seoul boy~ minsung

F i v e

Minho has a couple of bad dreams. In one the mountain lion with its glinting yellow eyes jumped through his bedroom window and ate him in big greedy bites before he could even scream. In another, he was lost in the hills, in the green and the rock, in the miles of it. No one came to find him. No one, he thought, even noticed he was gone.
Jisungs father hadn't killed the cougar. At least Minho hadn't heard gunshots. When his grandfather and mr. Han has come back, they'd had cherry pie and homemade ice cream, and had talked of other things.
Deliberately. Minho knew all about that adult ploy.
Nobody would talk about what had happened until he and jisung were in bed and couldn't hear.
Resigned to and resentful of his prison, he did his chores, are his meals, played his Nintendo switch. He hoped, if he did what he was told he'd get a parole day and be able to go back to the Han farm and hang out with jisung more.

He ate his breakfast of flapjacks, as his grandmother called them, in sickened at the old kitchen table she fiddled around at the stove. His grandfather was already outside doing some farm thing. Minho ate slowly, even though the Nintendo switch was forbidden at the table, because when he finished he'd have to go outside for chores.
Lucy poursed coffee into a thick white mug, then brought it with her to sit across from him. "Well Minho, you've been with us two Weeks now."
"I guess"
"That's about all the brooding time you're going to get. You're a good, bright boy. You do what your told and you don't sass. At least not out loud."
There was a look in her eyes a smart look, not a mean one, that told him she knew he sassed in his head. A lot.
"Those are good qualities. You also tend to sulk and day say boo to a goat and drag around here like you're in prison. Those aren't such good qualities."
He said nothing, but wished he'd eaten his breakfast faster and escaped. He hunched his shoulders, figuring they were going to have a discussion. Which meant , from his experience, she'd tell him all the things he did wrong, and how she expected more, and he was a disappointment.
"I know your mad, and you've got a right to be. That's why you got these past two weeks."
He blinked at his plate and a line of confusion formed between his eyebrows.
"The fact is, Minho. I'm mad for you. Your parents did a selfish thing, and didn't take you into account when they did it."
He brought his head up about an inch, but his eyes lifted and met hers. Maybe it was a trick, he thought, and she was saying that so he'd say something bad. So he could be grounded if punished. "They can do what they want."
"Yes, they can." She nodded beiskly as she drank her coffee. "Doesn't mean they should. I want you here, and so does your grandpa. I know he doesn't say much, but I'm telling you the truth. But that's a selfish thing, too, for us. We want you here, we want to get to know our only grandchild, have time with him we never got much of before. But you don't want to be here, and I'm sorry for that."
She was looking right at him, right at his face. And it didn't feel like a trick. "I know you want to be home," she continued "with your friends. I know you wanted to go to a dance club for summer. Yeh, I know about that."
She nodded again, and sipping coffee stared off hard out the window. It seemed she was mad, as she'd said. But not at him. She really was sort of mad for him.
And that was something he didn't understand. That was something that has his chest getting all right and achy.
"I know about that." She repeated. " a boy your age doesn't get a lot of say, a lot of choices . They'll come, but  this stage you just don't have them. You can make the best out of what you've got, or be miserable."
"I just want to go home." He hasn't meant to say it. Only to think it. But the words came right out, pushing out of that right, achy chest.