A few things (I always seem to have sth to say...)

1. General consensus is that Small Love will get finished first, then I'll move to other stories - your decision. And to those who sent me me just amazing demands for 'Sweep...' - I had waited for Harry Potter for over 10 years and didn't send JKR angry emails when I couldn't read it for A MONTH.

2. Some of you will be disappointed 'cause there won't be any play day scene here - there is a limit at how many kid scenes I can write...

3. Announcement about other story - if you haven't read 'Haven' but plan to - be quick. I'll be taking it down in a month to make it into an original piece.

4. I'm taking requests for Sungrin's outfits!

***

Kyuhyun knew he was running late, he didn’t even notice what time it was until it was already past five. That didn’t happen all that often to him, considering he was making his own schedule, but when it did he was making sure to call and inform Hyukjae or Jungsu. And right now it was half past the hour nursery was closing and nobody was picking up the phone. He guessed Hyukjae was already out roaming the city and searching for his next hook up – the maniac. But normally Jungsu was always staying a little longer, especially since his house was just on the other side of the street.

If someone took Chunghee he would be informed for sure, so his son was surely still in the nursery. But why nobody was picking up!

Cursing at the traffic Kyuhyun sighed with relief when he saw a parking spot right in front of the facility. He pulled in with just a little difficulty, since he his car wasn’t exactly designed for the small streets of the residential area, and jumped out of the car. He barely avoided being run over because of his own stupidity and lack of common sense to look in the side mirror and check if anything was coming from behind. The car honked at him but he couldn’t care less. Pressing the central lock button on the key he rounded the car and sprinted towards the gates of the nursery.

Kibum was sitting on a bench, book in hand, while his twins were putting Chunghee’s hair in ponytails on the top of his head. Not that the boy minded, judging from the huge smile on his face.

‘Kibum!’ Kyuhyun yelled from the gate. It was locked and he didn’t want to jump over it. It could give Chunghee wrong ideas and he would rather play it safe. He never knew what his son would deem appropriate to copy from his father.

The reading man turned his head with curiosity and looked over his glasses. He had presbyopia, despite his young age, and if he tried to look at the distance through his glasses he would see less than a mole. He turned back towards the kids and after saying something to them, something Kyuhyun couldn’t hear from his spot, he got up and walked leisurely to the gate.

‘Forgot something?’ The man smirked as he unlocked the gate and let his friend in.

Kyuhyun scowled at him and looked towards his son. Apparently Chunghee wasn’t very keen on going home since he didn’t even run up to him to greet him.

‘Major crashes of servers last two weeks, someone is hacking our sites, too. I’m stuck in the center.’ He explained as they made their way towards the bench.

‘I lost in rock-paper-scissors with Siwon and Youngwoon.’ Kibum moved his book from the spot and plopped down.

‘Yeah, makes me so reassured that you were so unwilling to look after my son.’ Kyuhyun snarled and sat beside the man. He was feeling especially bitter that day.

‘Considering this is your sitting partner’s responsibility, and I’m not him this round, I’d say it should. If I had anywhere to be you’d have to search for Chunghee in my house and you know that would end with unwashable stains all over his clothes.’ He looked pointedly at the purple stain on his red converse.

Shaking his head Kyuhyun saw that the twins were taking the bands and pins out of Chunghee’s hair, probably getting ready to go home seeing that both parents were already present.

‘Sungmin didn’t… suggest taking him?’ He was a little bemused at the fact that he didn’t meet his sitting partner there.

‘He was already gone by the time we decided that someone will stay here with Chunghee.’ Kibum shrugged.

Kyuhyun furrowed his brows. He was meeting Sungmin every single time when he was picking Chunghee for last two weeks and the same day he was late the man came earlier. He knew he shouldn’t, but he was feeling a little abandoned. Shouldn’t have Sungmin made sure that Chunghee was taken care of? Or at least call him?

‘I would love to sit here more with you but I’ve got kids to feed and house to save.’ Kibum packed his book and reading glasses into his satchel and got up. ‘Cupcakes!’ He called and scrunched his face.

‘That sounds so wrong coming from you.’ Kyuhyun pointed out. Kibum wasn’t exactly very affectionate person, he was quite a bit with his daughters, but he never used any endearments for them.

‘Yeah, you don’t want to hear any other names they wanted me to call them. Cupcakes is the least embarrassing of them all…’ Kibum murmured so that his daughters, who were walking with Chunghee fit between them, wouldn’t hear him.

Kyuhyun chuckled. He opened the gate again and walked through. Kibum closed it when all of the children were out and locked with the key he most probably received from Jungsu.

‘Want me to drive you somewhere? Though I have only one booster seat for Chunghee and the old, small one for toddlers, I dug out recently for Sungrin. Just in case I needed to pick him up in a car!’ Kyuhyun added to his suggestion when Kibum raised a brow at the mention of Sungrin.

‘No, it’s all good. I think we’ll swing by my mom and grab dinner at the restaurant close to her. Hyo is in the zone. She started splashing canvas with pink when I was going out so I guess no dinner from her tonight and I prefer I didn’t give my family poisoning with whatever I manage to throw together.’ He broke a small smile. It wasn’t often that he was belittling any of his traits, even if everyone knew how ty he was at something.

They stopped at Kyuhyun’s car and he unlocked the door. Chunghee opened the back door himself and clambered up the steps into the seat before settling in his booster.

‘Okay, so see you…’ Kyuhyun wasn’t sure when it would be that he would see Kibum again. The man was traveling a lot, sometimes for weeks at a time. And even if he was closer to the man than he was to most of the other parents, though not as close as to Youngwoon and Siwon, they very rarely met outside of the nursery.

‘Siwon’s play day?’ Kibum supplied, as if that was an obvious answer.

‘What?’

Kyuhyun hadn’t heard anything about any play day.

Sighing Kibum leaned on the side of Kyuhyun’s huge Kia Grand Cherokee. ‘Siwon is organizing a party for kids and food feast for parents this weekend. It’s Sooyoung’s birthday, by the way.’

A light bulb went off in Kyuhyun’s head. Of course it was Sooyoung’s birthday! They talked about it shortly, but Kyuhyun was so focused on work last couple of weeks that he was barely registering anything other than that and Chunghee’s calls for food. Good thing Sulli was available to babysit him so often.

‘I see you dug out that piece of information.’ Kibum shook his head, straightened again and stretched both of his arms. ‘Hands, cupcakes.’

‘Yes, daddy.’ Both girls answered in unison, like they did more often than not, and grabbed their father’s hands.

With a goodbye nod Kibum turned and started walking opposite direction Kyuhyun would have to drive to get to his house.

Still mulling over forgetting the annual happening in Choi household, Kyuhyun turned to his son and absentmindedly clasped on all of the belts on Chunghee and secured him on his booster.

‘Dad, do we have to ride the car?’ Chunghee complained and tugged at one of the belts. ‘It smells funny.’

Kyuhyun raised his brow and sniffed. Yeah, it did smell artificial, courtesy of the leather seats and air freshener he installed.

‘Just a few more days Hee, you know that it’s easier for me to get to the company in the car.’

Chunghee pouted but didn’t say anything more.

Shutting the door Kyuhyun walked around the massive car to the driver’s side and got in himself. He was glad that his father always had a thing for rather grand vehicles and taught him how to drive them, and later got him one. Kyuhyun wouldn’t be able to maneuver anything smaller at this point. However, his Cherokee was being wasted in the city.

The traffic was very mild at this hour, especially in this part of the city, so Kyuhyun could relax and lean back in his seat as he pulled out of his spot. On the second lights, as he was waiting for the green, he looked with surprise at the figure running through the crossing.

Sungmin was a little red in the face and definitely that wasn’t just  a casual jog, considering he was wearing the same jeans shorts Kyuhyun saw on him before, and a green and white checked short sleeved shirt that was hugging his upper body a little too tight to be comfortable for a run.

Checking quickly for any cars around – which there weren’t – he rolled down his window. The heat blasted into the car, A/C doing nothing to fight it.

‘Sungmin!’ He yelled loudly.

Sungmin halted in his steps and spun around a few times looking for the voice that called him. When he noticed Kyuhyun behind the wheel of the huge jeep his eyes bulged and jaw dropped.

Noticing that the lights changed Kyuhyun quickly made a gesture suggesting he would pull over. Sungmin hastily got off the crossing and jogged towards the spot.

After pressing the button for hazard lights Kyuhyun jumped out of the car. He couldn’t really stay too long where he stopped but there wasn’t anyone to report him around. Sungmin was panting, his shirt halfway undone, probably in an attempt to cool down a little.

‘This… your car?’ He said between pants. ‘Almost… like a mon-monster truck.’ He managed to wheeze out.

Kyuhyun chuckled and patted his monster.

‘What are you doing jogging in this heat? You want to pass out?’ The younger raised his brows, questioning look on his face.

Sungmin raised one finger to indicate for Kyuhyun to wait a moment and bend forward. He took a few deep breaths calming his racing heart. When he didn’t feel like throwing up he straightened and looked at Kyuhyun again.

‘I was running to the nursery to check on Chunghee. I picked up Sungrin earlier today, but I just forgot I got out of work two hours earlier. And I got a feeling that something was not right. So I left Sungrin with the girl next door and run ‘cause nobody was picking up the phone there. And neither were you.’ Sungmin looked pointedly at him.

Kyuhyun tilted his head in surprise, his hand already in his pants’ pocket, fishing for the phone. When his fingers wrapped around the familiar shape he pulled it out and looked at the display. After pressing the button to activate the screen there was nothing. The battery died. He must have been calling so much to check on Chunghee that it died even before he reached the facility.

Feeling just a little embarrassed Kyuhyun cleared his throat and looked to the side. ‘I got caught up at work and didn’t notice what time it was until I was already late.’ He admitted begrudgingly. Sungmin’s eyes widened and darted towards the tinted window of the car. He couldn’t see everything inside but he could make out a sleeping form of Chunghee in the backseat. Boy’s head was hanging a little to the side, mouth most probably opened. He was always knocked out not even five minutes into the drive.

‘Kibum stayed on the playground with him and his twins until I arrived. I’m actually just coming from there.’ He motioned with his head towards the direction he came from.

‘You should have called me.’ Sungmin said with slight accusation in his voice.

Folding hands on his chest Kyuhyun took on the defensive pose, sheltering himself from the man. ‘As far as I know you’re just my sitting partner. There is no problem with someone else looking after my son when I turn in late.’ He knew that he was saying the words out of spite, but there was no way he would allow anyone to question his actions involving his son.

Sungmin’s eyes narrowed dangerously and there was nothing from the always beaming with happiness man in him now. ‘Bull.’ He hissed. ‘I promised to make sure Chunghee would be safe and well when we agreed to be partners and it’s just as much of my responsibility as yours. I expect you to be as thorough with taking care of my child so if I said you should have called me, even if only to yell at me for not making sure you could pick him up when I didn’t see you there, I meant you should have called me.’ He almost growled out the last words and added after a moment of tense silence. ‘.’

Kyuhyun was thrown back by the spite in Sungmin’s voice. He never expected to hear such things from him and truthfully speaking he had to admit that the man was completely right. he would have felt like a bag of steaming if he learned that someone else than him stayed longer to look after Sungrin, he would feel anxious and responsible even if Sungmin didn’t call him and tell him to take care of the kid. So really, Sungmin was kind of deprecating himself and not Kyuhyun’s parenting skills.

He didn’t speak for a moment. Swallowing thickly he bit his upper lip and looked to the side. Arguing with Sungmin wasn’t something he wanted. Ever.

Finally sighing he looked back at the man. ‘You’re right.’

Sungmin didn’t betray whether he was surprised or glad for the admission. His eyes still narrowed and stance rigid.

‘Of course I am.’ He huffed finally and withdrew slightly.

The silence was awkward and Kyuhyun struggle with what he should say next. He looked at his car.

‘Do you want me to drive you back home?’

Sungmin regarded the car with a long look and then turned his eyes back at Kyuhyun. Sighing he shook his head.

‘No, I will walk. Besides, you can’t pull into my street and just getting around there would take more time than on foot.’ He looked down at his shirt and scowled. Buttoning the few buttons he turned to the side before throwing one last look at Kyuhyun. ‘See you around.’ And with that said he walked to the crossing with determination. The lights changed for him pretty fast and before Kyuhyun knew he already disappeared into a small street.

Cursing silently Kyuhyun circled the car and plopped into the seat. In the rear mirror he saw that Chunghee slept through whole ordeal, his mouth hanging open. The heat must have been exhausting for him. He had the bad luck of being the son of two people who happened to have massive sun allergies and skin so pale it was almost translucent, which also caused him to be marginally more exhausted in the heat than other kids.

With a sigh Kyuhyun put on the safety belt and started the car again.

He screwed up. Royally.