Hostage Handbook

After Story | On the Other End

JUNGKOOK

It hurt, a lot.

The tiresome struggle to fall into Ms Kim's hands was a struggle to a series of struggles that ended with a painful struggle.

I always wondered if I ever experienced a moment of true comfort. I had a few nights of good sleep, rest that resisted the sound of sirens and drunkards to sustain me for a sleepless week. But truthfully, being born into discomfort taught me how to relax in disturbing situations. Just to make do.

There were always worse situations waiting for me when I woke up, so I didn't bother to let worry stop me from recharging myself. There was no point. Worrying couldn't give me a new set of parents or a mind that didn't carry any bad memories. It couldn't even get me non-soggy paper straws.

As a teenager, I could only sleep when I sneaked to the storage room to avoid my dormmates. The small room was soaked with the coldness of a typical English winter; it was not comfortable. However, the lack of teasing and taunting was enough to put me to sleep next to a broken rack.

Uncomfortable REM sleep was enough for me. My comfort was never counted into the equation anyway. If I held a gun to myself with no twelve-year-old Caucasian boy yelling racial slurs at me and still pulled the trigger, I'd want someone to applaud me for being true to myself.

My mother never wanted me. She planned for all her children except me. She had the responsible eldest son (who got a little too responsible for her liking), the pretty-face daughter with benign talents (who eventually toppled off the stage before the curtain call arrived) and the quiet child she pulled out whenever she needed a scapegoat to take the knives from the public (the people were mad over the Imperial Family's outrageous spending habits? Blame it on Taehyung! He was a two-year-old, but it was definitely his fault!). There was no role for me to play in Mother's life. And she couldn't do anything about it because of the abortion ban.

I was an outcast the moment my father's sperm met my mother's egg in the most literal way.

Frankly, I should have never existed. If my life turned into a wikiHow how-to guide, it should be titled How to be an obstruction to everyone in your life. I don't know what sort of lunatic would want to know, but the content would surely help them out.

I obstructed my mother from taking down my grandmother with the horrible morning sickness I gave her. I obstructed Taehyung from transforming the Imperial House. I even obstructed Eunseo from releasing a cover of a pop song, although I didn't regret doing this one (she was seriously tone-deaf).

Then there was Yeoreum.

What I did to Yeoreum exceeded the boundaries of obstruction. I fucking snatched her life away.

Yeoreum and I were similar. We both lived through a life of dead ends. Only I could free her dark sides, and only she could unlock my good ones. That was my immediate first impression of her.

Yoongi and Taehyung would've merely thought Yeoreum was smart or pretty or nice or perfect when they locked eyes with her for the first time, but I was different.

I wanted us to be more like each other. I was morally raped, so I wanted Yeoreum to be physically raped. In the beginning, I didn't care about Yeoreum. How could I? I didn't even care about myself.

But then, I realised I cared way too deeply about Yeoreum. Her likes and dislikes, her temper, and her crippling germaphobia. Her everything.

Yeoreum made me realise loving someone wasn't moulding them until they were equal to me. Loving someone meant letting them flourish and soar.