Household With Eight

Chapter 22

[Felix's POV]

"My home situation hasn't been the best, not even close to it," Jisung starts. "It began when I went to high school. My parents have been hitting me, yelling at me, and such other stuff. My brother left the house as soon as possible and my parents have been fighting even more since then. They actually kicked me out the house, since they thought I'm not worth anything and was too much trouble for them."

Everyone is quiet for a long time, not knowing what to say back.

I feel so miserable and hopeless, since I have no idea how to help. This has been bothering him for a very long time and I didn't even notice it. Not even the slightest bit until we started living with the eight of us.

I have never been at his parents' home before, nor ever met his parents, but I guess that was the reason. I also remember on father and mother's days he was always very quiet but I didn't think anything about it.

Now everything comes into place. The conversation switches whenever we talked about families, the scars on his face, getting startled every time someone increases their voice, you name it.

I guess it's really hard to see if someone goes through a hard time.

The longer I think about how much of a bad friend I was to Jisung, the more my eyes start to water. I try to keep the tears in, but it gets a lot harder every passing second.

"I- I don't know what to say," Chan says, breaking the silence. Jisung smiles weakly at him and shakes his head. "You don't have to say anything. You didn't know, so you don't have to feel bad. It was my decision to stay quiet about this," he answers, trying to make us feel a little lighter, but that doesn't really work. Well, not for me.

"Why didn't you? You know we won't tell anyone if that's what you want," I speak, clearly hearing the sadness in my voice.

"It's not easy to explain it in words. And Minho only knew because he was there when things got out of hand, so I didn't have to tell him anything," the boy one day older than me reassures me, a single tear dropping down his face.

And now it's my time to let the tears roll down my cheeks.

Changbin, who was sitting on the couch behind me, comes sitting next to me on the floor and hugs me from the side to calm me down a little. Hyunjin does the same with Jisung and looks at Minho. "Please tell me you took good care of our quokka while we had no clue of the situation."

Minho and Jisung both need to laugh at that. "Of course I did, what do you think of me?" the older comments and we all crack a laugh at that.

"Is there anything else you want to share with us?  You don't have to if you don't feel comfortable with it," Changbin asks Jisung.

"Well, I've been going to a therapist these last two months and I start to feel it's helping, so that's good news I guess." Minho looks at Hyunjin and raises his eyebrows at him. "That was my idea. Told you I can take care of people." Hyunjin rolls his eyes at him and the rest laughs at him.

Chan claps his hands together and sits up straight. "Anyone else got something to say, now we're opening up? Maybe you, Changbin?"

The said boy shuts his head up to the oldest and shrugs. "I'm an open book. Everything that happened, you know by now." 

Jeongin looks at Seungmin, raising his eyebrows at him. The older rolls his eyes and takes another sip of his hot choco. I turn curious, so my mouth takes over. "Jeongin looked at Seungmin quite suspicious," I spill and Seungmin gives me a death stare, looking right through my soul, making me gulp and regret saying what I said.

Jeongin smirks at the older while the remaining 5 turn as curious as I am, Hyunjin probably even more. "Spill the tea, please," he comments and Seungmin groans.

"Nothing much. My parents don't give a damn about me and when I left the house, the last thing my mom said to me was 'Take care' and I haven't heard of them since," he spills while shrugging. 

Jeongin, whose sitting next to him, nudges him in the side. "You forgot the part you slept in a playground for one night before deciding to head to Chan's place." 

Now, I fear for Jeongin's life.

Seungmin pushes Jeongin away from him but the younger doesn't want to move off the spot on the couch. "Why are you spilling all my secrets now?" Jeongin scoffs at the older and shakes his head at him. "Like you would tell them any time soon. They should've know and I can't keep a secret like that from my best friends for that long, you know that."

Chan looks at Seungmin with a worried face. "Is that true?" The one in question nods his head and looks at him like it's obvious. "Not a big deal."

The latter puts his mug down on the table again and sighs. "Enough said about that, let's end with some good news now. Jeongin, anything to say?" He looks at the younger, who becomes excited. 

"I reached 10.000 followers on TikTok. And that because we are a total chaos," he explains, exclaiming the last part with a little laugh in his voice. Minho raises his hand in the air, Jeongin giving him a high five. "That's my kid."