The Rogue||Choi Yeonjun

Chapter 9; Revival

Yeonjun was going to Dr. Han's office and he passed through one of the school's gardens. Winter hadn't left much for the trees to showcase but the rustling of the leaves by the chilly wind and the aesthetic benches made Yeonjun stop for a moment and take in as much as he could of this scene. The long branches of the grand tree in the middle of the ground covered a huge area. The last leaf on one of the trees hung from it so triumphantly that it felt like it was saying 'No matter what nature inflicted on me, I stood solid like a rock and bore it all' until it snapped and plummeted to the ground by another gust of wind. The wind ruffled with Yeonjun's hair as it passed by, his lips slightly apart adding a point to his somber demeanor. 

He wanted to stay there a bit longer but Ms. Baek's facial expression came to his mind and it made him hurry. Dr. Han's office was in the middle of the building and he found it quite easily by the signboards' help, of course.

The door was open.

He peeked in to see if someone was inside but the office seemed empty. Should I wait until she comes back?  He stood outside for 5 minutes but seeing no sign of the Doc anywhere near, he went inside. 

The office was very cozily decorated, the general theme was pastel green, yellow, and orange giving it a home-kind of feeling. Yeonjun sat down on one of the two couches in the middle of the room and rested his elbows on his thighs, his hands intertwined and his chin on them. He looked around and admired the interior designer's attempt in making sure that the therapy didn't look like it was a patient's room. A white room with white couches was nauseatic for him, mostly because it brought back memories of someone who exploited his emotions in an attempt of 'fixing him'.

The door opens and a man enters the room holding a bag of candles. His hair is dull blonde and it's balding. He doesn't pay any attention to the boy and replaces the old candles with the new ones. He threw the bag in the bin and took a lighter out of the table drawer on the left of the room. Dr. Han probably prescribed medicines sitting on that table. 

Yeonjun raises an eyebrow at the man's odd behavior. He coughs to make him acknowledge his presence. 

"Dr. Han is not here yet." He dryly states.

Yay!

"Okay, thank you." Yeonjun gets up and makes his way to the door but the man stops him.

"Wait!" He calls out to Yeonjun.

"Turn around, son."

Son? And that voice was familiar too.

He turned his torso and head around and saw the man with a puzzled look on his face.

"Are you...Choi Yeonjun?" He asked as he eyed Yeonjun from head to toe.

"Dr. Harrison?" Yeonjun's eye opened wide on seeing his old therapist.

Memories came rushing back, one by one and in full pieces, so vividly. But Yeonjun blocked them, silencing their cries and put on a stoic face. 

"Come and sit down, let's have a chat." Dr. Harrison put the lighter on the table and gestured for him to sit down.

This was bad.

But he couldn't just run away and have the man follow him. That would be way worse, so he mustered up all the courage he had and sat down on the couch, Dr. Harrison followed on the other couch. 

"You look so handsome now." He looked fondly at him like he was his long-lost son.

"So...how have you been doing?" 

He prob'ly still sucks at therapy.

"Just alright, doc." He replied with a straight face, still wanting to get away from him.

He was hoping against hope that the man wouldn't lead the conversation to what he was dreading. 

"What are you here for, huh?" He straightened his back and leaned back on the couch.

"Still struggling with your mother's death?"

Her death.

The words revived his dormant wounds and rang in his head like a fire alarm. A giant earthquake shook his body and with that, just like a huge ball of smoke erupts before the lava emerges from a volcano, his anxiety rose high up.

"Are you a demon?!" He shouted on top of his lungs.

"Was what you did not enough?!"

"Calm down, son. Raising your voice won't bring her back." He said with an almost smug or at least arrogant face.

There he was, at it again. Yeonjun had gone insane when his mother died. He started throwing tantrums, would go without food and drink for days, and never come out of his room. Since Mr. Choi couldn't take care of him, so he decided to make him get therapy. Dr. Harrison, Late Mrs. Choi's old friend, was given the task and he was delighted. He started giving him therapy and the first 2 months were a success. But things got rough for Dr. Harrison after that. He got divorced and lost his mother too. He realized that he was no longer able to give therapy but kept it a secret from Mr. Choi. So instead of making young Yeonjun forget about his mother, the depressed doctor started exploiting the boy's emotions, for the sake of his pleasure.

Yeonjun's happy face started sulking and he stopped talking. When Mr. Choi realized his son's worsened state, Dr. Harrison was fired but the damage done was beyond recovery.

Yeonjun, however, did recover, but it was by completely forgetting everything that had happened, not by facing his fears. So if anyone was to bring up the topic , he'd probably not be able to handle it.

"I'm not the same 10-year-old Yeonjun, so you better watch your back." He rose from the couch and stared down at the doctor.

He stood up too and gave the boy a mocking expression. 

That drew the last straw.

Yeonjun gritted his teeth and clenched his jaw before he pulled the man by his collar, the veins on his temple pumped vigorously. The doctor's expression had now changed into a startled one, his eyebrows furrowed.

"I've learned how to be someone's worst nightmare in all these years, doc." He roared in his face as he scrunched his nose.

He threw the man on the couch and bolted out of the room. Harrison fixed his collar and shirt as he wiped the sweat on his forehead. 

He isn't the same boy anymore.

 Yeonjun ran back to that ruined garden with heavy shoulders. He rummaged through his jacket's inside pocket, took out a cigarette, and lit it up as he inhaled a long amount of the cancerous drug.

He weakly took steps to a bench under the shadow of the big and old tree with a trunk big enough for a person to live within, his body was shaking and his chest was rising up and down vigorously. He sighed trying to regain his equilibrium.

I'm still the same.

His head dropped and he groaned as he buried his face in his hands. Smoke rose from the stick between his index and middle finger and into the blue sky.

A/N:

Did I give out too much information? Psshw ;) No I didn't, there's still more. I might upload the next chapter really soon cuz the last ch., this one and, the next one are closely related. I hope you liked this chapter, Bbye!
P.S. This is the longest chapter I've written.