autumn, november 14
徐明浩
xu minghao
why does the problem make no sense? if he's read it countless times, studied countless hours for that specific question, spent countless days upon it‒ he should've gotten it by now.
minghao lets out a sigh and hastily rakes his long fingers through his silky hair, which is now beginning to look and feel like hay. the air conditioner is broken and though it's beginning to get cold outside, he sweats gallons.
the digits on the electric clock that sits besides his lamp have increased and mocked him every time they've done so. he hates the clock.
his feet twitch and kick around, the long period of time they've spent just staying still are beginning to make them restless. he's restless. yet his mind is at the speed of a snail's and he still feels like screaming at the top of his lungs.
but it's not the problem that doesn't make sense (though the hangul and the numbers fail to produce a solution in his head), it's the threats he's beginning to get from his sister and parents.
his sister is begging him to stay and join the same university she is, to preserve the lie she used so she could come to korea. if her parents found out about the lie, or even wanted to visit, it'd mean the end of her life. literally. well, actually no. but, it was serious.
he's angry at himself for having agreed to followed with his sister's lie when he could've used the doe eyes he has and sat his parents down just to have told them the truth. but he didn't.
the only reason he was here in korea was because his sister had gotten pregnant by some ugly douche, who hadn't even had the courtesy to leave a single trace of his existence once she gave him the news. now, minghao has never really been close to her but he's been close enough to trust her and apparently, she has, too.
so, after she came to him, crying and truly afraid of what everyone in the small city would say, he agreed to heed to her decisions.
even though minghao had literally no actual clue of what or where he wanted to studyーnot to mention that he hadn't even actually thought about it, he complied to lying to his parents and telling them that he wanted to study in korea.
they were pretty shocked at first, but since he had never really made a decision about his future before, they wanted to support him. and they did.
so, even though they pitched in some money to help him with starting up his education, he was forced to use the money from the 'rocket jar'.
the 'rocket jar' was a jar he had never spent in his life, not even a single coin or anything. he and chenhsin had started it when they were four years old and maybe it was way before that. he can't remember. they had known each other for such a long time.
the 'rocket jar' was a jar that they both had to fill with half of the money they each received from anything. it was the money they'd use to travel the world with. their plan, he still vividly remembers, was to build a rocket, rescue pandas from the bad people, steal a million egg rolls, and visit every country in the world. they weren't supposed to touch it until the day of their graduation.
but he had to.
breaking it to chenhsin had been the worst thing of all. on the day he had to tell her was also the last month before school was supposed to start and chenhsin had worn a huge smile on her face when she saw him.
he'd never seen a person go from happy to sad so quickly in his life. it was sunny that day, so it didn't make sense. she had yelled at him, shoved him a few times, and even punched him in the face. chenhsin ignored him for a week.
the 'rocket jar' had earned him two plane tickets, an apartment, an enrollment in the nearest school, hangul books, and they still had some left.
and the one promise he clung onto like a child to its mother was the one he had made to chenhsin. i'll come back, he promised. to you.
he lets out a scream, one that's emitted from deep within his diaphragm, and doesn't even care about how many times his voice cracks. he's just tired.
the dance competition soonyoung had signed him and his friends up for was on chenhsin's graduation day, or at least the day they were supposed to graduate together. the 'rocket jar' would have still been full. he screams louder.
and now, he's going to have to stay even longer with his sister, begging him to stay for the university close by. the baby will have been born by then. she wants to keep him or her. minghao isn't very fond of this baby. at least for now.
not to mention that his father is pressuring him to make him proud, and by that, he means that he wants minghao to follow in his footsteps to become an engineer. apparently, now that he's thousands of miles away, his father automatically cares about him.
minghao is bitter. he's angry.
his phone vibrates, perhaps with more 'i love you's' from his father. this is how he bribes him. does minghao buy it? he wants to. all he had ever wanted was to make him proud.
but it's not his father. it's the girl from his economics class. xialin.
a blush creeps upon his face as he immediately answers, letting his restless foot rest upon the suitcase he still hasn't unpacked from the move. it's the one that chenhsin packed. maybe he won't unpack it.
