[ENG] 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 || 𝖧𝖺𝗇 𝖩𝗂𝗌𝗎𝗇𝗀, 𝖫𝖾𝖾 𝖬𝗂𝗇𝗁𝗈

1 - 𝐇𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐬;

POV: Hayami

It was a Monday, and I woke up in my best friend's bed as usual. Lee Minho, my friend since we were 4 years old, was still sleeping peacefully under the comfortable sheets of his bed. I sighed as I noticed the horrible headache I had, probably because of the party we attended yesterday. It was a habit we had: going out every weekend to a party, whether on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, although we tried to avoid the latter. Clearly, this week had been an exception to that. I got up carefully, not wanting to wake Minho. I grabbed one of the uniforms he had in his closet (since I stayed so regularly, I had my own share in his closet), put it on, and then decided to wake him up.

I approached the bed and kissed him on the forehead, I always tried to wake him up gently since his mood wasn't usually the best in the mornings. I frowned at the boy's lack of response, and decided to speak.

- You'll be late for school if you don't wake up, Min.

I only got a grunt in response from the redhead, which made me frustrated until an idea occurred to me.

- Min, your mother is at home, if I were you I would hurry up and get ready.

The boy quickly sat on the bed without hesitation for another second, surprising me a little on the spot. He had lied to him about his mother, she was absent today as she usually was almost always because she was going to drink, take drugs, gamble or maybe even worse things. Still, it was the best excuse I could think of to pick Minho up.

- My mom is at home? - he asked with his hoarse, just-woken-up voice, sounding somewhat agitated.

Minho had never gotten along with his mother, not since his father abandoned them, causing her to become an alcoholic, a drug addict, a gambling addict, and even worse considering she was still relatively young. It was a shame that a woman of only 34 years old wasted her life like that, but it was her own decision at the end of the day.

- It was simply to make you get up faster, she's not here, you can calm down - I explained.

He sighed with relief and looked at me, noticing that I was already dressed in the uniform and ready to go to school.

- Now I'll change and we'll go together, wait for me downstairs.

I nodded at his words and left his room with the straps of my backpack already placed on my shoulders, closing the door to his room behind me. I reached the living room and decided to grab a green apple from Minho's refrigerator, taking a bite and causing the acidic liquid of the fruit that I liked so much to flood my mouth. I was still hungover from the day before, so I took some water and a pill to relieve the headache that was killing me. It didn't take long for Minho to come down, greeting me with little enthusiasm and giving me a small reluctant smile. He was really cranky in the mornings, and I guess his hangover didn't help the cause either.

- Come on? I don't want to be late - I said, seeing that it was already around 7:48am.

- Why can't you be more like me? I don't understand why you worry about your studies if you're bad at it anyway - he complained, walking with me towards the door of his house.

- I have a father to make proud - I responded.

He simply sighed and continued walking beside me. My relationship with my mother was horrible: she took every opportunity she had to hit me without caring about the damage she might cause me physically and mentally, so over time I learned to heal my own wounds. Even so, my father was the complete opposite of her. He took care of me when I wasn't traveling for work, tried to get my mother to stop hitting me, and worked hard to support me. So the least I could do for him was to have at least decent grades.