Half Acre (5.Interlude/?)
Title: Half Acre
Author: peigurrrl
Pairing: TaeKey, minor Jongho
Rating: R
Genre: Romance, Drama
Summary: Lee Taemin is unknown in the social web that is high school and Kim Kibum is likely the most well known. But the world is a bigger place than that, it's a place where anything is justifiable to protect that which is precious. Taemin is more than aware of this and the last thing he wants is to be the one teaching Kibum this.
Disclaimer: The other day, SHINee walked up to me and said, 'So hey, do you want to own us?' and obviously I said, 'Hell to the yes!' but then I woke up. I don't own the song, either. Half Acre belongs to Hem.
--
prev
The night before Lee Taemin turned ten years old, he slept over at a friend’s house. His friend had invited him over on prompting from his parents who in turn had been asked by Taemin’s parents. It was Taemin’s older brother, Taesun, who had come up with the idea of a surprise birthday party for his little brother.
His parents had jumped on the idea, wanting to reward their little darling for just being alive. They dropped Taemin off at his friend’s house in the evening and went shopping for party supplies, the presents having already been bought. The surprise party was to begin at three in the afternoon the next day.
At three past midnight, just after Taemin had passed out after his tenth win on the racing car game against his friend, his house across town was ablaze.
No one survived the fire.
They had died of carbon monoxide poisoning long before the flames had begun to properly eat away at the building. Given that fire had started in the vents, it had to have been a planned homicide of sorts.
Being told he couldn’t see his family at the morgue, hosting the closed casket funeral with only his parents’ friends there to support him, Taemin found himself not particularly caring why but very much caring who.
They really had a lot of guts to take his home away from him.
--
“It’s a little late, Taemin-ah, but happy birthday,” his friend’s mom said, making a fairly solid attempt at cheerfulness as she set down the cake before him. The numbers in wax candles, a one and zero, slowly melted down as the birthday boy stared lifelessly at the flames. He had been staying with his friend the past week after his family’s funeral, having no living relatives in the country that were willing to take him in. He would be going to a foster home tomorrow, in another city, in a place he had never known with people he had only been told about.
“Blow the candles out, Tae,” prompted his friend, eyes staring hungrily at the cake his mother had slaved over in effort to make the poor orphan’s last day in familiar company happy. He was still too young to sympathize with Taemin’s lost and really, could only think of the cake.
Taemin managed, a few minutes later, to break his face free of the stormy expression he’d had lately and blow the fire out.
“Did you make a wish?”
I want to go home.
--
“Taemin-ah. Wake up, we’re here,” the social worker called gently to him, rousing him from the two-hour long car ride induced nap. He blinked drowsily and clambered out of the car, backpack slung over one shoulder and with the clothes he wore, was largely all that remained of his possessions. The savings his parents had had were locked away, untouchable until he turned eighteen. They were inaccessible even by the government or blood relations, which perhaps explained why none of his family wanted him.
Scuffing his shoes all the way up to the house, the door was flung open suddenly by a kindly looking man who beamed at Taemin and the social worker as his wife hurried to the entrance, pink apron covering her clothes and bringing the smell of freshly baked pie with her.
“Taemin-ah? It’s nice to meet you, we’re your foster parents. Is this bag all you have? We’ll have to go shopping for more clothes tomorrow. We enrolled you in the local school already, you’ll be able to start next week,” the woman gushed excitedly while Taemin’s foster father relieved him of his backpack and led the social worker to a table to sit and talk details.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Taemin replied timidly.
“You can call me ‘mom’ or Mrs. Kim or what have you, Taemin-ah,” she said, ushering him into the room. “We’re very excited to have you- we’ve never been able to have children of our own and if we want to adopt we need to foster children first- so we’ve never had experience raising children but don’t you worry, I’ve done a lot of research!”
He really couldn’t help but smile at her.
“Aigoo, what a pretty little smile! If you need anything to shower or bathe with, it’ll be in the bathroom, yours is the yellow set, okay? I’ll call you down for dinner in an hour, dear.”
His social worker appeared at the door of his new room, apparently there to bid him goodbye. “They seem like nice people, Taemin-ah, I’m sure you’ll be happy with them. Here, have my card and call me if you have any problems. I’ll be back in a month to check on you.”
“Yes ma’am.”
--
School was good. He made friends quickly and his grades were above average. He’d come to reside quite happily in his foster home. His foster parents were cheerful people and he never had any problems to report to his social worker.
He was as happy as could be expected, for a child having lost his family and of course never expected anything would go wrong, having already recovered from that trauma.
So it came as a bit of a shock to find his foster parents suddenly so deeply worried and troubled over his foster father losing his job. And having never dealt with an adult frantic for work- his foster mother was a stay-at-home mother- Taemin wasn’t exactly sure how to react when one week of joblessness turned into three turned into one month into four and savings were depleted and stress levels mounted until he found himself being ushered into his room by his foster mother and told to lock the door, hide, be quiet, cover his ears, and not come out for any reason.
The bewildered child did exactly that, scurrying into his room, slamming the door shut and locking the deadbolt it had for some reason come equipped with before clambering into the top shelf of his closet, a small space in a nearly untouched corner that was hard to see. He wasn’t sure what it meant for the near foundations of his walls to shake but he knew the shrill screaming he could hear even through his little hands scared him and the pounding on his door after the screaming stopped scared him even more. Was this his punishment for spilling the milk?
The evening light that had been streaming through a crack in his closet doors eventually disappeared and Taemin couldn’t help but stare fearfully and not leave his little corner in the closet for whatever reason at all. He had always been obedient like that.
And if he couldn’t clearly make out the roared orders of comeoutrightthisinstanceboyhowdareyoudisobeymeyouwillcomeouthereandcleanupthemessyoumade- then he couldn’t really be expected to listen to them, right?
Taemin woke up somehow, with bright morning light falling on his face through the crack in the closet, still curled up, his little body hurting, and to the voice of his foster mother as she knocked gently on the door, beckoning him to come out. It was safe now, he could come out. He had to go to school.
He had to pretend everything was normal. Put a smile on and pretend everything is normal, Taemin-ah. And he did because he was obedient like that.
--
He was cleaning his room before his foster father could come back and find something to rage about. His foster mother was in the hospital from two nights ago, and nowadays his heart didn’t beat nearly as fast when the man ran around wreaking havoc. It had become a regular occurrence. Taemin did wish he wouldn’t hurt his foster mother but there wasn’t much he could do about it, he was always told to go and hide while she held him off. And when she was in the hospital, he had to be perfect and hide a lot. His foster father was usually a little nicer when his foster mother was in the hospital though.
That is, unless he smelled of the really disgusting smell from a bottle of something that Taemin had tried once- back before his foster father had lost his job- and left him dizzy for the rest of the day.
If his foster father smelled like that, there was no hiding. There was only running. He’d become quite proficient at grabbing his emergency bag of food, water, money, and clothes; slipping on a pair of shoes he kept hidden underneath his bed and shimmying out of his window to jump with unnerving accuracy into a very cushy bush below and take off running into the city.
It didn’t make him a faster runner by any means but he was speedier than a demon cheetah on steroids when being chased, that was fact. He could disappear for hours and even spend the night on a playground, sheltered beneath a structure of some sort.
But there, he shouldn’t have to do that today. His foster father wasn’t at an interview today, he was sending out applications from the local library and managing finances. There was nothing to irk him either, Taemin had cleaned the room so well, but for a little card of paper wedged under the foot of his bedframe.
Yanking it out with no small amount of difficulty, being exhausted from making sure the rest of the house was already spic and span, curious eyes peered at the black lettering naming his social worker and her contact number. It had been over half a year since she’d last paid a visit, and she wouldn’t know about their current situation. Ought he tell her?
No, he shouldn’t. This was his new home and even though he didn’t know much he knew that if his social worker found out, she would come with people like the police and tear apart his home. His foster mother hadn’t told anyone so why should he? She obviously wanted this home to stay together and he wouldn’t ruin it for her.
The door opened downstairs, announcing his foster father’s return home. Taemin flinched and hurriedly shoved the card into his pocket and reached for the cleaning supplies in his room to scrub his floor again.
“Cleaning your room?” the man asked as he appeared, leaning on the door frame and peering in at his foster son. “You’re a good kid, Taemin. What do you want for dinner?”
“I like everything,” Taemin replied, hoping it was the right answer. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t.
Seemed like it wasn’t, today. “Tch. Spineless. Don’t even have an opinion of your own do you? You like everything?” The much larger male strode forward, gripping Taemin’s arm tightly before he could get away. Pushing the boy towards the small potted cactus, he shoved Taemin’s face close to the plant, ignoring the wriggling of the tiny body trying to get away. “You like everything, huh?! Answer me!”
“No- stop- no! I don’t!” screamed the ten year old, squirming frantically. “Let go! Let go!”
“You can eat that for dinner if you like everything then! Go on!” With a rough push, Taemin fell towards the plant, landing on it and shattering the pot, earning himself two hands full of spines and dirt and cracked pottery in an attempt to protect his face. Biting back tears and cries, he darted past the older man, narrowly avoiding rough hands. “Get back here, you brat! Clean up your mess! Don’t you dare disrespect me like this!”
Ignoring the pain in his fingers, he ran for the bathroom, locking it and deadbolting it- his foster mother had installed deadbolts on all the doors since his foster father first lost his temper. Fumbling for the first aid kid under the sink, Taemin winced and swallowed back the lump in his throat as he picked the first few sticklers with his teeth. He didn’t understand.
What had he done wrong? Was it his fault that his foster father had lost his job? He had a vague concept of money- you needed it and when there wasn’t a lot, people got hungry and grumpy. The tiny spines of the cactus that he pulled from his tiny hands fell into the wastebasket he had put between his skinny knees as he sat on the bathtub’s edge, picking out the tiny needles with his foster mother’s tweezers. They were soon slippery with all the pinpricks of blood leaking out of the soft skin. He could hear his foster father leaving the house and flinched when the door closed. It was the first time that Taemin had incurred physical damage, as his foster mother had always been there before.
He did feel sorry about that. She had been nothing but kind to him. She even protected him. Why shouldn’t he help her in turn? Oh right. Because he couldn’t. He was too small, too weak, too scared to do anything but run. Which he had done very successfully. But it was for good reason, wasn’t it? Pain was bad. He didn’t like it. When he didn’t run away... as expected, this sort of thing happened.
He didn’t deserve it. He couldn’t have. His parents had never treated him like this simply because he said something wrong. His teachers didn’t either. His friends’ parents never had to their children. So his foster father was wrong.
If someone was wrong, they had to be corrected. But who? Who was going to correct his foster father? He slowly smeared a topical ointment onto the bandages, his hands gone numb from the freezing water he had used to rinse the dirt off. It was getting dark outside. If Taemin didn’t want a repeat incident, he knew better than to stay around.
But if he recalled correctly, his foster mother was supposed to come back from the hospital tomorrow morning. He had been the one to call the police for her and to press his lips tightly together and shake his head when the police had asked him if he knew who had done this to her and listen as they told him he was lucky they had come when they did because who knew how much longer she could have survived with all that blood loss. She had almost died. If she did die, then this home wouldn’t be much of one anymore. He had to do something. He had to do something soon. He had to do something tonight.
But it wouldn’t hurt to have his shoes and jacket and backpack on.
--
He was getting tired, sitting by the door waiting for his foster father to come home and yawned. As if his yawn had been some sort of magical summoning call, the sound of a car pulling into the driveway met his ears. It then drove off, so he could only assume someone else had driven his foster father home... which meant he had been drinking.
This was probably going to hurt.
“Yah! Brat, what are you doing sitting here, ah?! Shoes on in the house? I’ll kill you!” were the first things from the man’s mouth upon seeing Taemin in the foyer.
“You can’t get angry about things like that,” he replied resolutely, hands shaking just a little as he stared into the red-rimmed, alcohol crazed eyes. “You can’t be mean and hit me just because I said something wrong. You can’t hit Mrs. Kim just because you’re angry. We don’t deserve it. It’s not our fault you lost your job. It’s not our fault you can’t find a new one.”
The man reached down with one thickly veined hand to grip the boy’s skinny shoulder in a bruising grip. “Oh you think so, do you?”
Taemin was grateful for his backpack of crackers cushioning his back as he was thrown against the wall.
“You don’t know anything! You know how much our expenses have gone up since we took you in, you stupid child?! The government doesn’t pay us enough to raise a financial black hole like you! And what, are you going to pay us back in the future? Like you would! You’re just a foster brat! Once you leave, you’re gone! Why don’t you leave right now, even?! Go on, get out! Isn’t that what you have your little emergency pack for? You think I’m stupid just because I’m drunk? Get out!”
It was good, Taemin thought, that he hadn’t had any dinner, because the foot that caught him in his stomach really hurt and made him want to throw up everything. He should run.
“I will- I will once you- you promise that you- you won’t hit Mrs. Kim anymore! A-and you nee-need to stop drinking so much! I-I’ll eat less, okay? Just promise!” he gasped out between dry heaves. “I’ll give you money! So promise! Promise you won’t hit her anymore! She almost died!”
His foster father sneered and kicked him again. “And how do you propose to get money, a skinny little punk like you? What can you do? Nothing! Nobody will pay you jack shit!” The next kick knocked all the wind out of Taemin’s tiny lungs as he scrambled away.
He knew he was right, though, that he didn’t deserve this. Where was the fairness in it? His foster father was about three times his age and weight, this wasn’t even a fair fight. His own parents would never do this. Taesun hadn’t even hit him even when Taemin had done something bad. And he was just telling his foster father that he had to be nice. It was no wonder he couldn’t get a job if he wasn’t nice.
“Don’t hit me!” shrieked the little boy, furious at the larger man who currently had his hair in a hold, ready to strike the tiny face. “Let me go! How dare you!”
“I AM YOUR GUARDIAN IN THIS HOUSE AND YOU WILL NOT DEFY ME!” roared his foster father, slapping him violently across the face. Enraged rather than subdued, Taemin dug his fingers into the hand and wrist holding onto his hair, ungroomed nails cutting deep into tough skin before yanking his head away with a scream, losing a good amount of hair in the process. He darted for the kitchen and its backdoor, only to be cut off. Well, it was a bit further and he had to give his foster father credit for being faster on his feet drunk than sober.
He reached for the knife drawer instead. His foster father laughed. “You’re going to stab me, little baby? Does little Taeminnie think he can use the big bad knife to stop the bad man? As if you have the guts for it.”
He was well aware his hands shook as he pointed the blade at his foster father, the man didn’t need to rub it in for God’s sake. So rude. He really had to do something about that. “Don’t hit me. You have no right to hit me. You will never hit me again. You will never hit Mrs. Kim again. If you don’t promise, I will make you.”
The man would just not stop laughing. It was a little irritating. But then that heavy hand struck out and caught him on his tiny wrists with a jarring sort of pain. Taemin didn’t let go. He wouldn’t. His foster father would have to pry the blade from his cold, dead hands. They were knocked to the side but he brought them back to point the knife at his foster father.
“Don’t hit me.”
“Try and stop me,” taunted the man.
Taemin would later say he didn’t remember. Oh, were those really his fingerprints found on the knife? Ah, but he had been so scared. He just wanted to protect himself. That bastard wasn’t dead, was he? Just hospitalized. What was that? The tendons in the arms had been cut? Yes, Taemin really was too traumatized to remember.
If he told himself that enough times, it would become true. Really, repeat a lie a thousand times and it will become the truth. He had said it to himself all night long in the park, hidden away in a little corner of the play structure after calling the police from the payphone he could hardly reach. He had practiced the lie. it was the easiest lie, rather than making up a story. He knew he would be in trouble. But if he said he didn’t remember any of it, they’d probably take pity on him, right? Right. Oh, the trauma. The mental damage. He couldn’t remember a thing after his foster father started hitting him. He’d probably had the memories knocked clean out of his head.
The important thing was, they believed him. They really did. It was a beautiful thing and he was actually, kind of proud of himself. Mrs. Kim certainly had no objections. She’d really become attached to him and was certain that he had acted in self defense and was only justified. She’d talk to her husband after he finished alcohol rehabilitation. For now she was more concerned about the precious little boy she hadn’t been able to protect after all.
The problem was the social worker. They had found her card in his pants and called her, as he hadn’t disclosed his name to them, having been rendered speechless by his own actions earlier. He was, technically, in shock any way.
The social worker was upset. He shouldn’t have been under the care of a family that couldn’t take care of him. Mr. and Mrs. Kim were not fit for foster children. Taemin would have to be relocated, unless he were to be adopted by someone.
Someone did arrive to adopt him, though. Someone who had seen the news and had had corrupt police forward him tapes of the interrogations of the little boy who had somehow incapacitated a grown man. And if no one else did, then this man, with his interest and his profession and his own arsenal of decidedly none-too-legal skills, had seen that the boy was lying. And how magnificently he lied too. With a little polishing, the boy could be capable of anything.
Because lying was kind of the most necessary skill a mafioso needed. Killing was second. He was sure Taemin would be able to excel at that too, with a bit of training. So the adoption papers were signed the next day and a little face with scratches and a split lip and little hands with a splinted wrist, and round black eyes killed to the world stared up at the man who was apparently his new father.
As they got off the fancy, shiny, jet black car with its blacked-out windows and clear silver trimming, Taemin blinked a few times at the sight that greeted him: a large, fancy mansion with a lot of people standing in front of it bowing to his new father and greeting him and welcoming him home.
“Welcome to the Family, Taemin-ah.”
“Are they gonna be my new home?”
“If you’re obedient.”
“I can be.”
--
A/N: And so we discover how Taeminnie became such a psychopath. God, why is he so cray-cray, this is not the reality I wanted. Next chapter should be out end of April. Maybe. I have a lot of shit to prepare for in May so this date is subject to change. 'Cause, y'know. Real life trumps you all. Oh, I know, truth hurts. Let's see each other soon though, right? Preferably with a nice update. Have a nice day, darlings!
Author: peigurrrl
Pairing: TaeKey, minor Jongho
Rating: R
Genre: Romance, Drama
Summary: Lee Taemin is unknown in the social web that is high school and Kim Kibum is likely the most well known. But the world is a bigger place than that, it's a place where anything is justifiable to protect that which is precious. Taemin is more than aware of this and the last thing he wants is to be the one teaching Kibum this.
Disclaimer: The other day, SHINee walked up to me and said, 'So hey, do you want to own us?' and obviously I said, 'Hell to the yes!' but then I woke up. I don't own the song, either. Half Acre belongs to Hem.
--
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The night before Lee Taemin turned ten years old, he slept over at a friend’s house. His friend had invited him over on prompting from his parents who in turn had been asked by Taemin’s parents. It was Taemin’s older brother, Taesun, who had come up with the idea of a surprise birthday party for his little brother.
His parents had jumped on the idea, wanting to reward their little darling for just being alive. They dropped Taemin off at his friend’s house in the evening and went shopping for party supplies, the presents having already been bought. The surprise party was to begin at three in the afternoon the next day.
At three past midnight, just after Taemin had passed out after his tenth win on the racing car game against his friend, his house across town was ablaze.
No one survived the fire.
They had died of carbon monoxide poisoning long before the flames had begun to properly eat away at the building. Given that fire had started in the vents, it had to have been a planned homicide of sorts.
Being told he couldn’t see his family at the morgue, hosting the closed casket funeral with only his parents’ friends there to support him, Taemin found himself not particularly caring why but very much caring who.
They really had a lot of guts to take his home away from him.
--
“It’s a little late, Taemin-ah, but happy birthday,” his friend’s mom said, making a fairly solid attempt at cheerfulness as she set down the cake before him. The numbers in wax candles, a one and zero, slowly melted down as the birthday boy stared lifelessly at the flames. He had been staying with his friend the past week after his family’s funeral, having no living relatives in the country that were willing to take him in. He would be going to a foster home tomorrow, in another city, in a place he had never known with people he had only been told about.
“Blow the candles out, Tae,” prompted his friend, eyes staring hungrily at the cake his mother had slaved over in effort to make the poor orphan’s last day in familiar company happy. He was still too young to sympathize with Taemin’s lost and really, could only think of the cake.
Taemin managed, a few minutes later, to break his face free of the stormy expression he’d had lately and blow the fire out.
“Did you make a wish?”
I want to go home.
--
“Taemin-ah. Wake up, we’re here,” the social worker called gently to him, rousing him from the two-hour long car ride induced nap. He blinked drowsily and clambered out of the car, backpack slung over one shoulder and with the clothes he wore, was largely all that remained of his possessions. The savings his parents had had were locked away, untouchable until he turned eighteen. They were inaccessible even by the government or blood relations, which perhaps explained why none of his family wanted him.
Scuffing his shoes all the way up to the house, the door was flung open suddenly by a kindly looking man who beamed at Taemin and the social worker as his wife hurried to the entrance, pink apron covering her clothes and bringing the smell of freshly baked pie with her.
“Taemin-ah? It’s nice to meet you, we’re your foster parents. Is this bag all you have? We’ll have to go shopping for more clothes tomorrow. We enrolled you in the local school already, you’ll be able to start next week,” the woman gushed excitedly while Taemin’s foster father relieved him of his backpack and led the social worker to a table to sit and talk details.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Taemin replied timidly.
“You can call me ‘mom’ or Mrs. Kim or what have you, Taemin-ah,” she said, ushering him into the room. “We’re very excited to have you- we’ve never been able to have children of our own and if we want to adopt we need to foster children first- so we’ve never had experience raising children but don’t you worry, I’ve done a lot of research!”
He really couldn’t help but smile at her.
“Aigoo, what a pretty little smile! If you need anything to shower or bathe with, it’ll be in the bathroom, yours is the yellow set, okay? I’ll call you down for dinner in an hour, dear.”
His social worker appeared at the door of his new room, apparently there to bid him goodbye. “They seem like nice people, Taemin-ah, I’m sure you’ll be happy with them. Here, have my card and call me if you have any problems. I’ll be back in a month to check on you.”
“Yes ma’am.”
--
School was good. He made friends quickly and his grades were above average. He’d come to reside quite happily in his foster home. His foster parents were cheerful people and he never had any problems to report to his social worker.
He was as happy as could be expected, for a child having lost his family and of course never expected anything would go wrong, having already recovered from that trauma.
So it came as a bit of a shock to find his foster parents suddenly so deeply worried and troubled over his foster father losing his job. And having never dealt with an adult frantic for work- his foster mother was a stay-at-home mother- Taemin wasn’t exactly sure how to react when one week of joblessness turned into three turned into one month into four and savings were depleted and stress levels mounted until he found himself being ushered into his room by his foster mother and told to lock the door, hide, be quiet, cover his ears, and not come out for any reason.
The bewildered child did exactly that, scurrying into his room, slamming the door shut and locking the deadbolt it had for some reason come equipped with before clambering into the top shelf of his closet, a small space in a nearly untouched corner that was hard to see. He wasn’t sure what it meant for the near foundations of his walls to shake but he knew the shrill screaming he could hear even through his little hands scared him and the pounding on his door after the screaming stopped scared him even more. Was this his punishment for spilling the milk?
The evening light that had been streaming through a crack in his closet doors eventually disappeared and Taemin couldn’t help but stare fearfully and not leave his little corner in the closet for whatever reason at all. He had always been obedient like that.
And if he couldn’t clearly make out the roared orders of comeoutrightthisinstanceboyhowdareyoudisobeymeyouwillcomeouthereandcleanupthemessyoumade- then he couldn’t really be expected to listen to them, right?
Taemin woke up somehow, with bright morning light falling on his face through the crack in the closet, still curled up, his little body hurting, and to the voice of his foster mother as she knocked gently on the door, beckoning him to come out. It was safe now, he could come out. He had to go to school.
He had to pretend everything was normal. Put a smile on and pretend everything is normal, Taemin-ah. And he did because he was obedient like that.
--
He was cleaning his room before his foster father could come back and find something to rage about. His foster mother was in the hospital from two nights ago, and nowadays his heart didn’t beat nearly as fast when the man ran around wreaking havoc. It had become a regular occurrence. Taemin did wish he wouldn’t hurt his foster mother but there wasn’t much he could do about it, he was always told to go and hide while she held him off. And when she was in the hospital, he had to be perfect and hide a lot. His foster father was usually a little nicer when his foster mother was in the hospital though.
That is, unless he smelled of the really disgusting smell from a bottle of something that Taemin had tried once- back before his foster father had lost his job- and left him dizzy for the rest of the day.
If his foster father smelled like that, there was no hiding. There was only running. He’d become quite proficient at grabbing his emergency bag of food, water, money, and clothes; slipping on a pair of shoes he kept hidden underneath his bed and shimmying out of his window to jump with unnerving accuracy into a very cushy bush below and take off running into the city.
It didn’t make him a faster runner by any means but he was speedier than a demon cheetah on steroids when being chased, that was fact. He could disappear for hours and even spend the night on a playground, sheltered beneath a structure of some sort.
But there, he shouldn’t have to do that today. His foster father wasn’t at an interview today, he was sending out applications from the local library and managing finances. There was nothing to irk him either, Taemin had cleaned the room so well, but for a little card of paper wedged under the foot of his bedframe.
Yanking it out with no small amount of difficulty, being exhausted from making sure the rest of the house was already spic and span, curious eyes peered at the black lettering naming his social worker and her contact number. It had been over half a year since she’d last paid a visit, and she wouldn’t know about their current situation. Ought he tell her?
No, he shouldn’t. This was his new home and even though he didn’t know much he knew that if his social worker found out, she would come with people like the police and tear apart his home. His foster mother hadn’t told anyone so why should he? She obviously wanted this home to stay together and he wouldn’t ruin it for her.
The door opened downstairs, announcing his foster father’s return home. Taemin flinched and hurriedly shoved the card into his pocket and reached for the cleaning supplies in his room to scrub his floor again.
“Cleaning your room?” the man asked as he appeared, leaning on the door frame and peering in at his foster son. “You’re a good kid, Taemin. What do you want for dinner?”
“I like everything,” Taemin replied, hoping it was the right answer. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t.
Seemed like it wasn’t, today. “Tch. Spineless. Don’t even have an opinion of your own do you? You like everything?” The much larger male strode forward, gripping Taemin’s arm tightly before he could get away. Pushing the boy towards the small potted cactus, he shoved Taemin’s face close to the plant, ignoring the wriggling of the tiny body trying to get away. “You like everything, huh?! Answer me!”
“No- stop- no! I don’t!” screamed the ten year old, squirming frantically. “Let go! Let go!”
“You can eat that for dinner if you like everything then! Go on!” With a rough push, Taemin fell towards the plant, landing on it and shattering the pot, earning himself two hands full of spines and dirt and cracked pottery in an attempt to protect his face. Biting back tears and cries, he darted past the older man, narrowly avoiding rough hands. “Get back here, you brat! Clean up your mess! Don’t you dare disrespect me like this!”
Ignoring the pain in his fingers, he ran for the bathroom, locking it and deadbolting it- his foster mother had installed deadbolts on all the doors since his foster father first lost his temper. Fumbling for the first aid kid under the sink, Taemin winced and swallowed back the lump in his throat as he picked the first few sticklers with his teeth. He didn’t understand.
What had he done wrong? Was it his fault that his foster father had lost his job? He had a vague concept of money- you needed it and when there wasn’t a lot, people got hungry and grumpy. The tiny spines of the cactus that he pulled from his tiny hands fell into the wastebasket he had put between his skinny knees as he sat on the bathtub’s edge, picking out the tiny needles with his foster mother’s tweezers. They were soon slippery with all the pinpricks of blood leaking out of the soft skin. He could hear his foster father leaving the house and flinched when the door closed. It was the first time that Taemin had incurred physical damage, as his foster mother had always been there before.
He did feel sorry about that. She had been nothing but kind to him. She even protected him. Why shouldn’t he help her in turn? Oh right. Because he couldn’t. He was too small, too weak, too scared to do anything but run. Which he had done very successfully. But it was for good reason, wasn’t it? Pain was bad. He didn’t like it. When he didn’t run away... as expected, this sort of thing happened.
He didn’t deserve it. He couldn’t have. His parents had never treated him like this simply because he said something wrong. His teachers didn’t either. His friends’ parents never had to their children. So his foster father was wrong.
If someone was wrong, they had to be corrected. But who? Who was going to correct his foster father? He slowly smeared a topical ointment onto the bandages, his hands gone numb from the freezing water he had used to rinse the dirt off. It was getting dark outside. If Taemin didn’t want a repeat incident, he knew better than to stay around.
But if he recalled correctly, his foster mother was supposed to come back from the hospital tomorrow morning. He had been the one to call the police for her and to press his lips tightly together and shake his head when the police had asked him if he knew who had done this to her and listen as they told him he was lucky they had come when they did because who knew how much longer she could have survived with all that blood loss. She had almost died. If she did die, then this home wouldn’t be much of one anymore. He had to do something. He had to do something soon. He had to do something tonight.
But it wouldn’t hurt to have his shoes and jacket and backpack on.
--
He was getting tired, sitting by the door waiting for his foster father to come home and yawned. As if his yawn had been some sort of magical summoning call, the sound of a car pulling into the driveway met his ears. It then drove off, so he could only assume someone else had driven his foster father home... which meant he had been drinking.
This was probably going to hurt.
“Yah! Brat, what are you doing sitting here, ah?! Shoes on in the house? I’ll kill you!” were the first things from the man’s mouth upon seeing Taemin in the foyer.
“You can’t get angry about things like that,” he replied resolutely, hands shaking just a little as he stared into the red-rimmed, alcohol crazed eyes. “You can’t be mean and hit me just because I said something wrong. You can’t hit Mrs. Kim just because you’re angry. We don’t deserve it. It’s not our fault you lost your job. It’s not our fault you can’t find a new one.”
The man reached down with one thickly veined hand to grip the boy’s skinny shoulder in a bruising grip. “Oh you think so, do you?”
Taemin was grateful for his backpack of crackers cushioning his back as he was thrown against the wall.
“You don’t know anything! You know how much our expenses have gone up since we took you in, you stupid child?! The government doesn’t pay us enough to raise a financial black hole like you! And what, are you going to pay us back in the future? Like you would! You’re just a foster brat! Once you leave, you’re gone! Why don’t you leave right now, even?! Go on, get out! Isn’t that what you have your little emergency pack for? You think I’m stupid just because I’m drunk? Get out!”
It was good, Taemin thought, that he hadn’t had any dinner, because the foot that caught him in his stomach really hurt and made him want to throw up everything. He should run.
“I will- I will once you- you promise that you- you won’t hit Mrs. Kim anymore! A-and you nee-need to stop drinking so much! I-I’ll eat less, okay? Just promise!” he gasped out between dry heaves. “I’ll give you money! So promise! Promise you won’t hit her anymore! She almost died!”
His foster father sneered and kicked him again. “And how do you propose to get money, a skinny little punk like you? What can you do? Nothing! Nobody will pay you jack shit!” The next kick knocked all the wind out of Taemin’s tiny lungs as he scrambled away.
He knew he was right, though, that he didn’t deserve this. Where was the fairness in it? His foster father was about three times his age and weight, this wasn’t even a fair fight. His own parents would never do this. Taesun hadn’t even hit him even when Taemin had done something bad. And he was just telling his foster father that he had to be nice. It was no wonder he couldn’t get a job if he wasn’t nice.
“Don’t hit me!” shrieked the little boy, furious at the larger man who currently had his hair in a hold, ready to strike the tiny face. “Let me go! How dare you!”
“I AM YOUR GUARDIAN IN THIS HOUSE AND YOU WILL NOT DEFY ME!” roared his foster father, slapping him violently across the face. Enraged rather than subdued, Taemin dug his fingers into the hand and wrist holding onto his hair, ungroomed nails cutting deep into tough skin before yanking his head away with a scream, losing a good amount of hair in the process. He darted for the kitchen and its backdoor, only to be cut off. Well, it was a bit further and he had to give his foster father credit for being faster on his feet drunk than sober.
He reached for the knife drawer instead. His foster father laughed. “You’re going to stab me, little baby? Does little Taeminnie think he can use the big bad knife to stop the bad man? As if you have the guts for it.”
He was well aware his hands shook as he pointed the blade at his foster father, the man didn’t need to rub it in for God’s sake. So rude. He really had to do something about that. “Don’t hit me. You have no right to hit me. You will never hit me again. You will never hit Mrs. Kim again. If you don’t promise, I will make you.”
The man would just not stop laughing. It was a little irritating. But then that heavy hand struck out and caught him on his tiny wrists with a jarring sort of pain. Taemin didn’t let go. He wouldn’t. His foster father would have to pry the blade from his cold, dead hands. They were knocked to the side but he brought them back to point the knife at his foster father.
“Don’t hit me.”
“Try and stop me,” taunted the man.
Taemin would later say he didn’t remember. Oh, were those really his fingerprints found on the knife? Ah, but he had been so scared. He just wanted to protect himself. That bastard wasn’t dead, was he? Just hospitalized. What was that? The tendons in the arms had been cut? Yes, Taemin really was too traumatized to remember.
If he told himself that enough times, it would become true. Really, repeat a lie a thousand times and it will become the truth. He had said it to himself all night long in the park, hidden away in a little corner of the play structure after calling the police from the payphone he could hardly reach. He had practiced the lie. it was the easiest lie, rather than making up a story. He knew he would be in trouble. But if he said he didn’t remember any of it, they’d probably take pity on him, right? Right. Oh, the trauma. The mental damage. He couldn’t remember a thing after his foster father started hitting him. He’d probably had the memories knocked clean out of his head.
The important thing was, they believed him. They really did. It was a beautiful thing and he was actually, kind of proud of himself. Mrs. Kim certainly had no objections. She’d really become attached to him and was certain that he had acted in self defense and was only justified. She’d talk to her husband after he finished alcohol rehabilitation. For now she was more concerned about the precious little boy she hadn’t been able to protect after all.
The problem was the social worker. They had found her card in his pants and called her, as he hadn’t disclosed his name to them, having been rendered speechless by his own actions earlier. He was, technically, in shock any way.
The social worker was upset. He shouldn’t have been under the care of a family that couldn’t take care of him. Mr. and Mrs. Kim were not fit for foster children. Taemin would have to be relocated, unless he were to be adopted by someone.
Someone did arrive to adopt him, though. Someone who had seen the news and had had corrupt police forward him tapes of the interrogations of the little boy who had somehow incapacitated a grown man. And if no one else did, then this man, with his interest and his profession and his own arsenal of decidedly none-too-legal skills, had seen that the boy was lying. And how magnificently he lied too. With a little polishing, the boy could be capable of anything.
Because lying was kind of the most necessary skill a mafioso needed. Killing was second. He was sure Taemin would be able to excel at that too, with a bit of training. So the adoption papers were signed the next day and a little face with scratches and a split lip and little hands with a splinted wrist, and round black eyes killed to the world stared up at the man who was apparently his new father.
As they got off the fancy, shiny, jet black car with its blacked-out windows and clear silver trimming, Taemin blinked a few times at the sight that greeted him: a large, fancy mansion with a lot of people standing in front of it bowing to his new father and greeting him and welcoming him home.
“Welcome to the Family, Taemin-ah.”
“Are they gonna be my new home?”
“If you’re obedient.”
“I can be.”
--
A/N: And so we discover how Taeminnie became such a psychopath. God, why is he so cray-cray, this is not the reality I wanted. Next chapter should be out end of April. Maybe. I have a lot of shit to prepare for in May so this date is subject to change. 'Cause, y'know. Real life trumps you all. Oh, I know, truth hurts. Let's see each other soon though, right? Preferably with a nice update. Have a nice day, darlings!