Fake l Lee Heesung l

24

      ...The taint and tainted...

Heeseung took a deep breath as his mind flipped through the pages of his rotten past, from his childhood till the current moments.

"I am adopted. I was adopted when I was 4. I don't remember the whole thing, It comes in fragments. But I found my adoption papers, 2 years ago, when I'd just joined the college. I had a huge breakout with my father. Actually, It was just me with demanding questions which were met by his silence. He never answered any of the questions. We just...stopped talking. Soon enough, it became a forbidden topic, and none of us mentioned it anymore. It was all too suffocating, Until a few months ago, when I finally decided to move out."

Ji-ah's eyes filled with empathy.

"You must have felt so bad. "

"Its not that different actually. He never paid much attention to my emotions or feelings anyway. All he ever wanted was to make me the heir of his company. His sole aim. I don't know why he wants me, an adopted son to have everything he worked so hard for, all his life. "

Heesung let out a frustrated sigh.

"But anyway, during that time I had recently joined the college and was a freshman. A Junior guy at that time approached me because of how cold and distance I was. His name was Mark. He approached me and made me his friend. He became someone irreplacable in my life soon enough. He bacme the brother I always wanted but never had." His eyes watered.

"Mark? The guy who paid the bill? "

He nodded.

"He'd introduced me to the group circle, where everyone had some kind of trauma. At that time It was just 5 people. Yeonjun, Mark hyung, Jeongin, me and Aiden. "

"Aiden? "

"Yeah. She was the only girl in our group. She was a Junior like Mark. She was the reason of our fallout. "

Ji-ah's breath got stuck. She wondered what Aiden was to Heesung. She felt  restless. But she knew she is not gonna leave Heeseung, no matter what.

"What happened? "

"That group consisted of people with different traumas. I had mine. Mark was abandoned by his parents in some amusement park before they comitted suicide. Yeonjun's brother is still in the jail for killing his father. They both were abused since childhood by their drunk father. Jeongin was a swimmer but he met with with an accident and could never swim again. Aiden had been a victim of child abuse for a while. We all were broken somehow. And Mark taught us how to deal with it. We bullied people. We hurt them. We made them suffer like we did. It was not the right thing to do but it helped." Heeseung stopped to look at Ji-ah, searching her face for any sort of disgust and condemn. He took a shaky breath again and continued.

"I had devlouped a little crush on Aiden. She was sweetest of us all. And we became really close. We even used to hangout with the others. When one year went by, Many freshman came. Winter, Hoon and Wonyoung were a part of them. These three had their traumas too. Winter was rich girl but she was poisoned many times by her step sister. Wonyoung was victim of bullying in high school. Hoon, well you know about him. So eventually they joined us too. Mark hyung showed a lot of interest in Winter. He seemed to like her. And soon enough they started dating. Aiden's behaviour changed. She started looking more restless and she became even more twisted. She started finding things to hurt Winter. And I always used to catch her doing this stuff. I realised she liked Mark. So I let her go. Winter, however claimed Mark. She was not ready to let go."