Memory

Missing Something

He felt a chill creeping up his arms but he didn't make a move to gain any warmth. Thoughts and memories fogged up his brain as the sound of an engine starting squeezed its way through.

He checked the time, the numbers he got from his car were a few minutes ahead but he figured it would be okay to leave out the math.

According to his car time, he had 20 minutes to get to his house which was only 10 minutes away. He figured he could drive around for a while to try and clear his mind. The cafe parking lot began to strangle him.

He couldn't stop thinking about Doyoon, and the amount of pain he must be feeling.

-

Seungcheol stuck his tongue out at his group of friends and left the kitchen station. He glared at them from afar, particularly at the new kid. They wanted to make him feel welcomed, having come from China and all. He wondered to himself why someone else couldn't have left. He was usually always there. He remembered Jeonghan pointing out that was exactly why he needed to leave.

In kindergarten, Jeonghan was always the 'mom' when they played and Seungcheol would be the 'dad' with Wonwoo as their 'son'. When Joshua moved to Tailka in the middle of first grade Jeonghan wanted him to play the father role. Seungcheol fought about it for a moment, he was older than both of them and it didn't make sense but Jeonghan stressed that they were just pretending anyway.

Seungcheol got a few other 'brothers' over the years. In second grade, Joshua and Jeonghan 'adopted' Hoshi and Jun into the family. Around the start of third grade, Seokmin came. The maximum number of people that could play in the home setting was reached, which now explains Seungcheol's situation.

He was kicked out of the play area, the new kid from China met Jun on the way to the daycare center and Jun demanded they were to let him play with them. The teacher overheard and told them the six-person rule still applied so someone had to leave.

Seungcheol looked around the daycare center. He didn't want to color, and if he painted he would get it on the shirt and he did not want to relive the time his mother saw the stain from his sandwich, he never had another grilled cheese in his lunch after that.

There were Legos but those were always hard to clean up, he obviously wasn't going to read or do his homework, it was boiling hot outside, blocks were the only answer.

He asked the daycare worker if he could go to the other room, they led him through two doors. There were beanbags and carpets, Seungcheol wished he took naps when he was still young enough for them.

There he saw Jihoon, whom he never knew stayed at the daycare. He smiled even though Jihoon didn't see him, he was in the far corner building something by himself. He made his way over after thanking the worker.

"H-Hi Jihoon," he stuttered. The other hummed but never looked at Seungcheol. He was trying to set a red cube over a blue rectangular prism so there would be no sides hanging over. He seemed to be concentrating hard.

"What are you trying to build?" The other shrugged, still focusing on the building blocks, he stacked all the foam ones before using the wooden ones.

"I think it'll make that-" The sentence was cut off by the sound of wood clanking together and Jihoon's whine. "Don't glare! I'm sorry for disturbing your focus, the blocks will keep falling if you put the wooden ones on top, though. You should put them on the bottom, like this." He cautiously reached for the wooden blocks, nothing stopped him from taking it. He set it up exactly how Jihoon did with the foam.