Unspoken
"Are you alright?"
His mother had always been too drugged up to care.
She told him she was taking the pills because she had a sore back.
He never stopped to ask why she happened to have a sore back every day, nor why she would take so many of them at once.
It was no secret that he'd been a mistake. She used the drugs to escape from the gruesome world she'd created for herself, the one in which he existed. She viewed him as a constant reminder of her failure.
Whenever he got hurt, she never paid his injuries any attention. Instead, she would ask about the object he'd fallen off of or tripped over, because they were much more important and if he so much as scratched his bike, there would be hell to pay.
Sometimes he would wait around after school while his classmates got picked up by their parents. He once saw a child embrace an adult, a foreign concept to him. When he got home—by foot, because his mother always forgot about him—he decided to try it himself. She sent him to clean his room.
He started to fight partially due to frustration, partially because he was curious.
Once in a while, he would choose a target from his class and intentionally cause a confrontation. He always won, always left his opponent bruised, scraped, crying. In the principal's office, the other boys' mothers didn't blame them for destroying school property. They comforted them, held them close, listened to their complaints without telling them to shut up.
He felt no sympathy for their pain; he felt jealousy.
He never stopped to ask how to console someone.
So when the six-year-old version of him came inside from playing alone in the backyard and saw his mother lying motionless on the couch, an empty prescription bottle on the floor beneath her outstretched hand, Hwoarang didn't ask if she was alright.
"I was wrong."
His father had always been too drunk to care.
After his wife's death, he started to depend on the soothing ignorance the alcohol provided. He told his son that he had trouble sleeping and it helped him.
He watched his father stumble through the front door every night at a different time, always late, his breath potent with the aftertaste of beer—or whiskey, depending on the day of the week. His role model would lurch up the stairs without glancing back and slur for him to get to bed.
He was naïve and so thought the sudden changes in his father's behavior could only be attributed to missing Mother.
The depression came swiftly, quietly. He didn't mind because although his father was sad, they spent more time together. They never did any of the fun things he heard the other kids at school talking about, but at least he wasn't alone anymore.
That phase had soon given way to a new kind of mourning.
He began to get reprimanded consistently. His father didn't like it when he forgot to wash his hands, when he left his toys in the living room, when he spoke English. He tried to keep up with the rules of the house, but with new ones being added to the list every hour, his young mind couldn't quite grasp them.
His father eventually grew impatient. Every time he slipped up, he would receive physical retribution. At first, the intensity of the beating depended on the severity of the offense—slap on the wrist for an unmade bed, slap across the face for a missed homework assignment.
That didn't last long. No matter what he did, he would be punched, kicked, smacked until he promised not to make mistakes anymore.
He was naïve and so thought he deserved it.
So when the eight-year-old version of him was shown a video about child abuse in health class, Hwoarang pulled a sweatshirt over his bandaged arms and knew his father couldn't be wrong.
"I miss you."
His master had always been too strict to care.
The decision to leave home in favor of a new life had led him to the doorstep of a Tae Kwon Do instructor who was legendary in his own right. The man lived alone, so he offered for the youth to stay with him.
He told him he would be taught the tricks of the trade.
The old man's method of fighting was entirely new to him. He'd never possessed an actual style or technique while fighting before. Learning the complex moves gave him an adrenaline rush.
The training became rigorous. His best stopped being good enough. He was often still practicing in the early hours of the morning, cynical eyes hawking overhead and analyzing every strained effort. He would fumble, exhausted, then be forced to repeat the entire chain, layers of sweat causing his feet to slide haphazardly on the hardwood floor.
His master's obsessive regimen made him falter. He started to doubt that his feelings mattered, considered that he might have been molded into a mere replacement meant to carry on the dojo's legacy.
The thought consumed him, but he couldn't find words to express it.
He found comfort in securing his individuality through talking back and disobedience. A wise comment a day kept his restlessness at bay.
There were days when the old man left the dojo and didn't return until the next morning. While he appreciated the freedom they provided, he mostly dreaded those times because the emptiness he'd felt as a child would come back to haunt him.
The thought consumed him, but he couldn't find words to express it.
So when the nineteen-year-old version of him heard of his master's disappearance and realized he wouldn't be returning in the morning, Hwoarang didn't say how much he already missed him.
"I love you."
His girlfriend cared.
She told him she would stand by his side, no matter where life took them.
It had started simple—exchanging glances in the lobby, exchanging cell numbers. Before he knew it, she asked him to take her for a ride on his motorcycle.
She hadn't screamed when the front wheel careened off of a stray trashcan lid because he was paying more attention to her than the road.
She screamed when he crashed into a tree moments later and bashed his forehead against the handlebars because he'd given her his helmet.
Somehow he ended up on the ground, splayed beneath a canopy of changing leaves. He thought he'd been looking up at the sun until a light wind pushed through the branches and the yellow tendrils waved to him.
Then she was there, placing a gentle hand behind his head, looking at him with concern in her eyes.
"Are you alright?"
She had become his sun.
When he was drafted into the military, she'd tried to convince him to let her come along. She offered to find a place near the base and visit him every day he wasn't on duty, although they both knew the area's conditions were far too dangerous.
She never forgot to call him, even if she had nothing interesting to say. Some nights the two of them would simply stare up at the moon, watching it shine and shrink and fade, and wish their skies were closer.
"I miss you."
She had become his moon.
On the morning he finally returned to her, she'd given him the thing most precious to her, an irreversable welcoming gift.
She was naïve and so thought he deserved it.
He rolled onto his side, unwilling to face the innocence he'd defiled. She mistook his pensive silence for annoyance.
"Did I do something wrong?"
She had become his everything.
But as the twenty-one-year-old version of him felt her body mold against his, strands of her raven hair spilling over his shoulder, Hwoarang knew Xiaoyu would never hear it.
He'd never stopped to ask how to say, "I love you."