Jonghyun is sure that is father loves him.

Her teacher said that mommies and daddies always loves their children and he believes cause she’s nice and always takes them in the garden to play during the break and he’s absolutely sure that she would never lie to him like that.

But on the other side there are little things that he could help but notice, with the innocent eyes of a 5 years old that see everything around him but still don’t understand much.

His father is never as tough with his sister like he is with him, that he notices when he sees their dad smile at Song Dam and caress her hair cause she got a good grade at school but not giving more than a quick glance to his drawing that the teacher and his mom defined beautiful.

He doesn’t get it though and can’t help but watch his sister with jealous eyes for all the evening, trying to get why she’s so special.

He got scolded again about his eating that night at dinner and he doesn’t get that either cause Song Dam eats just like him and no one says everything to her but his mom gives him that glance, the one that he knows means “be a good boy” and just change the chopsticks in the other hand even if it feels weird and it can’t take the rice well and ends up leaving it in the bowl and saying he’s not hungry cause he doesn’t want to admit that he can’t eat it that way.

He is hungry though when he goes to bed but quickly forgets about it when it catches his father giving Song Dam a goodnight kiss and then coming to his room just to say mommy that he’s a boy and he’s not little anymore and they should really cut down on the sweet nothing or he’ll become something that Jonghyun doesn’t catch cause in the same moment his mother hisses his father name, making him squeeze his lips together in a tight line.

He doesn’t talk anymore when his mom leaves a kiss on his forehead and gets up to leave nor he answers to the quiet “goodnight dad” that Jonghyun pronounces.

He just close his door and turns off the light cause “he’s a big boy and big boys are not afraid of the dark” but he is and he stares out of his window to the light glare of the moon trying to figure out what his little mind can’t figure out.

Maybe Song Dam is just a better child than he is.

 

Jonghyun really wants to cry.

He got a bad grade and his teacher actually told him that it’s not a big deal, that it just happens sometimes but Jong has never seen his father so angry at him before and now he feels like he has something stuck in his throat and he has to cry it out if he wanna breath freely again.

Although he can’t cry, not now at least, cause he’s 9 now, almost 10, and he’s too big to cry or to get kissed goodnight by his mother and get walked to school and he knows that if he does, if he acts like a baby boy or worst like a girl his father will just get more angry and yell at him to stop it.

It’s not fair, he thinks, cause Song Dam is older than him and now she’s in middle school but when she fell from the bike the other day and ruined her favorite skirt she cried and his father actually said to her mom to go out and buy her a new one that weekend instead of scolding her like he did when Jonghyun lost his scarf.

When the dinner is over and is finally under the covers he allows himself to cry and for the first time since he knew the grade, just at the thought of his father’s disappointed expression, he feels ashamed of himself.

It’s not Song Dam that is so good, he realizes suffocating a sob in the thick comforter, it’s him that is not good enough.

And that changes him way deeper than he could ever imagine.

 

Jonghyun has become a better child.

He’s not the first of the class like his father would like cause well, he tries his best but he’s not that smart, he can’t help it, but he is good enough for his father to not get mad at him when the report cards arrive even though those “it could have been better” and “your sister had better grades at your age” are still there, more often explicitly told than left lingered in the air.

He acts exactly like his father wants from him, like the big boy that now, at 14 years old, he feels like he is, being nice and respectful and everything but for the first time in his life there is something that he wants just as much as being a good son and he feels like a child again in front of that no cause he doesn’t understand.

He loves music, he’s apparently good, so why can’t he just be in that band that asked him as a bassist?
He cries himself to sleep for the n-th in his life but when he gets up next morning he actually gets the permission that he wanted so bad and can’t help but smile and hug his mom tight when she tells him.

His father doesn’t look at him for almost a month and his heart aches for this but finally music manages to make him feel better than he ever did.

 

Jonghyun is scared, probably more than he has ever been before.

He has thought and thought and spoken to his mom and his sister and finally he has taken the decision that will probably change his whole life.
He wants to do it though, he wants to do something for himself and himself only and for the first time in his life and that is enough to make him feel determinate behind the fear.

The slap he receives from his father makes his ears ring in an unpleasant way and his head feel dizzy but he’s not giving up, not this time, and so he repeats louder that he’s got in the trainee for SM Entertainment and he’s gonna become an idol.

He leaves for Seoul next day, holding tightly on his mom and Song Dam at the train station and for the first time since he was a child allowing himself to cry in front of them cause they’re crying too and he doesn’t know when he’ll see them again and that is all too much to hold on the tears that make his eyes burn.

Anyway, his father is not there to judge him cause he didn’t even bothered to say him goodbye and yes, it hurts but for the first time in forever Jong feels free to not be perfect and it’s the best feeling ever.

 

Jonghyun loves his father.

For the majority of his life he did everything just to be the ideal son, fought uselessly for attention and approval and actually ended up becoming one of those adults who always says sorry for everything he does, taking the whole world’s weight on his shoulder and always assuming that he is the one who’s wrong and this all because of his father but he loves him anyway, cause he is his father and even if may be not true that parents always loves their children no matter what it’s true for him that children loves their parents and look up to them.

He thinks that probably a part of him will never stop wanting to be accept by him, wanting to finally hear, for the first time in his life, “I’m proud of you” but right now, even though he’s actually going home to say something to his father, he doesn’t really care about the response.

Cause now Jong is happy and fine with his life, following his dream and has something that he wants even more than approval.

He has love now and it’s a guy and he is guy too and it’s wrong for the majority of the people but he doesn’t care and this time nothing could ever stop him from being the boy he really wants to be.