xxvi. The Carefree, Imaginative Darwinist, Cha Hakyeon

He’s there again. There, in the garden. It’s where he always is so I don’t know why I’m surprised. I don’t know why I feel a rush of feelings of assorted varieties every time I see him there, enraptured in the lives of small, miniscule insects. Whimsically daydreaming in his own little world, his own little bubble.

It makes me want to pop that inflated world of his with the sharp end of a sewing needle. It makes me want to distort him until all he is is a shredded version of his previous, high flying self.

“Hakyeon,” a soft voice called for me from behind. I knew the person said voice belonged to. I myself had come to visit her after father and I arrived home. Or rather, she requested to see me. “What are you looking at, baby?”

“Nothing.” I replied, turning away from the window as I approached her. It was true, after all. He was nothing. Right here and now, at this very moment, he was nothing. No matter the amount of favoritism he received because of this dark eyes of his, he will always be nothing.

“Come here, baby.” She reached forward, taking me into her arms. Her slim, pallid fingers ran through my coffee brown locks. She likes my hair. She likes to touch it. To comb it. To simply look at it as though she’s satisfied doing just that. The reason is that it looks like hers. My cropped tufts of hair resemble her own long, flowing brown waves in color and texture.

The sound of clanking ceramic caught my attention from the corner of the room. The female caretaker whose name I cared not to learn froze as my eyes landed on her. Her hand stalled in picking up the pieces of broken glass from earlier in the day. Her ashen gray hair seemed to stand on end like a cat caught in the eyesight of a wolf at even the slightest of glances I threw her way each and every time I saw her. It was quite annoying honestly. Was I someone she had to be scared of? Was I someone she had to fear? How ridiculous.

“Mother.” I addressed the woman who currently held me to her. She pulled back, her red tinted lips forming a frown due to my mirthless tone.

“Yes?” My mother questioned, her freshly manicured fingers weaving out of my hair. Her fingertips trailed downwards until she cupped my cheek in her smooth, chilling palm, “What is it, Hakyeon?”

“Your caretaker is staring at me again.” I pointed accusingly at the older woman. She straightened up immediately, her eyes downcast onto the floor beneath her feet. As though she wanted the ground to swallow her up right then and there, a heavy sigh left her lips. She awaited the reprimand that was soon to leave my mother’s lips. But, instead, I spoke first, “I’m going to go see father.”

And the older woman’s eyes looked up from the ground, pure loathing directed towards me reflecting in her irises. I could practically hear the slew of curses she was most likely screaming inside of her head at that very moment. That precise moment as I shifted past my mother, her hand falling from my cheek, and left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind me, I heard the beginning of what was going to be a long afternoon for my mother’s caretaker in the form of glass breaking and metal banging against the walls and the floor. It’s not my fault that my mother is mentally unstable. It’s not my fault that as a young child, I wanted to push my mother to her limits. I wanted to test her.

I found it all funny, really. Hilarious even. My mother never threw a fit when she was in front of me. Not a single temper tantrum on her part was to be seen when she was within my sight. In front of honorary guests, she maintained an absolute, perfectly molded façade of excellence in any and all things. And she, despite the brusque, borderline rude, nature of her words to those inferior to her, insignificant to her, wouldn’t hurt a single hair on a dog’s head. But, as soon as I turned away, as soon as the world wasn’t looking, I would hear the clattering sounds of wood crashing to the ground, of ceramic shattering on the ground, of my mother breaking into little pieces all over again.

Her loneliness drives her to it. Her loneliness drove her into the one she currently had on the other side of the ornate wooden door behind me – all due to the fact that because of her gawking caretaker, I left her to see father instead. Truthfully, the whole world’s eyes could be on me and I wouldn’t be bothered in the least.

But, like I said, it’s laughable. It’s entertaining. It’s an addicting genre of music that I can never get enough of.

My name is Cha Hakyeon. I consider myself to be quite a carefree, imaginative seven-year-old. The little things always did make me happy. Such as what exactly? Such as the tune that echoed down the hall behind me that I hummed along to, multiple voices joining in to create a grand orchestra performance. The entire house boomed in melodious symphony. How pleasant.

If only the same could be said for the appearance of the man who exited the door to my immediate right then. The same door I had approached with the intent to enter through. The tall man had a surly nature about him, a shag of red atop his head covering his eyes that seemed to look down at me. He reached out with one of his big, calloused hands and pet my head, ruffling my hair, as though I were his dog. His personal pet. And he laughed, his breath smelling as though he had dined on pure sugar for breakfast.

And he said one thing that would forever ingrain itself in my mind as his hand withdrew itself from my head, “Good boy.”

As his black leather clad body sauntered off, my scalp felt as though it had been set aflame.

He was disgusting, I decided then.

Humans are disgusting, I decided a long time ago.

I entered the room I had intended to from the beginning. I saw him standing there, dressed in a black sweater and black jeans. His immaculate hair was quaffed in all the right places, his eyes as dark and deep as the night sky as he turned to me. I took pride in the fact that my father looked so inhumanly perfect. Because that’s what we were, our species that is.

We’re perfect.

“Who was that?” I questioned as I settled down into the velvet covered lounge chair in front of his desk. This was his office and honestly, I liked it much more than I should have. Why? Why could I not like it to my heart’s content? Because he liked it too.

“You know I like to cover all of my bases, son.” My father said in reply, his own palm with which five slender fingers branched from reaching out to give my shoulder a firm squeeze. His eyes bore into mine as he said his next words, “That was someone who is going to help me protect us. Protect our family.”

How vile those heartwarming words sounded. My father’s claims always seemed as though they dripped with poison. With tantalizing, tempting poison that he could persuade even the most dubious of people to swallow. To choke on. To die from.

To die for the sake of his family. To die for his sake. For his own survival.

I may not look like my father, I may not ever be the adept, vitriol-selling businessman he is, but if there’s one thing I inherited from him, it’s the love of life. The love of my own life. The sacredness of protecting my own life no matter the costs. No matter who I have to step on in order to do so. And from my mother, the woman whom I resemble, whom I am cherished by above all else, I learned to only show kindness to those who matter.

To only show civility to those who immediately impact the sturdy foundation I stand on. To ignore all else with a stern cold shoulder, not even offering to them a single harsh word of reprimand for thinking they deserve better.

A person such as the one my father then spoke of.

“Got get your brother. It’s almost time for lunch.”

I was not so dumb or so childish as to not see the flash of emotion that crossed my father’s eyes at the mere mention of my older “brother.” My mother and father love me beyond any and all doubt. But, my father loves him more. Because he’s still living in the fantasy he attempted to make reality with that mutt. It’s the one time in the past my father failed to maintain his business like demeanor. It’s the one time that caused him to be weak to my dear “brother.”

And I hated weakness.

Because the weak die while the strong survive to see another day. It’s a basic Darwinian theory, you know? Survival of the fittest. A theory my father needs to brush up on.

Or perhaps there’s a charm to him that I don’t see? Perhaps there’s a charm to my “brother” whom I went to then, his location always and forever being the garden when my father didn’t need to see him and when my mother had already finished wanting to see him – the reason her caretaker was cleaning her room earlier in the first place.

“Hey.” I called out to him from the back doorway. He remained squatted down in front of the flowerbed, his back facing towards me. It angers me to be ignored by him. However, I refuse to step foot outside into his domain. I refuse to relinquish power over to him. Power he pretended not to know that he had. So, I called him again, calling out his real name that he would change in the near future when he left us not even one week later, “Cha Myungsoo.”

That got his attention.

That got the attention of those dark, guile laced eyes of his. He had heard me the first time, of that I was sure. He may have not said a word for the last three days since father’s last social get-together with his colleagues but that didn’t make him any less cunning, any less eternally amused as he thought whatever witty thoughts he always had, when I interacted with him.

“Lunch,” was the only explanation I provided him.

And he stared at me. He stared at me for a long time. For so long I could hear my stomach churn from not having eaten since this morning amidst the silence that stretched between us. Staring into those eyes of his was like looking at my father and yet not looking at him at all. Like looking at an image of perfection rotting away right before my eyes, revealing its putrid imperfections with each passing second. And it made me sick to my stomach.

It was the kind of pain that strikes so suddenly that it’s frustrating. It’s irritating. It’s angering. It’s all of those and more as he looks away, turning his back towards me again. That would be the last time I called his name out to him. That would be the last time I looked into those repulsive pools of black flecked with white that were his eyes for a long time to come. And yet, despite the fact that he was gone, every morning until I myself left the house, I would look out the window. I would look down at that empty patch of freshly mowed green grass in front of the flowerbed.

The feelings I get when I see him alone in that garden, his back turned to me, range across a large scale.

Happiness. Contentment. Pride. Anxiousness. Frustration. Fear.

In one foul swoop, he could take everything from me. With one unplanned coincidence, he did. Despite being so far away that I thought I wouldn’t ever have to feel the constant anxiety of watching out for his every move, he did. He took away from me the very person who was intended for me.

But, I came here, to Springfield, to this dreary, cold town, to take her back.

Events may have not played out as originally planned but I intend to achieve the same end result. Because this is about protecting what’s mine.

This is about survival. 

Nothing else matters.

No one else matters.

A/N:

Surprise.

Click here to see the collection of evidence.