The Odd Doctor Out | A Drama | S. 1

173 🩺 Inside The Soul

More than a week had passed, and things hadn't gotten any easier. Each day had been just as hard as the last.

But there was one thing about today that was different, and it made Wooyoung's chest feel just a little lighter.

'Sannie, you didn't have to come over... It must feel really awkward here at the moment...'

San hushed him immediately. Sitting on Wooyoung's bed, he reached up to brush his cheek. 'I missed you... And I've been worried about you...'

Wooyoung's eyes softened. 'You don't have to worry...'

San laughed. 'Bold of you to think I can control it.' He smirked, causing a small smile to build on Wooyoung's face.

Sitting together, Wooyoung gently tried to move some of the things from his bed so that they wouldn't get damaged.

Moving to help him, San picked up his photo frame to put aside, but upon glancing at it, he slowed.

'Can you tell me about your mom?'

His sudden question surprised Wooyoung, but the moment he saw San gazing into the depths of his favourite photo, Wooyoung smiled. 'Which one?'

'Both of them.'

Taking the photo gently from his hands, Wooyoung held it tenderly, gazing at the faces within it and softly brushing his fingertips over the glass before wiping the marks away with his sleeve.

'When I lived with my parents before they died, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and Yeosang's family. My parents travelled a lot for work and spent a lot of time away. My mom was really nice though, from what I remember. When she was home, she was lovely. She gave me all the love in the world, same with dad. I remember being really happy when they were home, and I always wished they were with me more....'

Trailing off, Wooyoung let him fill in the gaps with what he'd already told him.

'Sangie's mom is really sweet too though~. She kind of reminds me of the petals of a flower. But not a boring flower. A beautiful flower different from every other flower, with personality and colour... Lots of different colours... She's pretty and kind and dainty and strong and smells nice and is the most amazing flower you could ever imagine...'

Trailing off, Wooyoung felt tears prick his eyes yet again, starting to drive him mad. But the more he looked at the photo with him and Yeosang together as kids with their mothers holding their hands, the more his anger at crying again faded and was replaced with the sheer pain of just missing his brother.

'Sannie, he won't talk to me at all... He's mad about a lot of things, and he said I'm like a cat bringing dead things to him all the time...' tears slipping down his cheeks, Wooyoung let them, tenderly brushing the photo as though he was touching their skin instead of the cold hard glass.

'I didn't mean to overwhelm him... he just doesn't understand how much it means to me that he shared his family with me.' Getting more and more worked up, Wooyoung let words fall from his lips as they came to his mind, too tired and too raw to have a filter anymore.

'He shared his room, his toys, his books, his parents... he doesn't understand how much it still means to me... I think he thinks that this is something that happened a long time ago and that I should've gotten over it by now, but for me, this is something that I live through every single day... It is very real in my heart, and every single day when I wake up, I'm reminded that the only reason I am the person I am today, is because of his family... Joong said that I never take anything, but I do! I take so much! And they don't get that!

I just wish they'd see that it's not something I can just move past. No matter how much I want us to be together, at the end of the day, we share different blood, he's not my brother, and they aren't my parents... Somehow though, his mom drove us to school every day, Sangie shared his lunch with me, and his dad taught me my times tables and how to do maths...

Dad taught me to play soccer at the park with Sang and our dog... he taught me to drive and to swim and how to speak up for myself...

Mom taught me how to make my bed and was there to listen to me and tell me I wasn't broken when I got my first crush on a boy... She taught me how to put makeup on and how to enjoy and focus on the little blessings in life... She taught me how to live again...

And every night when I'd have nightmares, or when I missed my family, Sangie would crawl into my bed and hug me until I cried myself to sleep. He stayed with me and defended me at school when people called me a filthy orphan... He patted my back the very first time I got drunk and felt sick, and he held my hand through every step of the way through my life, from the moment we literally took our first steps together as babies, to a week ago...'

Tears slipping down his cheeks, Wooyoung paused, still gazing deeply at the photo in his hands.

'Every winter when my parent's death anniversary came around, they put on their black clothes, picked flowers with me and came with me to see my mom and dad, and then again for grandma and grandpa... They came with me to see them on their birthdays and anniversaries and every time I missed them...

I owe them a million times over for the gifts of life they gave me... Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean there wasn't something there for me to take... Most of the time people just see my life story as sad - oh he lost his parents so young, how depressing - he lost his grandparents too... and in a way I agree. There's not much I wouldn't give to have my family with me right now... but in a way, I also feel extremely lucky. Not many people can say that they have a beautiful family, and I have two...'

Wooyoung broke down. He didn't know if he was talking to San or not anymore, but he didn't care. Hugging the photo to his chest, he squeezed his eyes shut, letting hot tears slip down his cheeks, and into his jumper.

And seeing him reduce into a million pieces, San reached forward and hugged him, piecing together every fallen shattering of his fragile, broken heart. Cooing in his ear and patting his on the back, San held him like he meant the world to him-

- and for Wooyoung, it did.

~~~

Yeosang bit into his pillow as he hugged it and his knees to his chest, leaning his side against the bed head. He hadn't meant to have overheard, but the moment he took out his earphones, he couldn't help but hear his brother's soft voice through the wall, and every tear that had fallen too. 

Biting hard into his pillow, Yeosang tried hard not to make a sound. He didn't want to distress the boy any more than he already was.

And so all there was that he could do, was to sit, leaning against the bed head, and listen to the soft sound of cries floating over to him - tears, he had no idea how to stop from spilling down those pale, broken cheeks.

~~~

A/N: probs not a good place to leave the book lol. Fuck I'm sure there's a good spot somewhere. We're going on an adventure to find a place I can leave the book for a while, lol.