1. Chapter 1 #3
This had brought good publicity to K going back to work was something I was over the moon about, and why coming home is my favourite thing, because as much as I love my job, I love coming home to Theo.
We may have only been in each other’s lives for three years, but Theo and I have this unexplained bond where we can only go two days without seeing each other before he starts to get anxious from being away from me, yet another reason why I spoil this kid rotten.
Theo has seen our mother on occasion in the last few years, usually random and chaperoned by Min-Joon. He was the one who told me that Theo refers to mother as JJ, an abbreviation of her first name, Joan.
The woman forbade her child from calling her mother, which, now that I think about it, doesn’t surprise me, given how she cringes when I call her mother, and yet she decided to have both of us.
What a smart choice that was.
Anyway, she still shows up whenever she wants and does the one thing that makes my blood boil to the same temperature as molten lava, it being her inability to know anything about Theo, about his likes and dislikes, what kind of child he is, all the way down to his favourite colour, which literally anyone could guess since he’s dressed in it 24/7 when not in his school uniform - Red.
You may think it can’t be that bad, but it’s not until you see the inappropriate gifts she brings him during her visits that it’s a whole other headache for another day.
What I want to focus on right now is the fact that I worked my arse off to get Junior partner while being a single dad to my little brother, and I could only continue to do so if his best interests were at heart.
That included working more hours, still being able to do my private cases that fall every other weekend, not to mention having a talk with Theo about the changes that were about to happen, I don’t spend as much time with him as I should and despite the fact he loves Min-Joon like a brother, he always wants to spend more time with me, so of course half way through dinner, food is no longer edible thinking about the uncomfortable conversation he and I are going to have tomorrow.
But if the people who helped me get here were still able to help me out, then this newly approaching crisis can be dealt with quickly, which brings me to the discussion with Min-Joon, and I need to have it once Theo has gone to bed.
After dinner, I make sure Theo has his teeth brushed by doing it with him; otherwise, he pretends he’s done it by wetting his toothbrush under the tap.
Then, with his night clothes on, I tuck him into bed, read him a bedtime story and wish him goodnight.
After that, he snuggles up with his toad mushroom pillow and puts himself to sleep while I close the door.
The looming discussion then creeps closer as I head downstairs, and Min-Joon and I arrive in the living room at the same time.
It’s within our usual routine as I head towards the sofa, ready to release the exhaustion from today, and he returns from the fridge with two non-alcoholic beers in hand.
Now changed into his awful lime-coloured scrubs, Min-Joon has about an hour and a half before he heads to the hospital, so we both just collapse on the sofa and revel in the comfortable silence.
Park Min-Joon has been my best friend since the age of six. After living in South Korea for almost four months, the second-to-longest time my mother and I ever stayed in one place.
We went to school together, fought together against bullies and even ended up fighting after having a crush on the same girl once, but it brought us closer.
The foundation that built our cheese-and-chalk kind of duo we have today. It had hurt when my mother uprooted our lives in Korea when I was younger, convinced our friendship, like the others I had made over the years, had met its end, but it was one of the few times I was proven wrong.
Min-Joon never lost touch, even with roller-coasters of different time zones or the fact that we barely saw each other after I moved countries. He and his mother had come to visit when my mother and I spent some time in Italy during the summer, but that still didn’t scare him off.
Both of us had left school, gone to different universities, and gotten jobs and yet he remains my one and only friend after all these years.
Given how often I moved throughout my life, I could speak many languages, but Min-Joon was the reason I’m fluent in South Korean, due to our constant communication over the years, and he learned to speak English in return, well, that and his obsession with American TV shows such
as Friends and Gossip Girl.
I had also spent a month or two in Seoul with Min-Joon and his family once I broke free from my mother, something heavily insisted on by his mother. The first time I saw her after leaving Korea, she said to me, “I want nothing more than to spend time with my two favourite sons.”
I have never been capable of emotions such as love. That woman taught me what a real mother was, what it was like to have one.
And although I’ll never admit to anyone, I consider her the closest thing to having one. My sense of caring only stretched to her, Min-Joon, and Theo, but no wider. Nigel is a small exception.
Therefore, I always show my gratitude for everything Min-Joon has done for me in my own way. It means a lot to have him help me out with Theo in the midst of his full-time career as an ER Nurse. He’d done it with no questions asked; in fact, I didn’t even need to ask him.
I’d expressed how much I wanted to return to work but wasn’t sure how since Theo hated having a nanny, and twenty-four hours later, he showed up at my doorstep and sang the words: “Problem Solved.” The rest was history.
Bringing us to right now, I was solely relying on Min-Joon’s ability to save my arse as I brought up the result of what happened earlier.
“So, I had the meeting today,” I mumble, bringing the tip of the beer bottle to my lips.
“Yeah? How’d it go?” Min-Joon asks, sounding a tad more deflated than usual, but I don’t know why as we turn to look at each other.
“I got a Junior Partner.” I shrug.
Placing his beer down so quickly, it clunks loudly against the glass coffee table. Min-Joon jumps to his feet, pulling me with him and embracing me in a bro hug.
I wasn’t much of a hugger, but if he or Theo initiated it, I never withdrew. Feeling how excited Min-Joon was for me by the way he slapped my back made me crack a smirk.
There was always something about telling your best friend good news that amplified things to another level. We return to the sofa after our hug, and I notice the odd stiffness of Min-Joon’s body language.
“I’m really happy for you, man.” he nods, but the way he lingers, staring at his beer, tells me otherwise.
“What?” I ask, raising a brow.
“Hm? Nothing,” he brushes off.
“Joon, I’m knackered, and I’ve already put what should be the only child in this house to bed, so just spit it out.” I sigh, taking another swig of beer.
“Are you saying you wanna take me to bed?” Min-Joon wiggles his eyebrows, throwing his right leg over mine.
My usual frown returns, glaring at him whilst shoving his leg off me. That earns me a belly laugh as I shuffle away from him and roll my eyes. He doesn’t speak again until he collects his beer from the table.