Dancing With The Devil

the cage.

Seoul - 13 years ago

Hyuna's POV (Emrie's mother)

"What the hell are you doing, you freak?" Jaehyun's voice erupted from down the hall. The beginning stages of puberty deepening his voice.

"Hey! Language!" I scolded. It was no surprise all these kids had a dirty mouth. There wasn't enough soap in this house to clean every piece of them Minseok and I already fucked up. For a 13-year-old, Jaehyun spoke the same way Minseok spoke and it drove me crazy sometimes.

"Mom!" His voice called out followed by an angry 6-year-old Emrie shouting back, "gimme it!"

"What? What is going on?" I said, angry that they were interrupting my day. I was trying to organize my closet when the sound of my children arguing shot through the hallway like a loaded gun. Having five kids, it's normal to hear shouting everyday but something about this didn't feel right to me, the same uneasy feeling you had when you set your foot on a wobbly step, just before it dipped beneath you. I got up and headed towards Emrie's bedroom praying to God I didn't have to exert any more energy than I already have.

Jaehyun left her room, his hand-me-down jeans from Joonho were too long for him and muddy at the bottoms, dragging and collecting dirt every step he took. "I told you to roll up your pants! You're stretching the bottoms of them!"

"Buy me my own pants and maybe I will" he rolled his eyes.

"Hey, you want new pants, go get a job" I suggested.

"Tell yourself that" he scoffed walking past me, dropping a box of matches into my palm.

"Jaehyun Fey! Don't turn your back on me!"

"Umm no... and also, your daughter's psycho" he finished, taking off downstairs to his own room. I shook my head and barged open her door to find a room that looked as if it was left in the wake of a hurricane. Clothes, art supplies, toys scattered the floor. The head of a doll ripped off and stepped on. I pushed the slightly open bathroom door wide to find her sitting on top of the counter, a stack of shoe boxes used as a step stool laid crushed in a pile beneath the counter. I saw her reflection in the mirror and an unrepentant look painted on her face. She glared at me and smiled mischievously, a chunk of her hair burnt black and the smell of burning flesh.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" I scolded, ripping the comb from her hand as she was attempting to fix herself.

"Ow!" She glared me down, shaking her hand from the pain. I glanced down to the raw flesh she had on her wrist from burning herself from the match.

"What was going through your mind?!" I pulled her off the counter and yanked her by the arm downstairs to find the first aid kit.

"Mommy stop! I don't wanna go downstairs!"

"You lost the privilege of doing whatever you wanted ever since you lit yourself on fire!"

"Woah woah, what's going on? What happened?" Hyunjin came entering the front door, shocked at the commotion. He stuffed his gun into the back of his pants and straightened himself out.

"Emrie Fey decided to play with matches and now she's missing a chunk of her hair and a chunk of her skin!" I explained.

"I would do it again" she spit the words from her mouth as if they tasted bad.

"Shut the hell up! You're grounded!" I clutched her arm, nearly piercing her thin porcelain skin with my red lacquered nails.