Boy Next Door ✔

Chapter 15

"Is that your mother? No way, Beauty runs in your family I guess."

Soo Yun closed the door behind his mother and walked back into his apartment. They had been living like this for almost a week. When Kris had classes the old doorman would let them know when Esther left and he would sneak out. In the evening he would sneak back in after Esther had gotten in or before her.

Soo Yun never asked why he was running away from his home and Kris didn't tell him, they had a mutual understanding. He would come home, clean, and cook. They would have dinner while on the living room floor watching TV. After a few hours of chatting Soo Yun would head up to his room and Kris would use his office for assignments, at night he slept on the living room couch. 

Soo Yun hadn't been to work this whole time. His team had taken a few days off to make up for the over a hundred hours they had spent on their feet the previous week. He read, and basked on his balcony, and watched TV. Anything to pass the time, sometimes his team would call him out and he would have a few drinks with them, but never as much as the other time. He had a kid at home and although he'd seen Kris drunk, he didn't feel it would be appropriate for Kris to see him drunk.

His mother had come over to drop off groceries and meat that she'd gotten from the open market. She hung around and talked to Kris for a while. He was a good boy, still in school. She covertly looked around her son's room to confirm that they boy wasn't sleeping with him, after that she didn't ask about his circumstances, just promised to bring more groceries the next time she went shopping, enough for two people. 

Soo Yun sat back down on the floor and picked up the beer can he'd left there. His mom had brought a few with the shopping, her friend had opened a bar and he was brewing his own. She asked them to try it and give her friend feedback.

Chatting with Kris was a sort of verbal dance, one beautifully chaotic, one that made him laugh out loud and feel his heart switching on. It was banter, but he lived for it lately, looked forward to it, and would have spent any amount of time in his company that he could have. Kris just brought that sense of playfulness out of him.

"Of course she's beautiful. I come from a long line of stunning beauties." Soo Yun wouldn't miss the chance to drum himself up in front of this kid. Their voices babbled happily like a mountain river, laughing and sipping on the beers. 

"She cheated on me." Kris suddenly blurted out of nowhere. He picked up the beer can and finished the rest of the beer in one gulp, then crushed it and tossed it to the floor beside them.

"She had a lover before me, he works in the factories. They picked me out from a crowd and she seduced me for the money. Every end month after I gave her my upkeep money she would go away for a while, said she was visiting her parents." He laughed bitterly, at himself more than the situation.

"She wasn't going to her family. She was going to him. With all my money. And every time I went home to visit my parents she brought him to my apartment." He grabbed another can and downed the contents in one swoop. "In my house, on my bed."

There was a delicious moment where Soo Yun's face washed blank with confusion, like his brain cogs couldn't turn fast enough to take in the information from his wide ears. Every muscle of his body just froze before he slowly lifted his hand and awkwardly patted Kris' shoulders, trying to comfort him.

Kris laughed again, it was a painful laugh, different from the melodious sound that had filled the apartment for a few days. "A friend told me about it, when I asked she started crying and throwing a fit, saying if I asked her to leave she would kill herself, but I couldn't stay there. I couldn't even look at her. So I left instead."

Soo Yun had never experienced such a situation before. He didn't know what to do or what to say, he sat there in silence, the beer in his hand forgotten, awkwardly patting Kris' shoulder, letting him say what he needed to say. He was sure if he said it all he would feel better after.

"I love her, I really do. She said she didn't like my friends so I stopped seeing them, she asks me to leave the house when her friends show up and sometimes I end up sleeping in campus but I didn't mind. As long as she was happy. When I told her she was spending too much she would throw a fit and get violent. The day you walked in on us I found out she had used up almost all my savings on bags and shoes. I asked her about it and she was screaming around the house throwing things at me. She kept saying I was just using her and didn't know how to take care of her."

The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down his face. Soo Yun could see the muscles of his chin tremble like a small child and Kris looked toward the window, as if the light could soothe him. His sounds were like a distressed child, raw from the inside. It took something out of Soo Yun he didn't know he had left to give. He reached out the hand he was using to pat Kris and wrapped it around his shoulders, pulling him towards him.

"It's okay buddy, take it as a lesson. There's so many fish in the sea." He said in a cheerful voice that ended up sounding weird in the big room.

Kris looked up and forced out a smile, "My parents met her once, my mom took me aside and told me she didn't like her." He laughed. "The next day Esther told me my mom made her uncomfortable and I had to show my love for her by protecting her emotional well being. My parents haven't come to my apartment since then. Every time they ask I tell them I'm at an MT or I'll be in class till late."

Soo Yun gently smacked him at the back of his head and pushed the bowl of nuts in front of him. "Idiot, mothers always know. And a wife who won't even try to suck up to your mother for a while is just bad news."

"You're right." Kris said. It's a lesson. No more looking back, we move forward from here." He lifted his beer in a salute then brought the can to his mouth. 

Just then, the doorbell rang.

Soo Yun stood up and ran to the door in a rush, "It must be the crabs I ordered, let's eat sea food today, he yelled as he flung the door open. 

Standing there, arms across her chest, her eyes red and chewing gum loudly, was Esther.