Chapter Text
-
Sunghoon's eyelids flutter, eyes blinking as he wakes up. He's met with the darkness of his room, save for the glowing green numbers of his alarm clock, 2:20 AM. He dimly realizes that his arm is bent at an awkward angle, and partially buried under his torso. It's uncomfortable so he shifts, pulling it out from underneath himself. The cut-off blood flow starts circulating properly again, bringing with it a tingling sensation down his arm to his fingertips. he flexes his arm, stretching out his fingers to regain feeling in them.
Stretching his arm tugs on the scarred skin of his forearm, leading down to his wrist where deeper gashes were in the process of slow, arduous healing . It stings when the rough skin is pulled, and he immediately relaxes, lest they reopen. He noticed, belatedly, that his neckline and forehead were soaked with moisture, strands of hair plastered to his temples.
He sits up slowly, finding that his sides hurt as well. He pulls his shirt up, noticing bruised skin around his ribs. He lowers his shirt again, a crumpled white thing with a neckline partially transparent with sweat. He throws the sheets off himself, slowly swinging his legs around the side of the bed and sitting there as he slowly lets his eyes adjust to the darkness of his room. His eyes wander, noting the peeling blue paint of the walls, the few glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling barely illuminated. There's some light filtering in from the sliver under the white door, ad he notices a shadow moving around, back and forth and again.
He gets up and his head swims, vision blurring as he holds on to the bedpost to stabilize himself. He walks to the door, footsteps hushed, and grasps the doorknob. He feels the roughness of the metal, the areas where it is ragged and careworn, probably from years of use without being polished. He deliberately turns it open, eyes attacked by a bright light coming from outside.
There’s a woman outside, wearing a cream cardigan with loose-fitting black trousers. Her dark hair, highlighted with silver strands, is pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. She’s pacing the length of the corridor in her slippers, one hand holding the front of her cardigan wrapped around her, the other one trailing along the white banister rail. Her face is careworn, with wrinkles that make her appear older than she probably is.
Sunghoon stands in the doorway, one hand on the knob of the door, another hand fisting the hem of his shirt. The woman pauses her pacing to look at him, eyes immediately brightening as she catches sight of him. She approaches him, shuffling forward in her slippers, and Sunghoon realizes he’s barefoot, and the marble floor underneath his feet is cold.
“You’re up already? You should go back to bed, sweetheart.” says the woman, fondness coating her voice, almost likening it to a croon. Suddenly she seems younger, brightening up as she comes to him. Her eyes glimmer with affection as she looks up at him, the height difference apparent as he towers over her. Her voice is smooth like honey, and despite feeling uneasy about not knowing this woman, he feels oddly comforted.
The woman reaches out a hand, coming up to cradle his face, after brushing his hair out of his eyes. The action confuses Sunghoon, who recoils, unable to comprehend why this stranger seems to be so comfortable with him. She must have noticed his unease, because the glimmer in her eyes dies out a little, and she steps back and drops her hand. There’s something in her expression, something akin to disappointment, that tugs at the ends of her mouth downwards, making her seem older.
“Sunghoon-ah? Are you feeling alright?” she asks, hesitancy clear in her voice. She seems unsure, as if holding herself back from saying or doing something. The name she addresses him with is unfamiliar, and his brows furrow, drawing into a single line over his eyes.
“Sunghoon?” he echoes emptily, a question more than anything else. This seems to sadden the woman, whose shoulders seem to slump further in defeat. She brings up her hands to bury her face in them for a moment, and Sunghoon is unsure of what to do or say, unsure of who this woman was, who he was and where he was. The confusion makes his head spin for a moment, the lights abruptly seeming much brighter than before. He blinks, trying to focus his eyes again.
The woman drops her hands and lifts her head to look at him, something like resignation making her previously bright demeanor melt away.
“That’s your name, darling. You’re Park Sunghoon, and I’m your mom.”
The new information does little to help clear the mess in his brain. It only adds further to the chaos, questions of why he doesn’t know his name and how he’s unable to recognize his own mother flare up in his head, grating at the walls of his brain with their sharp edges.
“Mom.” his statement hangs in the air like smoke, its weight weighing down the atmosphere. For a split second, he wishes he was still in bed. The darkness was comforting, better than the chaos in his head. He couldn’t really think straight, everything too sudden, too much. He leans against the door dizzily, looking at the woman who gave birth to him, trying to comb through his disorganized puzzle of a mind, trying to search for the slightest hint of familiarity in her face, or in her voice that could bring back a memory.
His inner turmoil must have been apparent because the woman smiles, a sad thing meant more for reassurance than anything else, and takes hold of his elbow tentatively. Sunghoon looks down at her hand but doesn’t pull away. She rubs a thumb over his arm, feeling the rough, scarred skin under her thumb. Strangely enough, tears start pooling in her eyes, and she turns her face away to drag the edge of her cardigan sleeve over her eyes, wiping away any stray moisture that may have threatened to spill over. The scarred skin intrigues him, and he turns to her again.
“What’s this?” he asks, gesturing vaguely towards his arm. She seems to understand what he’s trying to imply, but for some reason, she hesitates to answer him. She looks up at him, searching through his face for something that doesn’t exist. Maybe she’s looking for a sign of her son , he thinks. Too bad he’s not here, then .
“I’ll tell you in the morning,” she says instead of answering him, “it’s late and you need to sleep. When you wake up, I’ll tell you then.”
Sunghoon is confused as to why she’ll only answer him in the morning, but he listens to her anyway. She’s still holding him by the elbow, so he gently pulls it out of her grasp. Her hand hovers in the air for a minute, before she crumples and turns away.
Sunghoon doesn’t want to see her break, so he turns away too.
He slides inside his room, closing the door behind him quietly with a click. He walks towards the bed without waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, trying to remember where the bed was. He expected to bump into the bedframe any second, but instead, a piercing pain is felt on the underside of his foot. He wobbles, off-balance, scared to put down his foot in fear of hurting himself again.
He hobbles back to the door, pulling it open so the light enters his room again. His roaming eyes snag on the switch on the wall next to the door, and he flips it, the room illuminating as he does so. He shuts the door again, noting belatedly that the woman- his mother- wasn’t outside anymore. He walks forwards, keeping his weight on his non-injured foot. He notices a mess of glass shards on the floor next to the closet, which was probably the culprit of his pain.
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to find a first aid kit, he simply opts to wash it off. He opens the door of the closet, to find a cloth to wrap around the (hopefully) not too bad wound on his foot, only to find it leading to a bathroom. Not a closet then, he supposes.
He walks in, flipping another switch to turn on the light. He lifts his foot to rest it in the sink and inspects the damage. None of the glass was under his skin, and only one of the shallow cuts was concerning. He turned the tap on, letting the water flow over his wounds, letting out a hiss at the sting that came with it. The water turned red as it ran down the drain, not turning clear since the cuts were still oozing.
He turns off the tap, not caring that his foot was still dripping blood and water on the floor. He walks back out, pausing to turn off the light. He picks up a black shirt he found lying on the floor near the bathroom door, wrapping it clumsily around his foot before tying the ends. He walks to his bed, collapsing on it before moving up the bed into a more comfortable position. He felt exhausted, more exhausted than he should be. He didn’t have it in him to turn off the light again, fearing he’d stumble into something or cut himself on the glass again.
He lets himself wilt into the bed, eyes slipping shut as his breaths even out. Before he falls asleep, he wishes that the following morning would be kinder to him.
-
Sunghoon is hungry.
That's the first thing he registers when he wakes from a deep, fitful slumber. He’s so achingly hungry, starving, that he feels the telltale beginnings of nausea passing over him. He peels his eyes back, rubbing the sleep crust out of them with his hand. After opening his eyes, he realizes that he’s almost smothered in the duvet, tangled up in it with the ends somehow knotted between his legs. He’s hot, uncomfortably so, with a thin layer of sweat making him feel icky and gross. He needs a shower immediately, but before that, he needs something in his stomach.
He starts trying to worm his way out of the cocoon of his duvet, shrugging it this way and that until he yanks himself free. The sight of his room, absolutely ravaged with stray items littering the floor, bits of torn paper on his desk and the floor near it, greet him with all the gentleness of a smack to the face. His eyes zero in on the shards of glass lying near the closet, colored with a reddish hue, and he grimaces. He hopes whoever got hurt trying to walk in or out of the room is doing okay.
He stands up slowly, almost flopping back on the bed when he’s welcomed with a lance of pain shooting up one of his feet. He does, however, sit down on the bed with a pained whine, hands reaching out to clutch at the cloth clumsily wrapped around his foot.
Ah, he dimly realizes, it's me who got hurt.
He sighs heavily, shoulders slumping as he realizes it’s going to be a bitch to walk across his room and down to the kitchen to eat something, and it’ll hurt even worse to shower with the however deep gash on his foot.
He lifts his foot and places it over his other thigh, bending it at the knee and slowly unwrapping the cloth after undoing the knot. He lets out a relieved sigh at the sight of small cuts, unlike the deep gash he was expecting. One of them was slightly longer and deeper, but it would heal up soon enough. He wraps his foot with the cloth again, slowly lifting himself upright, and begins limping his way across the room. He takes slow, deliberate steps, being careful not to put too much pressure on his foot. He turns the knob off his bedroom door, pulling it open and stepping out. The hallway is deserted, and he slowly makes his way toward the staircase leading to the lower floor, gripping the banister with both hands as he does so. It's hard to make his way downstairs, the pressure on his injured foot threatening to re-open the wounds that had healed overnight.
He finally reaches the bottom after what feels like ages, walking towards the kitchen at the end of the hall. He can hear someone rummaging around, the clanking of a lid being placed on top of a pot, and the familiar sizzling of eggs in the frying pan. He smells the freshly cooked rice and his mouth waters, saliva pooling so quickly it almost spills out of his mouth as he swallows. He quickens his pace as much as he can, walking into the kitchen before pausing.
His mother is standing in front of the stove, one hand resting at her hip while the other sports a ladle, stirring something that looks like soup while it furiously bubbles. She spoons up some of the broth, blowing on it lightly before sipping it. It must taste good because she hums, a low, content sound as she turns in his direction.
The sight of her son makes her stop short, pausing in her actions as she takes him in. She doesn’t approach him, but rather seems wary of him, and it confuses him. Why wasn’t she asked him what he wanted for breakfast? She didn't come to wake him up this morning either. She’d always wake him up, kiss his forehead and let him choose what he wanted to eat that morning. It was strange, baffling.
“Mom….?”
She doesn’t respond, hand tightening its grip around the handle of the ladle she was holding. She looks…..almost anxious. Like she didn’t know who was standing in front of her, who her son was.
Sunghoon swallows, feeling awkward with her heavy gaze on him. He fiddles with the hem of his shirt, tugging it so it wraps around his finger, twisting and untwisting before letting it go. His mother remains silent, the quietness between them almost tangible. The atmosphere is weirdly tense, so he decides to break it first.
“Are we…are we not having any pancakes today?” he voices out hesitantly.
Hearing that single sentence makes his mother relax instantly, hand reaching up to cup her mouth, as if in shock. It makes his eyebrows furrow even further, confusion deepening as he wonders why she was surprised in the first place. She drops her hand, the beginnings of a smile brightening her face. She walks forward until she pauses in front of him, reaching out to hold his hand. She strokes the back of his hand with her thumb softly, soothingly.
“You remember,” she whispers. Her voice is hushed, almost awed and if Sunghoon wasn’t so utterly fucking confused right now he’d smile at how sweet she sounded. But he had other things to focus on right now, like why his mom was asking him about him remembering god-knows-what at ass-o'clock in the morning instead of giving him his pancakes before he passes out from hunger.
“I suppose? I don’t know if there’s anything specific that I’m supposed to remember, though,” he says, brows forming a straight black line over his eyes.
His mother seems to brighten up even more, an excited, happy glint occupying her previously wary eyes. She parts her lips, presumably to ask a question, but to her son’s utter mortification, she’s rudely interrupted by something. The intense, almost pathetic whine his stomach decides to let out. A flush begins to creep up the back of his neck, inching upwards until he’s sure the tips of his ears are red.
His mother spontaneously bursts into laughter, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as her body shakes with mirth. She leans against the counter for support, looking at him as she giggles. Despite himself, Sunghoon smiles, the corners of his lips twitching upwards as he looks at her with fondness.
His mother straightens up, walking over to the table as she beckons him, flapping her hands in what he assumes is a “come here” gesture. He walks over or rather limps, and his mother’s gimlet eye zeroes in on his foot.
“Did you get hurt?” she gasps, immediately coming forward to grab his arm as she helps him sit at the table. She crouches down, untying the cloth around his foot and inspecting the damage, all before he’s managed to even blink.
“A little. Stepped on some glass, I think.”
She lets out a tutting noise, shooting him a disapproving glare before she moves to pull out the first-aid kit from one of the kitchen cupboards.
“Can I have some food first?” he whines, stomach grumbling as hunger clouds his mind. His mother huffs, setting the kit on the table as she turns to the stove. She ladles soup into a bowl and scoops some rice into another, setting them on the table before placing the pickled radish and marinated green peppers in small dishes, and placing them next to his bowls. She moves quickly and purposefully, filling up a jug with water and placing it in front of him.
Sunghoon was ravenous, so hungry he could barely think straight. He lunges for the bowl of rice, forking in a big bite with his chopsticks before slurping a spoonful of the soup, with turned out to be miso soup upon closer inspection. Both are scalding hot and he chokes, hurriedly filling up a glass of water before downing it in one gulp, His mother chuckles, telling him to slow down but he pays her no heed, shoving anything and everything into her mouth as fast as he can. In barely five minutes, his stomach is so full it’s about to burst, but he determinedly finishes the last of his pickled radish before slumping back in his chair and patting his stomach with satisfaction.
“I'm so full,” he groans, hand rubbing circles onto his bloated belly. He looks at his mom and finds her smiling at her, affection softening the age lines on her face and making her appear younger. It's warm, and he smiles back, even giggling a little as she reaches over the table to pinch his cheek. She picks up the medical kit again, crouching down to get a better look at his foot
“Good, eat like that every day. You’ve lost too much weight,” she tuts, hands busy as she unwraps the roll of medical gauze and pulls out a cotton swab.
“If I ate like that every day I’d have exploded by now,” he snorts, before screwing his face up and hissing when he feels the sting of the cotton swab swiping alcohol over his wounds. His mother simply shushes him, before finishing up by wrapping his foot with the gauze and pinning it so it won’t unravel. She gets up and leaves the kitchen for a moment and he’s momentarily puzzled until she comes back into the kitchen whilst carrying his slippers.
He slips them on with ease, his heart feeling fuzzy from his mother’s care and attention. She’s sitting across him at the table now, and her previously light demeanor is gone, replaced by the same hesitancy he saw this morning. She looks like she wants to say something so he waits, knowing she’ll say it when she has gathered the words.
“Do you not remember last night?”
Sunghoon blinks, and racks his brain, trying to recall anything from yesterday, only to come up short. Wordlessly, he shakes his head, indicating that no, he did not remember.
His mother sighs, seemingly steeling herself before speaking.
“You forgot who I was, last night. You didn’t remember your name either, Or how you got your…scars.”
If Sunghoon was to describe how he felt, he’d use the phrase “disappointed but not surprised.” Because really, what else was he supposed to feel? He’d done it before, and he’d do it again, probably. It was out of his control, and he understood that but thinking about how awful it must be for his mom to wake up and see a stranger in her son’s body made his chest feel hollow with disappointment.
“I’m sorry, mom.”
“You have nothing to apologize for, darling.”
His mother smiles sadly, placing her hand over his and stroking it again and suddenly, Sunghoon is so immensely grateful to have a mother who bore so much and still loved him as she always did. He didn’t remember what he had felt like last night, but he was sure his mother would always put him at ease, whether he remembered her or not.
“ But I do wish you’d go back to therapy, Hoon. You’ve been struggling so much lately.”
Even though Sunghoon knows his mother means well, his body goes rigid, spine ram-rod straight, shoulders pulling back. His hands clench into fists and he struggles to remind himself to not raise his voice when he speaks to her. He’d never yell at her again. Never.
“No.”
The statement is hard and final. There is no way in hell that he’s ever going back to therapy. The mere thought of it makes his palms sweat and stomach clench uncomfortable in nerves, bile rising up his throat and he briefly thinks that maybe eating so much wasn’t a good idea.
“Darling, I know you don’t like it but it’s getting so much worse and-”
“Mom. I said no and that’s what my answer will always be.”
He didn’t intend to cut his mother off mid-sentence, but he didn’t want to hear what she had to say either. He knew he was getting worse, how could he not? He knew better than everyone how much he was struggling. Why else would he take such drastic measures?
His mother seems to be on the verge of crying, lip pulled between her teeth, and hands tightly clasped around his. Sunghoon belatedly realizes that she’s been staring at his scarred forearm. She’s blinking, desperately trying not to cry and it hurts Sunghoon, makes his heart clench, and forms a lump in his throat because once again, whether he meant it or not, he’s hurt his mother.
“Okay,” she whispers, voice breaking off at the end. Sunghoon burns with shame, knowing he’s the reason his mom is hurting again. His chest constricts, he feels the stinging in his nose but he can’t do this right now when he has stuff to do, he knows if he allows himself to wilt right now he won’t be able to function normally until god-knows-when.
So he stands up, begins clearing up the dishes, and places them in the sink, before walking back to his mother and placing a kiss on her forehead. He mutters some half-assed apology and promises to come back and do the dishes, but his mom just shakes her head and tells him not to worry about it.
Of course, he thinks bitterly, why worry when everyone else can do it for him?
But he swallows it down, letting it burn as it slides down his throat before it settles in his stomach, burning, sizzling. He feels it slowly, gradually eating away at the walls of his stomach, gnawing at the membrane and tissue until the pain is white-hot. It festers, along with everything else he had swallowed before. He sucks in a breath through his teeth and nods, before walking away.
It’s all I’m good at, anyway, he thinks.
His pace is slow and unhurried as he walks up the stairs. He’s not eager to get to his room and face the aftermath of what transpired two days ago. He knows he shouldn’t be feeling this calm after everything he did, and everything that happened to him, and he temporarily wishes to be back to who he was last night. Admittedly, not having any recollection of his life must have been confusing as fuck, but it would be better than the cluster fuck his life was at the moment.
Rather than throwing a fit about his problems, he’d just wait for them to pass. Quietly, silently. Like he’d always done.