Today was a warm morning, the weather was very nice and Jongin greeted by a pair of huge smiles when he arrived at the dining room. His mom put down a plate in front the last chair before she could kiss him on his forehead. Jongin winced a bit when she kissed his forehead, but he did not do anything and sat in front of the last chair to eat his breakfast.

“Have you done your homework?” His dad suddenly asked. His mom smiled at him as she took a seat next to his dad. She looked so happy today, and it didn’t happen every day. Jongin wondered why, because if she was really happy, this was a special event. And Jongin did not want to miss it.

“Yes.”

“Good job, son.” He replied and sipped his coffee in satisfied. This was what they do on breakfast, not making any jokes, instead his dad inquired him about school; how his homework, his grades, scores, exams. Mostly, it didn’t feel like Jongin was 18 years old, it felt like, he was still a middle school beginner. Very , if Jongin could say—he wished he could, he could, really, but he didn’t have any courage—heck, he did not even know why he have to be so scared.

“Yeah,” Jongin mumbled dismissively for reply.

“How about your science exam?” His mom started.

“Good, got B+”

“You should’ve done better.” There he goes.

“Dad,” Jongin sighed as he put down his spoon, only to rolled his eyes on his dad. “It was only, like, three pointx away from A.”

“Still,” His dad insisted. “You should have done much better, I’m not satisfied.” He sipped his coffee and put down his newspaper before he faced Jongin with a serious face.

“Dad, are we going to argue about this?” Jongin sighed again, he have enough with everything. Sehun was first, then his dad. If it kept going, he would jump off the cliff, he could if he wanted. He wanted to, but he was saving it for the future—in case he was really desperate, he will jump off the cliff.

His dad wanted him to have perfect scores, while Jongin was still a human. His dad probably forgot that his child was a human, not a god or an angel. Jongin was imperfect, and everyone knew it, except for his parents. His parents always thought that their child was always perfect, and none will ever win against him. That was just too tired to handle, especially when he has been handling it over than ten years.

“I’m just saying, you could do much better than this. This is not your greatest.” His dad argued, looking straight into his eyes. Jongin’s eyes started to sting because it felt like his dad pinch his eyes over and over again. Jongin sighed internall. Nothing was ever been his greatest. There was nothing compared to greatest. Actually, the greatest was not an legal word for anything—because overall, nothing has ever been the greatest in this world.

Nothing has been the greatest in his world. His world was only a little circle with him inside it, and the rest of the world was a pacific sea. He couldn’t trespass its line, because it depended his future; his life, most of all.

“Alright,” was the only thing he could say.

“You need to study more tonight.” He said before he back to his newspaper. Then, Jongin side glanced his mom, only to find her nodded in agreement. Nothing has really help him, either. His parents should have encouraged his children in any form, and they never did anything to encourage him. It felt like, he was struggling alone and the others were just pushing him violently—no one helped him.

“Yes, dad,” In the other hand, his condition was pretty much better than Sehun. Sehun probably only saw his parents once a week, and had to called him sir; which for Jongin, pretty uncomfortable and awkward. However, as he counted over again, his condition was never better than Sehun. Both of them had a rough life, and they never did expected any slight happy ending for their life.

They were there, just there.

***

Jongin walked into his class, did not bother to know everyone else’s activity. He was too busy to know it, he did not have time to everything that was nonsense—that was his dad’s words when he drop him—and that seemed bother Jongin. His words gave Jongin this urge to kill everyone. He was trying to calm his heart from the lava burst. That was it, Jongin’s heart felt like it was going to blow up in any minute, and he didn’t know how to calm it down—but nonetheless, he tried.

Sehun caught his gaze and waved, beckoned him to sit next to him. Jongin sank unto his seat, right next to Sehun. Kris haven’t come to school yet, but Jongin found himself praying for him to die, or something that prevented him from school. For Sehun, he just had to hoped that Sehun did not bother any of his matters. Sehun had too much matters to handle, and he tended to mind everyone’s matters without any request. Jongin will always be his victim, and he hated it.

“Where is Kris, though?” Sehun asked, looking around and sighed when he did not catch any sign of Kris.

“I don’t know…”

“Well, you should, because he is the nearest from your home.” Sehun rolled his eyes, in a matter-of-factly. Jongin’s heart was cracking up and soon, he could decipher, that he would burst if he didn’t hide in the bathroom. He wanted to hide in the bathroom and could not, despite Sehun was holding his hand when Jongin stood up.

“Don’t,” He firmly said. “Wait for Kris, I need to tell you something to both of you.”

Jongin sank back unto his seat and tried to hide his desperation with a question, “Why don’t you tell me now?”

“Because I will not story-telling two times, Kim Jongin.” And that was all Sehun had to do for Jongin to shut up.

Jongin was this close to punch Sehun, and he had to remind himself multiply times to not. Sehun probably would take out a lawsuit when Jongin punched him and Jongin live was over. Sehun could take down everything from Jongin, and he hated that the most. He was richer, which probably could do anything that he wanted without any lines. Jongin imagined it sometimes, and it was real fun if it could happen to Jongin as well.

But, it was not the fact that he was richer, and freer; it was something beneath his throat that made him afraid of Sehun, something that he could not decipher for the past three years. The suffocation was there, beneath his throat. The pressure was all over his body, and it mixed with the unknown suffocation. He felt miserable. Jongin put his hand beneath his throat, yet he still couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong with him.

After the long silence; Jongin decided to study about physics and continued his homework, while Sehun was playing with his nails, Kris came in, giving them a short beat box before he sat behind Sehun. Sehun grew brighter and poked Jongin. Kris raised his eyebrow and fixed his position, Jongin straightened his back lazily and looked at Sehun in a mix of confusion and annoyed, Sehun cleared his throat.

“I meet the new girl’s face,” He started. Kris’ eyes were glistening with curiosity, he was always like that, being curious to anything, and it sometimes got out of the line. It was annoying, for Jongin. Everything was now annoying for Jongin. He knew where this would lead, and he will not like it much.

“WHAT?” Kris almost yelled.

“Let me tip you with something; you are right, Kris, she is so damn weird—like, so ing weird. A weirdo, can you believe it? I thought she was—“

The words got cut out when a loud thud. Sehun and Jongin jumped on their seat and looked forward, specifically to the source. Kris’ mouth was in agape, and Jongin didn’t know why before he found some pink strays of hairs on his sight, it was a girl; average tall, uniform was in mess, and a thick black eye pencil covered her brown eyes. She just bummed a nametag onto the table loudly.

“I think this is yours.” She said.

I hope you'll love it, and I'm sorry for any grammar mistakes because I'm so busy preparing for my choir perfomance like i need to get up at two a.m. lel. I'll fix the mistakes as soon as i find myself in a free time. xx

(and gosh, my country blocked imgur without no ing reason, so i can't see my own story poster i-)