umbrella { sunjay }

12.

"stay right behind me, okay baby?" sunoo finally let go of eunjoo's little hand in order to look at the difference in pricing for an item he wanted to purchase for the house. he knew it would only be for no more than a minute and eunjoo was always very good at staying close to her father.  

"okay." she nodded obediently and decided to take a look at her surroundings in case she found something interesting while she waited.

"alright i think i'll go with this one." the man mumbled to no one in particular before placing the item back into the cart. 

"let's go, eunjoo-ah." sunoo turned to where he told the little one to stay put, only to find an empty and silent aisle. 

thinking his mind was playing a unfunny joke on himself; he blinked rapidly. 

eunjoo had vanished into thin air. 

now, sunoo felt his organ responsible for pumping blood into his body began to thump and jump around in his chest. 

as if it was muscle memory, he wasted no time to abandon his shopping cart and ran. he began to run while stealing glances in every aisle to see if he could find a particular bright pink jacket with ears on the hood.

he wanted to scream her name but it was as if his voice had been taken from him and his ears rang with the audio of his heart beating at an ungodly pace. 

every aisle he glimpsed into held nothing but other customers or emptiness. 

without realizing it, tears had trailed down his worry-filled eyes and onto the tile flooring. marked with scuffs and dirt from the wheels of trollies and feet of people in search of their items.

ignoring the fiery burning that spread through his lungs and rose into his throat, he screamed out his only child's name. 

"kim eunjoo!!" 

this was his last resort. he had been looking for well over ten minutes and the panic had only increased as the seconds morphed into minutes. he didn't care how insane he may have appeared to other customers. that was the very least of his problems.

he blamed himself. he blamed himself for not paying more attention. he blamed himself for not holding onto her hand. he blamed himself for turning his back on her.

this was admittedly all his fault. 

"kim eunjoo!" this time his screams weren't as loud as they were drowned out by the tears and lump in his throat. 

he continued to search high and low, there was no time for stopping.

and then suddenly; as he stood in the middle of the frozen food section, his calls had been heard.

park jongseong walked into the aisle with a smiling eunjoo held safely on his right arm with one of her arms around his shoulder. 

it was like all of sunoo's strength he had been holding onto had collapsed and vanished.  

he fell onto the floor with his hands covering his face as he sobbed. 

this raised panic into jongseong as he could see the male was clearly in distress. without hesitance, he rushed over to the younger with eunjoo still in his hold and deserted his cart, just as sunoo had did minutes before.

"hey, hey, it's okay i found her." he leaned down to sunoo's level on one knee. the girl's eyes began to water also, seeing her father having a full breakdown was nothing she was used to seeing before.

composing himself as much as he could, sunoo let his hands drop from his tear stained face and quickly scooped his daughter into his tight embrace. eunjoo wasted no time to burry her face into his chest.

the two sat there crying in each other's arms, completely forgetting the other male. which jay didn't mind at all. he was mostly concerned about how sunoo was; given his state.

"i'm sorry eunjoonie. daddy is so sorry." sunoo repeated to the girl.

after a while, the two had finally calmed down.

sunoo looked up at the knitted eyebrows of concern on the face of park jongseong and almost bursted into tears once again.

if jay wasn't here at the market coincidently at the exact same time, who knows what would have happened. there was not enough words in the world to describe how grateful the father was.

"why did you go off? i told you to stay close." before he could appreciate the man, he had to scold the little girl for running off. even though he knew it was his fault for trusting a four year old.

"i'm sorry." her large puppy eyes looked down at the ground in shame. it was rare for her father to scold her so she knew it had to be serious.

sunoo sighed, "don't ever do that again, kim eunjoo." usually, sunoo would waver his sternness but this time there was no way around it. 

jay stood to his feet again and lent out a hand for sunoo to raise from the dirty store flooring.

without giving the older male time to speak, sunoo quickly brought him into a warm hug. it completely caught the other off guard but he was soon to accept the action. 

after the quick embrace, sunoo immediately latched on tight to the little girl's hand once again. 

"thank you so much. i turned around for one not even one minute and she was gone... i can't even describe how much i owe you." 

"you don't have to thank me, sunoo. i guess the toy aisle caught her attention and i just so happened to see her and recognize her. when i heard you calling her name i followed after you." 

sunoo couldn't thank every star in the galaxy for how thankful he was that jay was at the right place at the right time. it was like a miracle.

"eunjoo... you know, it's not safe to run away from your dad. you could've gotten hurt, or worse." jongseong went down to her eye level so that he was able to emphasize his words.

"your dad was very worried about you, sweetheart. next time, will you follow directions and stay near?"

eunjoo nodded, showing she understood his words. "yes, i won't run away." 

sunoo's lips held a ghost of a smile at the interaction. it was nice knowing he had another person looking out for eunjoo when he couldn't.

"is there anyway i could buy you dinner, or do something to repay you?" sunoo questioned as the man stood up to his full height, only about an inch above sunoo.

"there's no need, truly. if you really want to though, you two could come to my house and have dinner with us. that's the reason i was here anyway." jay chuckled softly as the three of them made their way to collect their abandoned carts.

"i don't want to impose..."

"you're not an imposing at all! i'm sure heera and eunjoo miss each other as well." eunjoo's head turned at the sound of her new best friend's name.

"can we go?" eunjoo excitedly jumped whilst holding onto her father's hand.

"i guess we can." 

today had already been a whirl of emotions for sunoo. hopefully this dinner would help ease the tension he still felt from almost losing his daughter in a grocery store.

❀

More Sunjay interactions are coming soon🙏 trust the process😉