WARNING: This may be a sensitive chapter for any of you who have ever had someome around you suffer from alcoholism. 

When Sehun sat up and pulled his phone from his pocket, it didn’t escape my notice the way his tongue fidgeted with his lip as he contemplated answering it. With a quick glance at me, he did so.

“What is it?” he asked down the line, his voice both icy and irked.

I was a cross between curious and awkward as I sat there, trying to watch him but trying to be discrete about it.

“Does he need to go to the hospital?” Sehun asked down the line, voice not sounding concerned at all despite the serious nature of his question.

There was a longer pause this time, and Sehun gave a little nod to whatever the other person was saying.

“Can’t you get someone already there to do it?”

After a another pause, then an angry sigh was released from Sehun as he pulled his phone from his ear to check the time. “Fine. I’ll come now,” he said and he hung up. He ruffled his hair agitatedly, leaning forwards a little. “I have to go,” he told me in a mumble, getting up and making to leave the room.

“Wait, wait!” I scrambled up after him, making him stop. “What was all that about?”

He glanced over his shoulder at me, face looking utterly torn. About what, I didn’t know. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not nothing,” I countered before he could take another step away from me. “Who were you on the phone to? It sounded serious.”

“No one,” he replied, sounding a little on edge.

I raised an eyebrow. “No one?”

There was no reply so I moved around in front of him. I did, after all, have my suspicions about who could make his voice sound like that. “Was it your father?”

He shook his head. “No. Phyllis.”

“Phyllis?” Why would she call him? The two of them weren’t exactly best buddies.

“Yeah, I’ll be back soon.” He made to step around me again.

I stepped into his path. “Did something happen? Is Kyungsoo ok?” 

“He’s fine.”

There was a silence, but at least he wasn’t trying to leave now. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

He pursed his lips, looking at me as if contemplating something. And he stayed like that for a while. “It’s just something with my father,” he finally let out, well and truly averting his eyes.

My mind flashed to the events of the day; to the way his father had glared at him. “Are you going to the house?” I asked uncomfortably.

Nodding his head, Sehun still refused to look at me.

“Did your father ask for you?”

“No. But I really should go now.”

Something wasn’t sitting right with me about this all, something not right at all. “Can I come with you?”

He barely paused. “No.”

“Why? I’ve been before.”

“Still no.” He gave me a hard stare.

“Why?” I asked again.

This time he went quiet for a moment. “It’s… embarrassing.”

I could see why he felt that way. If our roles were reversed, I would have felt the exact same way. “Not to you,” I replied. “Just to him.”

To my surprise, he shook his head. “This isn’t like before.”

Honestly I couldn’t think of anything much worse than before. “I don’t want you to go alone.”

He heaved a sigh. “Well, I’m going to.”

Could I demand to go with him? I didn’t know, but I could certainly continue to ask. “Please let me come with you.”

“No, Mira. I don’t want you to see him.”

“But I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I won’t.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Can you guarantee that?”

Looking down at me with a shaky gaze, Sehun remained silent. Of course he couldn’t guarantee that. And he wasn’t about to lie and pretend that he could.

“Let me come. If I’m there he might not try anything or he might even-”

“He can’t get up, Mira,” Sehun said quietly, his words almost defeated.

I felt my head tilt a little as I realised what he was saying. “He can’t get up?”

Sehun let out a little sigh, scratching the lid of his eye with his thumb nail. “No. He fell and he can’t get up.”

“Shouldn’t he go to the hospital?”

“He doesn’t need to,” Sehun replied with a little shake of his head. “This happens all the time.”

I frowned. “But if he fell and can’t get up, surely you should call an ambulance.”

Sehun shook his head, looking a little irked at having to explain the intricacies of his father’s addiction. I could see his point. “He’s not hurt. It’s just that he can’t physically lift himself off the ground.”

Honestly, I didn’t know how something like that could happen to someone and yet they didn’t need to get medical attention, but Sehun really didn’t seem to think it was necessary at all.

“It happens sometimes,” Sehun went on quietly. “He drinks too much and trips or something, then he can’t get up again. Phyllis can’t lift him, and she refuses to let the staff see him like that so she calls me.”

I didn’t know much about alcoholism, but I hadn’t realised that this could happen before now. Sure I knew there were complications like cancer and liver failure, but an inability to control one’s own body wasn’t up there. I suppose it was just something you learned if you’d been through it.

Sehun stepped around me but I grabbed his sleeve before he could leave completely. “Please don’t go alone,” I whispered. “Let me help you.”

He didn’t say anything, instead his shoulders just rose and fell heavily.

“If not me, then take someone else with you. Take Baekhyun, or even Luhan. Just please don’t go on your own.”

His tongue swiped at his lip for a moment as he thought about it. “I don’t want to go all the way to Baekhyun’s. And Luhan’s sleeping.”

“Then just take me.”

He closed his eyes over almost resignedly before nodding once. “But you have to stay in the car.”

I nodded confidently. I could work on that clause when we got there.

I let Sehun go first, since for one I didn’t know where I was going, but also because I was a little nervous about what I might find.

Phyllis came into view before anything else, coming down the corridor like a hurricane, her night robe billowing behind her like a cape.

“Why did you bring her here?” she demanded of Sehun before she even reached us. “What will she think?” It was clear that Phyllis was more concerned with appearances than anything else right now, just like usual.

“It’s fine,” Sehun murmured, clearly just as bugged as I was about the priorities of this woman. “Where is he?”

Phyllis glanced to me, uncertainty plainly laced all over her face.

Sehun sighed tired. “Just tell me where he is.”

“The upstairs office.” Phyllis then turned to me, a fake smile plastered onto her thin face. “Could you go check on Kyungsoo for me? He’s in his room. Make sure he doesn’t get up.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Sehun spoke up then, killing the words on the tip of my tongue. “That’s a good idea. Make sure he doesn’t come wandering.”

I didn’t want to leave him alone, but this house wasn’t so big that I couldn’t be there quickly if anything did happen - not that I would know what to do anyway. On some level, perhaps a rather selfish one, I was almost glad that the two of them had given me this little loophole.

With one final glance at Sehun, I turned to Phyllis. “Where’s his room?”

Kyungsoo’s room was in the same corridor that Sehun’s was, and although it was dark when I opened the door up, I guessed it was laid out pretty similarly too. The figure in the bed was lying very stilly, and at first I assumed he was sleeping still until I heard the sheets rustling.

“Who’s there?” he asked quietly, his voice sounding thick. It was possible that this small boy had been crying.

“It’s Mira,” I breathed out, trying to move through the darkness towards him without hitting any objects on the way.

“Mira?” He sounded surprised, then there was a little more rustling and a nightlight flicked on beside his bed, making it a lot easier for me to get to the boy who was all but drowned in the double bed in the room.

With the new light, I could clearly see the glistening on his cheeks which was evidence enough that he had been crying, and from the state of his eyes it had been for a while.

“Why are you here?” he asked, sniffing deeply.

I didn’t know how much Kyungsoo knew about his father’s current situation, but from the way he was crying it seemed he did. Mind you, for all I knew he could cry like this every night.

“I wanted to see if you were ok,” I told him, perching on the edge of the bed.

“Oh,” he let out, wiping at his cheeks with his too-long sleeves. “Is Sehun here too?” the boy asked hopefully.

I was aware of shifting uncomfortably before I stilled myself. “He’ll come see you in a while.”

“Is he with father?” the boy breathed out quietly.

I was hesitant about answering. “Did you see your father?”

This time, it was Kyungsoo’s turn to hesitate. “He was on the ground again. Mother said I had to go straight to bed.”

My head nodded slowly as I took this in. This boy was too young to have to see one of his parents like that. It wasn’t fair on him at all.

Kyungsoo interrupted my mind’s wandering, “Is Sehun there?”

I cleared my throat a little. “Yeah. But he’ll be along in a moment. Don’t worry.” 

Kyungsoo’s face did