July 4th, 2007
Namjoon age 9

I could hear their yelling even with my ears covered with my hands.

My parents constantly fought, they fought over idiotic things like how my father needed to "get off his lazy ass" and get a job or how my mother was spending too much money on her accessories instead of for food. They were usually so engrossed in their arguments that they forgot about me and I often went days without saying a single word to them.

Tonight, they were screaming about how my dad had dented up the car when he had accidentally tapped someone else's car with his bumper.

It was the loudest screams I've hear from them in a long time.

Locking myself in my room, I covered my head with my blanket, trying to keep myself from hearing their terrible words. It was like this almost every other day, sometimes fighting over something new or reviewing an old topic.

Either way, I always hated the yelling.

September 12, 2005
Namjoon age 10
Namjoon's birthday

Today's my birthday.

My parents finally set aside their bickering just for me today.

I hadn't heard a single argument between them all day and I hoped to keep it that way.

"Mom, look at this." I said, holding up a painting I had made of the three of us together. I was in the center of the drawing with my mom and dad each on one side of me. We were smiling and holding hands while I bore my black pencil eyes into the person looking at the drawing.

She looked down at me and the drawing before glaring at the paper, almost as if she were burning holes into it."Stop feeding yourself lies." She said before taking the drawing from my small hands and ripping it in half, splitting my mother and father apart, leaving me torn between the two.

"If you're done with your unrealistic fantasies, it's time for you to open your present." She said coldly, as if the drawing had flipped up a defense she only used against my father.

But now she had use it against me too.

Biting my lip to hold back the tears threatening to form, I walked over to the kitchen table and sat down, looking at my feet.

"Here you go son." My father said with a kind smile, placing a box in front of me that had blue wrapping paper with a rainbow of different colored dots scattered frantically across the blue landscape.

I hesitantly pulled at the loose tap before slowly unwrapping the gift. We didn't have that much money, I was old enough to understand that, so I knew the gift would be small in price and that I shouldn't get my hopes up.

Expecting something cheap, I was so shocked after seeing what was being gifted to me."This...... this can't possibly be my gift." I said, marveling at its beauty.

"It is. I bought it when I use to be a sales person when you were first born. I wasn't there for your birth so I got you something from the city I visisted" my father said, pleased with my reaction. My mother tenses, indicating she was remembering when we had money and when my father had a job.

Inside the box laid a beautiful blue jade necklace. The center of the jade had the single word "Kim" engraved into it. The gift almost made me want to cry more but I just smiled at my parents before they brought over the small chocolate cake.

My mom came over and lit one of candles she had strategically placed in the center of the cake, avoiding the fancy words."Make a wish." My father said happily before I nodded.

Closing my eyes, I locked into the wish before opening my eyes and blowing out the candle.

I had wished for my parents to finally get along.

Of course that wish was never granted.