Bittersweet Night // k.n.j

PROLOGUE. hide & seek

September 14, 2002

3rd Person POV
A young woman, presumably in her early thirties with glowing skin, hazelnut-brown eyes and long eyelashes, called out for her young son.

The son, an eight year old with a slightly chubby physique, a lively and cheerful attitude and possessing eyes full of expression, had been begging for a game of hide-and-seek with his mother. And with his puppy dog eyes, how could his Mother refuse the cute little boy?

However, that decision was soon regretted as mother panicked after failing to find her son.

"Joonie! Joonie! Where are you?! Please come to me! Where are you?!" The mother cried out frantically.

Clutching her cellphone, she quickly dialled her husband's number. For a moment, her fingers hovered mid-air, contemplating on whether it was necessary to call the Police.

But she decided against it. It had only been 15 minutes. But 15 minutes felt like a lifetime of torture when your own child is nowhere to be seen. Still she had to bear with it. Even after her husband did not pick up.

"Joonie! Come back here! Let's not play the game anymore! Let's bake some cookies, shall we?" The Mother tried to lure her son into revealing himself, with no such luck.

Meanwhile, the young son, little Joonie, giggled as he hid amidst the depths of coats and dresses, drenched in his mother's perfume.

Crounching down, he was camouflaged by the shoe boxes that were stacked like a tower.

He could just about see his mother, who was busy looking for him. As a young child, Joonie could not understand the worry and stress he was putting on his mother. He simply thought they were playing a game.

But as young as little Joonie was, any child could differentiate a simple game between reality's events when the exaggerated terror of what they view as the "big and scary world" comes alive right before their own eyes.

You see, the childlike sense of the young comes from their innocence and their lack of experience in life. Their parents and guardians put a shield around them to protect them from seeing and experiencing the true horrors of the real world.

In their young and innocent minds, "big, bad men" are like monsters and clowns who hide under their beds at night. They're like big, bad wolves, who only pounce on you if you go into the woods that their mothers and fathers told them never to go into.

Even though there was some truth to that, that fact was far from the reality little Joonie was seeing.

Because in the real world, bad people don't just pounce on you if you enter their territory. They attack you anywhere and everywhere, even at the safety of your own home, your own territory. They don't give a shit about their victims.

Joonie's giggles turned into ragged breaths, as he kept his hand locked on his mouth trying so hard not to make a single sound.

He watched his mother, who was outnumbered by men who were bigger and stronger than she was, crawling down the stairs trying to make it out the door.

He was absolutely terrified, and understandably so. Still, little Joonie kept whispering these words,"Be brave, like what Eomma said."

He kept chanting these words, even after having to witness the assailants kicking his mother's hand away from the door knob.

"Uh Oh. Now, where are you going Mrs Kim? I'm sure you should wait for your husband here."

Yanking her hair back, the most muscular one of all, with tattoos covering his arms smirked as the group of men heard a noise upstairs. Specifically...the closet.

"Boys, sort out whatever's in there. Ooh! Come to think of it, doesn't lovely Mrs Kim here have a young boy?"

Teasingly, the same guy - presumably the leader of the group - grinned at the mother, his smile full of mischief like the Cheshire Cat's.

"Don't you f**king touch him, you bastard!" The mother spat at him, with vicious passion. The leader, while gritting his teeth in anger, wiped his face where he had been spat at.

Little Joonie sobbed quietly while he watched those evil men making their way up the stairs. He hid his face with his arms, in hopes that they wouldn't find him.

Squeezing his brown eyes shut, he couldn't see anything but the darkness; couldn't hear anything but the racing beat of his heart; couldn't feel anything but pure fear and anxiety.

A young child should never feel that way, but the sad truth is that some cannot avoid it. It may be what fate wants for them, no matter how traumatising or damaging it is for them.

"Peekaboo! I found you!"

-

Hey guys. Hope you're all doing well! If you follow my updates for this book, you'd know that I've already published the first three chapters. And you're probably wondering why on earth I would publish the PROLOGUE after three chapters are already out there. Well, the answer is that I thought the story so far was lacking some knowledge of Namjoon's past, that was hinted in Chapter 1. And I know the whole point of the plot is to get to know what happened and so on, BUT, I thought the story deserved a little sneak peek of Namjoon's past. Hopefully, I didn't give away too much!
As always, thank you so much for your support and we're on 160+ reads! Please don't forget to vote and comment!

Love From,
dreamingrl 💋

P.S. Keep your eyes peeled because Chapter 4 is on its way and will be posted in a few days! 😊