a memory about one of their loved ones, happy or sad + also asked by @gnwoori (tw: mentions of addiction)

// May 2018 

“Mika,” his mother cries, holding his face to her chest. “Please. I’m so worried for you. I’ve been so worried, this whole time…” She brushes her fingers gently through his hair, pressing her lips over and over to the top of his head. He sniffles; he can’t breathe, and the entire front part of his head is burning, but the few tears that come out are out of relief from being in his mother’s embrace, not from any pain. “Please stay home now. Don’t… go out. We can get you help, you can go back to school, or relax for a bit, if you want. Whatever you want, baby. As long as it’s not… no more drinking or drugs or… or whatever it is. Anything but that and we can help you.”

“I don’t know,” he mumbles, letting her tug him even closer. “Everything’s so fucked… I mean… messed up.”

“You’re not allowed to argue with me anymore,” she laughs, missing all of the humour he’s used to hearing from her. “This is a blessing in disguise.” She dries her face with her sleeve, trying to compose herself. “I always told you not to get involved with that company. Especially that guy.”

His manager, she means. She’s never tried to hide her disdain for him. Despite knowing how stupid he sounds, something compels him to argue with her still, “He was just doing his job. It’s not his fault that I’m… like this. Or anything that happened.”

Continuing to smooth down his hair, she leans back. Only a mother’s gaze could hold so much love and disappointment in equal measure. Sighing, she brushes her hand over his cheek and wipes his face. “You don’t need to tell yourself that anymore. You’re free. You’re with us again now. Your room… everything is still there. I’ve been waiting for this day for so long. I promise we’ll take care of you. That’s… that’s all I’ve wanted to do for years.”

There’s nothing that he wants more in the world than for her words to be true. “Okay,” he says, swallowing. “I’ll… yeah. I’ll stay here for a bit.”

“I just want you to be safe. I love you so much,” she says with a sincerity Mika hasn’t heard in months. “You know I’ll always be here for you.”

“I love you too,” he somehow chokes out before the tears come out like a waterfall. She coos at him, whispering words he barely hears over and over; anything so that he can hear her voice and know that he’s truly home. She rocks him back and forth until he falls asleep in her arms, just like a child again.

–– memories ___ 💙༄ a memory that makes them cry

this question leaves a bittersweet taste in his mouth on how easy it is to answer, how fast his answer comes to mind. it still feels like a fresh wound upon his porcelain skin – and while every day seems like it gets better, he can only hope that he agrees with himself. that he believes it gets better.

“being told i couldn’t debut anymore. i’m… it makes more sad that sora or sunggeun didn’t get to. they deserved it more than i did, anyways.”

🅼🅴🅼🅾🆁🅸🅴🆂 🅼🅴🅼🅴still accepting

  💔- a memory that leaves them feeling lonely 

 It’s summer and the heat of the day still sticks to him, sticky beneath his clothes; his mother’s voice, cool and crisp like an autumnal breeze, had sounded from the kitchen as soon as he’d found his way into their home, telling him that it was time for dinner, and they’d not had his excuses, and had made him sit, and eat. 

 It was only once a week that the whole family really sat down like this, and had a proper supper, as every other day his parents were busy at the restaurant, and the last thing they wanted to do was come home and cook another meal. So it was that every Sunday, his mother would cook something special, making one of her beloveds’ favourite dishes as a treat. 

 Tonight, it was his sister’s, and she chattered on in between bites of Spam and rice and carrot, and in between the clatter of metal chopsticks and silver spoons, Eunwoo felt increasingly out of place.

 Nobody asks about his day. How it’s been, or what he’s done. And it’s his own fault, really, because he’d spent whole years resisting that, resisting family, and home, and small talk. So they’d stop asking after it.

 He never really considered in the midst of his rebellion that it’d have this effect, and perhaps he really had no one to blame but himself. 

 It still hurt though, to know that they’d given up on him. 

–– memories ___ 💔༄ a memory that leaves them feeling lonely

loneliness. emptiness. vacancy. it consumes minhyung’s heart, his mind – even in a crowd full of people, in a room wall to wall with souls, he feels lonely. to minhyung, loneliness is just another factor of life – a more prominent one in his, unfortunately. it sucks that he thinks like this – that he’ll think he’ll always be alone despite having friends that love him, despite having parents that care for him even now, even as he’s reached full-fledged adulthood.

he doesn’t like to think about the concept of loneliness – ignorance is bliss, after all, and he would much rather exist in blissful ignorance rather than being reminded he’ll ultimately be lonely in this lifetime. “i guess… when i moved back here. i couldn’t… i-i couldn’t even go back to my parents, it was so embarrassing. even though… even though i knew they wouldn’t turn me away, i just… i-i don’t know. i don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

–– memories ___ ❣ ༄ a memory that leaves them laughing

laughter – sweet, sweet laughter. minhyung cherishes it whenever he can laugh – whenever things can make him laugh nowadays. through all his optimism, his mental hardships take a toll on his psyche, but laughter and humor is always the medicine he needs and craves whenever he’s having the worst of days. “have you ever seen a cat falling into water then try to get out? they look so cute and hilarious – like… they look so funny.” he laughs just thinking about it. “i’ve seen that happen once in my life – it was my neighbor’s cat back when i still lived in seoul, i was looking after it and it fell into the sink when i was washing the dishes. i couldn’t stop laughing.”

–– memories ___ 💓༄ a memory about their friends

“you all really want to know a lot of things about my friends, huh?” minhyung laughs – he doesn’t blame them, they’re much more interesting than he’ll ever be, anyway. “this one time, sori, sunggeun, and i snuck in food into the practice room back when we were trainees. we weren’t supposed to do that – i was trying to tell them we weren’t supposed to do that, but we did it anyway. we didn’t get caught somehow, but we ate to the point that we couldn’t really dance anymore that day. the trainer got really mad at us, and later that night when we got home, we just talked about how it was ridiculous for him to get mad at us for eating.” he smiles, shaking his head at the memory – they were so young and stupid back then.

–– memories ___ 💓༄ a memory about their friends

friends – friends that he hold near and dear to his heart. friends that he knows he can count on in the end. friends that’ll have his back even when the world freezes over twice, combusts three times. it brings a smile to his face, thinking about the good old times – times he used to share. gaenari’s been a place bustling with memories, good and bad, and while the bad memories are the ones he’s haunted by the most, it’s the good he tries to focus on in his daily life. for his sake – for everyone’s sake. “well, there was this one time i was walking someone’s dog for them, and suddenly it started to run without warning – needless to say, i had to buy one of my friend’s lunch because the dog i was dog-sitting ate their lunch. i won’t say who, though – i don’t want to get it out there that their day was ruined by a dog. out of context, that sounds really bad.”

–– memories ___ 💛༄ a memory that makes them feel angry

“angry?” the word rolls off minhyung’s tongue like it’s so foreign – he doesn’t actually experience anger as an emotion. when he’s upset, it usually just goes towards more sadness than anger. maybe it’s because he’s complicit with everything, he would much rather bawl and waste his tears than fight and yell and scream. it’s the way he was raised – his parents always told him that anger wasn’t necessary in most cases, that he really had no reason to be angry at things when if they were just, if he could see things from a multitude of perspectives.

so he doesn’t really have an answer to the question at hand. he shrugs – bows his head. “sorry… i don’t really… get angry.””