ALL BARK NO BITE | SADISTIC BEAUTY SPINOFF

Chapter 48

Or was he more smitten when he first said hi on the bleachers? Or was it when he ran after him in the woods, with tears of worry in his eyes? Their secret kiss in the writing club room, before he left for Paris was still burnt under his eyelids. Soft and luminous... clever and talented... irritable and beautiful... fighting with him then melting at his touch... his Minho. Each vision of him was more perfect than the last.

Even in these moments, he couldn't help but fall in deeper. The dim light of the corridor outside lighting his face up as tears streamed down the corners of his eyes. The singer's melodic, jazzy voice filled his house, the pop music belied the loss he suffered. He deserved every inch of it, for having something so beautiful only to rip it to shreds within the same breath. He deserved all of the pain and loathing coming his way.

He couldn't fathom how Minho could even bear to touch him after everything he put him through. After he had caused him to break down and fall unconscious, Wookyung had been tasked with the deplorable job of tending to his bruises, discoloured marks that he had rendered with anger... and cruelty... instead of love and care. Seeing the lines on his face, wrists and ankles.. he truly realised the demon he had become.

As he had delicately rubbed the lotion in, watching as it soaked into his skin that once used to be pale and pristine, he saw how much of his father's hand was sustained in his own. Wookyung wanted to forget it all and lay easy as he let himself be but he forced those memories back, insistent that he wanted to show himself how far he had spiralled down. How much he had hurt the only person he cared for.

*

Hours passed in his wait and he grew more hazy, flashing back to another one of his idle evenings in the manor as a child. Homeschooled for a good part of his early childhood, his daily activities revolved around the house and its occupants. After seeing Ryeo off to the market, he skipped to his mother's room. At that age, he didn't understand yet noticed the strange marks on his mother's body, ones she vehemently covered at all times...

He had never how the bruises came about...

But that afternoon...

It was different.

"Aaah!!" she howled from behind the door as he heard a dull WHACK following her. Another WHACK as she presumably fell down. Wookyung was petrified as he hadn't ever heard her voice sound this way. Small croaks and groans left her mouth as she sounded like she was being dragged. "You want your own business? I guess you don't have enough to do around this large house that I gave to you" he heard his father's voice.

He still sounded cool and unbothered, naturally trained to never raise his voice above his usual tenor...

He could be talking about golf or steaks and it wouldn't seem out of place...

"Please..." he heard her voice. Usually, she was poised, her voice was delicate and strong. She always spoke as if she had an audience but that day... Narae sounded like an animal, shaky and afraid. Wookyung was leaning against the door, as he looked for the keyhole, not far from his line of vision. As he crouched down to peep inside, he saw him standing over his mother, pulling her up to her knees by her hair.

Blood dripped from between her lips as she fought his hand, trying to make him let her go but he only shook her harder until she squeezed her eyes shut, reeling from the pain. Suddenly, a clatter emanated from where Wookyung was sitting and he realised that a coin from his pocket had slipped out and fallen to the floor. He reached for it quickly but it was futile.

Inside he saw the broad-shouldered man shift, slowly turning around to look at the door. Scared, Wookyung wished to run away but his little feet stayed soldered to the ground. There, in the image of his father was his own face, the man turning around to eerily stare at the door in restrained fury was himself, holding his mother by her hair. He wanted to save her but when he looked, she had changed too...