A little background music for the mood of this chapter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJeVOuC_3vA

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A month and three weeks late, there was definitely something wrong, Victoria thought to herself as she checked herself out in the full-length mirror of the practice room. She had googled up the early symptoms of pregnancy, and as per usual self-diagnosis via Dr. Google, she was convinced her and Nichkhun had accidentally conceived a child, most likely during the multiple nights of “fun” they had when they were in Thailand. She didn’t really feel anything different, but she was still scared and took all the self-convincing in the world to hold the potential pregnancy in until she confirmed it. On multiple nights, when she was finally able to fall asleep, she would wake up in cold-sweat from the reoccurring dream. Most people would find it to be a happy dream, an infant running happily in a field of daisies towards you as he calls you mom… but for some reason she thought of it as more like a nightmare. She couldn’t wait to be a mom, but the dream often ended before the appearance of a father figure, and she was afraid that it would become reality. Nichkhun had made it clear on multiple occasion that right now was not the right time for parenthood and although she couldn’t disagree, she couldn’t bring herself to confront Nichkhun about it. She had seen it before in all the dramas, regardless how nice the man is, a surprise pregnancy always sent them running in the other direction. She knew Nichkhun would never leave her if he found out about this potential child, but is it selfish of her to want to keep the baby and hinder the rest of their idol lives?

            So many thoughts ran in her mind as she placed her hand on her stomach. trying to feel for potential life growing in her uterus. The more she thought about it, the more worried she became. Who was she supposed to talk to? She knew that if she told her members, they’d be worried and tell their manager, eventually news would spread like wildfire, and she didn’t want Nichkhun to hear about it from someone else before she had the courage to tell her. She could tell the SNSD girls, after all, most of them were older and would probably be able to offer more mature advice… but why burden them with her problems when they were preparing for their concert in Japan? Telling her Super Junior oppas would essentially mean pushing Nichkhun into a lion’s den. She knew they would get over protective before the story even ended, beating Nichkhun to the ground in a heartbeat for getting their beloved little sister into this mess in the first place. Telling Changmin or Yunho perhaps? After all they are older and most likely would know how men react if a woman surprised them with a pregnancy… since they’ve had their fair share of skirt-chasing. They would for sure beat Nichkhun up too, she thought before continuing to rummage through her contacts list for someone to talk to. She didn’t dare call her parents about this, they’d probably fly over here themselves to bring her back to China, whether Soo-man CEO liked it or not.

            A reassuring name appeared after “Mom” on her contact list. Minho was for sure the person to call. Yeah, he was younger and didn’t have much dating experience, but he was the only one calm enough to listen to her story and potentially offer her some non-biased advice. She was close enough to Nichkhun to understand how he’d react and he loved Victoria enough as a noona to keep a secret for her. She dialed and waited nervously for the call to go through.

            “Yobseo?” Victoria said timidly.

            A panting Minho answered the phone. “Hey noona, what’s up?”

            “Why are you so out of breath? Are you busy?”

            “No, Onew hyung just chased me around trying to steal my food, but I finally managed to escape him. What are you up to? Is something wrong? Or did you just call to check up on me?”

            “Are you at the agency? I kinda have something to talk to you about.”

            “Yeah, I’m just in the cafeteria. I’ll come to your practice room now if you want. We get a break for a bit.”

            “Okay, I’ll be here. Come soon!”

            “Do you want any food? I can bring some over.”

            “No it’s okay, I don’t have much of an appetite. Just come quick.”

            Minho entered the practice room nervously to see Victoria with her head down in her palms sitting on the couch.

            “Noona, are you feeling okay?”

            Victoria looked up at Minho, with a take out package of fried chicken in hand.

            “Yeah, come sit.” She patted the seat next to her. “I needed someone calm to talk to… but you have to promise me to keep this a secret and not to freak out.”

            “Uh… you’re scaring me noona.”

            “Don’t be scared, you’re here to be my moral support! I’m the one whos supposed to be scared!”

            “Okay okay, be calm. Deep breaths. I’m ready to listen.”

            “…Um… how should I start this… so… you know… how Nichkhun and I are dating… like for real… right?”

            “Yeah noona, every person in JYPE and SME and probably YG all know. Oh my gosh, did you guys break up?”

            “No, no! We are still together… but… you know how we went to Thailand together…? Since then… my period has been late… and I mean like it’s later than usual late…”

            Minho spat out the bite of chicken in disgust. “Noona… I love you and all, but shouldn’t you be talking to a girl about your menstrual problems?”

            Victoria felt more nervous as Minho missed the hints at pregnancy. “No pabo… I’m trying to say that… my period is late… and that only usually happens… when… a women is pregnant…”

            Minho spat out his second bite of chicken, mouth wide open as he stared at Victoria. “Noona… what are you going to do?”

            “That’s why I asked you to come! You’re the calmest person I know, I was hoping you’d give me some advice!”

            “Does Khun-hyung know yet? What did he say about it?”

            “He doesn’t know yet… I don’t know how to tell him.”

            “I think you should talk to him first… after all this problem belongs to both of you…”

            “But… what if… he doesn’t want this baby?”

            “Noona, hyung isn’t going to leave you just because you got pregnant. You know he won’t, you’ve clearly been watching too many dramas.”

            “Yeah, but isn’t it a little selfish of me to make him take responsibility? He’s at the prime of his career, I’m not going to ruin it for him.”

            “What about your career noona? Are you planning to get rid of the baby and not tell Nichkhun?”

            Victoria placed her hand in front of her belly. “Are you crazy? No one is getting rid of this baby. I’m not letting anyone hurt him.”

            “So you’re planning to keep it? You know it’d be kinda hard to hide a kid from Khun-hyung.”

            “I know! I don’t know what to do…” she cried.

            “Khun-hyung is going to take responsibility for it, trust me.”

            “I don’t want him to accept me and the baby for the rest of his life because of one bad night.”

            “You know he loves you more than that. Why are you doubting him all of a sudden?”

            “How do you know that for sure? We are still so young; our futures are still panned out in front of us. I know for a fact that this baby is going to come as an unpleasant surprise for him. I don’t want him to force himself to love me for the rest of his life because of this baby.”

            “You know that the right thing to do is to talk to Khun-hyung. You’re going to have to find out his reaction at some point, why not do it now while you guys can still make decisions before it’s too late?”

            “What do you mean too late? I’m not going to get rid of this baby!”

            “I didn’t tell you to!” now Minho was screaming, the two of them realizing the increase in volume as the conversation came to a dead end. Victoria knew she had to talk to Nichkhun about it, whether she liked it or not. At the back of her mind, that was always the only choice she had, she just needed someone to force her to take that step into the uncertainty that could potentially leave her pregnant and alone crying on the steps as rain poured over her… yup, one too many dramas, she told herself.

            -

            Victoria waited at the door of 2PM’s practice room nervously bringing her hand to the door and pulling back for the twentieth time. She had tried her hardest to casually told Nichkhun she wanted to meet up, but he could tell there was something wrong from the way she talked. Victoria was startled by the opening of the door as Chansung’s face appeared in front of her.

“Oh noona. Hi! Have you been waiting for a while? You should have just come in! We are going for lunch now, so you and Khun-hyung can have some alone time” he wriggled his eyebrows as the rest of 2PM filed out behind him, excitedly giving her high-fives.

 Nichkhun greeted her at the door, giving her a tight hug and nuzzling his sweat onto her. He knew how much she claimed she hated it, but laughed every time he did that. There was no laughter this time as Victoria held onto him tightly silently.

“Is everything okay?” he asked softly, giving her a small pet on the head.

“We need to talk.”

The four words that couples hated to hear the most. Nichkhun was definitely not ready for this “talk”. He tried to think of all the things he had done wrong recently but couldn’t recall any that would make Victoria angry enough to want to break up with him. He guided her to the couch and sat down beside her, leaving his hands on her lap as she continued to sit there, expressionless.

“What is it about? You know you can tell me anything.”

“I know…I… don’t know how to start this.”

“Is something wrong at home? Or with your comeback? Or at SM?”

“No, none of those. It’s more like a problem between…us.” She said, pointing to the two of them back and forth.

He held her hands tightly. “There’s no problem we can’t overcome together.”

“I… haven’t gotten my period since we came back from Thailand…”

It took Nichkhun a minute before he realized what that meant, his expression in shock and frozen on the spot.

“Did you take a test?”

“Not yet, I’ve been too scared.”

“WHAT? You’ve been practicing so much and eating so little recently. What if you are actually pregnant? That’s so bad for you and the baby! How can you be so reckless?” his tone was angry and hurried.

Tears streamed down Victoria’s eyes as she continued. “I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. What if… I was? What do I do then?”

Nichkhun was silent as he considered their options. He wanted to be a father, but he hadn’t planned on it for at least another 5 years. This sudden surprise really came at a bad time, considering 2PM was planning on going overseas to Japan for 2 years… news that was still unknown to Victoria. Were they to keep the baby? Did that mean Victoria would have to give up f(x)? Did she want the baby? He had no intentions of getting rid of the baby, but instead of feeling happy like he thought he would when the time for fatherhood came, he suddenly felt a big burden on his shoulders.

“I… don’t know what to say Vic…”

Both were silent for a bit before he took a deep breath and continued.

“Let’s get married.”

“WHAT?”

“Let’s get married. I’m not going to let this baby go on without a father.”

“What about our careers? We haven’t even surfaced as a couple and all of a sudden you want to get married? This thought never came into your mind before this moment, did it?”

“Vic, you know right now is not the right time for settling for either of us.”

“So essentially you’re proposing to me now out of the guilt for being a responsible father?”

“No, you know that’s not what I meant. You can’t tell me that you saw this baby in our future right now.”

“I don’t need your pity. You don’t have to ruin the rest of your life with the burden that is this mistake. I’m not going to marry you to play the role of mom and dad.” She cried, holding onto her stomach.

“Can’t you be a little more rational? You’d hate me if I ran out on this right now and you hate me now that I’ve taken responsibility. What do you want from me? You know that I’m not marrying you out of guilt, I never said that so don’t assume it.” he was more angered by the fact that she thought he wanted to marry her out of guilt. Did she not know how much he loved her?

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” she cried.

He held her close to his chest as she continued to cry until her voice was raspy from trying to catch her breath. He could feel her trembling in his embrace, suddenly she felt so much smaller and weaker than he remembered. Where was the strong omma-Victoria he knew?

“Hey…” he whispered softly as her head remained resting on his chest. “Let’s go and get pregnancy tests, to confirm this whole fiasco before we start going crazy about what to do, sound good?”

She whimpered softly before nodding her head. Her eyes were puffy and he noticed how deep her eye bags have become. He felt useless as a boyfriend suddenly, how did he not pick up the signals for the past two months? Nichkhun put his jacket on Victoria before holding her hand as they got into the car. He made Minjae hyung pick up a couple pregnancy tests as the two waited in the car. Victoria was quiet the entire ride with her head resting on his shoulders. Minjae hyung returned shortly after, driving Nichkhun and Victoria back to JYPE.

-

Victoria held her breath as the placed the pregnancy text on the surface of the cool porcelain counter, her hands trembling. Tears began to fall from her eyes as she slid down to the ground, knees all of a sudden weak. Wasn’t this what she had wanted? Why now, then, was she so upset? She picked up her cellphone and dialed the number, hands continuing to tremble as she tried to catch breaths between the hysteric crying.

“Nichkhun…”

“Are you done? I’m coming in right now.” He ran toward the girls bathroom and locked the door behind him, giving them a little privacy.

Nichkhun looked at the row of pink and white sticks sitting on the counter, each with a giant negative sign. The burden that he felt earlier suddenly felt even heavier in his heart. His heart broke into a million little pieces as he sat beside Victoria, holding her in his embrace. She was shivering despite being in his jacket and he swore he could hear her heart breaking like his. He thought he’d be relieved to know that they weren’t pregnant, but a little part of him was excited by the idea that him and Victoria were going to start a family. As fun as it was to be an idol, he would throw it all away in a second for his family if he could. The two, who had thought they’d be ecstatic to find out that they didn’t have to throw their idol lives away suddenly became weak, unable to recall what they had expected the results to be. Whatever they had expected and prepared for was definitely not this.

Victoria looked up at Nichkhun apologetically. “I’m sorry…”

“Shh.. there’s nothing to be sorry for.” Nichkhun knew exactly what she meant. While half the apology was for giving them the scare earlier, more of the apology was on the fact that their parent dreams were shattered.

“I know I shouldn’t be crying… why should I cry over something that I never had?”

“No, I want you to cry. I want you to know that no matter what I’ll be here for you, baby or not.”

“Really? So if I asked you to marry me right here and now, you’d agree?”

Nichkhun was speechless. He knew she was saying this out of disparity of the situation, but he couldn’t bring himself to say yes. It wasn’t that Victoria wasn’t important to him, but he sort of saw her at the end of the path, waiting for him as him and s sprinted towards stardom.

Victoria took in the silence for a bit before standing up from her spot. The silence was enough of an answer for her. Nichkhun always claimed she was important, and yeah, it was kind of irrational for her to suggest that even though she didn’t really mean it, but he didn’t even try to defend his position, once again confirming the previous accusation that he only proposed out of guilt and responsibility. It felt like her heart was ripped away from her as she turned around and walked towards the door.

“You know, for someone who promises to be there for me so often, you sure give up easily.” She said, with her back facing him as tears poured down her face.

Nichkhun watched her leave, suddenly glued to the floor as he watched the love of his life leave. The mix of emotions that engulfed him were so paralyzing, he didn’t know that to do as tears streamed down his own face. He knew he should run after her and explain her love, but obviously the value of is word meant nothing to her anymore. If he were in Victoria’s position, he’d beat himself up for being such a selfish coward. He was exactly like the main characters of the dramas Victoria hated so much, the guy who took advantage of the strong willed girl until he broke her down and left her to wilt on the floor, and he hated every part of his cowardly self.