02 || fifteen

Chanwoo didn’t understand why his parents didn’t simply divorce each other. He figured it was because they wanted to give him and his brother a normal childhood but he doubted that normal childhood consisted of long accusatory silences or condescending comments. Yet, they insisted on acting like a normal family. So they decided to celebrate Chanwoo’s birthday with a family dinner, at a restaurant, in public. Which as far as Chanwoo was concerned was a recipe for a disaster but he couldn’t say that to his parents so he dressed up and regretted the fact he still wasn’t old enough to get drunk. They had already finished the small talk about school before ordering so they were sitting in silence waiting for their food.

˝How’s Bin?˝ His mother asked in another attempt to start a conversation.

˝He’s having a birthday party.˝ Chanwoo knew that lying wasn’t admirable, that it always caught up with you in the end and every other line that children were thought about lying. On the other hand he didn’t want to spend more time than necessary in this situation so he lied, ˝He wanted me to come because he invited the girl he likes but he doesn’t know how to talk to her. I was supposed to help him.˝

His brother snickered. ˝You?˝

Chanwoo didn’t bother answering. He couldn’t trust himself to not throw an insult in and the last thing he needed was to be publicly scolded by his mother like some five year old. In a monotone voice of a person who had witnessed this play out a million times, his father said, ˝Don’t make fun of your brother.˝

˝You’re right,˝ Chanwoo would have been grateful that his parents were agreeing on something if his mother didn’t follow it up with, ˝And it’s not like Chanwoo needs to know those things anyway. He’s still a child.˝

˝I’m fifteen,˝ he protested but got ignored in favor of their food arriving.

Most of the time Chanwoo hated spending time with his family.

Bin waved goodbye to the last of his guests feeling relieved that the party was over. Chanwoo was far from being his only friend but he was without a doubt his best friend. So having a party without him wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t satisfying either. Especially when he was painfully aware that Chanwoo was miserable at his family diner.

Before Bin could reach for his phone to check on Chanwoo it rang.

˝Classy,˝ Chanwoo commented when Bin showed up at the park with plastic glasses and an already opened bottle of kids champagne.

Bin shrugged. ˝I had no cake left.˝

Chanwoo shrugged back. He knew he was a minute away from being asked about the diner and despite not wanting to talk about his family life, ever Chanwoo couldn’t come up with something distracting to talk about. Bin managed to wait until they were seated on one of the benches with filled glasses before asking, ˝How bad was it?˝

˝Not that bad. We managed to hold a full hour of useless small talk before they started exchanging passive aggressive comments they are convinced we can’t understand.˝ Chanwoo bit the edge of his cup hoping it would hide his face. Bin was his best friend and probably the person he cared about the most but he didn’t want to share just how much his parents’ behavior bothered him because saying it out loud would make it real and would eliminate any chance to pretend he was fine in front of Bin. The last thing he wanted was to make Bin pity him.

Bin watched Chanwoo chew at the edge of his cup. Chanwoo was good at hiding his emotions but ever so often Bin could catch small bits and pieces of sadness leaking thru the jokes and sarcastic comments. He wanted nothing more than to ask him about it. He wanted to know just how bad it was. He wanted to know what he could do to make it even marginally better. But one thing stronger than all of Bin’s good intentions was the fear of Chanwoo denying everything and ending up angry at him or in the worst case scenario hating him.

So Bin said nothing.

Instead he leaned his head on Chanwoo’s shoulder and started talking, ˝A fight broke out at the party.˝

˝Really?˝ Chanwoo sounded slightly skeptical.

Bin insisted, ˝Really.˝

˝And why if I may ask?˝

˝Well,˝ Bin took a moment to make sure he wouldn’t burst out laughing in the middle of talking. ˝Apparently Park Minhyuk is quite the ladies men.˝

He didn’t get the chance to continue his story because the thought of Bin’s awkward neighbor in any kind of romantic situation set Chanwoo off. In moments like this Bin could almost convince himself that making Chanwoo laugh was enough.

{A/N:}

So in this chapter we get to know a little about Chanwoo’s family life which is quite important. I also made a poster for this story. It was my first time making one so it’s not that good but I kind of like it. I also found this song which reminds me of this story: