Lights Don't Go Out in the Annex - Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
As a mere eleven-year-old boy, there wasn’t much he could do. He felt something ominous and irrational was happening all around him, but he couldn’t bring himself to question anything. Instead, his mother, Yeonhee, always wore a forced smile and pretended everything was fine to comfort her young son.
‘It’s okay, Taegyeom. As long as I have you, I’m fine.’
A subtle fear lingered in Taegyeom’s mind that someday, without his knowledge, his mother might vanish from their lives, and he might never see her again. The fear of losing his mother silenced him.
Coward.
Taegyeom stared wide-eyed into space. The number plate hanging on the worn-out front door rattled slightly. He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a key.
As he inserted the rusty, reddish-brown key into the keyhole and turned it, a strange metallic sound echoed as the key rotated. Creaking footsteps, someone ascending the worn stairs, resonated through the corridor.
Taegyeom couldn’t wait to grow up, to be a man. If only he could earn money. He would work himself to death, do whatever it took, and never leave his mom in a place like this.
Click. The door opened. Holding the handle, Taegyeom peered into the dimly lit house. In the living room, devoid of even a hint of light, not a single small flame could be seen.
Beyond the window, raindrops fell heavily. The gusting wind made the flimsy aluminum frame rattle. Low-hanging clouds in the sky rumbled ominously.
“…Mom?”
The air smelled of stale dust and damp rain. There was no warmth, no trace of human presence, only a chilling emptiness that sent shivers down his arms. His heart thudded in his chest. The scene Taegyeom had always feared was right in front of him.
His mother, forced away by strangers, the house empty once again. It was like a nightmare come true. Taegyeom ran into the house, calling out for his mom at the top of his lungs.
His mother’s belongings were still there, untouched. It was as if time had stopped in this abandoned living room, where only the people disappeared. As Taegyeom anxiously wandered through the deserted space, he slammed against the bedroom door.
An unfamiliar odor pricked his nose. The bedroom swallowed by darkness. It was so pitch-black that he couldn’t distinguish anything.
In this dark void, an indescribable, instinctive despair washed over him. He felt too young, only eleven years old, to experience the chilling sensation that enveloped his entire body.
Taegyeom extended his trembling hand, groping the walls to find a switch. But as he flicked it on, there was only a crackling sound, indicating that the electricity had been cut off.
“Mom…?”
Feeling his way forward with outstretched arms, he ventured into the bedroom. There was a battery-powered lamp near the bed… His foot bumped into something hard and dry, like a log or a piece of stiff firewood.
A snap.
Light flickered through the dusty light bulb. His eyelids reflexively shut against the sudden brightness that pierced his retinas. In that fleeting moment, a horrific scene flashed before his eyes, causing his heart to pound in his chest. A sensation of blood rushing out of his heart overwhelmed him.
Yeonhee was sprawled on the floor near the bed, as if she had been thrown down in a panic, or as if she was desperately searching for something, maybe escaping some terror.
“Mom!”
Taegyeom hurriedly grabbed Yeonhee’s body and turned her over. As he gripped her shoulders, devoid of any human warmth, blurry tears clouded his vision. Profound despair and fear choked his throat.
Now, not only his hands but his entire body trembled violently. He laid Yeonhee’s flat, lifeless body on his lap.
Her pallid skin, lacking of any color, felt like wax, as warm tears fell onto her emaciated cheeks.
“Mom! Mom!” Taegyeom called out desperately, but she didn’t respond. It had never been like this before. No matter how annoying he was, she always responded with affectionate words and a gentle smile, hugging Taegyeom close.
He reached out with trembling hands. A boy’s hand, not yet fully grown, covered Yeonhee’s pitifully puffy eyes. As her eyelids closed, she finally looked slightly calmer. Sorrow flooded over him.
The young boy wept, holding his mother’s cold body. He knew he had to get her to the hospital quickly. He knew he should call someone to help him, but he didn’t want to let go of her, he wanted to hold her like this forever.
* * *
Only later did Taegyeom realize that the whole process, which he could never understand as a young boy, was a means to isolate Yeonhee from her family.
During the financial crisis, Shinhae Financial eventually went bankrupt, vanishing into the obscurity of history. As the company’s collapse unfolded, Yeonhee was forced to leave and moved to the United States. Her family, realizing her disappearance, made several belated attempts to locate her, but by then, all connections had been severed.
Chairman Kwon discreetly moved Yeonhee from one location to another, away from the prying eyes of her family. He silenced her with threats, leaving her powerless to resist, all in the guise of allowing her to meet her son. He cut her off from the world, confining her to poverty under the pretext of the promise to reunite her with her son.
And so the late Yeonhee withered away in loneliness.
After Yeonhee’s death, as if waiting for this moment, Taegyeom’s enrollment was transferred to a prestigious private school. A spacious house, a chauffeur, and a dedicated housekeeper were provided. Enormous allowances were wired every month, money enough for Yeonhee to never have to suffer alone.
Taegyeom now harbored deep resentment towards the man he called his father.
He detested Kwon Kyungrok’s tainted and vile blood that ran through his veins, despised the roots, the genes, and the lineage that made up his existence.
***
Taegyeom groggily opened his eyes. He felt a very slight tilt of the bed along with the sound of rustling sheets. It was a strange sensation.
A woman sat up next to him and stared blankly into the air. Taegyeom quietly shifted his gaze away from her.
He could sense a hint of embarrassment in the woman’s slender back, as if she was trying to remember the night before. She seemed equally confused as to why she had woken up in someone else’s bed.
His attention was drawn to the woman’s round nape. Her neck was slender and straight, and her hair was tied into a loose bun, with strands of hair flowing down.
Over the course of the night, she had struggled to withstand his rough advances multiple times, until she finally passed out, with his swollen m*mber still inside her. She was left with a gaping hole.
The morning light had already begun to shine through the hazy window. The woman finally regained her senses and pulled the blankets up to cover her bare chest.
Traces of bite marks and bruises were all over her delicate back. He had sucked on her body so much that the marks reached all the way up to her b*ttocks.
I really was a madman.
As Taegyeom muttered quietly, the woman fumbled around and pulled the bra she was lying on out from under her a$s. Slipping her arms through the straps, she scooped up her dress from where it lay on the floor.
She put on her clothes quickly while still searching for something, constantly looking around in panic like a small animal cornered by its predator.
Holding her breath and minimizing her movements, she peeked out from under the covers and let out a small sigh. Finally, giving up her search, she gingerly pushed herself out of bed. Little did she realize that Taegyeom was already awake and watching her.
Taegyeom lay on his back with his arm at an angle and watched Leeseo’s back as she crept toward the door like a burglar. When she reached the bedroom door, she hesitated for a moment before flipping the switch. Until then, the bedroom had been brightly lit all night long.
As the lights went out, the room was plunged into darkness. The light from outside the bedroom cast long shadows before disappearing. The door closed silently.
Taegyeom reached out his hand nervously to the nightstand as the woman’s shadow disappeared. He used the remote control to turn on the bedroom lights. Blindingly bright light popped and poured down from the ceiling.
His bare chest rose and fell slowly, up and down. His breathing, which had been ragged, calmed once more.
A dry and hollow breath lingered around him. Taegyeom closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his arm before suddenly getting up from the bed and walking towards the window.
He could see Leeseo walking down the path leading away from the annex. She walked calmly, and her hair swayed from side to side with each step. Taegyeom stared at her hair intently.
He saw the way her hair moved in waves when he had been thrusting around like a madman all night, mixing with her sobs and whimpers. He remembered how her slender waist had wriggled and struggled to escape his grasp while he greedily devoured her below.
Blood rushed to his lower body.
Ah f*ck…….
Taegyeom swallowed hard. As if that wasn’t enough, he could feel his c*ck twitching and his sh*ft hardening.