1.1 | Desiderium ✓

9| nine

HwaShin was nine when he learned how the world worked.

"You cheated!" His classmate pointed a finger at him one day, when he got selected for the mathematics olympiad. "You cheated and you are dirty!"

"No I did not!" Shin cried, clutching his reception letter tightly.

"My mom says you are a," the boy stopped for a moment, reviewing his memory for a particular word. "You are a what... yes, you are a bastard!"

Shin frowned. What was that supposed to mean?

"Your Eomma and Appa hated you, so they left you like that. You are a bastard!"

"My Eomma didn't hate me!" Shin yelled back, fighting his tears. He didn't want to cry in his class, the kids bullied crybabies even harder.

"Yes she did, and you are a freak!"

"Freak! Freak! Freak! Freak!" The class chanted like a mantra, laughing and enjoying Shin's despair. Shin covered his ears with his palms and ran to his home, stopping not one place on his way back. "Halabbeoji," he cried, slumping down on the doorframe of his house.

His grandfather came running to him. "What happened to my Shinnie, who made him cry?"

"They..." Shin sobbed, "they said I was a freak! And that my mother hated me!"

"Who said that?" His grandfather's eyes widened.

"My classmates... Halabbeoji, is that true?" Shin looked up at the old man with teary eyes, "that my mother hated me?"

"How can anyone hate you? No one in their right mind can hate my baby."

"But... that night... that man," Shin started to cough, as if his throat was physically preventing him from saying those words.

"HwaShinnie, you're my darling child and you are safe with me, okay?" His grandfather pulled Shin to himself, offering him the comfort of his wrinkly old skin. He knew Shin missed his mother terribly. That boy wasn't even his grandson but something about that boy was just so pure, it compelled the old man to care for him.

Just like when he had found him on the seashore that day, lifeless and cold, the old man had sworn to take in the little boy as his own.

"He also said my mother hated me... that man... that I am dirty..."

"No, no one said anything," The old man hugged Shin tighter. "Forget everything, okay?"

"They're bad, I don't want to go to school!" Shin howled, pushing his face in the crook of his grandfather's neck. Shin was smaller for his age, and his grandfather was beginning to get worried about his stunted height.

"A lot of people will say a lot of things, but that doesn't mean we should push them all away, should we?"

"But..." Little Shin fell in thought, for he had spoken everything he wanted to speak and now had nothing left to argue.

❀

Shin snuggled into his grandfather's side that night, trying to warm himself up. Shin always got cold easily, and that was a concern of his grandfather. He needed to buy a new heater for the approaching winters.

"Are you sad?"

Shin nodded his head. In the darkness, none of them could see a thing.