Secret Son / Bang Chan

Part 12

In truth, in the late hours of the night when I couldn't sleep, I had mulled over the idea that I may still be in love with Chan. Only a few times, but the thought was still there. It would finally provide an explanation to my jealousy and anger towards Sana and the fact that Chan was so happy with her.

Tears pooled in my eyes and I met Jisung's soft glance with a forced smile. His face softened and he pulled me into a tight hug.

"Hey, it's okay. You have history and he's the father of your son, I would be more surprised if you didn't still love him."

I laughed through my tears and held onto my old friend tightly. It felt so good to finally admit it to someone, to have someone finally understand me.

"I don't know what to do! He's engaged, he loves her. And I'm gonna be stuck watching him with another woman for the rest of my life!"

Jisung just held me and let me cry against him for a few minutes. He knew I needed this.

"Y/N, it may not be my place to say this, but I think you should tell him. Tell Chan how you feel about him. It may not change anything, but it might. I never told you this...but I saw him not long before Grey was born. I think you were at the beginning of your third trimester?"

My heart stopped. I pulled back and stared at Jisung with wide eyes at his sudden confession.

"He was here?"

Jisung nodded.

"He asked about you. If you were okay. He wanted to see you but he was too scared to after how he had left. But he did want to make sure you were okay, insisted on it actually. He seemed really shaken up that day."  

My hand shook as I held the phone to my ear. It was the middle of the night and I hadn't slept yet. A memory on my Snapchat had popped up of Chan and I from a year ago and it sent me spiraling into a sea of emotions. I looked through all the photos of us together, that turned into looking through the memory box of things from our dates. I missed him more than anything and I just wanted things to be how they were. Before we fought. Before he left.

"Hello?" His tired voice echoed through the phone speaker. My mind went completely blank on what I wanted to say the second I heard his voice. I couldn't do this to him, I couldn't disrupt his life just because I missed him.

"Y/N, is that you?" He sounded more awake now. I muffled a sob and quickly hung up the phone. I cried in the darkness of my bedroom and gently rubbed my hands over my baby bump.

I was absolutely stunned. Did he come because I had called him? Did he mean it when he said that things would be different if I had said something? 

"Momma." Grey's soft voice came from behind us. I turned and saw my son standing in the doorway rubbing his eyes. He looked like he had just woken up. He shuffled over to me and I helped him climb up into my lap, he closed his eyes and fell back asleep in my arms. 

Jisung smiled softly at the little boy and reached out to stroke his hair out of his face.
"He really is adorable. Even if he does make mean comments about my face." He chuckled and I shook my head in disappointment.

"I don't even know why he said that."
"He's three Y/N, I'm sure he didn't mean it."

"Momma, I miss Channie." Grey pouted as we ate dinner. It had been nearly a week since we had seen Chan as him and Sana had gone on a small vacation together to Jeju Island. Grey wasn't thrilled when Chan told him he was going away for the week, he had thrown a fit and cried for hours trying to get him to stay. Of course that only boosted Chan's ego further and made me feel more guilty.

I hadn't had a chance to talk to Chan about what Jisung revealed to me that night at Felix's but I knew I needed to. I needed to know why he came back and why he didn't find me. 

"Chan will be back in a couple of days honey. I'm sure he misses you too and that he'll be very happy to see you."

"Why couldn't we go with him?"

"Because Grey, I have to work. And Chan didn't invite us to go. He invited his friend."

"I don't like his friend. She's strange."

Chan came back a few days later. As expected, he wanted to see Grey the moment he got back.

"What are you plans for dinner tomorrow?" He asked on the phone the night he came back. I had already put Grey down for the night and had elected not to tell him that Chan was back so he would actually sleep.

"Felix invited us over." I said nonchalantly. Chan was silent for a moment on the other end.

"You've been spending an awful lot of time with him lately..."

"He's my friend Chan! You know that. He was also your friend at one point too or did you forget about that?"

"I didn't forget." Another tense silence, "Have a nice dinner."

Chan quickly hung up the phone, leaving me absolutely speechless.

"I WANNA PLAY MARIO KART!" Grey yelled as soon as we entered Felix's apartment. Seungmin picked up the little boy that ran straight for him.
"In a little bit buddy I promise!"

He put the little boy down on one of the stools for the island and helps Felix get some ingredients for dinner out of the fridge. 

"Uncle Felix is this yours?" Grey grabbed the scarf that was sitting on the counter and began examining it. As soon as I saw the pattern my heart leapt out of my throat.

"Grey, it's not nice to touch other peoples things. Put that down please." I tried to get him to leave the (expensive) scarf alone. Grey pouted and stared at me. Felix looked at the scarf in his hands and smiled.

"I got that as a gift from the last modeling job I did. You can have it if you like it Grey." Was he crazy? How could he let a three year old just have a scarf that expensive?

"Felix," I warned, "you can't just give him a scars that expensive. Besides, you earned it."

He scoffed and brushed off my words, "it's really nothing. If he wants it he can have it, I have another one in my closet. I'd buy him ten if he really wanted them!"

"Really?!" Grey's face lit up. I immediately gave him 'the look' and he sat back down in his seat and zipped his mouth.

"That's a nice gesture Felix but seriously you don't need to."

"I like having matching scarfs with Uncle Felix, it's better than having matching hats with Channie! They make my hair flat." Grey pouts as he says the one thing I wished he wouldn't. Felix's attention is immediately drawn toward Grey and away from helping Seungmin with meal prep.

"You like having Chan around, Grey?"

Grey nodded as he answers Felix's question, "He takes me to the movies and buys me toys and he's very tall and strong and he carries me and he always says that Momma is beautiful! More beautiful than his friend!"

Felix turns his attention off of the three year old across from him and his eyes meet mine. His Adam's apple bobs in his throat as he swallows hard, his smile growing faker by the second. His eyes looked disappointed. Why would he look at me like that?  His gaze flickers back to Grey quickly.

"He's right. Your momma is the most beautiful woman in the world." 

He looks back to me, his gaze warm and sad. Like a puppy that was begging to be adopted at a shelter. I was tempted to look away, he had never looked at me like that and I had no idea what that look meant.

Of course, my son is more perceptive than me:
"Uncle Felix, you like Momma too?"

Felix answers with his eyes still dead set on mine, "Yes, I like your momma very very much."