To See The Moon

Too Much

     I profusely apologize for the existence of this chapter.

     When Minho felt himself piled under layers of blankets, he thought he was already dead.

     Except... he couldn't be. Not when he was still breathing, still moving, still feeling the itch of the thin sheets as they sheltered him like a nest. Especially not when the chilly breeze penetrating their so-called promised warmth alerted him to the fact that he couldn't be in the hospital.

     Minho was around eight years old. This was a memory he didn't recognize. He didn't remember much about his old Alley home. He certainly didn't remember a rough voice humming a simple tune, faint to his ears buried under the sheets, but still recognizable.

     This humming couldn't be called melodic, much less a song. The woman's voice was weak and distracted, hastily skipping past notes, each one feeling like only a sliver of a sound before it got lost in the wind. But to Minho, it sounded like the most beautiful piece of music. The lazy voice was carefree, happy. It made him feel the same way.

     The humming stopped. "Come on, Minho dear, get out from under the blankets. You won't be able to breathe under there." Minho recognized this voice to belong to his mother. It sounded clearer this time, less like the muffled underwater murmurs of his usual memories. Something felt off, yet perfectly in place at the same time.

     "I don't care!" Minho's voice came out as a pout. He was very annoyed and felt as stubborn as a rock. "I want to go inside the club!"

     A sigh. "Minho, we went over this. Your father would love nothing more than to take you inside the club so you can be closer to the music. But he isn't a member."

     "Then he should become one!" A childish complaint, a rigid stance. It was the type of behaviour one would cringe at years later. But it made all the sense to Minho right now.

     "That costs money." His mother explained this patiently, but her words were stressed. As if she was getting tired of explaining the same thing over and over again.

     "It's not fair that other people have money and we don't!" Minho snapped. He hoped his yells would carry through the blankets. Maybe he should get out after all...

     "That's just how life is-"

     "BUT IT ISN'T FAIR!"

     And now, the sheets above Minho were wet, collected trickles of his tears like raindrops. He whimpered, now feeling very small in his little nest. It was getting harder to breathe.

     "Oh, Minho..." The sheets were lifted up and Minho didn't resist. The cold hit him in seconds, but so did the fresh air. He took huge gulps of it, trying to keep his tears in. He never knew back then that in a few years' time, he would forget what it was like to feel those streams of tears, carrying all of his burdens away.

     "Come here, my little light."

     "Stop... saying that," Minho muttered, barely over a whisper. His stubbornness was replaced with guilt. "I don't know what a little light is, but I don't think boys who are that would yell at their mothers like this."

     "Everyone is light, Minho." The woman was now sitting next to him on the bed, but Minho didn't look up. It was a tiny twin bed with a lumpy mattress, so Minho still felt squished against the warm figure.