Chap. 23 – Putting pieces together

His limbs were completely deprived of energy. Taking a step with his legs felt like pushing cement forward, they were unusually heavy and didn’t cooperate at all. His feet were killing him, every little muscle he never knew he had ached right not at every simple touch with the ground. His stomach grumbled, and he hated himself for forgetting his wallet. He had a headache too, and the noise around him from the cars and other non-drivers made it even worse. Furthermore, worry filled him he was so tired he would pass out even before getting home safely.

Still, even in this exhausted state he had a content smile on his face and he walked with his head held high as he made his way home from his very first working day. On Friday he got his grades and became officially an average C-student, a goal he had worked hard for during the last six months. Today, on Monday he had an amazing first day on his summer job where they even praised him for being able to interact well with the kids in the hospital.

Both events gave him such a confident booster and he was finally feeling like an average boy which he loved. To be an average student, doing well on his first working day as average people did, it was awesome. It gave him a sense of equality, like he was just like every other boy in his age, not an inch less. It was like losing a part of his identity he hated; the black-sheep who made everyone’s days worse. For the first time in his life he wasn’t the black-sheep anymore, but a completely normal, average eighteen years old boy.

“Mom, I’m home!” cheerfully he called out when entering their home. Soon he kicked off his shoes and walked casually into the cozy sunlit kitchen where Krystal and Mrs Jung could be found.

“Hello darling, how was your day?” his mother, a middle-aged lady with a tender smile asked.

“It was awesome! I’m supposed to take care of kid’s with cancer; talk and entertain them and my colleagues said I was good at it. They said they could tell I know how to handle kids and that I’m good at it. I also met this really cute kid who liked rock music, we had a long chat about his favorite bands and you could tell he was happy for my company.” Jaejoong eagerly told the most important events of his day to his youngest sister and his Mother.

“That’s great, I’m so happy for you!” his mother said.

At seven pm he had enough; it was Monday, his and his sunshine’s day, he thought it was his right to see her at least on Mondays. Happily he walked over and knocked on his neighbors door, and soon enough his sunshine appeared in the door. You could see the fatigue on her face too, her usually enthusiastic and warm eyes felt empty that evening, and her whole appearance didn’t radiate happiness, glowing the way she usually did. That evening, she just felt empty and shattered.

“Hi, wanna take a walk?” the boy asked as he smiled at that broken girl. The girl looked at Jaejoong with a sigh.

“Fine, I could use a break right now.” she muttered before leaving her home.

“How was your day?” she asked as they slowly, mindlessly started to walk towards their elevator.

“Amazing, I love my job! So many good things have happened to me lately, I can barely believe it!” Jaejoong happily announced in the elevator. “How was your day, Sunshine?” he used that nickname in an attempt to cheer her up though he never got the response he wanted.

“Too long and exhausting. What was good about your day?” Sunny continued asking with eyelids barely open and a fallen expression.

They walked on the streets as the sky was painted in different shades of pink, orange and red showing the whole world that the sun was calling it a day. Jaejoong had to narrow his eyes because the last rays of the sun were still able to shine straight into his eyes.

“There was this kid whom I had a conversation with about rock music, every kid liked my jokes too and the workers said I was good with kids! What was bad about your day?” Jaejoong asked the way Sunny had before. The girl sighed enormously before turning her heels around.

“I can’t do this, Jaejoong! I know it’s Monday but I’m too exhausted and still have lots of schoolwork to do, I don’t have time to talk with you. Bye!” Sunny burst out before starting to walk back.

“But… can we talk tomorrow?” Jaejoong called after her hesitantly as he watched her leave. This made her stop in her tracks as she turned back towards him with a frown.

“Maybe… we’ll see.” She said after a while before disappearing behind their heavy door.

Twenty-four hours later Jaejoong was once again knocking at Sunny’s door with the same cheerful expression as the day before. Just like yesterday, he had an awesome day today too. Soon a little boy appeared in the door, greeting Jaejoong with a bright, shining smile.

“Hello, sir! Are you looking for Sunny?” Taemin asked. Jaejoong nodded and the boy disappeared to be replaced by a frowning Sunny.

“What do you want, Jaejoong?” she asked while crossing her arms and challengingly raising her eyebrows. Jaejoong couldn’t help but stare at her with mouth open, what was happening?

“Well… you know… I thought we would talk… as we said yesterday.” He was barely able to respond properly, her attitude left him flabbergasted. His mind was completely empty as he stared at the girl, not understanding the reason behind her attitude.

“No, you said we would and I said we would see. Now I have thought about it and decided that no, I won’t waste my time on you. Got a problem with it? Hope you don’t because I don’t care!” she fumed before slamming the door straight in front of his surprised face. The lean dark bond teenager helplessly looked around while scratching his neck. When he understood that he wouldn’t get an explanation from his surroundings either, he went back home with his head hanging low like a dog being lectured by his owner.

He was chewing his lip while staring at the door 42 E, the Lee’s door. Deep in his mind he contemplated whether or not to knock on their door and whether Sunny would be happy or not.  To be honest he didn’t understand the situation, Sunny had never been mad at him for no reason.

Sure, she has been mad at him before but there was always a reason concerning him behind it. Basically it was always his fault and she had the right to be mad. Mostly it was about him partying or not studying enough, and all those times he could understand her. However, the situation now seemed completely unexplainable to him.

Last time she was happy with him was on Friday, and he hadn’t done anything bad since then, he had been a good boy all this time. Sure, he did fight with Jessica but Sunny never got mad because of that.

In the end, he built up all his courage and knocked on 42 E. Lucky or not, it was Sunny who opened the door and unlucky to him her eyes narrowed as soon as she registered the person standing in front of her.

“What do you want?”

“It’s Monday so… I’m here to see you?” he responded and yet because of his insecurity it ended up sounding more of a question than an answer.

“Jaejoong, I hate people like you! People who barely need to lift a finger and still get good grades. Sure, you in many subjects but not in music and English. Why? Even before you found that great motivation of yours to study, you had A both in English and Music. Why? I on the other hand study every day, never take a day of; I do every single homework, memorize everything and does it ever pay of? No, never! And now you’re having a summer break, having fun while I sweat and study hard to finally get the grade I deserve! So, no, Jaejoong, I ain’t going to have fun with you because the world is unfair and I don’t have time for you. Hope it stabs you straight in your heart in order to feel the pain I’m feeling; the pain of being a failure, the pain of having a dream I’ll never be able to achieve!” she yelled at him in the stairwell, not caring about whether another neighbor will hear it or not, before once again slamming the door in his face.

For a while he just stared into the cold, silent emptiness left by her. All this time, the reason why she was mad at him was jealousy? How can she, the smartest girl in the class be jealous of the black-sheep because of two lousy grades? Yes, fine, he was talented in languages and music but these were basically the only things he was good at.

She was the talented one, not in English and Music but she was awesome in everything else. Her favorite subjects were the ones she passed effortlessly; Biology and Chemistry. She was amazing in those subjects; he had never once seen her study Biology and Chemistry but still understood everything right away. How could she be so blinded by jealousy to oversee something so obvious as that? How could she be so egoistical? How could his sunshine, the innocent shy girl who could never hurt a fly, be so egoistical?

Suddenly, a dark thought entered his mind as he stared at 42 E. She was always like that. Egoistical. All this time when he was trying to wow her she barely looked his way because of her own intentions. She was always too absorbed with fulfilling her own dreams to see him. He always gave her his everything, his whole heart and never once got anything else back, just a reply that she was supposed to study, not love. Did she ever cherished his feelings, was she ever thankful for his affections and valued them highly? Because she should have; his true innocent feelings he showed to another person for the first time in his life. No, never once. To her it was always just a burden she didn’t want to have.

Realization hit him hard in the face as he put the pieces together; she was just too damn egoistical to be able to love.

Fine, Sunshine, sorrowfully he smiled at the locked door.

I’ll stop now.

The friend you never cherished

The burdensome love you never reciprocated

I’ll stop all of it now, my love

I’ll simply just leave you all alone,

Good luck.

-

A new update! Hope you all enjoyed it, let me know otherwise :) However, I need to tell you guys that there'll be 2 more chapters of this fanfiction. I planned on having approxiamately 35 chapters but I think it'll be rude towards the readers who are more used to only 16-25 long chaptered stories. For you guys who wanted to know how the failure of life ended up being gay as seen in the foreword; you're welcome to read the continuation of this fic :D

kyonhae912: Thank you for continuing commenting, it's a solace to see that there're still people enjoying this fic :) most importantly, you write good comments about what you thought about the chapters which I'm always happy to read :) Jaesun fighting!