Shinee Fic Drop

Presents from Minho: JongHo

You see, the thing about Jonghyun is he doesn't take anything for granted nor does he whine about the things he doesn't have despite the desperate need for food and other basic necessities. He knows his parents are trying their hardest and that's what matters most to him.

Moving across the world to a city in the state of Washington was frightening to a boy at the age of six, but he was finally happy to be adopted and Jonghyun soon found a family that loved him and this is where he learned not to take things for granted. That it was until he hit the age of fourteen and the tables turned just a bit. Coming from an adoptive family, Jonghyun imagined his new life would be perfect and he would enjoy an ideal family type environment and it was like that for the longest time but all good things come to an end.

At fourteen his adoptive parents divorced and Jonghyun lived with his asshole of a father in a rundown, epitome of the grunge scene style, 2 bed room apartment in the heart of Seattle's ghetto. His father dedicated his new free life away from his ex-wife to drinking and prostitution resulting in lack of funds at home which caused Jonghyun to work high tail to save the apartment and pay rent. He was a little late every month but the land Lord understood the situation at hand. He and Jonghyun conversed little. The landlord knew Jonghyun wasn't living in a healthy environment for a kid his age but Jonghyun always smiled and assured hid landlord he was okay and living happily.

Jonghyun wasn't the happiest though. He dreaded having to work in the shitty liquor store down the street, stocking shelves and ringing up booze illegally since he was far too young the work there. One month he was short a hundred dollars and had to seek himself for a single night. It didn't faze him, but the memory is a bit haunting.

To most people, this would seem terrifying and they would pull Jonghyun from his home and ship him in a priority rate box to DCFS immediately. This is why Jonghyun only disclosed this information to Minho, his Korean friend from overseas who lived in the city Jonghyun had been born in.

Somethings Minho knew, others he didn't. Jonghyun didn't tell him about the occasional slaps on the ass from his father or the constant mopping of vomit due to alcohol poisoning or even the fact that he was paying his own way to live at the age of 16. Minho was a year younger, Jonghyun didn't want him to worry.

A school assignment was how Jonghyun and Minho met each other. Teachers from each of their schools paired up students one from America and the other from Korea who were likely opposites and forced them to write to each other for a grade. Jonghyun was really the only kid eager about the assignment. He saw it as an opportunity to make friends since he had none. (Other than Chuck the landlord and Steven the liquor store owner.)

The American kids were instructed to write first and so Jonghyun broke out his pad and paper. He wrote:
Hi Minho, I'm Jonghyun. Our letters will be translated I'm told so I hope everything turns out as correctly as it can! I'm eager to learn more about you and hope we become friends this way.

It was simple, Jonghyun didn't want Minho to think he was weird or anything so he'd wait for Minho to kick-start the conversation. Jonghyun learned that Minho was kind of lazy. He was an incredibly caring and generous person but was always slow in replying to Jonghyun's letters. It was annoying but Jonghyun got used to the swing of things. Even after the assignment ended, Jonghyun and Minho still wrote to each other. They told written stories and gossiped about the other kids that go to their schools. Jonghyun was happy with his relationship with Minho until he started changing.

He wrote once, Jonghyun do you have a computer at home?

And that was it. Minho's responses were solely about computers and no matter how much Jonghyun tried changing the subject, Minho would persist until Jonghyun would reply with a "No, I don't have a computer. I do my school work in the library."