Colliding Stars (Minsung)

Chapter 1: Home

(Credits to the rightful owners.)

Wordcount: 2.8k

TW: Hints of body dysmorphia and physical abuse.

Author's P.O.V

Home.

Merely a four lettered word, defined with bricks and walls, and wrongly described as such.

Home can be a condo with a breathtaking city view where an actor finds her real self away from the blinding flashes of cameras. It can be a country house amidst the solitude of nature where an old couple still finds bliss in the company of one another. It can be a shelter with broken windows where a farmer after a day's worth of labour finds content seeing his kids enjoying a full dinner. Home can be anything. But merely a house, a hut or a condo cannot be a home just by themselves.

Then what makes a place, a concrete a home? Where does one even find a home?

Will I ever find a home? My home?

Questions invade a young mind, full of worries and innocence. His brain almost foggy with overwhelming thoughts that he can't get rid of, his finger fumbling with the strings of his obnoxiously over-sized hoodie and his eyes stuck on the his own shadow on the setting sun kissed ground.

And he hated that shadow.

It was frail but not the slim frail he was told is considered admirable. It was skinny to its bones, like a dull skeleton he was called by his own reflection. He hated it. He wanted to look away from the ground but he just couldn't. It felt like that shadow was laughing at him, like it was subsuming him in a pit of mockery like it always does and he can never escape. He couldn't remember when he started drowning in this whirlpool of hatred. He never cared really about any of this till he was taught to, till he was he taught to bear the blame for everything wrong, till he was taught to hate himself.

"Boy, is this all your luggage?"

The 12 year old looked up finally, fixing his square rimmed glasses that were too big for his face and almost on the verge of falling down the tip of his nose. His hollow, hesitant gaze met the tattered beige school bag in the hands of a man in neat white uniform who had driven him all the way here.

Ironically the boy didn't go to school. It was merely a second hand bag he received out of charity, containing a few second hand clothes he received out of the same.

"Y-yes sir." The young boy replied, sighing internally in relief for being able to make his voice audible.

The man who had introduced himself as Mr. Woo to the boy in the car itself, nodded and gave him a small smile. A smile the boy recognized very well. A smile of pity. And he hated that smile.

"I told you dear, just call me Ajusshi." The middle aged chauffeur said kindly.

The boy didn't say anything in reply. He didn't know if he should. He averted his eyes from the man's sympathetic gaze and finally let himself see the magnificent sight in front of him.

He thought that the posh black car he was just inside with its leather seats and lavish scent was luxurious. But the house...no...the mansion in all its white marble polish exterior was what truely screamed wealth.