CHAPTER EIGHT

Paris, France

 

KNOCK. KNOCK.

 

Hana answers the door after awhile and immediately receives a Korean greeting from a girl. Compared to her, the girl was short in stature, hair neatly pulled back in a high ponytail, she wore light make up, was dressed in classy clothes and sported a smile on her face that Hana returns.

 

“And you are…?” Hana inquires. The female stretches out her hand and Hana reluctantly grabs it then gives it a firm shake, “I’m   (insert your name here)   but you can call me you because heaven knows how many people in the world have the same name as me” she chuckles and Hana laughs rather awkwardly. She was humorous but what exactly was he doing there? “Can I help you?” she asks, unsure if she should even ask but it was one way to figure out her purpose.

 

“Right,” she pauses for a moment then proceeds “I’m sorry about my absence yesterday but in case you haven’t called for replacement yet then I’m your personal assistant for the span of your stay here in Paris”

 

It was strange because Hana didn’t even know she was supposed to have a personal assistant. So she invites the female inside her room and asks her to wait for a bit while she finishes getting ready so that they could get to the first agenda of the day. Apparently, there was a schedule of activities for her during her week stay in the city.

 

By eight o’clock, they were out of the hotel.

 

The first agenda of the day consisted of Hana attending some meetings with her boss’s colleagues; she had been informed by the lady to study every nook and cranny of the operations going on at CUBE plus provided her with copies of documents that could aid her so she doesn’t blank out during the said meetings. Thankfully, they were all about finance so Hana didn’t have much of a difficulty learning them.

 

“Is it your first time here in Paris, Mrs. Wu?” her assistant asks, cutting her off of her deep thoughts of wondering if Kris was doing well with Aiden. “Please, call me Hana instead” she requests and you nods her head with a smile, Hana then proceeds to answer her question “Yes, it’s my first time in Paris; what about you?”

 

“I’ve been here since highschool” she says;

 

“So… how did you wind up being my assistant?” Hana asks, not meaning to pry but out of pure curiosity. you ends up relaying her story to Hana the whole car ride; it turns out that she was currently in her final year of college and did this as a favor for Hana’s boss –who happened to be the girl’s scholarship provider.

 

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Ms. Hana” she says with a smile, “I even saw you on some magazines, you look different in person”

 

Hana chuckles “Make up makes all the difference” she says.

 

“Either way, you look pretty and I can see why Mr. Wu chose to marry you”

 

Hana was flattered; she was beginning to get comfortable around this girl which was good news because it meant that she wouldn’t have to worry about being awkward. Eventually, they arrive at a building –it was tall but not as tall as those that she usually sees in China, its façade was intricately detailed blending in with the rest of Paris. Her assistant leads the way inside and there she was greeted by French people. Hana suddenly feels nervous… language barriers.

 

“Just speak in Korean, Ms. Hana and I’ll do the translations” you assures her with a smile and a light pat in her arm.

 

“Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour!” a lady, possibly in her late 50s as what Hana observes, wearing fine waltzes directly towards her direction then when close enough, lens forward and finishes off her greeting with a cheek-to-cheek kiss “Bienvenue à Paris! I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Mrs. Hana Wu. I’m Mrs. Beaumont, current CEO” you translates in Korean and Hana replies which she also translates in French.

 

“It’s an honor to be here; Paris is very beautiful” Hana flashes a smile.

 

“Ah, merci beaucoup; I can see that my friend’s grandson has never lost his taste, he must have fallen in love with your smile, yes?” she glees and Hana chuckles upon hearing the translation then responds “Kris keeps it a secret, he never told me”

 

After the little chatter, Mrs. Beaumont invites them both to her office for tea and aswell as to talk about business.

 

“She’s been telling me a lot about you, dear. It seems like you are very well off to stand on your own two feet and perhaps run a business empire like your husband?” Mrs. Beaumont queries; Hana shakes her head and sets down her cup of tea “Oh no, I think it would take much of my time since I have Aiden to take care of”

 

Mrs. Beaumont listens to the translation for awhile then responds, “Ah yes… the Wu family’s heir. My, my, you are an attentive mother but I’m sure you can handle both”

 

Hana was not sure but she had this strange feeling in her gut that Mrs. Beaumont was implying something behind her words. Eitherway, Hana decides to steer away the subject “So, it seems like your investment at CUBE is doing fairly well, Mrs. Beaumont; the collaboration for last season’s perfume line got sold out in just over three months”

 

 

WEDNESDAY

Babysitters: Uncle Yixing and Uncle Sehun

 

“Huh?”

 

Kris was raises a questioning brow. Was it just him or did he just hear Yixing request him to bring Aiden over to his place because he was working from home for reasons that he brought all the documents over to his condo with Joonmyeon’s consent with a promise of bringing all of it back to the building before respective deadlines. If that was the case, then they all might aswell work from their damned homes.

 

Unacceptable! Kris would’ve never allowed it, work should be done in the office during office hours, and they were not homework that could easily be taken home.

 

Note to self: have the talk with Joonmyeon.

 

“Please?” Yixing pleads on the other line and Kris sighs, “Fine… but Yixing, I don’t want your actions repeated. I’m going to have the talk with Joonmyeon later on and the next time I hear someone taking home what needs to be done in an office, I will personally bury alive”

 

Yixing clicks his tongue. He shouldn’t have told Kris, he could’ve just driven over and picked up Aiden but it was too late now, he has spoken and there was no way to erase it.

 

“But dude, working at home is comfortable. I personally think I’m more productive here, why is it so necessary to work in the office anyway?” Yixing questions

 

“Because there’s this thing we called office hours, Lay and you get paid by the hour but since you chose to work at home and obviously didn’t come in to the office to time in, technically you’re absent and that means a deduction on your salary”

 

“…”

 

“I’m sending Aiden over”

 

“…are you serious about the deduction thing?”

 

“Yes. Goodbye.”

 

Yixing sighs on the other line and looks at his phone. He then mentally notes himself to order all these documents back in his office, first thing tomorrow.

 

AIDEN

 

I miss mama.

 

I wonder where she is. I want to see mama again and hug her and kiss her, I miss her that much! I look at Ace-hyung and ask him if he misses mama too; ofcourse you do, right hyung? Mama always gives me good night kisses on my cheek and she always feeds me good food… aigo, I wanna see mama.

 

Hmph, but how?

 

Wait, baba must know where she is, baba seems like he talks to mama with the use of that thingamajig.

 

I saw my uncles owning one like baba’s but the one baba owns seems to be the only one that can contact mama. Hm… I should go ask baba! Right, I am so smart!

 

“Baba!”

 

 

 

Kris feels a tug on his slacks and looks down to see Aiden, looking back at him with his huge innocent eyes and chubby cheeks.

 

“Mama” he mumbles and for a moment Kris is confused; he pauses from tying his necktie and bends down to pick up the boy in his arms then he sits himself down on a nearby chair and settles Aiden on his lap with the boy’s back against his chest, “Mama’s not here kiddo” he explains but it wasn’t like the kid could full understand him anyway.

 

Aiden looks around the room for a bit then points at the table beside the full length mirror; Kris follows the direction of his finger and spots his phone.

 

He raises a brow at the kid, half amazed, half weirded out.

 

Regardless, he gets up to his feet with the boy in his arms and grabs his phone. He returns to the chair and sends Hana a text to see if she was awake as he was very well aware of the 9-hour difference between Seoul and Paris.

 

BEEP.

 

 

After a few taps on the screen and a second-or-two wait later, a bright smile appears on Aiden’s face as his mom’s face appears on screen, somewhat looking tired and sleepy but nevertheless smiling back at the sight of her precious baby and husband.

 

“Mama!” Aiden giggles, clapping his hands and drumming his legs in pure happiness that he had seen her even thought it was just from a screen.

 

“Aiden-ah ~” his mom calls out to him and he giggles some more at the sound of her voice “Hey baobei, sorry to disturb your sleep but this little monster missed you” “It’s okay, I miss you guys too… are you doing well so far, honey?”

 

Kris feels a loss for his voice at the moment but he knew that he couldn’t show the slightest of uneasiness –it wasn’t that he was feeling guilty (maybe just a bit) or that he was afraid that she would know (she mustn’t!) it wasn’t even because of the fact that he was not the one looking after the boy for most of the day (nope) but it was more because of the fact that that he simply missed her.

 

“We’re doing fine” and Kris thanks the heavens that Aiden could not form comprehensible sentences now or he would single-handedly put Kris on Hana’s hitlist. Mama, the uncles are taking care of me! It was fun!

 

“That’s good…” she yawns “are you going somewhere today?”

 

“We’re going to Wu Enterprise, I have meetings to attend to” he explains, adjusting himself in his seat as Aiden reaches out his hands to the phone and holds it with his dad “And you’re taking Aiden with you?”

 

Kris nods, mentally going down on his knees to ask his wife for forgiveness. He was beginning to feel guilty about the contract he signed but he was also more than determined to never let Hana find out about it at all possible costs. She smiles in adornment and goes awe at the effort that Kris was showing.

 

“You’re becoming more and more like a responsible daddy, baobei”

 

He wants to stab himself.

 

“Aiden, go kiss mommy” he coos the boy, successfully reeling the subject away. Aiden puffs up his cheeks and makes a kissy face; slowly leaning in until he almost kisses the screen then backs off to smile at his mom. “Mama loves you too, baby… be good to baba, arasso?”

 

Aiden claps his hands and giggles and his mother assumes that he understands.

 

“We have to go now or we’re going to be late; have a good night’s rest” he smiles at his wife and Hana nods “You two take care of yourselves, okay?” “Yes ma’am. Good night”

 

“Good morning”

 

“and I love you”

 

“Wo ai ni”

 

“Say bye bye to mama, Aiden” he coaxes the boy. Aiden waves his hands at his mom and smiles at her “Bye bye ~”

 

The call ends and Kris puffs out a breath of relief. He turns to the boy and meets eyes with him for a moment; Aiden flashes him a grin with his two half-grown front teeth “this is our little secret, okay kiddo?”

 

Can I have potatoes?

 

 

Lay was ready… for battle.

 

The fridge was equipped with baby food, he had turned his spare room into a play room (courtesy of Tao’s toys), diapers –aswell as baby wipes and powder- were ready to use in the bathroom and the most important…

 

His home office was secure and he had set up a fence so Aiden would not be able to enter as it was strictly a NO BABY ZONE, with the number of important documents in there, he simply could not afford any of them torn or used as a canvas –Xiumin had once told him of an incident where Aiden was left in his office and he drew all over important contract, it was horror.

 

He smiles in content as he looks around his condo then answers the door after the third knock. Viola, there stood Kris and in his arms was the youngster that he would be taking care of today.

 

Aiden waves at him with an adorable smile and Yixing felt himself flustering. Is this how Tao feels?

 

After a brief moment of Kris giving him general instructions, Aiden’s baby bag and a little bit of menacing warning about what was to happen if anything should happen to the boy, Yixing gives him a salute and assures him to take care of Aiden at all costs.

 

“And one more thing, Lay…” Kris pauses on his way out of the door and turns to look at Yixing over his shoulder, “try not to get hit, he has a thing for hitting people”

 

Yixing raises a brow at him. Kris closes the door and leaves them both be in the condo; Yixing turns to the boy –who was ogling at the fishes in his wall mounted aquarium. Fishies! So many pretty fishies ~

 

“Nemo ~” the boy says as he leans in and sticks his nose to the glass.

 

20 minutes later…

 

There were shuffles of soft steps on the floor, a little giggle and then silence. Yixing quietly counts to five and goes back to work, ten seconds later, the events repeated and this time he peeks over the open door of his office and sees Aiden sitting on the carpet with his back him. He didn’t know what the boy was doing but as long as he was not crying or anything of the sort then all was fine… atleast that was what Yixing assumes.

 

So he goes back to work, wanting to finish as much as he can… he really should have gotten up from his seat though, he could have saved himself from paying the roaring amount of mobile data bills that was about to come his way.

 

Aiden randomly goes through his clueless uncle’s phone and unknowingly taps on the screen of the phone, not a second later, a giggle escapes his lips as he sees a familiar face on screen.

 

“Oh?” a confused Luhan appeared on screen, “Aiden? Yixing, what is this?”

 

It’s the one who looks like mama!

 

But Luhan doesn’t hear an answer from his colleague and gets much more confused as to why Aiden was on his screen. “Yah, Minseok-ah! Come see this!”

 

Minseok then appears on screen and goes into immediate awe at the sight of the baby on Luhan’s screen; Aiden was not speaking, he just kept smiling and clapping his hands “Aigo, so cute ~ hello little one!” Minseok says, Luhan raises a brow in wonder and informs his friend “I think Yixing doesn’t know about this” “Oh? How so? Aiden couldn’t have just simply done this”

 

“Mama ~” Aiden says and sends his uncle Minseok into a fit of laughter while Luhan palms himself in the face.

 

“Aiden-ah, where’s uncle Yixing –” the little boy grabs the phone off the carpeted floor and accidentally taps on the end call button; he grows confused for a moment at the sudden disappearance of his pretty uncle and the walking onion. Where did they go?

 

He taps on the screen again a couple of times to try and do what he did earlier on but contrast to his expectations of seeing his uncle Luhan on screen, a different face appeared instead.

 

“Yes Yix –wait, Aiden-ah? Wait, wait, Yah Yixing-ah! Is this a joke? Geez…” whined Baekhyun but doesn’t receive a reply from his friend; he calls out Yixing’s name again for several times but gets to answer still, “Yah! Baek, can you stop yelling over the phone?” came Chanyeol’s annoyed voice, Baekhyun turns to the side and tells him “Yixing’s pulling a practical joke of some sort with Aiden; he’s using the boy’s face on Face Time”

 

Chanyeol comes over to his side and raises a brow.

 

“I think he just accidentally played around with Yixing’s phone” Kyungsoo says, appearing on the screen aswell. “Psh, and how is that possible?” Baekhyun snorts, “It could be the case though” Chanyeol agrees with Kyungsoo. Aiden ends the call then and repeats his previous actions, this time an aged lady appears on screen.

 

“Eh? What’s the meaning of this?” it was Yixing’s mom.

 

She was both confused and surprised at the sight of a baby on her screen and not of her son’s face. Grandma?

 

Just then, Aiden gets swooped up by surprise –much to his delight- and Yixing picks up his phone, shocked to see his mom on the screen “Ma!” he exclaims.

 

“Yixing, what is this? Whose baby is that? Is that yours? What have you been doing there young man?!” she was clearly upset and Yixing was thrown into sudden panic, “N-no, it’s not what you think –” “I am going to cut off your little willy, young man! Do you hear me?! Tell me, who is that baby’s mother?!”

 

“W-well, it’s Hana’s bab –”

 

“Hana Wu?! You fooled around with Yi Fan’s wife?! Does he know about any of th –”

 

“Mama! It’s Kris and Hana’s son! Jesus!”

 

His mother takes a deep breath and silence surrounds them both while Aiden giggles in Yixing’s arms and plays with his uncle’s locks “I see… he looks adorable” his mom smiles suddenly. Bipolar woman.

 

AIDEN

 

Hehe, Uncle Yixing is fun!

 

He keeps playing with me, chasing me around and hitting himself in stuff and also bumping into walls! I think he’s a little tired but he’s still running so I guess he’s not.

 

“Aiden-ah, please come here for a minute so I can put powder on your bunions” You’ll have to catch me first, hehe. I should hide from him, in here maybe (The closet) or maybe under that (the bed) “Aiden-ah ~” I know! I run off under something and hide; he’ll never find me here.

 

LAY

 

My legs are going to give up on me.

 

I slump down on my bed for a moment to catch my breath; apparently, Kris forgot to mention the part how his kid has a stamina of a football player –I’m sure Minseok and Luhan would be proud- and I assume this side of him comes from his father’s love for sports.

 

Sigh, it’s nearing lunch time and I have to go drop him at Sehun’s office for his turn.

 

“Aiden-ah, please come out… we have to meet with your uncle Sehun” I plead and hope he hears me. I have made sure that the main door was shut before I changed his diapers so the possibility of him getting was out was pretty much zero and I would like to thank myself for that because if another lost scenario ensued, I would get publicly executed by Yifan himself.

 

I look around the room for a moment and see a faint trail of baby powder on the floor that lead under the wall-mounted dresser. Just as I was about to take a peak, Aiden suddenly runs out and I was quick enough to latch him onto my arms.

 

“Gotcha!”

 

He giggles and slaps my forehead… hard “Ow!”

 

 

There were many reasons as to why Sehun deemed himself to be unfit to take care of a child.

 

It’s not that he didn’t want to take care of Aiden, he loves the boy dearly so and he would be lying if he said it won’t be fun because he’s pretty sure it will be; however, the fact that he was an active businessman with so many agendas and meetings that he can’t afford to cancel was one of the factors why he finds the idea of taking care of a one-year-old kid is not for him.

 

Other than that, he wasn’t really known to have patience and in fact, his patient-o-meter goes lower and lower with every passing day.

 

What if it runs out on duty and Aiden ends up crying and traumatized? Kris will have his head on a plate for sure. Sometimes, Tao doesn’t really use his head and Sehun swears that if bad comes to worst, he will personally burn every single Gucci item that Tao owns and make the said guy watch in horror.

 

He would probably have a major mental break down and go into coma, but hey… that’s just how Sehun pictures it.

 

“Sehun?”

 

“No.”

 

“Please?”

 

“No.”

 

“But –”

 

“I swear to god that I’m going to tie you to a tree and burn every Gucci you own if you ask me one more time” he threatens.

 

“You wouldn’t” Tao gasps in horror; he could not even fathom to think of such a cruel act! Sehun glares at him “Try me”

 

The two give each other a long hard stare. One somewhat pleading and the other killing him with his eyes alone, finally… Tao throws his hands up in defeat and sighs in exasperation “Fine!” he then stomps out of Sehun’s office perhaps to throw a tantrum at his office because the other rejected his plea of getting him another personal assistant.

 

Sehun would but then Tao had a nonsensical reason for it –he said he needed another person to carry shopping bags and fire people for him because he couldn’t do it himself without living with the guilt- so Sehun doesn’t, besides he’s already got enough problems from Tao. It was also a bit of a revenge for Tao dragging him into the babysitting thing without much consideration of his personal endeavors.

 

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

 

“Come in” Sehun calls out to the person on the other side.

 

The door opens and a giggle makes him look up; he glances at his watch and sighs inwardly, right… after lunch. Yixing had entered his office with the baby in his arms on a blue pacifier. Sehun saves his work and leaves the comfort of his chair to walk up to Yixing “Excited?” his friend asks, wiggling his brows to which Sehun responds with a poker face and sarcastically remarks “Yes, I’m so excited that I can almost barf a rainbow”

 

“Oh come on,” Yixing chuckles “it’s not so bad!”

 

Sehun rolls his eyes, “I thought this was supposed to be a team effort or something?” “It is” Yixing nods, “I do my part, you do your part”

 

“I thought we were going to do this together in a sense that we take care of him at the same time?”

 

“But then you’d probably leave me with all the work and that would be unfair so that being said, this method is better and fair” Yixing states then hands over Aiden to his co-boss; a smirk comes across his face suddenly and he looks at Sehun in the manner of provocation “Unless…”

 

Sehun raises a brow at him “Unless what?”

 

“You’re not up for it?” Yixing chuckles, “Oh Sehun can’t handle a baby?”

 

“You’re provoking me” Sehun accuses him and Yixing laughs again “So what if I am? Do my words say the truth?”

 

“Nope; I’ll show you that I can handle this baby myself” he says with determination. Yixing inwardly pats himself in the shoulder for successfully luring in his victim “And if you can’t… you’re going to treat me out to lunch to a place of my choice, everyday for two weeks”

 

“And you’ll be doing that for me, if I can”

 

To seal the deal, Yixing extends out his hand to Sehun to which the other shakes while flashing a confident smirk.

 

SEHUN

 

Sometimes, I think my colleagues don’t use their brain or their common sense… well, to be honest, I think its most of the time. Yixing is my fine example for today, the last example being Tao.

 

If anyone in this company knows one thing about Oh Sehun (which is moi) it’s that I never do bets unless I’m a hundred-percent guaranteed to win. Chanyeol knows it, Luhan knows it, almost everyone I placed a bet with knows it… and Yixing is just about to find out.

 

“Aiden Wu” the boy turns to me with his bright wide eyes, that made us swoon when he first opened them, I smile at him and ruffle his hair “Pororo?”

 

He smiles and claps his hands; ofcourse, everyone loves Pororo.

 

 

 

The next hours for Sehun were peaceful.

 

He was able to get ample amount of work done with Aiden being distracted by Pororo on the laptop he placed on the table for him that played episode after episode. The only times Aiden bothered him is when he wanted milk and when he got a little sick of watching, Sehun handed him crayons and paper –which worked like a well-oiled machine- because Sehun guessed he got his father’s artistic side.

 

When the boy got to the brink of crying, Sehun simply rocked him to sleep and asked his secretary to prepare the couch.

 

There were many reasons as to why Sehun deemed himself to be unfit to take care of a child… but in the face of challenge and determination to win, he was an ideal husband.

 

By the time Aiden woke up, Sehun had decided to place away work for the day and perhaps enjoy the remaining hours with the little boy –a.k.a. sweet victory.

 

“Aiden-ah, let’s get some ice cream” he smiles at the boy as he picks him up in his arms and exits the office. On his desk, he leaves behind his open laptop whose browser was opened with multiple tabs, the main tab being Google and the rest of the tabs about babies.

 

Yixing was going to cry both for his cellphone bill and the regret of challenging Sehun.