~~~~”Pplease. Can we stop—here?” Taekwoon begged the ‘doctor’ praying that she would stop talking now. He knew that it wouldn’t happen, however he still couldn’t stop himself from it.

“Taekwoon, we need to talk about this. Your mother was very ill for a long time. You must have watched her withering away. Didn’t you?”

Taekwoon couldn’t speak, trembling from the memories that resurfaced. He remembered it clearly, even though he was so little. His mother was nice; even when Taekwoon was too scared too step near her she was patient with him. She had never forced him into anything, she understood her son.

Taekwoon watched her go from being the woman who would go to the gym every morning and literally run across town to help her terrified little boy, to being a woman who couldn’t stand on her own two feet. She stopped being capable of caring for him, and instead Taekwoon had to watch as she slowly shriveled until she was nothing more than skin and bones.

“Before you are allowed to leave, you must answer my question? All of that time that you saw that, were you aware that your mother was dying? You were aware of it, and just chose ignore it right.”

Taekwoon felt as if eyes were glaring at him from all directions. He felt his lungs stopping, bringing his knees closer to his chest as he struggled to find his breath.

“I—I was little. Ppplease…..I can’t tt-alk aabou—this.”

“Just answer the question. Did you know that she was dying?”

“….” Taekwoon still struggled to breathe.

“Did you KNOW that she was dying?”

“…….yes.” It was as if Taekwoon felt his heart stop in that moment. It still hurt him to this very day, the memories of it and also knowing that he had known. The whole experience, Taekwoon had known that he was watching his mother die.

“There, we’ve passed step one. You’ve known for a long time Taekwoon, it’s time that you recover from her death. I’ll see you next week.”

Taekwoon didn’t watch as the other person unlocked the door, they and the ‘doctor’ exited, leaving Taekwoon alone in the room for just a moment. He didn’t listen to whatever excuse they had given his aunt for Taekwoon’s current condition.

“Taekwoon, are you ready to go home?”

“…..” Taekwoon sat there as he stared blankly into space, his breathe halting and tears threating to spill from his eyes at any moment. He had been ready to go home an hour ago, however now he prayed to just not be. He prayed to go back in time, not home. His aunt just sighed.

“Come on, let’s go.” Taekwoon moved quickly before she had a chance to touch him. He did what he always did, run away. Taekwoon sprint out of the building into the very back of the car as fast as possible. He wanted away from everyone, his aunt included.

The car ride remained silent, Taekwoon also silent and he ran away the moment they got back. Taekwoon spent the rest of the night barricaded inside his room, sobbing as images of his mother flashed through his mind. ~~~~

Taekwoon felt awful, sticking himself in his room once again just to contemplate everything. It felt like he was distancing himself from his friends, which pleased his disorder but his heart was a lot less happy.

Taekwoon barely saw Hakyeon anymore, since during the day he’s always working. At night Taekwoon often chose sleeping over actually talking, and he knew that Hakyeon would never wake him up.

He had been avoiding Hongbin, entirely because of Hongbin’s grandmother. She had hung around, which everyone else thought was nice and they said she was super sweet. Hell Sanghyuk was even cuddling with her the other day (solely because he was sad and she had taught him that another way to cure sadness is with hugging and spending time with the people you like). Taekwoon wanted to spend time with her and get to know her too, but he just couldn’t do it. She was scary.

Taekwoon had gone back in his room the moment she showed up. The most he spoke to anyone after was when Jaehwan had shouted his goodbyes through the door.

Taekwoon treated this room like it was his old apartment. He would mostly read while he was inside. Taekwoon had been doing just that, when he