~~~”Grandma, can I ask you a question?” Hongbin stood in front of his guardian cautiously. He found himself very timid about asking this, but it had been driving him crazy for ages.

“Of course sweetheart!”

“Okay, well…it’s about my parents. I know that you already told me why they didn’t keep me, but……why can’t I go with them now? It’s been 10 whole years now! That’s a long time so, shouldn’t they have more money? I don’t want to leave! I really love you and I don’t want them to take me away but, I just wonder why they don’t want me back.”

Hongbin watched as his grandmother sighed, her shoulders visually drooping with the topic. Hongbin feared that she would be sad and disappointed now, but in her mind that wasn’t at all what she was thinking. She knew that he would ask eventually, just wasn’t looking forward to the topic.

“Come, sit on my lap.” Hongbin did as he was told as the woman pat her leg, Hongbin bouncing up and letting his grandmother wrap her hands into his. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the first reason would be that your parents would have enough money to care for you, but only for a little bit. Eventually they would run out again and then we would be in the same place. The second would be…..you’re a big boy now.”

“So?”

“You’ve grown up a lot since they parted ways with you, you’re a different person. They’ve grown up too and there’s no telling how your lives would blend together. There’s a chance that it may not work out for the best.”

“What do you mean?” Hongbin kind of understood what she meant, however his little brain had trouble really understanding properly. He got the first reason well, since he had grown used to that reason his entire life. This second one was new.

“I can’t say any of this is true, but I’ll give you an example. Let’s say your father works a lot, and your mother is so busy with everything else that needs done that she’s not home either. That means that no one is there a lot of the time, so what happens if you get sick? What happens if you throw up or start having very bad compulsions and there is no one there to take care of you?”

Hongbin looked to the floor for a moment, now getting where she was coming from. If that happened it could be bad. If Hongbin lost control of himself or something went wrong, well he didn’t know what would happen since his grandma never would let it, but he’s sure that it wouldn’t be a good thing.

“Oh, that would be a problem.”

“Not a problem, you would never be an issue. You would be in danger, and I’m not okay with that. You have been raised by me so far and I love you more than you could ever imagine. If you were to fall into a dangerous situation without me there, I don’t know what I would do.”

Hongbin could see tears b in his grandmothers eyes. Just the thought of anything bad happening to her grandson broke her heart, and Hongbin leaned forward to hug her as tightly as possible.

He had asked because of curiosity, however truthfully he wouldn’t go back even if the option was there. He loves his grandmother, and he doesn’t really know his parents. He couldn’t just leave her like that.

“It’s okay, nothing will happen to me because I’m going to be right here. Even when I get old I’ll always be around, so you never have to worry about me being alone.” Hongbin smiled. He may be young and little, however he could full heartedly say that his words were true. ~~~~~

As Hongbin stood just outside the backyard door, he couldn’t deny that his stomach still felt a little sick. He was no doubt worlds better, and at the very least he could successfully say that he no longer felt like he had caught the plague. That being said there was still a slightly rotten feeling in his stomach, kind of like an after sickness where you know you’re better but the twisting inside your gut just insists on sticking around.

He felt he had no time to think about himself though. He was taking the proper medications and just had to trust that they would make him 100% again, because he had friends that desperately needed him right now.

He had known that telling Sanghyuk would have some effects, yet at the time his mind had been to foggy from medication and exhaustion to really weigh how harrowing it would be to his boy. Now that his mind was clear, he could see that he couldn’t have chosen a worse time to tell Sanghyuk.

After that day things had started to slip downhill quite fast, and Hongbin couldn’t help but feel like part of that was entirely his fault. He couldn’t stand to just lay around and drink soup anymore, as he needed to start helping his friends.