The doorbell rang once – no doubt his parents and younger brother.  Already, Sungyeol could hear their rowdy conversation ading the darkened flat, disrupting the silence he appreciated.  He knew that his mother would expect him to welcome them home as before, yet the 18 year old refused to budge from his seat, feverishly bright eyes glued to his laptop screen.

“Sungyeol, we’re back!” Daeyeol called out.  Merely two years younger, he had resigned himself to the incomprehensible fact that his older brother would never be the same person again – his best buddy, soccer partner, confidante.  Still, Daeyeol invariably held out a tiny ray of hope that the Sungyeol he knew hadn’t been completely lost to the laughable process called ‘maturing’.

As though hoping food might restore the crumbling bond they had, Mr. Lee had bought a cup of coffee from Starbucks on his way back.  The words Come out please? mingled in the beckoning aroma.  Much as Sungyeol wanted it, he resisted.

At his mother’s fourth call, the underlying warning in her voice dragged Sungyeol away from his laptop, and he slunk into the kitchen, irritation at having to step away from Starcraft evident in the sullen downwards curve of his mouth.

“Why didn’t you clear away the dishes before we came back home?  And what about washing the rice?”  Privately, Mrs. Lee wanted nothing more than to hug her eldest son and talk to him about anything under the sky, but it was a discarded routine, swallowed mercilessly by growing up.  So she could only settle for the second-grade method of taking out the undefinable frustration she felt on Sungyeol.

Sungyeol chose not to respond, instead letting the sharp crashing of ceramic against ceramic speak for him.  Besides, attempts at conversing would more likely than not end up in heated argument and hurtful insults hurled.  Dishes dried and put back in their rightful places, Sungyeol draped the towel over a drawer handle and prepared to return to his comfort zone.

A part of him wanted to sit down, wished to be asked, but just thinking about the gesture felt foreign.  Somewhere along the way, his familial relationship had dissipated; Sungyeol didn’t know anything anymore.