the words that came out hangyul's mouth shocked haeyoung to the core, but what he said next left her speechless... and broken.
"wha... what? you're my brother?" haeyoung said, frozen as if she was hit in the face with an avalanche. "you're joking, right?"
"uh, no." hangyul said.
"show me proof." haeyoung said.
"you didn't ask yohan for proof when he told you that he was your brother."
"it's because he actually looks like my mother! but you... you... you look like your dad!"
hangyul sighed. "speaking about that, uhm.. i'm actually not your full brother. i'm your half brother only."
"what?" haeyoung said, not understanding anything he said.
"the thing is, we have the same mother, we were born from the same womb, it's just... we have different fathers."
haeyoung suddenly froze in realization. "you're telling me... my mom slept with a different man?"
"pretty much."
"that's why you look so much like your father? since he is your father?!"
"yeah.."
"then why does yohan look like my mom?"
"probably just a coincidence."
"how would i know anything you're saying is real?"
hangyul took out his phone. "i have proof. i found my birth certificate in my father's office just this morning, and i took a picture of it." hangyul said.
he started using and swiping on his phone, until he found the picture he took of his birth certificate. "here."
haeyoung looked at the phone screen, confusion evident in her face. she then scanned the picture thoroughly, and it didn't look anything close to a hoax. "it's true.." she mumbled, but the. noticed something unusual.
on the space that had the parents' names, it wrote both haeyoung's parents' names. "but why does it say my mom's name and my dad's name? isn't it supposed to be my mom and your dad?"
"this is when things go messy."
"messy?"
"yeah. i heard of the story from my parents just the other day." hangyul said.
"hold on, i heard from eunsang that you weren't living with your parents. how did you hear of it, then?" she asked.
"i visited them."
"huh? why'd you run away from them when you'd still visit them, anyway?"
"i didn't run away from them..." hangyul said, taking a deep breath. "they're in prison."
"what?! prison?"
"yeah, and your family is also one of the reasons why they're in jail."
"m-my family?" haeyoung uttered.
"yeah, let's start from the beginning, shall we?" hangyul said.
"it turns out our parents were all friends back in high school. then my mother and your mother liked the same guy, which was my father, but my father liked your mother. after that, she lost feelings and left my current father for your deceased father." hangyul said.
"but my current mother wasn't having any of it, and they had this huge fight which resulted them into breaking their friendship. but that wasn't all, though. after your mother and your father became a couple, they started making fun and bullying my current mother for the rest of high school. after they went to university, your parents lost contact with my current parents." hangyul explained.
"not until a few years later, our mother and my father met up by coincidence, and then did this and did that... and had me. but they lost contact when our mother found out she was pregnant with me, and just pretended that your father was my biological father. that's why your father's name are written on the birth certificate instead of my father's name." hangyul said.
"and when i was three, your father had a basketball game. our mother brought me with him to watch, but she had a plan. she was guilty that she slept with another man and had me, and that her husband wasn't the real father. so, she had a plan. she planned to leave me somewhere and pretended that i was missing, but in reality, she just left me alone. that's when the owner of the orphanage i lived at found me, and took me in. i lived in that orphanage, until my biological father found me and adopted me."
"are you done?" haeyoung said. "so you're telling me, my mother slept with someone else, which was your father, and had you, then pretended my father was your father before she left you? unbelievable... i never thought my mother was that kind of person..."
"i know.. but there's something else i want to tell you."
"what is it now?" haeyoung said. "wait, hold that thought. why did you say my family is one of the reasons for your parents' imprisonment?"
"yeah, i'm about to tell you now." hangyul said, taking another deep breath. "because of my mother's deep grudges towards your parents, she planned to get revenge..."
"by? what did she do?"
"she... she.. she was the one that started the fire that killed your parents."
haeyoung felt her heart drop to her stomach. "what?!" she stood up from the bench. "please tell me you're kidding."
"i wish i was."
haeyoung felt her knees go weak, making her colapse on the floor. tears started flowing down from her eyes without her noticing.
"haeyoung? are you okay?"
haeyoung looked at hangyul with the angriest, most disappointed look he's ever seen. it felt like lasers were shooting from haeyoung's eyes to hangyul's body. "no, hangyul, i'm not okay."
haeyoung angrily chuckled. "...since the people that raised you are the monsters that ruined my life." haeyoung said before getting on her feet and running away.
➸
haeyoung laid down on her bed, staring up to the ceiling, having no difference from the previous days. the news hit her like a truck. she now knows the people that killed her parents, and she wished she just never have known.
she understands that hangyul's mother had deep grudges towards her mother. but what she doesn't understand is her cruelty. she doesn't understand how people could live on their normal, guilt-free lives like any other person after making people's lives miserable.
true, her mother bullied her, teased her, made fun of her, but for god's sake, they were high school kids! naive, young, high school kids that didn't know better! bullying just looked like a scrape on the knee compared to the wound that hangyul's (current, not biological) mother left on haeyoung.
haeyoung finally realized how cruel the world was. her eyes are finally opened and she could finally see the reality and the cruelty of the people here, and she didn't like it.
she was deep in her feelings the whole night. she couldn't sleep and nothing cheered her up no matter what she did. well, nothing until a certain person contacted her.
she heard her phone suddenly ring. who would call me literally in the middle of the night? haeyoung asked herself, checking her gadget. she answered the phone, eyebrows furrowed, but it soon turned into a softer look once she heard the voice of the person on the other line.
"i'm sorry for calling you in the middle of the night, hae, but are you okay? my gut feeling told me you weren't."
"to be honest, no, i'm not, eunsang. everything's just so.. messed up."
"you can tell me about it, i'm here to listen."
and that was the night that started the midnight phone call that made the two feel a unique bond between each other.
➸
ugGhhhHhh i wrote hangyul's/the parents' story part so frickin badly i am so sorry if it made ya'll confused abdjsjbhshabwi
just feel free to ask questions with anything that was unclear to you in hangyul's story and i'll answer !