• I CHOOSE YOU • - yungi

17

Hongjoong woke up and yawned. He stretched and got out of bed. He had had a boring night. He threw on some clothes and walked out his room. He went to the kitchen and looked through the fridge. He sighed seeing it was almost empty.

"Eomma.." he whined and walked to his moms room.

"What? What do you want?" She asked angrily.

"There's no food."

"Well? Go get some. You have a car." She groaned and closed her door.

"Damn.. angry woman." Hongjoong mumbled and grabbed his keys and shoes.

He got in his car and left the house. He turned up the radio and sped down the road.

Hongjoong pulled into a corner store to get some food. He walked in and bought some ramen. He cooked it and then sat at a table and began to eat.

He opened his phone and saw a message from Mingi. "I asked Yunho on a date today. wish me luck."

Hongjoong scoffed and looked through Instagram. He scrolled seeing yeosangs post. He posted pictures of him and seonghwa. Hongjoong sighed and put his phone down.

"Fuck." He cursed and began to tear up. He wiped his tear as they streamed down his face. He just couldn't hold them back anymore.

All the tears falling down his face made him cry harder. He tried his best to stay quiet, but he had been keeping in those tears for so long.

"Hey." He heard a voice. He jumped a bit and quickly wiped his face. He looked up and saw the guy who was behind the register standing in front of him.

"Everything okay?" He asked in a polite way.

"Oh.. yeah." Hongjoong lied and sniffled a bit.

"You look young are you in school?"

"Yes sir." Hongjoong said politely knowing the man was older than him.

"Don't call me sir. I'll feel old." He said and smiled. "I just wanted to check on you. It's hard to ignore a kid crying."

"Oh." Hongjoong said plainly.

"You sure everything's okay?" He asked.

Hongjoong couldn't answer. He just broke down crying again. The man frowned and rubbed Hongjoong's back.

"Poor thing. You wanna talk about it?" He asked.

Hongjoong shook his head.

"Hm. How about this. I'll buy you ice cream." He said with a smile.

Hongjoong agreed. The man bought Hongjoong some ice cream and they walked outside.

"If you don't wanna talk about it, you don't have to, kid." The man said. "But let me at least get your name."

"Why? Are you gonna follow me? Why should I be trusting you?" Hongjoong said with his mouth full of ice cream.

"I have no reason to hurt you. Stalking seems like too much trouble." He shrugged.

"Hongjoong." Hongjoong introduced himself.

The man smiled. "I'm Yonghwan."

Hongjoong nodded, "it's nice to meet you sir. Thank you for the ice cream." Hongjoong got in his car.

"You should come back another time. I'll treat you to another free ice cream." Yonghwan said happily.

Hongjoong smiled back and pulled out the parking lot. He drove back to his house. He saw that his brothers car was there.

"Why..?" He groaned and went inside to see his family eating at the table. "Hi." He said plainly.

None of them looked at him at all. They continued their conversation at the table.

"I'm home mom!"

"Oh hi Hongjoong." His older brother said.

"Your brother bought us a meal." His mother smiled.

"Thanks but I'm not hungry." Hongjoong said plainly.

"What did you eat? You weren't going to bring your parents anything back? So selfish." His mom scolded.

"I know. If only I could be like hyung. Rich and handsome. Always caring for his family." Hongjoong mocked sarcastically and walked into his room slamming the door.

He sighed and began to take out his laptop and headphones. He started playing music with his small keyboard attached to his laptop. That's the only thing he felt could make him feel better at the moment. Usually he would talk to Mingi. But Mingi was too busy apparently.

Honestly, the man at the store was the first person in a long time to care about how Hongjoong was doing. Even Mingi was busy dealing with yeosang and Yunho so he hadn't truly asked. His parents only cared about his older brother. It made him regret telling the man he was okay. Even if he told him everything and the man didn't care, what did he have to lose? No one seemed to care anyways. He was used to the rejection.

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Can't forget about joong. I'm really trying to give every character a good story.

Thanks for reading.