Changkyun was next. He was gone a good bit longer than Jooheon had been, about half an hour. The difference in time was accounted for by the differences in their moms.
***
"Changie!"
Changkyun smiled at the woman on the other side of the glass, holding the phone tight up against his ear so he wouldn't miss anything. "Hi Mom," he said, his eyes bright.
She tilted her head, and a few strands of her hair fell in her face. She wasn't wearing makeup, and Changkyun was glad because he honestly thought she looked prettier this way. She was young, as she'd had Changkyun when she'd been just nineteen, and even now she was young for a mother at thirty-five. "How's my little boy been?"
Changkyun flushes from the embarrassing epithet but smiled nonetheless since he knew their time was limited. "I'm doing well, Mom. I'm eating a lot and everything. Staying in shape. Doing my best in school." Except math, but she didn't really need to know that.
"That's good, Changie," she said, and her voice was warm and true. "You know I'm so proud of you, right?"
Changkyun nodded, mostly because he knew he was supposed to, but he wasn't really sure if those words were as true as the others. He knew since she'd showed up this week, her boyfriend must be out of town, and she was always a lot more like the mom Changkyun knew and loved when her boyfriend was out of the picture. But when he came back, the makeup would go back on, and she wouldn't seem so young and sweet anymore. But maybe... "Are you still dating him?"
She sighed, her lips twisting downward at the edges. "Do we have to have this conversation, Changkyun? Can't we just-"
"So you are?"
"He's a good guy," she defended, her eyes hardening she she crossed her left arm over her chest. "I know that you don't like him, but he wants what's best for me and if you wanted what's best for me too you'd-"
"I'd tell you that you don't need a boyfriend to know that you're young and talented and beautiful and amazing, Mom," Changkyun said, his eyebrows furrowed as he talked quickly, trying to get his words in before she invalidated them. "I know you feel like you missed some of your youth raising me, but you're still amazing and you don't need a boyfriend to make it true-"
"You're sixteen, Changkyun," she said, pursing her lips and sinking into her chair a little bit. "You think that you understand everything but you don't, okay? I know how to take care of myself so you let me worry about me, all right?" She sighed, and Changkyun frowned. In his mind, it had always been that he would worry about his mom and she would worry about him, but maybe it wasn't that equal. "You know I worry about you too," she said softly as though sensing his thoughts, and Changkyun shifted in his chair uneasily.
"I told you that I'm doing okay here. We got a new kid who's all right. Besides that, it's just the same old same old."
She smiled, and a few wrinkles appeared on the edges of her lips and eyes, wrinkles she didn't like her boyfriend seeing, but Changkyun thought they made her more real. "And the monsters?"
Changkyun looked down, his grip on the phone loosening. "You know," he said, and he hated that he sounded so pathetic and needy. "Of course they're there. They're always there, even if you guys don't see them. I mean, I don't see them either, but I know they're there, that's the difference."
"And what monsters have you been thinking of lately?" she asked, and he looked up, biting his lip, waiting to see if she was going to tease him about it, but she just gave him an encouraging look, and he inhaled quickly, turning his left hand so his fingernails faced himself.
"They're...they're little...and they'll...they'll burrow underneath your fingernails...and they'll kill the skin...I think they lay eggs and that's what kills the skin...and then your fingernail turns black and it'll fall right off," he said, starting slow but picking up the pace. "And because they laid eggs, once the babies hatch, they'll spread to your other fingernails and keep laying more eggs...so...so you gotta be careful about touching things...doorknobs...stuff like that...cause you don't know if the person before you had some that got onto the doorknob cause then they'll get onto you and burrow in and start laying their eggs and you don't want that..."
She nodded, staring at Changkyun without casting a glance at her own fingernails. "Doorknobs, got it. I'll keep an eye out, okay, Changie?"
Chankgyun nodded quickly. He worried about his mom staying safe because only he knew what the monsters were and how they'd get you. He needed to tell his mom so she'd be safe too. "Okay, Mom. Don't forget. Doorknobs."
"Doorknobs," she repeated seriously before smiling slowly at Changkyun. "Changie, our time is almost up," she said before kissing her thumb and pressing it against the glass.
Changkyun hesitated, staring at his thumb and weighing the odds that there were already monsters underneath burrowing into his skin (and what if they got into his throat and started laying eggs there, too?) before quickly kissing his thumb and pressing it against the glass on top of his mom's thumb on the other side.
They held their thumbs there for a second before she took hers away, standing up and adjusting her purse.
"Will you be back next time?" Changkyun asked, sounding desperate again, but he couldn't worry about that now.
"I'm sorry, I don't think I'll be able to make it," she said, glancing down at something, her shoe perhaps, and her hair swung in front of her face before she looked back up at Changkyun. "But I'll see you in a month, okay, sweetie?"
Changkyun fought to keep a frown off his lips, forcing a worried smile on instead. "Okay. Bye, Mom. I love you," he said, biting his lip as he waited to hear the words back.
"Bye, Changkyun," she said, waving. "I love you." She hung up the phone.
Changkyun sighed into the receiver, still holding on to it. He waited a long moment before slowly setting it back in its cradle on the wall, and by that time, he was alone with a ward guard.
***
"How is your mom doing?" Minhyuk, Changkyun's roommate, asked.
Changkyun was quiet for a moment as he tossed responses back and forth. "She's doing well. Still with her boyfriend. She won't make the next one but maybe next month."
"That sucks," Minhyuk said, frowning sympathetically. "But at least she came today, right? At least she cares about you."
"Yeah," Changkyun said, nodding as he slid down into his seat. "At least she still cares about me."
Any possible further conversation was abandoned as the ward guard stepped back into the room. "Chae Hyungwon."
Hyungwon startled in his seat. He'd weighed the odds of his parents visiting, but no matter how many times he re-ran it, they always came out firmly negative. He was an embarrassment to them. He'd been put in here so they could forget the social humiliation of their failed son. He was supposed to be a problem out of sight, out of mind.
So why were they here?
