~Chapter 28 – Future Uncertainties~

            The topic of Luhan’s future hadn’t been brought up for the past two days from when Luhan’s parents arrived, which was a relief to everyone in general so far. Luhan’s parents were actually not that bad to be around, they were enjoyable company to have as they laughed along and hung out with the large group as all of them played in the sights of Incheon together.  At the moment the group had decided to sit down at a local Korean barbeque restaurant for a late dinner before heading back to Meili’s house.

            “That was mine!” argued Kai as he tried to grab the last of the meat off the cooking grill in the center of the table.

            “No it wasn’t! I was cooking that!” argued back Tao as he also grabbed at the last piece.

            “What? I didn’t even see you put it down, besides I remembered I was cooking meat in the same spot!” argued Kai as he tried to pull the meat away from Tao’s iron gripped chopsticks.

            “I did! You weren’t’ paying attention because you were too busy looking at DO with heart shaped eyes!” stated Tao as he also pulled the meat back towards him.

            DO upon hearing this blushed a bit at being pointed out.

            Kai gasped “It’s not my fault DO is eye catching, besides you were the one who wasn’t paying attention since you were too busy clinging to Xiumin and didn’t see where you were cooking your meat!”

            Xiumin was also noticeably pinker after this statement.

            Tao’s jaw dropped “What? It’s not my fault Xiumin is so huggable! I know where I was cooking and this meat is mine Kai!”

            “No, it’s mine, Tao!” replied Kai.

            “Kai, it’s mine!” argued Tao as the two began a tug of war with the meat between their chopsticks.

            “It’s mine, Tao!”

            “It’s mine, Kai!”

            “It’s mine, Tao!”

            “It’s mine, Kai!”

            “It’s mine, Tao!”

            “It’s mine, Kai!”

            As the two younger members of the large group continued arguing and glaring at each other, they didn’t even bother to take notice of the others who were watching them. Having seen the argument last long enough and also recovering from the embarrassing statements earlier, DO and Xiumin decided to step in to stop their boyfriends.

            “What have we said about making a big commotion in public?” asked DO sternly.

            “Didn’t we already go over this back at the campus as well?” added Xiumin with a serious expression.

            Kai and Tao paused in their meat tug of war as they turned their heads to look at their boyfriends. “Ummm,” Kai began thinking of a good excuse to reply to DO.

            “Errrrr,” Tao’s response was also similar since both younger boys didn’t want to upset their boyfriends but they also really really didn’t want to let go of the meat.

            Suddenly someone else swooped in with their chopsticks and took the meat right out of their grip effectively ending Kai’s and Tao’s tug of war with it as they were distracted for a moment. Both younger boys feeling the weight of the meat disappearing from their hold snapped their heads over to their chopsticks to see that it really was gone.

            “WHAT THE-” exclaimed Kai and Tao before they heard Lay shout out a protest of “Chen!”

            The two looked over with widened eyes as they saw Chen and Lay sitting at the edge of the table and right in the hold of Chen’s chopsticks was the last piece of meat that Kai and Tao were just fighting over.

            “YOU! AGAIN!?” yelled out Kai and Tao as they stood from their seats and point their finger accusingly at Chen who was grinning amusingly.

            “Shush! You two are making a scene,” said Xiumin as he tugged Tao back down into his seat with DO doing the same to Kai.

            “BUT!” began Kai and Tao but only received a warning look from both DO and Xiumin.

            Kai and Tao began pouting as they whined “Not faaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrr!”

            “It’s totally fair,” said Chen as he let out a slight chuckle and moved the last piece of meat towards his mouth.

            “But Chen they wanted to eat that, it was the last piece,” said Lay as he took note of the pouty faces that the two younger members were making.

            Chen stopped and closed his mouth “But they were only arguing over it instead of eating it like I was going to do.”

            “Well it was going to get eaten regardless,” said Lay with slight hopes that Chen would give the last piece back so the younger ones would stop looking so down.

            Chen didn’t respond as he appeared to be thinking over what Lay said “Hmmmm, I suppose… then you should eat it!”

            Chen then took the meat and shoved it right into Lay’s unsuspecting mouth. “Ack!” was the only surprised sound Lay let out as the meat entered his mouth and not wanting to waste the food Lay chewed it and swallowed, pouting a bit as he said “Why did you do that? Now Kai and Tao look devastated.”

            “Because you didn’t really eat a lot of the meat yet and like you said it was going to get eaten regardless,” said Chen smiling sweetly at Lay despite the stunt he pulled.

            Lay pinkened a bit at having heard that Chen was paying attention to him while they were all eating “But that’s not what I meant by that, now look at Kai and Tao.”

            Both Kai and Tao had their jaw dropped in shock and their expressions were basically showing disbelief. A few of the others began laughing at the funny sight of the younger boys as they began pouting and whining again “Unfair!”

            “Shush, here just have some of mine, I’m full anyways,” said DO in attempt to stop Kai’s pouting as he put some of his cooked meat from his plate onto Kai’s.

            “Here you can have some of mine too,” said Xiumin as he moved some of his own food on to Tao’s plate to placate his panda.

            The two instantly cheered up as they began eating again, “See? Problem solved,” said Chen happily “You’re too nice sometimes.”

            Lay returned Chen’s amused smile “I guess so…”

            Chen felt a slight flutter run through him as he witnessed Lay’s gentle smile directed at him “Ye-yeah.”

            “Oh geez you two are so sweet, I think I got cavities, stop denying it already,” said Kris as he watched the scene play out between Chen and Lay.

            “It’s cute, though,” countered Suho.

            This time both Chen’s and Lay’s face flushed a bit at the comment as Chen said “Shut up!”

            “Awww but your face is so cute with that pink tint on your cheeks though,” teased Baekhyun playfully.

            “You two are absolutely adorable!” added in Chanyeol.

            “I completely agree, you two fit each other so well! Accept your feelings already Chen!” squealed Meili adding on to the teasing.

            Chen groaned “Ugghh whatever, you won’t listen to me even if I protested.”

            “You got that right,” winked Baekhyun as Chanyeol laughed along with him.

            While Meili grinned and raised her arm towards Baekhyun and Chanyeol saying “High five Chanyeol and Baekhyun!”

            Lay only sat there quietly as he looked away slightly to hide his heated cheeks.

            ‘Rowdy as usual,’ thought Sehun with a small smile as he ate another piece of meat off his plate.

             Chen could only watch in confoundment as the trio high fived each other with wide smiles and cheers on their faces and turned towards Luhan who was sitting a little farther down and shouted out “Luhan! Control your grandmother!”

            Luhan shrugged “It’ll be fine,” before mumbling just under his breath quietly enough for only Sehun to hear “As long as she’s not paying us any attention.” While Chen just groaned again and attempted to ignore the trio who were now talking animatedly as he resumed eating while glancing at the trio warily from time to time.

            Sehun gave a snort clearly amused by Luhan’s muttering and continued eating ‘Granny will be Granny.’

            “Wow you boys sure are lively,” said Sunhee with a giggle as she watched the chaos ensue.

            Jin joined in on the merriment by adding with a laugh “It’s so nice being out like this every once in a while.”

            Sehun looked over next to him and saw that Luhan was beaming at this comment ‘Luhan probably thinks this comment is a good sign from his parents… but that last statement of ‘once in a while’ worries me a bit…’ Sehun really didn’t have the nerve to break that hopeful expression on Luhan’s face so he continued to eat in silence ‘…I’ll have to tell Luhan a little later I don’t want to ruin his good mood right now.’

            The rest of the dinner went pretty well considering all the yelling, screaming, and plain out craziness that happened, now everyone was finally heading back to Meili’s house with their stomachs full and bodies tired from all of the day’s activities. As everyone piled into the house one by one, while mumbling out garbled goodnights before heading up the stairs to their targeted beds, Jin and Sunhee unexpectedly called out to their son who was close to the back of the others as he slowly made his way up the stairs with Sehun right behind him at the very end of the line upstairs.

            “Luhan, wait you can’t go to bed just yet we just need to talk to you about some things first,” said Sunhee gently.

            Sehun froze for a moment as he witnessed Luhan also tense up in front of him ‘Are they going to start making decisions about his future again?’

            “It’ll be quick son, so come here for a little bit and you can go to bed after we finish talking,” said Jin as he ushered to a seat in the living room clearly only inviting Luhan to talk.

            Luhan turned around slowly and shot Sehun a look that was mixed between panic and desperation as if saying ‘What am I going to do!?’

            Sehun managed to keep a straight face but as Luhan passed by him to go down the stairs Sehun was able to whisper quietly, so only Luhan could hear “It’ll be okay…” in order to reassure the older even if it was just a little.

            Luhan continued walking down as Sehun walked up, Sehun walked straight to their bedroom and only slightly closed the door so that he could still hear what everyone downstairs would be discussing.

            Sehun didn’t really hear anything at first as he sat on the floor with his back leaning against the wall right beside the small opening of the door ‘I don’t know why I’m going to these lengths for Luhan when I usually mind my own business but I promised that everything will be okay for him and I want to keep that promise no matter what…’

            The silence hung around for a little longer before Sehun finally heard someone’s voice from downstairs. “Luhan I know it’s been a while now but we really do need a serious talk about what the future holds,” said Jin “We realized that a lot has happened in the past few years and we understand that change can be hard but it’s been long enough that we have been putting this off.”

            “No,” said Luhan defiantly. Sehun swears he could already see the frown on Luhan’s face.

            “Luhan, don’t be like that,” said Sunhee.

            “No, why can’t you just accept the fact that I want to be a patissier? There is nothing wrong with that, business isn’t something that I want to do,” replied Luhan.

            “You’re a smart boy Luhan you can easily learn about the business without any p