exotic | k.th

7 ‣ downhill

Fourteen Years Ago.
> Two days before the murder.

"HARU!" Your father yells from the other room, promoting you to quickly jump out of your small, rickety bed and rush over into the hallway. "HARU! Hurry up, Goddammit! I don't have all fucking day!" He screams again, making you move a lot faster.

"Don't yell at her, Taeheon." You hear Seulin, your stepmother and Aria's birth mom, tell him a lot quieter. Her voice is mellow and sweet. It's one of the many reasons you love her so much. She calms your father like no one else in the world can. She sticks up for you.

"Yes?" You gently push the partially opened door open a little further, stepping into the dim room only a few feet and looking out at your father standing next to his wife. He looks over at you with that familiar glint of anger decorating his dark brown eyes.

"Can you live without Seulin?" His booming voice bounces prominently off of the thin walls, making your eyes turn down to the floor and your shoulders pull closer to your chest. Seulin tries to step up to you, but your father puts his hand out in front of him to stop her.

"N—I don't," you say lowly, trailing off as your heart starts racing a little harder, "no." You shake your head, trying to stop the tremble in your jaw. "My mom.. left." You add, remembering your father's cruel script. "She hated me. Seulin's all we have.."

"Oh, Sugar Bear." Seulin exhales quietly, keeping her eyes out on you with concern. You glance up at her briefly and watch as a tear slips down her crimsoned cheek. She turns around as soon as you see her, wiping her tears quickly and exhaling a heavy breath.

"Dad—"

"Shut up." Your father waves you off, turning his attention back to his wife. "Go back to your room now." He tells you sternly, not even looking over at you or giving your presence a mere glance. Seulin turns away from the both of you, covering her mouth with her delicate, shaky hand.

You walk back to your bedroom with a heavy feeling in your chest and a face of stone. You stopped stepping back through that doorway with tears in your eyes the last twenty times your dad's used you to guilt trip Seulin into not leaving him. At this point, the tears just don't fall.

Lee Taeheon is a tough man to live with. You of all people should know. He was a good man once. At least, that's what you like to remember. His problem now is the alcohol. Ever since your mother left him a couple years back for an older Polish man with money, he hasn't been the same.

That was when you were about three years old. Now, at twelve years of age, there's no one he's resented more for the past nine years than you. You have her face, after all. He hates that woman with every fiber of his being and you're a living, breathing reminder of her.

Naturally, with the passing of time, you've forgotten everything about her. You don't remember her voice, her face, or even what she was like. She's just a cursed name around here. But that doesn't stop your father's hatred. He takes that all out on you and you let him—you don't know any better.

He's your father. He takes care of you, in his own twisted way. Taeheon stayed with you when Juyeom left and that's all you needed to know to love him. You were just a kid and he's all you had for a while. It was just you and him and his grief and your confusion. That's when he picked up the bottles more often.

It wasn't until he met Seulin that he began to get better. She was the new light of his life, he fell head over heels for her. You'd never seen him look at someone with as much adoration as he looked at Seulin with. There was a new life to him, a new aura. She filled up the void that your mom left in him.