Felicity (A Jikyu And Hajeongwoo Fanfic)

Chapter 17

Even though Jeongwoo doubted Hyunsuk at first, he found no reason to hate him. Hyunsuk is a cheerful, hardworking and ethical guy. He seemed to take good care of Jihoon, so in a way, Jeongwoo felt happy inside that finally, his brother could lead a normal life since Junkyu is gone. Things started to get better for Jihoon as well. Since Jihoon had to take care of Jeongwoo from a very little age, and after knowing the big baby Junkyu, he had to take care of him as well. In a nutshell, Jihoon had always played the part of an older brother. But Hyunsuk was the only one that took care of Jihoon, that babied Jihoon in his own way and Jihoon felt blessed to have him around. Jihoon talked a lot about his family, his best friend Junkyu and the other friends of his. He skipped the part of having a crush on Junkyu because he didn’t want to come off as a weird person to his senior. Even though, he believed that Hyunsuk wouldn’t judge him even if he did, he still avoided that part deliberately. In college, he started hanging out with Hyunsuk whenever he can and thus formed a good bond with the older one in a very short time.

Jeongwoo felt good about that at first too, until things started to get a bit hard on him. It started when one day, Jihoon came home late. Since their mom usually returns home after 10 pm, considering how far she had to travel, Jihoon and Jeongwoo had their own understanding about returning home within 8 pm. But that day, Jihoon got home by almost 9:30 pm. Jeongwoo was worried as hell and obviously, called Jihoon only to hear Hyunsuk’s voice from the other side. He said that Jihoon was with him and he'd return home a bit late. This bothered Jeongwoo for many reasons. One, what business could Jihoon have that he didn’t explain to Jeongwoo? Two, if Jihoon knew he’d be late, why didn’t he call beforehand? And above all, since when did the two become that close to pick up each other’s phone call? Jeongwoo was irritated. But since he trusted his brother, he waited patiently. After Jihoon returned, he asked about it and Jihoon just replied that it was a club activity and that he forgot to inform Jeongwoo about it because he was really busy.

Jeongwoo would have forgot about it if it hadn’t happened repeatedly afterwards. After the first time being late, Jihoon continued to get home by 9:30 pm or around again and again. Jeongwoo once thought about telling his mom about it since Jihoon always returned before her and if Jihoon hadn’t told her which Jeongwoo was sure he didn’t; she wouldn’t know. But it felt weird to him to just go and spill this to their mom because technically, Jihoon wasn’t doing anything bad. Jeongwoo felt like he was being too irrational and had to convince himself thinking how that might be what adults face.

Jihoon knew he should have come clean to Jeongwoo on the first day, but he didn’t want to ruin his plan of surprising his brother and other friends. After knowing Hyunsuk, Jihoon came to know how Hyunsuk could rap and dance like a pro. Jihoon loved dancing as well, so he felt very eager to learn dancing from his senior to which Hyunsuk suggested something else. Their college was near the dance academy where Hyunsuk took his lessons. Since the entry fee wasn’t that much and Jihoon had to do something to occupy himself, he decided to enrol in the class, with Hyunsuk as his reference. The only problem was, the class started after dusk. Jihoon thought of telling his mom about it, but decided to surprise her as well after completing the course. He was so excited on his first class that he forgot to tell Jeongwoo that he would go home late. On his first day, Hyunsuk accompanied him. Before starting to learn the basics, Jihoon left his bag to Hyunsuk and after some minutes, Hyunsuk heard the phone ring. He didn’t want to pick up, but seeing Jeongwoo’s caller id, he did pick up just to assure him that Jihoon was safe. Jihoon forbid him beforehand not to tell anyone about him taking the course and he obliged.

But this secret keeping affected Jeongwoo negatively. The person he trusted the most in the world is his elder brother, because Jihoon had been his anchor since he was born. There wasn’t a time he felt distant to his brother. He knew Jihoon could tell what he thought anytime just by looking at him and he cherished that. After gaining feelings for Haruto, Jeongwoo stayed in the constant state of anxiety because he knew Jihoon doubted them. But surprisingly, Jihoon didn’t push him to tell the truth, maybe because he was too occupied with Junkyu. But little by little, Jeongwoo started to feel neglected by his own brother. As Jihoon spent most of his time of day outside, it was only expected that he’d spend some quality time with his family at night, but Jihoon always went to his room right after getting home. The only time Jeongwoo could see him was during dinner, that too because their mom made it a strict rule to attend dinner together.

Hyunsuk’s frequent arrival to their home made it even worse. Hyunsuk first came to their home when Jihoon fell sick and couldn’t go to college for 3 days. On the 3rd evening, Hyunsuk came, uninvited. He didn’t stay for long, but during the time he stayed, he took care of Jihoon. Jeongwoo found it a bit weird. The next time, their mom invited him because he was always kind to Jihoon. Hyunsuk behaved nicely, almost too nicely to Jeongwoo’s liking. Junghwan was called that day too and Jeongwoo let out his frustration to him. Junghwan tried to make him understand that things like that happened but Jeongwoo was too sad to understand that.

The major incident that made Jeongwoo absolutely sure that Jihoon indeed got distant and started neglecting him was when Jeongwoo asked Jihoon to come home early to help him study some topics that he was having an exam on the next day. Jihoon agreed. But as usual, he was late. Jeongwoo even called Junkyu that day only to realize that even Junkyu was unware of what Jihoon was doing with Hyunsuk. Jeongwoo felt betrayed and enraged. He knew how strong Junkyu and Jihoon’s friendship was. Keeping Junkyu in the dark can only mean one thing, Jihoon must be doing things that cannot be told to Junkyu. And what can you not say to your boyfriend? About dating another man, right? The respect he had towards Jihoon, seemed to lessen, because Jeongwoo felt disgusted thinking his brother might be cheating on his lover. The studying was left aside, because Jeongwoo was fuming by then. If Jihoon really did what he thought, then every night he was late, just like that day, Jihoon was with Hyunsuk, probably kissing him the same way he kissed Junkyu , telling the same fake words to Hyunsuk that he said to Junkyu. No wonder he always forgot to inform Jeongwoo about being late, because he was too occupied in having another affair.

The sound of the doorbell ringing awoke Jeongwoo. He quickly went to open it and to his surprise, instead of Jihoon, it was his mom.

“Mom, why are you so early?” he asked.
“I am? How? It’s already 10:30.” , she said.

“Really? Then where's hyung?” Jeongwoo asked again.

“Jihoon isn’t home yet?” she asked back. Jeongwoo shook his head. It was 10:30 but Jihoon wasn’t home. Jeongwoo called Jihoon but his call was not answered. Rather, the bell rang again.

Jeongwoo went to open the door again, showing a smiling Jihoon.

“Jihoon, why are you home this late?” their mom said.

“I'm really sorry, mom. But I won’t be late anymore.” Jihoon’s smile got wider and Jeongwoo lost it.

“Why are you smiling? Because you had fun for this long? Didn’t you remember I told you to come home early because I needed your help for my studies? Well, obviously you didn’t because that senior of yours is now everything to you, more than me, more than Junkyu hyung!” Jeongwoo spoke aloud.

Jihoon stood frozen for some seconds. He didn’t expect Jeongwoo to fire at him like that, not when finally his dance course was complete and he was announced the winner of the whole batch in their final evaluation test. He kept is secret to everyone to surprise them with the trophy but Jeongwoo’s reaction took him off guard.

“What are you saying woo? Sure I've been late, but I didn’t do anything bad, did I? And why are you dragging Junkyu here?” Jihoon asked.

Their mom tried to calm them down but Jeongwoo rushed to his room and shut the door. Jihoon immediately followed suit because he was feeling guilty of forgetting about Jeongwoo’s exam. He felt like no matter how excited he became for his evaluation, he still had to do something to help Jeongwoo. So, he knocked on the door.

“Woo, I'm sorry. I'll tell you what I've been doing and I'll help you with your studies too.” He said.

“It's not needed anymore. Now please do what you do every night, I've got lots of studies to do.” Jeongwoo tried replying as calmly as he could, considering how angry he was feeling.

“Okay, but you said you needed my help.” Jihoon tried again.

“I've already taken Junghwan's help.” Jeongwoo lied.

Finding it useless to pester Jeongwoo right then, Jihoon decided to go to his room. His trophy remained hidden inside his bag because he had lost both his will and excitement about it. He found a text from Hyunsuk wanting to know how his family reacted to the trophy. He sighed while typing that he would first have to solve things with Jeongwoo. And that would take him some days because Jeongwoo is scary when angry and is really good at giving cold shoulders. But Jihoon knew with whom he could celebrate. He called Junkyu and immediately forgot about everything after hearing his best friend gasp and clap at his success from far away.

Having Junkyu in his life is thus another name for blessing to Jihoon.