About the 'irresponsible' nursery. It's a private establishment so it has different rules than other facilities like that. And it's small, close knit community, everyone in the nursery know each other, so it's not so strange that a kid is being looked after by one of the other parents.
Also, remember when I said this will be short? Well, that went out the window...

***

The clock on the wall was ticking loudly in the, otherwise silent, office. The space was too big and unnecessary for Sungmin. He wasn’t sure why he even got the room, aside from the fact that it was normally assigned to the senior negotiators, who he currently was acting as. He was with the company not long enough to receive such privileges and he noticed how some older employees were looking at him. It didn’t help that his family owned a few family spas on the south coast, as well as one on Jeju, making him relatively well-off and a topic of gossip around the company. Never mind that what he was doing in it didn’t have anything in common with his family business, currently still run by his parents. Sungjin was the one to take over and inherit the resorts, with only small part of the shares in Sungmin’s name. That was the agreement they came to, considering that Sungmin didn’t plan on being the CEO of anything anytime soon. The example of his ever absent father and mother, who he doubted ever seeing without make up and in homey attire, made Sungmin decide that he wanted a family. The contract between him and Sungjin was drawn in such a way, that their future children, meaning Sungrin and whatever spawns from Sungjin, would be co-owners. And whatever they decide to do with their lives, they would have to make the choices by themselves.

his hand across the keyboard, Sungmin leaned back in his chair. He knew he was good at his job, his charisma and easy going attitude always loosening up the competitors and making negotiations a piece of cake for him. However, he hoped to stay in the junior position for a little longer, locked in his cubicle, working only assigned time and being able to see his son at normal hours. Overtime didn’t happen often, but it did happen and it was already too much for him. Every minute more that he had to spend in the office meant a minute less with his child, maybe missing something important.

Looking at the moving arms of the clock, he sighed. There were still two hours left and he couldn’t just ditch that day. There was still work left, drafting a proposal so that he could present it to the board the next day, before he could set the points properly and send them to the other company. They arranged to have the negotiations at the end of next week and he wasn’t looking forward to it. The last time it happened he was so riled up after, that he ended up drinking with Kyuhyun and developing a tiny crush on the man.

With a groan he straightened in his chair. Thinking about Kyuhyun and their latest encounter wasn’t the best way to relax. He remembered how panicked he was when he realized what time it was and that he didn’t exactly see Kyuhyun at the nursery to make sure the man would be there to pick up Chunghee. And there was that gnawing feeling in his gut telling him that something was not right. Adding to that, the fact that the younger male wasn’t picking up his phone and nursery was already closed just drove Sungmin into paranoia before he could reason with himself at least a little.

And then how pissed he was hearing Kyuhyun dismiss him just like that. He thought they were getting on perfectly, looking out for each other, but the way Kyuhyun just belittled their relationship showed how closed off the man still was. And Sungmin knew he shouldn’t have exploded just like that, even cursing at the man. But as patient and collected as he was at work, that didn’t translate to him dealing with children-related issues. Or relationship-related either. Sunkyu had to chastise him way too often for being a moron and not listening to her. He was just glad that it came out now and not before, when they were establishing their relations.

With hand running nervously through his hair Sungmin straightened in his chair and leaned towards his computer screen. Work was the best way to forget.

He managed to put in only two lines of numbers into his proposal when his private phone went off. Normally he was ignoring it, unless it was from the nursery. This time the picture he took of Kyuhyun in his kitchen, being hugged by both Chunghee and Sungrin, appeared on the display, along with the man’s name.

For a second Sungmin wavered, not sure he wanted to talk to the man. Not sure if he wanted to learn that he no longer was his sitting partner. He couldn’t see any other reason for the man to talk to him after what happened.

Sighing with exasperation, at his own stupidity, Sungmin snatched the phone and answered the call.

‘Yeah?’

‘Sungmin?’

Rolling his eyes slightly Sungmin repressed the urge to bark who else?!.

‘Yeah, it’s me.’ He said instead.

‘Listen… could you pick up Chunghee today?’

Sungmin sat rod straight. He hadn’t expected that. Not just two days after the row they had.

‘Sure, no problem.’ His answer was immediate, afraid that the man would change his mind and call Siwon or Kibum, who he knew was also quite popular with Chunghee.

‘I’m finishing work in the center today and I could be on time, but Chunghee threw a fit in the morning about riding the car, he kind of hates it. I don’t want to upset him even more, but it would take me another hour to drive the car to the garage and return to pick him up.’ Kyuhyun’s voice was quiet and a little weak, like he wasn’t sure he could ask Sungmin of that.

Sungmin remember the monster Kyuhyun was driving and cringed. He understood Chunghee being disinclined to ride it.

‘Okay, I’ll try to finish early here.’ He nodded fast, knowing that the other couldn’t see him. ‘Um, when you swing by we could have dinner together. Maybe?’

A sigh of relief answered him and suddenly Sungmin thought that maybe Kyuhyun was just as worried about pissing him off as he was.

‘That would be great. Thanks.’

‘Okay… so see you later?’

‘Yeah, of course. I’ll call Hyuk now. So… bye…?’

Huffing a low laugh Sungmin leaned back in his chair and placed a hand over his eyes.

‘Bye.’

The call was cut by Kyuhyun and Sungmin lowered his phone onto his thigh. He stared with a goofy smile at the opposite wall. Communication was something they needed to work at instead of just assuming things on their own.

***

Balancing a box with extremely overprized jar of organic apple mousse for Sungrin under his arm, a bottle of a very good Chilean wine his father brought him from his vacation with mom, and a small bag with organic chewing candy for Chunghee in one hand, and a phone in the other, Kyuhyun was cautiously making his way up to Sungmin’s apartment. He managed to pick up the treats for kids from the small shop established in the mall next to his company building and wine from the cellar in his house when he passed by it on his way from the garage. He hoped that his peace offerings will be good enough and he and Sungmin will leave their little misunderstanding behind without mentioning it.

With a deep breath Kyuhyun knocked on the door ignoring the doorbell on the wall beside the door.

He didn’t have to wait longer than a few seconds before the door swung open and flushed Sungmin appeared right in front of him. A wide smile was brightening his already glowing face and it grew even bigger when he saw Kyuhyun.

‘Kyu!’

A chill spread all over Kyuhyun’s body, but he decided to ignore it in favor of making up with his new friend. There was no point starting another argument, especially since Sungmin used the name without knowing what connotations it was holding for Kyuhyun.

Clearing his throat Kyuhyun quickly pushed his phone inside his pants, after setting it to silent mode – he didn’t want any disruptions this time. Also because he really missed spending time with his own son.

‘Hey. I brought wine.’ Extending his arm he presented the bottle.

Sungmin’s eyes grew as he looked at the bottle.

‘Awesome! I just pushed the lasagna into the oven and it should be ready in about 40 minutes. Took me a little longer than I thought it would.’ Sungmin turned and with a hand ushered Kyuhyun to go in as he strolled into kitchen, still talking. ‘Chunghee is in Rin’s room, they’re doing puzzles… well, Chunghee is. I have no idea what Rin is doing. Probably looking intensely at the pieces and trying to wrap his mind around the idea of pieces of paper fitting together and creating a picture.’

Kyuhyun snorted as he kicked off his flip-flops and walked barefoot into the kitchen. The wooden floor was pleasantly cool under his feet. The mousse and candy ended on the table as he ventured further into the space and looked around.

‘Anything you want me to do?’

Sungmin looked over his shoulder from rinsing the lettuce and then returned to his task. ‘How about telling me about that company you didn’t mention before.’

Kyuhyun scrunched his nose. He didn’t like to talk about this particular subject because people were looking different at him. But he knew he shouldn’t have hidden the information from Sungmin – the man would have learnt sooner or later and it would just feel more like lying.

Sighing, Kyuhyun pulled the chair from the table and dropped onto it heavily. He pinched the bridge of his nose before speaking.

‘I… well, my work involves a little more than setting websites.’ He explained vaguely but he knew immediately that it wasn’t enough judging from another look thrown at him by the man by the sink. ‘A couple of years ago I managed to sign a very good contract with Security Company. They wanted me to update and modernize their whole system. It was a lot of work so I hired some guys from my university to help with it. We were all mostly interested in hacking, so it was pretty easy to come up with ideas how to prevent breaches – one of us wrote a program, others tried to hack it and we were working on it as long as it took for it to be impenetrable. System proved to be so good that other companies started to contact me about using it. After some time it was easier and cheaper to buy office space in the center, set up our own servers and from then on we’re working with at least half of the security agencies in the city, as well as some companies that are paranoid about their information being stolen.’

Sungmin finished with the vegetables and turned to look straight at Kyuhyun as he was talking. His head tilted to the side, arms folded on his chest. The younger continued.

‘I own 60% of the shares, since it was all my idea and I created the original program we’re using as basis. However, I just receive small percentage of what we earn, as I come only when there is some crisis, like right now. I separated two companies and currently I focus on web designing and just sometimes have to rush to the center and help there.’

This time it was all. He knew that this wasn’t something that most people would hide and he himself wasn’t sure why he didn’t like to talk about it. Sometimes he thought it had something to do with his father’s words. The man always repeated to him that man’s duty was to start a family, have children and earn enough money to support them. he never seemed to be proud of anything that Kyuhyun did and only one time he said words ‘you did good, son’ and it was when Kyuhyun informed his parents about setting up another company. It didn’t matter that he gave them a beautiful grandson or that he was a pretty good dad. Didn’t matter that he went through hell to get where he was. Only the fact that he had money of his own was important. It just seemed to Kyuhyun that he was following exactly what his father planned for him, aside from the gay thing fiasco – as his mother once told him during a family dinner when Chunghee was already old enough to ask ‘what is gay?’.

‘Okay.’ Sungmin nodded to that and unconsciously his lips before continuing. ‘That’s good to know, at least I’m not wondering if that’s some shady business you have on the side. However, that doesn’t explain that monster truck you own.’

Kyuhyun raised his brow at the jarring comment. He suddenly felt an imminent need to defend his vehicle.

‘It’s not a monster truck, it’s a very practical Kia Grand Cherokee. A jeep.’ He knew he sounded offended but didn’t care. His car was great. In all meanings of the word.

Sungmin snorted and bend down to check up on the progress of his lasagna. Even from his spot at the table Kyuhyun could see the cheese already bubbling invitingly, reminding him that he didn’t eat his lunch that day.

‘I don’t exactly see how you need a jeep in the city. It’s big, it’s inconvenient, there are no parking spots big enough for that monstrosity and, to top it all, Chunghee is afraid of it.’ He listed off. Kyuhyun smirked seeing that Sungmin knew that he wasn’t exactly making sense and was just talking to insult the car.

‘Chunghee is not afraid of it, we just almost never ride it so he’s not used. Also, it’s not a submarine, every spot in the city is enough to fit it, however it requires skills.’ He snipped and saw how Sungmin’s nose scrunched. He must have hit the right nerve.

‘Not everyone is a Nicky Lauda, I prefer public transportation, gives me time to think. Your car only takes from you – money and time you spend in the jams.’ He waved his hand as if cutting the discussion and Kyuhyun pfffed.

It was this particular moment that Chunghee decided to make an appearance, Sungrin on his heels tugging at the older boy’s t-shirt. There were bright yellow duck slippers on his feet, making quaking sounds as he was stomping hard on the floorboards.

‘Dad, I did it!’ Chunghee exclaimed and shoved a box with finished picture in it.

Pride swelled in Kyuhyun’s chest as he looked at the puzzle. He knew that it was pretty simple one, it would take him about a minute to do it, but even if there were just four pieces and Chunghee put them together correctly he would still feel as if he were the father of the smartest kid in the whole world.

‘Beautiful Hee, you’re so smart.’ He put his hand on the boy’s head and bent a little to kiss his forehead.

Without really controlling it, Chunghee leaned towards his father’s affectionate gesture, eyes glued to his finished puzzle. Kyuhyun swallowed the lump in his throat, brought by the unconscious action of his son, and he pressed his cheek to the soft hair on his head before releasing him. He looked at Sungrin who was staring at him intensely, big eyes blinking. Before he could instinctively grab the kid and kiss him too, Chunghee swirled around and kissed Sungrin on the forehead and grabbed his hand to drag him back to the younger’s room.

Kyuhyun shook his head with disbelief before sitting up again and turning his eyes back to the man by the oven. Sungmin’s head was tilted and he looked immensely satisfied, leaning on the counter with legs crossed in front of him and arms still folded over his chest.

‘Hyuk said that Chunghee is sneaking into the youngest group’s room to check up on Sungrin since about a week ago. Donghae is freaking out because then Sungrin is screaming when they take him back to his age group.’ Finally Sungmin spoke as he pushed himself off the counter.

Kyuhyun furrowed his brows. ‘They didn’t tell me anything.’ He mumbled and tried to remember if he even saw any staff member aside from the highschool girl, sister of one of the kids, who was helping sometimes when there were more kids in the nursery.

‘I talked with him, if you don’t mind.’ With sheepish look Sungmin down-casted his eyes to somewhere around Kyuhyun’s ankles.

‘Huh?’ Kyuhyun craned his neck forward, slightly surprised.

Swallowing hard Sungmin explained. ‘I just asked him why he was doing that and he said that he wanted to see if Sungrin needed help with walking or with reaching for things because he’s so small. I explained to him that Donghae and his assistant make sure that Sungrin can reach everything he needs. I also told him that it makes Sungrin really sad when his best friend is being taken away and he cries, so maybe Chunghee could ask a teacher to go with him and just look inside to check up, but without Sungrin noticing him.’ There was apprehension in the elder’s voice and he started to pick on his cuticles.

Kyuhyun got up and walked closer to the man. He leaned on the counter beside him with one arm, the other placed on his hip. ‘What did he say?’

Sungmin shrugged apologetically. ‘He looked quite down but said that he doesn’t want Sungrin to cry so he’ll ask teacher Hyuk to go with him every time.’ Suddenly Sungmin braced his shoulders and swerved so that he was facing Kyuhyun. ‘I’m sorry, I should have waited for you.’

‘That’s fine.’ Kyuhyun said placatingly, seeing that Sungmin was truly upset. ‘I would have said the same thing to him.’

Sungmin looked at him askance but nodded before a small smile broke on his face. ‘Good.’ Then he looked at the timer he set for his dinner. ‘We still have 20 minutes, let’s break that bottle.’

Jumping from his spot a little too excitedly, Kyuhyun twisted his body and grabbed the bottle from behind himself, where Sungmin put it upon entering the kitchen before him. Swooping towards the cabinet standing beside the table Sungmin casted a glance toward the packages left on it by his guest.

Hearing a groan from behind Kyuhyun spun around, corkscrew already halfway in the cork.

‘Huh?’ He wasn’t even ashamed about the unintelligible sound that made its way out of his lips. It wasn’t as if Sungmin’s mumbling made sense all of the times.

‘These.’ Sungmin pointed out at the carbon box holding the jar with mouse and the brown bag with chewing candy. ‘Tell me they’re both for Chunghee.’

Raising his brows Kyuhyun resumed digging into the bottle’s cork. ‘Nope, mousse is for Rin. Chunghee likes it when I mix some of it into his grits, but he prefers strawberry. The candy is for Chunghee only though, unless he shares himself, which I doubt he would do. He loves those.’

Sighing with resignation Sungmin pulled two wide goblets from the cabinet and put them with soft clinging sound on the table. ‘I know it’s good and I know my son. He gets one taste and I’ll go bankrupt on organic crap.’

‘Won’t be that bad, you said he eats everything?’ The cork came out with a pop when Kyuhyun pulled at the corkscrew. He strolled towards the table and immediately poured the rich, burgundy liquid into the goblets.

‘Yeah, but even he knows what’s good and will refuse to eat normal desserts. And I mostly make them myself with the food processor, so they’re not even store bought.’ Sungmin grabbed one of the glasses and brought it up to his nose to smell the rich aroma. Closing his eyes, his face expressed pure pleasure at the scent. ‘Been too long since I enjoyed a good wine.’

Kyuhyun looked as the man sipped at the wine before going for his glass. Even while drinking he didn’t tear his eyes away from Sungmin’s lips as they gently touched the brim of the goblet. Not even when the glass got lowered and a tongue darted out just barely to catch the last of the slightly bitter taste from the full upper lip.

‘Hmmm?’

Transfixed Kyuhyun shifted his gaze from the man’s lips higher, to his eyes. Sungmin looked at him knowingly and suddenly the air seemed stuffed with tension. The delicious aroma of the lasagna was gradually enveloping them as they kept standing in closer proximity than Kyuhyun thought they were a moment before. Their goblets between them, but ignored in the light of the abrupt shift in the atmosphere.

Kyuhyun swallowed thickly, his eyes acting as if they had a mind of their own, lowering again to Sungmin’s plump, pillow-like lips. Unconsciously, he dragged his tongue across his lip, wetting it and tasting the remaining wine, as he studies every crease and discoloration on Sungmin’s lips. They parted just barely and Kyuhyun noted a slow closing of distance between them. He wasn’t sure either of them knew which one was moving.

Kyuhyun really wanted to know how that wine tasted off the inside of Sungmin’s mouth.

A thud and immediate cry from the back of the flat made them jump apart, wine sloshing in the glasses. Eyes wide and breathing suddenly uneven they stared at each other before Kyuhyun’s parental instinct kicked in and he looked over his shoulder.

‘Go!’

Sungmin told him as he himself put the glass on the table and went to the oven.

When in the child’s room, nursing weeping Sungrin, who tried to climb on a chair to sit beside Chunghee and fell onto his , Kyuhyun tried to squash the sudden panic that grew like a balloon in his guts.