The wedding comes to an end and after the couple is merrily blessed and is driven off to the airport for their honeymoon, the guests are slowly leaving the place one by one. One of the very lasts to the leave is the gang, including Eunji and Inguk, much to everyone’s dismay. Luhan also makes his appearance after being gone for almost an hour, and no one says much about it except for Eunji who questions his disappearance to which he answers that he had a call from work.

Luhan tells her to go back home with Inguk.

Eunji perks up, even Inguk. The pair simultaneously asks, “Why?” They didn’t even ride together, as they had come in separate cars, so why are they returning home together?

“I’m going to go with Hana because we have some serious talking to do.”

Inguk points at Hana. “But, she’s leaving with Suho.”

“Suho?” Luhan questions. Now who’s this guy that he’s never heard of before? And what does this new guy got to do with Hana?

“Suho’s picking her up because he’s taking Taeyang back to your bro’s place.” He then points to Eunji. “But why do I have to take builder-woman home? She can smash this building and build her own—”

“—shut it, weakling.” Eunji quickly says, irritably.

Luna taps Hana on the shoulder. “I thought Taeyang went at Kris’s last week already?”

“He did, but I’m doing the ‘you-know-what’ for Taeyang, so I asked Kris to help me keep Taeyang away from seeing it until it’s finished.”

“Do you want need help? We can drop by tomorrow.”

“No, thanks. It’s no point if it’s not me who’s doing it, right?”

“Yes, Mommy.” Luna ends the conversation as she mimics Taeyang’s usual tone of saying “Mommy” in a strained manner. “Everything’s always for your son, isn’t it?”

Luhan hears the last part and it cuts a piece of him. He knows that’s something he’ll never be able to win over when it comes to Hana. For a quick moment, he grudgingly pouts at the little boy desperately trying to calm a small dispute between Inguk and Eunji. He laughs it off when he finds it stupid of him to even be jealous at a kid who is years younger than he is.

Hana’s cell vibrates and she after she peeks at it, she calls out for Taeyang. Suho has already arrived and is on his way over to her. Although she texted to him that she and Taeyang can walk over to him or meet him halfway, he says that he’s already close to reaching her so there isn’t any point.

“Who’s this Suho person?” Luhan confronts her.

She puts the cell phone away and stutters. “He’s a friend.” She quickly looks away to avoid another question from Luhan.

“Uncle Suho!” Taeyang is the first to see Suho, and he swiftly runs over to the man who picks him up with an “ooh” sound.

Suho glances at Hana as he walks over. “You’ve been feeding him well, Hana. He’s so much bigger than the last time I saw him.”

Hana smiles back, quite fond of the compliment. “I think you should reprimand him more on eating his veggies. He’s been putting them off to the side unless I mention your name.”

Taeyang puts his index finger at his puny mouth. “Mom! You promised you wouldn’t tell on me.” He then quickly looks back at Suho, and with a softer voice and a sadder expression, he asks, “Uncle, you won’t have to take me to the hospital, right?”

“Hm, I’ll see when we get home to your Dad.”

“No!” Taeyang shouts and brushes his head against Suho’s shoulders. “I’ll eat my greens, reds, and purples!”

Everyone laughs at the sight of this man playing with Taeyang except for Luhan.

Luhan, on the other hand, is carefully trying to analyze this nomad that has already been accepted in the territory. But what bothers him more is whom this Suho reminds him of.

Suho puts Taeyang down and happens to see Luhan. “Have we met before?” He squints his eyes at Luhan, and Luhan has a hunch that this man might—or does—recognize him. “Hey, you-you look familiar.”

Although deep inside Hana feels anxious, she blankly says, “He’s Luhan Lu, Kris’s younger brother.”

Suho expresses astonishment with a gentle gasp. “Eh! You two don’t look alike at all!” He starts to laugh and puts a hand out. “I’m Suho, a close friend of your brother. I don’t think we’ve seen each other before.”

Seeing how the stranger’s, action Luhan has a hunch of who this friend can be. He responds to gesture, and his hand tightens around Suho’s hand. That bow is too similar to a bow he’s kept for the nightmare he witnessed in the past. “Ah, Suho.” Luhan smirks with an implied tone of dislike. “We have met before—more like passed by.”

Suho blinks in confusion, and so does everyone.

Luhan pulls his hand away and breathes in. “I believe it was a time where I was supposedly camping with my ex-wife and our son when someone came by in a car and helped her ran away.” He grins as he backs away and takes in the scene of Hana and Suho standing beside one another in front of him. He pauses for tension as he happily enjoys the ghastly expressions of Hana and Suho. “Isn’t that right, Suho?”

*

“Why did you decide to take me?” Eunji asks Inguk.

The two are in Inguk’s car because he’s sending her home. Contrary to Eunji’s expectations of him annoying her along the entire drive back, he’s been quiet. And he’s distanced himself from her. She likes it but finds it extremely uncomfortable. This is the not the usual Inguk she’s used to being around with.

Inguk comes to a red light and stops. He hesitates to ask, but his interests get to him. “How long have you known Luhan, builder-woman?”

“What, you don’t know?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

He doesn’t talk about me or about our relationship? Eunji had silently believed that one of the reasons why Inguk is always clinging onto Luhan is because Inguk is one of the few people Luhan and she mutually know together, thus, Luhan would be able to openly talk to Inguk about hers and his relationship together. Although she doubts that Inguk will help them get together, she has a feeling that Inguk’s presence might help her get Luhan to open up to her.

Many, if not all, hers and Luhan’s conversations solely rely on and revolve around business. If not, the only change of pace happens when she asks about his family, more in particular, his mother. Other than that, healways changes the subject back to work whenever she tries to bring up anything related to changing their status as work and friend buddies to boyfriend-girlfriend buddies.

Eunji mentally thinks, giving into Inguk’s question, just to start a conversation in their weird state. “About four years, I believe. It was during the time I had graduated and was working on my first construction with—”

“—yeah, yeah.” Inguk plainly says. “Did you knew about his ex-family?”

The green light comes on and he steps on the gas. At the same time, the conversation has just gotten sour.

This is the reason why Eunji had secretly “agreed” to carpool with Inguk—to pry about Luhan’s declared “ex-wife” and “son” that she had heard. She wants to make sure her ears weren’t messing with her because he’s never mentioned about his personal life, let alone a previous marriage and offspring.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Mhm.”

She regrets saying “no” now because his response gives it away that he won’t be giving any information regarding to what she wants to know. But if she had said “yes,” that’d be a lie, and what if Inguk also doesn’t know about Luhan’s marriage life and he asked for her to give a clue about it? The more she lingers about how to go around asking about the problem, she starts to tap her fingers rhythmically on her lap.

“You worried?” He asks. He doesn’t look at her.

She forces a smile while glancing down. “A bit.”

“Don’t you mean a lot?” He laughs, trying to ease the tension.

“Shut up.” She finally finds the strength to laugh along, but it quickly ends. Not giving a care, she decides to investigate. “Do you know anything about it?”

He nods.

“Can you…” she stops herself. She can’t bring Inguk down to her level, and if she wants to know more, she has and should ask the main person involved. And if Luhan really wanted her to know, he’d told her a long time ago. Or he never brought it up because his marriage ended badly. “Never mind.”

“Luhan…” Inguk begins with a languid tone. “…he really loved her a lot.” He comes to a stop sign before making a right turn. “And he still does. Everything he’s done up till now, it’s all for the family he’s lost.”

She intently listens. Somehow, now she’s beginning to regret it. She doesn’t want to know that he’s loved someone and had started a life with that someone. Of course, it’s not to say that he can’t have someone, but it’s the fact that he was happy before that made her worried. What if, what if they get together and she can’t match up to the standards of his ex-wife? Or, what if she can’t do the things his ex-wife could do? Or, what if she isn’t wife-material at all?

She mentally laughs to herself at the last statement. Who am I kidding? I’m not even girl-material in the first place, so how can I even be wife-material?

“Don’t worry, builder-woman,” breaks in Inguk.

“What?” She genuinely chuckles at his absurd remark. “Are you trying to cheer me up?”

“Please, as if.” He manages to one-handedly flick the side of her head. “I would never do that. Seeing you in despair is a blessing.”

She soothes the wound and glares at him. Under her breathe, she growls, “You woman-eater.”

He laughs it off, but his smile gradually fades into a more serious, worried, and stern blank expression. It can't be...right?

*

“Taeyang,” Hana says as she steps out of Suho’s car on the driveway of her house. “I’ll give your stuff to Uncle Suho, so stay here patiently, okay?”

Taeyang nods as he bids his mother goodbye from inside.

Suho steps out of the car and follows Hana inside her place. He watches her silently fondles for her key and opens the door to lead them inside. “Hana, I didn’t mean to make things worse.”

“It’s not your fault, so don’t apologize.” She sighs and stops walking. “Everything’s all mine, and I didn’t expect him to remember you at all since it’s like what he said—you only helped me escape.”

“But it’s not your fault at all,” Suho says. “What you are doing is all for—”

“—I can’t use that excuse over and over again.”

“It’s not an excuse. It’s a fact.” He walks over to the couch and sits on it. “I kept telling Kris to tell the truth, but I didn’t think I’d have to say it to you too. I think if you and Luhan were to work on this together, it’d be much better. Like they said, two heads are better than one. There’s nothing stopping you from telling him, isn’t it?” He puts out a hand. “He’s clearly seen Taeyang and the relationship you’ve established with his brother. He also found out that you came back here two years after the so-called runaway.” He puts his hand down and then stands up again. Looking out through the window, more specifically at the little boy in his car, he lowers his voice and speaks in a much deeper tone. “And if Luhan knows about everything that only we know, he can help his brother find his resolve regarding Taeyang.”

“That might not be true.”

“Hm?”

“When I found out about it, I was quite angry for Taeyang. Or should I say, Gaeul.” She chuckles at the escape of Taeyang’s “other” name. “But I figured I’d stay for the entire story, and until he ends it, because it’s him who needs to find the resolve, I’m going to stay by their side.” She warmly looks at Suho. “I’m going to stay, no matter how long it takes him to say the truth.”

*

“Stupid Kris.” Suho blurts out from under his breath. He hopes the seven year old boy doesn’t hear the curse word, and after checking by the rear view mirror, the boy is busily playing his Nintendo. He had finished his two-minute talk with Hana, and every time he talks with her, he begins to understand what his friend had said about her hiding something more than saying something about the problem.

What he can’t understand is that the three of them—He, Hana, and Kris— knows almost the same amount of information regarding the situation, yet she’s not willing to open up about why she’s doing what she’s doing. They don’t want to pressure her into saying anything she doesn’t want to say yet, but how can they move forward if they’re not clear on what’s to be expected?

At the same time, when he speaks with Hana, the more he becomes irritated of his friend. On the surface, everyone who knows of the situation seems to believe and sees that Hana’s the one who had the dirty laundry when in fact, he and she know whom the real perpetrator is. And every time it comes to this, he gets so aggravated for Hana because she takes it in.

If you do that, he’ll never learn his lesson entirely. You’re only going to be his scapegoat. He quickly glimpses behind his shoulders at the busy seven year old. Actually, the real victim is only Taeyang.

*

“Uncle Suho,” Taeyang dashes down the stairs of Kris’s house. “Is he coming home late again?”

“Yes, Taeyang,” answers Suho, eating ramen on the couch. He’s already fed Taeyang—something he was reminded of by Kris about an hour ago—and now it’s his time to enjoy his light dinner. “I’m sure your Dad will be home anytime soon.”

“How come my Dad works very far?” The boy comes by ands sits beside the older man. “How come he doesn’t work close like Mom?”

Suho blinks for a bit, hesitant on how to answer this question. For most kids, many adults would resort to some sort of white lie to not over-explain which will lead to confusion, such as, “Oh, your father wants to work over there,” or “Your father likes to work there.” But in this case, he can’t use a white-lie. As he, Kris, and Hana had promised together a few years back, they will try to be as honest with their answers to any question Taeyang asks if related to his life, and Taeyang’s questions regarding Kris is most definitely under that category.

He turns off the T.V. and shifts in his seat to give his entire attention to the young, gawking boy. “Taeyang, I hear that you visit your Dad’s work every summer. Are you going again this summer too?”

“Yeah!” Taeyang shoots up his hands in the air, almost giving Suho a fright. “I go there every summer for two weeks! I help Daddy do water and feed the animals there. They were scary at first,” he frowns and then immediately becomes happy, “but they’re really nice and not scary anymore.”

“Oh, really?” Suho’s sort of interested. But he doesn’t want to know what Taeyang does over there. He wants to know who Taeyang sees over there. “Um, is there, like a family that you and your Dad stay with?”

The young boy violently nods his head in smiles. “Yeah, yeah! It’s Uncle Baek and Grandma Byun and Grandpa Byun!”

“Baek?” I thought his name was Baekhyun?

“Uncle Baek is like you. He’s a friend of Daddy.”

Suho laughs it off. “I-I see.” So, Kris hasn’t said anything to that side either. “Does Mom—”

The doorbell rings, and it continues to ring. It loudly annoys the two and Suho being the older and only capable person to open the door, goes over. “Why is your father pulling a prank like this?” He opens the door and his jaw drops. “Oh.”

*

Suho: you’ve got visitors. Sent at 9:09 p.m.

Kris reads the text message when he finally has the time to use his phone. He was engaged in a meeting as a representation for the Byun business he works for, since he’s established a warm and trustful relationship with the countryside family. Since he’s the only city dweller the Byun knows, they’ve entrusted him to negotiate in business affairs in their place, and Kris has find no reason to object to it. He owes them his life anyway.

I’ve got visitors? He mentally flashes a list of possible visitors, but none of the potential candidates come close. Who would want to see me?

*

Kris arrives home—12:47 a.m.—and sees that the light in his living room is still on. He laughs and says, “You boys still up?” The previous time he came home late, around seven in the morning, Taeyang and Suho were occupied over a very obsessive game and had lost track of time that they didn’t even noticed that the homeowner had arrived until he had made a sound at the sink while washing the dishes.

“Yeah.” The answer was a plain blend of various voices.

His pauses at his steps. He blinks non-stop. The voices he heard were definitely not the symphony of both Taeyang’s and Suho’s; in fact, the echoes all sounded like grown men and not one hint of a boy’s at all. Confused, he drops his work bag by the doorstep and paces to the living room. “Suho, who’s here with—” he stops at his tracks when he sees that his two visitors haven’t left. “Luhan. Inguk.”

*

Hana flinches at the sound of three taps at the window on her right. It’s the middle of the night, and she can’t see the person through the blinds, so she fearfully—and purposely—grabs her cell phone with her attached latex gloves to signal to the danger outside that she’s going to call the police if he—or she—doesn’t leave. His gestures signal for her to open the door and she scoffs.

“I am not stupid to open a door for a stranger.” She blows a raspberry, not even scared anymore. She pauses when she catches the stranger taking out something and pressing it. A few seconds later, her cell vibrates in her hand and after reading it, her anger level has maxed out. She walks out of the room, enters the living room, goes to the door, opens it, and then steps out to face the direction to where the “stranger” is at, only to almost bump into each other.

She takes a few steps back. “Hey, don’t you know what time it is to be bothering me this late in the night—err—morning?”

The stranger ignores her and instead, drags her by the wrist to head inside the house. He shuts the door behind them and then turns over to look at her.

As she speaks to him, she casually takes off the latex gloves. “It’s almost three in the morning? You gave me a fright.”

The man scoffs. “I gave you a fright? That can’t be compared with the six years of despair I had to go through.”

I knew he’d be here to discuss with me in the morning, but not this early. “Luhan, I didn’t mean for you to find out that way. Honest.”

Luhan puts a hand on his side and scoffs as he looks away. “Honest? Now you want to go honest? Okay, lay it down.”

“W-what I mean is, they’re not at fault—no one is.”

“I know. No one is but you.”

She tries to not wince at the direct and painful truth.

“I was really okay with you leaving because I know that you aren’t someone who’d do that without a good cause. So whatever is the reason for that, I’m willing and I’m still going to wait for your answer.” His hands come forward. “But to have everyone found you two years later after you vanished from me and kept quiet about it, it makes me furious to know why in the world you’d want to run away from me so much?” He takes a step over to her with a distraught expression. “What did I do wrong? Where did we go wrong?”

He gently covers her body with his arms and wraps her in a soft embrace. His strained voice expresses hurt. “Everything we had…I can’t possibly think of anything that wasn’t right. Taeyang was happy. I was happy. You were—” he gathers that he can’t speak for her, so he pulls away and warily says, “—you were happy too. Weren’t you?”

She gives him a frail smile. In a quiet tone, too afraid that if it’s loud, she’d lose control of all her suppressed feelings. “Of course I was happy, pabo.”

The two lock eyes, and his contact and his touch give her the energy to touch him back.

She lifts a hand to cup a side of his cheek, it. Hearing him speak of their past brings back those beautiful and laughing moments where they were still young teenage parents watching over an innocent baby who brought them tears, jo