November was downright cold and Luhan had been forced to buy a new coat. He’d had a lighter autumn jacket for his needs previously, but by the first of November snow was drifting down, the wind chill factor was up, and Luhan was even more aware of hos difficult he found it now to retain body heat.

And perhaps leaving during the start of the coldest winter months hadn’t been the best idea, but he’d been desperate. The walls had been closing in around him, and if he’d stayed in his place he might have lost his mind.

A vacation, his doctor had suggested. A vacation to clear his mind, keep his blood pressure down, and give him a semblance of normalcy before the proverbial hit the fan.

Because Luhan was only too aware that he was coming to the home stretch of his pregnancy. Before long he’d be giving birth, and that meant dealing with Sehun and his lawsuit for custody, and a never ending uphill battle to keep the rights to his own child.

And running wasn’t an option anymore. It had been, and Luhan had almost been prepared to do it. But before the end he was grounded by the fact that he wasn’t a coward. He couldn’t do that to Sehun, it was morally wrong, and he had to be more confident in himself as a father. He could fight Sehun in court the legal way. He could deal with shared custody, because hadn’t that been what he’d thought he’d have in the beginning anyway? And if the worst came to pass, he could still survive knowing that whatever contempt and hatred Sehun felt for him, it was only love he felt for their baby.

He wasn’t going to let anything run him out of Korea, especially not his fear.

In the meanwhile, he needed a vacation, and he’d always wanted to see more of Korea, outside of Seoul where he lived, Busan where traveled to the most often, and Jeju that Xiumin’s family owned a house on.

So Suwon it was. At less than twenty miles from Seoul it wasn’t so far to travel, something that his advanced pregnancy made very difficult, but it was just far enough to make him feel as if he’d gone to the outskirts of Korea and his problems were further than an arm’s reach away.

Suwon was beautiful, too.

On the first day, after resting in his hotel room for some time, he saw the fabled Hwaseong Fortress, channeled his inner tourist, and then caught a game of soccer at the impressive Suwon World Cup Stadium.

His feet held up remarkably well as he traveled to all of the Suwon famous restaurants, enjoyed warm food on cold days, and then finally located an art museum where he was finally surrounded by the language he spoke most fluently.

One day, he told himself, he’d have his work in a gallery. One day he’d get to have a showing.

After four days Luhan felt absolutely refreshed, rested, well fed, and maybe just a little lonely. It would have been better to go on the vacation with someone he cared about, but there really hadn’t been time to wait for anyone’s schedule to open up.

Now, however, he figured it was time to go home. There were friends to see, bills to pay, and a bank to contact.

It wasn’t lost on Luhan that he’d received a large, almost mind boggling money transfer from his parents over the past week. There’d been no communication with the transfer, and Luhan wasn’t sure what to think of it. Were his parents trying to bribe him with money? Were they luring him into taking it, only to demand it back at a later date? And why would he even want to take money from them after what they’d tried to do to him. He didn’t want their pity money or their fake apology money.

Luhan would have to start working again right after having Youri, but until that happened, they were okay financially.

He wasn’t taking anything from his parents. There had to be a way to send the money back. It felt like dirty money and he didn’t want it anywhere near him.

He was headed back to the hotel for the last night, weighed down with souvenirs he’d bought, when a voice rang out, “You know you’re not supposed to be carrying anything.”

The voice was so sweet and familiar that Luhan froze up.

“You have to take it easy, especially since your labor scare.”

Then Sehun was there, sliding into his line of sight and taking the bags from Luhan.

“Sehun,” he breathed out, not sure at all what it meant that he was seeing the man in front of him. The last imagine of Sehun he had in his mind was of a furious, flushed face, accusing words soaked in hatred, and a vow of destruction.

“What are you doing here?” His fingers went numb as Sehun took the last of his bags.

Sehun looked … well, as handsome as ever. But he also seemed kinder to look upon than he’d ever been, and youthful in some kind of anxiousness.

“I heard about what happened--you having to go to the hospital.”

Luhan stoked a hand down to his stomach. Most of his bulge was hidden by the heavy coat he wore, but from a side profile it was just as obvious as ever that he was fully rounded out.

“I …” Luhan felt the words twisting up inside of him, more unsure than ever of what to say to the man he loved. “It wasn’t on purpose.”

Sehun reeled back a little. “Of course it wasn’t on purpose.”

A door closed at the end of the hall and Luhan was suddenly aware of how public their conversation could be at any moment.

“My room,” he said, pointing to the nearest door. The keycard was in his pocket but he made no move to reach for it.

Sehun asked gently, “Can we talk in there?”

After a quick nod, Luhan finally got his feet working. “Follow me.”

The mood inside the room was just as awkward and almost uncomfortable as it had been in the hallway. Luhan sat on the edge of the bed while Sehun deposited his gifts on the nearby table.

“I called for an ambulance as soon as I realized what was happening,” Luhan said, still feeling the fear in him when the first cramp had occurred. “I would never let anything happen to Youri on purpose. I tried to get help as quickly as--”

Sehun lowed himself to the room’s carpet slowly at first, then more determined. His palms pressed flat against the carped, his head bowed, and then his forehead was all the way down, his shoulders hunched.

“Sehun?”

Sehun said nothing, his body trembling, and Luhan thought of how Wei had lowered himself in front of him. But this was different. That had been a friend seeking forgiveness for a mistake caused by time and pressure. This was Sehun … the only person other than his daughter that Luhan kept in his heart, who was confusing and infuriating and impossible not to care for.

“I almost killed you,” Sehun said, his voice thick. “It’s my fault. I almost killed the person I love.”

The comforter on the bed bunched up as Luhan’s fingers clenched at the material. “I wouldn’t have--”

“You don’t know that,” Sehun said, and when his head lifted his face as blotchy from how he was now crying, his eyes red and filled with tears. “You could have died, or Youri could have. She could have been born too early, you could have started bleeding. A million terrible things could have happened, and they would all be my fault.”

“But none of them did happen,” Luhan said, and reached his hand out to cup Sehun’s face. “I’m fine, and so is Youri. Get up off the floor, okay?”

Sehun refused, bowing over once more, stating, “I’m the person who’s supposed to help you protect Youri. I’m the man who’s supposed to love you and care for you, and above all else, I’m supposed to believe you.”

“And you believe me now?”

With a rough nod, Sehun said, “Kris told me everything.”

Luhan wanted to roll his eyes. Of course Kris. Kris was definitely someone who felt regretful very infrequently. He made mistakes, but rarely claimed responsibility for them, though with no malicious intent. However when he did admit to his mistakes, and when he took responsibility for them, he did so greatly.

“I didn’t ask him to,” Luhan said.

The next time Sehun looked to him, it was with confusion. “Why not? You … none of this was your fault. You didn’t deserve my anger or my thoughtless actions. All of this could have been cleared up if … I just …”

“You didn’t want to see me,” Luhan said simply. “You didn’t want to hear me. If I had spoken to you, you probably still wouldn’t have understood what I was saying. And when have I ever pushed you into anything you weren’t ready for? Rarely, right? I know what kind of person you are, Sehun.”

“What kind of person is that?” Sehun asked, sounding quite desperate.

“The kind,” Luhan replied, “who needs to come into things on his own time. A little prodding does wonders, but for the most part, you have to go at your own rate. I’ve always accepted that stubbornness.”

Swallowing visibly, Sehun asked, “How are you, really?”

He could tell he was moving unexpectedly when he pulled Sehun up and placed his hand at Luhan’s stomach. “You feel for yourself.”

Sehun’s ace crumbled at the first feel of a kick.

“She’s not as active as she was before,” Luhan admitted, because it had been some time since Sehun had felt her. “But that’s more to do with how little room there is in there for her now. Mostly she fidgets, but I swear, my doctor cleared me for this vacation, and she wouldn’t have if she thought I should be laying down in a bed all day.”

Sehun prompted, “Kris said you might not carry to term.”

Luhan absolutely couldn’t deny how good it felt to have Sehun’s concern him again. It was a million times better than his anger and rage.

“To be fair,” Luhan stated, “we always knew there was a chance I wouldn’t carry to the end of my nine months. I haven’t got the hips for it, and my gestational diabetes really plays a part in all o that. But as long as there’s no more cramping, and as long as those contractions stay far, far away, I have a shot at it. I’m doing everything to try and make it to the finish line on time.”

Sehun gave a silent nod.

With some wonder, Luhan asked, “You still haven’t said why you’re here. I understand that you know now that I wasn’t trying to take Youri from you. But why did you come all the way here? Just to tell me you knew? A phone call would have sufficed.”

“How can you be like this?” Sehun asked. “So calm? I … was a pitiful man in how I treated you.”

Luhan sighed loudly. “What do you want me to do, Sehun? Get upset and yell? Raise my blood pressure? I am terrified, Sehun, terrified of sparking labor with anything now. So I’m going to calmly sit here and speak with you, but that’s it. Youri is worth more than me getting angry.”

What he couldn’t control, though, was the frustration he felt. Was this Sehun trying to make things even with them? Did he want them to start over, or forget this had never happened? Those were things Luhan couldn’t do. He wouldn’t.

“Kris said that you only had the paperwork drawn up because he pushed you into it.”

Luhan nodded. “He didn’t force me, I won’t play the complete victim in this but yes, he bullied me a bit into it. He played on my fears, telling me that I didn’t know what kind of person you were, and how you might hurt Youri or in the future. But you know what? He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know you back then. My fears might have been founded. But then things changed.”

“You wouldn’t’ have tried to get me to sign that paper just so you could have Youri to yourself, right?”

Luhan shot back, “All I’ve ever wanted to have with you was someone to raise Youri with. I wanted a partner and co parent. If that wasn’t what you wanted, I was prepared to give you a way out. But if you were going to sign, I wouldn’t have lied to you about anything. I would have made it perfectly clear what your signature meant, the rights you were giving up, and how little I expected of you in return. I am not a deceptive person, Sehun.”

“I know that,” Sehun said shamefully.

“But still you thought I’d done the opposite of the one thing I’d always told you I wanted.”

Sehun’s fingers balled into fists tightly. “I just … freaked out. I’m so sorry, Luhan. I’m so sorry want to die of my shame. I just saw the paper, thought of how my life would be without Youri, and I blanked out. I don’t … I don’t even remember most of what happened.”

Frustration welled in Luhan. “You don’t remember screaming at me? Accusing me of being disloyal and betraying you? How about that fist sized hole you put in our baby’s nursery wall?”

Almost immaturely Sehun was diving back to the floor, his forehead at the carpet again.

“Sehun,” Luhan groaned out. “Look, the fact is, you hurt me. You hurt me badly, and you made me think that you never trusted me in the first place. And where to do go from here? What can we do now?”

Sehun scrambled to say, “I already contacted my lawyer! I had him get rid of everything.”

“That doesn’t make the worst part go away,” Luhan said. It would always be at the back of his mind, now, that at any moment Sehun might turn on him.

Luhan leaned back on his forearms and wondered what they were going to do now.

“I know you hate me,” Sehun said from his spot on the ground, “but I just want you to know that I will never do anything ever to hurt you again. I will never.”

“How can you promise that?” Luhan asked. “And for the record I don’t hate you. You’re crazy if you think I hate you.”

“You’d be crazy not to,” Sehun said. “I hate me. I hate--”

Luhan reached down for him, and to his credit, Sehun scrambled up to avoid Luhan having to exert much effort. “Stop trying to guess how I’m feeling,” Luhan said, forcing Sehun into the spot next to the bed. “I’m angry at you. I’m hurt by you. But I do not hate you.”

Sehun’s hand was twitching nearby, always a tell of his.

“Just feel,” Luhan said, exhaustion aching through him. “Sehun, she’s your daughter, too. I’m just trying to keep her safe.”

When Sehun’s fingers tentatively brushed against his shirt, he admitted, “I let my anger get the best of me. I was so upset, and I thought I had a right to be hurt, so all I could think about was hurting you back. It was petty and villainous, and I had second thoughts almost the second after I calmed down.”

“You still said you were suing me for custody,” Luhan pointed out, trying not to lean into Sehun’s blunt fingernails that felt so good scratching across his stomach. “You still had your lawyer send me that piece of paper in the mail.”

“Suho pushed me towards it,” Sehun said, his fingers stilling momentarily. “I deserve most of the blame, and maybe even he deserves none of it, but Suho made it so easy for me to try and strike at you in the way I knew you would be most devastated. He made it easy for me to turn into a monster that I’m ashamed of. The fact that I did it at all, is a burden I will live with for the rest of my life.”

Luhan asked, “Did you only stop because Kris told you the truth?” And maybe he ought to be upset that Sehun had listened to Kris, and not Luhan who’d tried desperately hard to get through to him.

Sehun retraced this fingers completely and balled them up on his lap. “I was already hating myself for what I was doing before that. I would have stopped before it was too late, because I could bear the idea of hurting he person I love the most in this world, and because I want my daughter to grow up and respect me, and not think of her father as someone so heinous.”

“She won’t think that,” Luhan said confidently. “And when she finds out about this, because it will come out eventually, she’ll think that she has parents who are simply human and make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are horrible in their severity, but they’re just mistakes. And even the worst mistakes can be forgiven.”

“I’m …” Sehun leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs. “I’ve decided not to ask for custody of any kind. You get it all. Full custody. I’ll even sign a paper saying it. Just please, let me see her. Let me try and make this up to you and her.”

With an open palm, but not so gently, Luhan struck Sehun over the back of his head. “What’s the point of you fighting the trauma of your past to become a good father, if you won’t even hold custody?”

Sehun flinched as Luhan raised is hand threateningly again. “Why would you even want me near our daughter?”

“Because,” Luhan said, and he did strike him one more time. “I’ve spent all this time being horrified at the idea of losing my daughter. I was contemplating that running away to China might be better than having to give her over to you. But never once, not a single time, did I ever feel that she’d be in danger or hurt by you. I knew you’d love her and protect her and be a good father. That was the only thing I didn’t have to worry about.”

“I have to do this,” Sehun said.

“To prove something to me?”

Sehun shook his head. “I can’t ever let there be a question again as to who’s daughter she is. She’s yours first, Luhan. I just want to see her. I want to have time with her.”

Luhan pointed to the door. “Get out.”

Confounded, Sehun asked, “Leave?”

“Get out,” Luhan repeated, this time louder. “I don’t want anything to do with you if this is how you’re going to be.”

Sehun stood. “This is something you shout want!”

“What I want,” Luhan challenged, having to use Sehun to pull himself to his feet, “is for the father of my daughter to be more than a spectator. Do you think you don’t deserve her all the sudden because of your mistake? News flash, Sehun, you’ve been making mistakes and false assumptions for quite some time now. I have always forgiven you because of what’s in your heart and the effort you show. But this is you giving up. This is you begging for the rights to your own daughter, and it’s pathetic.”

Angrily, Sehun shouted back, “I am a monster who tried to hurt you. I would have hurt our baby by taking you away from her. This isn’t a matter of what I deserve, this is a matter of what she deserves.”

“She deserves two fathers!”

Sehun threw his hands up. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. Am I someone who loves his family and will do anything to protect them? Or am I the petty person who uses one family member to hurt another?”

Luhan turned to him and took Sehun’s face in his hands. “If you walk out of Youri’s life now, to spare her or I any kind of pain you think you might cause us, it’ll be worse than anything you’ve done in the past. The father of my daughter is not a coward.”

With a tight laugh, Sehun said, “I’m nothing but a coward. I’ve just gotten so good at hiding it all this time.”

“I don’t think you are,” Luhan said, and he leaned up so that their noses were almost brushing. “Being scared doesn’t make you a liar. In fact, you can only be brave and strong if you have that fear. It’s motivation. It’s determination. It’s everything that makes you human.”

Sehun’s mouth descended on Luhan’s quickly, catching him in a soft but determined kiss, making Luhan realize how much he’d missed the simply act of affection.

It took mere seconds for Luhan to realize how much he still wanted Sehun and kiss him back fiercely.

There’d been some doubt and confusion in Luhan’s heart. He loved Sehun, that much was engrained in him now. But being in love with Sehun didn’t naturally mean that he still desired him. Maybe the love was tied to their baby and there was nothing remotely ual about it anymore.

Kissing Sehun now, holding him in place with his fingers, relieved any and all doubts.

There was still a burning and yearning in him for Sehun.

“We are so messed up,” Luhan said, his arms going around Sehun’s neck for a hug. “What are we going to do?”

Sehun held him firmly, smelling like home, and said, “I came here hoping you hated me. I wanted you to deny me and hate me and give me reason to hate myself. Now I just want you to love me.”

“You’re so stupid,” Luhan whispered, his fingers brushing in to the strands of hair at the back of Sehun’s hair. “I’ve loved you since the beginning. I loved you when you were broken before, and I still love you now.”

“But how can you?”

Luhan felt the baby in him, and Sehun against him. “Even when you’re being difficult, it’s still easy for others to love you. I just don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to love yourself.” He enfolded Sehun and tugged him even closer. “You’re worth being loved. Don’t let yourself forget that.”

Luhan wasn’t quite sure who it happened, but within the hour they were surrounded by room service, down to their underclothes, with a movie playing in the background and their fingers twined.

“Remember who I said I was thinking about getting some therapy?” Sehun asked, breaking Luhan’s attention away from the television.

“I had wondered.”

Sehun said seriously, “I’m going to make an appointment to see someone the second I get back to Seoul. I have to. I have these thoughts and insecurities and this anger. I have to get rid of it, or at least improve it before Youri is born.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Luhan said. If there was a chance anyone could help Sehun continue to recover from his past, then it was the right choice to make. Still, he couldn’t’ help adding, “But Sehun, you realize that even if you go get therapy, and things get better, they’re never going to be the way they were. We broke that with this. We can’t get it back. We can’t recapture it perfectly.”

“I know,” Sehun said, sounding heartbroken.

Luhan added, “You clearly have trust issues, and for obvious reasons, I can’t trust you. The problem between us isn’t love. It’s trust.”

Sehun tipped himself sideways on the bed, narrowing missing a plate of food. “Do you think we moved too fast in the beginning?”

“No,” Luhan said honestly. “There was a real attraction we had for each other from the start, and that’s hard to fight. Plus, we didn’t make a choice to start a romantic relationship lightly. We both hesitated because we wanted to put Youri first. But if this is your way of saying you want to be friends only--”

“I’m not!” Sehun said sharply, squeezing Luhan’s fingers. “I’m not saying that at all. I love you.”

Reaching for the nearby remote, Luhan muted the TV and crossed his legs. “I want us to get a probationary but formal agreement for shared custody from the court system.”

Panicked, Sehun demaned, “What? No!”

Quickly, Luhan replied, “I said probationary. I don’t want to have a legal and binding contract between us when Youri is fifteen and we’re arguing over who gets to go stalk her the first time she goes on a date.”

The immediate softening of Sehun’s face could have tempted even the strongest man. The handsome charm to his face told Luhan that he was thinking of their daughter when she was that age, and how beautiful and devastatingly perfect she’d be.

“What do you want it to say?” Sehun asked carefully.

“That we’re equal parts her parents,” Luhan said immediately. “And it should say that we plan to spend as much time together with her as possible, but when it isn’t, that we have a clear idea of who gets her when. I don’t want miscommunication or anger. I want us to be a family and concentrate on loving each other. I don’t want us squabbling over the little stuff.”

With a concentrated look on his face, Sehun insisted, “I want it written in there, if we’re going to do this, then Youri stays with you for the first year. Exclusively. I get to see her whenever you can swing it, maybe even when you can’t, but she’ stays with you for that first year.”

“Didn’t we say six months at first?” Luhan asked.

Sehun insisted, “A year. She’ll be so tiny, Luhan. She’ll need constant supervision and I know it’ll help if she’s in the same place and gets used to it. Plus, we both know that out of the both of us, you have the more flexible schedule. You can be there where I can’t.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

Sehun leaned over to kiss his cheek. “You’re carrying our baby. Haven’t I told you before that you’ve got a profound connection to her because of that? That’s going to matter still when she’s born, and she’ll be able to feel that I’m not you. I want you two to have that first year, especially if I’m going to be working on me during that time.”

Luhan leaned over for his own kiss. “Are you sure?”

When Sehun nodded, Luhan believed him.

“After that,” Sehun said, “we should trade off weekends. Or maybe you keep her during the week and I get the weekends?”

With some mock protest, Luhan questioned, “So I get to be the mean parent who makes her go to school and you’re the fun one who takes her out on the weekend to have fun?”

Sehun laughed out, “I’m totally going to be the fun parent. You’ll be the strict one.”

Luhan wound an arm around Sehun’s neck and kissed him more fully. “Is that a challenge?”

Gently Sehun his fingers across Luhan’s stomach. “As long as she’s healthy and happy, I don’t care which of us is the strict parent. I’ll be it, if you want me to.”

The thing was, Luhan couldn’t imagine him fitting into that role. There was anger in Sehun, the kind that he needed help to deal with, but there was also excruciating kindness. Luhan was going to be surprised if it look Sehun less than ten years to start saying no to their daughter. She wasn’t even born and she was having her way with him. They’d be crippled terribly if she ever realized her full potential.

“I just want us to work on us,” Luhan said. “I want us to be better in the future than we were before, with more openness, more trust, and more love.”

With the barest hint of pressure on Luhan’s stomach, Sehun continued to the skin there.

“I know we can’t go back,” he said, voice almost at a whisper. “I know we can’t sweep away what happened, or pretend it didn’t. I thought you betrayed me, but really it was just me betraying you. But I want us to have a future.”

Luhan’s fingers brushed Sehun’s. “We do have a future. It’s right here.”

“I know that,” Sehun sighed out. “But I want there to be a future with me and you. We’ll have our baby no matter what. That will always be the most precious thing to me, and it should be. But I want for me and you. I want something there for us, and I want something that isn’t about our baby. I want it just to be about us.”

Bluntly, Luhan said, “I love you, Sehun. I wouldn’t offer any part of me, let alone my heart, to you if that wasn’t the case. But I don’t have a clue what our future is. I don’t know how I’m going to deal with how I felt when you exploded, or how scared I was when you put that hole in my wall. How can I just ignore that? I felt like your words were ripping me to pieces, and then your friends started in on me after that.”

Sehun put his hands firmly on Luhna’s shoulders. “I swear I didn’t know they were doing that to you. I would have stopped it if I had known, and now that I do, they won’t ever do it to you again.”

“I do understand, you know.” Luhan just hated how the number of people who’d hurt him was growing. “They are your friends. Their first priority is to protect you from perceived threats, and that’s what they were doing. It jut really hurt, because I thought we were friends too, and I thought at least one of them would want to hear my side of the story, or listen to what I had to say. I thought maybe one of them, just one, wouldn’t be so cruel.”

“Do not defend them! Your friends didn’t attack me. Why should mine be allowed to attack you.”

Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Luhan felt a smile split on his face. “The truth is, it’s kind of a shock to me that Xiumin didn’t have someone hired to gut you.”

“I’m really not sure if you’re joking or not,” Sehun breathed out.

“Well,” Luhan chuckled, “Tao claims that his roommate at the university is dating someone in the Korean mafia, so that’s something. And Tao’s pretty much the one you should be worried about. It took me a few years to figure that out, but he’s secretly a ninja of some sort.”

“A ninja?” Sehun nearly giggled. “You must be kidding.”

“No,” Luha insisted. “I knew him when he was seventeen. His parents had just dropped him off to say with a couple of family friends in Korea while they moved to France for business, and the first encounter I had with Tao was watching him force a bully, twice his size, to give some poor kid’s allowance back to him. With his words, not his fists. That bully was scared to death of Tao, who was just this skinny kid with a smart mouth. And from then on I realized that no matter how frivolous or carefree Tao comes off, there’s a lot more there under the surface. There’s a lot more to him, than what he chooses to let people see.”

Sehun tucked a foot underneath him and stated, “Tao’s the one who told me where to find you. That’s how I knew you were here at this hotel. Then I just had to charm the woman at the front desk, who apparently thinks you’re the cutest thing ever, by the way, and that let me to this room.”

“Tao?” Luhan was surprised. “Well, it wouldn’t have been Kris or Xiumin, that’s for sure. But I thought maybe Lay. Or even Chen.”

“Chen?”

“Chen and Eunji are dating,” Luhan reminded. “And I had to get her permission to come here.”

With a stumble to his words, Sehun asked, “Did Chen do anything to you? Was he being horrible to you like the others?”

“He left one voicemail,” Luhan said, not wanting to be dishonest. “It was mean, that’s for sure, but I accept it. He wanted me to stay away from you, warned me what would happen if I didn’t, and that’s it.”

Darkness settled across Sehun’s features. “He’s supposed to be my best friend. He knew, even when I was furious, that I still loved you.”

“And,” Luhan revealed, “Xiumin was fully aware of how much I was in love with you when he punctured your tire with his pocketknife.”

“What!” After a moment of flailing Sehun was rolling off the bed, hitting the ground with a dulls thud. “.”

“Are you okay?” Luhan peeked over the side of the bed.

“Fine,” Sehun groaned out. “You know, I was sure it was one of your friends, but no one saw anything, and I could think of how anyone would have access to my car.”

A little too easily, Luhan said, “Xiumin’s cousin, who will remain nameless, works at a building very close to yours. So close, in fact, he has access to the same parking garage as you. It wasn’t that difficult for him to slip Xiumin the access code.” Sehun groaned again and Luhan promised, “I’ll make him pay for the tire he cost you. I wasn’t too pleased either, when I heard.”

“Eh. It’s okay.” Sehun rolled up to his knees. “I deserved it anyway.”

“Maybe,” Luhan allowed, and offered Sehun his hand. “But the car didn’t. It’s a very nice car.”

Sehun spent the night. They slept in the same bed. And there was cuddling. But for the most part, Luhan kept his hands to himself, and the only place Sehun put his, was to the baby.

In the morning Sehun asked, “Can I drive you back to Seoul? I know you probably don’t want to be in a car with me for even a second, but I’d feel better knowing you’re not taking the subway line.”

“I took it all the way here,” Luhan said. And when he’d come on vacation, he’d brought a half full suitcase. There was room enough to pack all of his souvenirs and still be able to pull it along. “And you’re right, I don’t want to be in a car with you right now. I need some time to think. I came her believing that it was my last chance for peace before I had to essentially go to battle with you. Now that isn’t the case, but we’re still on uneven ground. I need to take this all in, decide how much I’m willing to risk. You understand?”

Shoulders slumping, Sehun said, “Okay. I get it.”

Luhan did, however, allow Sehun to drive him to the station.

“Can I come see you?” Sehun asked, almost with all the confidence of a teenager on a first date. “When you’re settled back in at home?”

“The eighth.”

“Huh?” Sehun’s eyebrows pulled together.

Slipping out of the car and waiting for Sehun to pop the trunk, Luhan said, “Come pick me up on the eighth. That’s when my next doctor’s appointment is. It’s important, too. We’re verifying the correct date for labor, and deciding all of the things that go with it.”

Sehun hurried to pull his luggage from the trunk. “I’ll be there. I swear.”

As the suitcase was turned over to him, Luhan said, “I hope you’re serious about getting some therapy. We all have demons to deal with, and we all make mistakes. It’s what we do after that, which really matters. I love you, Sehun. I want this to be a distant thing of the past one day. I want to trust you again, and I want you to trust me. But no matter what happens with us, I will never doubt you with our baby, and you can’t ever doubt me.”

Sehun bent to brush his lips over Luhan’s. “How about you believe in me, and I’ll believe in your. We can go from there.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Luhan clutched Sehun tightly, hoping for the moment it was enough. “Sounds like a good deal to me.”

It would have been more comfortable and easier to take Sehun up on his offer of a ride, but Luhan hadn’t been anything but truthful when he’d said he wanted time to think. His being in love with Sehun had nothing to do with the fact that he was still distrustful of how stable Sehun was at the moment, and how little faith he’d had in Luhan. Sehun needed to prove himself, and Luhan hated that he felt that way, but he couldn’t fight it.

“Xiumin said sorry,” Tao said when he was there for Luhan when his trained pulled back into Seoul’s innermost station. “He got called into work suddenly. My last class let out half an hour ago, so here I am. You look really good, Luhan. Really refreshed.”

Luhan gave him a forceful push to the arm. “Don’t try to act so innocent with me, kid. I know you told Sehun where I was.”

“You don’t look too upset,” Tao pointed out his car keys swinging around a finger.

“That’s not the point,” Luhan shot back. “You still told him.”

With a laugh, Tao said, “But I made him beg for it. Plus, Luhan, don’t pretend for a second that you weren’t appreciative that you two finally got to talk. I don’t know if you worked anything out, but you seem happier than when you left, so I’m calling my mission a success.”

Letting Tao take his suitcase, Luhan snapped, “Mission?”

Tao merely flashed a sign of victory.

“Ninja,” Luhan muttered.