Smoke Me.

Chapter 51: Probing

AN: This and the next 4 chapters are from Namjoon's perspective.

The first time I ever researched mental illness wasn't because of my mom's behavior. But because of dads.

It was after I went to his work one day because he told me to bring some papers he needed from home. That was when I witnessed him teaching for the first time.

He had a smile on his face for the entire time and he was speaking with a volume that I'd never heard him use. Moving around so freely like he was weightless.

I was only a small child, but I strongly felt like there must be something ill about it.

That the man who had barely ever talked more than was necessary when he was at home, who barely ever left his seat by the back door, or who'd smile only once a few months couldn't be the same man who was speaking loudly with a smile while pacing.

To make sure he wasn't just having one good day, I went back again and from then on, I started sneaking into his classes and I'd listen to him for hours even when I didn't have the faintest clue what he was talking about.

After intensive research, I concluded that he had a severe case of split personality disorder.

That would've explained everything.

It was only when I realized that I too acted differently when mom was near and when she wasn't. And that whatever it was called, it was an illness and we must've both had it.

Only out of fear of shame at that idea did I arrive at the assumption that it wasn't necessarily ours. Hence, I pointed my tiny finger at the only person left.

Since it could've as well been mom's illness.

Every time she was near, her disease must've made us ill as well.

Because she was never happy. Hell. She was never in a good mood. This is why we could never express any kind of happiness, no matter how small or natural.

It made her mad.

She didn't seem to understand what it meant. It was like a threat to her.

Me, smiling as a child scared her more than me crying.

But when she was drugged out of her mind or drunk to the point that she was blacked out in her room; that's when I truly believed she was experiencing some sort of joy.

I wasn't entirely certain since she wasn't able to talk or express herself during those moments, but sometimes, I'd catch her smiling after she's injected her veins with something.

Dad smiled only when she wasn't there to see it. Especially, when we were alone. Just the two of us. Whispering in the dark about unimportant things.

To this day, I couldn't recall most of what we used to talk about because it was never something dramatic or important like it was whenever mom and I talked for longer than two minutes.

But I do remember asking him how he'd met mom and how did they have me. It was a question that arose within me after reading a book about how two lovers met each other and had a child. Whereas most stories would've ended when the two got married. This particular one kept going.

And I remember him hunched over a book, saying that he doesn't remember much about it. Only to look up, touching his glasses like he usually did, and as if he was lost in thought, went on to tell me that it's been too long ago and that it happened without him noticing much. There wasn't any grandiose event like in that story. He simply blinked her way and before he knew what was happening, she was everywhere and everything.