Tattoos . Soonhoon

03

I awoke to the sunlight shining through the window. I turned around in the bed but felt the presence of another person next to me under the blanket. I removed the blanket to see a tiny figure next to me, still asleep and curled into a tiny ball. I internally cooed at the sight.

"Ji?"

He opened his eyes and rubbed them sleepily.

"Good morning."

"Why are you here."

He started pulling at his sweater paws when I asked that. It was one of his habits when he was nervous, to pull at his sweater paws.  

"I wont be angry. I just want to know why you are here." I softened my tone.

"I came home late and you had another night terror...I'm sorry for forgetting that yesterday was that day and didn't come back earlier..."

That day. The day we met. The day I got bullied. Memories with regards to trauma triggered my night terrors. But he always helped me, because he knew. He also helped me get those things off my chest that night...

~~~

2 April 2011

"Hello soonyoung, I am seungcheol and this guy here is jihoon." 

The taller boy whom I now knew as seungcheol said.

"I'm 17. How old are you?"

"16"

"Jihoon is also 16. What do you enjoy doing? I rap, jihoon sings"

The smaller boy who I now knew as jihoon stood beside quietly. He did not look 16. He seems like a middle schooler...

"I dance."

"Cool."

We fell into an awkward silence. I could tell that they wanted to asks questions about my face, the abusing, but I wasn't ready to tell.

That night...

I lay on the mattress, unable to sleep. People might say that the thin mattress placed on the floor was uncomfortable but to me it wasn't. It was comfortable and peaceful. But despite that, the abusing of my dad kept replying in my head, keeping me awake.

I felt someone pull his mattress next to me and lay down.

"Can I know more about you?" He asked. I didn't even know he talked, but his voice was beautiful. I thought he was socially awkward as the entire day, only seungcheol hyung has been asking me questions and helping me around.

"S-Sure...?"

"Are you my hyung? So that I know how to address you. My birthday is on 22 November."

"I'm born on 15 June so yes I'm your hyung."

"So hyung, what happened to your face..."

"Um...."

Hearing my hesitation, 

"Nononono hyung issok if you dont want to tell me." He hurriedly added.

I found how frantic he was cute. Wait... I've known him for less than 48 hours and I find him cute already...

"My dad abuses me..." I whispered after a few moments of silence. I saw his eyes widen.

"Why?"

"The tattoo..."

"But your tattoo is beautiful... I've never seen such a beautiful treble clef in my years of learning music..."

I felt this warm tingly feeling when he said that. I looked towards and saw a light pink dusting his pale cheeks as he looked away after meeting my eyes.

"Thank you... No one ever told me that before..."

"How could no one have said anything about how beautiful your tattoo is?"

"I live with my dad. I haven't been going to school for almost a year so its only my dad and he loathes me, which became worse when I had the tattoo."

"Your mom?"

"She died."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I don't even know how she looked like. How cam I mourn the loss of someone I don't know how she looked?"

I don't know why, but that night, I felt as if he was my very good friend and I could tell him my story for the past 9 months. The abusing, the shaming, the hate. 

~~~

"Don't blame yourself. You weren't the one who caused the terrors."

"B-But I want to help you."

"Don't worry about me. I don't need anyone to worry over me, especially my past. Its over and its not important and the old me was a good-for-nothing." 

And so is the current me. I thought, but did not voice out for if I did, I would only worry him more.

"Hyung..."

"Shhh stop let's just go eat breakfast." 

~~~

I was hurt when he said that he did not need anyone to worry about him. It has been 6 years, but he still believed whatever his dad had said. It was not healthy. It was something that constantly lowered his self esteem, even after so long. But what was worse was the jab in my heart I felt. It was something that has been unsaid between us... That I suspected we were each other's soulmate. Our tattoos did reflect each other after all. 

But he doesn't know what my tattoo is. He didn't feel the jab in the heart every time he would distance himself from me because he did not want me to worry about him. He did not understand that by doing that, it just made me worry more. 

I wanted to tell him, but I was afraid to. I was afraid of his answer, the members' responses, the fans' responses. But the thing I was most afraid of, was me being not good enough for him, because to me, he is always that one brightest star in the galaxy and I was one onlooker in a whole crowd of onlookers who marveled at the stars.