Watching Over You • Nomin

seven

It was an unexpectedly warm Friday evening when Jeno decided to visit his parents. He packed his University backpack with the basic stuff he thought he needed to survive the weekend.

It's been months. He thought to himself. He did talk to them regularly but he was missing them a lot. And practically begged his mom for him to stay more than a day. 

Beg because his mother didn't want him to stay for too long and didn't want Jeno to have a mental breakdown over remembering his past. He did gulp down a little bit of fear and anxiety. The house was completely safe now. Of course, it is. Who would be writing letters to him, now that it's been more than a year? Nobody would be that obsessed or jobless, right? 

“You can visit a doctor… it's never too late.” his mother said. 

“A doctor?!” For what? I'm not crazy, mom!”

“You don't need to be,” his father said. “Therapy can be everyone, you know, just to get things out of your head and it would help you to deal with your thoughts and to cope with stress,” he added. 

He looked at his mother as she nodded. “We are just worried for you,” she said softly. 

Just a normal Friday night and Jeno expected to have dinner just talking about random things but here he was with his parents who he was meeting after months and in Jeno's reality he was having a discussion to meet a doctor because they thought he was going crazy. (Which he was)

Great. He thought. 

After dinner, they sat down and watched a movie and talked for a while. Jeno was feeling much lighter as if the world around him was healing. 

Walking back into his room after ages felt completely weird. It was still the same but much neater than he could ever maintain.  

“Are you sure about this?” Jeno's mother asked. 

He took a deep breath and smiled at her “Yeah,” he said. 

After he had made his bed, he spent a few more minutes just talking to his parents. Nothing in particular but everything instant in his mind. They asked about his friends and he would blabber. Jaemin in particular but nothing particular about their relationship. His parents knew a great deal about him, Mark, or even their parents when they visited the city during holidays or celebrated different occasions together.

“So you didn't meet anybody new?” his mother asked while she was brushing his hair with her fingers lovingly while Jeno relaxed on the bed.

“What's with you?  This question is always constant. I told you about Yangyang, didn't I?”

“Yeah and?”

Jeno thought about two or three others he talked to in the corridor or met in the classroom but they weren't his friends. But then he remembered Jiya, he didn't mention her mainly because she was the reason why he couldn't meet them in the first place. 

But today, it just happened. When he told them about how he met her and now they were sort of friends, he saw his parents look at each other, like, thank god he's meeting new people or some telepathy messages only his parents understood. 

That reminded him of his relationship with Jaemin and that made him smile. 

He didn't mention anything weird about her. She wasn't of any harm to him, yet, yeah she was crazy but everybody has their craziness in them. He was pretty sure that's exactly how she would justify herself. 

Those few more minutes soon turned into an hour. 

“Well…” his father began when Jeno seemed like he was tired. “You can still sleep downstairs if you want to.”