What I Never Told

I haven’t told anyone about these memories. It’s not because I’m traumatized, but because I never wanted people to know I was sexually abused by a bunch of other kids.

When I was 13, I studied abroad in rural China as part of an exchange program for thirty Korean students learning the language at a local middle school.

I moved to a strange environment to escape my hometown’s middle school. Back in Korea, I had no friends at school and struggled with depression. I thought I had to leave Korea to survive, so I applied for the exchange program and studied Mandarin for a month before running away to China.

In China, I was the second youngest student in the program. I had lots of hyungs around me. I looked up to them like gods. They were all I had in this foreign place. Soon I was doing whatever they did—smoking, drinking, skipping school—anything to be accepted as one of them.

I fucked up and made a lot of mistakes. I can’t just blame the older boys—I chose to copy them, desperate for their attention. But what started as me trying to be “cool” sometimes turned into something much darker. What they called pranks weren’t pranks at all.

The abuse started with the oldest hyung. One day, he and several others held me down and stripped me naked. He ordered other kids to bring a bottle of lotion, and they poured it on me. Three or four held my arms and legs, so I couldn’t move. I shouted “No! Stop!” but they took pictures of my penis soaked in the lotion. All of them were laughing.

Another time, the oldest hyung (the usual villain) asked me to his bed. He grabbed one of my hands and put it on his penis. “What do you think?” he asked. Then he got a boner and asked again, “It’s fucking big, right?” He did this to me many times throughout the year.

After a year, I transferred to Shanghai, hoping for a fresh start. But the pattern repeated itself. In a dorm with four other Korean boys, I was again the youngest. Despite everything I’d been through, I fell back into the same trap—wanting to belong, wanting to be accepted by the older boys.

I didn’t learn from the past year and continued to worship the hyungs. We skipped school, stole stuff, and spent all night at a PC cafe.

The abuse followed me there too. The oldest hyung in Shanghai would force himself into my room, pin me to the bed, and simulate sex acts while I lay there frozen. He treated it like a joke, but it wasn’t funny. We were fully clothed, but he screamed as if he was in a porn.

This went on for two years. Being the youngest and smallest, I couldn’t fight back. I liked that they adored me as their younger brother. I was a loyal dog who fetched anything they asked for. I kept trying to earn their approval, even when they took advantage of me.

These memories still visit me—moments of feeling completely helpless, trapped between wanting to belong and wanting to run. But I’ve always hesitated to call it trauma. Yes, those moments shaped me, like any experience. But did they break me? For years, I’ve told myself I’m fine, that I’ve moved past it. Maybe writing this is my way of finally asking: What do you do with memories you’re not sure have hurt or traumatized you?