His, Always | J.hs (BOOK 2)

Ch. 43

"The abuse, the drugs, the alcoholism. I remember it." Hoseok cut him off.

Of course he remembered it. He remembered when his childhood took a drastic turn. He remembered when he lost himself.

Hanseo nodded, sighing.

"I brought Stella around for the first time when you were around 4... your mother fell in love with her but she hated how she was the product of an affair. I hit her for the first time one night while Stella was there. I came home drunk, bruised up from a brawl at a club. Took my anger out on her while you and Stella were sleeping. It was messy."

Hoseok could barely remember that night since it was 18 years ago when it happened. But he was sure that he and Stella weren't sleeping, and instead had woken up from the chaos.

Who knows? Maybe they hid in a closet or under the bed somewhere. Tears falling from their eyes as they listened. Their innocent ears being tainted from the malicious words spat between their father and Eun, her cries from his vicious hits against her precious pale skin...

"As you got older, I distanced myself more. I was rarely ever around. Stayed in and out of prison. And a couple of years passed, I started to here that lil Hanseo was in the streets." Hanseo chuckled.

Hoseok hated how people called him that. He was nothing like Hanseo. He told them to call him Jay. They thought he was a little adorable wanna be block boy who was following in his fathers footsteps, so they called him that.

"Dominic was a good friend of mine. Took you under his wing I assume. I can't tell you exactly when, because I was locked up for some years. You were a hot topic. Stayed in fights, was always in juvie. Just a fucking hard head. Just like me."

Hoseok cringed, adjusting how he sat in his seat.

"And then more years passed. And it wasn't lil Hanseo anymore. It was Jay, just Jay. They talked about you as if you were a fucking god. Even the old heads I spent years beside in prison praised you. You were a legend to them. A fucking legend. But to me you were just a son, barely even that since I didn't play my part as a father. You quickly grew to be someone I envied. I was jealous of you, my own flesh and blood that I helped bring into this world. It ignited some type of hatred in me towards you that drove me to contact Dominic and set you up."

"I wanted you gone for good but there was always a hold up on eliminating you. I got impatient. When I got out I pestered you. I tracked you down. I found out you had killed Dominic and now, you were working beside some mystery mobster. You were powerful. You were untouchable. And I hated that."

It was silent for awhile.

"You had a girl on your side who I often heard people associate with you. The little Kim girl. I remember when you used to ask to go to their house. You used to spend hours there. You always came back with food and a smile on your face that we quickly ruined for you because we grew to...hate you. We don't know why son. I honestly can't give you a valid reason as to why we treated you that way. But we did. And it...it's fucked up."

Hoseok kept a blank face. He couldn't do much. This wasn't everything. Something was missing out of this conversation. But he didn't even want to hear it anymore. He couldn't.

"I...I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I treated you that way. I had no reason. I projected so goddamn hard. I had lost everything. I was an outcast to my family, a bad man to your mother, a fucking rat to those monsters I'm still in deep shit with to this day. I'm just a complete failure overall." Hanseo said lowly.