Just.

A Chapter by XinHyun

the beginning

Kai was born.

       All he knew was how to whine, cry, eat, sleep, and wear his diaper. There was nothing really particularly special about Kai. He was an ordinary boy who wanted to be known. He wanted friends and love more than anything. He cherished his dad and his mom. He always swung between them, holding their hands. He had great friends when he was in Kindergarten, and he was the best trouble maker the teachers had. Although he would always get in trouble, the kids could never avoid his smiles and his laughter. Everything was natural and everything was happy.
       One night Kai came out from his room, he heard his mother yelling loudly. He stood in the living room witnessing his father on his knees asking for forgiveness. His mother was crying and yelling, shaking her head and trying to make him get off of her. "This is your fault!" She said, "Get out right now!" Kai's father grabbed her hands and begged, "Please let me sleep here one more night." The mom looked over at Kai with pain in her eyes, she closed them and yelled for Kai to go back to his room. Time went by and Kai noticed that his father was lacking in appearance. "Where's dad, mom?" He got smacked. He was hit. He showed up to kindergarten with bruises all over him. When the teachers asked what happened, he smiled and laughed. He scratched his head and replied, "I got clumsy and fell down on the sidewalk on the way home yesterday." The teachers believed him and scolded him to be more careful next time. Kai shrugged it off and laughed. But nobody noticed that the one thing Kai didn't do when he told his lie, was that he didn't look them in the eyes. . .
        Mom always came home late from work so Kai ended up having to be sent to a baby-sitter. He had two. One of which he was more fond of than the other. The old lady that lived in the same apartment-complex was his favorite. She cared for him like a grandmother should for her grandson. Leo, Kai's half-brother, also favored this sitter over the other. She cooked for them and bathed them. Kai made a new friend through her, Jessie. They were always getting in trouble because of Kai but he didn't care. He was always trying to look cool in front of his new friend. He started to like her little by little. Though Jessie's mom and little sister hated Kai with an unreasonably amount of passion.
        He made quite a lot of new friends in the neighborhood through his baby-sitter. He was truly grateful. Though he still caused some trouble now and then. But the days that baby-sitter was busy, he had to go to another, that lived over the train tracks. She seemed nice at first, prepared good food. There were also other kids. Then Kai had played a little prank on one of the little kids and while he was laughing, that sitter came through the kitchen and grabbed Kai by the hair and drug him to the living room. She reached behind the curtain of the window and pulled out a long wooden stick. It was about three feet long and an inch thick. Kai was startled and was too focused on the pain in his head through the pulled strands of hair to notice what was happening. She struck him on the head and on his legs and his back with the stick. Kai cried and cried thus got beaten more. He stayed quiet after he had calmed down. He sat as she shoved food down his throat and the other children's throats as well.
       Sometimes Leo would come and yell at the sitter. He was fifteen, Leo was allowed to be independent under her watch. He could feed himself, and he wasn't beaten with "The Stick". He saved Kai multiple times from being struck with "The Stick". Leo hated the sitter more than anything. Kai did too.
        Time went by, and Kai only started to become more troublesome during grade school. His mother kept beating him whenever he did something any normal eight year old boy would do. He started relying on his friends more and more, and they became annoyed with him. They made excuses not to be near him. "I want to try have more friends than just you," his first friend said to him. Kai held back his anger and smiled, he nodded in agreement. He became neutral through the next year. He made more friends through being a jerk. He made his first girlfriend and cheated on her with another. His heart started becoming darker. But there was still something left of what he was. He still just wanted Love.

next chapter