my castle's crumbling... | park ji-sung x male reader

four

m/n was born to a typical family, its only child. one would think since m/n was the only child he would be treated like a prince – he was.

he was never given insanely high expectations of straight a's – he always easily achieved all of them as a child prodigy. all his parents expected of him was to be healthy and happy. one may think of this family as being too perfect – a child who was a high-achiever and parents who cared only about their child's well-being, but it wasn't. his father always had a bad habit of gambling, causing the family to barely scrape by on whatever leftover foods m/n's mom brings home from her part-time job at nights as a server at a bakery after her full-time job during the days and savings she manage to hide from m/n's father.

his father was never physically abusive though, nor was he ever mentally or emotionally abusive. he was a barely passable father, but a terrible man – splurging all of his family's savings on his terrible addiction conducted at some sketchy and illegal gambling dens downtown.

however, with whatever savings they have, the family tried to have an outing at least once a month, and during one of those outings, his life took a turn for the worse. his parents died infront of him in a store robbery gone wrong when they had just wanted to purchase ice cream for their whining son.

that was when m/n was 8 years old. since then, the vivid image of the blood splatters and his parents' bodies haunted him in his dreams whenever he slept, and the uncomfortable mattress they called a bed that he slept on in the adoption centre did not help either. insomnia stalked him since, causing m/n to be unable to sleep longer than a couple hours.

however, when an elderly couple heard of this tragic incident, they adopted m/n into their lovely home and ensured he was cared for.

when m/n was 9, he found his curriculum too easy (across all fundamental subjects like english, maths, science, and chinese), he asked his teacher for additional questions and worksheets, which he quickly aced through. even when given past papers from grades above his, m/n still managed to breeze through them like a tertiary student given questions of an elementary school student. his teacher quickly escalated these information to the school's principal, who was quickly profounded as well. despite thirty years in the education sector, he had never seen a child prodigy like m/n.

at that same year, m/n was transferred to the mirman school for the gifted, where he was tested with an iq of 140, and was assigned to the mirman school upper grade, which was typically for ages 11-13 years old. he too, quickly whizzed past that. the following year, he was transferred again to a high school, where he condensed five years worth of material into two. by then, m/n's despite his growing needs for school fees which increased exponentially, m/n being able to earn scholarships from schools saved them on the expenses. however, his parents who were stupidly superstitious, abandoned him, believing him to be cursed. soon, he found himself back in the same adoption centre for the next few years.

at 15, he was then able to join a program started by the white house which believed and invested in a selected group of orphans, and by nineteen, he managed to attain a master's in political science. during his years of study, he managed to visit the white house, it was then when he was only 18, was he offered a job by the president, which he gladly accepted upon graduation.

it was during high school m/n met a group of friends who he quickly grew close to. the four were named 'the nerds' among their peers for their studious personality, being the top four in their cohort the entire time (m/n being the top all the time). same as m/n, the three, named eli, olivia, and eric were child prodigies, but specialised in different studies. eli and olivia studied law, while eric studied computer science. by nineteen, they all attained master's in their own specialisations. since then, the four has been successful in their own careers – eli and olivia opened a law firm together with their parents' savings, which they managed to pay back within two months with its success with the two being a well-known litigator and trial attorney respectively, with eric being their part-time private investigator/'tech guy'. eric also worked remotely full-time for a company where he works as a back-end developer.