His hands hurt from how harshly he had punched his younger brother Yi Jeong. His heart however, that pain was so unbearable that the loud thumping of his racing heart only made him want to fall to his knees and cry. Finding out that your brother and the woman you intended to marry had an affair was something so painful Il Hyun wouldn’t wish it on anyone. He’d closed his coffee shop that afternoon with the intent to get Yi Jeong in his right state of mind after his girlfriend had come to speak to him.

“Please don’t abandon him again.”
 

The air felt so bitter and Il Hyun scoffed when he realized this feeling was back again. He hated that feeling. He sat behind his coffee bar and reached for the bottle of whiskey he kept for special occasions. It was almost completely full and Il Hyun sighed contemplating whether to drink it straight from the bottle. The bell from the coffee shop door rang and Il Hyun sighed.

“We’re closed.”
“Can’t you read the sign.” His voice sounded more dead than angry as he stared down at the bottle placed on the counter. The door closed and Il Hyun thought the person had left. Instead, the soft click of heels was heard approaching towards him.

“I said we’re- Jae Hee!”

 

The woman walking towards him wore dark shades. Her clothes consisting of a white long sleeved elegant turtleneck shirt and black dress pants. Her hair was let down and she wore a smile. Il Hyun had only just introduced Jae Hee to the woman who he had intended to marry and now. Everything had gone to .

“The brats called me.”
“Yi Jeong.” Il Hyun spat bitterly reaching for a glass and pouring himself some whiskey.

“No. Not Yi Jeong.” Jae Hee spoke sitting on the stool in front of the large counter. Raising her hand, she placed it on his and stopped Il Hyun from drinking the liquor.

“Let’s talk.” She said to him with a sigh; removing her shades and placing them on the counter.

“Can you make me a latte?”

 

It was like the tension had only increased with her words to him and Il Hyun scoffed.

“A latte?”
“Didn’t you get that I’m not in the mood!” He snapped angrily; tossing the glass across the room and letting it shatter. Jae Hee on the other hand remained calm.

“Feel better?” She questioned with a smile which only caused him to grow angrier.

“How could Yi Jeong do this to me?” Il Hyun asked.

“I took care of him. We’re all the family we’ve ever had.”

 

He remembers how bad it was. He’s only five but he can hear them scream, shout, cry. His mother isn’t so bad. She sends maids, butlers, countless of housekeepers to look for him when he’s out. Il Hyun doesn’t realize his parents don’t love him until he meets Jae Hee. She’s the nicest girl Il Hyun has ever met. When he meets her parents he can see just a slight resemblance between their mothers. Both socialites, completely self absorbed but. The love between wife and husband is so different. While both Mrs. Goo and his mother dote hand and foot on their husbands, only Mr. Goo reciprocates his wife’s affection in kind. It is quicker than that, by watching Jae Hee and her father and how affectionate Mr. Goo is that Il Hyun realizes his father hates him.

 

He learns from over hearing a conversation from his mother and Mrs. Goo that his mother is pregnant. Hearing such words scares Il Hyun. His life is chaotic and once the maids have refused to go out after his father, too scared to be fired she begins to send him. Il Hyun sees his father with another woman the night his mother gives birth. When Yi Jeong is born, his mother almost smothers him in her desperation to seek his father. Had Yi Jeong not been removed from her clutches by his Uncle Lee, then Yi Jeong would have been dead.

 

Il Hyun remembers staying a couple of days with Uncle Lee and his wife who was also just a few days from giving birth. He likes staying with them. Aunt Annabelle is so kind and she dotes on him and Yi Jeong. His uncle feels like a father and for a time Il Hyun is happy. Until his mother gets out of the hospital and takes him and Yi Jeong back to the So mansion. His Aunt and uncle leave a week after cousin Ariel is born and Il Hyun never sees them again.

 

His father never once glances at Yi Jeong. When Yi Jeong cries or laughs, if he’s hungry. His mother only tends to him once a day and only when his father is around. It’s for show. Il Hyun realizes once he’s old enough and what hurts is that he too was subject of that fake affection at one point in time.

 

He’s only five. Il Hyun is just a child himself but he has forbidden the maids to touch his little brother. His little brother who is unaware of the dark and cruel world that they live in. Even though Il Hyun is only five his mind has grown so much he feels not ten maybe fifteen. Il Hyun vows to protect Yi Jeong from the dangers of life and his parents. Il Hyun takes care of Yi Jeong. He comes home from school and his mother is already drunk and the maids have left Yi Jeong to cry his eyes out all day. Yi Jeong only ever stops crying when Il Hyun carries him.

 

Sometimes Jae Hee comes over and she helps Il Hyun with Yi Jeong. Although Il Hyun feels like a grown up, he still can’t carry Yi Jeong that well and settles for pushing him around in a small stroller with wheels that Jae Hee gives him. Most of the time his brother has to be placed in his lap by a few maids. It is better when Il Hyun is at the Goo mansion with his brother. The people there help and even Mr. Goo sometimes plays with Yi Jeong even if they already have Goo Jun Pyo who is just a few months older than Yi Jeong.

 

Sometimes, when things get bad and when his mother hits him and makes him go find his father. Il Hyun hides Yi Jeong in his room. Under his bed, with a small pacifier, a lock on his door and he prays that no harm comes to him. When he comes back Il Hyun cries while hugging his brother tightly promising to shield away the pain.

 

“Il Hyun.”
Jae Hee’s voice breaks his trance and Il Hyun can feel himself shake. The betrayal of his little brother is too much and he feels alone.

“That woman. Isn’t worth this.” Jae Hee tells him.

“You can’t be angry at Yi Jeong because that woman seduced and manipulated him.”
“Eun Jae would never do that she.”
Il Hyun pauses. Love? Eun Jae would have never done such a thing with his younger brother had she loved him.

“But Yi Jeong would?” Jae Hee questions, as if she knew what it was Il Hyun was thinking.

“He’s always been so selfish and.”
“That isn’t true.” Jae Hee tells him.

“Do you remember when I was married off.” Jae Hee asks and Il Hyun can’t help but feel bitter.

 

His best friend and the first person he had cared for, loved and trusted had been arranged to marry some hotel heir and that had been that. Though Il Hyun never confessed his previous feelings to Jae Hee it was still a sour bitter taste of abandonment that had been left in his mouth.

“That is how he felt.” Jae Hee says with a smile.

 

Il Hyun doesn’t understand what Jae Hee is saying and she takes his hand.

“When I married. I knew that I was leaving you behind. I was aware of my friendship being the only care you had other than Yi Jeong. But you still had him in the end.” Jae Hee spoke.
“I worried about Jun Pyo but, he had the boys and Geum Jan Di who loved him. Everyone is so quick to assume that Ji Hoo was the loneliest after losing his parents, but I think it’s Yi Jeong.” Jae Hee says.

“I’ve never abandoned him. Even when I left home I was just a call away I.”
 

It takes Il Hyun a second to realize what he’s said. It takes him another second for the memory of it to come back to him.

 

He was done. Eighteen years of age and he was done with this family. His father and mother he hated so much. Pottery, something he had loved he had grown to hate. The art wasn’t his calling and watching Yi Jeong become great at it irritated him. The little brother he loved had excelled in the one thing Il Hyun couldn’t and though he was proud of him. The smell of clay which he had always loved now brought forth hate. This house was made by art. An art that he hated and now saw as the enemy.

 

After another drunken suicide attempt Il Hyun had enough. His mother was being taken to another mental facility and his father was out. Gathering his belongings Il Hyun began to pack at a quick pace. His last stop had been the kiln where his pottery needed to be gone.

“Hyung.”
His thirteen year old brother stood in front of him the expression on his face confused.

“What are you doing?”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving.” Il Hyun spoke.

“Everything in this house is poison and I hate it. I’m leaving it all behind because I don’t want it.”
“What about the pottery?” Yi Jeong questioned though Il Hyun had not looked at Yi Jeong yet.

“Your better at it. The god of pottery only blessed you.” Il Hyun tells him.

“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Whatever I do it will be better than this place.” Il Hyun tells him.

“Will you visit?”
“I’m not coming back. There’s nothing here worth coming back for.” Il Hyun tells him.

“Call me and come see me when I’ve settled into a new place.” Il Hyun tells him before leaving.

 

“I left him.” Il Hyun realizes.

“He’d been so quick to let go the second he had a chance. He forgot the reason he had wanted to leave in the first place. He’d abandoned Yi Jeong in a house of wolves when he’d vowed to protect him exactly from that. His chest felt heavy and a sob escaped his lips when he relived the words he’d so cruelly used that night.

 

Although Il Hyun had grown Yi Jeong was still a child and Il Hyun had casually brushed him aside like he had his pottery. He thought of the years that went on after that. Yi Jeong never spoke to him unless it was him that called Yi Jeong or how Yi Jeong began to womanize soon after.

“This person has always been useless anyways.”

He’s crying now and before long Jae Hee is hugging him.

“I abandoned him. And I betrayed him first.” Those are the thoughts that are screaming inside his head. He thinks of his brother before and now and realizes he’s completely broken. The dead look in his eyes, the pain an d hopelessness that Il Hyun had once fought so hard to have it never touch Yi Jeong had been delivered to his brother by his own hand.

“He’ll forgive you too.” Jae Hee begins to say to him gently but Il Hyun can only cry out in pain, not only for him but for the pain Yi Jeong is in.

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