I keep very quiet.

Silently, I watch.

My tears come down just as quietly.

“Let’s go, Zelo.”

I force myself to watch every single bruise, every single drop of blood, every single shred of pain.

I hurt just as much.

Mom pushes me into the car and I fall in as weightless as a ragdoll. I find no strength in my limbs but I barely scramble to the window to see before the car starts moving away. My breath fogs up the glass and I could see Yongguk hyung less clearly.

I thought I felt our eyes met as Mom drives away, even though how short-lived our exchange was, I could feel every single word you’re saying to me. And I am even more battered up inside. I am such a loser, hyung, I only give you trouble.

I hide my tear-stained face in my hands and hope that we’d never ever met.

I lie in bed, thinking of many things.

I close my eyes. The soft sounds of the wind-chime sing quietly at the window.

A few days ago, Mom told me something I never knew. She caught me trying to run away. I wasn’t trying to leave home. I was merely going out for some air, some time outside alone. I had enough of being locked up at home like a domesticated animal. I felt like a cage bird, a nightingale in the emperor’s golden cage, blessed with everything I’ve always wanted, a beautiful home and everything I could have but not a single second right here in this expensive cage of mine am I happy. I wanted to be set free, out into the wild where I could get trampled on and die any minute but every second I’d spend out there, I would be happy.

I myself laughed at this irony.

Mom thought I would eventually forget everything because all juvenile love is childish, isn’t it? But this nightingale from the unlearned caste would never open its mouth to sing like how its capturers want it to. She hoped I would behave myself and do everything she hoped for. But I’m sorry, perhaps I’m at the rebellious age, I don’t have a single sense why I have to act on your every whim. I feel like an immature teenager who rebel every parent’s orders. I don’t want to be another stupid child, but I can’t bring myself to believe how this would make me a better person.

Why? Mom, would you explain it to me?

But every single word she said that day made me feel like an immature, ungrateful fool. I felt bad. I felt horrible. I’m a horrible person. I hated myself.

She took me back into the house when I wanted to get out. There was anger a