1.1 | Desiderium ✓

ɪɴᴛᴇʀʟᴜᴅᴇ - ᴡɪɴᴛᴇʀ ɪɪ

[I can't stress how important this warning is.
If you are sensitive to topics like child molestation, rape, deaths, insanity, trauma, PLEASE DON'T READ.

If this chapter is so bad, then why are you posting it, Doof?
Because it's important to the plot.

If I skip this, would I miss something?
No you would not.

So don't read if uncomfortable. Please.]

***

The leaves hadn't shed all their leaves, but the wind was growing chilly. Mornings felt cold, and nights colder. For warmth, the mother and son often huddled together, cocooned in a single blanket. HwaShin sensed when people were sad. He knew it, somehow. And quite a lot of times, he would walk up to them and give them a tiny hug, saying, "Please don't be sad." He would blink his wide ocean eyes and melt the hearts of everyone around him. 

With HwaShin around, glum was non-existent. 

"Eomma," said Shin one day, keeping his large pencil down on his notebook, "am I going away?" 

"No baby," HwaYoung said, cracking into a half hearted smile. "Why do you say that?" 

"Then… why did Appa yell at you?" 

HwaYoung stopped kneading the dough and looked at her dirty hands, swallowing thickly. The exhaust fan in the kitchen whirred, filling in the silence between the mother and son, but she couldn't bring herself to face Shin. 

"If even the slightest thought of leaving me crosses your mind again," JeongSuk had her pinned against the wall the day before yesterday, "I won't let it slide, HwaYoung, remember that." 

"Appa didn't yell at me," HwaYoung said, looking at her dirty hands. Her son turned back to his math homework and huffed loudly. "Appa didn't yell at me, baby," HwaYoung lied again, this time the words being simpler to speak. She turned to her son, who was sitting on the countertop beside her dough ball, face buried in his book. 

"I'll take HwaShin away from you," JeongSuk's words stabbed her ears painfully, "I'll take him away… then you'd have no choice but to remain beside me, yes? Think, Youngie… where will you go without me? I'll take HwaShin away, the court will allow me to anyway." 

HwaYoung exhaled a shuddering breath as once more, she looked at her son. "Shin-ah, look at me, please?" Her son huffed and turned away, only to break her heart a little more. "Please? Eomma is sorry, Shin-ah." 

"Don't say sorry," Shin stood up, standing a little taller than his mother with his feet on the countertop. "And don't be sad, please?" 

"My Shinnie…" HwaYoung embraced her son, "don't go anywhere. I won't be able to live without you." 

"Don't be sad Eomma, we will always be together." 

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

Before the cameras and in the newspapers, Yun JeongSuk was a young, promising leader of the youth. He had influence, he had followers, he had power. But behind closed doors and between the lines of newspapers, the Conservative People's Party wasn't a very good place to be at. November 2001, JeongSuk was re-elected in the same position as before. His visits to San House, Mr. San's visits to his house, the ties between them strengthened. Birds of a feather do flock together, after all.