The Boy From The Bridge - Jakehoon

Chapter 32: Reckless and Stupid 2/3

"You haven't told Sunghoon that your name is Jake yet have you?" Jungkook asked from across the dining table. They had left Heeseung's apartment in response to  Sunghoon receiving  a barrage of hounding text messages from his mother enquiring as to where he was.  Arriving home, neither Jake nor Jungkook were particularly hungry and so had decided to eat a light supper of instant noodles.

"No" Jake answered, he was silent for a moment, staring at his food, "Do you reckon I should?". Jake allowed his eyes to look up at Jungkook, curious at to what his answer would be.

"That depends. Why are you keeping it secret?" his friend looked back at him, earnestly and with care in his expression..

"You know why!" Jake scoffed, "Because I'm a new person now. Jeon Jaeyun"

Jake's answer made Jungkook laugh, "a new person? Come on - you're still the same person you were before I found you. It's just that you're in new surroundings now.  You still have all your old memories, the relationships you left behind still exist. Heck, you probably still keep the same habits."

"Jake died"

"Only because you killed him" 

"His murderer doesn't alter the fact that he's dead" 

"Except it does. If you wanted to you could go back to you family and then 'bang' Jake's alive again. You've got his... your life in your hands"

"I suppose you're right" Jake said sighing before returning to his food.

"Besides, If you really believed you were a totally new person, why did you feel to need to tell me your name?'

Jake paused again, the answers were not coming naturally to him. "I'm not sure. I guess I felt like I wanted to be open with you. You've helped me in ways that I don't think I'll ever be able to repay and had done so without even knowing my name" Jake's eyes locked with Jungkook's, "and I suppose Sunghoon..." Jake exhaled heavily "with him I just don't know".

Jake's apprehension brought sympathetic grin from Jungkook, "he's your friend. It's obvious you care about each other and that you would want to strengthen...'

"It is?" Jake interrupted him.

"C'mon, do you think I'm that blind?"

Jake gulped at the inference. 

"Woah, woah - don't be nervous it's just friendship I'm talking about, all the other stuff is just teasing", Jungkook said quickly, seeing the alarm spread across Jake's face. "I just think that if you feel the need to be honest with people who care about you, you might want to consider being honest with him"

Jake couldn't steer his gaze at Jungkook any longer and retreated it to his food as his mind centred on his friend  who was probably sat 10 metres away eating dinner with his family. 'I guess it would be nice to hear Sunghoon say my name' Jake allowed himself to think.

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Sunghoon consumed a large mouthful of meat, he was eating quickly to fuel his racing mind.

"Careful son, you'll choke" his mother said in a caring tone. Sunghoon nodded and tried to slow his chewing. The forced lethargy was difficult as his right leg was shaking below the table, bouncing on the ball of his foot. Moving two parts of his body at different speeds consciously was a challenge and made harder as his mind was prioritising other thoughts.

The dinner's conversation was focused on Yeji and her choices for her senior school. She had been considering several options and it was clear that their parents differed with her on which would be the best place to continue her education.

As Sunghoon could have predicted, the might of his father's opinion carried the most weight. He listened as his father's favourite choice  was steered into being the preferred option.

Sunghoon wanted to speak. He felt that the longer he remained at the edge of the conversation quietly thinking to himself, the greater the attention he was drawing Sunghoon didn't much like the idea of people thinking about his suspicious, especially  not his parents.

Silence was not his preferred state of being, right now he did want to talk, about sexuality, about himself, heck if he was honest about 'Jaeyun' although he knew he couldn't - that would be way too obvious.

'No' Sunghoon concluded, 'I need to be subtle'. He wanted with all the world to just ask his family, 'are you okay with me being gay?' But he couldn't. Not least because he didn't know if he was gay. He was definitely attracted to 'Jaeyun' of that he was certain but a label seemed so absolute, like there was no walking back. Guessing, Sunghoon wanted to know what other people thought about him and his sexuality. As much as it was private he wanted to open up to someone to get their thoughts. All this questioning was reserved for when he was alone with his thoughts and it was getting  really difficult.

Leaning back in his chair Sunghoon almost laughed to himself at the delicious irony of his situation - he wanted to talk to someone about his feelings towards 'Jaeyun' but the only person whom he wanted to talk about it with was 'Jaeyun'.

Perhaps a sensible course of action would be to confide in Gi first but there was a magnetic pull controlling him. A part of him that didn't care if he did some thing reckless or stupid. Hell, after all of the control that had being exerted by others over his life Sunghoon really wanted to do something reckless and stupid. He wanted to talk to 'Jaeyun'.

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Jakehoon fanfic 5.2