Chapter Twelve #2
Hongjoong grins. “Every driver who’s been in both prefers the V10. The sound alone is worth it. You can feel it in your teeth.”
Sungyoon’s dimple cuts deep and he leans forward in his seat. “Can I come to a race? Like, in the pit area, not just the stands?”
“You can come to every race if you want,” Hongjoong says, so casually that if you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t hear how much meaning he puts into it.
The way his grip tightens briefly on the steering wheel, the way his eyes flick to the rearview mirror for just a second.
Not to check traffic. To look at me. I drop my gaze to my hands.
They keep talking. I keep quiet.
Hongjoong leads the way into the apartment with his arms spread wide, turning to face Sungyoon in the entryway with a grin that shows every one of his teeth. “Make yourself at home,” he says, a double entendre. An invitation that’s also a declaration. This is yours now. You belong here.
I trail in behind them and stand near the door as Sungyoon’s jaw drops.
His head tips back to take in the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sprawling view of the city skyline glittering in the late afternoon light, the polished floors and the modern furniture and the sheer scale of the space.
Alto and Rennard come bounding around the corner with their feathery tails whipping, long elegant snouts shoving into Sungyoon’s hands and his stomach as they sniff the newcomer with enthusiastic thoroughness.
Sungyoon lets out a bright, startled laugh and drops to his knees to let them lick his face, his hands buried in their silky fur.
Hongjoong gives him the full tour. I follow at a distance, hovering near doorways, watching Hongjoong show Sungyoon the kitchen with its gleaming appliances, the living area with the entertainment system that makes Sungyoon’s eyes go wide, the balcony overlooking the city.
And then Hongjoong leads him down the hallway to a closed door, opens it, and steps aside.
Sungyoon walks in and stops. The room has been furnished.
A proper bed with a dark wood frame, a desk with a new lamp and a leather chair, built-in shelving along one wall that’s empty and waiting to be filled.
The bedding is new, still crisp, in a deep navy that looks like it was chosen with a teenage boy in mind.
There’s a window that faces east, morning light.
Sungyoon turns in a slow circle, taking it all in, and when he looks back at Hongjoong, his expression is open and vulnerable.
“This is mine?” he asks.
“This is yours,” Hongjoong confirms.
I watch them from the hallway and give them their space.
Neither of them is happy with me right now.
I know this and I accept it. I’ve earned it.
Sungyoon hasn’t spoken to me beyond what’s strictly necessary since the night he confronted me, his silence a wall I can’t breach and don’t try to.
When he needs something he asks Hongjoong.
When he has something to share he tells Hongjoong.
When he laughs, it’s at something Hongjoong said.
I’ve become furniture in my own son’s life, present but unacknowledged.
Hongjoong is worse in a different way. He isn’t ignoring me.
He speaks to me when required, asks me functional questions about Sungyoon’s school schedule and dietary preferences, and medical history, all the practical information he needs to step into a parental role he’s determined to fill.
But the warmth is gone. The teasing, the easy banter, the way he used to look at me like I was something he couldn’t get enough of, all of it has been replaced with a clipped courtesy that makes me feel like a stranger he’s tolerating in his home out of obligation.
He hasn’t touched me since the day he found out.
Hasn’t kissed me, hasn’t reached for me, hasn’t so much as brushed my hand in passing.
The absence of his touch after weeks of having it constantly is its own kind of withdrawal, a physical ache that compounds the emotional one.
So I do something I’ve never done before in my entire life.
I submit. I make myself small and useful and unobtrusive in a way that would have made my teenage self recoil in disgust. I clean the apartment without being asked, wiping down counters and folding laundry, and organizing the kitchen because it’s the only way I can contribute without being in the way.
I cook meals and set the table and retreat to eat quietly at my end while Hongjoong and Sungyoon fill the space with conversation I’m not included in.
I keep my head down. I don’t argue. I don’t push back when Hongjoong gives me instructions about the household or the schedule.
I hover at the edges of rooms and make myself available without making myself noticed, a ghost in an apartment that isn’t mine, tending to a family that’s forming around me but not with me.
That night we sit down for dinner at the dining table, takeout containers spread across the surface from a restaurant Hongjoong ordered from.
Sungyoon is already talking before he’s fully in his chair, telling Hongjoong about the interschool soccer tournament, how his team made it to the semifinals, how he scored two goals in the last match.
Hongjoong leans forward on his elbows with his chin propped on his fist, listening intently, wholly engaged.
“What position do you play?” Hongjoong asks.
“Striker,” Sungyoon says through a mouthful of rice, then swallows and adds, “but coach sometimes puts me at attacking midfielder.”
“Striker.” Hongjoong nods, a slow grin spreading across his face. “I played striker in school too. Before I got kicked off the team for fighting.”
Sungyoon’s eyes go round. “You got kicked off?”
“Broke a defender’s nose during a match.
He’d been trash-talking me all game and I lost my temper.
” Hongjoong shrugs with absolutely no remorse.
“Your dad was furious with me.” He tips his head in my direction without actually looking at me, the first time he’s acknowledged my presence at the table. “Wouldn’t talk to me for a week.”
Sungyoon glances at me, the quickest flicker, and I nod slightly because it’s true.
Hongjoong had been an absolute menace on the pitch and I’d told him he was an embarrassment to the sport and refused to sit with him at lunch until he apologized to the other player.
He never did apologize, but he did buy me an entire box of honey pastries from the expensive bakery near school and left them on my desk with a note that said please stop ignoring me, I’m withering away.
I’d eaten every single pastry and continued ignoring him for two more days on principle.
I don’t share this. I just eat my food and keep my mouth shut.
They’re mirrors, the two of them. I watch Hongjoong lean back in his chair with one arm slung over the backrest and thirty seconds later Sungyoon does the same thing, unconscious mimicry, the same loose-limbed confidence in the way they hold their bodies.
They gesture with the same hand when they’re making a point.
They tilt their heads at the same angle when they’re listening.
And when Sungyoon says something that makes Hongjoong bark out a laugh, both of their dimples cut deep into their left cheeks at the exact same moment, and the resemblance is so striking that it physically hurts to look at.
I keep my head down and eat quietly and don’t ask either of them to be kind to me.
I have no right to that. Not after what I did.
So I endure the exclusion and the silence directed at me, and I tell myself this is what I deserve, that their anger is justified, that the loneliness sitting heavy in my gut is the price I’m paying for fifteen years of lies.
And maybe if I’m patient enough, quiet enough, good enough, eventually one of them will look at me again the way they used to.
It takes them a long time to wind down for the night.
I’m in the hallway putting fresh towels in the linen closet when I hear Hongjoong’s voice drifting from the doorway of Sungyoon’s new room, softer than I’ve heard it in days.
He’s leaning against the doorframe with one shoulder, arms crossed, watching Sungyoon test out the desk chair by spinning it in a slow circle.
“Is the mattress firm enough? I wasn’t sure what you’d prefer, so I went with medium, but I can swap it out tomorrow if it’s too soft.”
Sungyoon bounces on the edge of the bed experimentally, pressing his palms into the surface. “It’s good.”
“And the temperature, is the room too warm? There’s a separate thermostat panel on the wall by the light switch, you can adjust it however you want.
” Hongjoong points to it, then seems to think of something else and adds, “If you need a fan or a humidifier or anything like that, I can have one here by morning, just say the word.”
“It’s fine, seriously,” Sungyoon says, but he’s grinning, a wide, unguarded grin that shows his dimple, and there’s no irritation in his voice despite the fussing.
He looks up at Hongjoong from the bed and something passes between them that I can see even from where I’m standing ten feet down the hall, a shy, tentative warmth that’s fragile and new and unmistakably real, the very beginning of a bond.
Sungyoon’s eyes are bright and his shoulders are relaxed in a way they haven’t been around me in over a week, and Hongjoong’s expression has gone soft around the edges, the hard line of his jaw easing as he looks at his son sitting on the bed in the room he furnished for him.
“If you need anything at all,” Hongjoong says, quieter now, “anything, Sungyoon, you just ask me. Okay?”
Sungyoon nods, still grinning. “It’s perfect.”
I close the linen closet door without making a sound and retreat down the hallway toward the master bedroom before either of them notices me watching.