Chapter Text
At eight years old, Baekhyun had an alcoholic mother and an ex-convict father.
Not just any father, a father who had just gotten released from prison for having done ‘bad things’. That’s what his mother told him when the stranger walked in their house, surprisingly, because she didn’t talk a lot to him.
But this time, she had. This time she sat him on the couch and told him he had a father, and that this man was going to live with them from now on.
Baekhyun had often asked about his father- often wondered if he had one, where he was, and what he looked like because he didn’t look all that much like her. So he must have taken after his father’s traits.
Except he didn’t, he realised, when the man walked in and looked at him.
He looked scary, and Baekhyun didn’t like it. Baekhyun didn’t look like him. Baekhyun wasn’t scary.
And fast enough, Baekhyun learned their personalities had nothing to do with each other.
His father had anger issues- hit his mother when he’d catch her drunk and when he’d catch her coming home late.
He ended up hitting her a lot.
And when Baekhyun tried intervening, he’d get pushed away, and when he tried harder to get physically in between them, he’d get slapped across the face.
Upon understanding he couldn’t stop his father, Baekhyun tried going to his mother. Tried making her understand that in order not to get hit, she had to stop drinking, to stop going out. His father didn’t like it. They had to make him happy.
They had to keep him happy.
Baekhyun’s father didn’t like noise. He didn’t like hearing the television playing nor did he like hearing Baekhyun’s mother drunk- he loathed noise.
The man liked the quiet. He liked when Baekhyun was quiet, and when Baekhyun’s mom was quiet. He didn’t talk much. Thus they were expected not to talk.
And it was a chance, because she barely ever talked to her son.
At nine years old, Baekhyun’s mother started growing a tummy. When he asked her about it, she said she was pregnant. That he was going to be a big brother.
Baekhyun was happy- he thought, maybe this could appease his father. He couldn’t hit a pregnant woman now, could he? He’d be happy hearing he was going to be a father- again.
It didn’t do much. He kept hitting her, she kept wearing long-sleeved shirts to hide the colorful bruises on her arms, and Baekhyun? He kept trying to convince her to leave him.
While she wasn’t the kind of mom he hoped to have, she was far better than his father. And he knew, even at nine years old, that he preferred going with her when- rather if she ever left him.
When she was drunk, she’d tell Baekhyun she loved his father. And when she was sober, she’d tell Baekhyun not to do it. Not to call the police on him.
Baekhyun one day remembered that no one had told him what ‘bad things’ his father had done to end up in prison, the same day he yelled so much at him Baekhyun could have spent his entire morning crying in his room had it not been for school.
He had to go to school, and that day, his mother couldn’t take him, as she had an appointment- something to do with the baby, she told him. He didn’t want to go to his father- he’d prefer missing school than asking him. But the man would get angry nonetheless when he’d see Baekhyun still home- when he’d see that he didn’t have the house to himself. Besides, his mother told him that she had spoken with his father, and that he’d be the one to take him.
So he asked his father, as his mother told him, gently shook his shoulder and asked if he could drive him to school.
At the first try, the man didn’t wake up. Baekhyun tried once, twice again, before he woke up.
But he woke up in quite a mood- yelled at Baekhyun for having woken him up, yelled at him because he needed someone to drive him to school- yelled and yelled and yelled until Baekhyun’s eyes filled with tears. When Baekhyun apologised, his father told him to keep his mouth shut.
Apparently, Baekhyun should have gone by himself. He should have gone by himself when he didn’t even know how to walk there, less for the fact that it would have taken an hour. His mother woke up late, and didn’t wake him up to get ready for the bus on time.
His father ended up taking him, but Baekhyun learned to never ask him for things like this again.
Both his parents didn’t work, so Baekhyun didn’t understand why his father was this upset at having his sleep disturbed. He could always go back to sleep after…
In school, they taught Baekhyun that drinking and smoking were bad things- that they should never do it. To stay away from it. That good kids would not do it. And it made Baekhyun wonder, were these the bad things his father had done to be sent to prison?
He told his mother that day- asked her about it, only for her to laugh, and tell him that no, this isn’t why his father went to prison. That they didn’t send people to prison for that.
But she still didn’t tell him why. The only thing she told him is that people didn’t get sent to prison for drinking and smoking- that they needed to do really bad things to be arrested.
The next day in school, Baekhyun learned in which way drinking and smoking were bad. They were bad for health, his teacher had said. And when Baekhyun, remembering his mother was pregnant, asked if it was also bad for babies, the teacher said yes- that it was especially bad for pregnant women.
When Baekhyun tried telling his mother, she laughed it off. “I’ve been smoking and drinking my entire life, Baekhyun. A pregnancy won’t stop me.”
“Did you stop when you were pregnant with me?”
Her eyes averted from his gaze, and she looked down, like she had to be ashamed of her answer. So she hadn’t.
“I did. I stopped when I learned I was pregnant with you.”
And before he could ask why she wasn’t doing the same for his sibling, she interrupted his train of thought. “We were happier back then, Baekhyun. Your father and I… we were happy. It’s not the same anymore.”
This time, Baekhyun didn’t try to open old topics because he knew now- it didn’t change anything. His father could beat her all he wanted, treat him like the dirt on his shoe, and she still wouldn’t leave.
He didn’t understand it. Why were they not happy anymore? And why was she not leaving?
She never answered him.
Before Baekhyun turned ten years old, as his mother neared her third month of pregnancy, she lost the baby. “A miscarriage.” She told him, and spent the entire night drinking and crying and telling him about her problems.
How unhappy she was, how much she wanted to go back to the old times when they were more than happy, how nothing made sense anymore. And in the rush or perhaps the moment, she told him about her younger years- about how her parents were, how well they treated her, and how wrong she was for having chosen this man.
Baekhyun was smart this time. He didn’t ask her why she wasn’t leaving. This time, he thought, he would not. And maybe that’d be the way to make her understand that she had to think for herself.
And the day he finally turned ten, his mother was pissed drunk somewhere in the living room, his father had gone out to God knows where and Baekhyun had been grateful that at the very least, his father was out and his mother, unconscious.
He liked time alone- time where no one was around him. Baekhyun learned that this was the safest way to spend time.
When Byun Baekhyun turned eleven, he started noticing how different his family was from the other kids’ families in his class.
His mother didn’t make him lunch boxes and his father didn’t give him pocket money. They didn’t go to his teacher-parent reunions, and they had never been interested in accompanying the class on trips.
Baekhyun also learned that inviting people over was a no.
So he didn’t. Instead, he’d go over to their place and pray his father wouldn’t notice his absence.
And as he turned twelve years old, Baekhyun saw a change in his father’s attitude. While his mother was still drowning whatever she had to drown in liquor, his father started being interested in him.
Started looking at his grades. Asking who his friends were. What he wanted to do with his life. And as odd as it may sound, it made Baekhyun happy.
The man was taking an interest with him- he wanted to get to know Baekhyun.
But… that also didn’t go well.
What he got out of it was more screaming when his grades weren’t good enough, his father yelling at him when he was out of the house for too long, or even, sometimes, calling as he was in the middle of something with friends to tell him to go back right away.
Baekhyun tried not going out anymore, and focused, as hard as the subjects were, to get better grades.
When Baekhyun turned thirteen years old, his father finally landed himself a job.
There was one time where Baekhyun was going back home, and only two stops away from his own, he realised he had lost his house key. It was supposed to be in the smallest pocket of his school bag, and no matter how much he searched for it, there was nothing.
So he thought, going down at his friend’s house stop and waiting until his mother was back home to call would be a good idea.
Except apparently his father had been waiting at his bus stop, and he called him- he had bought him a phone- just to know where he was- asked where he was and started screaming so hard when he learned Baekhyun didn’t go down at his own stop.
Said he’d kill him as soon as he got home- that he’d make him live through hell for having wasted his time.
And although Baekhyun was used to hearing that, it didn’t stop him from being scared. It didn’t stop him from fearing going back home. And worse even, he knew his father had to go get him, because his mother had neither a car, nor a driving license. She always walked to his bus stop.
Baekhyun’s father yelled at him all the way back in the car, but he didn’t touch him.
Turned out the key had slipped down because his pocket was torn- his bag was old, and it was slowly coming undone. But that he didn’t tell him.
He had learned fast enough to make himself small and unheard. Not to ask nor to attract attention.
When Baekhyun turned fourteen years old, exactly a week after his birthday, where this time his mother remembered him enough to buy him a muffin and a few cheap candles from the dollar store, two police officers came knocking at his door.
They came for his father.
Baekhyun learned that night that the ‘bad things’ his father had done years ago were drug dealing, being involved in a criminal gang as well possessing weapons. This night however, they were here to arrest him under the accusation of having committed burglary and participated in human trafficking.
It made him happy, seeing his father being taken away. It made his mother miserable, however.
She blamed him- said he had called the police on his father and it was his fault they showed up..
Said he had destroyed their family. That he was to blame.
From this point on, she drowned herself in more alcohol, and left the house every single day. Baekhyun guessed it was to go see him, and he wondered why she never let him visit his father in prison during the first seven years of his life.
Baekhyun felt guilty, no matter how much sense it did not make- he didn’t call the cops on him, but perhaps the neighbors heard them. Perhaps his friends at school noticed the bruises on his arms, or the look on his face.
Perhaps he had accidentally told a friend he didn’t want to go back home. And perhaps none of it was his fault because this wasn’t the first time this man Baekhyun strangely called his father had been arrested.
So maybe he deserved it, for what he had done to Baekhyun and his mother. And for the crimes he was accused of.
This, Baekhyun tried telling his mother. That the man was a criminal and that they should have no association with such people- that they were bad . She heard none of it and slapped him across the face, telling him he knew nothing to be teaching her things at his young age.
And that was the day Baekhyun discovered his mother had not been that different from his father.
Maybe she deserved it too, her pain. Maybe she was not a criminal, but for the parent she was, maybe she deserved to suffer.
Baekhyun realised then that he couldn’t stay in this house. He didn’t know how he managed seven years with her and then seven years with the both of them, but he knew with certainty that a little more of this and he’d lose his mind. So while his mother continued living on alcohol and government-sent paychecks, Baekhyun decided to find himself a job.
Money. He needed money to move out.
The job was not too bad and Baekhyun was grateful he could make money after school- as well as diminish the time he’d have to spend in his mother’s company. He was lucky they even considered taking him, for the mere job of a cashier, with the little education and no experience he had.
He learned how to cook, sick of the preheated pizza in the oven and the casual instant noodle cups sitting on the kitchen table- filling the kitchen table like they were actual meals. He’d always cook for two, leaving his mother a plate as well. The reason, he couldn’t say. Perhaps he was scared she’d yell at him for only thinking of himself, perhaps he felt bad for her.
Baekhyun really didn’t know.
When Baekhyun turned fifteen, his mother came home with another tummy- another pregnancy. His father had yet to serve two years of his sentence, so it couldn’t have been his.
Baekhyun didn’t ask. Asking meant prying and prying upset people. Upset people scared Baekhyun, so he didn’t ask.
She never stopped drinking, nor smoking, which is why Baekhyun was surprised when she lasted over two months before having another miscarriage.
This time, she didn’t even cry. Continued her day like nothing had happened.
And that’s when he knew- Baekhyun would never settle for a partner who resembled his father. Baekhyun would rather stay alone his entire life than be with someone like him. Away from crimes, he promised himself. Nor someone like her.
He’d work and make money and live an honest life away from his parents and crime.
When Baekhyun turned sixteen, he had gathered quite a sum of money. It would last him perhaps half a year if he were to pay for rent, food and a phone with basic settings. He needed more.
Finishing high school was a great start, at the very least. He could continue working and putting his money away like this until he was done- he’d have more of it, anyways.
The only problem was that his father was to be released the next year. And Baekhyun certainly didn’t want to be there, nor to see him again.
When Baekhyun turned seventeen years old, he managed to leave the family house.
If and when his father was released, that he had no idea and he didn’t intend on finding out. His mother had not even noticed he was packing as Baekhyun chose a day to do so when he knew she’d be out.
He didn’t have much to take with him. The few pieces of clothing he had, his toothbrush, his textbooks and his phone. It all easily fit in one small luggage and it made Baekhyun happy, that he wouldn’t have much to carry.
Except what he didn’t know, is that he’d end up carrying much more than he expected. Just not in the luggage.
And when Baekhyun was seventeen years old and two months, he learned what family meant.
Family meant three things; danger, misery, and pain.