Loving Sunny

a broken melody

"..Ten, twelve.. fourteen,"

"Nope, that's wrong~ You lost another point."

"No! Dad!"

I laughed softly while watching Sunny pout again as she failed in counting up to twenty. She's really bad with numbers but I can't really blame her there.

"That's minus three points in total. You owe me three favors~"

She huffed and looked away from me, pretending she was mad although I know she actually cries and screams when she's truly upset.

"If you stop talking to me I will really cry and lay on the floor, Sunny."

She gasped and shook her head, repeatedly saying "no, no, no, no" while gently climbing on my lap and taking my face with her small hands, squishing my cheeks with a worried look, "Don't cry. Dad can't cry!" and then she tightly hugged my neck repeating the same words again.

I couldn't help but laugh a little and hug her back, standing up from the bench of the bus stop and spinning her around a bit, succeeding in making her giggle and stop worrying.

"I won't be sad as long as you love me, you know that."

"And Sunny will love you always always always!"

"Then I shall never be sad."

"Yep!"

While she giggled in my arms, our bus arrived and I couldn't help but groan silently as I noticed how packed it was. If we had time, I would wait as many buses as possible as long as I could get in one half full at most but... We were on the clock so I had no time to be picky. 

Getting on was one thing but finding a seat was another thing. Thankfully, two stops after (that's about 8 minutes), there were no people standing and one seat was freed so I moved to make Sunny sit on it.

"No! You sit, dad. I will stand right next to you!"

I could hear two or three people go 'aw' close to the empty seat but, while chuckling, I sat down. It would only take her about 5 more minutes to whine and want to sit down.

Surprisingly, it took her almost 15. She started to move to the sides uncomfortably and I snorted before lifting her up and placing her on my lap.

"You could have just sat here the whole time, you know?"

She looked at me, wide eyed as if she just found out a the mystery of the universe while I winked at her and allowed her to be comfortable in my lap.

    - ✪ -    

"I will be only ten minutes later than usual, okay? I promise I will come and if it's too lonely, tell the teacher to call me and I will talk to you through the phone, okay?"

"Yeees~"

"...Are you sure you don't prefer to come with me? Most teachers don't mind and I would-"

"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaad"

"..Yes?"

"Sunny will be fine~ I will wait here and be good, I promise!"

I sighed, holding her tightly in my arms and wishing I didn't have to let go and part from her for so long, "Okay, sunshine. You're such a big girl now," I grinned when I saw her nod proudly "don't grow up too fast, though."

"Sunny will grow up so she can take care of dad~"

I laughed, "Is that so? Then hurry up, I wanna be lazy at home."

She giggled and nodded "Yes!"

      - ✪ -      

"Three, four... Ten... Fourteen... Twenty? Why do I have to memorize twenty formulas, I will go insane." I mumbled to myself as I kept going through the papers in my hand for the fourth time this past hour, still trying to understand what was I supposed to be learning.