Lawbreakers (YoonMin)

21

Many, many years previously

The obscene sounds coming from the bedroom made his toes curl in disgust every time he heard them. He should have been used to them, after all, he'd been hearing them most days and nights of his life for all 7 years of it, but still, it always got to him. The awful sounds made him want to cover his ears, curl up in a ball, and scream, but last time he'd done that, he'd gotten hit for it.

"If you ever do that again, I'll hit you so hard you'll wish you were dead," she'd threatened him after the beating, and slapped him once more for good measure.

He was in so much pain that he couldn't imagine being hit harder than that, but he didn't want to die, he just wanted to escape. But where would he go? He was seven years old and he didn't know anyone except his abusive, prostitute mother and some of her regular clients. None of them were going to help him. He was alone in the world.

During the day, he roamed the streets and watched people. Other people laughed and chatted. He'd never done that. He was sure the only person he'd ever held a conversation with before was himself. His mother only barked orders at him, yelled at him, or hit him. She wasn't someone he ever wanted to talk to, and he'd already long since given up on ever getting on with her. He often wondered why she'd kept him and not given him away.

He had vague memories of another baby when he was small, but other than remembering it crying in the corner of his room, he couldn't remember what happened to it. He supposed it was probably his sibling, but he wasn't sure. It didn't even have a name that he knew of, he just remembered it crying. He'd tried to pick it up once to stop it crying, but his mother had come in to yell at it to shut up and caught him. She had immediately rounded on him and given him another beating, warning him not to touch the evil thing.

The baby had disappeared within a few days and he never saw it again. Whatever happened to it, he was jealous. He wished he could have gone away from his mother forever too. The older he got, and the more people he met on the streets outside, the more he realised that his mother was not like other people. It made him angry. Why was he the only one who had a mother like her? Why was he chosen to suffer, and that baby wasn't? Whatever had happened to it, he knew it wasn't suffering like he was. He was alone, and he was angry. The world may have been against him initially, but he wasn't going to let it stay that way, he was going to fight it and win.

By the age of thirteen, he'd gotten to know some other kids in the area and was part of a gang. They introduced him to cigarettes, alcohol and then drugs. By fourteen, there was nothing he hadn't tried. However, he couldn't let go of that bitterness that he felt, and couldn't shake the feeling that the world was still against him, so in order to fight back, he became greedy for power and money. He started to sell drugs to the local addicts, and if they tried to stop using drugs, he would very quickly remind them of what was at stake. Their lives, their family's lives, and all their darkest secrets – which he made it his business to know about.

By sixteen, he was a name to be feared. He had a good relationship with his suppliers, and a tight hold over his customers. If ever he had a customer he'd recognised as a regular of his mother's, he'd always give them "special" treatment. He'd sell to them at higher prices and lower quality than everyone else, until they wound up six feet under and unable to pay for his mother's despicable services. He never went back to his mother's flat if he could help it, and often stayed with members of his drug supply gang, or even with his terrified clients if he felt like it.

But despite his age, and his newfound freedom, his mother still had an irritating hold over him. She would call him at random times and demand money from him. No matter how many times he changed his phone number, she would always find it. She had promised to leave him alone if he gave her money, but whenever he went to give it to her, she would be raging drunk and accuse him of being a selfish son and not giving her enough money to live on.