Jongin was laying peacefully in his comfy bed, just relaxing. That was until someone knocked on the door, and quietly entered the room. Curious to who it was  he turned around and slightly opened his eyes.

“Breakfast is ready Jongin,” his mom said and the lights. Jongin got a little heart attack  when she said that. Had he overslept?

Geez! Couldn’t I have just gotten up and out of the bed when the alarm clock rang? he thought to himself. He pulled the covers over his head to prevent the light to hurt his eyes more than it already had.

“Can’t I just sleep a little longer? School doesn’t start before ten today anyways,” he tried. He really wanted to sleep in after yesterdays paintball match. The match had lasted until late in the evening and after his revenge on Jongdae, he had tensed up; afraid he might strike back. He also needed energy for the volleyball practice later that day, and sleeping a little longer this one particular day didn’t hurt.

“Jongin, dear, just this once. For me,” his mother pleaded. To him it didn’t seem like she cared about her son’s feelings at all. He was old enough to make his own decisions, and if he didn’t want to keep up with the traditions, then he shouldn’t be forced to either.

He sat up in his bed and looked his mother in the eyes. “Can't I just for once drop out on breakfast? Please?” Jongin asked, trying not to provoke his mother. Something he could not avoid, since the subject was sensitive to his mother. She had never understood what was so bad about having breakfast together as a family. And especially during December. The month of joy where family was put in the center.

She sighed, knowing that Jongin didn’t like traditions, but she really wanted him to join in. She looked at him with sad, pleading eyes. “Please Jongin. Do this for me! Just try to keep up with it,” she finally said. If she couldn’t see that Jongin didn’t want to be a part of this traditions anymore, she really had to be blind or something.

“Why? Why do I have to do something I don’t want to? It’s just the same every year anyway!” Jongin couldn’t keep his feelings in any longer. He had reached his point, and just felt like pouring everything out. His mother’s nagging and pleading, was right now, a little too much of what he could handle in a so short period of time.

“You force me to go to Grandma Joy, eat breakfast every single morning and go to the family gathering, just to mention a few things. Why do I have to put up with it when I am old enough to do as I want?!” he almost screamed. His mother seemed to be shocked at his sudden outburst, and her face showed him that what he said was hurting her.

“What is the problem with meeting your family? Some of them you only meet one time a year,” she defended.
In fact, the only ones he couldn’t meet whenever he wanted were his uncle and aunt from England. But then again, they used to visit Korea every holiday and at any other spare time they got. Why did he have to see them at this particular day?

Jongin got out of his bed and went over to the dresser, waiting for his mother to retreat. He knew that trying to explain to her why he would not come down was meaningless, and he did not want to be there, feeling like he was the one that made everything bad. He didn’t want to be the big bad wolf.

While putting on some clothes he found in the dresser his mother sighed again. Most likely because she couldn’t come up with something to say.

“Why won’t you come? It’s the only day the whole family can be gathered around Christmas, and you drop out?” she asked a little frustrated.

Jongin picked up his backpack from the floor and went downstairs, ignoring the question. He had already tried to explain the reason why many times (almost every damn year), but she never seemed to get it. It was a big mess in the house, with children running around and it was a lot of stress only to get there. He couldn’t see why everyone was so excited about this day. It was like everyone looked forward to the big Christmas gathering, except him.

He exited the room and went downstairs, planning to just run away and don’t come back until late. And if it hadn’t been for the fact that his mother held him back with the talking, he would have managed to run away without any more discussions - or questions for that matter.

“Jongin! Answer me!” she said sternly when they had reached the first floor. Jongin stopped and turned in his heel, facing his mother that had followed him down.

Why didn’t she just get it the first time?!

“Everything about Christmas is just stress and you are expected to be happy and please everyone you meet with a good appearance,” he said angrily, but his mother looked dumbfounded at what he said.

“Can’t you just get it into that big Christmas head of yours that I don’t want to go to that big mess you call a family gathering?” he shouted in the end. Not caring about his mother’s feelings. She didn’t consider his feelings about this either, so it was only fair.

“Darling, what is it?” Jongin’s father asked when he saw his wife had started crying. She shook her head, eyes still looking at her son. Junsu turned to his son, looking at him with a question mark written clearly on his face.

“What is going on?” he asked Jongin in hope of an answer. Jongin moved his gaze to his father. He paused and took a deep breath to keep as calm as possible in the current situation, before he answered him.

“You don’t get it either. None of you get it!” His breathing didn’t help and his anger took over. He was tired of trying to please them every single day. They never appreciated that he always tried his best to put up with it. At least they didn’t comment it - not even a caring or understanding look was sent his way. It was always like that, and there wasn’t any difference now either.

“What is it that I don’t get? Have I missed out on something?” his father asked with a confused expression on his face.

“I’m NOT going to the family gathering just because you want me to be there! If I don’t want to, I don’t want to. That’s it! You can’t force me!” His father seemed to understand now, but he probably didn’t get the full meaning of it.

“Seriously Jongin, it is one single day of the year and you have made it just fine all the other times too. Why should it be any different this time? And think about your grandparents. How sad they’ll be if you don’t show up! Have you thought of that?” His father sounded kind of annoyed now.

So he was going to play the guilt card now. Well, that was not going to work!

His parents didn’t know that his grandparents helped him run away from the big family gatherings and other stuff. They didn’t even know that grandma Joy sent him away on the shopping every time, and distracted them so they wouldn’t notice that Jongin escaped the house.

“Have you thought of that?” Junsu asked again when he didn’t get an answer from Jongin right away.

“Yes, actually I have. And I am sure they don’t mind. Have you ever wondered where I am every single Christmas gathering, when dinner is serving and no one can find me, and Grandma just laughs it off, and says that I have a headache or whatever. Have you? No you haven’t. Do you know that every ing Christmas gathering my grandparents help me sneak out of the house? Do you? No you don’t. Because it’s Christmas and then every sane soul wouldn’t want to escape from the jolly gathering with all the family! Am I right or what? You don’t care, do you? You don’t care nor consider my feelings when it comes to that. Well let me spell it to you now. I don‘t want to go!” he burst out. They would eventually get to know it some day anyway, so why not tell them while he was still going?

“What?! They help you sneak out?” his mother said, finally breaking her own silence. She didn’t believe it. Her parents helping her own son to run away like he was a prisoner running away from the prison guards.

“They are helping me to get out of the house so I can have a nice time too. Without being surrounded by things I hate.” He seriously couldn’t keep that fact to him self any longer, as his parents seemed like the only grown-ups in this family that didn’t understand that.

“Just because you’re being egoistic and make your grandparents feel sorry for you doesn’t mean that you can just drop out whenever you want!” his father said accusingly.

“Egoistic? Me? I would rather say you are the ones being egoistic, not caring about your own son’s feelings at all. Only wanting to have me there because you think I would eventually like it some day. But the fact is that I never ever will!” he screamed. He wasn’t planning to be so loud, but his body had taken control over his actions. The one in charge of his actions wasn’t his brain any longer.

“Enough! We have never forced you into anything!” Yoona said seriously, giving the impression that she was sure that what she said was the truth. Jongin couldn’t believe it. Did she really think what she said was true, even after everything he had said to her?

Jongin glared angrily at them before turning on his heel. He didn’t stand being there anymore, fighting with his parents when they came with such ridiculous arguments. He went to the hall, putting on his shoes hastily and grabbing his jacket on the way out. To make his leave more dramatic he slammed the door, making sure that he slammed it so hard that if there had been pictures hanging on the wall, they would fall down.

★

It had been a horrible day so far, and the fact that the course leader was late again didn’t get his mood up one bit. That coffee-loving man that never even remembers his god damned cup!

Dongwoo wasn’t only late, but the two hours of the course went by painfully slow. Indeed, he liked the course and learned a lot, but the only thing that was running through his mind at the time was the fight with his parents this morning.

They were learning about headlines; what was a good headline and what was a bad headline. Right now the perfect headline for his life would possibly be: “Hell seems like a nice place”.

Maybe that should be the theme of his column this week? How horrible things can get sometimes? Yes, it should.

Giving up on trying to keep up with Dongwoo’s talking, he wrote down everything that came to his mind. His feelings when he argued with his parents this morning, and how nobody understood and probably never would either.

★

Here we go! he thought as he started jogging around the hall together with his teammates. Usually he wasn’t the slowest in the laying-down-and-get-up-again-thing, but today he was, for sure. When he finally had made it down to the floor, everyone was up again and continuing with their jogging. He saw Donghae watching him carefully and he didn’t show any signs of liking Jongin’s behaviour.

When they started the drop-and-roll exercise, Jongin did it halfheartedly and didn’t even try to make the movement better. Nor did he dodge the ball, and that Donghae definitely didn’t like, so he made Jongin do twenty push-ups for each careless mistake and misjudgment, instead of the normal ten.

They were allowed to take a five minute break to drink and relax a little, before they would continue with making their movements as perfect as possible.

“Is something wrong?” Joonmyun asked him when he was about to take his hundredth (or was it two hundredth?) push-up in just half an hour. He had seen Joonmyun watching him from the corner of his eye the whole practice and worry was clearly seen in his eyes.

“No, it’s nothing. Just not in a good mood today,” he said trying to avoid the subject. Even if Joonmyun was very caring and a good friend, he didn’t want to talk about it - because if he did, he would get angry again, and the rest of the practice would go deeper down in hell than it already had.

Even if they just got five minutes, Joonmyun used the time to try and figure out what was wrong. Jongin usually worked very hard on the practices and was very into it, but today he was the laziest and most careless of them all. There had to be something big going on, since he wasn’t that grumpy and careless on other bad days.

Jongin grabbed his water bottle from the floor and drank half of it in almost one gulp, hoping Joonmyun wouldn’t ask more about his mood. But that was probably too much to wish for from that over-caring father-like friend of his.

“Are you sure? It doesn’t look like it’s nothing to me though,” Joonmyun said, still with a worried tone in his voice. He had actually been doing ok until Joonmyun started asking. It wasn’t that Joonmyun annoyed him or anything, but when you’re not in a good mood from before, asking about it again and again won’t help much. It didn’t get better in his case at least.

Jongin just gave him a look, telling him he shouldn’t ask more about it, instead of telling him with words. Afraid that his mouth wouldn’t listen to his mind and start yelling at his friend. His patience really couldn’t stand anything today - neither did his temper.

“Just tell me if it is something, okay?” Joonmyun said in the end, giving up on trying to get anything out of the younger. Jongin nodded before he put down his bottle. Joonmyun’s words made him feel like someone for once cared about his feelings, and being kind enough to show it.

At least someone in this world that cares about my well-being, he thought as he went back to Luhan and continued what they were doing before the break.

 

★