Hung Up On The Stars • ChenJi

one

The clicking sound of the spoon rings the ears of the dining table and Jisung fiddles with the lid of the bottle to close it. Pressing the fork in an uninterested way while chewing his food at the slowest speed possible, he looked at the rice with a hollow expression.

If you had asked a mature 15-year-old Jisung to eat his vegetables on the plate he wouldn't think of it for the second time maybe. But the current eight-year-old one, who predominantly thinks being 15 is the age when you become wise and mature, studies third grade, and does mediocre in his subjects finds himself struggling to finish the plate due from twenty minutes.

When he turns to his left, his elder brother wiggles his sharp eyebrows at him filling his mouth full of the food which, even jisung is supposed to complete.

"Jaemin Hyung, I need your help."

Jaemin fills his mouth full and bobs his head asking him to continue.

"I drink your milk and you eat my leftovers."

"No" he gallantly replies.

"Please," Jisung pleads, widening his mouth to display all his teeth.

Jaemin sighs and nods much to the younger's joy and when their father leaves the table for attending a call, Jaemin takes all the vegetables from Jisung's plate before Jisung smiles brightly at the moment giving a thumbs up to his brother.

He sticks out his tongue at the old woman sitting two places away to tease her about getting escaped from eating the food but she only snorts in response.

"One day your father is gonna find out, for sure. "

"Whatever," he says and runs away to his room upstairs.

Jisung lived a normal life of an eight-year-old boy. He had no grievances to conquer nor any vision to hold himself in the coming years. His capacity to retrospect has been crushed by the facade of his age and almost zero chances of getting out of the routine he is subjected to for God knows how long. His memory is failed considering his age and his dreams were probably were of a lesser age than he is. Getting through a strict parent was one. His father has been remarkably stern to both of his children to mold them but appreciating his love worthwhile was way out of the league for him.

Waking up next to his brother every morrow, with the sun hitting his skin forcing his eyes out of his dreamland dumping him into the mundane sphere of life, Jisung hasn't known any foreign feeling consuming him. It was just one of those days for him to brush his teeth in front of the reflection of a naive toddler and wash his face briskly. Later he falls into the regularities.

Jisung is excited to tour the central park along with his brother. The bus ride was slightly painful to his back because of the hard surface poking his back causing him to nudge Jaemin's elbow beside him.

"Hyung, this seat hurts my butt."

Groaning, Jaemin cooks up an answer unable to bear his baby brother's silly antics. He says, "See jisung, don't worry. Your seat is very special, it is used by NASA to take the imprint of the butt of an able astronomer in the future to prepare space costumes. So consider yourself lucky and shut up for peace's sake."

Not revising it as the most uncommon possibility In the world, jisung perks up at the said words, "Woah really?"

"Of course not, idiot. I can't take you on the luxury travel so just be happy about having a room for your short ass body to place in."

Jisung winces at this statement displeased and later focuses on the conductor collecting money and entries from the passengers. A row of similar people chatting away with their fellow mates while some others showing their entries and saying "pass" as the conductor passes their way comes to his vision. When he stopped at a counter a few compartments away from where Jisung and Jaemin sat, a short boy with a brown top and a young adult, Jisung speculates, spoke with the conductor. The small boy probably anxious about the continual rambling of "pass" instigated him to say "grade A" thinking the conductor probably asked for their exam results.

Jisung muffles out a laugh at the action and covers his mouth doing the same.
The adult chuckles at the innocence startling the younger boy and pays the conductor the money for the ticket. After the said man passes, the man explains the system of passes and entries in buses for them to get the ticket. The image of the boy isn't so clear for Jisung to see because of his small height but he could find him laughing at his embarrassment.

~tbc~