CHAPTER 3 – MY BIGGEST FEAR IS A PERSON I.

FLASHBACK.

2011. PAST. SEOUL.

HELL PENTHOUSE.

☠️ SORA ☠️

Five-year-old me sits in a corner of the sitting room, staring at a Ten-year-old male gender my mother and other weirdos introduce to me as my cousin. “Cousin…” I mumble, still gawking at him, even then I hated the sound of it.

He hated me from the get-go; my existence was more than a threat to him, and he didn’t hide it.

My adopted mother made me spy on him. This was when things officially began to go wrong. I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t given a choice either. At age ten, A-Jun was already stealing documents. He was caught three times attempting to steal important documents, and I was the snitch, which made him hate me even more.

He barely spoke to anyone, not once, but his silence was very loud, at least to me. Several doctors ran test after test on him, but it’s always the same result. “Nothing is biologically wrong with your son; maybe you should see a therapist.” Therapist? Never worked; he kept getting worse.

A-Jun looked at me with these eyes. I can’t explain it. Hatred, anger, disgust… doesn’t compare to the unexplainable look he wore on his face every time our eyes locked.

2 years later…

2013. PAST. SEOUL. HELL PENTHOUSE.

2 years later, A-Jun began to wear an actual mask, which was the mask that carried the face of something I feared the most. Koh, the face stealer. That centipede-like spirit from Avatar: The Last Airbender can rip a face right off anyone who shows emotion while he’s looking, leaving victims in a creepy limbo state.

The mask, a body of an enormous, black, centipede-like creature with many legs, and the face, instead of constantly shifting and unpredictable, was just flesh. No eyes, no nose, no lips… just flesh, and for me, that was even worse. Scarier than the actual face changing.

At seven, that was what I feared the most.

That morning, he had walked into my room to ask what I feared the most. He talks now, but only when he wants to. Seven-year-old me tells the twelve-year-old him what I feared the most, assuming he was trying to start a conversation. I shouldn’t have told him.

I remained frozen in a corner, crying my eyes out, screaming so hard I thought my lungs would tear, trying everything for the wall behind me to swallow me as Koh, the face stealer, stared at me in the face, but this time it wasn’t the real one, it was A-jun behind that mask.

After hours of crying so loud and him tormenting me, no savior came; it was just the two of us in the penthouse. My eyes were swollen, my chest so tight I could barely even let my cry out anymore. Only when the wacko was satisfied with the outcome did he take off the mask.

I was shivering in the corner, hugging my knees, my back pressed against the wall to stay as far away from him as possible. I knew he was the most dangerous thing in that penthouse.

He leaned in closer to me. I could swear there was an old devil revamped into his body as he jerks me up by my silver necklace, causing it to bite my skin. He pulls me closer and whispers, “Get out of this family.”

Bullshit.

A-jun is someone who would do just anything to get rid of an obstacle. I was traumatized for nights after that incident, unable to sleep, because whenever I close my eyes, I see him, Koh, the face stealer.

I didn’t get to heal from that trauma because less than a month later, A-jun already cooked up another demonic plan.

I was playing on the rooftop of our wooden playhouse. Unlike other playhouses, this one was an actual house. Tall, well built, the height of a normal bungalow for a family of two.

Hearing footsteps, I turned around, standing at the edge of the roof, only to find A-Jun standing in front of me. Panic filled my puppy eyes that were happy just a few seconds ago before he appeared.

He didn’t scream or charge; he simply stepped forward with a calm, terrifying focus and placed two large palms against my chest, with anger spread across his face like butter on bread.

With a sudden, explosive shove, my world tilted. My sneakers lost their grip on the roof, and suddenly, I was airborne.

In most stories, people say time slows down; in reality, it didn’t slow down; it sharpened.

Gravity began its violent tug-of-war with my stomach, but my focus wasn’t on the ground rushing up to meet me. It was on him.

A-Jun leaned over the edge of the roof, watching as I fell, and our eyes locked. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and filled with curiosity.

My eyes were filled with pure betrayal. I didn’t even become a part of the family because I wanted to; I was adopted, against my will. The adults concluded, and I didn’t get a say.

I wanted to scream, but the air was being sucked out of my lungs by the fall. We stared at each other across the shrinking distance. In those two seconds, we shared a lifetime of understanding. He knew exactly what he had done, and I knew exactly who he was… A demon, someone who would never let me be a part of Hell Morgathor, someone very determined to get rid of me, an enemy. A-jun hates me.

The world around us faded into a dull roar; there was only a bridge of our gaze holding steady even as my body plummeted. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t look away.

The connection only broke when my back hit the ground with the sound of a rock landing on concrete. The world jolted. My vision fractured into white sparks, and the breath left me in a pathetic whoof. I lay there, staring at the blue sky, waiting for the pain to arrive. I knew that if not one, then both my legs were broken; it's already enough of a miracle that I didn't die from the fall.

☠️☠️☠️☠️

I get rushed to the hospital, pushed back home in a wheelchair. A-jun was right outside the penthouse, ogling at me, waiting for me. My body tensed as our eyes locked again, the hair in the back of my neck standing as an electrifying shiver ran down my spine. He is something I fear to my bones; even my body reacts to his presence, the presence of a twelve-year-old.

The driver left me there and drove off, and I was left with A-Jun, something that didn’t sit well with me. Slowly, he walked closer to me and leaned in to my level, brushing a strand of air out of my face and tucking it behind my ear, “Get out of this family,” he murmured.

He wasn't asking me to go to a different house or relocate to another country. He was asking me to go back to being an orphan, never to dream of being a part of Hell Morgathor.

“I can’t leave,” I screamed in my head because I couldn’t say it to his face. I was too afraid he would kill me on the spot. After all, when he pushed me from that roof, he did it with the thought of killing me.

This was only the beginning of A-jun's torment.