36 MINUTES TO FALL, jaemin ✓

36 | personal problem

❝ Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.❞

"Oh." Yumi bit her lip, wondering if she should say it. The biggest thing outside of her problems with her parents at the moment sounded pretty pathetic in her head. "I don't think it's really worth it..."

"Nothing is considered stupid as far as the confessions we're doing right now go."

"Yeah, but..."

"Are you afraid I'll judge you? Because I'm afraid of the same, but I'll go for it anyway."

"So you're saying your problem is kind of dumb too?"

"Yep. So what's stopping you? You know I won't call it that. Because chances are that it is serious to you. Some things may sound dumb but matter. Go for it."

"Okay..." she took a deep breath. "I'm jealous of my cousins."

"You are?"

She continued, not allowing him to question that. "They've always been the golden kids of the family. The ones who've never stepped a foot outside the ridiculous rules and boundaries their parents have set them no matter how much they hate it. The ones my grandparents can't stop fawning over and telling me to be more like. It's as if because I don't have siblings, they're the replacements. They know I hate it and they hold it over my head, too. 'You'll never be as good as us, Yumi,' 'you will never win their approval going the way you are,' crap like that. Always. Whenever I see them. It's unbearable."

"So it's resentment, too, isn't it?"

"Yes." She stared at the window without seeing it. "Every time they're here, I try to get out of the house as fast as I can. Just seeing them makes me so annoyed and ruins my entire mood. I remember my birthday last year. It was supposed to be just me and my friends, but of course my mom had to invite those—" she paused, stopping herself from pointless name-calling "—them. They're family, but I was going to go out with my friends before the party the family was having that night. She forced me to take a few of them along and it was absolute hell. The whole time we were walking there..."

"They sound nasty. Like my sister."

"Honestly, your sister sounds like she'd get along great with them."

"Do you want me to assess your feelings about it?"

"Sure."

"I think you're justified to feel jealous and resentful," Jaemin announced. "Mainly since they're being jerks about it. But also, and this might sound hypocritical coming from me, you should try to...reconcile with them? Did you ever have a good relationship?"

"Nope. As far as I can remember, it's always been like this."

"I see...well, I think you should try to mend it, then. They're still family. And if that doesn't work, remind yourself that you're still better than them. You're not the one being a jerk about everything, are you?"

"No."

"Then? I think you have something to pride yourself on!"

"Okay, you've proved your point," Yumi said, laughing. "You're adorable when you get like this, you know. Proving your point with logic and summarizing everything."

"Glad to know you think I'm adorable," Yumi heard the smile in his voice as he said it. "Ready to hear my dumb problem?"

"In your words: some things may sound dumb but it matters. Give me a glimpse into the bad side of your life yet again."