Flora and Fauna [MINSUNG]

cinq » i run fearlessly and i fear i might lose you, i shout

Jisung and his family moved to England when he was five years old. He still had memories from Korea, but not enough that when, years later, his friend Jack asked what it was like all Jisung could tell him was that the food was good.

He didn't know why they moved, his parents never really explained it. His brother was doing well in school, his parents had well-paying jobs. Yet, they still moved here, where Jisung was constantly bullied for his lack of English and the way he looked. Maybe it didn't help that his parents decided to move to a sketchy place on the outskirts of London, maybe if they had picked a small town in the middle of nowhere it would've been much better.

To make it even worse, Jisung definitely wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Sure, he excelled in some places, art and music, but academically all of his effort was for nothing. Yeah his parents didn't like that. Didn't like that Jisung wasn't like his older brother, didn't like that the younger boy had horrendously low grades.

Not fitting the stereotype everyone expected of him made the bullying worse. Jisung imagined that no matter what the bullying would've got worse, if he was smart, he would've been called a nerd and a sweat, if he was stupid, well then it'd be exactly how his life was like already.

His brother tried to help, tried to tutor him, tried to teach him better ways to study. It was useless.
Jisung's parents tried getting him a proper tutor, but even then his grades still didn't improve.
They gave in slightly after that, paying for him to have piano lessons and took him to art classes held by the local college where he was taught impressionism. He even learned how to ballroom dance, and still couldn't get a passing grade on any test.

His parents letting him dabble in the arts was something he didn't expect, it was more realistic although when they did let him but limited him to only what they allowed. By the time he turned ten, he could play almost any piece on the piano that people asked for, he could create such beautiful paintings, he could dance for so long to classic music that he would wear his shoes down, but he wasn't satisfied.

*

For his eleventh birthday, Jisung's brother gifted him with probably the strangest present he had ever been given. It was a set of five different plants, nothing too hard to look after but definitely enough that it gave the younger boy a sense of responsibility. With the plants he was also given multiple books, one about identifying plants, another about looking after plants, one which explained plant and flower symbolism throughout history and in different cultures.

The gift was strange due to Jisung's previous lack of interest in anything to do with plants and nature. When he asked his brother about it, the older just shrugged it off with an "I just thought you'd like it."

And he did like it, liked it so much that his parents hated it, liked it so much that he asked his neighbours if he could do chores for them so he could start saving money to buy more.

Jisung would like to say his parents were just strict, they liked tradition and keeping rules in place. But he couldn't defend them when they threatened to smash every plant pot he owned, when they threatened to throw him out if bought any more.
So he stuck to their rules, no more chores, no more buying plants, just keep looking after the ones he had.

*

The most curious incident happened to Jisung one day after a long, hard day at school. He had gotten some tests back, failed all of them, so his peers made fun of him for it, mocked him for being stupid. They held him down, leaving bruises on his arms, so they could spit in his face and make him feel one hundred times worse.

When he got home, he locked himself in his room, refused to leave even to eat, cried himself to sleep just so everything would stop. Then he woke up, dehydrated and in pain, he felt so ill and despite being dehydrated he still found a way to cry. He tended to his plants, making sure they stayed healthy was all he needed.