Poignant

Chapter Twelve

Soojin's POV

Waking up in a cold sweat with a gasp, I quickly sat up and looked over to where Shuhua should be resting. Yet she wasn't. The only evidence of her being there at any point in time was the disheveled, blue duvet.

That's odd, Shuhua never gets up in the middle of the night. It has occasionally scared me when she doesn't move throughout the entirety of the night. If it weren't for the faint sound of her breathing or the rare snore, I would think she is just a corpse.

Groggily swinging my legs over the bed, I rubbed at my eyes as I tried to make the images of the nightmare. I just had to go away. Nightmares aren't new to me. That's why Shuhua has been someone I always go to in order to console me. She doesn't judge me for them, and I trust her to keep shut and hug the fear away.

This nightmare was similar to the others that I had. Yet, unlike most, they have never lived through the terrors they experience in the dark of the night. I have. They all tend to revolve around my past, whether that be before or after I was accepted into the Song household.

In this most recent episode, two figures, a man and a woman with blurred faces and distorted voices, seemed to be yelling at me. From what I could tell, I didn't seem to be any older than five, which indicated that it was a dream of before the Songs before I was adopted.

In the dream, the little me cried as I held an old, matted fox plushie to my chest. It was the only thing that stopped me from fully breaking down in front of the hostile voices of my biological parents. I couldn't tell what they were talking about. They were using too many big people words for me to understand at that young age, but it was clear that they were mad. Soon enough, the yelling grew until I was harshly taken by the arm and shoved into our cheap little car.

They drove the car to the middle of nowhere, still screaming at the top of their lungs until they had forced me out of the car. I stood there as I watched the only people who I assumed could have cared about me, leave me with nothing but the clothes on my back, and the only toy that I had ever been given by them.

I very frequently have this exact terror, enough for it to be classified as recurring, at least. I know why I have it so often, though. It's the only real memory I have of my biological parents. It's also the only memory I have of why I was thrown out, but I have yet been able to figure it out. All I can really remember is the pain, the crying, and the yelling.

A small smile interrupted my thoughts in response to the growl of my stomach. A little late night snack wouldn't hurt.

Finally dragging myself out of my dark bedroom, I made my way to the kitchen and turned the lights on low as I looked through the cabinets, wondering what I could prepare myself as I was feeling quite starved. I think I accidentally skipped dinner because I was so tired yesterday. Maybe something warm that goes down easy like seaweed soup?

Getting out the necessary ingredients, I began to boil the water as I prepared everything. Luckily, since Shuhua has quite the obsession with this soup I have mastered, I don't have to worry about soaking the seaweed beforehand as I always have it ready.

I soon entered a familiar process of chopping and mincing, as well as eyeballing measurements like I usually do. Yet that rhythm was broken when I heard the front door violently swing open with a loud smack against the wall, accompanied by what sounded like a hushed voice, which caused my blood to run cold.

Out of caution, I grabbed one of the kitchen knives as I slowly approached the door, jumping out from behind the wall once the person's back was turned to me.

"Who are you?!" I confronted, making the blade quite visible.

"Yah...! It's me, Jin, put down the knife. I don't need to be made into any more of a meal than I am already," the familiar voice of our youngest member remarked with dripping sarcasm.