When the accident had happened Sehun had been at work like always, maybe twenty minutes away from taking his lunch break. There’d been absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about the day, either, other than the argument Sehun had had with Jae before they’d parted to start their morning routines. And there was zero indication that the day would turn out to be anything but regular.

So when news had been delivered to him, via one terrible phone call from Jae’s mother, Sehun had flown to his car, driven like a madman to the hospital, and not spilt one tear along the way.

It had taken some time for most of their collective families to start showing up, at least once it became evident that Jae wasn’t going to be released a few hours later with a couple of bruises and likely bed rest. All the while, with Sehun’s siblings trickling in, Suho already there, and the rest of the people they loved making appearances, Sehun hadn’t cried.

He’d watched his mother and Jae’s mother try to console each other with hopeful positivism, all the while wiping away tears. And when Sehun had gone to the bathroom six hours into the wait for news, he’d heard Suho who’d gone before him sniffling in the stall he’d barricaded himself in, shedding tears he didn’t want others to see.

Sehun hadn’t cried when the doctor had come to tell him his husband was dead.

There’d been no tears for his dead daughter, either.

And the day of the funeral, when everyone who’d ever known Jae had cried, Sehun’s eyes had been dry.

He’d wanted to cry. He’d honestly thought that if he did, if the tears came and went, he’d feel better. Crying was mourning, and with reality settling in, mourning was the next logical step. But no matter how he’d rationalized it being okay to cry, or how he’d accepted the moment it would begin, the tears never came. They simply never happened, and in that Sehun had always thought himself a little broken. After all, who wouldn’t cry at the funeral for their family? What kind of a man was incapable of it?

So now, curled into practically a stranger’s arms, Sehun found it almost baffling, or maybe downright terrifying, that he was sobbing. And god if it wasn’t happening like an explosion of sorts. His chest was heaving, his nose was running, his shoulders were hitching, and the tears …they just wouldn’t stop.

He’d spent so long trying to get them to come, and now they wouldn’t stop.

Luhan, in all his grace, the kind that Sehun was unfathomably thankful for, simply rubbed his back and held him tightly. No words were spoken. Sehun cried and Luhan waited.

After, when Sehun’s heart was aching with every beat and his lungs were burning for a steady stream of air, Luhan finally let him go and heaved himself over to the kitchen for a glass of water. Then his hand was at Sehun’s back again, rubbing once more, encouraging him to take small sips and breathe evenly.

The first thing Luhan said to him after the tears stopped, and so delicately Sehun almost missed them, were, “I know it’s a little overwhelming.”

Luhan had no idea.

“I’m sorry,” Sehun managed eventually, a terrible headache blossoming at the side of his forehead, almost treading towards migraine territory. “I don’t know what just happened.”

Luhan moved back to sit across from him once more, a thoughtful look on his a face. “Can I propose something, Sehun?”

Sehun could only answer back, “Huh?” as his mind tried to keep up with what was happening.

He desperately wanted to know what had triggered the tears. What had finally gotten them out?

He dared to suppose … could it really have been feeling his child kick? Was he really supposed to believe that his infidelity to his husband on the night he’d been buried, had caused the onslaught of waterworks? It seemed so terrible to imagine. He was still grieving for his lost child. And now he had a second to consider. A new baby.

“That’s my baby.”

Luhan blinked wide, attractive brown eyes at Sehun. “I’m sorry?”

“God,” Sehun eased out, a chill running through him. “That’s my baby.”

He’d denied it. He’d tried to ignore it. He’d been an absolute bastard about it.

But he’d felt it.

And now he knew it.

“That’s … I’m …”

Something softened in Luhan’s uncertain expression. “Sehun, do you want to hear what I’m proposing?” He dared to joke, “Or do you maybe want to feel the baby again? There’s still plenty of action going on inside. I told you, we’re having a footballer.”

Sehun shook his head almost wildly. No. Feeling those tiny signs of life thumping against his palm had been … overwhelming. He wasn’t ready to experience it again. Not just yet.

“Then my proposal?”

This time Sehun nodded.

Luhan reasoned, “I’m just going to go ahead and state some very relevant and obvious information. Stay with me, okay?” He pointed a finger at his stomach, then gestured between the two of them. “This is our baby. Sehun, you’re going to be a father, and so am I, and it’s only four months away. I know you’re still in so much pain, but you have to try and get ready for this, because the baby is coming and it isn’t going to stop to consider your emotional well being. And this is all on us. We made the decision to sleep together and to not use protection. This is our responsibility. This is our baby.”

It was with a rare burst of courage that Sehun dared to admit, “I never thought I’d get to be that.”

“A father?”

Sehung added, “Not since …”

“Well,” Luhan said curtly, “you are. You are going to be a father. That means you and I are about to be tied together by something very important for a long time. For the rest of our lives, I mean, Sehun. You and I will be a part of each other’s lives forever because of this baby, and we don’t even know each other. We know nothing about each other.”

“So … you want to be friends?” Sehun asked, unsure.

“I want us to be friends,” Luhan confirmed. “I want us to get to know each other. We’re going to parent this baby together, even if we aren’t together. We have to be able to make decisions together, understand each other, and we have to care for each other. That starts by not being the strangers that we currently are.”

Luhan was absolutely speaking the truth, and it was dawning on Sehun that he was going to have Luhan in his life forever. He wouldn’t be waking up next to Luhan like he would have been with Jae, but they’d still spend holidays together, go to school functions together, and if there were, god Sehun hoped not, any late night emergency trips to the hospital, Sehun and Luhan would both be there. They owed it to their baby to be friends and be able to work together to be great parents.

Because that’s what Sehun was about to become. He was about to be a parent.

It still felt like a betrayal, though. It still felt he was doing wrong to the vows he’d made with Jae on their wedding day.

“You think we can do that?” Sehun wondered. “Be … friends? Be successful parents?”

“I think we have to try,” Luhan replied.

“How do we start?”

Luhan leaned over and reached for something on a nearby table, saying, “We start by promising a few things to each other.”

Sehun asked, “Like what?”

“Important things,” Luhan said. He handed the item, a sheet of glossy paper, over to Sehun.

“This is from today?” Sehun held the ultrasound picture in his hands reverently, staring down at it. The black and white shapes were almost hypnotic in their pattern. But it didn’t matter that he was a little dizzy from staring too hard. The only thing that mattered was that this was his baby and he should have been there for the doctor’s appointment.

He hadn’t missed any of Jae’s. He wouldn’t miss any more of Luhan’s.

“It is,” Luhan said simply.

“I’ll be there,” Sehun said, looking up at him sharply. “I’ll be there next time and I won’t make you go alone.”

Luhan tried to put forward a kind look. “You know I didn’t go alone. I had Xiumin with me.”

But that was the problem, maybe. This Xiumin. He shouldn’t have been there. It wasn’t Xiumin’s baby that Luhan was carrying around. It was Sehun’s. And what right did this other person have to put their hands on Sehun’s baby?

Once more, this time with conviction, Sehun made it a promise and said, “I’ll be there next time. I’ll be the one next to you when we get a new picture.”

Sehun let his finger trail over the curve of his baby’s head in the picture.

God, he was absolutely terrified. Did Luhan have a clue how petrified he was?

“--important things.”

Sehun startled a little. “Sorry.” He hefted the picture up for Luhan a little bashfully and said, “I zoned out.”

“I said,” Luhan repeated, “we have promise each other the important things.”

Sehun offered, “Like being their for each other?”

Luhan’s head dipped. “That, but also other important things, Sehun. Like honesty.” He took a deep breath and looked like he was gearing up for something huge.

“Honesty is hard,” Sehun said cautiously, thinking of all the things he had pushed down inside himself. All his secrets and fears weren’t things he was ready to share.

“Then we at least have to make an attempt at it,” Luhan decided. “And if we can’t talk about something, we have to be clear and calm about why not. I … guess I’ll start with that picture.”

“There’s something not honest about the picture?”

Luhan, with his long, slender hands, curled them around his stomach and said, “I lied. Earlier.”

Sehun glanced from Luhan’s stomach to the photo, then back again. “Is something wrong?” Was there a problem with the baby that Luhan had withheld? “Is the baby--”

Luhan blurted out, “It’s a girl.”

Girl.

Girl?

“The baby,” Luhan rushed to add. “I lied about not being able to tell the gender. It’s a girl and I didn’t want to tell you.”

Luhan had gone so pale that Sehun found himself aching to be at his side, even if he couldn’t do anything. Was Luhan feeling faint? Why would he hide …

“You were …”

“I was trying to protect your feelings,” Luhan admitted, rubbing out soothing circles on his stomach like he had on Sehun’s back not long ago. “And I was trying to protect myself, too.” He winced, still too pale for Sehun’s liking. “I was mostly trying to protect the baby.”

“From me?” Sehun asked faintly.

“Maybe from what you might not be able to help yourself from reacting like.”

“Over a gender?” Sehun asked, still so shocked. He looked once more to the ultrasound. He was no expert at deciphering them, and if Luhan hadn’t told him that it was a girl he’d have never known it.

Luhan said gingerly, “I was worried that you’d react poorly because of your daughter. The daughter that you lost. Suho told me she was everything to you. She was your entire life. So when I found out this baby was a girl, all I could think was that there was no way I could admit it. I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to replace one daughter with another, and I was terrified that you might reject the baby because she’s a girl.”

The worst part was that Sehun couldn’t even bring himself to be angry with Luhan. Because of course Luhan would have logically thought that. Sehun had given him all the signs that such a thing was possible, if not likely.

Then, against all odds, his eyes were burning once more. Then he was crying. He’d be lying if he couldn’t admit it felt good to get even more tears out, as if they’d built up against a terrible dam and were set to overflow again and again.

“I just want you to love her for her,” Luhan rushed to say, sliding down to his knees like a plea. “I want you to accept our baby, Sehun, and not compare her to the one that you lost. That was a terrible tragedy, but our baby is here. Our baby is alive and she’s going to be fine and healthy and I want you to love her just a fraction of how much I do.” Luhan braced his hands down on the ground. “You’re not replacing one baby with another. And I truly believe that your heart must be big enough to find room for our baby in there, next to your other daughter. Suho believes that you’re capable of that capacity of love, and I hope so too.”

The ultrasound picture drifted to the floor as Sehun found himself on his knees in front of Luhan. He gripped Luhan as tightly as he dared by the shoulders and helped him up, begging, “Please, Luhan. I would never--”

But Luhan was going on, “She’s going to be beautiful and perfect and so deserving of our love. You loving her is never going to take anything away from how much you love your other daughter.”

Placing both his hands on Luhan’s stomach, Sehun said to stop him, “I’ve made so many mistakes already. I’ve reacted poorly and been stubborn and given you cause to doubt me. But I’m trying now. I’m trying so hard. I’m going to love her, Luhan. I’m going to care for her and support you and I’m not going to let you down again.”

All he could imagine now was the way that Jae would have been so disappointed in him for the way he’d been behaving. Jae, who romanticized things like honor and duty and respect, and held people in high esteem even when they made mistakes, would have wanted to shake him and demand to know why he was denying a child that he’d helped create.

That was what it came down to in Sehun’s mind.

He’d been thinking about how he felt. He’d been selfishly wanting to protect himself from his own actions, as if ignoring them would simply make them go away. But now, for the first time, he was stopping to consider how Luhan felt, what their baby deserved, how Jae would have demanded he take responsibility, and how his family would ultimately celebrate a grandchild regardless of the circumstances surrounding its conception.

Her conception.

Her. It was a girl.

“A girl,” Sehun breathed out, his hands smoothing across Luhan’s stomach. “We’re going to have a girl.”

Jae would have encouraged Sehun to be a father. Even if Sehun had cheated while Jae had been alive. Even if Luhan and their baby had been a mistake made during the duration of Sehun’s marriage to Jae, Jae would never have let Sehun disavow his own child. Jae was like that. Jae would have accepted Sehun’s child with Luhan no matter the hurt associated with it, and that was a truth that Sehun knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“You’re not totally pissed?” Luhan asked, wariness in his tone.

Honesty. It was all about honesty.

“If I could choose not to have a baby right now, I would,” Sehun said, and there was no getting around that truth. “I need time to heal from losing my entire life. But since like you said, I’m going to be a father in four months no matter what, we’re going to do this Luhan. We’re going to do the best we can, for our daughter.”

It was Luhan who was crying then, falling into Sehun’s arms, weeping with relief.

The moment only made Sehun feel like a bigger . He must have caused Luhan so much undue stress.

“I’m probably going to at this so much,” Sehun confessed with a wry laugh’ “But I swear I’ll try.”

Luhan laughed and it was such a wonderful sound that Sehun could barely help himself smiling in return. “Sehun,” Luhan said between fits of giggles, “hasn’t anyone told you that there’s no handbook for this? When it comes to being a good parent, the only way you learn is by making mistakes. You’re going to just as much as I am, but we’re going to get better together.”

“I hope so.”

What if he messed his kid up? At least with Jae Sehun had been absolutely certain that if he messed up, Jae would be there to pick up the slack and fix things. Luhan seemed nice and funny and full of compassion, but Sehun couldn’t be sure just yet what kind of person he was.

With no small measure of relief, Luhan said, “We are going to make mistakes. And some of them might be pretty bad. But I promise you, Sehun, we’re going to get through this. We’re going to be great parents after a little trial and error.”

Open with his disbelief, Sehun wondered aloud, “How can you be so confident? How can you be so brave?”

“Oh, Sehun.” Luhan’s soft, cool fingers startled Sehun the moment they settled on the curve of his jaw. It was such a comforting gesture, full of the promise of intimacy that only parents tied together by a child they loved could share, that Sehun leaned into the touch. “You think I’m not shaking with the fear of doing wrong by our baby?”

The depth of Luhan’s brown eyes were beyond enticing to Sehun who saw more than just compassion in them now.

Sehun eased out, “You seem so brave.”

“I don’t know how else to be. For the sake of our baby.”

The fingers fell away and Sehun wanted to snatch back at them. Especially with Luhan’s cologne drifting between them and the proximity of their bodes. He was starting to realize how he’d fallen into bed with Luhan so easily. There was something alluring about his presence in a completely natural and bafflingly beautiful way.

Plus, there was something oddly comforting in now knowing that Luhan was just as terrified as Sehun felt. They could be scared together, at least for a while. And then together they could be brave.

With a loud huff, Sehun said, “So about that honesty.”

Luhan nodded. “We have to be honest with each other, because we have to learn how to trust each other. I have to be able to trust you with the baby, and you need to be able to trust me with her.”

Her.

That pronoun was still banging around in Sehun’s head. He was going to have a daughter with Luhan. There was no pushing the idea to the side or denying the facts laid out before him. He was going to have a little girl.

Nothing was going to happen this time, he told his panicked heart. The tragedy with Jae had been an accident. It had been a terrible, gut wrenching, life changing accident. But still, just an accident. Nothing was going to happen with the baby he was having with Luhan. Not this time.

“What else?” Sehun asked. He got to his feet with a small groan, legs feeling stiff, then reached down for Luhan.

“We’ll start with honesty and trust,” Luhan said with a smile. “But I hope that leads to something like loyalty and friendship.”

Sehun thought of the wrecked nursery in his house.

“Boundaries,” he told Luhan. “We should have boundaries, too.”

With a shrug, Luhan nodded. “Okay. What kind?”

“I don’t want to talk about Jae. Ever.”

Unease pulled at Luhan’s face right away. “Sehun …”

“Ever,” Sehun repeated. “You have to promise me that you won’t ask about him or the baby I had with him. You won’t go prying into things I can’t talk about.”

Tentatively, Luhan suggested, “It might help some of the emotional trauma you’re carrying around to talk about him.”

With some edginess, Sehun asked sharply, “You want trust and honesty from me, right? This is how you get both.”

“Alright,” Luhan said after some pause, but he absolutely looked like he didn’t agree with the compromise. “As long as your hurt from that accident doesn’t affect our baby, I can agree to that.”

Sehun regretted being the cause of Luhan worrying even just a bit more.

“Here, you should take a look at the file I got from the doctor today.” Luhan reached for a nearby packet of uniformly stacked and paper clipped sheets of information. “It has a lot of our baby’s information, some of mine, and some general information. You probably know a lot of it from before, but it never hurts to have a refresher. You can have these and I’ll get copies from the doctor the next time I go.”

Mouth feeling dry, Sehun asked, “What about the possibility of gestational diabetes?”

Luhan at least seemed unconcerned, or maybe just optimistic, as he told Sehun, “Each time I go to the doctor she gives me an oral test. It’s quick and painless, too. I’ve come out in the clear each time, but I suppose my numbers are worrying to her so it’s still something to watch out for. But I swear, right now, I’m in the clear.”

Sehun looked down at the top piece of paper that listed some of Luhan’s basic information and frowned. “Lu Han?” He felt his face heat. “Have I been messing up your name the entire time? Oh, .”

“Sehun,” Luhan laughed out, “you look like you’re going to faint. It’s fine.”

“But your name is Lu Han,” he said, feeling his anxiety level rising. “It’s Lu Han, not Luhan.” He shook his head. “Your name is Han.”

“Luhan is fine,” Luhan assured. “Luhan is the name I’ve been going by for years. It’s sort of a nickname by now. It doesn’t bother me at all, Sehun.”

“Nickname,” Sehun eased out, wondering how long he might have gone on making a fool of himself if he hadn’t realize that Lu was Luhan’s family name, and his given name was Han. “It’s a nickname.”

“Don’t some of your friends have them?” Luhan wondered. “Almost all of mine do. Nicknames are given out of affection. As long as there’s a positive connotation, I don’t see the problem.”

Suho was a nickname, Sehun reminded himself. And so was Kai. His friends did have nicknames, and they certainly were monikers that were given from affection.

“What do you want me to call you?” Sehun asked nervously. “Luhan or Han?”

“Whichever you prefer,” Luhan said calmingly. “Sehun, really, it doesn’t bother me either way. Most of my friends call me Luhan, so you can call me that if it’ll be less awkward.”

Sehun’s attention turned back to the paper and he said surprised, “You’re ethnically Chinese?”

“You couldn’t tell?” Luhan asked in a pleased way.

“No.” Sehun shook his head. “Your Korean is very good.”

Luhan confided, “I practice all the time. When I first came to Korea I was absolutely terrible, but Xiumin helped me almost from the very beginning. I took extra classes in Korean, I worked on my pronunciation, and I learned to think before I spoke always, which gave me time to figure out the proper words to use.” Luhan said bashfully, “Except for when I get angry. Then I’m lucky to even be speaking Korean.”

Sehun thought back to the first confrontation they’d had, all those weeks back when Luhan had told him he was going to be a father. Luhan had spoken Korean the whole way thought, but his pronunciation had been off, his words had been clipped, and if Sehun had really been paying attention, he probably would have been able to figure out that Luhan wasn’t native to Korea.

“Your Korean is really good,” Sehun praised again. Then he questioned, “Why’d you come to Korea?”

More importantly, Sehun realized, a sharp fear digging through his chest to his heart, was there any danger of Luhan leaving? Luhan was Chinese. He had to be in Korea under either a work visa or a school visa. Once those expired, would he take Sehun’s daughter back with him to China never to be seen again?

Decisively, Luhan said, “We should get lunch.”

Behind Luhan Sehun could see that the sun was low in the sky. It was no more than an away from being gone completely. “Lunch?”

“Not today,” Luhan blurted out, a happy smile on his face. “Obviously it’s a little late for that. But soon? I can tell you about how I came from China to Korea, and you can tell me where you work and what you like to do for fun. We have to start somewhere, right?”

They absolutely had to start building a friendship. Luhan was right about yet another thing that Sehun had barely bothered to think about.

“I have to work all day tomorrow,” Suhun said, trying to think through his work schedule. “But how about we get lunch the day after?”

Luhan replied, “I know the most amazing bistro not to far from here. Want to make it a date?”

Sehun wondered if this was what his life was going to look like ten years from now, or twenty. Would it be comprised of meeting Luhan for lunch, talking about neutral, safe subjects, and juggling between them who got the baby that weekend? Would they end up easy friends who navigated shared parental custody like old pros?

Would that really be so bad? Would getting to see Luhan and his infectious smile so frequently, be a bad thing?

“Sehun?”

Jarred back to the present, Sehun said, “You should e-mail me the address and exactly what time you want to meet. I’ll be there.”

“I believe you,” Luhan replied, and it felt like he was speaking about something more than just a lunch meeting.

Luhan walked Sehun to the door with even strides, opened it, and then followed him down to the ground level. But it was Sehun who was finding it difficult to distance himself from Luhan now, even just to go home. Luhan had a calming effect on him like Sehun hadn’t felt before, and even if feeling their baby kick had been overwhelming, Sehun now wanted to feel it once more.

“You don’t have to worry,” Luhan said, catching Sehun’s gaze on his stomach. “I’ll take good care of our baby while she’s in here. And then we’ll take better care of her once she’s born.”

But who would take care of Luhan?

Feeling gruff all of the sudden, Sehun heel and called over his shoulder, “E-mail me.” Then he all but ran to his car, desperate to escape the overwhelming feelings he was suddenly experiencing.

Feelings that made no sense.

Wanting to protect their baby, Sehun understood. But wanting to protect Luhan? That was an urge that made Sehun uncomfortable, to say the least.

So for a while, despite the mound of work at home that Sehun needed to get through before the next day, Sehun instead drove around for some time. He drove until he needed to buy gas, and then he kept driving, passing the hours as he passed street lights. He drove until his eyes were heavy and he was too tired to think about the conflicting thoughts running through him.

Only then did he go home, grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator then passing out on the sofa before he could drink it.

Sehun woke to the smell of eggs and bacon. It was a staunchly western smelling breakfast that Sehun had a real weakness for. Jae usually made him his favorite breakfast on Sundays, before church, almost as a reward to Sehun for going to something that Jae knew he had no interest in. Sehun usually daydreamed his way through the service, but he did his best to look interested whenever Jae turned towards him, not wanting to ruin the experience for his husband.

But it couldn’t be Jae who was making eggs and bacon.

Disoriented, Sehun sat up from the sofa, stretched out his muscles and peeked around the corner.

It was Suho’s ever faithful form at the kitchen stove that Sehun really should have expected.

“You know,” Sehun drawled, entering the kitchen, “one of these days I’m going to think you’re a burglar and tase you.”

Suho wasn’t making just eggs and bacon, Sehun realized. He was also halfway through a pancake batter of sorts and had a bowl of fresh fruit already waiting for Sehun at the place he typically sat at for meals.

“The taser that you used to keep in the lock box at the back of your closer in the master bedroom on the right side?” Suho asked lazily, nudging the griddle closer with a spatula. “That one?”

Sehun speared a piece of grapefruit with a nearby fork and frowned. “How do you … Suho, you sneak.”

“Sneak?” Suho laughed. “Hardly. I bought that taser for Jae, if you’ll remember, because he had to work those late nights at the school a couple of times a month. He told me exactly where he kept it when it wasn’t on him, and you’d better believe I moved it the second I realized you were mad enough at me to use it.”

Sehun had practically forgotten about that, Luhan serving as an ample distraction.

“I should kick you out for that. I should tell your mom and let her beat some sense into you.”

“Eat,” Suho merely said, dropping a plate of eggs, bacon, and pancakes to the spot in front of him. “Then we can talk.”

Sehun stuffed fluffy, delicious pancakes into his mouth and said, “You apologize. I’ll decide if I want to listen.”

Suho sat across from him, folded his hands on the table top and asked, “Things went okay with Luhan? He’s fine?”

Sehun glared, but then he thought of the agreement he’d reached with Luhan, the new ultrasound picture he had, and the knowledge of what they were having.

“It’s a girl.”

Confusion crossed Suho’s face, followed by recognition, then disappointment.

Sudden anger spiked through Sehun and he demanded, “Did you tell Luhan not to tell me we’re having a girl?”

Immediately Suho denied it, stating, “Of course not.” But then he stopped and said, “I might have mentioned how I hoped the baby was a boy. For obvious reasons.”

Sehun ground out lowly, “Stop saying things you shouldn’t Suho. Stop ruining things.”

Suho’s shoulders fell. “I’m really not trying to. I only want to help. Sehun, I’m not attempting to ruin things for you with Luhan or that baby of yours. I just want you to take responsibility, and accept that you’re still deserving of good things, and that nothing that’s happened to Jae is your fault. You can stop blaming yourself. You can move on. You can keep living and that isn’t a betrayal. That’s in fact the highest honor you can pay my brother, who would have only wanted your happiness.”

It was hard to stay mad at Suho. It had always kind of been that way. Even in the beginning when Sehun had tried to hold a grudge against the man who’d done everything in his power to keep Sehun away from Jae, Sehun had found it hard to stay made at Suho. And it came down to the fact that Suho was a genuinely nice, selfless person. He never acted to hurt anyone, and he really was too generous for his own good.

Suho hadn’t told Luhan things about Jae to hurt Sehun. He’d said something in an attempt to mend the fragile link between Sehun and Luhan. He’d only done his best to help.

“Luhan and I,” Sehun said slowly, meeting Suho’s gaze, “are going to make a go of it.” He winced at his wording, theb clarified, “We’re going to do our best to be good parents to our daughter. We’re going to work together. We’re going to give it everything we have.”

Suho cracked the tiniest of hopeful smiles. “You’re really having a girl?”

Sehun shoveled eggs into his mouth to buy himself some extra time. He gave a jerky nod.

Leaning an elbow up on the table, Suho asked, “Are you okay with that? Are you okay with this new baby being a girl?”

“Don’t I have to be?” Sehun chuckled out. “I guess it’s just something I have to accept. It’s something I have to take responsibility for. It’s a girl and there’s no changing that, no matter how having a boy might have lessoned the pain.”

“Luhan is a good man, Sehun.”

With a frown, Sehun stated, “Because you’ve known him for so long?”

“No.” Suho shook his head. “Because I could see it in him when I told him about you and Jae. When I told him about the accident, he desperately wanted to protect his baby from how easily you could hurt them because of how you’re hurting. But he also wanted to believe me when I told him you’re a good man, too, and you only need a little time and effort to get back to where you were.”

“You just want me to forget about Jae? You want me to try and replace Luhan with him?”

“Not at all,” Suho snorted, almost seeming offended by the notion.

“I just want you to know that I believe your heart is more than big enough to love more than one daughter, and the one you have with Luhan now is deserving of love. You’re certainly damaged, Sehun, but you’re not beyond repair. Loving that baby who’s coming in a couple of months is something that I think will help you, and no matter what, there’s no replacing of any kind going on here.”

With some reluctance, Sehun admitted, “That’s what it feels like at time. I feel like I’m betrayed Jae and replacing the family I had.” He hung his head, feeling in some part as well that he was betraying Suho who’d been tough to win over.

Suho reached across the table to steal a piece of Sehun’s bacon. “I honestly don’t know how to convince you otherwise. That’s probably something only you can figure out. But I swear to you, and I knew my brother better than anyone else in this world, that this is what he would want for you. He only ever wanted you to be happy and to have people in your life who love you. He would want you to take this opportunity with Luhan. He would see Luhan and the baby as a second chance, and a way to mend the hole in your heart. Trust me, Sehun. Jae would want this for you.”

“Probably,” Sehun said, poking at his eggs. “He would want it for me. I guess I’m just figuring out if I want this for me. I think I do. I just … it’s a work in progress.”

Suho’s head cocked. “Well, no pressure or anything, but you’re going to have to figure it out quick. That baby is on the way, Sehun. She’s going to be here quicker than you think, and you deserve her as much as she deserves you. Let yourself have something for once. Let yourself be deserving.”

If only Suho knew how much Sehun wanted to be deserving. Especially of Luhan and the life he carried. If only.