I feel like a piece of my heart has been torn off.

The truth is ripping me apart.

I stagger to the washroom and stare into a pair of half-dead eyes.

How many times do I have to experience regret?

I laugh at myself. I mock at the fool in the reflection. How stupid can you get?

What did my Dad do to deserve this? I’m a bastard. I don’t deserve all these…

Is this my punishment?

I race back to the room where my father lays in bed, his eyes closed and dark lines linger underneath them. His pale lips quiver slightly when he opens his mouth to speak to me. His eyes are of so much… so much love and concern… I don’t deserve this…

“Yongguk-ah… What happened?”

“N-nothin’” I bite on my index finger to stop my quivers and sobbing but they just get worse.

My sickly father pushes himself up on the bed, as if he wasn’t already weak enough. I sit on the chair beside the bed and bury my face into his blanket as I hold his hand in both of mine, crying like a child. The shame and regret I’m feeling, it isn’t even enough to make me feel less guilty. I wish I could just die.

A hand my hair lovingly, oblivious to how that affection is killing me. I’ve never felt this kind of love from my father for so long and now that I’m having the privilege to enjoy this affection I’ve longed for so long, it’s probably going to be my last. The tears wouldn’t stop. I keep on crying and my chest hurts really bad.

“What’s wrong son?”

The raspy voice is weak but all I hear is the voice of a man who protected me and gave me a home, which I didn’t appreciate and I took it for granted.

“I—I’m so sorry... I’m s-sorry…”

The voice is a cracked and croaky one which I didn’t recognize.

He keeps touching my hair as I bawl into his hand. I don’t have the courage to tell him what I know but my guilt and shame is making me.

“I… Maria told me…”

The hand on my head falters for a moment before giving one last and resting on my nape, tracing comforting circles behind my ear.

I think he knows.

“I’m sorry, Dad…” My voice is soft and squeaky as a mouse’s and I feel ashamed of my cowardice.

I thought he was going to say nothing.

Until the shame and guilt and regret drowns me.

“Yongguk-ah, I don’t blame you.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

Everything is a blur and I find myself sitting in the alleyway, feeling numb all over.

Help.

I hear their distant calls and hollers, mocking and taunting. I feel like a beast, released into the wild only to be hunt down for pointless pleasure of the twisted hunters.

I push myself up against the wall and stagger as quickly as I can.

The calls of the hunters are getting closer.

I run with a limping leg, the pain turning into a numb.

My lungs are pushed to yet another limit. The burning sensation inside them is killing me but I’ll just wait for them to turn numb like those bruises and cuts on my body.

As I race down the dark alley, a sudden urge to laugh tickles me.

I dash into the semi-darkness, the dim lights on the street passing me one by one. I chuckle.

Hahahahaha.

They’re catching up.

They’re hunting me down.

So quickly.

I never thought they would come so quickly.

Punishment.

Wetness runs down my cheeks and I wish they were blood instead.

I saw my father suffer, fighting against the disease. Underneath the weak frail body that could never arm wrestle me like the rest of the fathers do, I see a true warrior. He’s in so much more pain than me but he still trudges on. He could’ve just given up and avoid all the pain but that smile in his eyes just tells me each day, “Don’t give up, Yongguk. I haven’t yet.”

A torn howl rips my throat as I call out to nothingness. I’m hurting