The Boy From The Bridge - Jakehoon

Chapter 119: The Longing Heart 7/7

Sunghoon gently placed his tray on the table as he took lunch with Heeseung and Jay. Everything felt weird and quasi-nostalgic. Jake still hadn't returned but everything felt normal. That wasn't to say that a part of him wasn't missing. His heart yearned every time he was reminded by Jake's absence. 

Once such instance happened just then. Whilst Heeseung and Jay sat at the table, he waited there a moment longer, staring at the vacant space that Jake had occupied for his time with them. 

"Are you alright?" Heeseung asked, clearly noticing Sunghon's pause. 

The question prompted Sunghoon to sit down whilst mumbling, "Yeah - I'm fine"

"I know that face Hoon - what's up?" Jay asked. 

"It's nothing. Really."

"Mhmm?" Heeseung sounded unconvinced. "You miss him?"

"Jake... I mean Jaeyun? Sure but's that normal right?"

"Who's Jake?" Jay asked and Sunghoon realised that another truth had now being released this week.

He took a mouthful of food, and, upon swallowing half of it began to explain who Jake actually was and how their paths had crossed. How Jake had pushed him into acting whilst teaching him to swim and how he had tried to teach Jake how to ice skate. Sunghoon detailed their first kiss and then when subsequently they had really hit it off and how Sunghoon had come out to Jake and how he felt a bond and connection knowing someone was there to comfort him.

"I'm glad my party wasn't a total failure." Heeseeung boasted on hearing about their walk home from his grandmother's. 

It was interesting to gage his friends' reactions during the telling of the story. They were more silent as the they heard about the first time Jake pushed him away. How, after a sexual assault Jake grew to doubt himself, though both Jay and Heeseung laughed at the 'fight' Sunghoon said he had gotten into with Jake's dad. 

"You gotten beaten up by Jaeyun - I'm sorry, Jake's dad! You must have really loved him?" Jay exclaimed. 

Sunghoon had given a curt sigh in acknowledgement of that fact though disputed whether or not it constituted a fight. He also didn't fully elaborate on his considered suicide - there was somethings he didn't feel at all proud about and that was one of them. 

"You've got to be making this up" Jay and Heesung had said in unison upon hearing how Sunghoon had gone with Jungkook all the way to London to get Jake back. 

After this followed the winter vacation spent together and the first few weeks of this term when they'd formalised things though Sunghoon could tell the relationship was still lopsided. 

"Then this week happened and I guess we're not a thing anymore. He has his concerns ...." Sunghoon finished with a shrug. 

 The review he got wasn't what he expected. "That's it?" Heeseung asked. 

"Huh?" 

"You're throwing in the towel at one hiccup?"

"It's more than one hiccup Hee. He doesn't feel comfortable with himself in the relationship or on relying so heavily on Jungkook."

"Where is he now?" Jay asked. 

"Presumably still with Jungkook and Jungwon..." Sunghoon slipped, one more reveal.

"Jungwon?" Jay repeated the boy's name. "Why's he with them?"

Sunghoon frowned. Over the course of the whole story this was the most energy with which Jay interjected. "Um... he needed looking after .... well, after Monday"