This Day | Gyuhao (Threequel to Youth & The Aged)

- 49

| Chapter Forty - Nine — Little Evanescence |

Mingyu doesn't tell anybody about Soonyoung's attempt, and the older boy's beyond thankful. It's like after he got down off that ledge, the world came back to him, reminding him of the many reasons he should've stayed, Mingyu's words like a key.

Soonyoung hugged Mingyu for an hour straight after that, crying into his shoulder and it breaks Mingyu's heart every time his mind wanders back to the moment.

So now, he sits in the living area, the twins on either side of him. They sit on the couch, staring at the television plastered just above the fireplace they never used.

"Can we watch cartoons?" Chaein asks, fingers in her mouth because she's been chewing on everything recently.

"Of course, my baby." Mingyu hands his daughter the remote, "You wanna find one?" He asks quietly, Riki Junior's head rolling to the side as he sleeps the afternoon away.

Chaein reluctantly takes the remote with a few muffled giggles, holding a finger to her mouth like she's telling herself to shush. It makes Mingyu chuckle lightly.

Mingyu gets more situated in his spot, holding Riki Junior closer and watching Chaein flip through endless channels.

There's stuff like Spongebob, and Phineas and Ferb, things like Bluey and Curious George that have Mingyu thinking about all the times he missed watching them when he was little.... forced to watch his father show him what guns were instead of hugging him like this and asking him who his favorite character was was on the TV screen.

His father was evil.

Mingyu doesn't think about him a lot, but gets nauseous every time he does.

He just wishes he had some sort of childhood, wishes he didn't have that fear of being a terrible parent when Minghao and Umji brought up the idea of children.

The most his father had spent time with him was when he was teaching him shooting skills. Mingyu remembers it, flinching at the mere age of 8 years old as he watched the bullet fly through a target's head, leaving a deep, carved out hole in the wood.

It gives Mingyu the chills.

Mingyu misses his mother... misses the man his father used to be when she was around.

He'd drank himself away after her death, even beaten Mingyu a bit out of frustration he didn't know what to do with.

Mingyu's shoulders hurt from having so many unburied trauma piled on his back.

He didn't join this gang...

He was forced to.

One day, a random Wednesday, Mingyu's mother had swiped him from his crib and tried to escape with him swaddled against her chest, only to be captured and pulled back as soon as she slipped past the gate.

His mother wanted to leave his father... she wanted to protect Mingyu and give him the life he deserved.

Mingyu misses her, so much... wishes that she would've been able to meet Minghao and wishes so desperately that they were both still here to smile at the way the twins were growing up, to be here for the small things such as Chaein finally landing on Fairly Odd Parents, snuggling closer to him.

Mingyu remembers telling Minghao about his past...

He'd just told him the basics, sugarcoating the story a bit all whilst not leaving a single slip of the truth out.