Secret Son / Bang Chan

Part 16

"You heard me, and don't get all prudish on me, we don't do that here, which one do you want to fuck more? The brownie boy or the sweaty beefcake." 

"You're not selling me on either one of them with those descriptions."

Yeji rolled her eyes:

"Forgive me for not gushing over your men I have my own."

I scoffed, not wanting to humor Yeji anymore. Yeji could tell I was starting to get annoyed with her little games and rushed to make her point.

"Look, Y/N, it might sound like a stupid question, but I firmly believe that you can't have a happy relationship with someone you don't really, really want to fuck. And since you've always just saw Felix as a good friend  I assume you've never thought about what fucking him, and obviously you've fucked the beefcake before, you two were always all over each other in high school, the question is do you want to do it again?"

"His name is Chan."

"Doesn't matter, I like calling him The Beefcake." 

I shook my head in resignation:

"Chan has a fiancée." 

"Can you take her? You've got some arms on you from lugging all those groceries around."

"Can you be serious about this for once, please." I nearly snapped at her, and she heard it in my voice because she immediately softened. 

"Forget about that part for a moment. This whole mess started because they're competing for your heart through Grey. I'm not saying that they don't love Grey because you know that they do, one hundred percent they do, but you need to stop downplaying your own importance here. What would you do if they both asked, right now, to choose between one of them?" 

"Chan has a fiancée." I repeat again, as patiently as I can, but Yeji's face quirks in the all too familiar way when she thinks she's won an argument.

"So what you're saying is that you would've chosen Chan, if it wasn't for the fiancée?"

My mouth gapes:

"No, I am not! What I'm saying is that your hypothetical situation is never going to happen because Chan has a fiancée. A fiancé who he loves and plans to marry!"

"Well, then, good thing you have a handsome armature model as your consolation prize."

I hate how she said a that. And I hate how I didn't think she was entirely wrong.

Chan called me a few days later. It was late at night and I had almost dozed off, so I didn't bother checking the caller ID when my phone started vibrating on my bedside table. 

"Why didn't you say anything that night?"

He asked without any preamble, it took me a moment to register the voice as his own as the sleepy haze cleared from my brain:

"Do you ever say 'hello' at the beginning of a conversation?"

"Hello, why didn't you say anything that night?"

"You're going to have to be more specific than that Chan."

I roll my eyes despite the fact that he couldn't see the annoyed gesture. I hated how my heart had picked up its beating, I didn't want to have this conversation right now.

"Seven months after I had left, I got a phone call in the middle of the night from you, but when I answered I didn't hear anyone. I had been drinking and thought that maybe it was just a dream, but the next morning I saw it in my call log."

I flip onto back, looking at the clock I saw that it was almost midnight:

"Can this please wait till morning?"

"No, I should have asked about this three years ago, it's long overdo and I need answers. I deserve to know stuff."

I sigh, my heart having climbed into my throat.  I couldn't tell him the truth.
I couldn't let him know that I was scared of him rejecting me, rejecting our child. That the very thought of him turning me away after everything we had been through scared me, but the thought of him leaving his dreams behind and being forced into a life he didn't choose, scared me even more. 

"Well, guess you're out of luck, because I have no idea. Guess it was an accident."

"Accident? Y/N, for our entire high school lives I was the one you came to for comfort when things were hard for you. I was your best friend and you were mine. You mean to tell me you didn't miss me after I left, not even enough to call me?"

"I don't know. Maybe I just never really had feelings for you that deep."

That was a blatant lie and he knew it. It quickly became silent on the other side, except for the faint music playing in the background,  but when Chan spoke again it was dark and almost spiteful:

"You rode me until I thought my dick was going to fall off when that girl in my Japanese class asked me to tutor her. You think I didn't know that before we were together, you pretended not to have my number when one of your friends asked for my number, or that you immediately stopped hanging out with her after? You called me first when you got into that car accident Junior year, not your parents, not anyone else, me. You would get up at five in the morning to bake me those muffins I liked during finals. At least half of my hoodies and tee shirts ended up in your closet at some point. You were devastated when I told you I was leaving for Australia, I can never forget how heartbroken you looked, it haunts me to this day. None of that is behavior of somebody who didn't have feelings for me. All I want to know is why you're trying to lie about it? I saw how you acted when you met Sana. And I'm pretty sure you keep trying to make me jealous with the whole Felix thing."

I panic. With every word he said I feel my heart try to climb out my mouth, my insides clench, and my hands tremble around the phone. 

"You cannot tell me that after everything we went through together that you didn't miss me or love me." 

"And what I want to know is what you're on right now? It was three years ago, maybe I just called to tell you something unimportant. Seriously are there dragons in this fantasy of yours?"

I had never heard him truly angry before, but just then he undoubtedly was, his voice quivered as it turned into a deep snarl:

"Damn it Y/N, stop acting such an immature bitch when I all I want are some honest answers from you! Is that such a big deal? Will you die if you admit that maybe you wanted me to come home?"

I won't, of course I won't. 

For the first time ever, I wonder if holding onto my pride is worth this. Worth all these arguments, all this tension.
Worth potentially hurting Grey, more than I've already hurt him.
Shame. 
I felt burning shame in my throat and in my gut,  tasting like bile. I've been too selfish to consider Grey in all this. Grey would have grown up with a father had I not been a fucking coward.

And now I was all alone, and no matter who, or how good of a man reaches out to me, I'm doomed to make the same mistake again. Blinding pushing everyone away so I don't get hurt, using the excuse that I'm protecting myself, but is that really what I'm doing? Or am I just scared of living life, choosing to just exist instead of trying to share that life with someone else.

It's seeped into my relationship with Grey.
I was on my way to becoming and overbearing mother who suffocated their child and selfishly keeps them close under the pretense of protecting them, when really all I'm doing is hurting them. I kept telling myself that he was still little and he needed me, but time flies, soon he would be an adult with a mother he feels guilty leaving to start his own life.
I shudder at the thought.
My mind, however, still wants to be stubborn:

"Why does it matter now? You have a fiancée. Why dig up the past? You're happy."

I all but whimpered feebly, and Chan sighs on the other side:

"What if I'm not happy?"