WEAK SPOT [YEONBIN]

✃Y.J✁

Yeonjun ascends the frigid staircase of his desolate house, surrounded by darkness and a suffocating silence.

The quiet. Yeonjun calls it .

It engulfs him, seeping into his every sense, causing his hair to stand on end.

Nothing terrifies him more.

Its presence is palpable, born within these very walls, on the day his father departed from this world. Though Yeonjun has few memories of him, he distinctly recalls the nights of his childhood, nestled in bed, listening to the creak of his bedroom door.

Opening his eyes, he would see the looming silhouette in the doorway, sometimes lingering for a mere moment, and at other times, stretching for an hour.

This phenomenon occurred more frequently after his mother befriended the man next door—Soobin's father.

Yeonjun soon grew accustomed to the nightly vigil. His father watching him sleep was the only time he emerged from his secluded bedroom, his silence merely an echo through his mother's anguished cries.

Recalling the time he forgot his father's presence within those walls, Yeonjun remembers his mother's prolonged absence while she stayed at Soobin's.

The inquisitiveness eventually overcame him, and he began to wonder if his father had sought refuge next door as well.

But, Yeonjun was too young to understand what was really going on.

Now he knows all too well.

Existence within this place was unbearable. But, whenever Soobin came over, there was a shift within the house and a shift within Yeonjun.

The echoes of his mother's anger and his father's sorrow became muffled. All by Soobin's smile.

The smile I took away.

Finally reaching the narrow hallway leading to his room, Yeonjun had to pass the closed door of his parents' chamber, sealed shut by his mother's own hands. Crooked rusted nails made it impossible for a little Yeonjun to enter after what happened.

He knows this act followed the day he discovered his father's absence.

Yeonjun had expected it every night. His father watching him sleep. But that stopped too.

It was the only time his father would come out of his and his mother's room.

When it was the day time, Yeonjun's father's presence could be heard through his mother.

Her screaming, her voice. His silence. Always silent with her.

Yeonjun searched for him when his mother failed to provide food, noticing that the raw vegetables and yogurts meant for them remained untouched.

Each time a little Yeonjun went to retrieve an item, it'd be the same amount he had last seen it at.

And so, a nine year old Yeonjun embarked on a quest to find him.

Now, at 20 years old, gazing at the sealed door, Yeonjun's heart feels heavy. This time, he cannot avert his eyes. He believes he deserves this punishment, burdened further by Soobin's haunting words. Their weight presses upon him with an intensity he had never imagined.

A flood of memories overwhelms Yeonjun, his mind whisked back to the moment he approached that very door as a child, gripping the icy doorknob. The sight of his father's shoes greeted him, dangling in front of him. Yeonjun remembers slowly looking up, seeing the rest of him. Unrecognizable.