The television was on, but the volume was so low it sounded like a sick whisper. A constant hum that said nothing, but filled the uncomfortable silence of the living room as if trying to distract me from something I didn't want to see.
I was on the floor, kneeling on the frayed carpet, playing with two plastic dolls that had already lost their paint on the edges. One of them had wings made of toothpicks glued on and tape. The other only had legs and a torn cape that was once part of a shopping bag.
I gave that one my name. Klaus Eisen.
"He doesn't need wings…" I murmured as I awkwardly moved it among the crumbs of breakfast I didn't sweep. "Just don't let anyone see him coming."
My voice was low, as if even my own words had to ask permission to exist.
Behind me, my mother was putting on makeup in front of the mirror hanging at a half angle in the hallway. The yellow ceiling light accentuated the dark circles under her eyes. She wore heavier makeup than usual. Deep red lipstick, thick eyelashes she didn't use at the office. And a black skirt, too short to sit at a desk without discomfort.
Her heels tapped impatiently on the floor with every step. They didn't match the gray backpack she always said she carried to "work." That contrast no longer seemed strange to me. Just... confusing.
"Are you working nights again?" I asked without taking my eyes off the makeshift-winged doll.
"Yes, the boss asked for overtime," she replied in a recorded tone. Automatic. Same as last week. Same as yesterday.
"What a pain that man is," she added, smiling with her lips but not with her eyes.
"But… you don't wear that kind of clothes to the office," I said softly, almost hoping I hadn't said it. I squeezed the doll in my hands. I made it fly. Higher. As if moving it away from the ground could make my doubts disappear.
My mother didn't respond. She continued spraying perfume. A new one. Sweet, heavy, too strong for someone going only to a computer.
I saw her in the TV's reflection: touching up her lips in the mirror as if practicing a smile that wasn't for me.
She turned. Walked toward the door. And just before crossing it, she bent down a little, ruffled my hair, and delivered her favorite line—one I already knew by heart:
"Behave yourself, okay, champion?"
Her voice was sweet. Rehearsed. So carefully fake it hurt more than if she'd yelled at me.
I didn't answer. I just nodded without looking.
And when I heard the click of the lock, I stayed still for a while.
That sound... that little "click"... was like a silent order. A signal... my signal to become invisible again, because in that house, being seen... hurt.
Sometimes, at night, when I thought I was asleep, the house began to sound different.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
It wasn't plumbing or the old refrigerator. It was knocks. Rhythmic. Like someone kicking the wall again and again, but without anger... with something that seemed like urgency. Or desire.
Then came the laughter. Voices of men I didn't know. Deep voices smelling of cigarettes and beer, though I could only hear them. Sometimes a laugh mixed with the bed's creak.
Once, I heard clearly:
"Be quiet, your son's going to hear us."
And my mother's voice, muffled between laughter and gasps:
"Bah, he doesn't even speak."
I had my headphones on. The same broken ones for months. Only wires tangled with black tape left. But I still wore them every night as an invisible shield. It was easier to pretend not to hear. Easier to keep being the kid who doesn't ask, who doesn't bother. His parents' good child.
Though I wasn't the only one pretending... my mother lied well, said she was working, that her shift was extended and that the boss was annoying.
But I had seen her. I saw the men come into the house. One... two... five.
But one morning, while she stirred juice in the kitchen, I dared to break that silence.
"Mom… was that man your boss?"
The spoon stopped turning. The glass remained still on the table. She looked at me as if she hadn't understood the question.
"What man?"
"The one in your room yesterday. I heard... voices."
Her expression changed. Just a little, but enough. As if someone had thrown salt into a wound she pretended not to have.
"Don't talk nonsense, Klaus. You always make things up."
And then she smiled. That smile that never reached her eyes.
I stayed still. Didn't respond. Just looked down at the toast that had already gone cold.
I never asked again. Not that morning. Not ever again.
One night, the noises changed.
They were no longer moans or laughter... they were screams.
Raw screams, unfiltered. Doors slammed in rage. Glass shattered.
I woke up startled. My heart pounded as if it wanted to escape too. I got out of bed barefoot and walked carefully toward the cracked-in-half door.
And there he was.
My father. A broken bottle in his hand.
His face was contorted, not by crying…
It was the face of someone who had dried up inside. As if even pain had given up.
"IN MY BED, DAMN IT?! YOU DAMN WHORE!" he roared.
His voice made the frames tremble... and my body. Even my wrists shrank, as if trying to hide.
On the bed, wrapped only in a sheet, was her.
My mother.
She let out a laugh. But it wasn't embarrassed or defensive... it was that laugh with an edge to the voice. One that cuts inward.
"Someone had to enjoy that bed, don't you think?" she said, with a venom I only understood years later.
Me, at eight years old, didn't fully comprehend what was happening.
But I understood this: That was the sound of rotten love... the kind that dies over time
The sound of something that was once a home... and no longer was.
My father kicked something on the floor. I didn't see what. Maybe it was his pride. Maybe another promise broken by my mother.
He grabbed a worn gray canvas suitcase with a rusty zipper. He dragged it to the door without looking back.
And before leaving, he said the last thing I ever heard him say:
"It's not worth living with garbage... and I don't know if you're even mine anymore."
Then, the door shut. With too much contained fury. As if even goodbyes had lost their meaning.
And to this day… I don't know if those words were for her. Or for me too...
After that... my mother stopped pretending.
There was no more "champion" or "behave yourself." No more empty promises or window-dressing smiles. Only late returns, clumsy steps, laughter that wasn't meant for me.
She started coming home with smeared makeup, the smell of cigarettes clinging to her clothes, perfumes that weren't hers mixed in. And behind that smell... other men. Different every week. Cheap cologne. Spilled liquor. Someone else's saliva.
She spoke to me as if I were a piece of furniture that always got in the way, or worse... as if she no longer remembered why I was still there.
"Make yourself something to eat."
She said it without looking at me, taking off her heels while the TV murmured in the background.
"Can I help?" I once asked, trying... something.
She turned only her head, her eyes dull. Then she said in a hollow voice:
"Are you useless or just a piece of garbage?"
There was no context. It was just that...
Another day, while washing a dish because I was hungry and didn't want to bother her, I accidentally dropped a glass. The noise wasn't loud. It didn't even break.
But her reaction did.
"DON'T YOU FUCK WITH ME, YOU FUCKING KID OF SHIT!"
Her scream filled the kitchen like an open wound.
"SHUT UP."
A dry word... very repeated.
"SHUT UPPPP."
Until I did.
I learned that making noise was betrayal. That raising your voice tempted the ghosts of the house. That emotions were mistakes, cracks that let worse things in.
That in that home, the only language that didn't start war... was silence.
That's how I learned to exist in ghost mode. To breathe without being noticed. To walk without the floor creaking. To keep my questions inside. To swallow "I miss you", "it hurts", "do you see me?".
To pretend that I needed no one.
And sometimes, just sometimes, I wondered if one day... someone would see me without having to scream to do it.
On my twelfth birthday... one ordinary afternoon, while the pale sunlight filtered through the dirty kitchen window, I wrote a story.
It wasn't long.
Just a handful of clumsy paragraphs on lined paper, written with a gnawed pencil.
It was called "The Invisible Boy."
It was about a boy nobody noticed, not at home, not at school, not on the street. But he... he saved the world every day. He stopped disasters, healed the sad, fixed broken things… all without anyone seeing him.
Without anyone knowing he existed...
I thought that was being a hero. I truly thought that if I did enough in silence... maybe someday someone would notice.
So I went, heart beating a little faster than normal, the page folded in my hand like I carried something sacred.
My mother was sitting on the couch, legs crossed. A cigarette dangled between her fingers, leaving a line of ash nearly touching the carpet. The TV flickered in front of her, changing colors without meaning. A newscast or a game show, I don't remember. Everything sounded the same.
I approached slowly. My voice barely came out.
"Mom… I wrote something. It's a story."
She didn't reply. Didn't turn her head to look at me.
"Do you want to read it? It's short. It's called The Invisible Boy..."
The click of the remote was the only answer. She changed the channel. Then took a long drag from the cigarette.
I stayed there. A few more seconds. Like hope was stubbornly refusing to die.
But it did. It died slowly, drop by drop. And it hurt more because it didn't scream.
I backed away silently. Locked myself in the bathroom. Torn the paper into pieces and flushed them, one by one, down the toilet.
I watched them float for a moment before getting soaked, crumpling, dissolving as if they had never existed. As if what I felt could disappear with dirty water.
I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn't feel like crying. Just... like giving up trying.
And there, in that damp silence, I told myself what would become my golden rule:
"Don't show anyone anything again."
"If you stay silent… you fit."
"And if you fit, maybe it won't hurt as much."
---
Author's Note:
If you missed the previous announcement, this chapter marks the beginning of Volume 2: Before I Was Me.
We'll explore Suhyeon's past, his relationships, his internal changes, and the key moments that shaped who he is today.
Basically, everything that wasn't seen on camera.