It Begins and Ends with Death (and inbetween, we found love)

Prologue i

it was hard to breath, both with the low mattress practically suffocating him and his stuffed nose. it didn’t help that the floorboards smelled wet and stale when he breathed in through his only currently working nostril, when the mucus thinned to be able to snort up and swallow. recalling what his brother had told him this morning, he was sick, and at the worst time and wrong place.

jaemin couldn't even remember the last time he was sick, maybe because the last time he had, disgusting human like creatures hadn't evaded his home and stolen his cough syrup. or that was what Yuta had told him anyway when the six year old boy had complained about his itchy throat. apparently, the nasty looking people took it all, and took mommy and daddy with them.

if jaemin had to be totally honest (he usually wasn't, not because he liked lying, but because Yuta would worry too much if he told the truth), he didn't really understand much of any of this. he didn't understand where the nasty people had come from, because he knows they weren't there before. doesn’t understand why they'd broke into the house some days ago and looked really angry (or were they sad? jaemin couldn't tell) and moaning, until yuta had picked him up in his arms and had ran out, heavy bag on his shoulder. jaemin wants to know why the humany things somehow had taken the cough syrup that he needed now (were they sick too?) and made him unable to ever see his parents again, as Yuta says.

what he does understand, however, is why he's under a random bed in a random house. knows that they were being chased by the ugly, horrible people, and how his hyung had ordered him to hide, quickly so they wouldn't see him. hurry and hide nana, under the bed. but do not come out, not until i come get you.

the sounds of clashing and grunts and moans is all he can hear from downstairs, and it sounds really scary, so jaemin hopes yuta is hiding too. there were tons of places to hide in the house, small enough places where his brother might fit. like the low cupboard he'd seen as they ran through the kitchen or the bathtub, that was big enough. he new the bathtub was good for something, but jaemin really couldn't put his mind on what.

not when the clashing from downstairs seemed to be getting louder.

jaemin wanted to scream, to get out of beneath the mattress he was under and take his hyung by the hand and run out. he wanted to be anywhere but there, anywhere. he wanted to be at the park with jeno, teasing him about his big boy crush on renjun, the kid in there first grade class who always drew moomin. wanted to eat ice cream cones of a million flavors at the park while yuta pushed him on the swings, wanted to give jeno a big ‘you did it’ high five for the hundredth time after renjun kissed jeno’s cheek on the slide.

jaemin wanted to be coloring pictures of him and Yuta and mommy and daddy, just to be put on the fridge to admire during dinner. but no, jaemin had to be stuck under this bed for whoever knows how long, until yuta came back to come get him and take him somewhere safe.

~~~

when yuta was the youngest he could remember, he'd always thought that the scariest thing he would encounter would be a bug in his room. that a huge bug with large antennas would crawl up on his wall and be unable to reach or kill, and that he would have to be subject to staring at it until his daddy came home, just to make sure it wouldn't go anywhere.

when yuta was a bit older, he'd thought the scariest thing he would encounter would be abandonment, and that he would be forgotten. that as a 12 year old single child, the new baby that would soon come would make both mommy and daddy forget about him completely. it didn’t happen though, because when baby jaemin was born mommy and daddy cared for both of them equally, even though yuta felt that he had started loving the baby more than he loved his parents.