Chapter Text
“Wonie, why don’t we get ready for school?” Jake said for the nth time that morning, sounding desperate even to his own ears. They were already two minutes late, but Jungwon was refusing to get out of bed and get ready for school.
If Jake dropped off his kids late to their school, that resulted in him being late for his work.
Jake gently nudged the six-year-old’s shoulder, but the lump on the racecar-shaped bed didn’t budge. Jungwon was being especially difficult today— actually, as a matter of fact, he was never like this.
Well… until now, at least.
“I can pack you strawberries with chocolate for snacktime,” Jake tried. “Will you go to school then? You love chocolate covered strawberries.”
“Nuh uh.” Jungwon said, his voice muffled by his bedsheets. “I’m not gunna go today.” The lump on the bed shifted, but didn’t move any further.
Jake let out a quiet sigh through his nose. “You’re usually so excited to go to school. Did something happen at school? Is that why you don’t want to go?” He asked softly.
Jungwon only squirmed underneath the bedsheets, not giving any sort of verbal answer. Jake pursed his lips, wondering what he should do in this particualr situation. It had never happened before, and it was just so weird for his usually quiet but happy boy to refuse to go to school. He loved school! Especially since his brother, Sunoo, went there too.
“Don’t you want to go to school and play with Sunoo?” Jake said. “Your brother’s already all dressed and eating cereal. Don’t you want to eat cereal?”
At the mention of his brother, Jungwon perked up, peeking his head out from under the sheets, and blinked at his dad.
Jake gave a hopeful smile. “Ready to go now?”
“No.” Jungwon said, before burrowing under the covers again.
Jake frowned. “Jungwon, can’t you at least tell me if something’s bothering you? You can tell me if something happened at school.”
He was genuinely starting to get worried.
What if something had happened to Jungwon while Jake wasn’t able to be with him? What if something horrible had happened and nobody was telling Jake about it?
Jungwon remained silent and Jake finally stood up, deciding he had to do something at least.
“I’ll pack your snack for today. I’ll come back and see if you change your mind later, okay?” He said.
He didn’t want to be the type of parent to be all mean to his child, especially when something seemed to bother him. (Sue him, he’s a softie). But he also needed to get his son to school, and also get ready to go to his work for the day.
Jake entered the kitchen/dining room and found his eldest son, just recently turned seven, sitting at the table with a bowl of colorful rounded cereals with milk. Sunoo kicked his legs cheerfully as he spooned his breakfast into his mouth.
“Morning, Dad!” Sunoo chirped.
Jake smiled. “Morning Noo! Did you have a good sleep?”
Sunoo nodded excitedly. “Mhm! I dreamed about giant cotton candy bears and a huge forest with foxes!”
Jake snorted. Of course Sunoo would dream about those kinds of things.
“Ah, that must’ve been a fun dream!” he commented, making his way over to the counters to start packing lunch for his two kids; one in first grade and the other already in second.
He had already mastered the whole “get your child’s snack packed in the morning in just six minutes!” thing, so you could absentmindedly pack a snack for the two of them without putting in much thought.
Which proved a useful skill as Sunoo began to ramble about how lovely his dream was. And Jake wouldn’t be, well, himself, if he didn’t intently listen to his son like his whole life depended on it. It kinda did, actually.
“…and then there were unicorns!” Sunoo was saying. “YOU-NEE-CORNS!” he emphasized.
“Really?” Jake gasped dramatically, and Sunoo nodded with a giggle. His eyes folded into mini crescents as he slurped up the last of his cereal.
Jake glanced at the clock. Great, now they were ten minutes late.
He hurriedly put Sunoo’s now empty bowl into the sink (he could wash it later) and ushered the eight-year-old to get dressed. He also asked Sunoo to go wake up his brother and convince him to get dressed too.
Sunoo nodded, and darted off in the direction of his room. With his son getting ready (hopefully), Jake busied himself in putting the lunchboxes into the backpacks and then making a quick PB&J sandwich for Jungwon to have as a quick breakfast.
He glanced at the clock again.
11 minutes late.
Jake sighed. He could only hope his kids wouldn’t get in too much of trouble for being late.
—
Jake managed to get both his kids fully dressed and buckled into the car. Jungwon was all pouty and frowning, but he was properly dressed.
By some miracle, Sunoo had not only managed to get Jungwon out of bed, he had also gotten Jungwon dressed in a blue shirt and brown pants— fit for school and something that wasn’t literal pajamas with teddy bears on it.
Sunoo himself wore a bright blue shirt with matching blue pants, and the cute black-bear decorated bacpack he picked out himself sat on his lap. He was humming some song under his breath, looking so contrastingly happy compared to a sour looking Jungwon.
Jake had yet to find out what was wrong and could only hope sending Jungwon to school today wouldn’t make things worse.
He always had worried.
While Sunoo was very vibrant and quick to make friends, Jungwon was the opposite. He was shy and introverted, and it didn’t help that the one person he talked to a lot who was his age, was his brother who was a grade higher.
A littlw worried, Jake let Sunoo and Jungwon off, sending them off with little notes for their respective teachers as a note from their father (Jake) to make sure the kids themselves wouldn’t get in much trouble.