The Tells of a Different Childhood

88. Younger Au - Apologies

Kang almost narrowed his eyes. The kid hadn't fallen asleep, which was to be expected after he slept for a full eight hours plus a few more hours and the whole fiasco with the catheter. It wasn't surprising that Squirt was no longer sleepy.

But what was surprising, was the fact that the kid wasn't making eye contact with him. Squirt, who had a very prominent habit of keeping eye contact with people, just wasn't. He would make eye contact with Kang, but after a split second, he was flicking his eyes away, breaking it off.

At the moment, Squirt was lying on his side, his back towards Kang, and Kang was sure the kid would be fiddling with the blanket again, picking at the threads. A nervous habit that Kang had no idea had developed, but it was a sign either way that something was making Squirt nervous. He just had no idea what was making his kid nervous.

The sudden words almost gave Kang whiplash. "I'm sorry."

"What?" It came out without thinking, and when he saw the boy stiffening up, Kang tried to smooth over the bad start. "For what? For being sick?" because that definitely was not a reason to be sorry about. Well, maybe Squirt should have been sorry about hiding his stomach ailment, but Squirt had already apologized. So, what was making him apologize again?

Without looking at Kang, the teenager pulled his shoulders higher, ducking down his head as if he was trying to hide. Something was definitely wrong if Squirt found the urge to hide like that. "No. just...I'm sorry." He repeated as if that did anything to clear it up.

He stood up, "I get that," Kang said as he walked around the bed to face the kid, but again, the boy made brief eye contact before he looked away. Something was wrong. "But I don't know what you're sorry for. Did something happen?" But what could have happened? Kang had been there almost the entire time, so was it with the hospital staff?

But that didn't make sense, because if it was something with the hospital staff, then why would the kid be apologizing? To him of all people? Squirt would have been telling him what happened instead of apologizing.

Squirt rolled onto his back, turning his head to face the window, his fingers picking and fraying at the threads and unraveling the hem. "Yeah." he said quietly, and Kang couldn't deny the anxiety that filled him.

So, something did happen? But what exactly happened? "Is that what you're sorry about?"

He nodded. "Yeah." which still didn't clear anything up. Just what the hell was the kid sorry about? What happened where he was acting like that?

He got straight to the point because he was getting concerned. "Do you want to tell me what happened?" Kang asked. Was it bad? Good? Concerning? Was something wrong with his body again? Was he in pain? What was he sorry for?

Unfortunately for Kang, that was enough to make the boy clamp up again. His fingers stopped picking at the blanket, his lips a thin white line.

Kang backtracked. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." He didn't mess up, did he? Kang knew how his boy worked and he knew that if he had accidentally overstepped a boundary, then Squirt was going to withdraw into himself. If that happened, then Kang was going to have to coax the kid out of his shell just so he could be comfortable with him again, forget finding out what was making Squirt act like that. "I just want to know if it was something bad." That was all Kang wanted to know, he wanted to know if Squirt was harboring a bad experience, or if he was harboring bad thoughts. The last thing he wanted for his kid was for those thoughts to fester into something worse and plague his mind.

His mouth opened a few times as if he was trying to figure out a way to say it, only to fail every time. "I...don't know..." Squirt said slowly, a sigh deflating his frame as he admitted it.