The television was on, but the volu was so low it sounded like a sick whisper. A constant hum that said nothing, but filled the uncomfortable silence of the living room as if trying to distract from sothing I didn't want to see.
I was on the floor, kneeling on the frayed carpet, playing with two plastic dolls that had already lost their paint on the edges. One of them had wings made of toothpicks glued on and tape. The other only had legs and a torn cape that was once part of a shopping bag.
I gave that one my na. Klaus Eisen.
"He doesn't need wings…" I murmured as I awkwardly moved it among the crumbs of breakfast I didn't sweep. "Just don't let anyone see him coming."
My voice was low, as if even my own words had to ask permission to exist.
Behind , my mother was putting on makeup in front of the mirror hanging at a half angle in the hallway. The yellow ceiling light accentuated the dark circles under her eyes. She wore heavier makeup than usual. Deep red lipstick, thick eyelashes she didn't use at the office. And a black skirt, too short to sit at a desk without discomfort.
Her heels tapped impatiently on the floor with every step. They didn't match the gray backpack she always said she carried to "work." That contrast no longer seed strange to . Just... confusing.
"Are you working nights again?" I asked without taking my eyes off the makeshift-winged doll.
"Yes, the boss asked for overti," she replied in a recorded tone. Automatic. Sa as last week. Sa as yesterday.
"What a pain that man is," she added, smiling with her lips but not with her eyes.
"But… you don't wear that kind of clothes to the office," I said softly, almost hoping I hadn't said it. I squeezed the doll in my hands. I made it fly. Higher. As if moving it away from the ground could make my doubts disappear.
My mother didn't respond. She continued spraying perfu. A new one. Sweet, heavy, too strong for soone going only to a computer.
I saw her in the TV's reflection: touching up her lips in the mirror as if practicing a smile that wasn't for .
She turned. Walked toward the door. And just before crossing it, she bent down a little, ruffled my hair, and delivered her favorite line—one I already knew by heart:
"Behave yourself, okay, champion?"
Her voice was sweet. Rehearsed. So carefully fake it hurt more than if she'd yelled at .
I didn't answer. I just nodded without looking.
And when I heard the click of the lock, I stayed still for a while.
That sound... that little "click"... was like a silent order. A signal... my signal to beco invisible again, because in that house, being seen... hurt.
Sotis, at night, when I thought I was asleep, the house began to sound different.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
It wasn't plumbing or the old refrigerator. It was knocks. Rhythmic. Like soone kicking the wall again and again, but without anger... with sothing that seed like urgency. Or desire.
Then ca the laughter. Voices of n I didn't know. Deep voices slling of cigarettes and beer, though I could only hear them. Sotis a laugh mixed with the bed's creak.
Once, I heard clearly:
"Be quiet, your son's going to hear us."
And my mother's voice, muffled between laughter and gasps:
"Bah, he doesn't even speak."
I had my headphones on. The sa broken ones for months. Only wires tangled with black tape left. But I still wore them every night as an invisible shield. It was easier to pretend not to hear. Easier to keep being the kid who doesn't ask, who doesn't bother. His parents' good child.
Though I wasn't the only one pretending... my mother lied well, said she was working, that her shift was extended and that the boss was annoying.
But I had seen her. I saw the n co into the house. One... two... five.
But one morning, while she stirred juice in the kitchen, I dared to break that silence.
"Mom… was that man your boss?"
The spoon stopped turning. The glass remained still on the table. She looked at as if she hadn't understood the question.
"What man?"
"The one in your room yesterday. I heard... voices."
Her expression changed. Just a little, but enough. As if soone had thrown salt into a wound she pretended not to have.
"Don't talk nonsense, Klaus. You always make things up."
And then she smiled. That smile that never reached her eyes.
I stayed still. Didn't respond. Just looked down at the toast that had already gone cold.
I never asked again. Not that morning. Not ever again.
One night, the noises changed.
They were no longer moans or laughter... they were screams.
Raw screams, unfiltered. Doors slamd in rage. Glass shattered.
I woke up startled. My heart pounded as if it wanted to escape too. I got out of bed barefoot and walked carefully toward the cracked-in-half door.
And there he was.
My father. A broken bottle in his hand.
His face was contorted, not by crying…
It was the face of soone who had dried up inside. As if even pain had given up.
"IN MY BED, DAMN IT?! YOU DAMN WHORE!" he roared.
His voice made the fras tremble... and my body. Even my wrists shrank, as if trying to hide.
On the bed, wrapped only in a sheet, was her.
My mother.
She let out a laugh. But it wasn't embarrassed or defensive... it was that laugh with an edge to the voice. One that cuts inward.
"Soone had to enjoy that bed, don't you think?" she said, with a venom I only understood years later.
, at eight years old, didn't fully comprehend what was happening.
But I understood this: That was the sound of rotten love... the kind that dies over ti
The sound of sothing that was once a ho... and no longer was.
My father kicked sothing on the floor. I didn't see what. Maybe it was his pride. Maybe another promise broken by my mother.
He grabbed a worn gray canvas suitcase with a rusty zipper. He dragged it to the door without looking back.
And before leaving, he said the last thing I ever heard him say:
"It's not worth living with garbage... and I don't know if you're even mine anymore."
Then, the door shut. With too much contained fury. As if even goodbyes had lost their aning.
And to this day… I don't know if those words were for her. Or for too...
After that... my mother stopped pretending.
There was no more "champion" or "behave yourself." No more empty promises or window-dressing smiles. Only late returns, clumsy steps, laughter that wasn't ant for .
She started coming ho with sared makeup, the sll of cigarettes clinging to her clothes, perfus that weren't hers mixed in. And behind that sll... other n. Different every week. Cheap cologne. Spilled liquor. Soone else's saliva.
She spoke to as if I were a piece of furniture that always got in the way, or worse... as if she no longer rembered why I was still there.
"Make yourself sothing to eat."
She said it without looking at , taking off her heels while the TV murmured in the background.
"Can I help?" I once asked, trying... sothing.
She turned only her head, her eyes dull. Then she said in a hollow voice:
"Are you useless or just a piece of garbage?"
There was no context. It was just that...
Another day, while washing a dish because I was hungry and didn't want to bother her, I accidentally dropped a glass. The noise wasn't loud. It didn't even break.
But her reaction did.
"DON'T YOU FUCK WITH , YOU FUCKING KID OF SHIT!"
Her scream filled the kitchen like an open wound.
"SHUT UP."
A dry word... very repeated.
"SHUT UPPPP."
Until I did.
I learned that making noise was betrayal. That raising your voice tempted the ghosts of the house. That emotions were mistakes, cracks that let worse things in.
That in that ho, the only language that didn't start war... was silence.
That's how I learned to exist in ghost mode. To breathe without being noticed. To walk without the floor creaking. To keep my questions inside. To swallow "I miss you", "it hurts", "do you see ?".
To pretend that I needed no one.
And sotis, just sotis, I wondered if one day... soone would see without having to scream to do it.
On my twelfth birthday... one ordinary afternoon, while the pale sunlight filtered through the dirty kitchen window, I wrote a story.
It wasn't long.
Just a handful of clumsy paragraphs on lined paper, written with a gnawed pencil.
It was called "The Invisible Boy."
It was about a boy nobody noticed, not at ho, not at school, not on the street. But he... he saved the world every day. He stopped disasters, healed the sad, fixed broken things… all without anyone seeing him.
Without anyone knowing he existed...
I thought that was being a hero. I truly thought that if I did enough in silence... maybe soday soone would notice.
So I went, heart beating a little faster than normal, the page folded in my hand like I carried sothing sacred.
My mother was sitting on the couch, legs crossed. A cigarette dangled between her fingers, leaving a line of ash nearly touching the carpet. The TV flickered in front of her, changing colors without aning. A newscast or a ga show, I don't rember. Everything sounded the sa.
I approached slowly. My voice barely ca out.
"Mom… I wrote sothing. It's a story."
She didn't reply. Didn't turn her head to look at .
"Do you want to read it? It's short. It's called The Invisible Boy..."
The click of the remote was the only answer. She changed the channel. Then took a long drag from the cigarette.
I stayed there. A few more seconds. Like hope was stubbornly refusing to die.
But it did. It died slowly, drop by drop. And it hurt more because it didn't scream.
I backed away silently. Locked myself in the bathroom. Torn the paper into pieces and flushed them, one by one, down the toilet.
I watched them float for a mont before getting soaked, crumpling, dissolving as if they had never existed. As if what I felt could disappear with dirty water.
I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn't feel like crying. Just... like giving up trying.
And there, in that damp silence, I told myself what would beco my golden rule:
"Don't show anyone anything again."
"If you stay silent… you fit."
"And if you fit, maybe it won't hurt as much."
---
Author's Note:
If you missed the previous announcent, this chapter marks the beginning of Volu 2: Before I Was .
We'll explore Suhyeon's past, his relationships, his internal changes, and the key monts that shaped who he is today.
Basically, everything that wasn't seen on cara.
Reviews
All reviews (0)