It was a sleepless night for all of the members of the Choi/Lee family. Inho was relocated to a different hospital to recover from his injury, but he was alone and surrounded by strange policemen. He still missed his Minho Appa, but he also missed his father, even though he’d been cross with him for over a week. Inho cried for two reasons: his arm hurt, of course, and he was scared of being all alone in that hospital. Inho had never been alone in his life. He always had his Appa by his side, and now, he had no one with him.

            Inho thought that maybe this all happened because he’d been a naughty boy. He yelled at Appa. He threw things. Maybe he should have listened, and the Bad Men wouldn’t have taken him away and locked him up here.  The Bad Men tried to distract him with TV and toys and food, but Inho just wiped his tears away with his good hand and continued to ask to go home.

            Minho and Taemin didn’t sleep well, either. Despite doing nothing but drifting in and out of sleep for the last few days, Minho was exhausted. Taemin fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but he thought he heard Inho in the middle of the night, and collapsed into tears when he ran into the room and saw the little race car bed empty and neatly made like Minho taught the boy. Minho didn't bother trying to sleep. He called his lawyer friends as soon as they got home and spent all night on the phone with them, researching the law on his own, trying to find some loophole or rule they didn’t break or something so that they could get their baby back.

Taemin spent the rest of the night in Inho’s room, holding his boy’s stuffed teddy bear, the little paper rings Inho made at school, holding their son’s clothes in his hands and inhaling the scent. The sleepless night passed slowly, crawling along in the mud. It seemed as though time stopped completely at some point and Minho was sure that he got up to use the bathroom at 3:18 and when he returned from checking on Taemin and making some coffee, it was still 3:18. Coffee. Two sugars this time. No milk.

            The sun began to rise as it did every day, and Taemin glared at it angrily. How could a new day start when their family was broken? He wondered how Inho’s mother felt when she woke up every day and didn’t know a thing about her child. He shivered at the thought and wondered if he could have ever abandoned their child. No, Inho was too precious for that. Taemin must have fallen asleep at some point because the next time he opened his eyes, his hyung was standing over him with a glass of water and puffy, red eyes. Tears. Taemin reluctantly took the water and gulped it down. The water was highly welcome in his parched throat, and he shivered as its coolness spread through his chest.

            “I spoke with Kibum,” Minho announced. “He says he’s swamped, but he’d meet with us today to help us get Inho back. He says the whole thing is bull.”

            Taemin nodded weakly and handed the glass to Minho. “That’s good,”

            Minho set the glass down on Inho’s desk. “It’s excellent. Kibum is a well-known attorney. He’ll fix everything in no time.” He assured Taemin.

            Taemin shrugged and rubbed his face. “Are you sure?”

            Minho smiled. “Of course. Wait until you meet him. He’s got a brilliant mind and sound legal strategies. We took a pre-law course together in college, and that’s when he decided to become a lawyer and change his major. He got a perfect GPA every semester after that.”

            Taemin felt a bit hopeful and finally stood up to give Minho a proper squeeze. “Thank you,” he sighed. “I know this year’s been so hard for you. Thank you for doing things I can’t.”

            Minho returned the hug. “I’d do anything for you two.”

            The two got dressed and drove to Attorney Kim’s office in near silence. The radio was playing the news of the day, but the low volume made it sound like a buzzing mumble rather than actual words with meaning. Taemin lazily stared out of the window. There weren’t many people out yet, so there wasn’t much to look at besides the grey and brown of the buildings and the colourful neon signs and wide, open road. The weather was quite cold and the wind quite strong, and if he had Inho, he probably wouldn’t have left the house either.

            Taemin didn’t notice that Minho had parked the car and got out until Minho was suddenly in front of him, opening Taemin’s door. He blinked in surprise, got out, and followed Minho. The building where Attorney Kim worked wasn’t extremely impressive, and it didn’t look like the kind of place where such a successful attorney would work. They entered the elevator, ascended to the seventh floor, and entered the office.

            Minho told Taemin to sit and gave their information to Attorney Kim’s secretary, who eyed them a bit suspiciously when Minho said, “our son”. Nonetheless, she alerted the attorney of their presence.  

            “Minho!”

            Minho looked up at the sound of the familiar voice.

            Attorney Kim smiled, “It’s been a long time. I wish we met again under much better circumstances.”

            Minho agreed. “Yeah. Thank you for taking time to talk to us. I wish you’d let me pay you.”

            Attorney Kim shook his head. “You helped me out so much during college, so there’s got to be one perk to having a lawyer as a friend.” He then turned his attention to Taemin, who stood up when Attorney Kim entered the room. “You must be Lee Taemin? Minho told me all about you back in the day. It’s nice to meet you.”

            The two bowed at each other, and Attorney Kim ushered them into his conference room. Minho and Taemin told the story of how they reunited, fell in love again, and happily raised their son for a year when Taemin’s harsh words set off the whole thing. They gushed about how much they loved Inho and how they never meant to do anything to him, and they went on and on about their parenting style, and how maybe it was too harsh, but they always meant the best, and how they didn’t let him watch TV too late, and they wanted him to learn piano, and just everything they couldn’t say before to people who wouldn’t listen.

            Attorney Kim listened and took notes and suddenly interrupted the two. “It’s quite obvious that you love your son,” he clicked his pen multiple times as the was thinking. “But there is one major problem that we’re going to have to take care of before I can proceed with this case.”

            “What is it? We’ll do anything.” Responded Taemin, hopeful.

            Attorney Kim hesitated and rubbed his brow. “You’re a gay couple.”
            Silence washed over the room.

            “Raising Inho on your own when nobody knew he was being raised by you was perfectly fine, but the government is not going to want to give him back to two fathers.”

            Neither father said anything.

            “And Mr. Lee, you’re the biological father. Minho may love Inho as much as he’d love his own child, but he’s got no legal rights to Inho, and he won’t have any even if you get him back unless the two of you get married abroad and register it here.”

            “Couldn’t I adopt him or something? Remarried couples adopt each other’s children all the time.” Minho said.

            “You can only do that if the other parent agrees, and I don’t know of any cases where a child has been allowed to be adopted by a man when she already has a father,” Attorney Kim clicked his pen again. “I think the only way for you to get Inho back is to approach this with only Taemin. The court won’t give Inho back to a gay couple, but likely will value Taemin’s biological fatherhood and consider that Inho’s mother has no desire to see him.”

            Taemin hesitated. He would do anything to get Inho back, but denying Minho’s fatherhood had caused the whole issue in the first place. “There’s no other way? Minho is Inho’s fa—”

            “Okay,” Minho interrupted. “Taemin, you do it alone.”

            Taemin wanted to protest, but Minho squeezed his hand.

            “Alright, well…” The pen clicked. “We need to prove then that Taemin could raise Inho well as a single parent. Then when he gets Inho back, I recommend that you two do get married, so Minho and Inho’s relationship as step-father and step-son is legally protected.”

            Attorney Kim went on to explain that they’d need to show that Taemin was financially stable, that he had enough money to raise his son or that he was working at a job that would pay him enough money to do that, that he needed to show that he was living somewhere nice, that he would encourage Inho’s education, just a long, long list of things they were already doing as a couple, but that Taemin would have to prove on his own. Attorney Kim added that he requested for the court to allow Taemin to see Inho on supervised visits, but the order has been denied for Minho.

            On the way back from the office, Minho and Taemin drove in silence once again. Both were happy that there was some glimmer of hope of making their family whole again, but both were uneasy about the fact that Minho would have to be completely uninvolved. Taemin turned back to stare out of the window, but this time, he was a little bit more enthusiastic on the ride home.