my last pages 》 nomin

page 13 / 19

It was too quiet. Jaemin grew accustomed to silence, having known nothing different during the majority of his life, but this silence suffocated. His mother wasn't sitting in her chair like usual, and even Jeno was silent.

"Mom?" He called out, placing his book bag onto the floor. He didn't expect a response, and he didn't receive one. "Jeno?"

Now that was alarming. Jeno never ignored Jaemin, in fact, he avoided worrying the boy because of the disappearing act he pulled months prior.

"Jaemin, can you come here, please?" He heard his mother call from her room.

His brows furrowed in confusion, but he followed the voice to its source.

"Why are you home?" He asked as he sat down on the bed next to his sighing mother. She smiled at him.

Her smile was robotic and stiff, nothing like the sly grins and small chuckles he was used too. Jaemin placed a hand over her crossed one's gently.

"Mom?"

"Jaemin, I am so sorry about this." Her smile slipped.

Jaemin moved further away from his mother and stood from the bed. His confusion was instantaneously overwhelmed by horror when his mother retrieved his private diary from behind her curved back.

"You were never supposed to see that," Jaemin argued weakly.

"Why'd you stop taking your pills, Jaemin?"

The teenager blanched, stumbling over his own tongue to reach an excuse. The truth was that Jeno convinced him weeks ago to give up the annoying capsules. They made him "no fun".

"Is it because of Jeno?" His mom asked, flipping through the pages in a condescending manner.

"Leave him out of this."

"Only if you talk to Dr. Lee."

Jaemin didn't remember shutting his mother's door behind him, but when he reached for the brass handle, he found it to be stuck.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

Miss Na walked towards her son, throwing the book to the ground and crumbling the blank pages on her way over. She raised his chin with a sturdy hand and whispered softly,

"What's best for you."

And then the handcuffs came.