Another empty bottle was flung at Jinki, hitting his back before he managed to escape his deranged mother.

  “You’re no good!” she screamed in a slur, “You never do good for me!” she stumbled out of her chair, clumsily trying to catch up to Jinki, “You’re so useless! You never pay attention to me! Only that damn kid! He’s mine, not yours!”

Jinki clenched his fists as he sped upstairs, passing the rooms and finding the hall closet, desperately trying to be as quiet as possible as he shut the door and tried to move away all the things inside, trying to find the back wall.

His hand found the wall with a little bit of time. He felt for the small doorknob and twisted it urgently, hearing his mother’s footsteps come closer as she screamed where did he ‘poof’ away.

He swung the tiny door open and slammed it behind him just as his mother opened the closet door. He kept still for the moment, hearing her grunt and shut it.

He let out a sigh of relief.

His attention went to the space he had before him, crawling through it until he could just barely see the latter at the end of it. His eyes squinted to find the horizontal bars, but it was too dark, so he resulted to feeling for them.

He climbed only a little bit before his head oh-so naturally hit the top. He gave an annoyed ‘Ack!’  before rubbing his head and swinging the secret door open.

The light filled the narrow area he was in and he climbed out, shutting the door and glad to see the only room in the house that was clean. The white carpet wasn’t stained with alcohol or blood, the furniture was in one piece, and there was no smell of rotten food anywhere.

  “Hyung?” a tiny voice called.

Jinki looked behind him, finding the toddler in the makeshift-blanket bed, stretching a bit and rubbing his eyes like the adorable child he was.

For the first time that day, Jinki smiled, glad to see the reason why he came home after school was untouched.

He always feared when he left for school. He always feared if his baby brother would decide to randomly get out of the attic for no reason and encounter his twenty-four-seven drunk mother.

But it was always good to know the boy obeyed when Jinki said to not come out until he comes home.

  “Hi, Tae,” he breathed, crawling over to him.

  “Hi,” Taemin chuckled at his older brother’s crawl, pecking him on the lips, “How was school?”

He crawled above Taemin and situated himself against the wall, laying next to his baby brother with a hand fixing his hair as the child laid back down and faced him, “Same as always, bud.”

The toddler nodded, snuggling up to Jinki, “How’s Minho?”

Jinki stiffened at the mention of his name quite visibly.

Taemin noticed and started panicking, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I forgot!”

Jinki snapped back into his senses and calmed the panicking younger, assuring him he did nothing wrong, “No, no, it’s okay. I only said don’t mention him around anyone but me, remember?”

Taemin nodded, fingers curling.

  “Right, sorry,” Jinki apologized, cuddling the small boy to him, “Minho’s fine as usual. He was asking if you wanted to go to the movies on Saturday.”

Partially, it was a lie. Jinki begged Minho to accompany them out. For one, Jinki didn’t want Taemin to get bored because, well, Jinki wasn’t the most exciting person as he was caring—but Minho fit the bill. And for two . . . A secret date in public couldn’t hurt, right?

It took a lot of begging to him, but Minho caved eventually. Jinki knew how hard it was for Minho to accept these things—to do these things—but no one would be suspicious. No one at school was and no one at home was. So they were safe, right?

  “Minho wants to see me?” Taemin brightened, tired eyes shining with a smile on his face, showing two of his bottom teeth gone, given to the tooth fairy.

Jinki chuckled at the behavior, kissing his brother on the nose and laying his head on the pillow, “Of course. Minho loves seeing you.”

  “I like Minho,” Taemin announced (for the millionth time), his feet kicking in excitement, “I’m glad you love him.”

Jinki stopped himself from visibly stiffening again and put on a stressed smile for him, “Glad you like him.”

The toddler yawned, his attention span shifting short and pulled the blankets over both of them, blinking until his eyes fully shut, “How’s Mommy?”

At this, Jinki sighed, pulling the baby close to his body and covering him as if there were no roof. Every day Taemin asked about their mother. If she was okay, eating, sleeping, drinking plenty of water, working. He told Taemin the same thing every day to keep him occupied with the thought of a better world than theirs.

It wasn’t often Jinki let Taemin see their mother. When she only had up to three cups of light alcohol or two shots, he would let Taemin see her. But that wasn’t often anymore. She drank hardcore until she basically drove herself into a coma and Jinki couldn’t let Taemin see that.

It was ultimately sad how Taemin had barely even seen his room enough to remember what was inside it. Jinki forced the toddler to stay up in the attic—and it wasn’t creepy at all. Jinki wanted to make sure Taemin still felt at home, rather than stuck in some haunted room.

It took months to make the attic the way it was. Cautiously stapling white carpet to the floor from the basement, painting the walls blue (when most of the paint ended up on him), building shelves , lighting, and all the sorts. Taemin was supposed to come off of diapers soon enough, but Jinki couldn’t let that happen yet. Jinki couldn’t build a bathroom.

(It was one of his guilts. Taemin would have a rough time when he was older specifically because of a stupid bathroom habit.)

  “She needs to be alone, still,” he answered, rubbing the little boy’s back, putting him back to sleep, “Dinner’s pretty soon, nap up.”

Taemin mumbled in response, slowly breathing.

Jinki held him in his arms, staring at his small angelic face before closing his own eyes.

Maybe when their mom goes out to buy more alcohol could Jinki start Taemin’s dinner.

---Note~----

Another chapter for another day. c:

I'mma just leave this here and say absolutely nothing to ruin the atmosphere trying to be created here.

See you on another random day. c:

tumblr.