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eleven
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song recommendation: slow dancing in the dark (acoustic) - joji
▬▬ι Jeno's POV ι▬▬
Jaemin stays silent at my confession. I can imagine him staring at me in horror. "How do you know that you were pushed?" Quietly, he asks, his voice tainted with sympathy.
"I remembered it. All of it." Debating with whether or not I should burden Jaemin with my traumatic experience, I decide to continue.
The scenic painting in front of me was unusual to look at. "This is Na Jaemin's artwork and you will study from it. You can only leave this room until you have completed a piece that is better than his." His scolding voice was angrier than usual. I comply, picking up a brush and dipping it into the paint.
He slams the door as he exits, locking it behind him. I sigh deeply.
Since when was Na Jaemin my competition? I had only ever admired Jaemin's paintings. I didn't want to compete with him. Yet, here I am being forced to copy his artwork.
Absentmindedly, I let the brush glide over the smooth canvas, hoping for something to please my father.
"What the hell do you think that is?" My father looms over me. I must not of heard the door being unlocked. Glancing down at the two paintings in front of me, I realise my mistake. I had painted a portrait again.
The portrait was one of my best, with shining eyes and an ethereal aura. I smile back at the painting, proud of my work. "I asked you a question. What the fuck is that?"
The painting is stripped from my hands. My father's enraged eyes burning holes into it. "I thought you would have learnt by now, Jeno. Bad actions require punishment." He slams the painting back onto the desk before storming out of my room.
My breath quickens out of fear as I stare at the open door, waiting for the monster to return back.
I hear my mother's pleas for him to stop, the sharp noise of a hand on a face, and a cry of despair, before footsteps approach me again.
He stands at the doorway, his arms full of my paintings that my mum decorates the house proudly with. "This is all disgusting." Taking one of the canvases, he hits me with it. The tearing of the material makes my heart ache.
I can deal with him hurting me but I cannot stand my hard work being mistreated.
"Stop it." Another broken painting is thrown at me.
"You're a disappointment." He hits me again, and again, belittling me whilst beating me. "You disgust me." Taking the most recent painting, the one that caused this, he slaps me across the face with it. "Na Jaemin is literally beating you now. How does that make you feel? Pathetic?" He strikes me again, my skin stinging with every attack.
"Sto-"
"You have the audacity to ask me to stop when you started this? You should've listened to me instead of trying to make a fool out of me. Painting a portrait of Na Jaemin when I asked you to paint like him? You're mocking me on purpose." He punches me harder this time, making me fall onto the floor before beating me with the painting of Jaemin until it breaks.
He tosses the remains of the painting onto the floor. Picking me up by the collar of my shirt, he throws me back down onto the ground. My head hits the corner of the desk and I cry out in pain.
"You'll never be good enough." His harsh words echo around my mind as I black out.
