Little prince

CHAPTER ONE - TAEHYUNG

Bright hot sun woke me up. It is summer and the heat is torturing every living thing. All kids here in nameless poor orphanage sleep just in short and some just in shirt. I am sleeping in shorts and luckily Woojin and Junwook who are sharing bed with me are wearing shorts too. I am always sleeping on left side of the small bed so sometimes I fall down during night but at least I don't wake them up when I am getting up because I can't sleep as long as them. Our bed was made for one person and not for three, so it is uncomfortable to sleep squeezed together like this. But I am still lucky because many of us don't have bed and sleep on floor.

Our orphanage gives us roof above our heads but that's all. No food, no education or real care. Sometime we get clothes from the capital city Seoul or different rich city but it only reminds us how other people live. I have shirt with castle on it. It has something written on it but I can't read. Maybe it is castle where royal family lives.

There is only one old woman, madam Shin, and we don't see her often. Usually she comes when we break something and she always beat us with thick wooden stick. Madam Shin always yells that we are naughty little shits and that's why our parents died but we know that it was because of famine. There aren't many things to break but still with one hundreds boys in one house some bed or window break. We sometimes fix beds, but we can't fix windows, so they are covered with rags or newspapers. The building has one long room where we live and four rooms where lives madam Shin. Sometimes we hear radio from her flat and we always pressed our ears on the wall and listen to the nice music. It is our only fun in the orphanage, but she can't catch you or she will spank you. One time I closed my eyes during the music and she caught me. Everyone has ran away only I was standing in front of her because of my closed eyes. She beat me up until I was bleeding and I still have scars.

We are far away from Seoul or some rich city, so no one comes here. The orphanage is near to lake in small forest and the nearest city is 10 kilometres from us. Every morning when we wake up we can do what we want. Some of us go to forest, some stay around the building and some go to the city. It isn't big or rich but sometimes we found some food. Few boys steal but I am too afraid so I am digging in the trash bins with others. But people in the city are hungry too so they don't throw food, they eat almost everything. Only few families have enough food that they throw out leftovers or rotten food, but they will send dogs to bite you. I saw boy from our orphanage who died when the dogs bitted him in neck. I still remember how much blood was there and the angry dogs running around him and biting him. Now I am scared of dogs. Every time I hear dogs barking I recall how was the boy screaming in agony. Hunger is better than being killed by dogs.

I am slowly walking to the city with another four boys. We all hope that we will find some food, or we will need to go to forest and find some roots or mushrooms. People in the city see us as thieves and their kids throw stones at us. I am walking around only restaurant in the city and they have opened windows, so I can see their TV. They are playing news and the reporter speaks about prince and his husband. The royal couple will have anniversary and there are pictures from their wedding and how the couple eat piece of huge cake. I would like to know how does it taste. It looks delicious and I swallow mouthful of saliva.

"Get lost little shit!"

The waiter yelled at me and I ran away. I think about how happy are prince and his husband. They have everything and don't care about orphans who have nothing. The weather is too hot and I sit down on sidewalk and wipe sweat from my forehead. People are walking around me and don't even look at dirty boy who is hugging his stomach because of the hunger pains. Suddenly I spot child from rich family. He has clean clothes and eats ice cream. The boy suddenly stumbled and the ice cream fell on ground. His mother is nagging and drags the child away and I hurry to it. I dip my fingers in the ice cream and closed my eyes in pure bliss. It is so good! The prince's wedding cake taste like this for sure. I eat the ice cream but it doesn't fill my stomach. I try to find something in trash bins but without results. I sigh and decide to go back to the orphanage.

The sun is parching everything and I am starting to have headache. It feels like the sun rays are stabbing me in my skull. My stomach hurt because I haven't eaten last four days. Maybe I will have the bed for myself for few hours because this is best way how to forget about hunger pains. I am walking on dusty road around the lake and see few boys standing on the rocky bank. I stopped for a while and watch them. They are from orphanage too. They are trying to catch some fish with self made fishing rod, but it is useless. During famine people from city ate the fish and now is the lake empty. But miracle happened. They really caught fish. Not some huge one but still, they have food and food is the most important thing in our lives. We don't have energy to play games and we don't have school, we spend whole days by searching for food.

I am so hungry that I want to ask for piece of the fish, but I won't. They are three and the fish is theirs. I won't get a single bite. I swallow mouthful of saliva and only imagine feeling of warm food on my tongue. Suddenly we hear loud yelling and the boys try to hide their fish, but it is too late.

Hyuk and his friends are running to us. They are boys from the city, Hyuk's father is city major so Hyuk can do what he wants and most of the times he bullies us together with his friends.

"Hey sons of a bitches! Everything in the lake belongs to city so the fish is mine!"

Hyuk ripped the fish from their hands and his friends kicked the boys from my orphanage.

"Enough! You don't need the fish, you have meat at home."

I don't know why I said that. Maybe the hot weather made me or my hunger but I said it and now it is too late.

"And what? Are you going to tell it on me? To who? Your dead mother?"

Hyuk is mocking to us and his friends laugh.

"You are animals, living in dirt. No you are worse than animals because animals are useful but you are shits who don't even know how to read. Your heads are empty!"

I hate his fat face. I hate everyone because we don't deserve it. It is not our fault that we are orphans.

"But still not empty as your head!"

Why have I said it?! Now Hyuk and his friends turned to me and they are pissed.

"What have you said?"

He is much bigger and stronger than me. Now I am really scared because he slowly goes to me.

"You dirty piece of shit!"

Hyuk throws stone at me as the first one and his friends quickly follow him. Stones are raining on me and I curl into ball. It hurts so much. They are using their whole strength and some stones are bigger than my fist. I am bleeding and they are not stopping. Everything is starting to go black and after while the world completely lost.