I clasped onto the dirty place which I just ate from and silently waited for mother to finish cleaning her dishes. I stared at her side profile while she continued executing the task at present,  my gaze could not  help but roam over the heavy bags under her eyes, she was only fourty-two yet her loss of energy, worry and concern aged her by a few years, nonetheless she was still a beauty  with her short her black hair and muddy brown eyes; which I also inherited.

“You’ve been waiting here this entire time?” Mother asks offhandedly, suddenly noticing me behind her; I give her a curt nod and mumble “yeah”

She looks back for a brief second to acknowedge my presence before speaking “I’m finished so you can clean your plate now” and she hastily exits the room. This was always the standard of conversation. We never talked for more than five minutes as Mother was always busy, or she intentionally kept herself busy .Possibly to stop her mind wondering back to that day ten years ago.

 Mother and father always longed for a child and after several attempts at conceiving naturally they realised that they needed to seek other options, therefore decided to adopt my brother Luhan. He was treated especially well and my birth did not once deter any love they had for him towards me. We were both loved equally and unconditionally and our childhood was one of complete bliss. Like majority siblings go we didn’t see eye to eye all the time, however that did not stop us from enjoying each others company as we would regularly build forts and have sword fights WHICH usually resulted in me crying as he would either tease me or hurt me.

I smile as the memories flood my mind; in all honesty I still missed him. I missed having someone to play with and someone to fight with, an older brother you can rely on. He used to always inform the bullies at school that if anyone laid a finger on me he’ll chop them off with his razor that my dad gave him. This was in fact utter bull as he had no razor, but it managed to make the bullies stay away from me. The irony of this was that he’ll tell the bullies to leave me alone at school but  once we arrived home he’ll push me into the sandpit or he’ll make me trip, becoming a bully himself.  I smile at the remembrance of his bi-polar behaviour.

“I miss you” I whisper quietly , the thick cold air around the house vibrating against the windows, forcing a chill to go down my spine.

To this day I still don’t fully understand why they had to take him. My parents have made it an unwritten rule to never speak about or even utter the events that happened ten years ago, any information i gathered about the situation back then was from local gossip I picked up over the years. Rumours flew every nook and corner that my parents had been neglecting and abusing him. This all originated from the time Luhan walked into a physical ed class sporting a moderate size bruise, teachers immediately held my parents responsible for it and shared their suspicions with the police, from then on a war between the authorities and my parents ensued,one which they lost miserably. I can honestly put my hand on my heart and swear that my parents never laid a finger on him . I now realise that out of everyone they must have hurt the most. Not only did they have to endure the pain of their son being taken away from them, but also the backlash of the community because some did indeed believe the accusations thrown at them.

I stop myself thinking as I leave the kitchen and stalk up my room.  I walk past Luhan's and come to a halt, the last time I went to his room was last year. Mum doesn’t like it when I enter his room as she believes I’ll mess it up, normally I wouldn’t go in but today the thought of Luhan was clouding my mind more than usual hence I go inside to gain some form of closure. The room is exactly as it was 10 years ago when he left. The Spiderman bed sheets were neatly strewn over the bed; I went to take a closer inspection of it and gently kneel beside it. Placing both hands on the bed I close my eyes and let my head fall softly on it and let my hands feel the gentle touch of the polyester material.

 “I wonder how he is today.” I think aloud, I always wondered how he was everyday and usually articulated that question aloud. Maybe because I was secretly hoping that he’ll hear me and answer back. Wait who am I kidding, he’ll never hear me. After five minutes or so I get up and leave the room and take one last glance. It will probably be next year when I see this room again, I quietly sigh and close the door.

--

A few hours later I bring myself downstairs to the sitting room. I spent hours reading different books and stories, it was how I spent majority of my time as it allowed me the chance to step into a world between fantasy and reality, and forget the hardships of the world and just be happy for a short period of time . I was extremely anti-social and hated being outside the confines of my house. While other young adults my age would have appreciated going to parties and drinking, I just knew it wasn’t my scene. 

It was currently 8pm at night and mum and dad went to work, they came home late most days and left me money on the kitchen counter so I could order take-away. I walk to the kitchen to grab a pizza flier and dial the number of the shop. I hear a voice after 3 rings

“Hello what would you like to order?” A man questions quickly

“Can I have a large pepperoni pizza and a bottle of coke?” I answer just as fast for some reason. After giving the address of my home I put the phone back and switch the TV on. It was pretty dark outside and even though I spent majority of my life alone at this time, I still couldn’t help but feel a little scared.

After watching several programmes and wasting my life like I do normally I hear a knock on the door and automatically assume my pizza came. As I walk up to the door I hear heavy breathing outside but excuse it as the delivery man feeling tired and exhausted. I carelessly open the door only to come face to face with a boy or even a man, who also looks nothing like a pizza delivery man.  Panic rises and I regret opening it; we hardly had visitors at this time let alone at this house so I wonder who he is and what he wants.

I stare at the figure in front of me and deliberate over the next course of actions I should take until I hear the figure speaking.

“Seohyun aren’t you going to let me in?” he asks with a slight smile or maybe that was a smirk, I don’t really know the difference. However his smile seems extremely forced and quickly changes into a glower. This in return makes my forehead scrunch up at the contrasting expressions he directs at me.

It then dawns on me that he knows my name! How does he know my name? I felt faint and a bit terrified; thus by impulse try to close the door but his feet are instantly positioned between them and I’m not able to. I stare at him, completely frozen to the spot, If he wanted to kill me he should have already right? If he wanted to burgle the house he would have thrown me over the fireplace and proceeded to right? As several farfetched scenarios and questions start to circulate my mind he utters nine  words which virtually stop my heart.

“Seo Ju-Hyun, did you forget your favourite and only brother?” He asks all too suddenly. By now I felt my legs becoming jelly as I tried to process this information. He came closer making me take a small step back.

‘W-w-what?’ I mumble inaudibly, I look around my sitting room trying to fathom whether I am dreaming or if this is indeed reality. I take a closer inspection of his face and recognise his eyes, people used to describe them as 'angelic' their words not mine, they were once so bright and full of life and now I saw pain and unreadable emotion, I let my eyes rake and take in his reddish colour hair and instantaneously take a sharp intake of breath

‘Oh my gosh, it’s you!’ I squeak, the gasp still evident in the tone of my voice

 He looked manlier, well of course he would look manlier it’s been 10 years since I last saw him, I had to admit he looked pretty good with his black leather jacket and black jeans.

“No, no, what...Huh?” I ask myself dumbly. I knew I sounded like an illiterate fool as I could see him staring at me oddly.

“I don’t get it” I ask, finally able to muster up a coherent sentence, although my gaze was shifted to my feet.

“Get what?” he asks before he slightly shoves me out of the way and enters my -well our home. The shoving certainly didn’t change I think aloud, he looks back with a wry smile before letting all emotion exit his face.

“You’ve certainly changed” he says looking me up and down. I suddenly felt self-conscious as I was wearing a baby blue tank top and shorts. I could feel a blush rising up my cheeks and forced it to go down. Why am I blushing!!? I internally scream at myself. I take a few moments to compose myself and ask him a question.

“Err, Luhan?” I finally say his name; this got his attention as he was looking straight at me.

“I don’t mean this to sound offensive in the least cause I’m shocked and very glad that you're here, but how comes you came back after all these years?”  I say all of this in one breath. He takes a long look at me, almost too intensely

“None of your business” he says harshly, this irritates me as I was asking him kindly. I send him a glare and turn to face the wall.

 “Typical Luhan” I mutter under my breath and then hear another knock on the door, an excuse to avoid awkward interaction with Luhan I run to the door as I am sure that this time it is the pizza.  I take my delivery and walk into the sitting room; I could feel quiet footsteps following me but ignore it and seat on the sofa with the pizza box on my lap.

I numbly stare at the wall, trying to decipher whether I am dreaming or not , however just as I was about to conclude this is actually a dream I feel a sweet wrapper hitting my forehead and let a small growl vibrate through my chest. Okay this is definitley reality.  I decide to ignore him completly and forget the fact that it has been nearly ten years since i saw my bro-Luhan again. the word brother seemed foreign in my mouth, almost as if it is wrong to say it , I randomly think. I start biting into the cheesy pizza and then hear a voice stopping me from carrying on with my actions.

“You’re going to eat all of that alone?“ Luhan asks me all of a sudden, “yep” I say popping the P. I knew what he was getting at; he used to always do this when we were young, attempt to take my food because apparently I wouldn’t be able to finish it all by myself. I would have actually given him some after all I’m seeing him after 10 years but his harsh tone before made me change my mind.

“I always knew you’ll be a fatty” he says causally before he sits on the sofa opposite me. I chose to ignore him as I knew I was not fat however it did irk me somewhat. I debated on whether I should phone mother and father about Luhan's appearance but I knew that their careers required commitment and a lot of work and this news would only stop them from carrying out their jobs properly so I decide against it. We both sit through five minutes of uncomfortable silence until Luhan suddenly speaks up

“Where are your Mum and Day ?” He asks me. My eyes were about to pop out of their sockets, he referred to them as MY mum and dad . I immediately felt like rectifying the situation

“You mean our Mum and Dad?”

“No, I mean your Mum and Dad” he repeats. The way he said it made me feel like he erased them out of his life.

I decided not to argue anymore, because I guess the day he was taken away was also the day he stopped seeing us as a family. That pricked my heart as we never stopped seeing him as one of our own.

“Their at work” I cautiously reply. I waited for a response from him but he stayed silent, this annoyed me once again.

I always imagined the day I’ll see him again, how I’ll feel. How happy I’ll be but for some reason I wasn’t experiencing all the emotions I thought I would be.

“Luhan” I call him softly. He turns his face towards me with a blank stare “do you want some” I raise the pizza box towards his direction. He gives a nonchalant nod and takes a piece from the box, trying to act all cool and collected in the process. I smirk in return and realise that he saw me. That was embarrassing I think too myself. After another ten minutes of uncomfortable silence I realise that I can’t take this anymore so I stand up.

“Where are you going?” he asks me eyeing me up and down, I was feeling extremely self-concious at the moment and it didn't help that I thought he looked amazing right now, I internally slap my face a thousand times for even thinking such a thing. 

“Bed” I awkwardly reply, shifting my foot uncomfortably

“Do you want to come too?” I say without thinking "I mean not in the same bed as me, well you can cause we're siblings but then you can't cause we're..we're'" I was lost for words and wanted to dig myself a big, large, gigantic hole.

“We're what?" He slightly smirks

" I think i'll pass” he replies with a small smile

“I didn’t mean it like that, I –I mean do you want to sleep...In your OWN room and your OWN bed” I could see him silently chuckling before he composed his expression

“Chill out Seohyun , I was just teasing you and no I’ll be waiting for your parents to come.” I relax my composure

I stay rooted at the spot for a few more seconds before before speaking “Okay see you tomorrow” I quietly mumble and rapidly exit the sitting room. As I’m walking up the stairs I try to make sense of the previous hours events. “Luhan just came home” I mutter to myself. It was a weird feeling, one I couldn’t really explain.