Work Text:
You wake slowly, softly, void of sound.
Your father greets you beside your hospital bed, his long, fleshy fingers loosely coiled on the frame.
He’s smiling. Dread curdles in your stomach, even as you keep your face impassive like the doll he wants you to be, like the doll you are. You know before he finishes opening his mouth.
“You’re going to be discharged today, Luka.” You want to flinch. You know better. “Starting from tomorrow, you’ll be resuming all previous duties.”
Of course, you’ve been expecting this. Your facial tissue has grown back; the scars have all but faded. The staff who had looked on with slight disgust and pity now ogle at your body, which has grown thinner over the years. Their faces had started distorting back into appreciative leers you know to fear, to love. Their hands have started wandering again, though not as much as before the stage, the burns, her. A part of you feels relieved; you’re mostly just disappointed.
You’re aware that you owe it to Father. He had kept you around, ugly and useless as you were; invested in your health, paying for expensive, invasive surgeries, visiting you even after your failure as his pet. After everything he's done for you, you know that you have to make it back to him with your effort and talent and soul and body and love.
Still, you can’t shake the trepidation, the fear of having to give yourself to the crowd when there’s so little of you left. There’s no Alien Stage to distract yourself with, no excuse Father can, want, will, give to the unforgiving segyein to make them kinder, more placable.
They’ll rip you apart, with their words, with their touch, again and again. As they please, as you deserve.
There’s nothing you can do to stop it; it’s just business, after all.
You haven’t talked much, not since the incident, not since her death. Tomorrow, it’ll be like nothing has happened, you’ll sing, dance, love. Tomorrow, you will be fixed, ready to drain yourself of all your worth, all the worth you're given. They’ll be pleased to take, you’ll be prepared to give.
Hyuna had sacrificed herself for you, but sometimes, it feels as though you had died with her.
Father looks at you expectantly. You don’t dare meet his gaze.
“Of course, Father.”
He smiles again, wider, and you feel a part of you, small, weak, mourn at what could’ve been if you were never saved.