Red Strings

Red Strings 6/?

"Wonsik! What are you doing here?" She laughed a little.

"What's on your face, mom?" Wonsik asked, his voice eerily calm as he looked at the bruise his mother's precious cheek adorned. It was a purplish-red, seeming to be a fresh one. He bit the inside of his cheek at the thought of all the possibilities that could've happen.

"Don't answer my question with one of your own." His mother chided, trying to avoid the topic. "What are you doing here?"

"What am I ever here for?" He waved the bags in his hands with a raised brow, "Now, what happen to your face?"

"Here, I'll take them." She reached her hands for the bags, to which he dodged quickly, using the opportunity to push the door open and walk inside the shack of an apartment.

He clenched his teeth at the sight of in front of him, a rickety poker table set up in the small living room with men similar in manner to his father sitting around it. They didn't even spare him a glance as the bags in his hand dropped to the floor, too immersed in their games of gamble to care.

He swore his eye twitched as he stared at the drunken man who banged his head on the table with a groan as one of the other men took the money.

"Old man!" He barked harshly, slowly making his way towards the slump body to which jerked up at the sound of his voice. "Can you tell me—" he took a breath, "what the fuck you think you're doing?"

"Making money, can't you see boy?" The elder man retorted as he turn back towards the table, "And don't you dare raise your voice at me. I put you in this world and I can easily take you out."

Sounds of ooh's and ahh's filled the room as the people in it cackled at the threat a father had made to his own flesh and blood.

"With what money are you betting with?" He raised a brow, standing next to his father's figure, glaring down at him.

"With my money."

"You mean the money I gave you?"

"Yes, therefore, my money."

"The money I gave you for rent and the debt... you're using it to make more trouble? Can you be a bigger idiot than this?" Nothing could stop Wonsik's next move as he grabbed his father by the collar, dragging him out of his seat to look straight into his eyes as he uttered the next few words, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

His father pushed him away roughly, stumbling as he pointed an accusing finger at him, "It's not my fault that you don't make enough to pay shit around here! I'm gambling to make more money!"

"Oh yeah? And how has that been working out for you?" He asked, sarcasm dripping from each word. He shoved his hand into his pocket, pulling out the eight hundred and fifty some dollars he had left— not sparing a single cent for himself— holding it up in the air. "You see this? This is what I made to help pay off what you owed, though it may not be enough, I was willing to pull some out of my savings after thinking about it long and hard. I hoped that losing your man pride would wake you up and maybe make you, I don't know... get a job? But clearly–" Wonsik paused to calm his nerves, "you didn't have any to begin with. What kind of man would sit on the couch all day and rot while knowing his son beats and gets beaten up to make just enough money to barely scrape by?" He threw his head back in bitter laughter, "Silly fucking me right?"

"Get the fuck out of here before I beat your ass, boy."

In the silence of the room, the only thing to be heard was Wonsik's fist connecting with his father's face. His mother screamed in shock, to which he ignored as his father tried to swing back at him with a strangled noise coming from his mouth, to which he dodged successfully while digging his fist into the elder man's stomach.