i hope this is not too confusing.. and junhyunggiieeee i love you okaes i'm sorry you have to get beaten to a pulp :( need to take a break from tewnty years but i'm doing the timeline again OTL

Yoseob was a prize.

At twelve years old, when Yoon Doojoon had just finished his primary school education and was eligible to enter one of the most prestigious junior high schools, his father had taken a bit of his precious time to summon the boy to the study.

His father smiled proudly at Doojoon, a smile that was way too impersonal, that was flashed too many times to too many people – strangers, business relations – and motioned the boy to take a seat on the expensive brown leather swivel chair across the table. There was a twinkle of happiness in the older man’s eyes, but Doojoon knew that it was because his father could brag more about him to other people, to show people how great of a father he was, to shove the fact that he had successfully brought up a boy with both looks and brain to other people’s faces.

Doojoon saw the smile, but it was becoming more like a sneer. A mocking action of the lips to remind Doojoon that he was a display trophy, and he was expected to be perfect. Just as perfect as his father wanted him to be.

“Doojoonah, I am so proud of you. I really am.” The words came out smooth like water, as cold as the gaze staring into Doojoon’s eyes. No matter how his father wanted to be warm, the lack of interaction and affection between the two made it impossible for Doojoon to feel any warmth. Impossible.

The smile widened and Doojoon could see his father’s perfect white teeth, gleaming under the lights, as if ready to bite Doojoon on the neck and killed him off. “And because you have been such a good boy, I have a prize for you.”

With that said, the older man hit the intercom on his desk and muttered onto it. In a few short minutes, the door of the grand study opened and Kang Hodong, the mansion’s middle aged butler, gently escorted a filthy undernourished boy inside.

Doojoon turned back to his father and narrowed his eyes at him, it’d better not be what Doojoon was thinking. The filthy boy kept his head down, not even looking up once. He was dragging his bloody feet towards Doojoon – because the boy was used to wandering without any shoes or other forms of feet protection – a faint trail of blood marked his steps, as his filthy skin was exposed under the ragged remnants of clothing, hair greasy and messy.

The boy stood unmoving beside the cushiony leather chair Doojoon was sitting on, head still down as his father said to Doojoon with amused eyes, “He is yours.”

“I don’t want him.” Doojoon spat his words to his father. “This is inhumane. Does he even know what you are doing to him?”

His father leaned back onto his chair and smiled challengingly at Doojoon, “Wandering alone in the streets, selling gums, stealing coins, abused and bullied, undernourished, scared, uncared for, freezing, starving. Do you think life on the streets is so much better for him?” His father folded his hands in front of his chest, “I have just rescued him from inhumanity that life has so kindly thrown upon him. I save his life, Doojoonah.”

The older man leaned towards Doojoon threateningly, knowing he had won the discussion, “It does not matter whether he knows what is going on. He has no right whatsoever to object because he is yours. He is yours, Doojoonah, so claim your prize.”

Doojoon was disgusted with his father, disgusted with himself, disgusted with his inability to refuse, to stand up against the older man… disgusted that he was so entranced when he looked into the depths of the filthy boy’s eyes when he looked up.

Finally Doojoon was seeing the face of his property. His face was tiny and gaunt, there were scratches and cuts all over his face, on his lips, on his temples, on the bridge of his nose. There was dried blood at the corner of his mouth and Doojoon could not decipher how this fragile boy could stay alive. He was only a year younger but way too tiny for his age. Undernourished, the filthy boy looked like he was only seven or eight years old. He was skin and bone and nothing else.

But his eyes spoke volumes to Doojoon. There were so many emotions and Doojoon could barely saw them as a layer of sadness and eternal misery had glazed over the boy’s eyes. Yet, Doojoon saw a tinge of warmth, a speck of hope, and it was Doojoon’s first time to witness such an honest emotion.

He stretched his hand out for Yoseob to shake, “Yoon Doojoon.”

Yoseob did not reach for Doojoon’s stretched out hand, his hand was too filthy to touch his master’s hand. Instead he pulled his head down again in submission as he whispered, “…Yoseob…”

Noticing a lack of surname to Yoseob’s name, Doojoon smiled satisfactorily and spoke of a new name for Yoseob, a name Yoseob will live on from now, a name that was branded to his mind and heart.  

“Yoon Yoseob.”

Yoseob was a prize.

At fifteen years old, Doojoon kissed Yoseob on the lips for the first time.

Yoseob was kneeling on the floor, tending to a wound on Doojoon’s right upper thigh as the older man sat at the edge of the bed. Some stepped on his right thigh during a soccer match and it left a few cuts and a large bruise.

Yoseob had stopped attending school because Doojoon kept getting into fights. Doojoon was so sick of other students making fun of Yoseob, calling him names, being mean to him, and the older boy could not remember how many noses and bones he had broken for Yoseob. So Yoseob decided to stay home.

“Don’t you miss school?” Doojoon asked and winced at the same time when Yoseob applied ointment on the cuts that stung like hell.

Yoseob looked up to Doojoon, “No, why should I?”

Doojoon shrugged, “I don’t know. Aren’t you going to study so you can work outside and make money or something?”

 “I’m going to be yours forever and stay here with you. Why would I need to work outside when all I need to do is take care of you?”

Doojoon saw confusion on Yoseob’s face, sadness flashing but it disappeared as fast as it came, the younger boy’s eyebrows frowned and before even knowing what was happening, Doojoon leaned down towards Yoseob and captured the soft lips with his own.

At first, it was just lips on lips, unmoving, awkward, but Doojoon started to move and Yoseob responded. They opened their mouths and had experimental and nips and bites, and after Yoseob’s lips were swollen and totally ravished, Doojoon let him go and whispered on the younger boy’s ear.

“Yoon Yoseob, you are mine forever.”

Yoseob was a prize.

At seventeen, they had for the first time. It was not romantic, it was not on a bed of red silk and white rose petals, it was not accompanied with strawberries and champagne.

Instead, it  was honest, it was passionate, it was painful, it was spellbinding, it was addictive, it was loving, it was brutal, it was sincere, it was heartfelt, it was fast, it was slow, it was more than enough, it was never enough. It was making love.

And Doojoon realized for the first time that his heart was still alive for it was beating fast and loud of Yoseob.

Yoseob was a prize.

At twenty three, Doojoon broke more than a nose and a few bones for Yoseob.

Yong Junhyung was an old time college buddy which turned to be an important relation in the business world. They had been best friends since the day he sat beside Doojoon for economics lecture in the great hall and their friendship continued to strengthen over the years, nailed together by hardships and unbreakable supports.

So after all this while, Doojoon decided that Yong Junhyung was worthy enough to meet Yoseob.

There were signs, as obvious as the full moon in the dark sky. Signs that Yoseob was uncomfortable with Junhyung, signs that Junhyung wanted to get into Yoseob’s pants, signs of unspoken lust and whimpered of fear, signs of catastrophe. Doojoon should have known, should have recognized them, but he was too caught up in his own world that he could not see, could not understand.

When Doojoon burst into Junhyung’s office, he was ready to kill the young businessman and rip him apart and feed his body parts to stray animals all over South Korea. He and Yoseob were supposed to meet Junhyung in the latter’s office but something urgent came up and Doojoon had innocently asked Yoseob to head down first to meet Junhyung.

Yoseob widened his eyes in fear and refused to go alone but Doojoon insisted, and in the middle of signing papers, when Doojoon answered a call from Yoseob, he heard rough rutting and screams of help, cries of ‘Doojoonah… Doojoonah…’, pleas of ‘let me go, please…’, and a disgustingly sweet cooing voice out of Junhyung’s mouth. Yoseob had accidentally called him up and Doojoon was raging like a mad man when he arrived. Throwing endless punches and kicks and stabs towards a bloody half-dying Junhyung.

“Never ever touch him.” Doojoon spat at the battered face on the floor and scooped Yoseob up in his hands.

Yoseob did not speak for a week and flinched from every touch to his skin. Doojoon said endless “I’m sorry, Yoseobah, I’m sorry…” for a week and held the younger man tight.

Yoseob was a prize.

At twenty six, finally Doojoon was shipped off to the army – Yang Yoseob was long declared dead and gone because he had been missing from the street for fifteen years – while Yoseob stayed at home, waiting for 21 months to pass by quickly.

There were letters, there were breaks in between, there were holidays but Doojoon did not take them at all so that he could finish his military service faster than anybody else. Doojoon finished his serving time in 20 months and his grin could never be wider when he saw Yoseob waiting for him as he walked through the gate. Out of the torture and into Yoseob’s warm embrace.

Yoseob was a prize.

At twenty nine, his father summoned Doojoon to the study and Doojoon took a bit of his precious time to comply to his aging father’s request. He sat on the sofa in the study and eyed the old man cautiously, careful of whatever his father was going say to him. His father was not aging gracefully, because of his careless lifestyle when he was young, his health deteriorated quickly and what was a powerful man was reduced to a skinny and wrinkled old man with no authority left.

Doojoon was in charge of everything now, investments, business, the Yoon household, every single thing under the name of Yoon. The old man coughed breathlessly and smirked to Doojoon, the influence was absolutely gone but the arrogance was still clearly evident, “So you’re screwing Yoseob, son?”

There was a flinch on Doojoon’s face, he hated that crude old man, “I’m not screwing him. I’m loving him since we were seventeen. Something that you are incapable of doing.”

His father chuckled, which was followed by a stream of coughs, “Loving. Love. I would love to see how long this ‘love’ would last you, Doojoonah. He is a prize, remember that.” And he continued smiling at Doojoon, a mocking of his decision.

The next day, his father was whisked away to stay at the most prominent and prestigious retirement home in South Korea which Doojoon had arranged for. There, his father would receive the best facilities and services to last him until his last breath. Before his father was rolled away in his wheel chair, Doojoon bent down and whispered in his ear, “Now, you will never see how long this ‘love’ will last me and Yoseob. He is not a prize, apeojji. He is a gift.”

Yoseob was a prize.

At thirty,Doojoon slipped a ring onto Yoseob’s ring finger and so did Yoseob. They exchanged vows to be forever faithful, to stay together in sickness and in health, in poor – Doojoon whispered in Yoseob’s ear that he would never let them live in poverty – and in wealth, till death do them apart.

They went to the States to get their bond recognized fully, and although back in Korea, they would never be legal, Doojoon wanted nothing more than living and spending the rest of his life together with Yoseob.

Yoseob was still tiny, the nutritious food not proofing to be a good boost on the younger boy’s physical growth all these years. But Doojoon had no qualms about this though, it was much better to have Yoseob tiny so that he could wrap his arms around Yoseob’s small waist every night on his bed, so that he could fit Yoseob’s tiny face at the crook of his neck, so that he could envelope Yoseob in a warm embrace and protect him from the world.

Yoseob was a prize.

Just like what he had said to his father, Yoseob was not a prize.

Yoseob was a gift.