Sticks, Stones & Broken Bones

Prologue: Sorry Daddy

Chris-hyung hugged me closer while the TV blared Finding Nemo. My younger brothers cuddled up against us older two with our maknae Jeongin in the middle of us. All of us under a warm cozy blanket. Mummy brought a friend home and we convinced him to play Avengers with us for a while until he put on the movie and ran off with Mummy while we weren't looking, but I saw. She held a finger up to shush me when she left. I don't know where she is now.

The rickety timber door quickly opened only to be shut again. "Good Afternoon my sunshines," Daddy took our attention away from the TV. He was back from work and all five of us jumped up to welcome him back home.

Daddy owned a car place. He fixed cars and sold scrap metal. Our house was built behind the workshop and surrounded by the scrap yard, but a fence separated our backyard from the scrap yard around it. Because he worked so late some days he couldn't pick us up from school and we rarely saw him when we did get home. He was usually under a car.

"Daddy! We drew you a picture at Kindy today!" Seungmin hugged dad's leg.

"Together!! We drew it together!" Jisung hugged his other leg while Dad picked up Jeongin.

"What about you young man?" Daddy turned to the youngest to see him open his mouth wide and wobble his top front tooth with his tongue. He turned to Chris and I and ruffled our tuffs of hair. "Sit back down boys and I'll cook us up some food yeah?"

Although Mummy picks us up from school, she doesn't make us dinner. She's a terrible cook. Once Jisungie got really sick after eating Mummy's food. She said something about not dieing while we were at the hospital with him one afternoon. I mean who wouldn't be happy that Jisung didn't die on us. We would have been really sad.

"Where's Mummy?" Jeongin turned to Chris-hyung leaving him to look around confused. "She should cuddle with us while daddy makes dinner."

"I'll find her then before I make dinner how about that?" Daddy went off to search in all the rooms while we got ourselves comfy again under the blanket.

We all stared at the TV. The seagulls we're yelling. We all giggled and laughed. All of a sudden we heard Daddy yell. And Daddy doesn't yell. Last time Daddy yelled the five of us made a human totem pole to get Jeongin to the top of the cabinet to reach the cookie jar at the top. We got the jar but Jeongin fell off and cracked his head open along with the glass jar. We all knew Daddy was just scared though, but this wasn't a scared yell. Daddy was angry. Really angry.

"WHAT THE FU-" all at once Jisung shut Jeongin's ears, Seungmin shut Jisung's and I shut Seungmin's. I looked up at Chris seeing he had his hands on my ears. My older brother began to cry. Tears fell from his chocolate eyes. We all cuddled a bit closer and bowed our heads together.

I still heard words here and there through Chris' hands. "OUR KIDS WERE RIGHT OUTSIDE!!"
"WHO THE HELL CARES!!!"
"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"
"THEY NEVER MEANT ANYTHING TO ME!"

I don't think I was meant to hear that. The words echoed in my ears and Chris began to shake. The other three began to cry because of Chris. We didn't like seeing him cry. His dimples weren't happy if he cried. I didn't like seeing my brothers cry either and this made tears come from my eyes as well.

We all let go of each other's ears to cuddle up into a big ball. That was a big mistake. Mummy called us a lot of mean things. Stupid, worthless, she said she didn't care about us.

Chris quickly picked up the blankets on the couch and ran us all out to the backyard. He rushed us up into our tree house one at a time. It began to rain a little when we cuddled up again. The roof leaked a little and the wind blew, making us cold.

"H-Hyung, I'm scared." Seungmin nuzzled into my chest for a hug, Jeonginie did too. Jisung snuggled into Chris and us older two cuddled into each other. "Me too Seungmin." I sniffled into his messy hair.