana. Her common preferences. The smell you had come to despise.

Knowing how she functions, you assumed it might not be good for her pregnancy but as a child, you didn't know what to do. You thought that if damage was to be done to the child, it must be minimum.

By the time your mother was in her eighth month of pregnancy, someone had complained about her loitering around the posh areas of Busan. Near the beach somewhere, with Jimin's father. The poor guy was found bruised and battered the next morning. Police department took up the case. But due to no rest, rash care and stressful behaviour during pregnancy, she was rushed to the hospital the same morning.