The Black Parade

Chapter 10

Things were definitely not as Seokjin had perceived it to be. What destiny had for them in store, had been a shocker. Never in a million years had Jin thought hed be alive to witness something so startling as yoongi having a brother come out and ask for their help. Their grumpy friend had been a box of mysteries. Yet it never occured to them that yoongi might actually have a family other than him. He'd  know yoongi ever since high school. Even then Yoongi was as elusive as ever. Large headphones on his ears, hair dyed ashy blond and all the chains and piercings dangling from his skinny body. Always dressed to kill...his oversized jackets and hoodies. He did underground rapping for a while with Namjoon. He was SUGA then. After his shows and screaming fans, he would quietly walk out of the backdoor, as jin and joon stared him down. So mych has happened to them. They've always had been friends. And now as jin stood in his kitchen carving the apple for their guest.. He Couldn't Believe how selfish he'd been. Never considering to think or even look for yoongis family. The noise of the guest room caught his attention and broke him out of his reverie.

Namjoon

Everyone had a past.
For most, they were collages of moments that either brought a smile to their lips or tears to their eyes. They were splashed with a dizzying array of colors, arranged almost chaotically on canvases of memories and locations, with faint remnants of lingering emotions expressed with each stroke of the paintbrush.

And then there was Yoongi's. Yoongi, despite his acute sense of both short-term and long-term memory have much from his past. He's certain that at one point, his own personal collage must've held so much color. So many promises and hopes etched between each fragments. And then one day, black ink started to seep through. It covered the once vibrant collage little by little, until everything beneath it became unrecognizable, and no matter how much Yoongi tried to wipe the dark ink away, all he could uncover were just a small fraction of something that used to be so beautiful.

And now, the blank ink of his past was standing in front of him in the shape of Lee Jihoon, staring back at him with a face that mirrors his with haunting resemblance. Yoongi's father was a man of many accomplishments.

The man was successful. Raised in a rich family that already had deep roots in politics. Yoongi's grandfather was a well-known congressman who had plans to run for presidency until cancer left him hospitalized till his dying breath. Yoongi's father, ever since he was a baby, breathed politics and was groomed to become one of the big boys. And with the help of his own father and all the connections his family had, it was only a matter of time until the man was seated as the mayor of Daegu and quickly on his way to becoming a congressman.

The man played the part on TV. He was charming. Charismatic. Righteous. Yet, there was one flaw which he kept hidden deep inside his closet.

A flaw even Yoongi didn't know about until he was finally entering high school.

At first, he wasn't aware of the small changes happening right under his nose. His father was becoming busier and busier with each passing week, going on overnight trips to Seoul and spending late nights at his office. Yoongi used to be so proud of his father, who was devoting so much time to helping people, as his mother would tell him. During this time, his mother was losing weight. Her full cheeks were now gone, giving her an almost ghastly appearance when she would walk around the house without any trace of makeup on her face.

Yoongi was too young at the time. Too deep into believing that his family was perfect to realize that it was only coming apart, piece of piece.

A year later, he found her drinking by herself one day at the kitchen counter, her usually neatly tied hair a tangled mess and her normally gentle smile replaced with an expression that made Yoongi want to reach out. Yet he hid in the shadows and watched, listening with abated breath to the sound of more and more alcohol being poured into an empty glass. At that moment, Yoongi knew that something wasn't right.

Yoongi stopped sleeping at night. Instead, he always hid behind one of the walls, listening to his mother drink and drink, sometimes stifling a cry that barely rang through in the empty kitchen. He wanted to ask what's wrong, but he found himself unable to do so when she was trying so hard to act OK around him.

Days turned into weeks, and eventually Yoongi couldn't just listen to the pitiful sobs anymore. At the rate she was going, she was going to end up drinking herself to death, so he asked. He finally stepped out from behind the same wall he's been hiding behind and asked. No, demanded to know why she was drinking herself away.

Yoongi listened for an hour to her mother's jumbled words about how he looked too much like his father before he had to take her to bed. An empty bed. His father had been on an overnight trip to Seoul that day.

Then week later, Yoongi came home late one day to find his father with a boy he's never seen before. Yet, as soon as he caught a glimpse of the shorter teen, Yoongi knew that the boy wasn't just a boy. It was like looking into a mirror. There were of course subtle differences in how their eyes were angled or how big their noses were, but it was all right there. The boy and he were splitting images of his father, and Yoongi just knew that the boy must be related to him somehow.

So he stood there, in the middle of the spacious living room, listening to his father tell him that the boy was now his brother. Yoongi lashed out, demanding to know what the hell is going on, screaming that he doesn't have a brother, not caring about the blank expression on the other boy's face.

His father had slapped him across the face for his insolence and commanded that he take good care of Jihoon. Lee Jihoon. They had the same last name, and the name continued to ring in his ears as if to mock him of the truth.

When Yoongi found his mother curled into a small ball in her room, he could finally hear her answers to why she had been drinking late at night. Why she was only a ghost of her past self. His father has been having an affair for years, and his mistress and he had a son together. A son they kept a damn well hidden secret, and when the woman was killed in a tragic accident, his father had decided to bring their child in.

Hearing the words spill out of his hysteric mother's mouth disgusted him. Disgusted that his father could possibly be so selfish and vile. Disgusted that the man could deceive his own family and toss them off to the side.

The rift between the everyone in the house continued to grow, and one day, she asked for a divorce. His father, however, would have none of that, because his reputation was at stake. She cried and begged, even screamed and threw anything she could get her hands on at him, but he refused to yield, and when she threatened to tell everyone, he simply told her that he will make sure she never sees her son again. And Heejin, in her fragile state of her mind and knowing what kind of power the man was able to command, gave in, slowly wasting away in the cage that used be her home. Yoongi watched the whole thing unfold in front of his own eyes. Watched his mother slowly dying in her bed. Watched his father continue to pull on that mask of his and Jihoon haunting him each and every time he set foot in his own apartment.

One day, Yoongi realized that there was only one thing keeping his mother from leaving the disguting piece of filth that he used to call his father.

So he left. He left the house. Left everything behind. Left a letter for his mother telling her to leave him and be happy for a change. To find a man who would actually love her and take good care of her. To never return to their "father" to live in misery.

A month later, Yoongi decided to abandon his last name.

He was no longer Lee Yoongi. He didn't want to be associated with his father anymore. He took after his mother's last name and hasn't turned back since.

Namjoon laughs bitterly to himself, the sound eerie against his own ears. It feels as if the walls of the apartment are moving in on him, slowly squeezing the little oxygen left for him to breathe in. It feels as if his entire body is suspended mid-air above a cliff, waiting for the right moment to just drop him and let his body tumble down along the rocky edges of the unforgiving terrain beneath him. He needs desperately for something to hold onto.
He needs jin. He needs jin and needs to tell him everything.