“Alright, listen up!  For B3 we’ve got medium rare steak!  Two orders of turkey!  A side salad and - oh - sorry! - can’t read my own handwriting - an order of salmon!”

Nothing ever changed, again and again, just a week like any other.

And maybe that’s what eventually tired him out the most.

The same menus, the same faces, the same inane chatter and that damned oppressive air that made him sweat in its heat.

His fingers were fluttering by his side, seeking out the pack of cigarettes that he knew wouldn’t be there.

Today, the boss was here for some reason, though he only barely noted the fact through distant flashes of movement in his peripheral vision.  A mumbling voice, white noise stretched out in a wide smile and an expensive suit to his distracted mind.

“...rumor has it another huge critic is going to pay us a visit “soon” - this time I’m talking monumental - his reviews are all over the news and the biggest blog sites.”

Have to put the pot on the stove.  Have to boil those carrots before I can stick the meat in the oven.  Need it to have that perfect glaze, got to wait to cut it until the end - don’t want it to dry out.

“...what I’m saying is I’m looking for an absolutely phenomenal job out of everyone to blow him out of the water.  Do you hear me?  It has to be perfect!”

Bacon also still needs to be chopped before...  Turkey.  Need to start the turkey.

“Anything we might be running out of - you let me know, alright?  You let me know and I’ll get it restocked fresh and full as soon as possible.”

...what the hell was taking the water so long to boil?

...do we still have enough plums?  Minzy, Minzy would know…  Need to get someone else to start the caramel then.  Dasom.  Where is Dasom?

“You got that, chef?”

Steak - steak’s already in the oven.  Have to take it out before it burns.  No time, no time, no time.   - the salmon, what was in the salmon again??

“Hey, buddy?  You still listening?”

Mushrooms - mushrooms, right - got to get the mushrooms first.

The pot beside him was so sizzling hot.  Contents slopped straight up and over the top.  Hissed and spat at him like a caged wild animal.  His eyes were fixated, watching as it fizzled out onto his hands, feeling only the barest hint of a scorching and blistering pain, refusing to dissipate without leaving a bright red mark burned deep into his skin.

He winced, standing still at the cutting board, knife poised over some species of mushroom he hadn’t even begun to know how to pronounce when he had first arrived here.

“...Tao?”

A different, deep voice.

One that always caught his attention - so much so that - even as his hands continued to work, the blade of the knife already on its downward trajectory - he looked up from his work automatically, turning his head to the owner of that voice.

The clatter of white plates was just noise between them, and the light reflecting off of the stainless steel cutlery illuminated the distance like stars in their beauty - but sharp, and heavy, all the same.  Because in his hand, he still held a knife.

The knife in his hand.

The knife.

-

Of course, it wasn’t all bad.

After all, although he’d stay up past midnight counting thousand thread count sheets in those sleepless nights - although he’d come to regard each tender caress like a burning brand, each kiss bringing the feeling of suffocating panic - although he’d feel physically ill sometimes, the shame and guilt well up with the budding feeling of emptiness in his throat -

He’d still regarded those moments of tender calm - when he was too tired to think, too exhausted to do anything but sit back and be taken care of - as the happiest of his life.

Curled up on a big comfy couch with a warm arm wrapped around his shoulder, a hot bowl of popcorn wedged between their thighs, and a restless body sprawled half on top his lap and half on top of his lover’s.

“This movie is so boring.”

Some old movie of Kris’ choosing.  Pretty interesting, actually, if you could get past the faded black and white grain.

The little squirt wouldn’t.  Couldn’t.

She kept mumbling and grumbling, flopping up and down on their laps like a damned fish-out-of-water, all bony elbows and flailing arms.

Not that it bothered the two of them any.  At least, not anymore.

In fact, after having just recently planned and coordinated and catered for the now seven year old’s birthday party (which just happened to have invited all of the fussy children in her large class), he come to find that he’d already started to build up a kind of tolerance to the screamy-screamy-whiny-whiny qualities of children after a while.

So Tao just reached out for a fistful of popcorn, shoving it into his mouth as he spoke over her exaggerated and loud sighs.

“Good movies are like good food, kid.  To really fully appreciate the depths of their complexity, you gotta learn how to savor them.”

Kiara snorted, propping her chin onto her elbow with a skeptical look.

“...like the way you were savoring dad last night?”

“PTHBT-”

Kris immediately spat out the wine he had been sipping, thumping his fist into his chest in a loud and sudden coughing fit.  Tao, on the other hand, paused to consider the six year old’s words for a moment before nodding completely solemnly.

“Touché.”

The two shared a knowing, gross look, wriggling their eyebrows at each other like over enthusiastic fuzzy caterpillars.  They both flinched when long fingers reached out to pull at their ears, desperately trying to pull out of the painful grip with yelps.

“You little rascals…”  Kris growled, an intimidating noise if not for the fact that his face was flushed cutely pink with embarrassment.  Before Tao could make mention of the fact, in an impressive wrestling maneuver, Kris had an arm hooked around each of their necks, pulling them both down into his lap over the sounds of their choked laughter.

Two sets of legs were kicking futilely into the air, the bowl of popcorn rolling forgotten off the couch, its contents spilling haphazardly all over the floor.

A mess like this was something that usually threw Kris into a tantrum.  He couldn’t even find it within him to be upset about it though, considering how beautiful the tired smile was on Tao’s face from where he lay, finally still, on Kris’ lap.  White hair splayed out like the feathers of an angel, ruffled strands mixing and blending and bleeding into the dark brown locks of his daughter’s own hair as she lay there giggling beside them.

He couldn’t even be mad when Tao pulled out of his embrace with a start, his cellphone ringing jarringly from his pocket with a call that he had to take.

The chef slipped out of the room with a muffled apology, flashing him an apologetic smile.  Kris found his own lips quirking up automatically in response, and though there was no one to see it, he continued to run his hand absently through his daughter’s hair, gently brushing through the knots.  She hummed, pressing her giddy smile into his leg.

Looking down at her, he felt his gaze soften, feeling his thoughts begin to wander.  For once, he let them.

This.

...this feeling.

-

“Yeah, that’s me.  Who's calling?”

The blank smile on Tao’s face slowly faded, replaced instead by a look of surprise at the sound of a familiar voice on the other end.

-

Sure, Tao was classically trained.  That is, if by classically trained, you counted blaring the Method Man and the GZA over the radio, watching Bruce Lee’s Game of Death on his tiny, half-broken TV.

While his roommates were lying like used up corpses on his worn dumpster dive prize of a couch, eyes bloodshot and coked out on dreams of something impossible waiting out there beyond the grafittied concrete jungle, he was in that tiny, cramped kitchen day in and day out, peeling day old potatoes over the dirty countertop laminate as if the spidery cracks didn’t bother him.

“Empty your mind.

Be formless.

Shapeless.

Like water.”

He still remembered, some Bruce Lee interview on the tv from the black and white days of yesteryear, when the idea of a Chinese man making his way to western fame and fortune, somehow making something out of himself in a world that wasn’t inherently his own - had been something novel.

“You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.

You put water into a bottle, and it becomes the bottle.

You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.

Water can flow or it can crash.”

He might not have always been poised.  Never full of grace.  No, he had spent too many years being an angry, scared kid, beating in the faces of so many countless men with those same hands that the idea of using the worn and scarred flesh to try and create something new and beautiful was laughable.

But he had always found some odd and hidden truth, something comforting in those “Little Dragon’s” words.  Some hope that still clung, at times more a parasite than a positive presence.  Maybe someone like him, someone who had worn holes into his clothes, someone who had come from the deepest rungs of society, could still turn out to be something great.  Maybe someone like him deserved something better.

But positivity was always so much harder to hold on to.  He had always been the brooding type, anyway.

Not outwardly, no, no - on the outside, Tao was all flashy grins and barking laughter, the perfect textbook example of the social extrovert.  But the truth was that the harder he tried, the harder it was to convince himself of the fact.  To try and make himself believe that he was worth it.  Because when he wasn’t actively telling himself that each compliment he was given could be genuine, that the smiles people gave him were willingly given - too often, he let himself fall into frightening thought that maybe - maybe everyone had been lying.  What if he had been doing everything wrong?  What if they were hiding pointing fingers behind their backs?  Scornful laughter behind the hands that covered their deceitful mouths.

Pride.  It was something that he had but didn’t have.  It was something deep yearning within him that he had locked away underneath his fake bravado, his carnival show of confidence.  It was something that he could sometimes even see in Kris’ eyes, during those rare moments when his lover let his guard down.

And yet for as much as it touched him to know that there was someone out there who cared for him as deeply as he knew Kris would - as he knew Kris did - it wasn’t yet enough.

Not yet.

Because though it had been so easy to ignore, back then when everything had been so new, so bright, so optimistic, now - now he couldn’t convince himself of it anymore.

That he was satisfied charging fifty dollars for what was barely a bite of food.

That what he did day in and day out - art without feeling - didn’t leave a bad taste in his mouth.

That maybe, just maybe, his place in life had always been a diverging road.

Because there had to be more to life than this.  There had to be more.

-

It wasn’t something that became apparent right away.  Rather, it was a feeling, a niggling feeling in the back of his head that at first Kris could not place.

And it wasn’t that he was ignorant to the signs, gradual though they were.

He’d seen the way that Tao stared out of the window more and more often these days, sometimes lost in thought, sometimes just looking as if he was barely there, the smile falling from his face as if it had never been there to begin with.

He’d heard the aborted attempts Tao had made at a conversation.  The “haven’t you ever wanted to”s and “say, why don’t we just get away”s, his mind already lost to Kris to some dream of a place where the grass was always greener, where the sun always shined just a little brighter.

Somewhere where you could buy one of those photographed postcards of landmarks no one but tourists cared to visit, always marked with bright words in scrawling script proclaiming with fake enthusiasm - WISH YOU WERE HERE!

Tao was still there with him, but yet at times, seemed so far away.  The closer Kris tried to pull him, the further away the young chef seemed.  Kris knew, and yet he still chose to pretend to be ignorant of the way things were slowly but surely crumbling between his fingers.

How could he not?  Everything had finally come full circle.   Kiara had finally found and accepted a second parental figure.  He’d admittedly been happier than he’d been with years.  There was no longer any doubt in his mind about it - that he was finally in love again - this time with blazing trails of smoke, curling tattoos and those tight, gorgeous muscles he loved to worship with his hands and his lips.

Tao, his beautiful Tao - with the curves that he sculpted with his palm, that provocative smile that made the corners of his mouth curl up at the corners - he was just as in love with Kris, Kris was so sure.  He could feel it.  He just knew, although neither were the type of people who were fond of saying those kinds of words often.

So, everything was compact now.  Neat.  Everything and everyone fit so well within Kris’ mental model of their happy little household.   And that’s just the way he wanted it.

He was a man of routine, after all.  Everything had to be clockwork precise, had to be figured out to every minute detail, all elements of the equation defined.

Far be it that he himself was perfect, but the things that he had seen - the people who had come and gone, tearing through his and Kiara’s life with no regard for what pieces they left behind - had all but set Kris further into his ways.

A deep mistrust of others, his psychiatrist had penned into her yellow lined notepad, back when he had been suggested (forced) by Lay to see her in the first few weeks following her departure.

Social anxiety.  Antisocial tendencies.

A perfectionist and a pessimist, all rolled up into one ed up, bitter package.

The truth was that he had hurt.  For so long.  And though he had hidden it away from his daughter, fearing that she would take on both his emotional burden and his scars, he knew that he had changed from the grinning, foolish kid he once had been.

It was just like one of Kiara’s picture books.  What was it called?  If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - it would come back for more.

Only, in this case, give a man a second chance at happiness - and he’d grip it tightly within both of his hands.  It may have been a strangling chokehold, but Kris sought after each feeling of contented happiness like rays of warm sunshine to a man locked away in a dark prison cell.

Now though, watching dribbles of red bleed out from between trembling fingers, seeping into the light grain of a wooden cutting board, Kris could no longer ignore the fact that perhaps it had all been a little too much to ask of a man who still stared starry eyed at his most distant dreams.

Those eyes were now as apologetic as they were wounded.  They found his across the chaos, and held his gaze for a few, breathless seconds.

They were broken apart only by loud exclamations of panic, bodies scurrying between them, pulling the distance between them further and further apart.

And although Kris wasn’t the type to believe in the happy endings that his daughter read within her storybooks, all he could do now was to clench his fists and pray that the feeling he had was one that would pass.

-

Around the kitchen table there was nothing but silence hanging thick in the stale air, two men trying their best to avoid each other’s eyes, stirring their bowls idly in front of them.

Tao had made chicken noodle soup for dinner that night, the best he could manage with a bandaged hand.  It was still good, though.

So good, in fact, that all Kris could think of was the man who had made it.  The way his hands had shook, holding the ladle in within them.  The tired way he stood at the stove.  Kris’ mouth suddenly trembled, and he had to blink quickly away the liquid emotion that had begun to well up from the corners of his eyes.

Kiara was asleep already, sent to bed early so that she would not hear the adult discussion that was about to take place.  Maybe she’d heard the grim quality in their voices, but she hadn’t complained at all, nodding solemnly and pulling her stuffed animal quietly behind her as she shut the door to her room.

His good little girl, Tao thought to himself fondly.  He almost wanted to try a wry, pulled-at-the-edges smile.  How long had it been since he’d considered this family his?

His house.  His daughter.  His…

His...

Tao broke out of his silent reverie with a long and deep exhale.  He picked up his wine glass with his free hand and knocked back the last remaining remnants with a jerk of his head.

He set the now empty glass back down on the counter with a sigh, closing his eyes under the intense scrutiny he knew he was being given.

Tao sniffed loudly in the echoing silence, swiping at his nose absently before vaguely gesturing around the room.

“You know, if you had told me a couple of years ago that I’d be sitting around a swanky house sipping fine wine with a guy as handsome as you, I uh - I guess I wouldn’t have believed you.”

He had meant it as a joke, obviously, some kind of nervous filler for the empty noise that resided between them.  But it sounded weak even to his own ears, and in the absence of any reaction from his lover, his gaze returned to his lap.

Tao rubbed his injured hand, listening to the noise of a wine glass being quietly set back on the table.  The silence was unnerving.

“I, uh -”

“...what happened today?”

Not having anticipated it, Tao flinched at the sudden question, absentmindedly rubbing harder at his gauze-wrapped hand.

“I wasn’t paying attention.  Knife just... slipped from my fingers.”

Interpreting the other’s hushed sigh in the worst way, Tao looked away, suddenly nervous, running his tongue over his chapped lips briefly before speaking again.

“...sorry if I worried you.”

A hand without a ring stretched out across the kitchen island toward him, gripping his hands and preventing him from wringing them any further.

“You always worry me, sweetheart.  Today, especially so.”  Kris finally responded, slow and deep as if wary of how he approached the conversation.  “I’ve never seen so much blood in my life.”

Tao squeezed his hand with a wry smile.

“Hey.  I was just having a bad day.  It happens.  Don’t worry, alright?”

A strange glint entered Kris’ eyes.

“That’s just it.  I’ve seen your bad days.  I know what you’re like when you’re disengaged and grumpy, I know how you get when you’re stressed out and in withdrawal.

But I’ve never seen you like this.  This is - this is different.  It’s like you’re not even interested in anything anymore.  And you know I’m not just talking about today, Tao.

There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

One of Kris’ warm hands reached out even further, resting against Tao’s cheek.  The chef leaned into it  just a fraction, closing his eyes and breathing in deep the smell of wine and expensive cologne that lingered.

His lover was too good at this.  Understanding every single thing about him, better than he knew himself.  Digging in deep, knowing just where to poke, where to prod.

How to always pull out the truth from him.

Tao picked at the frayed edges of the bandages, pulling it apart at the seams.

“Do you remember what I told you about my stepfather?  How he… how he was a good guy.  How he pulled me out of a bad time in my life, taught me respect.  How to live with dignity.  How to stay out of trouble.”

Tap-tap-tap-tap, Tao’s shoe rattling against the floor, leg jiggling in a nervous energy.

He looked up from between the fringe of his hair to see Kris frown, giving just a fraction of a nod to show that he was still listening.

“Well, I never told you this but - he died a couple of years ago.  Before we met.”

Kris opened his mouth, hand already sliding up Tao’s arm to comfort him, but the chef pulled away slightly, roughly shaking his head.

“No, no, it’s - it’s okay.  It’s not about that.”

It could have been an easy excuse - that he had been reminded of his long gone stepfather, been distracted by fond memories of the old man.  But the truth was his death had nothing to do with it.  Not directly, that was.

“We knew he was going to die.  I was already prepared for it.  ...lung cancer.  Guess that old geezer smoked one pack too many.”

Tao snorted, recognizing the irony in what was coming out of his own mouth.  Kris didn’t laugh though, instead choosing to remain silent.

“Anyway, he uh - he had a son from a previous marriage.  My stepbrother lived with his mom most of the time, so we didn’t really grow up together, but we grew close over the years.  More so now that - ... now that the old man is gone.”

Tao reached up, pressing a hand down hard on top of Kris’.

“Jongdae - my stepbrother - he called me a couple of weeks ago.  He reached out to me to tell me he’d just bought a food truck down in New Orleans.”

Tao gulped, unable to stop his eyes from darting up prematurely, begging him to try to understand what he was about to say.

“He - he said he was having trouble running it on his own.  Asked me if I’d be willing to - to take up the business with him.”

Kris blinked slowly, expression unreadable.

“But you’re an executive chef now, you’d be nothing out there -”

“It doesn’t matter.  It’s not about the title.  It’s never been about the title.  You know that.”

Tao began to pull away again, away from the grip on his arm that Kris had unconsciously begun to tighten.  Watching as the warmth slipped away from between his fingers, it dawned on him suddenly, what it was that Tao was trying to say.

What it was that Tao was about to do.

In the moments it took for Kris’ expression to change, Tao watched it morph slowly from a blank look, a lack of understanding, to something that could have only been described as heartbroken, like a beaten dog wincing prematurely in pain at the hand that came near it.  This, more than anything, scared Tao witless of what-was-to-come, what-was-to-be.

And then came the questions.

“Was it something I did?”

“No, never!”

“Am I - is it that I’m not good enough?  I- I can change, I promise, anything you want, just tell me - “

“No, no, there’s nothing.  I couldn’t ask for anything more - anyone better.”

“Then… why are you leaving me?”

The way Kris’ voice had broke on the last syllable, his deep voice pulling apart at the seams to reveal something cracked and raw and vulnerable - it made something in Tao hurt.

“...don’t be like that.”  Tao mumbled numbly, swallowing dry and shaky.  “I haven’t said I was going to leave.”

“But... you can’t stay.”  Kris finished for him, a vocal realization of the truth.

Tao couldn’t [wouldn’t] respond.

What broke his heart the most was the thought that kept coming to his mind over and over - that for so long now, he’d come to think of them as a singular unit.

Tao’s clothes mixed in with his own in their closet.

Tao’s scent on their pillows and his lingering warmth still wrapped up in their sheets.

The mugs of coffee, stained with Tao’s lips, imprints from early mornings spent on the balcony, kissing quietly over the sounds of a city waking up.

Kris could count every second of every minute on his wristwatch.

He had learned to define the world in measurable actions and rigid routines.

He could recount every mark of every flavor in every bottle of wine he’d ever tasted.

But even he could not come with any neat explanation - anything that made sense to him - just why it was that Tao couldn’t stay.

He understood, at some base level, the other’s need for independence, his desire to be out there somewhere.  And yet it would have been so much easier to bear - the thought of someone he had let in so close leaving him once again - if only there had been some defined reason.

That Tao was unhappy with him - didn’t want kids perhaps.  That perhaps there had been some bitter misunderstanding.  That Tao had finally found someone else, more handsome and rich than Kris could ever dream to be.

Any excuse that he could use to soothe his aching heart.

And yet Tao couldn’t even give him that.

He sought his lover’s eyes, and whatever it was he found in them made a fever bright light enter into his own, a sudden and new desperation in his shaking voice.

“I - I’ll go with you - Kiara too -”

Tao began to shake his head, harder and harder as Kris rose his voice over his silent protests.

“I - I’ll turn in my letter of resignation the same day that you do!  I’ll pull Kiara out of school, we - we’ll go down there together, find another school for Kiara - and then all three of us - we - “

“No.”

Tao was out of his chair before Kris could even finish, wrapping his arms around the slumped and tired body.

“Kris…”  Tao could only say at first, enough to break the sommelier from his unblinking and blurry haze. Enough to provoke the man to reach back out, to pull Tao as close as he possible could, folding the slighter man deeper into his hold.

He tried as best as he could to memorize every detail, incited by some frantic feeling to remember just how the smaller man fit into his arms, just how each soft breath felt against his cheek, the smell of his hair, his breath fluttering against his cheek, the pounding of his heartbeat against his chest -

“Kris.”

Not enough.  It wasn’t enough.

Kris was shivering.  He was terrified, everything coming crashing back to him again and again, the way it had felt back then, those nights of yelling and anger and exhaustion and sadness - of how it felt right now - the smell of smoke still lingering in between the threads of fabric, the fingers that splayed against his back, clutching him close with the love that neither of them could deny that they shared, and yet at the same time pushing him away with Ican’tdothisbabyI’msorryIcan’t and this - this -

“This isn’t just some ...phase... for me, Tao.”  He managed to choke out, so bitter and confused and biting although he clutched Tao close to his chest.  “Not like it might be for you.  This - this isn’t something fleeting, this - this isn’t something that will pass.  Do you understand?  If you - if you leave - I - I can’t - …!”

Kris was usually the calm one.  The rock when Tao needed it.  So, to hear the building panic in his lover’s shaking voice only pushed his own to the point where he couldn’t take it anymore, bubbling and bursting and welling up inside of him.

Despite all of his inner turmoil, his voice came out surprisingly steady.

“Kris,”  He pressed in close, wrapping arms around the sommelier’s shoulder and head, digging his nose into crook of his neck.

“You have to believe me - it’s not that I don’t want you to come with me.  But... you’re just not ready.”

Whatever protest Kris had begun to form died on the tip of his tongue, his body freezing in place with the other’s heartfelt words.

“No matter how much you’ve tried to convince me otherwise, I can still see it.  The woman who smells like lilacs and daisies.  The girl with the white summer dress.  You’re still waiting, aren’t you?  For her.”

Brief flashbacks of memories of breezy summer days.  Of the way he held onto her even as she left out the front door.  Of the way he was holding onto Tao now, arms gripped so tight across the other’s waist that the other’s voice came out soft and quiet.

“As much as I want to, Kris - I can’t wait here with you.  I can’t handle it.  There’s so many things left for me to do, so many things I still want to see - and I - I’m so sorry.”

It was startling, but Kris realized that he did understand.  Even if everything within him wished he did not.  For the first time in years, he felt the hot bitter pangs of his heart begin to leak out from his eyes, and pressed his forehead against the shoulder in front of him.  Liquid was seeping into shoulder too, so he knew that Tao was crying just as hard, out of guilt, shame, an overwhelming and aching dissatisfaction.

That the two of them could have come so far to be here, and yet still be unable to close the distance between them - it was a thought that hurt.

...knowing already that he would do nothing to stop it, Kris could only cry.

-

Tao gave his two week notice to an extremely reluctant Mr. Choi but for whatever reason, chose not to tell anyone else about his decision until the last hours of his final day, when they had all gathered together for what was to become their final team meeting.

They were all so shocked.  Minzy, who had been treated like a little sister and had grown especially close to the head chef, had burst into tears before Tao could even finish, reaching out to hold onto the sleeve of her head chef’s jacket while the man stood there in an uncertain, stunned silence.

He hadn’t even been anticipating that kind of reaction, Kris noted with bitter pang.  He’d really gone and convinced himself that he wouldn’t have been missed.

Chanyeol and Sehun had swooped in next with soft congratulations, eyes bright and hugs strangely strong.  The others, Luna and Dasom, Nana and Baekhyun, Jongin and Minseok and Luhan - they had closed in soon after, sweeping everyone in the kitchen in close.

Kris lingered on the bare fringes of the crowd, not knowing quite where he stood in that strange procession of bittersweet hugs, handshakes and laughing tears.

There wasn’t a single person there though, who didn’t turn to take worried note of his drawn expression and uncharacteristically frazzled appearance, the unusual redness of his eyes and the twisting downward turn of his mouth.

It all ended with one toast, a last bottle of champagne popped by Mr. Choi himself who, with a strange and wistful smile, knew exactly what TableTops had just lost.

But that was the way life was.

Everyone moved on to bigger and better things eventually, Kris told himself, for once no longer interested in the glass he held between his fingers.

He watched as the sediment sank slowly to the bottom.

-

She was only seven.  How could she begin to understand?

They had told her early, and it had been surprisingly easy.  She had hummed and nodded as if she understood, and it had even hurt Tao just a little, to think that he meant so little in her life.

It was only until the day of that they both realized that she had thought they were all going away, a vacation somewhere warm and sunny, like in her bright picture books.  She had already even packed her bag, skipped out the door with a bright and enthusiastic smile, the head of her stuffed animal sticking out from between the lips of purple zippers.

When the bag was quietly refused, returned gently back into her arms with a shake of the head, she had looked lost for a moment - just like her father had - before the realization finally settled in.

Hysterical, she now clung to his leg like a piece of velcro, refusing to let him pull her off no matter how hard he tried, and here he was all the while, trying impossibly to cram all the cardboard box contents of his life into his ty four-seater.

But the seven year old, who he had taken care of for what felt like so long now, who he had come to love as his own - her tears yanked desperately at his heartstrings.

Trusting an oddly withdrawn Kris to take care of the few boxes that remained, he finally turned, bending to face the only girl who would ever steal his heart.  She reached up, looping her arms tight around his neck like fishhooks, allowing him to pull her up into her arms.

“Where - are - you - going?”  He could barely understand her words from between the thick veil of her tears.  “...why - didn’t - anyone - tell - me?  Did - did - papa - say - something?  If - he’s - being - mean - I - can - tell - him - to - stop!”

Holding a hand against the back of her head, he pressed his forehead down against hers, feeling the trembling of her eyelashes against his cheek like butterfly kisses.

“He didn’t do anything wrong, baby.  I’m the one with the problem.  I’m the one hurting you both.  ...I’m sorry.”

Tiny fingers clutching at the collar of his shirt, her next words half-shouted, half-whimpered through heaving breaths.

“It’s okay!  I forgive - I forgive you!  So - don’t - go!”

He pulled away, just enough so that he could see her eyes.  He cracked a small smile, brushing back the tear-stained strands of hair from her face.

“You’re going to have to be brave, just for a little while, alright?”

“Noooooo -”  She shook her head, not wanting to listen, her tears starting all over again.

“You’re going to have to take care of your dad for me while I’m gone, okay?  Make sure he sleeps and eats.  Can you do that for me?  Kiara?”

Kiara refused to say another word, already quick to pick up on the fact that no matter what she could have said, she wouldn’t be able to change the inevitability of what was about to happen.  She sat there stubbornly instead, clutching the material of his clothes between her fingers, a grimacing and silent scowl on her face even though her nose dribbled and her eyes continued to leak something fierce.

Something twisted in his heart at the sight and his eyes dulled for a moment.  Knowing that the other wouldn’t respond to anything more he had to say, he simply brushed a kiss against her forehead and set her slowly, gently, back down on the floor.  With one last fond ruffle of hair, he turned back to Kris who stood there watching him with an expression that was not unlike his daughter’s.

Still, the sommelier reached out, gripping the back of Tao’s head and tilting his own slightly, pulling him in for a kiss that was so heartfelt and desperate and longing that it made Tao want to cry.  Tao could feel every single emotion, could feel all of the love he knew the other man had for him in the way he held Tao to him now, fingers trembling from where his arm was wrapped around his waist.

And yet a strained - “be happy” - was all Kris told him before he let Tao go, taking a heavy step back to stand with Kiara.

Tao nodded numbly, slinging his last duffel bag into the passenger seat, trying his hardest not to listen as Kris urged Kiara to say something - anything - before Tao left.

She did, eventually, breaking from her vow of silence at last with just a few sobbed words.

“Don’t - leave - me, daddy!”

He paused, gripping the door frame tight between his white fingers, biting his lip between his teeth.

It took most of his strength to get back into that car and close the door, and the rest not to look back, to let her see the look on his face.

Eyes too heavy with restrained tears, barely able to see the empty roads in front of him, he’d only find the stuffed animal she’d stowed away in his backseat much later.

It had been buckled into the seat to keep him company.

-

Come find me when you’re ready.