Chapter 106 - Kang Shinho (5)
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....
After a while, Shinho thought of exploring more rooms in the mansion. He stepped out of the play room and walked along a long corridor. The little boy was gaping at the picturesque interior which oozed warmth and coziness.
He had seen a little bit of Kang Danny's mansion and for some reason it felt dreary. There was no depth nor warmth there because everything felt alien to him. The walls used to be drab and daunting as if suffocating him with their plainness while the carefully controlled decor did not show off that a family lived there. In fact, it felt that Danny lived there alone because he had chosen every single thing there. From the furniture to the wall paints, everything was decorated as per his choice and his family had little say in it. Even if Shinho was kept in the main mansion with the family, he would have felt stifled there.
But this place...this felt like home. The walls were colored in different shades of blue, pink, purple and many other colors as if someone had a child randomly choose them. The furniture was bought according to the color combination of the different shades, mixing and matching to make the place look more homely. Rays of soft sunlight were peeking through the glass ceiling above and Shinho could also see the snowflakes which fell on the glass. They were of various shapes and sizes, covering the ceiling like a white blanket.
"Pretty!" the child gasped. He had never seen such a beautiful array of snowflakes and was itching to make a snowman out of them.
Up ahead was a kitchen. Even though he was not hungry, Shinho decided to peek into the room and to his surprise, there was flour everywhere. But in the middle of it was…
"Chocolate!" he squealed. Without much thought, he stepped on the flour filled floor and was about to pick up the bar but he stopped midway.
A strong surge of fear was coursing through him and he froze in that posture. Chocolates...no...he was not supposed to take any. The last time he tried to take a chocolate from Danny's fridge, he was beaten up so badly that he could not stand up for days.
"No…" he whispered. "Bad Shinho! Don't take it!"
As if triggered, he began to slap himself hard. The sounds of his slaps echoed throughout the kitchen but he kept on hitting himself.
"NO!" A woman yelled and ran towards the place where his footprints had stopped. She sensed his presence and grabbed him in an attempt to stop the child from hurting himself.
"Don't!" she begged but Shinho was in a trance. He kept on hitting himself everywhere he could, his mind still repeating the scenes of his death. The bottle...the blood…
"I'm a bad boy!" Shinho exclaimed. "I hurt my dad! I'm a bad boy!"
Gayoon was struggling to control the invisible ghost. She had to figure out his location from the flour they had spread on the floor. They were hoping to find the ghost and help him move on but it seemed that the child had some unfulfilled wishes too.
"Don't hurt yourself!" She tried to convince him but Shinho was totally out of control. He was not sure what he was doing but the trauma of his memories were becoming too much to bear for him.
"This child…" Gayoon muttered. She looked around to tell Minho to help but he was scrolling on his phone.
"What are you doing?" she cried.
"You'll see!" Minho told her. He put his phone down and positioned himself. This always works with kids, he thought.
The music began to play and Big Bang 'Bang Bang Bang!' echoed from the phone. Minho began to dance like an idiot, making Gayoon curse him inwardly. Not the dance again!
"That's not gonna work!" Gayoon claimed but to her shock, the boy stopped struggling. Shinho was staring at the strange man who was dancing the same dance from the mall. He giggled and clapped at the bunny who turned out to be a very good entertainer. Minho slid across the floor, finishing the dance with what he thought was a good performance. Minho slid across the floor, finishing the dance with what he thought was a good performance.
"Once more!" Shinho yelled. "Once more!"
"You like that?" Gayoon gaped.
"Does he want more?" Minho asked.
"He does," Gayoon groaned. Minho was happy to oblige and began to dance again. Shinho was now sitting on Gayoon's lap, thoroughly enjoying the free show while Gayoon wanted to bury herself somewhere out of embarrassment. What was it with this dance and children? How did they get hooked into this?
Once Minho was done, he stooped on the ground and held out his palm.
"I can't see you but I'm sure we can high five at least!" he claimed. Shinho laughed and touched Minho's palm with his cold ones. Minho felt the cool air touching him, meaning that the child had calmed down.
"Can we retire that dumb dance already?" Gayoon pleaded. "It's embarrassing!"
"It makes me millions of dollars per week!" Minho grinned. "Thanks to my new strategy to make my executives dance around as mascots, the children are now using the playtown in the mall even more. And the more they use it, the more money I make! I see it as an absolute win!"
"It's fun!" Shinho agreed. "I love it!"
"The kid says it's fun and he likes it," Gayoon interpreted. "But what's your name? How did you get here?"
But Shinho was still looking at Minho with wide eyed wonder.
"Bunny uncle!" Shinho called Minho.
"Bunny uncle?" Gayoon frowned. She turned to Minho and said, "He called you bunny uncle. I think he knows you! He's calling you bunny uncle. He must have seen you at the mall that day!"
"Mall?" Minho frowned a little.
"He was in the washroom too," Shinho told her. He was not sure what was going on but it seemed to him that the pretty aunt could talk to him and she was interpreting everything on his behalf.
"He saw you in the washroom," Gayoon said.
Washroom...Minho thought hard and then it finally hit him. The image of a small boy in shabby clothes popped into his mind and he was suddenly fearful. That day, the boy was alive. And now…
"You…" he began. "Are you Kang Shinho?"
"Yes," Shinho confirmed. "My name is Kang Shinho."
"He is Kang Shinho," Gayoon whispered. It seemed to her that Minho knew the boy. His expression was hovering between guilt and sadness as he began to connect some dots. Minho was silent for a while.
"That man that day...was he your father, Shinho?" Minho asked. "And did he...did he kill you?"
Shinho whispered something into Gayoon's ears which horrified her. She looked sick and disgusted by what he had told her. Minho could feel his girlfriend's disgust only rising and he was fearing the worst.
"Yes," she confirmed, her face wincing. "His father killed him."