Taemin sat in the white bed which he had been confined to for the last few days. He felt like this was a dream. He stared out the window at the blue sky, the birds standing on the power cables, the buildings and the clouds like he did every moment at his stay at the hospital. He would rather look at things like these and think about things like these than remember what had happened.

He understood and remembered that the police and firemen had cut him out of the car that night. He understood and remembered opening his eyes in the ambulance and crying because he was so scared because he had never been in one before and he didn’t know what was happening. He understood and remembered when they had to sedate him in the hospital to stitch his hand and his head. Apparently he had a broken collarbone and some ribs from the seatbelt, which was funny because Taemin hadn’t felt any pain in his chest really when it happened. It now ached though.

But the rest he refused to understand and remember. The police had told him that they were very sorry and regretted to say that his parents had died at the scene, and that if it was any comfort, it seemed like they had passed away on impact and wouldn’t have been hurt. Taemin hated the way they said ‘passed away’ and tried to make it sound dignified and respectful when it had been anything but. It had been grotesque, disgusting and traumatising. He had remained stonefaced as on the second day he was here a nurse told him that she was very sorry and she regretted to say that his brother had passed away peacefully and had stopped breathing and if it was any consolation he hadn’t regained consciousness so it was very likely he hadn’t felt any pain. Taemin wondered if his brother was in the same hospital as him because he wanted to see him but he was too scared to ask.

His grandparents had visited him yesterday and told him that today was going to be his parents and his brothers funeral. His grandparents looked so sad, and it hurt his heart how the grief was etched into their faces as deep as their wrinkles. They were so old and they were organising funerals. They deserved to be happy and carefree in their old age, and Taemin was so sorry. They had asked him if he wanted to go and Taemin had nodded. He felt like he should. They were going to pick him up soon.

He didn’t feel like his parents and brother was dead. It just felt like he had been separated from them for a few days. He didn’t feel too sad- he felt like he was floating in a bubble instead. He let the nurses help dress him in a suit, let them brush his hair and hug him gently.

His grandparents tottered in- it was the only way to describe it- and smiled sadly at their grandson who was sitting in a wheelchair, fiddling with his bandage on his hand. They had his aunt with them who hadn’t seen Taemin for years and was surprised at the beautiful boy before her.

“Taemin, jagiya. Remember me?” she exclaimed, taking in the brown hair, the smooth skin, the handsome face and the slim build.

Taemin had only looked up in response and bit his lip. A very pretty young woman with light brown hair dressed in black stood bent at his level and smiling encouragingly at him.

“He hasn’t talked since the accident,” whispered a nurse to her.

“I’m your imo Taeyeon,” said Taeyeon gently. “I haven’t seen you since you were a baby and then I moved to America. I’m your mother’s sister.”

Taeyeon was there to push Taemin’s wheelchair, since Taemin’s grandparents were definitely not strong enough to. Taemin kept fiddling with his bandage, since he was a little bit embarrassed that a girl had to push him and he looked like an invalid.

He got into the van, sitting next to Taeyeon and the window. Taeyeon had nice perfume on. He looked out and saw that the sky was getting grey. How convenient for the funeral, he thought. He kept staring at the streets full of people walking, laughing, looking normal. How could they be normal?

Taeyeon wheeled him into the front pew of the church. To Taemin’s surprise, a lot of people were there. All of his parents friends. All of his brother’s friends. No. He couldn’t look at them. They weren’t here for the reason that they were. He couldn’t look at them, all dressed in black and looking so sadly at him. Some of them looked like they had already been crying. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.

He stared at the front of the church instead. Huge bouquets were at the front, his parents and Taesun’s picture on the screen above and the smell of incense in the air as soothing music played. He refused to look at the three wooden caskets.

“Hey Taemin.”

Taemin jumped and looked at the side to see Kai and the rest of his friends standing next to him.

“I’m so sorry, bro,” he said as the rest said about the same thing.

They stood there awkwardly for a minutes, not knowing what they could say to make their friend feel better.

“I’m going to sit with my umma and appa now. I’ll talk to you after, arrasso?” whispered Kai. “I’m so sorry Taemin.”

Taemin nodded and his friends all disappeared to all the seats behind him as a pastor came in.

Taemin had never doubted his religion until now. He had been raised Roman Catholic, and as the service went on, he never realised how much he hated it. Why were they singing. His parents and brother were dead. They should be talking about them. Why were they praying about forgiveness when they should be praying for his parents and brother.

But then he realised that he preferred that to when his brother’s friends got up and started the slideshow about Taesun. He struggled to keep in the moment and not think when he stared at the pictures of his brother looking happy at parties, winning awards and looked away at the picture of Taesun with his arm around Taemin when they were kids. He didn’t want to think about how the person talking’s voice kept hitching and crying. He didn’t feel when Taesun’s girlfriend started wailing on stage before she could sing her song and her family had to virtually carry her off.

And then his relatives and family friends started to talk about their memories with his parents, and how they had made them laugh and that they were glad to have met them and how they hoped they were happy in heaven and that they would look after Taemin.

The pastor sprinkled around more incense and asked for those people who were Catholic to come up and receive the wine and bread. Taeyeon asked him if he wanted to but he shook his head. Taeyeon had obviously been crying and was still crying. Taemin could feel her sobbing and shaking next to him, and he was glad that someone was doing the crying for him.

But then came the part to nail up the coffins.

Taemin could feel the hysteria rising in his throat. No. No. How were his parents going to get out? How was his brother going to get out? No. No. No! He started shaking and stared his hands, furiously rubbing at the bandage. He felt like his throat was burning. Live in the moment. Live in the moment. He kept thinking. Don’t think. Don’t think as the sounds of the hammer against wood resounded in his ears. He could hear his grandparents crying. No. No. He couldn’t think.

His brother’s friends and his uncles and cousins carried down the coffins to the car. Taemin wondered if he should be doing that.

They drove in slience to the gravesite, Taeyeon messily and continuously wiping her face with tissues. Her makeup was ruined.

He could hear her quiet sobs as she wheeled him over the bumpy grass and over to where three holes were and new gravestones. Slight droplets of rain landed on his cheek. When had they been made? Taemin wondered.

“Ashes to ashes..” started the pastor and Taemin spent the whole time staring at a worm in the grass.

Creaking started. Taemin shot his head up.  No.

He watched as his grandfather tossed in some flowers and bright colourful things before slowly and shakingly throwing in a handful of mud into the hole.

Wait.  Taemin swung his head around wildly. He could only see two coffins. Oh no. One of them was in that hole! No! How could his appa get out now? His appa was not going down there! They were not going to BURY his appa and leave him alone here! No! NO! They needed to stop throwing dirt in, or else he would never see his appa again. He would never see his appa again. He was never going to see all of them ever again. He couldn’t take this. He could NOT let them do this. He couldn’t let them go. Why did they have to have the funeral so soon? Why couldn’t he see his umma and appa and hyung again just one last time?  They were not going into the ground!

Someone picked up a shovel and Taemin screamed.

“NO!” he screamed. “Put that down! You can’t. You CAN’T!”

He lunged forward as everyone gasped.

He crawled over to where his umma and Taesun’s coffins still were and tried to shield them. “Don’t do this, how can you do this to them, you can’t do this to them!” he screamed at them, not aware that tears were running down his cheeks. More rain started to fall and more people started crying as they finally saw Taemin break in the entire time of the funeral.

“You can’t do this or else I’ll never see them again! Don’t do this! Please don’t!” he begged, sobbing as he tried to hold onto the coffin but the rain was making his hands slip and people were tugging him away. Kai started crying at the sight of his best friend, hair stuck to his head with rain in a wet suit and pale, crying at the top of his lungs and clinging onto his mother’s and brother’s coffins with all the strength he had.

“I need them!” he screamed. “Don’t do this! How could you do this to them? They can’t be here!” Taemin kept screaming incoherent sentences and fighting against the hands that tried to pry him away. Someone picked him up and he realised his brother’s best friend Yunwoo had picked him up and was crying too. He tried to fight Yunwoo, sobbing loudly, hitting him with his hands, ignoring the pain in his bandaged one.

“Let me go!” he screamed, and his world seemed to implode as he realised Yunwoo was carrying him away from the grave side and every step Yunwoo took was a step away from the chance of Taemin able to be any where close to his parents and brother again.

“No! I want to be with them, I want to be with them!” he yelled at Yunwoo, still trying to fight. “Appa! Taesun! UMMA! UMMA!!” Taemin had never yelled as hard as he had before in his life. He wished he wasn’t here. He wished he was with his appa and umma and Taesun. He just wanted to see them again, wake up to find that this was all a bad dream and his umma would tell him he needed to go to school. He would never hear that again in his life.

Taemin started to wail as he did what he had been trying to avoid- think. He sobbed on the shoulder of Yunwoo, not fighting anymore. He wanted to go home. And he never would.

Taemin sat in the restaurant, sniffling into Taeyeon as she held him. Every time he would think more tears would come up. This was as close as he would ever get to his mother now. He would never see his umma again. He started crying softly again as Taeyeon his hair.

“I’m so sorry Taemin, you’re such a brave boy,” they all said.

He couldn’t understand why everyone could be sitting in a restaurant eating after burying his parents and his brother. He couldn’t eat anything. His grandma had spooned him some tofu and he had tried to eat it for his grandma but he couldn’t.

“Taemin, are you okay?” asked Kai and his school friend.

Taemin wished they would go away. Of course he wasn’t okay. And he didn’t want them to see him broken like this.

“We have to leave, but my parents came to give you this,” he said. Taemin closed his eyes and ignored Kai.

“Thank you sweet heart,” he could feel Taeyeon say to them, and something drop into his lap.

He looked down to see two red envelopes.

“I don’t want your money,” he tried to say meanly but ended up sounding like a crying whine. He started crying again.

“I’m so sorry Taemin. It can only get better from this, you’ll see,” Kai tried desperately.

“Go away,” he cried, hiding his face in Taeyeon’s shoulder again.

More and more people started to leave, patting his hair, telling him how his parents would be so proud of him and dropping more red envelopes into his lap.

Taemin closed his eyes, trying to block everything out. And for the first time, all that he wished for was impossible.

A/N Oh dear. i started to tear up writing this. I have been to a Roman Catholic funeral for my friend and a Chinese one for my grandfather, so this was like a combination of the two. I actually have not thought about the funerals until now and remembered what it was like because I didn't really want to think about it. And the coffin hammering. Oh my god. When that happened in the Roman Catholic funeral for my friend that was the hardest I cried because her mum and her sister were absolutely devestated. I think in Korean funerals they are normally cremated, but Taemin is Roman Catholic and they bury theirs. And every time I see a burial it rains. it's not that cliche, at least not for me. I am so depressed now! And you eat tofu in asian wakes in a restaurant because it's white and so symbolises death.  Oh :'( Nothing is as certain as death.

Leave me some comments.. :'(