crack in the mirror | gayeon 🪞

-9-

"I've read your book," Jiseok said as soon as Jooyeon entered the Hut. His body was resting on the armchair and in his hands, there was a pile of paper. The pages were bent on some sides and hundreds of colourful pieces of paper were peeking out from the margins as if the stack of pages was about to spit them out. "It was very good."

Very good. It was supposed to make Jooyeon feel better about his work-it did not.

All Jooyeon could hear was the noise of his father's muffled shouts, his own cries and the sound of ripping paper. He was back in his house, kneeling on the floor, trying to catch anything that was left, that could be saved, or—he wished—that could be saved.

"I've found something, Lee Jooyeon," his father had said a few minutes before the disaster. Jooyeon felt a shiver run down his spine. The man was standing between his son and his room, meaning he was in there a moment ago. He found something in Jooyeon's room.

"What the fuck did you do?"

"I've read your book." Jinyoung bared his teeth, and from behind his back he waved a notebook in front of his son's face. The possibility of a good ending was dim—non-existent.

He had read something as personal as Jooyeon's book, something that he took time to make, put parts of himself into, and the weird smile on his face; or rather a grimace of disgust didn't indicate that he enjoyed it.

"Give it back!" Jooyeon snapped, trying to rip it out of his hands. His father stepped back, still smiling. "I said; give it back!"

"How about no?" He opened it, flipped through some chapters, and started reading.

That was enough.

Jooyeon didn't want to listen—he didn't want him to read. He threw himself at him, his hands in fists, and the first punch landed between his father's fibs. He gasped, choked, and furrowed his brows... but stopped reading and closed the book.

"Lee Jooyeon!" Jinyoung shouted, taking even more steps back, so that they were both in the said boy's room. He gripped his hands harder on the red notes, and clenching his jaw, slapped the boy. "Learn how to behave!" His father grinned-he knew damn well that he didn't have good manners either.

"Or what?" Jooyeon hit him in the eyebrow arch, hoping it would pop and bleed richly, but none of that happened, instead he felt a strong impact on his nose, this time staggering back. "Give me the fucking book back!"

He was aware Jinyoung wouldn't listen to him. He knew it very well, but he had to try. He hoped for an impossible!

"This?" His father laid it out on his hand, if Jooyeon moved his hand a few inches closer, he would've probably been able to catch it, but instead, he found himself nodding his head—he was a dumb boy.

"Give it back."

Jinyoung didn't even answer the command. He looked at the silly story in little red notebook and ripped the pages away. He ripped it so slowly that it burned Jooyeon as hell, as if instead of the book it was him being stripped of skin.

He had no idea when it happened, but he was kneeling on the floor; screaming louder than he had even been; catching whatever fell on the ground-whether it was a full page or a scrap.

"You won't ever write anything again. What are you, a man or what?" Jinyoung kept on humiliating him. Even now, when Jooyeon was crying from pain, when he was clearly suffering, he was trying to make him feel even worse.

"Why would you do that?" He cried, catching some paper flying from above. He looked at it, he couldn't remember what moment in the book that was. "Why would you fucking do that?"