Mrs. Sodol || KNJ✅

103

- Soyeon's POV -

I've never been to the west side of Sodol. But I've also never been anywhere besides home, church, and school when I'm enrolled. Even when I tried running away, I didn't make it far before my dad found me and brought me right back home.

When I turned nineteen, I thought it would change. I could just run and not look back. What a joke. I wasn't gone for an hour before my dad found me. Each time I got more and more creative. Each time he did too. Run. Hide. Found. Beat. A cycle and went on and on until I just decided it wasn't worth it.

It reminds me of that elective I took in high school, Mind Studies and Anatomy. It was a pre-psychology class. I was in it for two weeks, then my dad pulled me out of school again. I don't remember much, but I remember the term "Learned Helplessness." I remember this because it was a perfect summary of my life.

I don't think it should be referred to as Learned Helplessness. It's professional. Boujee. Like it's internal and not reality. It should be referred to not as Learned Helplessness, but to Learning Your Fucking Lesson. If something doesn't work, it wasn't meant to. It's not a disease or a negative, cognitive thought process. It's waking up and joining the real world.

And these upper westsiders in Sodol don't know shit about the real world, do they? I mean, they strut down these sidewalks, screaming into their phones, and dodging cracks so they don't crush their precious louis vuittons. But most of these ignorant, ALM activists are lost in their own bubble. Oblivious to the fact that ninety percent of their city is run off of money laundering and drug trafficking. What a joke.

Namjoon: Are you thinking or praying?

Me: Neither.

He leaned against the doorway, peeped both sides of the hall, then came inside. I shifted on the bed with the paper crinkling under me. I don't like how Namjoon is built. I don't like that he towers over me. I don't like his buff torso. I don't like that he makes me look like an ant. With one wrong step, he could simply lift his foot and step on me.

Namjoon took my dress off the hanger latched onto the door and handed it to me. This torn white dress that I never liked to begin with.

Namjoon: Put this on. We need to get going.

Me: Okay...

Namjoon: Do you need help?

Me: Please?

I could feel it. His breath on my neck as he undid the buttons of the hospital gown. It unsettled me on one hand, calmed me on the other. His pause was too long. He was looking down at me, my upper body. A single finger traced on one my marks. My stomach turned and I swatted his hand away, quickly grabbing my dress to slip on.

I was taken to a tall, glamorous building on the west side. The famous Legacy Hotel. I remembered when it first opened. The flyers that were left all over my side of the tracks. Mockingly, as if any one living there could afford a night.

Namjoon lives here as well. At the very top, dominating the entire building, his penthouse. I doubt anyone knows that he owns this place with the way he enters through the back door and elevator. His men came up there with us too. Maybe I was going crazy, but it was like Namjoon was keeping them from me. So that they wouldn't touch me.

Inside, there were maids, polishing, cleaning. Namjoon dismissed them and they bowed to us. He took my wrist and brought me to a bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind him.

Namjoon: Here. You can wear this shirt to sleep.

Me: Sleep? In here?

Namjoon: Yes.