Kibum was fifteen when everything seemed so perfect and nothing else can come in between him and his happiness.

"Mom?"

"Yes, Kibummie?"

The said boy bites his lip and closes his eyes as he holds his mother's hands in between his palms. They were soft and smooth, truly belonging to the hands of the mistress of the Kim household. Never did his mom need to do any work at home and Kibum was thankful for this. If he's not with his private tutors or if he's not too busy learning archery, he'd immediately be with his mother in the library as the both of them drown in books and shared laughter. It was this circumstance that he finds himself not yearning for anything else.

"I love you."

Familiar orbs mirror his own, slanted eyes gaze at him with affection and Kibum finds himself melting under his mother's gaze. "I love you, too, son. Forever and always."

There was always something that's reassuring in their hugs and kisses. The affection makes him content as if all in the world he need is his mother and no one else. All that matters is that he's using all the time he has in his hands, every minute free to spare and every moment for the taking to imprint his mother's presence with him.

"Your father," His mother breaks the momentary silence and Kibum freezes in his seat. "He loves you, too. I hope you always remember that."

Anger was quickly rising in his system but he tries his best to manage his temper. Not now, not when his mother is watching him. "He's not even here."

"Yes, but," His mother smiles. "He loves you Kibum, so very much.'

Kibum bites his lip and chooses to dismiss the topic as he grips his mother's hands tighter and grins. "The doctor came by today, right? What did he say? Are you going to be released soon?"

As if on cue, his mother coughs violently and there's blood gracing the sheets of white and his mother's clothes of silk. His eyes widen and he rushes to get a glass of water. However, the episodes of coughing do not seem to stop as Kibum panics and runs out of the hospital room and dashes off to the nearest nurse he can find.

Later on, hands grip his arms, restraining him from entering his mother's room as per the orders of the nurses and doctors that increasingly enter. "Let go of me!"

"We apologize, Young Master. But it is of your father's orders to keep you in check."

"Let go of me! That's my mother in there, she needs me, now let go!"

There was a particular stinging in his cheek that Kibum stops in his tantrums, as he looks to his right and meets the eyes of his father. "Kibum."

Kibum glares at the older man and he shakes violently out of the restraints in his arms. "What the are you doing here."

Another slap echoes and Kibum closes his eyes in resignation. He should have been used to this. Any amount of hurt should have been tolerable and all of this should have been numbing, but every slap and every hit still strikes him as if they were his first. "I did not teach my son to be disrespectful."

Kibum smirks. "It's not as if you were even around to teach me anything at all."

There was a moment of thick tension settling in between him and his father before the latter speaks up. "Take him to the car." His father addresses the two bodyguards and Kibum knew better than to even retort. "Drive him home."

Days have passed, Kibum has lost count. Maybe two or three that he has been left in the solace of his bedroom, with those two same bodyguards staying attentively out the door. He was not allowed to go out of the house nor was he permitted to even roam the premises outside his room. The only things that come and go were the trays of food that arrive during the times to eat and leave when an hour has passed. Kibum barely even touches his food and his appetite rarely comes that Kibum isn't sure if he even cares anymore.

¤¤¤

Kibum was sixteen when everything else came crashing down.

It was raining that day of his mother's funeral. His leather gloves clutch tightly at the marble urn as he holds it closer to his chest; his suit and his shoulders were already wet from the stray droplets of water. And though the soft pitter patter of rain against the umbrella over his head was oddly comforting, it was not nearly enough to calm the crashing waves in his heart.

Tears continuously grace down his cheeks and his ears refuse to listen to anything around him. The next thing he knew, his mother's urn was being forcibly taken from him as he finds himself kneeling on the muddy ground. He’s being pulled by his arms to make him stand up but his legs feel like jelly and the land beneath his feet doesn't feel as stable as it did a few days ago.

"Get up." A stern voice calls out to him but he refuses to respond. He knew to whom that voice belonged to, all the more of a reason to not acknowledge the presence of his seething father beside him. "Kibum."

He momentarily looks up and Kibum can feel the droplets of rain mixing with his salty tears that fall down his face. There was no hint of sadness in his father's face, he was not even crying, and the only thing he sees was the normal stone expression that Kibum has come to hate all those years he grew up.

Months pass by with just emptiness in his heart and a hollow sadness in his chest. Every day since his mother's death, he has continued to live lifelessly and it wasn't as if Kibum hasn't thought of following his mother's footsteps.

In the span of two weeks, he has already been rushed in and out of the hospital because of attempting to drown himself in capsules and pills of everything he doesn't even know. The next month, he was found in the bathtub, barely conscious in the pool of red with cuts and lines marring his untouched skin. The list goes on and on that his father has even planted four more bodyguards to be by his side and make sure he doesn't kill himself and make sure he's still breathing.

Kibum smirks. In the end, his father only needs him to be breathing.

Not alive. Breathing.

¤¤¤

Kibum was nineteen when he found a stray light of hope blooming in his heart.

There was no certainty in all of the things that happen in this house. The people he interacts with were just there for the sake of their jobs. No one talks to him unless it was to relay his father's orders or when it was during those formal events that he has to dress up and smile as if he were sincere. No one even bothers to treat him as if he were human and he knows everyone looks at him as if he were just precious porcelain that needs to be taken care of and constantly attended to.

It was that one time when he snuck out to the kitchen at midnight that he found one of the younger slaves, munching at the pastries like there was no tomorrow. The boy stops for a moment, his eyes growing wider by the second that he soon coughs and there was food sputtering out of his mouth. And Kibum found himself chuckling for the first time in a long, long while.

"What is your name?"

The boy bites his lip. "Jinki, young m-master."

Kibum grew to love him, he did. Jinki opened up his heart with those eye smiles and sincere bits of laughter that Kibum once again found a foreign smile making way to his lips. Since that moment, Kibum has found a reason to wake up every morning and he has something to look forward to at the end of the day. Kibum even smiles at the maids that he can see their surprise before smiling back. It was the warmth of Jinki's fingers tied tightly with his that Kibum knows everything will soon be alright.

¤¤¤

Kibum was twenty when he never felt more spineless than he already is.

He should have known that there must be a reason as to why his father kept him locked up in his room that one day. He thought none of it, at first, because Kibum was used to it; the lack of freedom, the rights to speech, the abuse.

It wasn't until a loud thud against his door woke him up at two in the morning, at most. Slowly, he walked and leaned his head against the wood.

"Who is it?"

There was silence for a while until he figured out slight breathy noises from the other side. "Kibum, i-it's me, Jinki. Listen, I have something to te-"

Kibum wished he could have just sat back and not approached too close, because then, he wouldn't be haunted by the sound of the gunshot and Jinki's last, heaving intakes of breath.
 

¤¤¤

Now, he’s twenty three, and Kibum is slowly becoming more and more afraid that he has even stayed alive this far.