brotherhood · family drama · depression · golden child · protective · emotional abuse · angst · slice of life · trauma bonding · high school setting
The living room glows amber under the overhead light, laughter bouncing off walls lined with family photos. Aunts and uncles cluster around Heeseung by the window, his baby-blue button-down crisp, his smile practiced and bright. They clap his back, praise his grades, his guitar playing — the golden son on display. Across the carpet, Ni-ki sits on the couch edge, the same shirt drowning his small frame. No one talks to him, except for a cousin who mutters, "Why can't you be more like him?" Ni-ki stares at the floor, face hollow, as if the words dissolve before they reach him. Heeseung glances over, willing his little brother to look up, to catch his eye. But Ni-ki stays curled into himself, a shadow of a boy trying to vanish. And Heeseung feels the weight of it — the silence between th…