The headlines from the various local newspapers were worded differently but the meaning that screamed out at Yixing all said the same. Badly taken photographs of him surrounded by a mess of fallen books splash on the front covers but they didn’t affect him (he was used to photographers snapping pictures of him since he was the adopted son of a famous trot singer) – or at least not as much as the photos of Luhan shielding him from the reporters.

He casted a lingering look at Luhan on the cover of the newspaper. “I hope you’re okay,” Yixing mumbled to himself. His attempt to put distance between them hadn’t been too successful. Pushing Luhan away turned out to be more difficult than he thought. His aching neck reminded him of last night's nap on the Book Attic storeroom floor, when Luhan's shoulder was his pillow, and he couldn't help wondering if Luhan was getting lectured by his agency. The publicity surrounding this was terrible. Luhan was bound to come across as siding with his fiancée's enemy.

"Are you Zhang Yixing?"

His eyes snapped up and Yixing quickly dropped the newspaper back into the stand, praying that nobody recognised him as the man in the papers. A bright smile formed on his lips as he stood up to greet the man who honestly looked too young to be the manager of Kim’s Korean Restaurant.

"Yes, I am. Are you Mr Kim…?"

The other man nodded with a little wrinkle to his nose. “Please don’t call me that. You’ll just add a decade to my age,” he complained. “Besides, there are other Kims around here. Just call me Minseok.”

“Ah… yes.”

Minseok smiled broadly and clapped him on the shoulder. “You didn’t sound that shy when I interviewed you over the phone this morning,” he mused, and added jokingly, “Not regretting taking up the job, are you?”

Yixing immediately shook his head hard. Regret? He couldn’t even thank him enough for hiring him. Being a waiter in a Korean restaurant might not be high on his list of Favourable Careers but Yixing wasn’t in a position to choose anymore. He was grateful his knowledge of customer service and handful of Korean phrases were enough for Minseok to hire him.

“When can you start?” his new boss questioned after he had shown Yixing around the restaurant and introduced him to his new colleagues. “At least a day before the weekend, I hope. We ought to train you on a day where there are fewer customers.”

“Tomorrow’s good,” Yixing said shyly. “Thanks again… Minseok. For hiring me.”

 Awkwardly caught between a bow and a hand wave, Yixing left the restaurant feeling lighter. Minseok had seemed nice enough as a boss and from the brief moments he had with the rest of the other restaurant staff, he could tell everyone was close to one another. They felt like a family.

Exo’s new song rang obnoxiously from his mobile phone when he took not more than 3 steps away from the restaurant. He rolled his eyes and dug into his pockets for it; Sehun had claimed that changing his ringtone to a Korean song would be his good luck charm and that it’d impress his new boss. Yixing privately thought it’d be a crisis if his phone were to ring when he was with Minseok but he didn’t have the heart to turn down his brother so he let him change it.

His eyes lit up when Ma flashed on the screen of his phone. Yixing quickly jabbed the Accept Call button and pressed the phone to his ear.

“Ma! Why the sudden call?” he asked with genuine cheeriness despite his lousy mood in the morning.

“Yixing, I heard what happened. Come home... please.”

He stopped in his tracks and swallowed hard. He hadn’t wanted to worry Qiuyue unnecessarily because he was only the adoptive son and she really should be spending her time looking after her real son instead of him. Besides, Yixing didn’t think she still thought of him much as her kid; not when she had persuaded him to go to Zhang Heng’s home in the first place.

 “... Yixing?”

“I’m here,” he said quickly, fingers tightening around the Samsung S3. “I’m okay, Ma. I found a place to stay.”

“No. You come home immediately. I don’t want you to deal with this yourself. I have experience with the media – and I’m your mother, whether you like it or not. So when I say you come home, you better do it.” She paused. “Your boyfriend is here too. He brought your backpack from his place.”

Kai! Jerk. He could have given him some advanced warning.

“I’m not giving you an option here, Xingtuo. Come home. We’re waiting for you.”

***

The corners of his ears reddened with each passing second Yixing stared at him. Sehun ducked his head when Kai chuckled behind him from the couch at Yixing’s reaction to the coloured strands of his hair.

“Are you going through a rebellious phase?” Yixing asked finally, his eyes wide with concern. With a loud groan, Sehun swatted Yixing’s hand away from the hair and sulkily let him into the house.

“It’s just coloured hair chalk,” Sehun muttered. “Why does everyone have to overreact?”

“I told him he looks like a parrot,” Kai said helpfully once Yixing sat down next to him on the couch. He held up a small Ziploc bag triumphantly; upon closer observation, Yixing saw a couple of coloured hair strands in it and he couldn’t help wrinkling his nose.

“You pulled my brother’s hair?” he asked in disbelief, pretending to punch the other. Said brother blushed even redder and escaped to the kitchen, muttering about getting Yixing a glass of water.

Kai chuckled and blinked innocently at Yixing. “It looked so pretty I had to collect them,” he said. Yixing was not sure whether he ought to be amused or exasperated. Whatever possessed Sehun to let him pull his hair?

“The two of you are getting along better than I expected,” he commented absently.

A slow smirk curled on Kai’s lips and in the next second, he was leaning into Yixing’s personal space, arm draped around the latter’s shoulders. “Are you jealous?” he teased. “Don’t be. You’re the only one for me.”

This time it was Yixing who blushed. How was it that Kai could so effortlessly (and shamelessly) flirt with him? With looks like his, he could easily get someone better than Yixing. “I’m not jealous,” Yixing stated, squirming away when Kai came closer and subsequently missing the fallen expression on the other’s face. “I’m just – annoyed. Why did you bring my stuff here without telling me? You said it was okay for me to stay with you.”

Kai fidgeted a little. “I saw the news,” he murmured. “Sehun called me after and he was panicking because he couldn’t reach you. Your mother and Sehun were really worried about you. As much as I’d love for you to stay with me, I think you need the support more from them.” He paused and jutted out his lower lip. “Don’t be angry at me?”

How could he, when Kai merely wanted what was best for him? Yixing smiled softly. Kai was really too good a person for him. If things were different, he would have fallen hard for Kai. But a huge part of his heart ached, reminding him of the man who saved him from the reporters last night. It reminded him that majority of his heart still belonged to him, even if Luhan had broken it repeatedly. The idol confused him greatly.

He was saved from answering Kai when a picture of Zhang Heng appeared on the television screen. With eyes glued to the screen, he blindly scrambled for the remote control on the coffee table to bring up the volume and what he heard froze him.

“… the DNA test. Zhang Heng confirmed that Yixing is his illegitimate child but he had no knowledge of him until recently,” the news anchor stated. “News of his illegitimate child materialised at a time where ZH Group is rumoured to launch a new mobile phone. Analysts suggest that this could be a sign of sabotage…”

The news anchor went on to talk about how the stocks for ZH Group were falling at an alarming rate but Yixing stopped listening. No… knowledge of him until recently? Was visiting him weekly at the Book Attic for the past couple of years considered a “recent” event? Yixing stared numbly at the pixelated photo of his father on the screen, feeling as though a truck had ran him over repeatedly. Exactly what was Zhang Heng planning?

***

There were never this many people in front of the recording studio before. Luhan watched, slack-jawed, at the dozens of reporters standing around but what concerned him even more were the number of teenagers, holding signs with various messages that say Boycott Luhan! and Luhan, we want answers!.

“I’d say 3 quarters are fans and the other quarter antis,” Zitao said wisely from the driver’s seat, hand resting on the steering wheel as he glanced over. “The studio’s completely surrounded – there are even people waiting at the back door. This is a disaster.”

Luhan’s eyes fell onto the digital figures on the car’s clock. , it was late. “I need to get in there, Tao. The digital single needs to be completed before the MV filming next week.”

His manager snorted. “You think I don’t know that? I’m just waiting for you to brace yourself before you walk through that crowd.”

“Why are people so interested about me and Yixing anyway?” Luhan mumbled under his breath, recalling the articles Zitao showed him earlier that morning.

Zitao arched his eyebrow at the idol, incredulity in his eyes. “Are you seriously asking that? Guy is set to marry his foster brother’s half-sister but fends him in public despite bad ties between fiancée and foster brother – you’re basically living out a bad drama plot.”

Luhan stiffened, hating how right Zitao was. His life had certainly gotten interesting with Yixing around, but unlike previously, he found that he really couldn’t blame the other man. Yixing was leading a far worse life than him and as much as Luhan wanted to help him, he had to admit he was probably half of Yixing’s problems. And selfishly, he didn’t want to stay away.

Pretending not to be affected with Zitao’s remarks, Luhan yanked open the car door, leaving his manager to splutter behind him in annoyance when he stepped out without a word. Almost immediately, people swarmed towards him like bees to a honey pot, shoving cameras and huge signs in his face. Reporters fired questions at him, fans were desperately begging him for explanations and antis hurled curses. It wasn’t until something hard whacked his head and white powder covered half his face that he realised curses weren’t the only things they were throwing.

“Is that fl—?” someone asked. The reply was lost in the sea of screaming when Zitao appeared to help fend them off Luhan. He was nearly at the studio entrance when someone grabbed his shoulder and stuck a voice recorder in his face.

“How do you feel about your foster brother trying to steal your fiancée’s money? Especially since the money will become yours eventually?”

His blood boiled. Next to him, Zitao was shooting him warning looks but Luhan couldn’t stand it. He had enough of people insulting Yixing and making him out as someone he wasn’t.

“Leave him alone!” Luhan snapped, wrenching his arm away from Zitao to hit the voice recorder off the reporter’s hand. He grabbed the collar of the reporter’s shirt tightly, almost enough to choke him, but Luhan was far too angry to care. “Yixing is not that type of person. Stop bothering him, you—” Zitao’s hand flew to his lips before swear words could leave his mouth. Luhan glared at his manager darkly as the other man quickly apologised with a feeble excuse and dragged the two of them inside the studio.

“You can’t keep doing this, Xiaolu,” Zitao said wearily once they were alone, grimacing as he tried to wipe the flour off Luhan’s face. “Your image is going to drop even further if you keep losing your temper. The last thing you need is for the reporter to slap you with an assault lawsuit. Do you want to lose your career, Luhan? Because if you keep this up, you will.”

“What was I supposed to do?” the idol retorted as he flung Zitao’s hand away from his arm. “Continue to let them talk Yixing down? I can’t—”

“Yes, you can.” Zitao glared at him. “We’ve come this far – we might as well go all the way. If you don’t do something about that temper of yours then I will.”

A/N: Fwahhh sorry I took forever. I'm having lots of SeKai feels lately~ That aside, I'm taking in drabble requests for all my fics. If there's something you want to know in a particular verse that wasn't ever brought up, please request on my tumblr! Maybe stuff like Sehun and Yixing when they were kids in the orphanage.