Minseok and Luhan were both very taken aback to discover Jaehwan sitting in Luhan’s room again after breakfast the next day, various Chinese textbooks from his language classes on Luhan’s bedside table.  An expression of sheer panic that nearly had Minseok ducking out of the room with laughter crossed Luhan’s face when the boy proudly announced that he wanted Luhan to help him with his school summer homework for Mandarin.

“But I’m not good with kids!” Luhan whined, trying to cling onto Minseok’s arm as his friend started down the passage towards his own room.

“Well, either you help me get Jaera up or you help Jaehwan,” Minseok reasoned, and Luhan dropped him like a hot brick, scuttling back to his room and the waiting Mandarin homework.  Chuckling to himself, Minseok snuck into his bedroom.

Jaera had already woken up and was bouncing loudly and enthusiastically in her cot, trying to climb over the side of it.  Minseok hastily shushed her in the hopes that she hadn’t disturbed Semi’s sleep, but his wife was already beginning to stir.  As Minseok reached Jaera and hauled her out of the cot and into his arms (she bit him lightly on the ear with a happy “Dada!”), Semi stretched her arm out to the side, to where she expected Minseok to be, and then jolted awake when she didn’t feel him.

From the terrified look in her eyes, Minseok knew that for a second she was nineteen years old again, waking up from a nightmare in the apartment in Seoul in darkness.  He crossed over to the bed and sat down, tucking Jaera onto his hip as he reached a hand out to Semi.  She took it gratefully, lacing her fingers through his as her eyes drifted shut again.  They remained like that for a few moments, Minseok trying to ignore Jaera attempting to eat his hair, and then he carefully disentangled his fingers so that he could reach up to cup Semi’s face.

“Are you okay?” he asked her quietly.  Semi took a deep breath and nodded before lifting her hand to cover his.  The bad memories returned every so often.  Much, much less frequently, she would have a relapse, though since he’d been released from prison, Minseok had only seen her have a panic attack once.  Compared to eight years previously, she was almost as well as she ever could be.

“Come here.”  His hand slid down to her back and he pulled her against him.  Semi complied, smiling a little when he pressed a soft kiss to her temple and nuzzled the crown of her head, but then the moment was ruined by Jaera grabbing a fistful of hair from both her parents and whacking their heads together.

“Yuck,” the toddler said happily.  “Sappy Mummy and Daddy.”

Minseok made a mental note to get the baby away before any emotional moments with his wife.  Children were sometimes a hazard to tenderness.

By midmorning, Semi was no longer looking shaken.  She wandered into the living room, where Minseok was playing a simple piano tune from memory as Jaera sat on his lap and attempted to hit stray notes on the keys (Minseok had wisely pushed the piano stool out as far as he could comfortably play from so that she couldn’t spoil the music), and leaned over his shoulder to add a slightly more complicated descant.

“Why aren’t you at work?” she asked when Jaera complained that her parents were being icky.  Rolling his eyes, Minseok dropped his hands from the piano keys and pushed his daughter’s head away from his shoulder, which she was trying as a biting post.

“I’m taking Trouble here to the dentist in about half an hour,” he reminded her.  “I spoke to Lay while you were eating breakfast.  We all know it’s not the best of ideas for you to drive while you’re pregnant, particularly when you nearly broke your ankle stepping out of the car when you were pregnant with Jaera, and after this morning, I thought it would best not to put you back in that environment.”

“I can manage,” Semi said mildly, though she did pause for a moment.  “Can you get me some more peppers while you’re out?  Really spicy ones this time?”

Minseok raised an eyebrow and absently pressed a key on the piano.  “Sure.  Anything else?”

“Nah.”  Semi walked her fingers up the side of his neck and he yelped, almost dropping Jaera as he grabbed at Semi’s hand to stop her from tickling him.  “Have you seen Jaehwan recently, though?”

“Icky,” Jaera announced, wrinkling up her nose.

“He’s in— shush, you,” he told the child as she raised her voice to complain again that her parents were being embarrassing.  “He was in Luhan’s room last time I saw him.  He wanted help with his Mandarin.”

Semi gave a very noticeable wince.  Minseok looked up at her.

“He won’t hurt him,” he reassured her.

Semi sighed.  “I know.  It’s just… it’s just hard, you know?  Every time I think I can forgive him, I see the scars on my arm again or Sehun texts me about a nightmare he’s had and I just can’t do it.  I pity him, I really do, but I just can’t.”

“You don’t have to.  You don’t owe it to him and it’s more than enough for him that you’re giving him kindness he hasn’t seen since he was a child.”  Minseok chewed on his bottom lip.  “Sehun told me he was speaking to Chanyeol about stuff.”

Semi sighed again and turned away, absently rubbing her swollen belly.  “It’s not good,” she murmured.  “It’s not good.”

Sungjong was hyper when Minseok showed up at the police station, Jaera sleeping in his arms as she’d created such a fuss coming out of the dentist’s that Minseok didn’t think it fair to send her wailing back to Semi and had just let her cry it out.  Yixing and Jongdae both cooed over her sleeping form for several minutes before Sungjong bounced over