Last night we fell

Zitao and Jongdae

"...I'm just keeping it alive..." Zitao's voice fades off, speaking into the dial-tone.

"We're sorry, your call did not go through. Please hang up and dial again." The automated voice, a garbled fascimile of a woman's voice, is an old friend. Zitao sighs and hangs up. He never dialled anything anyway.

Sometimes it feels like this isn't a real relationship, he repeats in his head. Sometimes it feels like it's roadkill that someone kicked to the curb and everything I'm doing is pointless. Something that's dying anyway and in my delusion I'm just keeping it alive.

He feels sick, sitting in the cold morning light, as the kettle in the kitchen starts to whistle. A warning siren for the future.

Somehow it doesn't happen though; he sees Jongdae, smiles despite the sad twisting in his stomache. Jongdae waves and he follows like a kicked dog. I hate myself today.

He lets Jongdae him into the sofa again, and cleans up in the cold after he's gone. His tea is cold and he dumps it into the sink. Why am I doing this to myself?

His mom calls on skype. The reception isn't great, he blames it on the weather. She frowns when she looks at him but doesn't say anything. She knows better. "What happened to your friend, Sehun?" There's an undercurrent of pleading to her voice; Zitao doesn't like it much but he doesn't know how to fix it. He doesn't know how to fix anything. What do you do if you're not sure you love your boyfriend anymore, and you're pretty sure he doesn't love you?

"He got a boyfriend," he says finally. He's happy for Sehun, he really is. Inseparable during university, they're still good friends and meet up for ribs on Sundays. Jongdae isn't invited. Sehun never liked him much. Fair's fair though, I guess. He doesn't bring Yifan either.

Zitao brightens up, and he can see his mom's frown fade into a softer expression. "They're having a baby," he says, grinning at the image. Yifan, so panicked. Sehun, so grown up somehow. You'll make such a great dad.

"You should have a baby too," his mom laughs before they hang up. Zitao thinks about Jongdae, and pushes the thought away. Like that will ever happen.

But when he's staring at the strip on the flimsy plastic test weeks later, the second blue stripe swimming into view, he remembers his mom's words. They echo through his head like an omen of ill fortune.

He sits in the bathroom for a while, calls Jongdae without pressing the buttons and listens to the mechanical woman tell him to hang up. He leaves the phone off the hook.

11:47 Sehun...I'm pregnant.

11:54 well
12:00 are you going to keep it?

Zitao stares at the screen and wants to throw iPhone across the room, but he doesn't. It costs too much money, for one. His job as a lab technician pays well, but if he's going to have a baby he has to be more responsible. I guess...that means I'm going to keep it, right? He realizes that he's somehow already decided, in the seconds between reading Sehun's message and deciding not to chuck his phone at the gleaming white porcelain of the bathtub.

12:03 yes

He gets up off the floor and makes a cup of tea, drinking it while it's still hot. It tastes good, minty on his tongue. He smiles.

Zitao hasn't seen Jongdae in a couple weeks.

"You need to tell him," Sehun says. They're standing next to each other, looking at the cold winter wind whip over the duck pond, stirring up the water into messy waves.  Zitao stuffs his face down into his scarf. He's three months along; you can't really tell yet but he's very concious of the life inside him. My baby.

"Yeah..." he sighs, the sound getting by the wind out over the lake to disappear between the tall grey apartment buildings.

He takes the subway after saying goodbye to Sehun, who's on his way to another photoshoot.  "Tell him," Sehun says, as the doors swish shut. Zitao nods.

The steps up to Jongdae's apartment feel steeper than usual but he's not going to surrender and use the elevator, he's not that pregnant. And if he's out of breath and has to pause for a moment, bent over, hands resting above his knees, it's just because the air is chilly in January.

So that's why he's still standing at the top of the steps when Liyin, Jongdae's ex-girlfriend, storms out of his apartment, the door slamming behind her so hard it bounces and the lock doesn't catch, so Zitao can see Jongdae standing in the doorway. Their eyes lock, Jongdae's eyes widening in surprise.

"You're such an arrogant !" Liyin shouts over her shoulder as she makes her way to the elevator, the steps where Zitao is standing in her path. "You never learned anythi—oof!" Zitao is too startled to move, as the beautiful woman with long brown hair walks right into him. As he overbalances, there on the top of the stairs, starts to fall.

And then Liyin has his hand in hers and she's pulling him to his feet. Zitao starts to shake, there on the steps, and he wants to stop but he doesn't know why he's shaking. Liyin takes one look at him and pulls him into Jongdae's apartment, elbowing him aside when he's too stunned at the strange turn of events to move.

Liyin has him wrapped in a blanket, a mug of warm peppermint tea in his hands, perched on the sofa as she sits beside him, glaring at Jongdae until he closes he door with a muffled click, the electric lock announcing in a sing-song voice that it's shut. Zitao finds himself snuggling into her warmth. He's never met her before, but he somehow likes her a lot. Jongdae, you might be a jerk sometimes but you have good taste.

He watches Jongdae look around almost hesitantly before sitting down awkwardly in the armchair across the coffee table from them.

"Hi Zitao," he says. Zitao nods. Liyin sighs.

"Are you guys actually dating?" her voice isn't loud, but it somehow rings through the room anyway. And Zitao isn't sure, exactly, but her bluntness helps him get to the point.

"I'm pregnant," he says, the words spilling out of his mouth so easily. It feels right. He can feel Liyin shift beside him as she turns to look at him, but his expression must reassure her because she gives him a quick smile before looking back at her ex.

Jongdae is frozen, hands clutching the arms of the sofa, his fingers white. His long eyelashes flutter as he blinks, and Zitao realizes, with a sinking feeling in his heart, that he's still in love with him. He wants to reassure Jondgae that everything will be okay; he starts to open his mouth — and then he feels Liyin's warm presence at his side, remembers her hand reaching out to save him from the fall, and waits.

Jongdae doesn't say anything.

Somehow Zitao isn't expecting him to. He gets up, because it's getting late, and he still has to take the subway home. Maybe I'll take a taxi.

Jongdae is still sitting in the living room as the door closes. Liyin walks with him to the road and flags a taxi when he starts to head in the direction of the subway.

"You'll keep the baby, right?" she asks, as he's getting into the car, cold tendrils of wind whispering a change in the weather. Somehow the question doesn't feel awkward. He nods, smiling. He's still smiling when his phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out as he steps out of the taxi in front of his apartment.

20:52 hi this is Liyin ^^ I got your number from that useless boyfriend of yours so text me if you need anything okay?

20:54 thanks (*o*)

20:57 you still love him, don't you

21:01 yeah

21:03 if he breaks your heart I'm going to hurt him

Zitao pays the taxi driver, grinning as he takes the elevator up to the eighteenth floor. He hangs his coat up neatly and puts the kettle on, peppermint leaves in a glass cup. The wind rattles the windows slightly, but it's warm inside. Where are you, Jongdae? He stares into the dark, as winter clouds become snow.

Sleeperstar's I was wrong provided the title, section break text and infinite loop while I was writing.