BYG POV

I made my way home after another long day at work. My steps were slow and tired; it was as if I had to drag my feet along the road. Working for hours was more than enough to put me in constant fatigue everyday. All I wanted was only to arrive home, take a shower, eat and sleep so I would have the energy for another workday.

As soon as I arrived home, I opened the door slowly and stepped in. "Zelo?" I called. The house remained silent; there was almost no hint of the existence of a living being. Not also the existence of someone who should be waiting for me at home, my 12-years-old younger brother Junhong aka Zelo. Well, he was not actually my younger brother, but under some circumstances, I somehow managed to be his legal guardian. He had been left under my care for almost 3 years now, and considering the fact that I had to make money for two peoples instead of only me, I had to work harder everyday. It wasn't like I mind that, though. After all, it was me who wanted to be his guardian.

Despite the silence, my house looked like it has been attacked by hundreds of zoo runaways. The hallway was all messy with everything seemed out of place. I carefully made my way to the living room, the only room where Zelo might probably be in.

"Zelo?"

I reached the handle of the living room door, but immediately stopped as I felt something sticky under my feet. When I looked down, the floor under my feet was stained by a thick, dark red liquid. With a heavy sigh, I slowly opened the door to the sight of Zelo leaning onto the walls with the same stains all over his body and a knife stabbed him right on the stomach.

If someone else saw this, they might get a heart attack.

I remained calm and approached the boy. "So... Robbed and killed today? If the old lady next door saw this, I might walk in to find a real heart attack victim today, and we’ll work together to bury her, and then her family would be worried and tell the police, and the police would be suspicious to us, find us and throw both of us to jail. No, maybe just me, because you’re clearly underaged."

The golden haired head slowly lifted itself and a cute smile greeted me. "Sorry hyung."

"You should really stop doing this, Zelo." I sighed and picked up a cushion with 'blood' stains on it. "Cleaning the house afterwards is quite a pain, you know?"

"I’m sorryyy. No worries hyung, I'll help you clean up everything. I'll make this house sparkle again." Again, he offered his cute bubbly smile to me.

I shrugged and threw him a smile. Guess it couldn't be helped.

It was something which happened pretty often lately. It started about two or three weeks ago when I came home a little late because of my job. Rushing home feeling worried about my younger brother, I came home only to find Zelo hanging at the kitchen with a rope around his neck. At that time, I freaked out like crazy before the 'dead body' started giggling and soon his giggles turned into a laugh. As soon as I found out that he was only pretending to be dead, he received a heavy scolding from me as a 'reward' for his 'creativity', but it didn't seem like working. The next day I found him lying across the carpet with a gun next to him and a bullet hole on his forehead. The other day, I found him in the dining room with an arrow stabbing his head. When I found him floating in the 'blood'-filled bathtub with fake wounds on his hand, I thought I'd just close the doors on him and ran away somewhere. But again, I couldn't bring myself to do it. After that, I began to accept the fact that I had to deal with Zelo’s daily ‘death’.

There were times when I actually wanted to compliment him for making the 'deaths' looked impressively real. I didn't know what substance he always uses but he did a great job producing fake blood that looked extremely real. How he made the arrows and knifes 'stab' his body, how he created the artificial wounds, it didn't look like the work of a twelve-years-old kid. But one time when I complimented him, the next day he played a mutilated body and covered my carpet with fake blood. I had a really hard time cleaning it up and afterwards, I never compliment him about the great ‘deaths’ anymore.

The other reason why I couldn't stop him was that I had a contribution on this. Before I was legally appointed as his guardian, we played together a lot. I often leave work a little early just to pick him up and take him wherever he wanted. Sometimes we went to the amusement parks, sometimes we went to the beach, or sometimes we just drove around aimlessly at night.

Right after he was left under my care, I worked harder and I got promoted to a higher position which meant I would be able to make more money but also had less time to spend together with him. We used to play together a lot before but after I got promoted, I often came home late at night and even at weekends, I slept all day. I didn't even think about how Zelo felt when he waited for me after school all alone or when he spent his weekends alone despite having me at home.

Maybe he was only doing that because he was bored. Because he wanted us to return to how we used to be.

I stared at Zelo who was busy cleaning up the floor. Realizing that he was being stared at, he glanced back at me with his sparkly gaze, frowning. "What is it, hyung?"

My hand moved over his head and gave his golden curls a ruffle. "Nothing. I just think... Maybe you should try to get a costume of a dead bunny next time."

If pretending to be dead was his way of enjoying the time we had together, then I wouldn't mind it. Not at all.

And the next day, also the next days ahead, I couldn't wait to get home so I could see what kind of death Zelo had next.

*****

just fyi, the song title is "When I Get Home My Wife Always Pretends to be Dead"

omg what have I done *hides*

Thanks for reading~ raccoon hugs for everyone~