Boss ~Taeten~

Chapter 21

*I'm really sorry ㅜㅜ, I was planning on updating yesterday and updating more than once today but while the story is getting more attention while also starting to ramp up and things have actually started happening, I have been nitpicking and writing and rewriting every part of this chapter ㅜㅜ

The updates are going to get a bit slower from here on out but I plan on more than one update per week*

*Slightly triggering, please practice caution as you continue*

17

4

Taeyong was seated in the back of the silver van, his palms, knees, elbow, and left cheekbone were scraped raw. Little beads of ruby blood pooled upon the scratches.

The metallic substance rolled down his itching wrist and forearm to slick the skin beneath the tight chafing steel cuffs. There was a red blindfold over his eyes to prevent him from seeing through the incredibly tinted windows with little wet streaks seeping onto his cheek and soaking stingingly into the scrape over the bone.

There were quiet voices in the front half of the van, not far from where he was bound and he listened quietly to the conversation, hoping to find out at least the names of his secondary kidnappers.

He quickly found that in his current circumstance he was too surrounded by triggers to concentrate on the words flowing quietly towards his ears.

First and foremost on his mind was the reddish darkness that tinted his eyesight when he opened them against the blindfold, it was reminiscent of the darkness in the filthy basement room his father would have locked him in for days on end for disobeying him even in the slightest.

Second was the comfortable fullness he felt in his stomach, it reminded him of, after his parents leaving out on yet another family meal, his mother making her usual passing comments on his figure and weight, which would usually leave him with a pair of fingers down his throat, retching and crying in the bathroom for a few hours. Just the thought made the bile rise in his throat once again and his sore eyes sting.

The final trigger he could manage to acknowledge other than the itchy sweat and blood drying on his filthy skin, was the whispering. Oh god the muttering, the mumbles that his brain was positive were about himself, he didn't have to hear it to know.

People were always gossiping about the weak ones, he didn't want to be the weak one, he didn't want to believe it at the very least. But if he weren't the weak one then how had he come to be kidnapped not once but twice over the course of a few measly weeks.

And so, as was natural with so many triggers nearby, the stinging tears flowed down his face in hot, salty rivers, darkening the red fabric covering their source, his breathing accelerated to an almost animalistic pace as his mind frantically began to search for memories of thoughts that could counteract the panic and pure terror that was assailing him.

He couldn't hug his own body and rock himself with his bound hands and pretend it was his sweet aunt rocking him as she murmured gentle soothing words into his panicked ears. There were no caring, loving words for him now.

All of a sudden the panic stopped, his hands stopped shaking in their achy, itchy, chafing cuffs, the rivers of hot, stinging, itchy tears slowed and eventually ceased, and finally his rapid, rabid breathing slowed.

Though his heartbeat remained beating at a rapid pace, though now for a different reason. To put it simply his mind had struck on memory gold, it had found a memory locked away in the darkest corner of itself and dared to unlock it.

Upon doing so it was filled with a melodic laughter, the innocent giggles of two playing children. The giggles of his only, though the relationship was quite brief, true friend in his youth.

Sure his aunt and uncle were good to him, cared for and protected him well, nothing they did could compare to the companionship of someone his own age.

The memory came for long ago in his youth, when he was newly 10 years of age and his companion 9. They had met for the first time through the hedge fence separating their homes, in an instant the bright eyed 10 year old had made his way through the fence and to his new friend, where they proceeded to play any game they could have possibly thought to play.

They played games from Tag to Kings and queens. Their imaginations were their only limits, it was the first time in Taeyong's still short life that he had been free to play however he pleased and the young boy could have thought there was no better way to do so than with the only real friend he could have.

Even though his father and mother weren't to find out about the 9 year old savior of the 10 year old boy he still played to his heart's content and reveled in the laughter of pure joy that he and his friend participated in.

As it reveled in it's newly discovered memory Taeyong's mind began to search the memory's details, for a name or a face that could remind him of who the other boy had been, maybe in a vain attempt to know if they had ever met again.

His search came up with only two key details, a pair of striking, clear, innocent and playful grey eyes and a rather difficult name.

Chittaphon Lee.