Unspoken Truths (An EXO fanfiction)

Chapter 1: A Long-Forgotten Life

The taxi slowed as they approached the line of apartment buildings. They were familiar to Kyungsoo, yet wholly strange and unknown. It felt dream-like to see them again. The taxi began to pull in.

"You can just let me out here," Kyungsoo said.

The taxi pulled over and Kyungsoo stepped out onto the pavement. He pulled his bag out and watched the taxi pull away. He walked down the sidewalk, gazing numbly up at the tall buildings. The cold fall air stinging his lungs. People walked past him unaware of the anxiety beginning to build in him. Then that building finally came into view, apartment building 110, his childhood home. He stopped. Most other people would have felt a sense of nostalgia or peace, but this building only reminded Kyungsoo of all his lost potential. It reminded him of the normal life he had once owned. It was painfully normal, but it was his. Now, he had nothing. Kyungsoo forced his legs to begin moving again. He walked around to the entrance, keeping his eyes from wandering over to the left. He couldn't handle seeing that building, not yet. He stepped inside.

Everything smelled the same, looked the same, but it didn't feel the same. Kyungsoo climbed into an elevator. He clung to what little sanity he had left as it rattled it's way up to the twelfth floor. The doors opened on a scene so familiar it almost made Kyungsoo gasp. He walked down the hall, remembering every detail. And at last he stood in front of it, the home he had been kept from for seven unimaginably long years. He pulled the keys from his coat pocket, hands trembling. Slowly the door opened. Kyungsoo stared into the darkness of the empty rooms. He heard the sound of curious neighbors sticking their heads out to look at him. He knew it had been a long time since anyone had gone inside. No one wanted to live on the scene of a crime. Kyungsoo looked at them, and they stared at him, no doubt wondering if he was the boy they had heard of. He hated the way people looked at him. He looked away, entered, and shut the door behind him.

The rooms were empty, all the furniture and belongings taken away by extended family or sold long ago. Kyungsoo's eyes drifted to the kitchen. That was the room he lost the last sliver of hope he had. That was the room the few people he had trusted were stolen from him. That was the room his Father killed his Mother and sister. He dropped his bag on the floor and drifted over to the small room. He slowly sunk to his knees and placed his hands on the cold tile. Had they been scared? Had his Father made it as quick and painless as possible? Kyungsoo's head slumped down onto the tile.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" His voice trembled.

Kyungsoo's eyes closed. A memory filled his head. One of the millions of times he had stepped across that threshold. He had taken for granted his Mother's warm smile and pleasant greeting. He had ignored his sister's slightly uninterested yet none-the-less affectionate greeting as she typed away on her phone. He had turned to introduce his friends. And oh, how clearly he could remember their faces as they gave polite smiles and bowed to his family. His friends... his dear friends. Kyungsoo's eyes opened, ripping him away from the thought. Tears had slipped down his face and collected on the floor. Kyungsoo pulled himself up and stumbled out of the apartment. He closed and locked the door behind him, slumping up against the door to wipe away the tears and collect himself. He staggered down the hall. He had to get out of there.

Kyungsoo found himself sitting on a bench in the little park next to the apartment building. The playful colors of its equipment calming to him. The memories it held all distant and faded. The only clear memory contained in its soil that of the little boy that Kyungsoo had once played with. But Kyungsoo and that little boy had gone their separate ways for reasons lost to time and the frailty of the human memory. Kyungsoo sighed and stood up, he needed to move. He took off walking, no place in mind. He roamed the busy streets of Geumgok-dong aimlessly, lost and alone. He thought of walking until he had left Buk-gu altogether, or even until leaving Busan itself. He even thought of running from Korea. He wanted to run so far away he never even had to think of his old life. But he couldn't do that, it would be pointless. He could never forget. Then he stopped, and looked up.