Tattoos . Soonhoon

01

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, before peeling of the beige piece of silicone on my face. What stared back at me was squinty eyes, chubby cheeks, and a black marking of a treble clef on my left cheek. I carefully washed my face and the piece of silicone, before hanging the silicone to dry on the rack meant for towels. 

I walked out of the bathroom and back into my bedroom. I flicked the switch off my bedside lamp and slipped under the duvet before falling asleep.

What seems like moments later...

"Hyung! Hyung! Wake up."

I felt someone shaking me awake.

"Hyung, you were screaming and shouting again..."

"I was?" Shit did I have another- I moved my hand to touch my face and realised that it was wet with tears. 

"What triggered your night terror this time?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I hardly had them anymore but still often enough that I would wake some of the members up in the depths of the night and feel immense guilt right after for disturbing their much needed rest. Memories trigger my night terrors, memories of the trauma I felt. But with my fellow members around, it was much better.

"Hyung... You can tell me if anything triggers your memories..."

"dokyeom ah- dont worry, its just this...as usual..." I pointed to the tattoo on my face.

Understanding what I wanted to say, dk said "Hyung, think lesser about the past ok? Have a good rest, we have practice tomorrow morning." I only nodded in response.

I took a glance at the calender before I slept. No wonder... 30 March 2017 the calender read. It has already been 6 years, but for 6 years, I always had night terrors on this day because of what happened...

30 March 2011.

"D-Dad... I-I just got c-casted into pledis entertainment. I'm l-leaving on 1st April." The 15, turning 16 year old stuttered out as he looked down on the floor, scared to look up to his father.

"Casted? What a joke! Who would want such a good-for-nothing in their company! Especially with that disgusting black blotch on your face, an excuse of a tattoo. Who would want to cast you after seeing that. And even if you are casted, who would even look up to you! You should just throw away this idiotic dream of yours!"

"I-I... really got c-casted dad..." 

"Whatever, you are not leaving this house to become a trainee or whatever idol shit. Don't bring more shame to the family then what you already had this past 9 months!"

Hot tears started falling as I ran up to my room. Becoming an idol had always been my dream after I started falling in love with dancing. My passion. Being casted into the company was like a dream come true but my dad would never agree, and I never expected him to anyways. To him, I was a murderer, and he despised  me, abusing me. Ever since the tattoo, which to him was an ugly blotch of black right smack on my left cheek, had appeared 9 months ago on my 15th birthday, he treated me even worse. To him, I only brought shame to the family that could not even be considered one. The tattoo was a constant reminder of my mother, his soulmate, as her tattoo was also on her left cheek. She had died birthing me, so I was 'my mother's murderer'. However, when it appeared on my cheek, it became much worse.

I was lucky, that he did not upfront abuse me when I told the news.

1 April 2011.

"Dad...I-I'm g-going."

"Who said you could go!"

"D-Dad...I-I really n-need to g-go before I-I'm late..."

It took almost one hour to go to the company building by car. The car was chartered by the company and would reach here at around 8. It was 730 now so I had not much time to escape from my dad.

"You dipshit come here." I tried running away but he stood up and strode towards me carrying a cane, throwing my already packed luggage to goodness knows where before pining me to the ice-cold floor and harshly caning me.

once.

twice.

thrice....

The sound of the cane coming in contact with my skin rang throughout the empty house. He hit me again and again, until I lost count of how many times the cane landed on my body, and how long I had been curled up on the floor, trying to lessen the damage caused by the caning. After what seemed like eternity, he stopped, finally allowing me to take a breather from the pain that shot through my body.

However, he was not done. He went to the kitchen and took a hot cloth dipped in boiling water, and started rubbing it against my left cheek before I even recovered from the caning.

"DAD! s-s-stop. p-please... i-it h-hurts."

"Keep your filthy mouth shut."

I was whimpering on the floor as he rubbed it harder and harder. It wasn't the first time he tried to use boiling water to get rid of my tattoo, but it still hurt like hell.

The cloth soon lost its heat and started becoming cooler and cooler, making it slightly more bearable. However, he noticed. As he moved back to the kitchen to boil another kettle of water to abuse me with, I ignored the flaring pain everywhere and hurriedly ran to retrieve my luggage which was thankfully thrown next to the door, before bursting out of the door. As I left, I heard him roar in anger.

"DONT YOU DARE COME BACK ANYMORE! YOU ARE NOT MY SON!"