Ours - Junbob

xix. junhoe

Junhoe was bartending when his sister called. The bar was quiet since it was mid-morning on a weekday and Junhoe hadn't really been doing much. He had talked with familiar customers, especially the nice lady with the son and son in spirit; she had almost become a regular and Junhoe loved talking to her. Their most recent topic was how old you'd be when you stopped being a toddler. Junhoe figured maybe five, while the lady thought it was when a kid started school.

He was also killing time by experimenting very freely with different flavours. So far the tastes were 50/50, either downright horrible or quite delicious.

"Hey, noona-"

"You seriously dropped literature?"

Yejin sounded calm even though her words reflected the opposite, and Junhoe felt a sense of dread settle in his stomach as he leant against the bar counter. "I was going to tell you tonight, okay, I have stuff to do."

"Are you busy right now?"

"Well, I'm kind of at work, so..."

"How did the university react to you changing? I bet it's gonna be a mess..."

"They were kinda okay with it. Since it's barely halfway in my freshmen year, they said it's not that late and they're giving me two weeks for a chance to get my new choice sorted."

"Won't you just boost your minor?"

"I was thinking that too but I also sort of want to, you know. Explore."

"Okay," Yejin sighed, sounding worried and Junhoe smiled at the sentiment, not that he nor she would actually acknowledge it with words. "That's not actually what I wanted to talk about but I guess I got a bit distracted. Me and Dad, we were just wondering..."

"What?"

"We're having a sort of glorified event to celebrate our mother's memory," Yejin said quietly and Junhoe swallowed, his heart sinking a little as he slowly nodded. "We should've known this was coming since our family's so important, and she was- is so important. Dad's prepared it all, I'm not home yet so I haven't seen it but, it's this Friday."

"Okay."

"You'll come, right? It's at our main house, and Dad was wondering if you'd like to stay over the weekend too if that's okay-"

His phone stated buzzing and Junhoe pulled it away from his ear, blinking when he noticed that Jiwon was calling him too. He hesitated at the sight of the Caller ID, furrowing his eyebrows before he brought the phone back to his ear and said, "Sorry, noona, uh- my boyfriend's calling-"

"Oh, that reminds me! Ask him if he wants to come too, I know he's not upper-class but honestly, who cares, he sounds lovely if he puts up with you."

"Oi-"

"Anyway take the call, I'll text you the details!"

"Cool, see you," Junhoe replied, hanging up before quickly accepting Jiwon's call before it ended. "Hyung, why-"

"Can't you just say hi?" Jiwon's voice was raspy and uneven which clearly showed that he had just woken up and Junhoe smiled gently, looking down as he muttered, "Hi."

Junhoe could almost hear Jiwon's triumphant sleepy beam over the phone, and he had to bite his lip to hold back from smiling too big himself. "Hello to you too! Okay, so, um, the toaster might not look very appealing when you come home."

"The toaster...what did you do?"

"Why do you think I did anything?!"

"What did you do?"