02.

Things were different, much, from back during my more than simple middle school career.

Back then, forgetting came easy. With more than enough distractions fluttering past me at any given minute, forgetting the queer smile I’d fallen for was a simple task as taking a quick walk in the park.

Now, it wasn’t quite as simple.

Forgetting Yongguk and his again disappearance was hard; no, it was impossible.

Every corner I turned, my eyes automatically searched for his shortly cropped hair, that dumb smile he’d have whenever Junhong was around. I began unconsciously peeking down at any kid - the very children I’d usually avoid - in search for that familiar fluff of brown locks. To put simple: I was obsessed.

Kyuhyun tried to wean me off my queer obsession, sometimes letting me slip from my caffeine bans to keep me from twitching and glaring at any child or deep voice. It helped, but only for the hour or two the coffee held me steady. Once those hours past, I was back to twitching and clawing at whatever passed by.

“Himchan, I’m not going to let you more coffee, stop glaring.”

I narrowed my eyes further, staring at the space behind him. It wasn’t as if I could help it, my body had learned that glaring would equal more coffee in the system. By now, it was an automatic reaction.

“Himchan.” He was rolling his eyes at me, fists clenching on the countertop. If he wasn’t my counselor, if our sessions weren’t watched by my dearest guardian figures, Kyuhyun may have just decided to punch all my problems and issues out of me, the old fashioned way.

“I have another question today,” I decided to interrupt.

He wasn’t too impressed, moving to massage the space between his eyes. Even a child could see that he was just about fed up with me; if my parents weren’t paying him, he would have called quits a long time ago. “Shoot.”

“The management, why are they such high asses?”

“Excuse me?” He did a double take at my question, eyes getting wide at the blunt. I guess he didn’t expect me to just off and diss pretty much the whole upper level of our society, including dearest mommy and daddy.

“My friend, the hypothetical one from before. Say for whatever the reason, he brought his kid to work with him. Maybe the daycare was having a day off or the kid was sick. Kids stay home from daycare all the time anyways. But say he brought his kid to work; the manager would fire him, wouldn’t he?”

“Well, if the kid was making a fuss.”

“But he wasn’t!” My arms flew in the air, getting a little too emotional about the matter. Junhong had been a good boy that day, sitting alone at the lone table with a handful of crayons and paper napkins. He’d been the calmest I’d ever seen a kid his age be.

The world was screwed up.

Kyuhyun though, laughed at my excitement. “Aren’t you getting a little too into this matter? I thought this friend of yours was made up. Hypothetical, for the sake of making your question earlier to understand.”

I glared at him with a low hiss. I didn’t appreciate Kyuhyun making fun of me. As my counselor, he wasn’t allowed to make fun of me like that.

“Fine, answer a different question then.”

“Go ahead.”

“For what reason would a kid not go to daycare?”

“Well, it could be that they’re just too young and the people at the center can’t take care of him or her with all the other kids. Could be that they’re just too much trouble or even that the parent hadn’t been able to pay for the daycare fees. Remember that in our country, everything has to be paid.”

“Even you pretending to give a about me.”

Kyuhyun nodded, laughing. “Even me pretending to give a .”

He didn’t even pretend to legitimately give a . “Fine, last question.” He gave me a loose wave of arm, indicating a go ahead before I began my next thought. “This hypothetical friend, say I want to help him.”

“Let him know you’re there.”

Even though I claimed Kyuhyun was of absolutely no help, his words always managed to dig their way to the deepest parts of my brain, staying there like an unremovable stain. And sometimes, I couldn’t help but think that he was right, despite how much I would have rathered not.

I spent the next weeks rolling around in bed, groaning and about how the whole situation with Yongguk was just utter bull. There was no saying that he was even in town; and given that he was, I was in no way mandated to help the idiot. It had been four years, after all, since we’d first met. Only just a friend, a long lost friend at that, I had no responsibilities for him or for his mistake child.

Still the thought of Yongguk and his kid just refused to leave.

It was that smile, that stupid, addicting smile.

The next time I saw Yongguk and his kid was exactly two months after my last hypothetical conversation with Kyuhyun. My obsessive twitching and hallucinations of their smiles had slowed to a halt by the time I next heard his voice, saw their faces. And for a second, I had to slap myself, just to make sure I hadn’t relapsed again.

“Daddy, please. Want Pororo.”

At first, I’d pushed off the child’s voice as just another kid. It was ranging December and another new toy must have appeared on the market. Nothing new.

“No means no, Junhong.”

It was the thick voice that caught my feet and made me stumble the next few steps. As much as I wanted to think that it was just purely coincidental, the chances of some thick voiced man and a boy named Junhong just appearing out of nowhere was too slim.

I did a double take to the location, finding a tiny little kid point desperately toward the outdoor rack of a toy shop, eyes red from spilled over tears, snot and tears mixing as they drooled down his face. (My heart went out for him.) The dad seemed bothered as much as I was, his expression screwing and losing that stollic look most fathers held during business hours. It was just impossible to say no to that broken face.

Yongguk, the dad, bent down at his knees to the boy’s height, wiping away stray tears with a rough sigh. He was whispering something to the kid, but at this distance, I couldn’t hear; but whatever it was that he said, the kid seemed to agree, albeit a little reluctantly, robotically bobbing his head with a deep frown.

(Again, my heart went out for him.)

And that was where I decided to step in, taking the stuffed doll he’d been pointing at off the top rack and handing it gingerly to the sobbing child.

It was a chorus of gasps and squeals that greeted me.

“Sheesh Yongguk, how can you say no to that face?”

I bought the plush for Junhong, much to a protesting Yongguk’s displeasure. Junhong, on the other hand, seemed elated, quickly wiping his snot and tears on the back of his sleeves to pull my knees into a bear hug, screaming thank yous as fast as he could without slipping up too hard.

I’m pretty sure this was the reason why parents decided to have kids.

“Put the doll back Junhong, you can’t have it.”

Much unlike the time I’d seen at the coffee shop, Yongguk’s tone had hardened as much as the cool, winter used-to-be air. It was as if cold and snow had frozen his soul, leaving it that way in a chunk of ice as spring got ready to roll around. Only, this frozen block just refused to melt with the seasons.

“Oh come on, just let him have it. Think of it as an early Christmas present.”

He glared at me, hard, a look I’d never before seen coming from a softie like Yongguk. Let’s be honest, I didn’t know such a look could even exist in such a guy.

Where had the Yongguk I used to know gone?

Turning back down to Junhong, he held a hand expectantly for the stuffed penguin, but was surprised to find a very delinquent Junhong, who’d in turn decided to hide behind my legs. He wanted that doll.

I laughed and shoved Yongguk’s hand away, petting Junhong on his fluffy locks with a roll of eyes. “It’s a doll Yongguk. I’m not going to starve because I bought him a doll.”

He seemed to twitch a little at my statement, before turning greatly sour, his expression being enough to tell Junhong that playtime was over. The kid slid out from behind my legs and turned to Yongguk, but still refusing to give up his new friend. And Yongguk decides to make due with that, taking Junhong’s hand in his and mumbling a low thank you to me before turning away.

I followed. Not because I had to (I, after all, had no obligations for either of them), but rather because I wanted to.

It took three to four blocks before Yongguk turned back to me, hissing. “What do you want? I don’t have money for you if that’s what you ing want.”

I’d never heard Yongguk cursing before, and it was enough to send me recoiling a little back in shock. I wasn’t used to this side of Yongguk and obviously, neither was Junhong, seeing as he whimpered, pulling his hands over ears.

“Nothing,” I hummed simply, raising my hands innocently in front of me, an action I’d seen too often displayed by Kyuhyun. “Just wanted to know where you were going. You probably wouldn’t answer me, so I decided to follow instead.”

His eyes again narrowed on me, giving a quick scan up and down my length. It made me feel a little .

“It doesn’t matter to you, just go away Himchan.”

Ouch. I frowned at his rough retort, but didn’t stop following him through the curves and turns around the neighborhood. By the fourth block after that, I knew he was walking us in circles, trying to lose me. He should know; losing me wasn’t quite exactly that easy.  

It took thirteen blocks total and an aching knee for Yongguk to come to a complete stop, whipping around to face me, exhaustion clear in his eyes. It was almost as if he were throwing in his towel, calling quits to this impossible game of cat and mouse.

He should have realized early on that Kim Himchan just didn’t lose, ever.

He let me pull both him and the kid into a nearby coffee shop, ordering up something decaffeinated (if I wasn’t allowed caffeine, then neither were they) and leaning peacefully in my seat with my warm mug. And for a minute, we stayed like that, the little whispers of Junhong talking to his Pororo being the only sounds.

It wasn’t until I was halfway done with my hot chocolate that Yongguk finally broke the silence.

“What do you want Himchan.”

It wasn’t even a question now. So I shrugged. He hadn’t given me a proper question and so I felt no particular need to answer him properly either. Call me childish.

“Himchan.” His voice was deep, a warning.

I cleared my throat, putting down my mug and holding a hand up for him to wait. I needed a minute to sort out my thoughts, to phrase the words flying through my head a million miles an hour.

“Explain.” I decided to say instead, when the proper order of everything I wanted to say didn’t arrive, waving my hand lazily and giving him a signal to go ahead.

So far, all I knew about Yongguk and his kid was that Yongguk took care of the kid alone. Neither Jieun nor Yongguk’s family had ever once been mentioned during our conversations at the coffee shops in the day past. From what I could make by, the situation wasn’t too pretty for them.

Frankly, I was surprised they’d managed to survive off of Yongguk’s underpaid jobs until now.

(Without seeing, it was obvious his bosses would have rigged his pay for his lack of educational status.)

We stared for a while, eyes narrowed and the neither of us really willing to back down. I don’t quite remember having had such a bad case of stubborn; this was usually my job.

My hot chocolate had long since gone lukewarm by the time his lips parted to retell me the full of his tale and not just the pretty sugar coated fairytale.

“Jieun doesn’t know about Junhong.” His hand was instantly on the kid’s head, long fingers through the fluffed hair. Closing his eyes, he shook his head, starting from the very beginning.

“We didn’t know she was pregnant until it was too late. She got a little bump and we decided to check the hospital just in case. We really didn’t know; we’d been careful, counting her dates and purposefully avoiding the more dangerous ones and using protection. When we did find out though, we had to tell our parents. Jieun’s had been less than happy. She dropped out of school and ran away. I wanted to drop out too, so I could take care of her, so she wouldn’t have to be alone while I was at school, but she wouldn’t have it.

“By the time I’d dropped out too, it was too late.”

Yongguk had developed a far off look in his eyes, lower lip quivering as he retold a tale he probably wanted to wipe completely from his mind. His hand continued to Junhong’s hair as he continued, not at all bothered by the whimper from Junhong when his fingers tangled within the locks.

“When Jieun’s parents found out where she’d gone, it was too late to abort the child. They were mad; no, they were absolutely pissed. They let her have the kid, but it was all under the deepest hush. They had the hospital lie to her and tell her that Junhong had died during his birth, choked by his umbilical cord. He was going to be put up for adoption, but I make a ruckus. So instead, they paid me to disappear; they shoved money in my hands and told me to live like I didn’t exist.

“And so I did.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Jieun. I grabbed the money and left.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I was young, naive, I thought my parents would support me for the decision. But they didn’t. They told me to leave and return only after the child was gone. But it wasn’t like I could just make Junhong not happen. No matter how anyone denied it, he’s still my child.”

Here, he frowned, turning straight at me and for the first time, acknowledging my presence. “He was our child, Himchan, Jieun and mine. They were going to take him away.” It was almost as if he was turning to me for a pat on the head good job. Like he expected me to tell him that what he had done wasn’t completely stupid.

“Jieun’s parents had given me a lot of money, so I bought a car. I got myself a driver’s license and a bunch of baby supplies. Every night we’d go to the motel and stay there over the night before going back to driving in the mornings and afternoons. If I’d saved that money, I probably would’ve been able to buy a million Pororos for Junhong right now.

“Working and making money just didn’t occur to me until the money Jieun’s parents gave me started running out. I’d gone to my bank account and even dug until my old college savings. That’s how we lived until now, going from town to town until we decided to stop. I needed a job and Junhong needed friends his age.

“I screwed up, Himchan. But that doesn’t mean I’d ever let go of Junhong. He’s my kid, my responsibility. I don’t care if people stare at us funny or click their tongue at me whenever Junhong would cry and beg for a toy. Junhong knows I’d buy it for him if I could. He knows I’ll get it for him one way or another in the future.

“I know he’s going to me hate me in the future for ruining his life and not putting him up for adoption, but I can’t. I can’t let him go like that. It’s not for him, but me. I’m selfish. He’s all I have left of Jieun.”

By the time his story ended, his brows had knit to one, the wrinkles on his face striking against his otherwise clear face. His arms had at a point round protectively around Junhong, who was clutching back at his father’s in confusion, the only thought occurring to the child being that Yongguk was in pain (the glare that he gave me leading to make believe that it was me who had caused this pain).

Yongguk’s head continued to shake slowly, low mumbles passing his lips as he clutched at his baby boy. Almost as if I would take Junhong away from him. I wouldn’t dare.

“He’s all I have left, Himchan.”

His eyes begged me to understand. I tried my best, but I was no father; I could never fully understand the stabbing pain Yongguk would feel whenever Junhong cried. There was an unbreakable bond, tied together by an invisible string.

I was just the silly third wheel trying to fit in.

Nodding slowly, I took a slow sip of my cold drink, grimacing at the not as brilliant taste that returned. “I’m not here to take him away from you Yongguk, you know that.”

He mirrored my actions, biting at his lower lip and willing away the tears that had gathered during his story.

“She wanted to name him Junhong. Eunji if he was a girl.” I watched him take a slow breath in, releasing it at an even more drawn out pace before continuing. “Back then, I told her that Junhong was a stupid name. It wasn’t at all manly, and he’d get teased for it when he grows up and goes to school, but,” he choked on his words, pressing his child closer to his side, “but it fits him. I still think the name’s girly, but … … Junhong. The name is perfect on him.

“I want to give him the whole world.”

As every father did.

I swallowed back the lump forming at my throat and again nodded, clearing my throat a little behind a loosely knit fist.

I wanted to tell him that everything would be alright, that he was doing everything a father physically could for their baby boy. But that would have been a lie. Everyone could see that Junhong was too small for his age, his hair bushy and skin pale from the lack of proper food. Yongguk probably did the best he could to feed his child, probably skipping his own meals, but it just didn’t seem to be enough. Kids Junhong’s age could eat mountains and still have the stomach for more.

“Yongguk,” I started, considering my own words carefully, keeping in mind the advice Kyuhyun had given me months back (let him know you’re there), “come home with me.”

Yongguk’s eyes searched me, as if expecting me to burst out laughing and waving my previous suggestion - demand? - away. I wasn’t joking, he would later find.

He shook his head, mumbling a series of no’s under his breath, all of different tone and emphasis. Just once would have sufficed, really - given, it didn’t matter how many times he said no, I wasn’t going to give just so easily.

“I couldn’t.” Giving his hair a final shake, bangs falling over his eyes, he gathered Junhong up against his chest, carrying the tiny boy up with a single arm. “Thank you, but I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. I … … thanks for everything today, but lets pretend today never happened.”

He slid out of the couches, grunting under Junhong’s weight (as thin as the boy was, Yongguk hadn’t had a proper meal in just as long, if not longer), getting to his feet.

I’d only just managed to push my number and address, scribbled in haste on the brown napkin, into his jacket pocket, reminding him to call whenever he needed help, before he was gone, back into the busy Seoul streets.

Who knew when I’d next get to see that smile across his face?

a/n: this was the first draft. it was hard grading my test paper so that my writing didn't get covered up my any stray markings. the digitalized draft still exists on my email and that's what i'm working off of, since i accidentally formatted my usb. the story's a little - lot - different from my original plotting though. it's shorter and contains less angst than before. banghim's quickly turning into my fluff pairing. which feels so very weird to me. it's never been my fluff pairing before.

there will be a lot of cameos. people you may or may not know. if you do know them, great. if not, they're good people, go look them up ~ usually, the reason for their cameo is because i like them and or their group's songs. or they just make me giggle. warning before hand though, some of the people that will cameo, i don't know their personality, so i'll be making that up to go as with the flow of the story. you have been warned. also, the chances of seeing the rest of bap in this story is slim. most of my stories revolve completely around bap, so i figured, wouldn't hurt to change that up a little.