Perfume • Woosan | Ateez

f i f t e e n

When we m e t
I wasn't  m e
I was so n u m b
Yeah, I was so l o n e l y

•••

THE moment the last six words left Wooyoung's lips San forgot about the pain in his chest and the little voice in his head, that told him to run away as fast as he could. The voice that also told him that Wooyoung could only be trying to manipulate him again, so that he acted in his favor. Once again flashbacks from the night the then still gray haired boy was drunk hit him, when the word "mother" had fallen the first time. Wooyoung wasn't playing any games here, San finally realized. This was the boy who laid under the ceiling in the Comic Café with him and gently stroke his hand and not the boy that had shattered his heart into pieces. Otherwise he would never tell him anything like this without being drunk. Maybe he truly wanted to tell him the truth.

»The person that was supposed to protect me«, San heard him whisper after another moment of silence. Choi San could only stare as the walls Wooyoung had build around him slowly fell down and the tense shoulders of the now black haired boy loosened up. It was like he couldn't hold up the act of this unbothered and cold somebody anymore. He looked vulnerable while now being the one that was looking straight ahead the ice cold river. He looked younger, he looked softer, but most of all he looked like someone who was just absolutely exhausted. »The person who carried me in her womb for nine months«, he continued after a while, now speaking a little louder again. »The person who should love me the most in this world«, he spoke further, after another short break in which he took deep breathes. »This person left me the moment my father didn't come home«, Wooyoung finished his little starting speech, before turning his head slowly to San. His eyes looked exactly like his body language, sad and tired. But their was something else in them too. Something that told San, that Wooyoung really wanted to explain everything to him. San didn't really understand why he started with his family story, but he wouldn't stop the boy from doing so. He would sit here and listen to every last word he had to say with the hope that in the end he could make some sense of the last months. With hope that he could wake up from this nightmare. »The moment his heart stopped, she was gone, even though she was still breaving«, Wooyoung continued while still looking straight at him. »It was like loosing both of them at the same time, although she walked out of the hospital next to me«.

Wooyoung breathed out hard after his lasts words, like it took him so, so much to speak about this topic. The boy must have kept these words hidden and protected for so long, San thought. San didn't know what to say. On the one hand this didn't explain anything but on the other hand it explained so much. It explained why Wooyoung always seemed like he didn't want to get attached to someone. It explained the lonely expression in his eyes. It explained the lack of trust. It explained why you could almost never find a smile on his lips. What it didn't explain was the bruises on his body or the way he treated him like a piece of trash. San needed more, he thought. He needed way more words from the boy before he could find any to say to him as well. But he didn't turn away from exchanging stares with Wooyoung nonetheless. They sat their for a little moment just looking at each other, before the black haired boy spoke again. »After that everything turned to shit. We couldn't pay the bills, we didn't have anything to eat, we didn't even have light for a while. So I started stealing stuff from the neighbors or from the stores around our house. I got caught. That's the reason why I got send to juvie for the first time«, Wooyoung told him. San looked at him questioningly. For the first time. Of course the question of how many times the boy had spend in juvie immediately came into his mind, but he didn't interrupt the boy while he kept speaking.

»After that I didn't get to go home anymore. They sent me from foster family to foster family. Some were actually nice, but couldn't handle a kid like me, some acted like I was their servant. As soon as I didn't do everything they wanted and they realized that they actually had to deal with me, to get money for fostering me, they made up lies why I couldn't stay with them«, the boy kept telling his life story. San felt like his insides got squeezed together more and more with every sentence he spoke. The worst part was that he was sure, that this wasn't even half of the story. »I can't tell you in how many foster homes I was, since I lost track myself. I think in some of them I wasn't even present in my mind«, the boy confessed. San had already played with the thought that Wooyoung probably had some mental issues as well, what kind of got confirmed with this statement. But that was to be expected when a kid had to deal with so much alone. The only real home he ever knew got ripped away from him and since then the words "I'm going home" probably never had a real meaning to him. To San his home wasn't even the house of his grandmother. His home was his grandmother. And Hongjoong, Mingi, Yunho, Jongho, Yeosang and maybe even Seonghwa. It didn't matter in what house they were, as long as they were with him.