Pain seared across the chest of the boy and he hunched over, awaiting the next blow that would most surely send him to his knees. Lava ripped his skin apart; blood flowed freely down the swollen lumps on his back… Beneath the mosaic of bruises decorating his skin, his muscles twitched and fought to keep his body supported. A snap of the belt had him careening into the new wall whose surface was pockmarked nearly as much as his skin from all the times he’d been thrown in and broken through.

            “You’re nothing but a worthless piece of scum.”

            Fire lapped at his ankles and the burning sensation grew so intense that he had no choice but to succumb to the sobbing of his joints.

           Thunder crashed in his heart. A flash of lightning had him wincing and choking on a cry far back in his throat. An abyss swallowed him and sent him shooting through a spiral of suffocation. A constant twirl around the fingers that were trapped firmly around his neck.

            “Boy, once you finish your homework come upstairs!” The boy froze but shouted out his response of understanding, returning to his homework, but taking extra careful that had him taking seconds to complete a letter. Each word was written precisely on the line, not passing even an inch or if it did he would erase and start again.

            Carefully writing out the sentence with a perfectly round period and a… Oh no… His trembling hand caused him to tilt his pencil awkwardly to the side. An ugly line broke the cleanliness of the page, leaving the boy in a distraught state. The eraser was clamped between his thumb and forefinger and erasing anxiously at the line, but the imprint had been made.

            Forever ruined because he hadn’t taken his time to put in enough love and dedication to his …

            “Hurry up boy!”

            Staring at the dent in the paper, watching it stretch from the bottom of his ‘I’ to the hole in the margin… Upstairs he would have to go soon, walking a crooked path as his legs shook too much. Curling his toes he pushed off from the table and followed the defect less lines of the tiled floor to the staircase. Inspecting the wall of the hallway he could see beyond the last step and knowing what waited for him on the second door to the right…

            Taking a step up though his spirit took another steep step down.

            Hurricanes were billowing in the boy’s shoulder blades as he trekked down the many hallways of the school. Pieces of his insides throbbed with each jerk of his body. It took much will power to keep himself from cringing with every leg he raised and every turn of his head.

            The trill of the bell reminded him that he wasn’t moving fast enough, but after the whippings that had handicapped him the night before, he wasn’t sure he cared. At least his face was okay… That way no one would ask questions…

            “You’re late.”

            As if he didn’t know.

            It wasn’t his fault that the corner of his books dug into a rib that had been causing him trouble for days. The continuous jab into the swollen, purple mess was worse than feeling the belt come down on the backs of his legs… Well… Almost… Now it did, but surely in the moment he knew he would think differently.

            Still, he muttered an apology and found a spot in the back corner, where no curious eyes could turn to him without earning a scolding from the teacher.

            The longer he was able to stay in this corner, the better…

            No one knew. Maybe one person had suspicions, but how could they confirm when they were suspicious of? He made sure to walk without a limp; he made sure the doctor’s never got a chance to look at the swollen mess beneath his belt… He took every measure necessary to make sure that no one found out about what happened at home.

            Shrieking bells startled him. He jumped back half a mile, suddenly hearing things other than the metal rattle. Grunts and pants clogging his ears… Impure noises reaching around him and trapping him in a firm grip…

            And those hands were always there to make sure he didn’t escape… Despite the tight hold of those hairy hands with the veins ridging along their surfaces, the voice was soft… Cooing almost as it convinced him that everything was good and well.

            “Come on boy… Let me feel it… I want you to do it for me…”

            Shuffling feet, blankets sliding across one another, feelings that he didn’t ever want to feel… He would do anything to stay out of the corner he was being backed up into.

            Crossing streets and dodging shadows; creeping silently past closed doors so no one would notice him. The smell of beer was stale and heavy in the ear, mixing with the reek of something rotting. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t stick around long enough to find out.

            Step, step, step on tiptoe to the hallway. TV blaring images and gargled noises that would hopefully conceal the pitter-patter of his feet.

            Crack.

            Too late.

            Snap.

            No chance for escape.

            “What the hell do you think you’re doing, mutt?!”

            The door’s open before he can even get up the driveway. Coy grin meeting him with a devilish glint. Gelled hair slicked back to perfection, wife beater tucked into khakis… He hadn’t worn a belt for as long as he could remember… It took too long to take off.

            “Boy! Where you been? Your mother left just an hour ago.”

            Great… That meant they would be alone.

            In the kitchen with his books sprawled out in front of him, and the pencil poised carefully in his hand. It’s hard to concentrate when there’s a pair of eyes digging into the top of his head… Delicate pressing hard into the paper. Perfect lines scratching up and down to form consonants and vowels… One number with a letter…

            And then the hand falls on his shoulder, squeezing barely but enough to tense up every muscle in his body.

            “Come on boy, you’ve worked hard enough for today. Why don’t we go relax upstairs?”

            Fingers travel in his hair, trailing across the back of his neck.

            Goose bumps and heart palpitations.

            Sweaty palms.

            Racing thoughts.

            Something that he could never experience the same way again.

            Curled up with his knees against his chest. Closing in on himself, but not enough to stop the man above him from launching his fists. Tightened into a ball that’ll let him roll on out of the real world long enough to stop the throb in the gashes in his skin… Or to soothe the aching pound in his temple…

            Warmed by a pool of his own blood…

            Urine on him that wasn’t his…

            A dog…

            A dog that didn’t get enough love…

            Sprawled out on a bed, comfy mattress supporting his half body. Open for the man above him, but closed to everything inside. Maybe he could float away onto an ocean and feel something other than the stickiness nauseating him between his legs…

            Warmed by the flesh of his blood…

            The seed that had created him oozing out of places it shouldn’t be…

            A doll…

            A doll that got way too much love…

            TaeMin wished he was a doll…

            MinHo wished he was a dog…

            At least that way they could balance out this thing that was teetering on the border of hate and love…