March 16, 2023

“Size your time.”

Today, while watching “Dark Glory,” the female lead’s body was scarred from being burned. This suddenly brought back memories: I’ve also been burned before.

I can’t remember the exact time, it should be around 2009. I remember it was before I started elementary school, I don’t know if my parents still remember this incident. There was a burn on my right arm about the size of a thumb. I remember telling them that I got burned by the engine when I climbed under the car. I remember my mom saying, “What happened? Why were you so careless?” My dad glanced at me and said, “You deserved it.” I was scared at the time, I didn’t dare to tell the truth.

At that time, my parents still ran a laundry shop, and there was a bully in the neighborhood. The term “bully” might not be accurate; to be precise, he was a highly emotionally intelligent bully. Parents had a good impression of him despite his family issues, as his father often beat him. My father noticed his bad behavior early on and strictly forbade me from playing with him again. But the fact is: I didn’t actively seek to befriend him from the beginning. He was good at coaxing children, and children lacked the ability to resist temptation. We played together in the neighborhood, and children had no sense of right or wrong; they were ignorant, and he had no judgment of right or wrong unless someone told him. I used to hang out with him in the neighborhood every day, only knowing that I was happy but not knowing if it was right or wrong: No one told me. And the only person who could tell me, my father, often used his palm to tell me what was right and what was wrong, he would criticize me for not studying well and for not playing with good kids. After my father confronted this “bully” face to face, we rarely played together again.

But living in the same neighborhood, we were bound to run into each other. I remember it was the summer of 2009, I ran into him again outside a noodle shop in the neighborhood. Another good friend of mine was also there. He lit a lighter for one or two seconds and then pressed the flame onto my friend’s arm. My friend was startled, thinking he was burned, but because it was only for a short time, there was no harm. Then he wanted to burn me, and I resisted fiercely. While talking to me, he lit the lighter, asked my friend to hold my arm, and then pressed the lighter firmly against my arm. I was agonizingly burned, but he laughed wildly until all three of us smelled the burning flesh. Then he removed the lighter and found a deep pit burned into my arm, the shape of the lighter head. He panicked and ran to the clinic for a band-aid, then soaked it in water and put it on me. After all these years, I wonder if he feels guilty.

I remember that scar hurt for a long, long time. It was ulcerated and turned white, often hurting so much that I couldn’t sleep. The skin peeled off layer by layer. Fortunately, my mother made me take off the soaked band-aid early and apply burn cream, otherwise, I don’t know what the scar would have turned into.

Until now, I was even awakened by a Korean drama and remembered that I’ve always been a person good at compromise and good at forgetting pain since I was a child. Sometimes I even forget that this incident ever happened, forgetting months of pain. It feels a bit sad…

Written in room 303.