#chiwon

TRIGGER WARNING: Child abuse, Child neglect

“When I woke up alone I had everything.”

Chiwon was born to a cold home and from as young as the age of three he had known that this wasn’t what families were meant to be like. His parents were barely ever home, both working endless shifts at multiple jobs, leaving Chiwon with friends and babysitters and just about anyone who could handle the excitable toddler for a few hours. When they were home they weren’t really there, they never talked to him, never played with him, never kissed him goodnight…he can’t remember a day past the age of six that they had actually said that they loved him.

He never knew what he had done wrong but he must have done something. Right?

“But I’m smiling at everything.”

By the age of ten Chiwon full heartedly believed that there was only one person who truly cared about him and that was his uncle. Soung Hyunwoo. He was a well-known actor, having appeared in several dramas over the years and he looked after Chiwon when he deemed his parents “too tired” or “too busy”. All Chiwon had to do was phone up his uncle and then he was there taking him home where he would get the attention he wanted and more than enough food to actually fill his skinny frame. And that’s how Chiwon handled his estranged parents because it didn’t really matter. Because Uncle Hyunwoo was there to look after him.

“But they tore me apart like a hurricane…”

Chiwon was twelve when his uncle finally decided to take custody of the boy, it was after he had received yet another phone call from his nephew but it wasn’t the normal one of him saying that “mommy and daddy hadn’t come home again”. It was different. It was worse. The boy was sobbing down the phone at him about how he hadn’t eaten in days, that mommy had locked him in his room because he had been bad, that mommy and daddy were fighting and he’d gotten hurt…that was the final straw for Hyunwoo.

“I’m flesh and bone, I’m a rolling stone.”

Chiwon still won’t talk about what happened that day, what his parents did to him, how they hurt him. He would never speak a word about it, the only proof of it ever happening being the injury he got out of it. As Chiwon describes it his knee is “well and truly fucked”. Doctors did everything they could to fix it but the, then twelve-year-olds, leg had been a mess by the time he had gotten the hospital. He can walk on it now but it’s still easier with a walking stick. It hurts less when he uses his walking stick though it never truly stops hurting. Not to Chiwon.

“I’m a walking travesty but I’m smiling at everything.”

Music had always been a love for Chiwon, his uncle more than happily buying him whatever equipment he wanted to pursue the hobby. He wanted to be an artist, he wanted to perform and show the world his songs but then he’d look down at his leg, at teh scars that would forever be etched on his knee and remember that that wasn’t possible. He could barely walk how would he ever dance or perform on stage? So, as much as it hurt to do so, Chiwon set his dreams lower. If he couldn’t perform his songs he could at least get someone else to.

“And you can choke on your misery.”

And that’s how we get to today. Some might say that Chiwon didn’t get his position at Radioactive entirely fairly considering his uncle pulled a few strings here and there to get the company to look at his songs but Chiwon doesn’t think it counts. If his songs hadn’t been any good they wouldn’t have hired him. No matter who his uncle is. He’s nearly always at Radioactive writing or composing, sometimes with groups and sometimes with soloists and when he’s not at the company he’s at home with his cat and his dog writing from his bed. Because no matter if he’s making music or not Chiwon knows deep down that making it is never going to be enough for him. There’s always going to be that part of him dying to perform. Dying to live the life that was robbed from him.

“A handful of moments I wished I could change and a tongue like a nightmare that cut like a blade.”

Chiwon is a rather closed off person. He keeps to himself and doesn’t like people asking questions about him. About his leg, about his uncle…about his parents. He hates it. It’s not their business. He’s rather cold and cynical, he would call himself brutally honest others would say he’s just plain rude. But he can care for people…sometimes. It’s hard to get down to the boys heart what with all the walls he’s built around it to keep himself safe but it is there. And the people he does choose to care about, to let in, he’ll protect to the death. He can be fun and silly with those people but it still takes some work to get the real Chiwon to come out. The Chiwon that doesn’t think about what his parents did to him, the Chiwon who grew up with a loving uncle who spoilt him rotten and taught him how a real parent should treat him. That’s the Chiwon that people like to see but not many do.

“You were never a friend to me.”