1.1 | Desiderium ✓

63|sixty three

JaeHwan was extremely close to a mental breakdown when he saw Shin's face bruised. And his anger scared his own mother. 

"Don't tell me you intend to break someone's hand again, child. I had enough of your fights." 

"What's bad in that?" DanTae said. "I was way worse than him when I was his age. If you saw me… you'd have never married me." 

"Does your logic run in reverse, dear?" SeGye asked. "Are you trying to make your son look better or making your image worse in my eyes?" 

"None, or both," DanTae shrugged, "in any case, you are married to me and this child is your own son. If I or JaeHwan do anything stupid, you will be the one people laugh at." 

"That's supremely ridiculous." 

"Joke's on you. You married the ridiculous guy." 

"As if I had a choice! We had a child for God's sake —"

"So you're telling me you married me for this boy over here? How shallow of you, darling." 

"You're just so impossible!" 

Dinners in the Kim mansion were a jolly affair. But JaeHwan didn't have much of an appetite. Shin's purple jaw was too bad of a sight to see, and enough to have JaeHwan's sanity boil away. 

His parents' playful bickering slowly faded in the distance. JaeHwan's fingers ached to curl around Shin's hands, but they felt tied down to the cutlery on the table, keeping up the tiring facade of brothers before his parents. At that moment, JaeHwan wanted to give in and give all, not caring about how anyone felt. 

He watched Shin push his plate away from him, his servings only half eaten. Shin never did that. He wasn't the type to protest by starving himself. "I am full," he said in a soft voice. 

JaeHwan's father opened his mouth to say something, perhaps about how Shin should eat more and get back to being how he was as a child, but JaeHwan's mother beat him to it. 

"It's fine, baby. You can go to sleep early today." She squeezed Shin's arm and the boy gave her a small, sad smile. When he raised his head, JaeHwan saw his eyes and nose were red. Shin bowed curtly, stood up and walked away from the kitchen to the stairway, upstairs to his bedroom. 

"He had a hard day at school, leave him be." SeGye answered the question on JaeHwan's face. "Don't press the boy, he would want to be alone." 

"What happened?" DanTae's brows dipped in concern. 

"He just… got to know about SeJeong," SeGye shifted on her seat uncomfortably, "and he, well, didn't quite take it well." 

"I would break SeJeong's nose if I was him," DanTae snorted. 

"Wait," JaeHwan frowned, "what?" 

"SeJeong," DanTae waved his chopsticks, "that punk liked your Shinnie's mother. He went quite far, especially when she was just about to end things with JeongSuk. Proposed marriage and all. But all he did was make JeongSuk more and more paranoid. Didn't end up well. JeongSuk went so far to threaten that he'd take Shin away if —" 

"DanTae!" SeGye hissed. 

"What? He should know," JaeHwan's father said. JaeHwan felt himself shrink in his seat from the intensity of his father's gaze. "Unnecessary affections only lead to unnecessary complications. They never end well." 

"But still," SeGye said softly, "maybe HwaYoung would have been alive…" 

"Alive yes," DanTae scoffed, "but you think YooSung would have accepted Shin? He would have made their lives hell. That man is unhinged as anything, and his wife left him. Talk about being unfortunate."