Rushing up the stairs and into his bedroom, Minghao shut his door and set his bag down on the ground. The tears were already falling. For a second he stood still, trying to will them away. But he quickly became aware that he would not be able to do so this time. A sob escaped his mouth and he tried with his entire being to be as quiet as possible. His parents were downstairs and he did not want to find out what would happen if they came in and found him crying right after the argument he had with them.

It wasn’t supposed to upset him this much. Minghao had tried his best for so long to not let it get to him that much. But perhaps he bottled too much up inside and just now it was starting to overflow.

He hated pointing fingers but it was all because of his parents. Whatever good they thought they were doing for him was giving him tremendous amounts of stress and anxiety. The extra classes, the extra curricular activities, they were too much. Minghao didn’t even enjoy them in the first place. But it wasn’t his idea nor his choice apparently. Talking to his parents about it was like talking to a brick wall or like talking to an adult as a child. That is, they wouldn’t listen or would disregard everything he said because he was a kid and in their eyes, adults always knew what was best for kids.

As he stood in the middle of his room, the tears started falling faster and the sobs left his mouth more often. The harder he cried the harder he willed himself to stop but that did nothing to calm him down. Admitting defeat, he plopped onto his bed and let himself cry. It was hard to say how long he sat there weeping but eventually he deemed himself calm enough to try and distract himself.

Taking out the newest book in his favorite series, he opened it to where he left off and began reading. However, he couldn’t stop thinking about his situation long enough to get lost in the story. Tears welled up in his eyes again and his vision blurred. Minghao took deep breaths, attempting to relax. But yet again, it did no use as the words became indistinguishable and the tears overflowed from his eyes and fell, wetting the pages of his book.

Frustrated and thoroughly upset, Minghao shut the book and set it on his bedside table before climbing into bed and wrapping up in the blankets. He made the decision to just lie there instead until he eventually fell asleep. So lie there he did and waited to slip into unconsciousness.

Minghao awoke to his bedroom door opening and another person walking in.

“Hey Minghao, everything okay?” the person, another teenage boy, asked.

“Jun? What are you doing here? Aren’t my parents home?”

The boy, Jun, shut the door behind him before approaching Minghao’s bed and sat on the edge of it. “Your parents aren’t here. I don’t know where they are but they were gone when I got here. I texted you like, six times but you never answered. You told me you were going to try and talk to them and when you never replied I assumed it didn’t end well. And look, I was right. You’ve been crying, haven’t you?” Jun gave a gentle smile and reached a hand out to touch Minghao’s still red face.

Remembering what had happened, Minghao’s mood was soured and he let out a sigh. “They never listen to me. And they always get so mad. And then they start yelling and I get mad. And then I start yelling and-” Minghao stopped speaking as he could feel his eyes starting to sting. He wasn’t going to cry again, not in front of Jun.

But Jun always seemed to have a way of knowing what he was feeling and could tell how upset he was getting. “Hey, hey. I think you’ve dealt with this enough today. Let’s focus on something else shall we?”

Minghao only shook his head, “No! I can’t keep ignoring this! I can’t do it anymore! I need to talk it out with my parents but they just won’t-” a sob cut off his sentence. The tears were falling down his face once again. So much for not crying in front of Jun.

“Oh sweetheart, come here.” Too worked up to take much notice of the terms of endearment used, Minghao simply scooted over as Jun peeled back the covers and climbed into bed beside him. He wrapped his arms around Minghao and pulled him into a hug as the younger continued bawling. Nothing was said for awhile as Jun his back and ran his hand through the other’s hair.

When it came to a point where Minghao had quieted down and a sob only sounded every few minutes, Jun spoke up.

“Listen. I know it’s upsetting and you might be scared of making people angry. But you’re unhappy and you shouldn’t just stand there and take it. I know they’re your parents, but don’t let them make decisions for you. It’s your life and you need to do what you want. Okay?”

Minghao frowned, “I know that! But how am I supposed to fix things if they won’t let me? It’s not as easy as that!”

“I know, I know. But we’ll figure something out. Together. I’ll be with you and help you in any way I can. I promise.”

“You want to help?” he asked uncertain.

Jun smiled. “Of course! You’re my best friend and I love you more than anybody else. We have to stick together.”

Minghao bit his lip and stared at Jun, an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and appreciation welling up inside of him. Finally, he smiled, too. “Okay.”

Jun’s smile broke out into a dazzling grin. “Good. Now why don’t you go back to sleep? You must be tired and I woke you up. I’ll stay here and we can do something fun when you wake up again.”

So Minghao closed his eyes and did as told, but not before Jun leant forward a placed a single kiss on his forehead.

Upon opening his eyes, Minghao found himself alone in his room. It was dark outside now, indicating he had been asleep for a couple hours at the very least. Looking around for any traces of Jun, Minghao found none. His eyes came in contact with the book he had placed at his bedside right before he had gone to sleep and suddenly he was crying all over again. There, on the front cover, was a picture of Minghao’s favorite character from the entire book series: Wen Junhui.