Chapter Fourteen #2
I stop trying eventually. I don’t want to, but every failed attempt leaves me feeling smaller and more pathetic than the last, and I can see that pushing is only hardening Sungyoon’s resolve rather than softening it.
So I retreat to the edges of our new family unit and occupy myself with quiet tasks that keep my hands busy and my mouth shut.
I fold laundry, sorting Hongjoong’s flashy streetwear and Sungyoon’s school uniforms and my own modest clothes into neat separate piles.
I clean the kitchen after every meal, scrubbing counters that are already clean, wiping down appliances that don’t need wiping.
I take the dogs out when Sungyoon is at school, walking them along the river path at a slower pace than Sungyoon’s morning jogs, letting them sniff every tree and lamppost while I smoke and stare at the water.
I tell myself that Sungyoon needs time, that he’s processing something enormous, that he’ll come around when he’s ready and that forcing the issue will only make things worse.
The silence from my son is a wound that doesn’t close, though.
It just sits there, open and stinging, and every day that passes without his voice directed at me makes it a little deeper.
Over a week into living together, I go looking for Hongjoong one night after Sungyoon has supposedly gone to bed.
The apartment is dim, most of the lights off, and I check the living room and the kitchen and the bathroom before I notice the balcony door is cracked open, a thin sliver of cool night air bleeding into the hallway.
I move toward it and then stop just inside the doorway when I hear voices drifting in from outside.
Hongjoong and Sungyoon are sitting together on the balcony furniture, Sungyoon cross-legged on one of the wide outdoor chairs with a blanket pulled over his lap, Hongjoong leaned back in the chair beside him with his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle.
The city glitters below them and the air smells like spring and cigarette smoke, a half-finished cigarette burning between Hongjoong’s fingers.
I stay where I am, just inside the door, out of their line of sight, and listen.
Sungyoon is telling Hongjoong about all the places he’s always wanted to go.
His voice has a dreamy quality it gets when he’s talking about something he really cares about, the careful guard he keeps up during the day dropped in the intimacy of the late hour.
“I’ve always wanted to see Monaco,” he’s saying.
“The street circuit. I’ve watched footage of it so many times I could probably draw the layout from memory.
And Suzuka, the figure-eight crossover section is insane, I don’t understand how they built that. ”
Hongjoong hums, taking a drag. “We’ll go,” he says, easy as anything, like he’s agreeing to pick up groceries on the way home.
“All of us. I race the European circuit every summer, you can come with me. Monaco, Silverstone, Monza, wherever you want. We have time now to make up for everything we missed.”
Sungyoon is quiet for a moment, and when he speaks again the dreamy quality is gone, replaced by a harder and more brittle edge. “We wouldn’t have to make up for any of it if Dad hadn’t kept us apart.”
My chest contracts so sharply that I have to press my hand flat against my sternum to keep from making a sound. I take a half step backward, my body already deciding to retreat, not wanting to hear whatever comes next because I already know what it will be and I don’t think I can take it right now.
But then Hongjoong speaks, and his voice stops me.
“Your dad did what he thought was best,” Hongjoong says.
There’s no anger in his tone, not the cold fury I’ve been absorbing from him for days, he just sounds quiet and considerate.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on him, Sungyoon.
It’s difficult for omegas, especially unclaimed omegas with no support system.
Your dad was in a very difficult position when he had you.
” He pauses, and I hear the soft exhale of smoke.
“He was young. Alone. Cut off from his own family because they wanted him to give you away and he refused. No income, no one to turn to. The choices he made might have been wrong, but they came from a place of fear. Not malice.”
The balcony goes quiet except for the distant hum of traffic below. Then Sungyoon asks, his voice smaller and stripped of its earlier edge, “Would you have claimed him? If you’d known about me when I was a baby. Would you have stepped in?”
Hongjoong doesn’t answer right away. I hold my breath in the doorway, my pulse loud in my own ears, and wait.
“Yes,” Hongjoong says finally, the word is simple and certain. “Had I known, I would have stepped in right away. No question.”
“See,” Sungyoon says. I can hear the frustration in it, the if only.
“But your dad didn’t know that,” Hongjoong says firmly.
“All your dad knew was that there was a chance I would reject him. And for an unclaimed omega with a newborn, that risk wasn’t just emotional, Sungyoon.
If I had turned him away, your dad would have had nothing.
No safety net, no legal protections, no recourse.
He would have been completely exposed, with a baby to feed and no way to provide for it.
Can you understand why someone in that position might choose the option that felt safest, even if it wasn’t the right one? ”
Sungyoon doesn’t respond for a long time. I can picture him sitting there with his jaw working, fighting acceptance.
“Try to understand your dad and where he was coming from,” Hongjoong continues, his voice has gone gentler.
“We’re alphas, you and me. We can never fully be in his position.
We can never understand what it’s like to be that vulnerable with that much on the line.
Your dad sacrificed everything to raise you on his own.
Years of his life that took a serious toll on him, just to make sure you had food and clothes and a future.
He did that alone, Sungyoon. For fifteen years. ”
“I know,” Sungyoon says soberly, the anger drained out of him. “I know he did. But I can’t help being mad. I wish I’d known you years ago. I spent my whole childhood wondering who my other father was and why he wasn’t around. Whether he even wanted me.”
“Me too,” Hongjoong says quietly. “More than you know.”
Another silence stretches between them, filled with the sounds of the city and the faint rustle of the blanket as Sungyoon shifts in his chair.
“But we have plenty of time now,” Hongjoong says.
“And you never have to worry about anything ever again. You and your dad never have to struggle again. You can have whatever you want, and all you need to focus on is school. I can send you to any college in the country, the best one available, wherever you want to go. We have our whole lives ahead of us.” He pauses, and when he speaks again his tone makes me press my back against the wall beside the door.
“But all of that means nothing without your dad. He’s the reason you’re the person you are.
Without his sacrifice, you wouldn’t exist as you do.
Smart, and confident, and good. That’s all him, Sungyoon. ”
I close my eyes.
“You have every right to be angry,” Hongjoong says.
“I was angry too. I’m still angry, honestly.
But your dad loves you more than anything in this world.
More than he loves himself, more than he’s ever loved anyone or anything.
And now that we’re together, the three of us, we should move past it and focus on being a family. A real one.”
Sungyoon sighs, long and heavy and gusty, like it comes from somewhere much deeper than his lungs. “I guess you have a point,” he says, morose but the hard edge is gone, worn down by Hongjoong’s words into a softer and more tired air.
I move away from the door silently, stepping carefully so the floor doesn’t creak under my feet, and walk back down the hallway to the bedroom.
I sit on the edge of the bed in the dark and press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see spots, my chest so tight it hurts to breathe, emotions flooding through me.
Gratitude and guilt and grief and relief and love, all of it tangled together in a knot.
I sit there for a long time, listening to the muffled sounds of Hongjoong and Sungyoon coming back inside, the balcony door sliding shut, footsteps in the hallway, Sungyoon’s bedroom door closing, the click of dog nails on the floor as Alto and Rennard follow their favorite person to bed.
The bedroom door opens and Hongjoong comes in, still smelling faintly of cigarette smoke and the cool night air from the balcony, his hair slightly windblown from sitting outside.
He stops when he sees me sitting upright on the edge of the bed in the dark, clearly not asleep, clearly waiting for him.
His brow lifts and his eyes narrow with curiosity, that cat-like tilt of his head as he takes me in, trying to read what I’m about to do before I do it.
I don’t give him time to ask. I stand up from the bed and cross the space between us, and then I lower myself to my knees in front of him.
Hongjoong’s expression shifts, the curiosity sharpening into alertness, his body going still as he watches me settle onto the floor at his feet.
I take one of his hands in both of mine, wrapping my fingers around his palm and holding it against my chest, and I look up at him.