⇋

“…dy? Daddy?”

Sehun jerks his head to find his son staring at him. “Sowon? What is it?”

The child only peers at him with wide eyes. “Daddy, are you okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“You look sad, daddy! I don’t like it when daddy looks sad!”

Sehun winces. The last thing he wants is for his son to worry about him, when he’s the one who’s supposed to take care of Sowon. “I’m alright, Sowon.” Sehun lifts the boy into his lap, trying for a smile. “Daddy is fine. It’s just… one of my friends is hurt. That’s why I’m sad.”

“Your friend is hurt?”

“Mnn. I’m worried about him, you see.”

“Can Sowon visit daddy’s friend then?” The child pumps a fist up eagerly. “Sowon wants to wish him well! So he’ll get better!”

Sehun chuckles, embracing the boy into his arms. “Thanks, Sowon, but I think he’s too hurt to see anyone right now.”

Sowon seems to be awfully fond of Kai, and Sehun doesn’t want to worry his son if he finds out his favorite Uncle is hurt.

And that’s not even counting the fact his ‘Uncle’ is his… father…

Sehun only clutches tighter onto Sowon.

If Kai never wakes up, does this mean he will never know about the child he has with Sehun?

If Kai does wake up… is this a sign for Sehun to finally tell him about Sowon’s existence?

What exactly… should Sehun do?

◒

The amount of paperworks is endless, behind schedule since Jongin had been hospitalized.

That is why… once he checked out and could go back home three weeks later, and it’s a Sunday, the weekend, Jongin is still hunched over the desk in his work office at the Kim house, stacks of files to sign piled high before him.

The thing is… the pen is in his hand, but he’s not signing. Instead, his thumb is clicking on the pen absentmindedly as his eyes cloud, looking but not really seeing.

His mind is wandering…

To Sehun.

It seems that no matter how hard he tries… Maybe if something is not meant to be, then it’s not meant to be.

Maybe if something had never belonged to him… then he can never achieve it, in the end.

Or maybe… Maybe this is all karma, getting back at him.

Yes, karma…

◒

FIVE YEARS AGO,

The room is dark. Jongin is claustrophobic, but the brightness of light makes his heart squeeze, makes it hard to breathe.

These math problems are honestly too easy for him―just a review, and so he can’t focus. Thinks of things, instead.

Because―all this. Honestly, what’s the point?

“What’s the point?” he voices out, flinging his pencil down for it to roll across the paper. “Even if I ace this test, will that let me go out?”

Taemin, his tutor sitting next to him, only gives him a sad look. Taemin is a year older than him, but he is very smart, graduated high school last year and is now a college freshman. Thus why his parents had hired the boy as Jongin’s tutor.

“If I pass all my subjects, will my parents finally look at me?” Jongin continues, fist clenched on the desk. “Will they finally notice me? Will they stop calling me ‘useless trash’? I am, right? I don’t know why they bothered wasting money to hire you. Maybe they couldn’t spare the thought of someone sharing their blood that doesn’t even know how to read a children’s book. Trash that I am.”

“Don’t say that,” Taemin tells him, sighing. “I don’t… agree with how your parents treat you, either. Especially locking you in your room like this, but… You know if you don’t study, their words really will come true, right?”

“Huh?”

“Say you get better one day,” Taemin starts, giving him a pointed look. “Say you can finally go out. Then what? You don’t study. You can’t get a good job. Now even with better health you’re no less ‘locked up’ than you were before. But say you do study. You go to a university. You graduate with flying colors. Your parents will have no choice but to accept you, then.”

Jongin mulls over his words. The other is right, but… “That’s only on the assumption I do get better, though.”

“Well, you’re young. There’s still a chance you might get better. The question is… once you get better, what will you do?”

“What will I… do?”

“Will you still let people shun you, look down on you, even if you can walk outside? Or will you study, surpass everyone, hold your head high, and show them what they’ve been missing on? Who you truly can be, what you can achieve, once you go outside?”

Jongin stares into Taemin’s eyes―sees the passion, the logic, and the encouragement in his words, and feels emboldened.

The older boy is right.

Jongin is locked up right now. Never gets to step a single foot outside the house, but that will change.

And once it does… he will show everyone, just what Kim Jongin is truly capable of.

It’s with these words in mind that empowers to him study hard. While Kai spends all his days fighting in the streets and getting into trouble, while he argues with their parents so loudly that Jongin can hear even from all the way upstairs, Jongin is quietly, diligently studying.

And if his parents ignore his existence, pretend he is but a speck of dust on their pristine walls, then that’s okay.

One day, he’ll show them.

It’s during one of those days, where Jongin is reading through the last chapter on Quantum Physics, that he can hear the familiar sound of Kai’s motorcycle engines roaring.

Kai hasn’t been home in awhile, and Jongin guesses it’s no surprise that he chooses to come home when their parents are out on a trip.

What is a surprise, however, is hearing another voice, a voice he doesn’t recognize, resounding through the window of his room where it faces the front porch of the mansion.

“―Not sure this is a good idea, Kai,” the voice says, reluctant, as Kai locks his motorcycle.

“Don’t worry about it,” comes Kai’s easy voice. “I told you, my parents shouldn’t be home right now.”

“But…”

“Stay here, alright? Let me check to see if the coast is clear.”

When Jongin leans forward on his desk to peek out the window, Kai is gone, and he can only see a boy with black hair wearing the uniform of Kai’s school shifting nervously by the motorcycle.

Jongin recognizes him. If all the passing shoutings he’s heard from the past is correct, this boy must be Oh Sehun―Kai’s boyfriend and the source of trouble in their parents’ mind.

At first, Jongin thought like their parents, that Kai must be dating a boy to make their parents angry, as a way of rebellion. But Jongin had seen Kai dropped his wallet before, and saw the picture of Kai and Sehun smiling together kept between the folds, and then Jongin didn’t know what to think at all.

Oh Sehun is goodlooking, Jongin guesses. But then again, he doesn’t have much to compare to when the only people he’s ever seen are his parents, his sibling, the maids and butlers, and Taemin.

Sometimes Jongin wonders if there is anything special to this Sehun, for Kai to like him.

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