Buy me flowers| PJM

F. 35

As soon as I get home, I hear a terrible noise coming from the kitchen. I drop my backpack on the floor and rush to see the cause of the noise. I freeze in the doorstep when I see my brother looking at a broken glass on the floor, as shocked as me.

2 days. It's been two days since I've last seen him. That's why, ignoring the fact that there's a shattered glass on the floor and that Hobi never drops anything, we stare at each other for God knows how long. Before I run to my brother and throw my arms around him, like my life would depend on that.

"I'm so sorry." I say, engulfed in his T-shirt.

He wraps his arms around me and I hear him sniffling, which just breaks me even more. I hug him tighter. And we stay like that for seconds, minutes, maybe hours, before we pull away eventually.

"Yunhae-ah..." He says.

I look at him, waiting for what he has to say next.

"I'm sorry that I've never understood you, why... why you were always trying to help and trying to avoid being helped. I'm sorry." He continues.

The first words that come into my mind are "It's alright."

But it's not.

So I choose to tell him exactly what I feel, with the possibility of starting another fight, with the possibility of exasperating him. I just don't care anymore. I'm tired of hiding, I'm tired of hiding from him. If he's willed to stay, he has the right to know what he's staying for.

"I miss mom, oppa." I say, holding back my tears. "I miss her so much."

He wraps his arms around me and I break down in tears. Truth is, that's the first time I say that out loud. But it feels good to finally do it. It feels good, having the courage to speak in the first place.

"I miss her too, Yunnie..." He sighs. "I miss her too."

And I stay awake all night, thinking about everything that happened today; thinking about the peonies, thinking about JungKook, thinking about Hobi, thinking about my mom.

And like holding your breath, I can't hold back the thoughts that always come when I remember mom. I've figured out that there's no use in trying to chase them away, they won't go until they've wasted my mind completely. I chuckle. Maybe having sickness messing up with my mind might make me fall asleep eventually. That would be nice. Because I feel the exhaustion consuming me.

And maybe, that's the cause why I've been imagining everything that happened in that evening, realizing eventually that my brother has actually been away from home all along.

***

At 6:12 AM I reach second 7920 and I decide it's about the time I do what I've been thinking of doing ever since I went to bed 6 hours ago.

I leave my room and head towards my brother's. The door is cracked open and I can see him sleeping like an octopus on his comfortable bed, messy hair, shirtless and mouth slightly open. I sigh. I don't want to wake him up but the game my mind played for me last night made me realize I can do it any longer. It made me realize we can't just ignore each other. It's been two days. But I miss him already. He's working in the morning and practicing until late in night after that, that's his strategy of avoiding home. I don't have any strategy. It's on my daily basis.

I take a look around his tidy room, which is colored in tones of blue, white and black. Unlike mine, it looks cleaner. In my room, there are clothes, notebooks and papers everywhere. I see the bag he takes to his dance practices thrown in the corner of the room. There are some papers placed carefully on his desk near the window and his shelves with music CDs are untouched. There is also a framed photo of the three of us, mom, him and I. It was taken about 7 years ago. We looked happy. And hell did we know what the future was holding for us.