Min Yoongi
There's a funny thing about abuse.
You don't actually realize you're being abused.
It seems so painful but so normal, so unfair but such a necessary part of life.
Like the flu or a cold. So unwanted, but required.
Yoongi had never realized he was being abused.
He went to a good school, had wealthy parents and always had the best clothes and tutors.
He always had friends around him and he was always being told what a nice boy he was
His father was a retired general who was renown for his amazing feats in war.
No one knew that the amazing feats had come with a price.
The man could put up a perfect facade, host amazing dinner parties and give the perfect impression of a doting husband and proud father.
But in private he'd utter profanities and curses Yoongi had never heard even his mother use.
He'd carry his whips and sticks he used to discipline soldiers and beat his wife and son with it. He hardly needed a reason to do so.
A broken vase? Eighty lashes.
Wetting the bed? A hundred lashes.
Making too much noise at the dinner table? A hundred and twenty lashes plus five hits from the stick.
His mother was no better.
A forgotten middle born, she wanted her family and friends to think she was doing great, that she was living her best life.
Even if it meant going through a physical hell each day.
And it wasn't like she was any better off.
She always told him, reminded him not to mention what happened behind closed doors, made him think all children were meant to be excellent liars about their family, made him think it wasn't concerning to have to go through rigorous skin care and treatments so his scars would fade quickly.
His mother was probably worse.
Her image of a perfect family of course meant that she was more focused on making sure he was perfect than trying to protect him from her psychotic husband.
Yoongi was shaped into the perfect child, with good looks and grades, respectful kind friends, good rapport with relatives, always donating and giving to charities, and a smile he didn't even know was fake.
Perhaps one day he could forgive his father.
The man was traumatized by war, thrown back into a world he knew too many bitter truths of and expected to act normal.
Maybe he could be understood.
Maybe.
But he'd never understand his mother, nor would he forgive her.
His mother would cajole and gaslight him, tell him he meant the world to her but that he made her sad everytime he came short.
She'd lock him up or deprive him of food if he disappointed her one too many times, never physically touching him, so he always thought she was better, different from his father.
Perhaps he would have kept on living that way.
If not for the summer he turned fifteen.
That summer a new butler was hired. He was young, kind and thought the world of Yoongi's father.
Yoongi had liked the man. He was calm, easy to talk to and always had a kind or helpful word to say.
His mother had been careful, never letting the butler see the demonic side of her family.
Except for the one day Yoongi had made the mistake of asking the man to help him with the collar if his shirt.
The man saw too much of Yoongi's bare shoulder where his skin treatments were hard to work on.
Long pink and red marks zagged along his shoulder down to his back and lower neck.
He had only glimpsed it but he saw terrified him.
Yoongi realized he had seen too much and drew back.
The young butler demanded answers.
After a dozen attempts at lying and evading, Yoongi finally made the man swear not to tell another soul anything then explained everything to him, expecting him be relieved, thinking it was just normal discipline.
But the butler looked like he had been given poison to choke down.
He tried to explain the situation to Yoongi, tell him he was being abused and needed help.
But Yoongi thought he was crazy, thought he didn't understand.
It is wasn't till he heard a soft gasp from behind him, realized his mother had heard everything and was less than pleased, it wasn't till then that he began to look at the situation in a different light.
The poor man was hauled before his father, who took one look at him after hearing the situation, and proceeded to give him the thrashing of his life.
With Yoongi and his wife, he tried to hold back.
But with this man he had no qualms.
He whipped him till he couldn't move his hand or legs, then pushed the writhing figure away.
Lock him in the basement, he said.
I'll find what to do with him.
That was when Yoongi realized there was something wrong with his life after all.
He did the only thing he could.
He exposed his family the first chance he got.
He didn't know how to at first, so he decided to go with a simple approach.
He booked an appointment with the most reliable journalist people were likely to believe, entered his office and took of his shirt without a word, letting the man see it, speechless.
After that it was all a haze, a blurry stumble through life.
Court cases, press and loss of connections, disappointment and shame from family and friends.
His mother went ballistic, her years of hard work all for naught.
She feigned innocence and pretended to be the victim.
Not hard when she also had her won scars to show for it.
His father was given life.
His mother was shipped to Japan for rehab.
As for him, he ran away before the state even decided what to do with him.
He had no reason to stay anyway.
The police had checked the basement.
It was a mess and smelt like somebody has died, but it was empty.
He changed his last name to that of the butler's, Min.
Living on the streets taught him one thing.
Well Yoongi didn't have a home.
Maybe that's one thing being abused and going bad have in common.
You don't actually realize it.
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