The Car Crash Club • Monsta X

xliv.

--warning: this chapter is marked for strong language and violence--

Two months before Hyungwon's eighteenth birthday, and everything falls apart. He's been perfectly, disgustingly obedient this whole time, but he's had a reason. Mi-Yeon. He could be brave for Mi-Yeon. He could be strong.

But when he comes home from school that day, Father and Mi-Yeon are in the kitchen, and Father has his arm around her shoulders, laughing as they work on a coloring book.

"You said you wouldn't touch her," Hyungwon says, and he's hit with the horrible realization that Father had never intended on keeping his promise and that these past few months – these horrible, demoralizing, dehumanizing months – have been for nothing. He has not prevented what he set out to prevent; he has only cast himself further into the abyss.

"Hyungwon," Father says, looking over at him with a smile. "You're home a little early, aren't you?" He looks down at Mi-Yeon with that same smile, and if Hyungwon didn't know what sickening things Father could do, he might've believed it to be sincere. "Well, Mi-Yeon? Do you want to tell your big brother what we're working on?"

Mi-Yeon looks up, her face lighting up when she sees Hyungwon. She's so excited that she even drops her crayon, and Hyungwon's heart aches as the orange crayon rolls off the table and falls to the floor. He loves Mi-Yeon and yet there's a part of him that resents her because she is all that holds him back from disappearing entirely. But how could he possibly hate the little girl who's holding up a piece of paper to show him the orange flower she's been working on all afternoon?

"Father says I have to stay inside the lines," Mi-Yeon is explaining to him even as Hyungwon just stares at her, on the precipice of breaking apart. "So I tried really hard. I messed up a little over here-" She points to the affected area. "But that was the only place. I'm going to finish it and then you can hang it up in your room, Hyungwon!"

Hyungwon doesn't know what to say.

When he was a boy, he received gifts. A shiny red bicycle. Toy soldiers. A handheld game. But all of these gifts had been for one purpose – to make Hyungwon trusting and compliant so that he would allow Father to reap his body, over and over again.

And now here is a girl, offering him a drawing, and she wants nothing in return.

Hyungwon is so broken that it doesn't make sense to him, but he nods, afraid of upsetting the little girl.

"Isn't that sweet of her?" Father asks, stroking her hair. "What a good little girl."

The words burn at Hyungwon. He hates that Father has broken the promise he's paid for, and he's sickened by the fact that even now, he's jealous that Father is trying to replace him.

"Don't touch her," Hyungwon says, his voice low. He can't think about all the things he has done in order to protect her – all the vile, degrading acts he's had to perform – he can't think of them right now. He thinks that if he does, he'll shatter across the kitchen floor like glass waiting to be stepped on. And Father will crush him once more under the heel of his shoe.

Father stills before dropping his hand from her head and getting up from his seat. Slowly, he bends down and picks up the fallen orange crayon before standing back up and depositing it in from of Mi-Yeon. "Sweetie, your big brother and I are going to have a little talk, okay? Just keep coloring and I'll be back soon."

"Okay," Mi-Yeon chirps, already back to her scribbling. "But bring Hyungwon too so he can color with us!"

"We'll see," Father says, his voice light and pleasant, but it sends a shiver of fear down Hyungwon's spine as he follows Father to Hyungwon's bedroom.