You're doing good.

1

What do you do when your parents are arrested right in front of you?

What do you do, when you're only fourteen and left with a six year old and an eight year old to raise?

What can you do, when the authorities threaten to split you up? To send you away from the last people you have? To take away your precious possessions from you cruelly and without remorse?

You grow up, you run, and you fight.

Lee Minho had to witness his parents be incarcerated, his little brothers scream and cry and ask for mommy and daddy. He had to scream, cry, scratch, kick, and punch in order to keep his brothers in his arms and not in the clutches of his enemy. He had to hold Seungmin through a meltdown, he had to coax Hyunjin away from a state of panic. He had to stop the forever struggle to keep his eyes cleared, because he was scared that if he cried, his resolve would break and there goes his only family.

So he bit his lip. He bit back his sobs because damnit, that was his mom and dad too. He had to watch them be dragged away, to be forced into the back of a cop car. He had lost a part of him that day. A piece of his soul he would never get back. The very thing that kept him together most of the time. He lost his mom, who held and kissed him when he needed it. He had lost his dad, who was his very own superhero that saved him from anything bad.

Those were his parents. They were Seungmin's parents, and they were Hyunjin's parents. They looked out for them, they looked out for each other. Drug addicts or not, they loved, and cared, and provided for their children. They didn't miss a single dance showcase Minho did. They didn't dare skip any art lesson Hyunjin attended. They wouldn't have ever dreamed of missing any of Seungmin's school recitals or field trips.

They were addicts. But they were there.

Until they weren't.

And now, Minho has to fill in that void created.

Minho doesn't want to replace his parents. He didn't want to raise the younger boys. He wasn't ready, it wasn't his job. It wasn't fair. Who the hell was supposed to raise him now? Where's his parental figure that helps him live through this hell they call life? What was he supposed to do? He didn't even know what he was doing now. He just knows that they can't be separated. They can't, they won't. Minho won't let it happen.

So Minho shields, and he protects, and he holds those two crying boys close to his chest.

Minho yells, and he cries, and he screams.

The police back off, social workers step forward, Seungmin wails into his shoulder and Minho has to prevent Hyunjin from falling straight to the ground. Minho doesn't have a choice. Even if he did, he'd be an idiot to not choose the right one. He looks at the life in his arms. The tears and pain and suffering of the children he holds and protects; tiny, skinny boy who sit in the palm of his hand. The babies he held in the hospital when they were first born all those years ago.

He squeezes them close, plants a firm kiss to their faces, and Minho grows up, and he runs, and he fights.

He wins the fight after countless hours of tears and screaming.

He ages up ten years while he's at it, but the forced adulthood would forever be worth it if it meant that his Seungminnie and his Hyunjinnie could live the rest of their childhoods as much as they could. He gives up the rest of his life so they can live theirs to the fullest. Seungmin babbles sadly against his shoulder, Hyunjin refuses to speak unless he deems such an action necessary. Minho is lost. So, so lost in such a cruel, confusing situation.

His parents are arrested when he's fourteen.

He gives up his fourteen years of life to play Dad to a six year old and an eight year old.

But nevertheless, he grows up, and he runs, and he fights.

But he lives.
__________________