^{_{. .}} thirteen ^{_{. .}}

“I need to get going, I’m late already. How doesn’t a man know how to cook porridge?”

Hyukjae listens to Donghae’s distant nagging, watching as Jaemin takes another spoonful of her breakfast the nurse just made up for her ten minutes ago. He scoffs, but his leg trembles under the table. Donghae appears around the corner between the kitchen and the space where the two person table is set. He takes a hurried breath and shifts his shoulder bag. The black, long jacket, neat jeans and a light blue collared shirt makes him look like an adult. His brown fringe is tossled neatly upon his head, out of his forehead.

“There’s the leftovers my mom gave in the fridge for lunch. Just remember to make some snacks. I can cook something when I come,” Donghae rambles. He looks Hyukjae in the eye for a long minute.

It’s 8:21 am and Hyukjae’s eyes are still lousy after being forcefully kicked awake. He has a red, way too big hoodie over his torso and gray college pants. The hair sticks out to every possible direction.

“You can call me if it’s really important.”

Hyukjae stirs on his chair. “I don’t have your number.”

Donghae gives him a look of disbelief and annoyance, grabbing a pen from the table and scribbling his number on the front page of yesterday’s newspaper.

“There you go! Now I really need to get going,” Donghae keeps rambling on a hurried tone. He checks the time from his wristwatch, gritting his teeth. “Try not to blow up things while I’m gone.”

Hyukjae snorts. “Just go.” He doesn’t want him to go.

Donghae leaves the kitchen, and in three seconds he’s out the door. The man stares towards the door, even if a wall impedes him from seeing straight to it. As if waiting for Donghae to suddenly come back. He turns to eye his daughter, and sees her watching him closely. She lifts up the smallest mug they found from the cabinets.

“You want more milk?”

She nods, eyes clear.

Hyukjae pours the mug halfway full, and puts the carton back on the table.

“I guess it’s just the two of us for today, huh?” he notes cautiously, and Jaemin gives him a shy smile.

He hasn’t been able to have a bite of anything solid. He’s not hungry, he’s scared to death.

How is he supposed to not things up?

There is two socks lying on the floor in front of him; they’re not a match. The other is pink and the other dark blue. He gives a frustrated look towards the pile of clothes on his other side. They were running out of Jaemin’s clothes. The girl sits on the edge of the bedroom’s mattress, looking at her father curiously. She has a red hoodie with a bear printed out front. Hyukjae thinks that at least their hoodies match, both red and both sleeves too long.

He remembers Donghae’s text message where he promised to go pick up his brother’s kid’s clothes from his house (after Hyukjae’s despairing message that Jaemin was running out of things to wear).

“Put the socks on, please,” he mutters quietly. He has a washing machine.

Pulling out his phone, he texts Donghae: Do I use softener or detergent if I wash the clothes in the machine?

Jaemin has a blue sock on the left foot and the pink on right.

His phone vibrates.

Have you never washed your clothes before??? Donghae replies.

Yes, but I used to have only one bottle, now there’s suddenly two and I don’t know which one to use! He texts back.

He leans against the wall. Jaemin watches him intently, her head tilted to the side. He realizes her pants are wrong way round.

Put the detergent in the left locker, the softener in the right. Wash in 30 degrees!

Hyukjae stands up.

“Let’s do some laundry, okay? How hard can that be,” he mutters to the girl, and grabs the used clothes on his arms. They go to the bathroom, and Hyukjae throws the clothes inside, pulling some of his own shirts from the hamper. He looks at one of the shirts and wonders when was the last time he actually looked there. Or washed any. The closet was so full of his clothes he didn’t need to do that very often.

Hyukjae shuts the hatch. His phone vibrates again, but before he looks at the message he pours the stuff into the lockers and cliks the right temperature. The washing machine starts pumping water. He opens the text message.

You’ve been “washing” your clothes with a softener, btw. I bought the detergent yesterday…

Hyukjae snorts at the message. Of course. The machine keeps rolling.

He takes a look at the girl standing beside him; both so clueless, neither of them don’t know how they would get along. What the heck are they supposed to do? How does he entertain the girl for eight hours? Or for the rest of his life?

“What do you want to do now?” he asks.

She shrugs. Very helpful.

“Well… What did you do with...mom?”

Jaemin blinks and bites one of her fingers, clearly thinking. Suddenly she turns and walks away, and Hyukjae follows her to the kitchen table. She climbs up the chair and takes the pen Donghae used, drawing on air.

“You want to draw?” Puzzled look rises to his face. She nods.

“Wait a second, I’ll have to check if we have those things… Meanwhille, you can just draw on the newspaper.”

Did he even have any printing paper? Crayons any less? He used to draw when he was young, but he hasn’t really touched a pen in years for that. But he knew he was pretty good at drawing, back in the days. Is that his inheritance or did all kids like to draw?

Moving off to the bedroom to look for the crayons, he can’t stop thinking how the day would turn out. Would he eventually do something stupid? Forget to feed her?

Jiah had managed to raise her so far. She definitely wasn’t an angel or Mother Theresa, so how had she made it through? Or was it some kind of free parenting? Maybe she didn’t do much else but put food on the table.

Jaemin knows how to dress, she knows how to wash her teeth, she doesn’t need help with the toilet, if someone just came after her to flush because she was too short to pull the plug up by herself. Are all four year olds like that? Only thing she lacks is words.

The closet full as ever, Hyukjae eyes the shelves until a box draws his attention. He takes it and opens the cover, and with a smile returns to the kitchen.

“Found some!” The man puts the box on the table and starts spreading some wooden pencils on the table. There isn’t much left, but he thinks ten different colors might be more than enough for her. A big sketchbook is underneath all the other stuff, and he gives a clear page for her. He also finds some ink pens, blue, red, green and yellow.

The girl’s eyes are wide as saucers as she takes a red pen on her tiny hands.

Hyukjae exhales and slumps down on the chair opposite to her. He feels exhausted and it’s only nine in the morning.

Jaemin draws something that distantly looks something like a flower.

Hyukjae’s been watching the kid draw for almost an hour. It’s the third paper she’s working at the moment, and absent-mindedly the father has tried to figure out what they are actually picturing. Few flowers here and there, a box that looks distantly like a house, few stick figures. A barrel with two stick and squares on top. A dog? A cat?

He swallows and clicks his phone’s screen on. It’s just 9:58. No icons to show that anyone would’ve texted him. He opens Facebook. Nothing new there either. Taehyung has posted a picture of himself and a girl—wait, the post says his sister? He has a sister?

Putting the phone away, he sighs. Taehyung probably didn’t even know he has a daughter. They only met about a year and half ago, in a bar. Hyukjae had dared the man for a billiards match. He’d lost, but Taehyung had offered him a beer. An odd friendship, he thinks. But it’s the only one that’s left. Everyone else have just… drifted away. Just like Donghae.

Hyukjae bites his tongue, standing up to pour himself a glass of apple juice.

“Kid,” he hollers behind the fridge, “You want some?” He shows Jaemin the bottle, but she shakes her head.

“Alright. Just say when you’re hungry or want something to eat.”

He sits pack on the chair, but his gaze wanders to the view outside the window. It’s a gray day. He knows it rained last night, and some drops are still falling down the glass. It’s not a nice weather, but Hyukjae’s starting to feel claustrophobic inside his small apartment. In his previous life, he would’ve called Taehyung and asked him to come play some Xbox, or grab a drink, or just hang around somewhere. Now... there’s no way he could leave the girl.

Outside, there’s a lone dog walker with his retriever beside him. He stares the surrounding buildings, and he remembers there’s a bigger playground back there. And a pond.

Jaemin finishes the last drawing, and puts the pencils neatly on a row. There’s a look in her eyes, but Hyukjae doesn’t know what it means.

“Pee-pee.”

Oh.

“Uh, go ahead...” he grunts and scrathes his head. She jumps down the chair and goes. Hyukjae tries to listen if everything’s alright, and after a few minutes he stands up. The bathroom’s door is open, but he doesn’t dare to peek. Maybe he should, though. Just so she wouldn’t, like, fall down and crack her head open.

“You okay there?” His voice sounds like dog’s squeek toy.

“Ready,” she says and meets him at the door.

“Did you wash your hands?”

She shakes her head. It was probably too high for her. Hyukjae looks around, and finds a small footstool that would give her enough height.

“Use this, so you can reach the faucet.”

She steps on it. Hyukjae opens the water, and she starts washing her tiny fingers.

“Soap,” he mutters, pressing the bottle. She automatically puts her palms under it and massages it to her hands. She knows what to do, she just wasn’t tall enough.

Hyukjae smiles a little.

“Should we go outside?” He knows it might still rain, but he just needs the fresh air. The walls are falling over him. He’s so used to being alone, that even sharing the apartment with someone felt strange. Not the least that it’s his daughter. She gives him the wide eyes, the curious ones.

“We can go see if the playground’s any good?”

“Okay,” she replies after a minute of thought.

Then a new matter hits him. What’s she supposed to wear? Is the hoodie enough under her jacket? Would she need a rain jacket? Dungarees? They probably didn’t even have those. How much a kid that age needed clothes to keep her warm?

“Do you mind if it rains?”

A shake of head again.

Okay. Deep breaths, some common sense. He thinks he saw a beanie and some sort of mittens in her backpack this morning. A good start.

The hospital is surprisingly quiet that Tuesday afternoon. A biker who had fallen, an older man with chest pain, woman with stomach pains that ended up her being pregnant, a kid with a burn… It hasn’t been nothing out of the ordinary for Donghae. Expect the fact that his coworker keeps following him like a hawk. It’s finally his break, and Donghae goes to the breakroom to eat his lunch.

He clicks the coffee maker on, and sets a plastic box on top of the table before taking a seat.

Jessica pops into the room, and Donghae groans. She has that look on her face; the annoying one. She pulls a chair for herself and sits directly towards the man with a smirk on her lips.

He opens the lid of his lunch box.

“So, who was the guy with the kid? The desperate one?” The dyed, light brown hair frames her face. She looks young, but she’s actually the same age as Donghae.

Jessica and him actually went to the same high school, but they were in different classes. Even in college, they had seen each other, but never had they been any friends until now. Donghae’s still not sure if he would call them that. She just happens to be nosy and way too interested about his life, although she’s still somewhat nice of a person. Most of the other women were old hags, or young and even more annoying than Jessica. There were guys, but he wasn’t one to get friendly with anyone easily.

“He seemed kinda familiar.”

“We went to same high school,” Donghae mutters, knowing that she would keep pushing and pushing if he kept his mouth shut.

“Really? Was he on your class? Oh wait—“ There’s a lightbulb moment on her face. “No way! It’s that guy… What’s his name?”

“Hyukjae,” he replies, rather uninterested. He rolls the chicken salad in the box with his fork.

“Hyukjae! Oh wow! Come on, that wasn’t his kid, was it?” She keeps rambling. “He’s the same age as you! What did he want, anyway?”

Donghae bites the insides of his cheek. He had been worrying all morning. What if Hyukjae blew up the washing machine? What if he burned down some food and the whole place would burn to ashes?

What should he tell her? Nothing? Everything? Would she keep shut about it?

At the same time, he wants to tell about it to someone. But Jessica… She’s probably even more annoying than his mother.

“He was your best friend, wasn’t he? But when we graduated you weren’t talking anymore...”

Donghae grumbles, but Jessica can’t make out any coherent words. With a sigh, he puts the fork down and stands up to pour himself coffee. He pours milk in it, and sighs.

“Yeah, we used to be friends.”

“What happened?”

This again.

“I was an ,” Donghae grunts. Jessica quiets, and her eyes soften. “I was picked for the soccer team, and Hyukjae wasn’t. He didn’t like the team anyway, but I tried to belong. You know, I became one of the jocks. I pushed him away. Eventually I always chose the team over him, and at that point Hyukjae had changed. He had new friends and...”

He sits back down on the chair and takes a slow sip of the coffee. There’s the regret and longing and broken heart again.

Jessica her lips.

“You thought he’d gotten over you already?”

“Something like that. I was too busy with my new friends.”

“How did he change?”

“He… Well, he started to run to the parties. He drank, partied a lot. And the guys from the team… They always had something against him.”

She straightens on her chair, leaning against the backrest.

“You were afraid they’d kick you out if you hung with Hyukjae, weren’t you?” she asks.

Donghae shifts on his seat. She makes him uncomfortable, because she’s right. “You became cool when they picked you for the team. The boys which all the girls drooled after. Am I right?” He gives her a look, giving her the answer.

For a minute, she stays silent. Her face keeps away the fact that she still keeps thinking, hard. Her eyebrows furrow, and she seems a little hesitant.

Donghae manages to take a bite of the chicken.

“But after graduating...” she rumbles, massaging her temples.

Donghae freezes.

“Something happened that summer? There were a lot of rumors going around when we went to college. Hyukjae came to school for a while but… He dropped out, didn’t he? He did something...”

Until that summer, Donghae had thought about contacting Hyukjae again; if they could have gotten back to being friends since high school was over. But everything changed. There’s a faded memory of Hyukjae hanging with Jiah a lot back then.

“He killed someone,” Donghae finally retorts coldly.

Everything happening on the woman’s face stops. Her jaw drops.

Donghae can still remember the fuzz. Everyone was talking about that. It made him sick down on his stomach, and it still did.

“He was the drunk driver who ran over a young woman.”

“,” Jessica gasps, hiding under her palm.

He didn’t know a lot about it. He hadn’t been able to look into the whole matter. All around him gossiped about it, and there were so many things said and passed around, that he hadn’t been sure what was true and which were lies. But it was a fact that Hyukjae had gotten someone dead. It’s the one thing he couldn’t get past.

“I remember one day in college… Hyukjae got into a very big fight with a guy who was that girl’s brother. They brought him to the hospital… Actually, that’s probably the last day I saw him at school.”

“Yeah…” Donghae mutters, gritting his teeth. He doesn’t have an appetite anymore. And suddenly thoughts about Hyukjae start filling his head. He had never thought how the accident had affected Hyukjae himself. He didn’t realize what it must have been for him. It was probably because of that that Hyukjae isn’t on speaking terms with his parents. Was there anyone in his life then? Jiah? That couldn’t have done any goood.

Time passes as Donghae focuses on the thoughts and doesn’t notice how Jessica watches him, observing.

“The kid… Is she Hyukjae’s?” she eventually asks quietly.

Donghae nods. “Her mother...” he clears his throat, “Her mother left him behind Hyukjae’s door after four years. She didn’t want anything to do with the kid any more. She’s… Into narcotics, too...”

Jessica looks flabbergasted. “He came… to ask for your help.” The realization of the day she met him hits her.

“He didn’t know what to do...”

She picks an orange candy for herself from the bowl that stands in the middle of the break room table. She chews it, brains seemingly doing a lot of thought work.

“Wow. Just wow. What did you do?”

Donghae fidgets, plucking his fingernails. “I’ve been staying at his place. Help him around. He decided to keep her, because the mother is obviously not capable of taking care of a child.”

“You what?” she gasps. “That’s quite a favor to do.”

Donghae knows that. He doesn’t even know why. To make amends with the past, for leaving his friend? For not being there when he would’ve needed him the most?

Something flickers in Jessica’s eyes, but she doesn’t say a word right away.

“You were in each other’s pockets in high school. You feel for him, don’t you?”

God, he hates the way she keeps questioning him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snarls. More like a scared fox than a mad dog.

“Just pointing out things.” She takes a chocolate from the bowl this time. “You were the only one who never had a girlfriend. Never. And in here… You’re so oblivious to all the girls that try to flirt with you.”

The fork drops.

She smirks. “You wanted to be like everyone else, so you pushed Hyukjae away. You were falling for him and making it to the soccer team… It was just the push you wanted. So you made a choice. Head over heart.”

Donghae doesn’t say a word. Everything stucks down on his throat and cold shivers run down his skin. His stomach churns and turns.

Jessica watches the whitening face of her coworker. She snorts. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Donghae grunts and pours his salad into the trash can, rushing out the break room.

The kid looks a bit like a starfish as she walks in front of Hyukjae along the pavement. He had found some outer pants to put over the regular ones, and a light shirt under the girl’s hoodie. A yellow jacket, a beanie and mittens and they’d been good to go. For himself, he’d thought the hoodie would be enough. He has never been the outdoor kind of person, so finding himself something hadn’t been that easy. He’s relieved though, that Jaemin’s backpack at least hid some of that important stuff.

It’s August, but it isn’t exactly cold yet. At the moment, the rain has stopped and he’s grateful for that. He doesn’t want the kid to get sick the minute he carries her outside.

Donghae’s voice inside his head, he’s even taken a mini sized bag of chocolate cereals in his pocket. If the kid got hungry, he thought.

Hyukjae takes a deep breath, hoping that the time would fly faster. He feels like a fish out of water. He has some instincts, but he’s not exatly a mother. Nothing came easy for him. A mouther would know what to do, even a quite bad one…

The gravel starts crunching under their shoes as the asphalt turns to a dirt road. It’s surrounded with grass, few low fences here and there around the buildings. The playground looms ahead, and Hyukjae finds himself surprised that there are kids playing, and a few women sitting on the bench beside it even if the weather isn’t great.

But the sight gives him some creeps, and he doesn’t have to courage to face the women and other kids yet. He eyes the pond a bit further along, seeing nothing but birds and ducks quacking around headlessly.

He really misses Donghae. Not for the other’s sake… He thinks, but he just wants the company. It’s scaring to be alone when it feels like he has two left feet.

Jaemin watches the playground thoughtfully, but for Hyukjae’s relief, she turns away from it and almost crashes his leg. They walk the other way, and the circling thoughts stop inside his head for a minute. The air has managed to calm his nerves just a bit.

After a few minute walk, Jaemin wandering around him and curiously observing the surroundings, they arrive at the pond. There’s a bench near a tree, and Hyukjae sats down on it as he reaches it. Jaemin halts to stare the ducks.

“Don’t go too near the water. We don’t want to go for a swim,” Hyukjae notes.

He inhales the autumn air. Exhales. Inhales. He tries to tuck his hands into his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket, but he stops when his fingers meet the bag of cereal. He pulls it out, thoughtfull.

“You want to feed the ducks?”

Jaemin turns to give him a curious look, and starts walking towards him. A duck follows her movement obediently, and they soon start rushing to them when Hyukjae rustles the bag. He tears the bag open.

“Give me your hands,” he says softly. The kid obeys. Hyukjae pours few brown cereals onto her hands, and the girl stares at him as if it is the most adventurous thing she’s done.

“You can throw the cereals for them. They seem hungry.”

She throws a cereal, and it lands on the grass. One of the ducks notices it and it rushes towards it, quacking excitedly. The duck chews the cereal and quacks commandingly.

A little giggle escapes Jaemin’s lips.

Another cereal flies, and the ducks run for it.

She giggles again, and her almond eyes twinkle like stars on a clear sky.

Hyukjae wonders how anyone could’ve ever thrown her away like that.

Donghae shuts the door after him, the conversation with Jessica still daunting him as he takes his jacket off and puts it neatly on the racket. He sees mittens and a jacket thrown over the floor, abandoned.

It’s 5:32pm, and he’s actually early. At least Jessica was nice enough to let him leave before his shift's end.

But it’s quiet in the apartment, and Donghae halts. Why is it so silent? He puts down his bag and without taking his shoes off, he walks into the apartment. The tv doesn’t peal. Only the kitchen’s light is on, and as he passes it, he notices the dirty plates on the counter. At least Hyukjae hasn’t forgotten to feed themselves.

The living room is dim, but when he reaches it, he sees the reason for the mysterious silence.

Hyukjae is slumping on the couch, legs laying on top of it. He’s snuggled in the crook of the armrest and the corner, snoring. The girl’s knocked out, sleeping over the man’s legs, a hand tied around his knee, his thigh as her pillow.

“Rough day, huh?” Donghae whispers to himself, smiling.

13.11.17
whoa, again?! it's so weird being so inspired again XD