Hatred - 2Min/Minmin

4

“We will be together now” said Minho's father to him after he won Minho's custody.
        Soon after, his father had to break into his fixed and recurring deposits to cope with the expenses of his alcohol problem. He wasn't doing a good job of bringing Minho up, either.

Minho missed his mom like he missed a limb. In her absence he felt a constant nagging pain. She would come to see him evry week, anf then every alternate week, and then once a month.
    
        “Why are you so difficult? ” Mom would ask on monthly visits.
        “Because you aren't my mother anymore. ” Minho would pretend to watch Duck Takes and Swat Cats. Mom would switch off the television and he would snatch the remote from her. “This is not your remote anymore!” he would say.

        Durning these monthly visits, Minho's father would go missing and Mom would spend most of the time cleaning the house of empty soda and whisky bottles. And when Dad returned , it would end with a verbal duel between his parents about who had been the worst parent.

         “Both of you! ” Minho would shout from behind a locked door.

         Mom would leave behind a today, a hand–held video game, a CD player which Dad would smash and throw out with the trash. Minho did not mind. Sometimes Minho and his father would break the toys together.

        The divorce proceedings and the custody battle were tedious and robbed Minho's father most of his savings, and a good part if his mind. Minho had to leave school.

      “If you don't send him to school, I am going to take you to court, ” Minho's mother threatened his father. So Minho was put back to school no fee charged.

The first day was horrendous. Minho put up with the sniggering without breaking down. He walked the corridors like nothing happened. His mother now freshly married, looked more beautiful than before, even younger. She was made the vice principal of the school.

        Minho would never leave his class. During lunch breaks, he would go to the end of the class and sit down on the floor, hidden from his mother's prying eyes. Sometimes his mother would keep lunch wrapped in an aluminum foil on his desk.

        “What are you doing down here? ” asked a boy one day while Minho fiddled with a fountain pen, shirt stained with little blue spots of ink. Minho looked up to see the patchy boy from that night, the dalmatian, the one with spotted skin, looking at him. “Do you want to share my lunch? ” Minho shook his head.

     “You won't get it if you touch me or share my food. Didn't you get the flyer that was never distributed? ”
     “I didn't say no because of that. ” lied Minho.

Minho was hungry. His father would  not wake up in time to help him get ready to school, or prepare lunch, or even drop him to his bus stop( gentle reminder he is still 12) . He would, though kiss him on his forehead every day at least once as they rushed to get dressed.

          “I love you, and we are happy together, ” his father would assert like a universal truth. But Minho wanted a lunch box and a clean uniform.

         “Why do you sit here everyday? ”
          “My mother is a teacher in the school and she comes looking for me with a lunch box. I sit here and wait for her to leave. ”
 
       “Where's the lunch box then? ”
       “I don't take it. She waits and she takes it back. ” The patchy boy starts to laugh.
        “what? ”
        “It reminds me of a ghost-woman from Hollywood movies who wears white clothes who roams about with a candle in her hand. ”

Minho frowned. “She's not a ghost. ”
         “I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I don't know why I said that, ” they boy said. Minho went back to taking the pen apart. “I heard your story. I don't see why anyone should talk about it. If you were on US, you would be in majority. Divorce rates are 54.8 percent there (as google siad it was in 2014).”