Anhedonia

For Three Years?

All were staggered looking at Akiro, even Jeremy and Akisha. They were too shocked to even react to what Akiro said.

He called Jerry his daddy as he wrapped his short arms around Jerry's torso. Then he looked up to see the same cat-like eyes he has. "Daddy." The boy smiled toothily.

"Oh my God, Akiro no." Rosie was the first one to react and she pulled his son away. "I'm s-sorry."

"It's okay." Jerry chuckled. "He must have mistaken me for Jayvee."

"No, Aren't you really my dad?" Akiro stated with certainty in his voice.

"No baby, he's not your dad." Rosie insisted, smiling awkward and couldn't even look at Jerry.

"But—."

"Enough, Akiro." Rosie rebuked, covering his son's mouth. "I'm really sorry about it."

"It's okay." Jerry assured her with a small smile and he turned to Jeremy. "By the way, this is my son."

From that introduction, Rosie's heart feels like someone squeezing it inside and she could hardly breathe. "O-oh. Uh so wh-where's your wife?"

"I don't have one."

"What?"

"His mom died last month."

"I'm so sorry to hear that." Rosie interrupted because she felt a little bit excited knowing that Jerry is still single. She's not happy that someone died, she's not an awful woman, but the fact that the love of her life is still single, she thinks that she might have a small chance with him.

"Who is she?" Jeremy asked, looking up to Jerry with questioning eyes.

"Oh uh she's Aunt Rosie, one of my friends."

"Ohh." Jeremy formed his mouth in O shape as if he knew something about the girl. Well, he really knows something because Hannah already mentioned Rosie's name a lot but Jerry kept dropping the topic whenever Hannah would mention Rosie. At his age, he already knows who Rosie is in Jerry's life. "Hi, I'm Jeremy Tucker, pleasure to meet you." The kid extended his arm, introducing himself like he's some grown man.

"Nice to meet you, Jeremy." Rosie giggled at the cuteness of the kid and reached for his little hand.

"My mom was right, you are so beautiful."

"Thank you." Rosie smiled but her questioning eyes darted up to Jerry.

"He's Hannah's son." Jerry said.

"Oh, so you mean Hannah is—?"

"Yes, and since his biological father was MIA from the day he was still inside Hannah, I decided to take full custody of him."

"Doesn't he have a grandfather?" Juhyun asked. They know that it's not allowed for Jerry to take full custody of the kid as long as there's still one relative that can take care of the said kid.

"I haven't talked to him about it but I'm hundred percent sure that he will agree to it." Jerry said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Anyway, where's Jayvee?"

With that question, everyone fell into silence which made Jerry get confused as to why no one answered him.

"Let's not t-talk about him." Rosie said, looking at his kid with a doleful look and Jerry understood that immediately. He knows that it was a sensitive topic for Akiro and even if he's so damn curious about it, he would just save his questions for later.

They continued their dinner and they avoid talking about what happened to Rosie and Jayvee as much as possible. Akiro never leaves his eyes to Jerry, as if he wanted to sit next to him but on his left, Jeremy already occupied the spot while Akisha sat on his right.

Jerry noticed the look that Akiro gave to him and he smiled at him. "You okay there buddy?" He asked.

"C-can I-I-I sit next to you?" The kid struggled to construct a simple sentence and everyone could feel his suffering.

"There's no spot beside—."

"Let's switch seats." Jeremy offered, quickly jumping off the chair that Jerry didn't have the chance to support the kid and he quickly ran around the table.

The adults just laughed at Jeremy's sweet behaviour. He was raised rightfully and kudos to Hannah and Jerry who always reminded him to be considerate to other people in some situations.

Akiro made his way to Jerry shyly and played with his fingers as he stopped behind Jerry's chair.

"Come on, sit here." Jerry tapped the empty chair and he stirred his body so he could lift the kid up and put him on the chair. "You're so cute."

"T-thanks, Dad." Akiro said, and Rosie was about to chide her son but Jerry held up his hand to stop her.

"Let's eat?" Jerry smiled warmly at the kid as he switched Jeremy and Akiro's plate.

"C-can you f-feed me?" Akiro requested shyly.

"You can eat on your own, sweetie." Rosie said but Jerry ignored her.

"Sure, what do you want to eat?" Jerry asked the kid, still wearing that same warm smile. He couldn't say no to Akiro just like how he couldn't say no to Jeremy's request. Actually, when he saw the kid, there's this something inside him that makes him feel lighted and the hug that was given to him melted his heart.

Maybe because his blood still runs to the kid since Jayvee is his first cousin.

After the dinner, the kids gathered in the living room while the adults left in the kitchen to continue their talk.

Jerry was just looking for the right timing to ask the questions that's been running in his mind. But since no one wants to bring that up, he just stayed silent at the corner while playing with his glass of wine.

He caught Rosie so many times for stealing quick glances at him and every time he caught her, he was just going to smile at her.

"So Rosie, how's your job?" Liam opened up another topic since they've already done to catch up with Jerry's life inside those four years that Liam and Seul-ki find so boring because he did nothing but work. And as much as possible, they didn't want to bring up Hannah's death because Jerry was still a bit sensitive about that topic.

"So far so good, my colleagues are nice to me."

"That's great to hear, I hope they are not giving you a hard time, because my wife is about to snap at her students for complaining a lot about the coming final exams." Seul-ki laughed and Liam joined him because Hayley has been ranting about her students as well because some of them failed her subject.

"And even the Dean is nauseating me about this one student of mine that happens to be his nephew!" Juhyun groaned frustratedly.

"You gotta pass that crook if you want to stop the Dean tailing you around the university." Hayley said and they all laughed again.

"I'm thankful that I'm done with that phase, my new job is so easy that I can even take a nap." Rosie said and that caught Jerry's attention. He stood up and made his way towards the group and all that little time, Rosie fixed her eyes at Jerry as if she was about to prepare herself for the possible close proximity with him.

"What do you mean your new job? You're not teaching at all?" Jerry asked as he looked at Rosie, but the latter didn't respond and just stayed staring at Jerry.

"Damn, someone still in love with my best friend." Hayley whispered to Liam.

"I know right? She's so obvious." Liam whispered back and they both giggled.

"Rosie?" Jerry called, snapping his fingers in front of her face to snap her from whatever trance she was at.

Rosie blinked her eyes rapidly and smiled embarrassedly when she noticed that everyone's eyes were on her.

"W-what is it again?" She stuttered.

Jerry chuckled at that but still repeated his question. "I'm asking if you're not teaching at all?"

"Uh y-yeah, I quit because.." Rosie trailed off her words as she looked down. "I'm hiding from your cousin."

Jerry finally found his timing to ask the question since Rosie was the one who mentioned Jayvee's name.

"Why?" Jerry asked.

"That guy is an asshole." Seul-ki spat angrily which made Jerry more curious.

"What do you mean?"

"He was hurting Rosie and Akiro, and that girl didn't even tell us!" Liam scowled as his anger rose up again upon remembering the day that they caught Jayvee was about to slap Rosie.

"What?" Jerry asked again as if he couldn't believe what he just heard.

"Yes, your goddamn cousin has been hurting his wife and his son for three years." Hayley scoffed.

"For three years?!" Jerry asked again but this time, he was looking at Rosie, as if asking her indirectly if why does it have to take so long for her to finally leave Jayvee. "You're crazy!"

"Jerry.." Juhyun called his name in a warning tone.

"I'm sorry, I'm just shocked that she let it happen for three years." Jerry said almost a whisper but his eyes still pierced at Rosie. Their friends could tell that he is mad by the way his jaw clenching and his chest rising so high and falling so deeply like his trying to calm himself silently.

"I j-just couldn't leave him because of Akiro."

"Oh come on, he's hurting his own son, how could you still think of him?"

"Because —."

"Because you love him?" Jerry cuts her off and scoffs mockingly. "Is he already in jail?" He turned to his friends.

"Not yet, he's still out there doing his career like he did nothing." Seul-ki sneered.

"Not yet? That's ridiculous. How can he still be on TV after he hurt his family?!"

"Calm down, Jerry." Juhyun rubbed his back and nudged her head at the living room where they could see all the kids were looking at him because his voice was kinda getting loud.

"Look, it's not easy to start a fight with him, even if you are the head of the Kim Group, he's still a Kim." Liam shrugged his shoulders and Jerry snapped his head at him.

"And that's really coming from you? You're a f*****g Manoban, your wife belongs to Kim and you." Jerry turned to Rosie. "Aren't your father a lawyer and so is your sister? How did they even let this slide just because he's Kim?!"

"T-they didn't know about it." Rosie looked down again as her tears started to fall as all her trauma came crashing through her that was caused by Jayvee.

"That's it." Jerry dismissed, taking out his phone from his pocket as he walked away from the group.

"Jerry, please stay out of this." Hayley said as she followed her best friend.

"How could you say that?" Jerry looked at Hayley in disbelief. "She's one of your friends—."

"I know, we know, but Rosie is hiding from him and as much as possible, we don't want him to have any idea where she's hiding."

"So that's it? You're just going to let him get away for what he did?"

"Listen." Hayley looked over her shoulder to see if someone is listening to what she's going to say, but they were all busy consoling Rosie, so she grabbed Jerry and dragged her to the backdoor. "I already asked our most trusted private investigator to find something to use against Jayvee without dragging our family names in this and also, I'm trying to protect Akiro and Rosie."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean, Jerry. We're both Kims and if one of our members dragged our name into a mess, we can't just shut up." Hayley said, her face dark and giving death glares to an imaginary Jayvee standing in front of her.

Honestly speaking, Jerry has seen that face of Hayley when they were still young, where she was so mad at that one guy who claimed to be her boyfriend and was trying to ruin Hayley's name. As powerful as she is and as one of the members of the Royal family in Korea, she returned the favour to that guy and ruined him for the rest of his life without getting caught that she's the one who did it.

"Okay then, I'll put my trust in you, but that doesn't mean that Jayvee has already gotten away from me." Jerry said and they both walked back inside the house and saw Rosie already stopped from crying. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's o-okay." Rosie forced herself to put a smile on her lips.

"Let's call it a night and you should take a rest." Jerry smiled at her as he walked out of the kitchen to get Jeremy. "Let's go buddy, we're going home."

"To where?" Jeremy asked.

"To grandpa." Jerry extended his arm to the kid and they were about to walk but he stopped when he felt someone tug the hem of his shirt. When he looked down, he saw Akiro looking up to him with his puppy eyes.

"C-can I g-go with you, Dad?"

"Uh.." Jerry shifted his gaze at Rosie who's walking towards them and she picked up his son but the latter didn't want to let go of Jerry.

"Akiro, they need to go."

"You know what? Let me drive you home, you got wheels?" Jerry asked which made Rosie a bit surprised and shy at the same time.

"You don't have to."

"I insist, for the kid."

Rosie looked back to their friends and they all smiled at her, as if telling her to just agree. She sighed softly and handed her car key to Jerry.

"Let's go. Bye guys, see you tomorrow!" Jerry shouted and before he forgot, he walked back to Akisha and kissed the kid's head. "I'll make it up to you tomorrow, okay?"

"As you should." Akisha scoffed and rolled her eyes playfully.

Akiro held Jerry's hand tightly after Rosie put him down, while Jeremy held Rosie's hand and he smiled at her toothily.

Rosie and Jerry looked at each other before laughing at their situation since they switched kids.

"Let's go." Jerry said and Rosie nodded her head and followed him outside.

"They look like a perfect family." Liam said while watching the four getting inside Rosie's car.

"So tell me, what happened to that plan you're talking about?" Juhyun asked.

"Got it." Liam and Seul-ki said in unison while smiling proudly to themselves as they both showed some strands of hair from Jerry and from Akiro.

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