Jihoon groaned as his mother forced him out of his bed. “Get up Jihoon. You need a shower. You stink of alcohol and you have school in an hour.” Amber scolded and tugged the covers of him as he tried to pull them over his head to hide from the light.

He groggily stood up and tried not to fall down.

He got up and stretched his arms. He could still feel the effects of the party from yesterday, but sadly the only thing he could remember was drinking a few bottles and dancing around a bit but after that, he could remember nothing .

She pushed him into the shower and threw his school uniform with him. 

As the bathroom door closed, Amber looked worried after him and then looked at his room in disgust. It still smelled of alcohol.

She quickly opened the window to get the smell out of his room

She knew that she wasn’t home that often to take care of him and she knew that Jihoon was still hurt after the divorce with his father.

She honestly didn't know what to do or how to help him.

So instead of actually doing anything, she chose to act like she didn't see anything.

She didn't see the bottles laying around the house or the cigarettes found under his bed. 

She didn't find a bloody razor blade in the toilet, because she had convinced herself that it was just an accident he must have had and threw it out. 

She never spoke to him about it about anything, because she couldn't accept the fact that her son might be inflecting pain on himself and was slowly destroying himself.

She refused to accept any of this and that's why this happened.

She used most of her time on work and was almost never home. Sometimes she couldn't even bear to look at him, and he knew it. 

The thing is, Jihoon had always known why his mother was never home and and to be honest?

It hurt.

That's why he comforted himself with bottles and razor blades, because in the end, even his mother had abandoned him. 

The only thing she hoped for was, that everything would turn all right and that Jihoon would turn into his old self again. Something that was highly unlikely, but a mother could hope, right?

“Hurry up. There is breakfast on the table and I’ll drive you to school,” she shouted from downstairs.   

“Yeah, yeah I get it, just stop shouting already,” Jihoon complained and got out of the bathroom with his uniform on and his hair still wet.

She looked hurt at him but he just looked away.

Jihoon never really wanted to hurt his mother, but the wrong words kept coming out of his mouth and his pride refused to let him apologize. They sat down at the table and ate the breakfast in silence, just like every other day.

When they were done eating, they placed the dishes on the counter and went out of the door.

He sat in the car, while he was waiting for his mother to lock the door to the house.

Jihoon groaned in pain as he could feel a headache incoming because of the light shining straight into his eyes.

He didn't want his mother to worry about him, so he put an arm over his eyes to hide from the sun and acted like nothing was wrong.

“Are you okay?” Amber asked and put a hand on his shoulder.

Jihoon shrugged it off, not being a big fan of physical contact, and nodded.

“Can we just go now?” He quickly asked and decided to look out of the window.

Amber looked sadly at him and started driving.

They drove in silence until they neared the school.

She stopped in front of the school gate and just as he was about to get out of the car, she stopped him.

“What’s up?” Jihoon asked and titled his head to the left and crunched his eyebrows together.

It almost made her burst into tears as she remembered how the younger Jihoon used to look at her with his cute confused look.

She wanted to tell him how proud she was, how much she loved him and how she wanted him to know that she will always be there for him, but for some reason the words just wouldn’t come out of .

They were stuck in and no matter how hard she tried, they refused to come out.

She just shook her head and shakily smiled. “It’s nothing, sweetheart” she replied and Jihoon took the answer and left, not even bothering to ask her if anything was wrong.

“You’re such a coward, Amber Liu”, she snapped at herself and deeply sighed right after. 

She started the engine and drove to work, still heavily disappointed in herself.