He was small for his age. Maybe because of the neglect, maybe because of the abuse. Maybe both. Whatever it was, at Eight years old, Seo Do-Yung barely looked half his age. His small, emaciated body only made more pitiful by the multiple bruises and cut covering his body.
Getting hit was like breathing, he couldn't remember when he had not received blows. Strangely, though he got used to it, his stubborn body still registered pain. The boy was just too good at bearing. It took a lot to get him to his knees. His face remained impassible through the whipping, the cigarettes, the beating. He felt it. It hurt. But he could manage. He was used to the pain.
« Throw the bitch out, » one of his brothers fell into a chair in exhaustion and mumbled around a lit cigarette.
Do-Yung didn't speak as he was dragged outside and thrown into a puddle. At least it wasn't freezing today. Winter was finally giving way to spring. He laid in the cold water for a while, half of his face submerged, enjoying the numbing feeling. It was a while before he got up.
He limped back to his room, a corner of the garage and laid on the cardboard he had scavenged a few days ago. The previous ones had become a public toilet and he couldn't stand the stench of piss. The young boy first stopped by the small sink outside which had been installed for when they got too dirty from working on cars. It was old, wonky and the stains of grease were incrusted. He turned the tap toward hot out of habit even though he knew the pipes had nothing but freezing water to offer. He raised his wet face to look at the small cracked mirror one of the guy had stuck there.
People said his eyes were cursed. The colour was unusual but you had to focus to notice. They were sunken, dark, empty. He looked like a walking cadaver. His hair had grown back since the messy cut he had gotten half a year ago. The ebony strands stopping somewhere between his ears and shoulders in no particular order.
He reckoned he hadn't changed much since his mother had abandoned him here four years ago. Maybe it was her addictions that had stunted his growth.
The prostitute had conceived him at work. The drunken client had refused to use any protection but she figured he was old enough and her own battered body didn't have what it took to shelter life anyway. And yet.
The first four years of his life had been alright. He didn't have any good memories but no bad ones either. He spent his days on his own and often went to sleep hungry but his mother had tried. She did her best to care for him but had no idea how to go about it and it seemed love between mother and child was not so instinctive.
It had been enough though for her to keep him around until one day she couldn't gather enough cash for her next fix and suddenly remembered the old client that had burdened her with Do-Yung.
It turned out to be the head of a large criminal family. He didn't know how much his mother received but she didn't look back after getting it.
Seo Sung-Woo was close to sixty but still stood tall and healthy. As Do-Yung stood in front of him for the first time, he tried to imagine the elegant man in suit with his dishevelled mother and couldn't.
The old man had a twisted sense of duty. He never turned a bastard away. As long as they shared his blood, they had the right to his name and a roof. No more, no less. His eight legitimate children from five different wives took care of their education.
Do-Yung had seen two bastards die in the few years he had been here. He himself had displayed uncommon sturdiness.
The huge compound the group lived in was on the outskirts of Seoul and comprised everything a small community needed and more. There was the main house in which he seldomly set foot, the training grounds, a common dining hall for the members who lived in, dormitories, a pre-school and whatnot.
He was eight years old and his life was a succession of similarly empty days. Nothing interested him. Nothing made him feel any particular way. The child roamed around aimlessly through the compound until someone wanting to let out some steam snatched him up for a good beating. Not everyone was sadistic though, in truth the majority didn't even look at him and definitely found no joy in abusing a kid. Some among those even regularly threw food his way. However those who did like to abuse him, did it well.
The next day he had managed to avoid all of the bastards whom liked to push him around and walked. He walked through the training grounds without a glance toward the men fighting there, and he kept on walking through the back garden, stopped to pick an unripe apple, chewed through the sour hard flesh of a few before continuing. The compound was surrounded by high walls he knew by heart after so long, however this day he found that there were some works going on and part of the brick wall was down. He went through without thinking and found himself in a field. This wasn't in the city anymore, this looked like the countryside. Feeling tired, he sat down amongst some bushes and listened to the breeze blowing through the leaves in the trees above his head.
« Ah ! » Someone suddenly exclaimed from behind him. « You scared me to death ! »
Do-Yung looked up and found a kid around his height stepping through the branches.
« What are you doing here ? » The child tilted his head to the side in curiosity. « This is my secret place. »
Do-Yung didn't answer, he simply kept on staring at the boy.
« Well, we can share, » the brunette sighed and sat down next to him. « I'm Na-Kyum. »
The boy had light brown hair cut short around a peach round face. His large topaz eyes shone as he smiled and waited expectantly at Do-Yung. He had a bruise on the right temple and a cut on the lower lip that had coagulated but the blood had ran down his face and stained his old, greyish t-shirt.
After a while, the kid gave up on getting anything out of the black haired child and rested his head on his knees, face turned toward the mute. Do-Yung stared right back, he couldn't help but be fascinated by the sight of someone smiling at him so genuinely.
« We're the same, » Na-Kyum suddenly reached out and brushed a soft finger across Do-Yung's bruised eye. « Let's be friends. »