umbrella { sunjay }

25.

the weekend passed just as fast as it arrived. sunoo spent the remainder of his saturday and sunday doing anything to occupy his time. 

he hadn't heard from jongseong since he left that morning. which sunoo expected since jay was dealing with his own problems.

but sunoo couldn't help but feel a grave emptiness as he sat on his living room couch and waited for his eunjoo to return home.

without realizing it, jay's presence had slowly became a constant in his life. not knowing when the next time he would receive a message or meet again, hurt more than he imagined.

sunoo knew he got attached to people fairly quickly, but this was... different. 

interrupting his inner conflict, he heard a ring of his doorbell and knew it was his family. in the four days that eunjoo was away, he missed her like crazy. it was rare for them to be apart so it felt like someone pulling his limbs from his body.

upon turning the doorhandle, he could almost cry at the sight of his 'little flower'. 

her bright big eyes lit up like a million fireflies in the warm nights of june. "i missed you." she exclaimed as he scooped her into his arms.

"i missed you too." he hugged her tightly, forgetting his sister was still standing in the apartment hallway.

"i missed you too, little brother!" misun jokingly commented with a big smile from seeing their reunion.

sunoo separated from the hug to greet his sister. before she had to leave and return to her life in suwon.

"did you have fun spending the weekend with grandma and grandpa?" sunoo questioned the girl, still in his arms.

"yes! but i missed you a lot." her expression saddened as she thought about how they were apart for almost four days.

"that's okay, it's okay to miss people. i missed you too. but the important part is that you had fun while it lasted." she nodded in agreement.

❀

"have you told anyone else?" heeseung questioned.

"not yet, i think i'll wait until it's finalized. i don't feel like hearing other people's opinions right now." jay sighed as he massaged his temples and fidgeted with his car keys.

the two of them were talking in heeseung's family room since his wife and daughter were out at the moment and jay needed a big brother right now. 

he felt the need to pour his heart out to someone but he didn't want to put all his lugage onto kim sunoo. it seemed like the male was the only one he turned to these days. jay knew it was unfair to the younger.

he didn't want their friendship to be purely based on him ranting about his failed marriage and pathetic life. 

he figured that if he stayed away from sunoo, he wouldn't weigh him down with his problems. just for now. just until he was in the right headspace. 

then, he could be a good friend.

"what are your opinions?" heeseung reflected jay's statement back onto him. it was uncommon for jay to tell him how he truly felt. heeseung knew that though. 

telling personal things to people you're close to, is strangely harder than telling a random person you've just met.

"truthfully, i think it was bound to happen." 

heeseung raised an eyebrow, not expecting jongseong to say that about the girl he boasted about in college.

"how so? i thought you two had something since high school."

"i think that may have been one of the problems. we kept trying to be seventeen year old us. but we grew up and we changed. we were bound to have problems from the start." 

"i'm sorry to hear that. i knew you've always wanted a family." heeseung patted the latter's shoulder.

"don't be sorry. i guess having a family isn't for me." he shrugged as if his statement was insignificant. but it wasn't. 

it hurt him deeply inside.

jongseong knew when he informs his parents to forget the idea of grandchildren, they'll pretend to not care about those things. but in reality, they'll feel heartbroken. 

since he and sena got married, his parents had this glimpse of hope in their eye that he'd fulfill their wish of growing old with grandchildren.

he threw that wish out when he married sena, someone who wanted nothing to do with children. 

but they still held on to hope. and now that hope is gone.

"you never know, you may have one eventually." heeseung commented as he stood up at the sound of his front door opening.

"daddy!" heera's excitement lit up the gloomy atmosphere instantly as she ran into heeseung's arms.

"welcome back you two." heeseung's cheese never faulted as he placed a warm peck onto his wife's lips.

jay stood behind the other male and watched with a small smile at the family. they were picture perfect.

"uncle jay!" heera's eyes finally caught onto her favorite person and she quickly jumped from her father's arms into jay's.

"hey little monster!" jay spun her around in a circle before setting her back on the ground.

"are you having dinner with us?" heera's gummy smile shined.

jay frowned sadly. "sorry princess, i have to get home. i was only visiting for a moment. but i promise, we'll hang out soon." he held out his pinky finger to lock in his words.

heera's smile was no longer as bright as she wrapped her smaller finger around his. "okay... see you next time." she mopped around to her mom's side.

"thank you for listening, hyung." jay hugged heeseung briefly before bidding yeona goodbye as well.

once the door closed behind him, he paced to his car and put his head on the steering wheel after entering.

jealousy wasn't the right word to express how he felt towards heeseung's family. it was closer to longing. he longed for what heeseung got to wake up to every morning.

his drive to his own home consisted of a lot of thinking. he thought about the future. he thought about the past.

he even thought about sunoo and eunjoo. he wished he could return to sunoo's warm embrace but he wouldn't. 

friends aren't supposed to fill a void that he couldn't fill himself. he would never use sunoo. 

but after a while of thinking, he came to a conclusion.

maybe dreams are just dreams after all. maybe sunoo was right.

❀