A Desire for the Moon

25

The night was calm. It almost felt like it was calm before the storm. The gut feelings never lied to him. The house was eerily silent. The smell of death penetrated every wall in the house. No one mourned over the body that lay in the living room. The smock from the cigarette was repulsive. Nothing new in that house. But it was more irritating, considering there was a dead body. No one spoke or even moved. Everyone was waiting for one moment to explode and pour out the emotions they had in their hearts. Anger, sadness, hatred, and frustration lurked over the door, ready to enter as soon as someone moved.

"Can you stop smoking?" Namjoon finally spoke, "My dad just killed himself because of you." His voice was steady and calculated. He knew this would unleash every emotion that was waiting to come out.

His mother scoffed, "You have the nerve to talk to your mother like that!"

Namjoon took a deep breath, "You are not my mother."

"What did you say?" the woman stood up from her chair and went to the bottle of soju on the counter, "If I am not your mother, then where did you come from? Did that dead man give birth to you?"

Namjoon turned to her, his eyes red with anger. "Don't speak about him like that. At least he took care of us."

The woman raised her eyebrows, "He took care of you? All he ever did was throw money in my face and then sleep around with those bimbos!"

"Eomma!" Namjoon was breathing heavily, "Watch what you say! You are the one who sleeps around. Don't think I don't know that you brought all those men to our house. You are the on-"

Smash

Namjoon was unprepared for the flying object coming towards him. Before he could react, it hit his face. Namjoon was unresponsive for a while. He flinched when he felt a sting on his temple. He brushed his finger over the sting to find that he was bleeding. The blood was dripping over his eyes. He clenched his teeth, "The truth hurts, huh?" He smirked, "You call yourself my mother when you can easily hit me like this?"

The woman sneered, "I can also kill you easily. Want to try? He should have just taken you with him."

"Of course," Namjoon glared at her, "So that you would be free to whore around!"

The woman grabbed Namjoon's neck and slammed him against the wall, "Don't speak to your mother like that! I will fucking kill you!"

It was getting harder for Namjoon to breathe. He was struggling against his mother. He repeatedly tapped on her hand to free himself.

Bang!

There was a gunshot. The woman's grip loosened, and she dropped to the floor. Namjoon's eyes went wide. He looked past the dead woman and was even more surprised. Seokjin was standing there with a gun in his hand. He wasn't a child like Namjoon. He was there as a fully grown adult. He smiled sweetly and tilted his head.

"Happy?"

Namjoon woke up with a gasp. He was breathing heavily as he realized that he was dreaming. He was sweating profusely. As he ran his hand through his hair, he remembered every single detail of the dream. He did get the scar because his mother threw the soju bottle at him, but it was because he was crying by his father's body. He never said those things to his mother. Now, he wished he had really said something that day. Maybe she would have really killed him.

Wait!

Why was Seokjin in the dream?

As he got ready for work, he kept thinking about the moment when Seokjin shot his mother and smiled. Was it because Seokjin helped him? No. Seokjin killed her just because of the conditions he put. There was no way Seokjin would have done that without him getting something out of it. Then why the fuck was he in the dream? Did the young Namjoon expect someone to save them from that wretched woman? But even at such a young age, he knew no one was going to save them. And he wasn't strong enough to stand up to her.