2.2 | A Lifetime Of You ✓

chapter 13

About an hour later, Seo Lala sat in a children's ward bed, with her left hand plastered and tied in a sling. She was given a stuffed mouse to play with, because Dr. Tae only had a stuffed mouse and not a stuffed raccoon. 

"Ahjussi," she started slowly, as if afraid of Joon's reaction. 

"Hm?" Joon sat on a chair beside her bed. 

"Are you angry at Appa?" 

"No… not at all," Joon said. He didn't know what to feel at the childlike innocence of the question. The humidifier on the bedside table whirred softly, filling in the silence between them.

"Then why don't you talk to him anymore?" 

It was ludicrous how Lala summarized their entire relationship. Friends talk to each other. No talking, therefore no friends. And no friends, meant that someone was angry at someone. As if the world was that easy. 

"It's not like that, Lala," Joon chuckled. He covered his eyes and hunched down for a moment, "things are not like that." 

"But you promised me that you won't leave Appa. He doesn't have many friends." 

"It's only about your Appa," Joon shifted in his chair, "you didn't miss me?" 

"Of course I did!" Joon looked at her big eyes and felt his heart break a little. It was tough to explain to a child why everything was the way it was. Maybe she would understand when she grew up. 

"I don't like you," she puffed her cheeks and turned away, "you broke your promise." She hugged the stuffed mouse to her stomach, her lower lip jutting out and her eyes teary. "You didn't even come to watch Taekwondo Raccoon part four with me." 

"Lala, Ajhussi is sorry." Joon held out his hand for Lala to take, but the little girl refused to face him. Her hand must have hurt a lot, but she was somehow staying strong. Perhaps she was waiting for her father, because as soon as he rushed into her room, huffing and puffing, all his clothes and hair in disarray, Lala began to wail. 

She started wailing at the top of her voice at just the mere sight of Cyan. 

"I'm sorry," Cyan sat down on the bed, buried by the sudden weight of his daughter. She flung herself on him, and Cyan had staggered back, his messenger bag falling from his shoulder. "Appa is sorry, Princess." 

"Appa!" She bawled. "Wonsuk pushed me down… and I didn't know there was a nail there!" 

She was sorry for getting hurt. Sorry for disturbing her father. And the weight of the realisation took a heavy toll on Cyan. He looked ages older, shaken off of his stubborn resolve. 

"Appa is sorry," he kept on repeating those words like a chant over and over and over, while Joon could do nothing else but just sit on the sidelines and watch them. 

_______

"So you are the father," the doctor gave Cyan a judgemental squint of his eyes, "why were you so late?" 

Joon didn't like him. He was far too nosy, he looked like a twenty year old, he was way too friendly with Lala, he had a stuffed deer hanging from his stethoscope and Joon didn't like the way he was looking at Cyan. As if he hated Cyan. What was the big deal? The man had a job to do, that job provided for the hospital bill that would be the resident's salary. 

"Your daughter had a fracture in her forearm. The bone is slightly displaced, thankfully no nerves or blood vessels are damaged. The cast can come off after a week, and I will replace it with a crepe bandage." Then the doctor turned to Lala, his face lighting up with a bright smile. "You'll be alright in three weeks, little raccoon." 

On top of that, he managed to coax out all of Lala's interests in just ten minutes when he was plastering her hand. 

Lala giggled and gave him a high five. 

"I'm sorry," Cyan bowed down to him. "I was… I will take better care of her." 

"A broken hand hurts a lot —" 

"How do you know?" Joon was quite close to wringing the doctor by his collar and throwing him out of the large window by Lala's bed. 

"I broke my hand once too. But that's not relevant. Anyway, here's my number. Please do call me if anything happens," the doctor handed Cyan a card and bowed to him, ruffled Lala's hair and gave her a Yang the Raccoon sticker. Lala practically gushed over him. 

"Dr. Tae Shin," Joon read his name out loud. "How old are you?" 

Cyan slapped a hand over Joon's mouth before he could utter one more nonsensical word. 

"I'm sorry," Cyan muttered, but the doctor only smiled and waved back at them as they walked out of the room. Lala tugged on Cyan's sleeve and the man picked her up, before she settled to be comfortable with piggy backing her father. 

"Really, I can't thank you enough." Cyan kept repeating the entire ride back home. He was sitting in the back seat with his daughter, and once again, Joon felt like a driver on the front seat. 

"How did your presentation go?" Joon asked, desperate to change the conversation. 

"It went well," Cyan replied curtly. His tone was clipped, like he didn't want to talk about the presentation. Another one of his implicit subtext under the words. Why couldn't Cyan just be simple and for once, speak out what he really wished for? 

"Thank you." Cyan bowed down to Joon once more when they had walked up to Cyan's house and he had tucked his daughter in bed. 

"Don't thank me," Joon gritted his teeth, "instead, just think about what would have happened if I wasn't there." 

"I know…" Cyan bit his lip and looked away. A warm mug of coffee sat in front of Joon, calm little wisps of steam diluting the air above it. The silence between them felt large and uncomfortable, and Joon just wanted to get over with and kiss Cyan. 

"It's just hard, you know. My life." Cyan admitted quietly. Joon knew why Cyan hated implying that he was having a hard time. The man didn't want to make the child believe that she was burdensome to him. He didn't want to look weak before him. 

"You know what Cyan," Joon scoffed, "today Lala asked me if I was angry at you." 

"W-Why?" 

"Because we're not friends anymore." Joon took a sip of his coffee, trying to make his tongue burn and go numb. 

"That's…" Cyan chuckled. "She always thinks like that. She is a child, not her fault. She doesn't… understand. It's not so simple." 

"Why isn't this so simple, Cyan?" Joon's hand moved to the couch, inching closer to Cyan's. He was afraid to hold Cyan's hand, interlock his fingers, maybe press a kiss on top of his knuckles. "Why are things so ridiculously complicated?" 

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A/N: Just a couple more chapters left to this story. ^^