Chapter Fourteen
One week turns into two, and the apartment that once felt like Hongjoong’s starts to reshape itself around the three of us in ways I didn’t anticipate.
Sungyoon adapts to his new life with the kind of effortless flexibility that only teenagers seem to possess, absorbing the upgrade in circumstances like he was born to it.
Hongjoong takes him to the track every weekend without fail, the two of them leaving early in the morning and coming back late in the afternoon smelling like fuel and rubber and sunscreen, Sungyoon’s cheeks flushed and his eyes bright as he recounts whatever Hongjoong showed him that day.
Hongjoong introduces him to the team, to the mechanics and the engineers and the other drivers, and apparently Sungyoon charmed every single one of them within the first hour because by the second visit they’re greeting him by name and letting him sit in the cockpits unsupervised.
Hongjoong takes him shopping too, not just once but repeatedly, coming home with bags from stores I’ve never set foot in, brands I recognize only from the advertisements plastered on bus stops and subway walls.
New sneakers, new jackets, a watch that Sungyoon straps to his wrist and keeps touching like he can’t believe it’s real.
All the things a fifteen-year-old wants desperately but has learned not to ask for because he knows his parent can’t afford them.
They develop a language between them that I’m not part of.
Inside jokes that make them both crack up at the dinner table while I sit there smiling without understanding the punchline.
A shorthand built on shared gestures and shared instincts, the way they both tilt their heads at the same angle when they’re thinking, the way they both drum their fingers on flat surfaces when they’re impatient, the way they mirror each other’s posture without realizing it.
It comes so naturally to them, this bond, like it was always there waiting to be activated, and watching it unfold is both the most beautiful and the most isolating thing I’ve ever experienced.
I’m grateful for it. Genuinely, deeply grateful in a way that sits warm and solid under my ribs, even on the worst days.
Sungyoon deserves this. He deserves a father who looks at him with that mixture of wonder and fierce protectiveness that Hongjoong can’t seem to turn off, who answers his endless questions about engines and aerodynamics with real enthusiasm instead of polite tolerance, who claps him on the shoulder and calls him kid in a voice that’s already thick with love he hasn’t fully learned how to express yet.
My son deserves all of it and more, and the fact that he’s finally getting it should be enough to fill the hollow space expanding quietly behind my sternum. It isn’t, but it should be.
And then there are the dogs.
I was never able to afford pets, and even if I could have, the hours I kept and the nature of my work made it impossible.
But Sungyoon has always loved dogs. He used to stop on the sidewalk to pet every stray we passed, would crouch down and let them lick his face while I stood there telling him to wash his hands afterward, would linger outside pet shops with his nose pressed to the glass until I had to physically steer him away.
I never connected it to anything at the time, just figured it was a kid thing, but now watching him with Alto and Rennard I can see the inheritance written all over it, the same instinctive affinity Hongjoong has with animals, the same easy confidence in handling them, the same way they both scratch behind the ears with two fingers in that specific spot that makes the borzois’ back legs twitch.
The dogs took to Sungyoon instantly, with an enthusiasm that bordered on betrayal of their original owner.
Within the first few days, they were following Sungyoon through the apartment like a pair of silky-furred shadows, their long elegant noses bumping against his palms, their feathery tails sweeping the floor whenever he entered a room.
I watch every evening as Sungyoon sprawls across the living room couch with both dogs draped over him, Alto’s narrow head resting on his chest and Rennard curled against his hip, the three of them taking up the entire sofa while Sungyoon scrolls through his phone with one hand and strokes Alto’s ear with the other.
I catch him sneaking bites of his dinner under the table when he thinks nobody’s looking, his hand dropping casually to his side with a piece of meat pinched between his fingers, and the soft click of teeth accepting the offering is barely audible over the conversation but I hear it every time. I don’t say anything.
He starts volunteering to take them out, which is something Hongjoong usually handles himself since the borzois need proper exercise and not just a quick loop around the block.
Sungyoon begins jogging with them in the mornings before school, the three of them tearing down the tree-lined path along the river near the apartment complex, the sighthounds stretching their long legs into that gorgeous floating gallop they were bred for while Sungyoon keeps pace beside them, grinning and breathless.
He comes back sweaty and exhilarated and the dogs come back with their tongues lolling and their tails high, all three of them radiating the same satisfied energy.
One morning I’m standing in the kitchen making coffee when I hear Hongjoong’s voice from down the hallway, calling for the dogs in the particular whistle-and-snap combination he uses.
“Alto! Rennard! Come on, let’s go.” Silence.
He calls again, louder, and I hear his footsteps moving through the apartment, checking the living room, the balcony, the laundry room.
Then his footsteps stop and there’s a pause, and I set down my mug and walk quietly to the hallway to see what he’s found.
Hongjoong is standing in the open doorway of Sungyoon’s room, one hand braced on the frame, looking in with an expression I can’t fully read from this angle.
I come up behind him and peer past his shoulder.
Sungyoon is still asleep, buried under his comforter with only the top of his head visible, and on either side of him the dogs are curled in matching crescents, Alto tucked against his back with her long snout resting on his shoulder and Rennard pressed against his front with his head on the pillow next to Sungyoon’s, one silky ear flopped across the boy’s cheek.
All three of them are breathing in the same slow rhythm, deeply and contentedly asleep.
Hongjoong doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he exhales through his nose, shakes his head once, and turns away from the door. As he passes me in the hallway he mutters, “Traitors,” but there’s no heat in it at all, and the corner of his mouth is twitching.
The dogs sleep in Sungyoon’s bed every night after that.
Sungyoon is still not speaking to me.
I try. I make his favorite breakfast one morning, the egg toast with cheese and the sweet pickled radish he’s loved since he was small, arranging it on the plate the way he likes with the radish fanned out on the side.
Sungyoon walks into the kitchen, glances at the plate on the counter, and walks past it without breaking stride, grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl instead and disappearing back into his room.
I stand there looking at the untouched plate for a while before I scrape it into the trash.
I ask him about school one afternoon when he comes through the front door, keeping my voice light and casual, the way I always used to.
“How was your day?” He shrugs without looking at me and says, “Fine,” to the middle distance somewhere over my left shoulder, already moving past me toward his room.
The door closes with a soft click that feels louder than a slam.
I try sitting beside him on the couch one evening while he’s working through a math problem set, settling onto the cushion next to him with my own book, not saying anything, just being near him the way we used to be in our old apartment when he’d do homework at the coffee table and I’d sit on the floor beside him reading or scrolling my phone.
Sungyoon looks up, takes note of my presence, and without a word gathers his textbook and his notebook and his pencil case into his arms and relocates to the dining table on the other side of the room.
He doesn’t look at me as he spreads his things out again and picks up where he left off.
Every attempt I make to bridge the distance between us hits the same wall.
Sungyoon’s jaw set in that hard stubborn line, his eyes sliding past me, his responses clipped to the absolute minimum number of syllables required.
I recognize the expression because it’s the exact same one Hongjoong wore for days after finding out the truth, that controlled shutdown, the deliberate withholding of warmth as punishment.
Father and son, united in their capacity to freeze me out with identical faces.