1.1 | Desiderium ✓

68|sixty eight

Breaking someone's heart was equivalent to breaking one's own heart. Shin almost considered that a crime. But that day, he realised that he himself had broken more hearts than he could count. That little child, no, not exactly a child, he had the eyes of the second most person Shin hated with passion. He wasn't exactly all innocent, but then again, what was his fault?

"What's bothering you, Shin?"

JaeHwan noticed Shin's morose face at the dinner table. No matter how hard Shin tried to hide something, his family always knew that he was in pain.

Family... but who was Shin's family? Those kind people sitting around him, chatting at the dinner table or that little boy?

"Nothing," Shin said.

"You can tell me," JaeHwan squeezed his hand, "did YoonJae do something?"

"No..."

"Isn't that the name of the boy whose ankle you broke, JaeHwan?" SeGye chimed in, setting down her chopsticks. She looked at Shin, eyes full of motherly concern.

And that made Shin feel worse.

"I met TaeMin today," Shin blurted out, "he... he said he was my brother and," he didn't want to speak any further. Thinking of those eyes made Shin's stomach twist in knots and left a sour taste in his mouth.

"Yun TaeMin?" SeGye asked, her eyes widening. She looked over to her husband, her lips parted in a question. Dismally, DanTae himself was surprised.

"Someone care to elaborate?" JaeHwan looked between the confused faces of his parents. He thought for a moment, before his eyebrows dipped in realization. "I should've known," JaeHwan grimaced, "YoonJae's acquaintances are even worse."

"JaeHwan that's not the time for that," SeGye took a deep breath. "Did that boy say anything to you? Anything that you didn't like?"

"No," Shin tried to think without his contemptuous judgement for TaeMin, "he just said that I was his brother. And that... he wanted a brother."

"His mother must have sent him over, considering she'd want him to make connections." JaeHwan slumped in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Obviously, they'd want him back now. Great! How shallow can she even get."

"Who?" Shin squinted.

"Look Shin-ah, baby," SeGye took Shin's hand in her own and stroked soothing circles on the back of his palm with her thumb, "I didn't mean to hide this. I would have told you, really, but I thought you needed time."

"Tell me what?" Shin's voice came out choked. "That I had a brother? But I don't remember him... he can't be my brother. And he isn't there even in the pictures... Auntie, he can't take me away, can he? I don't want to go back to him."

"Shh..." SeGye hummed softly. Her heart wrenched when Shin made that face. Terrorized and scared, pushed in a corner, absolutely mortified. "Baby, try to listen properly, okay? No one is going to take you away. And that boy is your brother, it's true." JaeHwan's mother sighed and looked at her husband, hoping for some amount of moral support.

DanTae gave her a stern nod, although the softness in his sunken eyes betrayed his cold exterior.

"Your father married again after your mother passed away. And he married your mother's sister. So that makes TaeMin your mother's sister's son." SeGye finished in just one sentence, hoping to get the message across in a short way. Just like ripping off the band-aid. She had expected Shin to fume in anger, or cringed, but the boy sighed in relief instead.