Chapter 2: Father

“Uncle, I wanna eat!”

Luhan whined while swinging the older male’s arm back and forth. His backpack jiggled every time he skipped beside the older male whomhe called ‘Uncle’.

“Come on, what did Umma say to you? Go home straight after school and have lunch with Umma!” He chuckled and bent slightly to ruffle Luhan’s hair. ”So you don’t want to eat Joohyun umma’s yummy lunch?”

“Wha, no! Umma’s lunch is always the best!” Luhan shook his head with his mouth went pouty. Not only her lunch, everything about her was (and still is) the best for him.

Today was another joyous winter day and Luhan found it hard to keep her eyes wandering around the street, the cars and the people. His bright wide eyes spotted a lone woman sitting on a bench, and didn’t move on from that face. Luhan somehow was no stranger to that face, but when and where did he saw it? Cute frown painted on his face until an imaginary light bulb lighted up above her head. She remembered that face, it was on a small picture on the corner of the living room. A picture of him, his umma and his appa.  

He released her hold on the man’s hand and let his petite legs carried him to the woman. Ignoring the man’s shout to stop, inside his mind was ringing with, Appa! It must be Appa!

“Appa!” he innocently called, his fingers clasped upon the woman’s jacket.

Yoona gave the boy a flabbergasted look. Her eyes couldn’t move from the little fingers that tightly clung on her jacket and somehow she felt the urge to clean her ears. Did her ears started malfunctioning, or did the boy called her ‘Appa’ for real? Honestly she didn’t recognize the boy at all. However, when her doe eyes met his, she knew there was only one person in the world who had it.

“Lu-Luhan?”

She was stoned right at the moment the boy hugged her and hummed happily in confirmation. She blinked a couple times, her mind carried out a quick reality check. Delusions or reality?  From how suddenly cracking loud laugh and hugged back her son, it seemed that the answer was obvious.

“Oh my god, Luhan! It’s you!” she ruffled his hair and leaned her forehead to his little forehead. “Look at you! Now you’re a big boy!”

Luhan only grinned widely, showing his rows of pristine milk teeth. Unconsciously, Yoona mirrored her son’s action. Joy and guilt overwhelmed her heart in such bittersweet way. Yoona left so early on Luhan’s life, when he might’ve not been able to form a solid memory about his father, perhaps even her face. Never did she expect to run into her son when she’d just awoken to a state of bizarre confusion. Her tears almost broke when the doe-eyed boy recognized her amongst sea of faces on the pedestrian, even calling her ‘Appa’. However, the gushing happiness was too much that instead of shedding tears, she smiled goofily in front of her son.

“Luhan! I told you don’t run around?” scolded the man as he finally caught up with the boy. His gazes met Yoona’s and frowned. “Lu, who’s this?”

“Uncle Kris, this is my Appa!”

The man called ‘Uncle Kris’ raised her eyebrows, before knitting them together as he scrutinized her. “…Im Yoona.”

Yoona frowned. Whether she didn’t like the fact the man already knew her name out of the blue, or the way he mentioned her name in such disdain, she wasn’t sure. “Yes, I’m Im Yoona, Im Luhan’s father.” She deadpanned. “May I know who are you?”

“Kris Wu.”  

The doe-eyed woman would like to interrogate him more, but a soft whine and a tug on her arm distracted her. Luhan clung to her arm, pouting to spice up his aegyo. And she immediately found his aegyo was too irresistible.

“Appa, I’m hungry!”

Her inside melted at her son’s cutesy. Might as well she squealed like a fangirl, but doing it before unwanted presence of Kris somehow felt like tainting her dignity. She smiled and ruffled his hair. “Aww, I’m hungry too~ Wanna eat lunch with Appa?”

Luhan beamed and nodded his head furiously. He grabbed his father’s hand while eyeing Kris with pleading puppy eyes. The latter looked back and forth from the doe-eyed boy and Yoona, sighing softly before reluctantly nodded.

Luhan yelped happily, jumping up and down with his father’s hand in tow. Yoona gaily laughed and led the way to a nearby street stall, fully aware of a pair of eyes stabbed which her back with murderous glare. Smiling in bubbly manner, she looked over her shoulder and chirped to Kris to join with them. The man made a visibly forced smile and followed the father-son pair; even without the doe-eyed woman’s invitation, he had no intention on letting Luhan alone with her.  

They sat in a long bench with Yoona purposefully sitting between Luhan and Kris. She ordered two portion of jjajangmyun for her and her son. She offered Kris if he wanted a meal but he only politely refused. The doe-eyed boy instantly absorbed on eating her meal, while no words but intense icy tension exchanged between the two adults.

“So, what’s your relationship with Im Joohyun? Friends? Colleagues?” Yoona broke the ice with eerily casual tone, purposefully emphasizing ‘Im Joohyun’.

Upon hearing no response from Kris, aside from intense gaze accompanied by taut knitted eyebrows, she smirked. “You don’t need to answer it. I’ll know it soon or later with my own way.”

“You know how to put the act of happy father,” Kris retorted gruffly. “Such an actress”

“Actress? Please, I have my degree in Theatre Acting for crying out loud,” The doe-eyed woman scoffed, glancing to the boy with happy gleams on her eyes before glaring to Kris. ”But mind you, my happy face when I meet Luhan is never an act.”

Kris only rolled her eyes and chuckled in mockery. She had a sudden urge to punch a hell of this cocky man square in his face. However she kept her cool, knowing better than making a scene in front of her son, and went back on eating her jjajangmyun. She diverted her attention to Luhan, watching his son slurped jjajangmyun happily. She spotted a blot of sauce in the corner of her son’s lips and dabbed it with tissue. The boy paused from his food munching to give her a sloppy beam. Even after these years, some things never change, she smiled softly.

The finished the meal, and to Yoona’s surprise, Luhan even finished his meal faster than her. The doe eyed boy bragged his food chomping mightiness enticing a laugh from both Kris and Yoona as the latter paid for the meal.

“Thank you for the meal Appa!” Luhan beamed.

Kris only gave Yoona a small smile—that somehow not really genuine in her eye—and held the boy’s hand. “Now come on Luhannie, let’s go home. Your umma must be waiting for you,” Kris said, tugging the boy’s hand softly.

The boy budged only slightly, staring at Yoona with his wide deer eyes. “Appa? You don’t want to go home with me?” he asked with a small pout.

“Eh? No, not that, buddy!” Believe me, Luhan, I really want to go home with you but…

She was loss for words when her son’s eyes gleamed with hopeful glint. But my heart isn’t ready yet, son.

 “But Appa still has to do some job!”

Yoona hated it when she uttered that lie. Technically, it was a half lie—she had unsaid obligation of working out the consequences of things happened in her five years of coma as her job. However, that fact did nothing on lessening her guilt when she could see apparent dismay in Luhan’s eyes.

She patted Luhan’s hair and gave a soft kiss upon his cute forehead. “Bye, little deer buddy.” She waved her hand and walked away.

“Appa! Promise me you will come home and play with me!” Luhan shouted.

The little doe-eyed boy waited for his father’s reply. Until his father’s back disappeared among pedestrian and Kris pulled his hand softly to walk homebound, he still didn’t get a reply from her.

Xxxx

It wasn’t long after Seohyun rested her tired body on the couch the doorbell rang. She unwillingly shuffled her feet across the apartment and opened the door. Right when the door opened she almost tackled by a hug from her doe-eyed son.

“Umma! Luhan’s home!”

“Welcome home, Luhannie,” she giggled softly and ruffled his hair. ”You must be hungry. Wait a bit while Umma is cooking lunch “

Luhan shook his head cutely. “I’ve had my lunch with Appa!”

Seohyun looked at her son asking him silently, but the boy already ran inside. Suddenly her waist was hugged by a pair of arms and a kiss landed on her cheeks.

“Yah, Kris!” she yelped.

“Surprised, Joohyun?” Kris cooed. He let out a soft hum of content feeling the feminine body on his hold relaxed on his arms. Yet his hum faded rather quickly as he remembered a certain doe-eyed woman with the surname of Im.

“Guess what? Luhan met his father today,” he spoke slowly, resembling more of a reluctant murmur.

Seohyun was silent for some meaningful second before uttering a flat “I see” with a small nod.

Unlike what Kris expected, she took the news almost indifferently. He thought she would showed off more… elaborated response. He tried to observe change of expression from Seohyun’s visage just to find none, and he didn’t like it. With the lack of emotion Seohyun showed he couldn’t gauge what was her impression that lingered about her almost nonexistent wife Im Yoona.

He couldn’t measure how safe his position was in Seohyun’s heart. Kris gr