A/N : New characters are added in this chapter. Thai actors Krist and Singto. They acted in a thai boy love drama "SOTUS".

italics : english

bold : thai

“Aren’t you done yet?!”

Yunho and Changmin look up at an impatient Jaejoong, each with the straw of their pink milk drinks in their mouths. That was Changmin’s third pink milk today. Since they came to Bangkok for a vacation, both Yunho and Changmin have become addicted to pink milk which they first had mistaken it as strawberry milk.

“We were just about to order breakfast.” Yunho says that but Jaejoong knows he’s going to ask for another pink milk.

“We had breakfast an hour ago. You said you two would be done by the time I dressed. Dammit Yunho, we’re here on a vacation but all we’ve done is eat.” As Jaejoong is whining, Changmin is waving at one of the waiters so he can order more food.

When a waiter arrives, Changmin happily chirps in Korean, “Chicken!”

The waiter doesn’t understand what the three-year-old said and asks the parents in English. “I’m sorry?”

“He wants chicken. The one on the stick.” Yunho happily says in English and Jaejoong groans.

“No, they’ve had enough. Thank you.” Jaejoong politely sends the waiter away and then switches his smile for a glower, “Listen you two, I’m not going to spend the rest of this vacation in the hotel restaurant, or any other restaurant for that matter. We’ve eaten every dish in Bangkok. Now we’re going to do some sightseeing and shopping. Alright?”

“Ne!” Father and son know better than to upset Kim Jaejoong and follow him out of the hotel.

~~~

Yunho looks over the multitude of people in the mall with a mixture of amazement and nervousness. While Jaejoong, the appointed local currency holder, paid the taxi fare, Yunho picked up Changmin and held him tight on his hip. “Don’t get lost okay?” Changmin nods, though Yunho knows his instruction will be forgotten in ten minutes.

Jaejoong steps right beside them while roughly counting how much baht they have left. Yunho pulls him aside when a group of teens ran past them, nearly crashing into Jaejoong. “This place is more crowded than when we ran into that Running Man filming in Myeongdong.” Yunho sees the people all heading towards a particular part of the mall, “why’d you choose this place? It feels like we’re setting ourselves up to lose Changmin.”

“I just looked for the closest mall. My sisters and their kids have given such a long list of souvenirs, I didn’t want to go very far for them.” Jaejoong shows Yunho the list on his phone, mostly of Thai spa products names, “It’ll be fine. I’ll do the shopping and you keep an eye on Minnie.” Jaejoong says while cooing at his cute son in his bear hoodie.

Yunho thinks it’s an agreeable plan, or so he thought.

The first part of the plan, letting Jaejoong doing to shopping, is already proving to be a difficult task.

Because Jaejoong is not buying a single thing from his sisters’ list. Yet he’s close to splurging.

“Jaejoong!” Yunho groans when Jaejoong puts a fourth stuffed elephant in the cart. That was the 11th elephant themed item in total.

Yunho knows that Jaejoong’s love for elephants only comes third to his love for Changmin and Hello Kitty, (Yunho got bumped to fourth place after Changmin was born) but this is excessive. Even more so than he and Changmin drinking all that pink milk over the last two days.

“These are way too many elephants. You can’t buy all that for yourself.”

“What? These aren’t for me. I have like a million nieces and nephews.”

At that, Yunho gave him a deadpan face, “You expect me to believe you’re going to part with these the moment we pay for them? Nope. You’re allowed two elephant things and that’s it.”

Jaejoong knows Yunho won’t let him buy all of the elephant souvenirs. Hell, he’s well aware he’s pushing his luck. But he loses all self-control when he sees every one of these cute pachyderms. Maybe he could push his luck a little bit.

“Five?”

“Three.” Yunho says with a tone of finality and to make sure Jaejoong complies, he’s going to pick which elephant they get to buy and move on to buying the other souvenirs.

Yunho puts Changmin down and walks to the cart. He starts filtering which elephant item would be a better purchase while Jaejoong tries to make a case for each of them. During this, they completely forget about Changmin.

Changmin had long gotten bored being carried around. This store had nothing interesting to his eye. They had passed a candy shop on the way here and he wants to go there.

Now that he’s on his feet, this is his chance. He’ll just go to that yummy candy store.

Changmin casually walks out of that store, nobody noticing the kid without a guardian around him. Outside the store, the boy is at a loss. He can’t see the candy store and he doesn’t know the way either.

He wonders if he should go back to his parents when he sees a group of girls run someplace. He notices a lot of people going to some place on the second floor.

There must be delicious food wherever these people are running to. At least to the Food Monster Baby, you’d only be this excited for food.

So Changmin follows the crowd and travels up the escalator. People around him give him a passing glance, everyone assuming his guardian is somewhere around.

Once on the second floor, he spills out of the crowded escalator with the scores of people. When he stands up, he looks around the place.

There’s a large complex in the front where the people are gathered. Right in the front, there’s something like a stage with lights on them. But there’s no candy store or food visible. The throngs of people made it impossible to see past them for a little kid.

With nothing familiar around and no parent to comfort him, Changmin gets fretful. “Umma~” he whimpers tearfully and looks for his mother. Usually his mother comes bounding out of nowhere at the slightest sound of distress from him. But his Umma didn’t come and he’s feeling afraid.

“doo-doo-doo-doo~” Changmin’s ears perk up at the familiar tune. He turns to where the people were screaming excitedly at something happening on that stage.  “doo-doo-doo-doo~” His face brightens up. It really is the baby shark song!

He can recognize that song anywhere. His father is obsessed with it. And where there’s the baby shark song, his Appa should be there too.

Changmin hurriedly toddles around the crowd to reach the stage. There are fewer people to the right, so he can walk with ease without coming under a stampede. The screaming people are scary though, and Changmin has to cover his ears over his hoodie.

~~~

“So one patchwork elephant, one trinket, and one figurine. That’s decided.” Yunho declares as Jaejoong morosely carries the selected items. “Now let’s get the other souvenirs. Let’s go Min.” Yunho blindly reaches behind him and catches air.

Jaejoong looks behind Yunho and doesn’t see his baby boy. “Yunho, where’s Changmin?”

At that query, Yunho looks around and realizes Changmin isn’t anywhere in sight. Both exchange looks of utter horror and then break out into shouts for Changmin.

~~~

Changmin made it to the very front of the crowd by the time the song is over. There’s a low stage with a bunch of people on it waving goodbye to the crowd.

The boy watches very keenly, looking for his parents among the people. And then he sees him.

Milky white skin and the dimpled smile that could brighten an entire room.

“Umma!” Changmin squeals and runs straight for his ‘mother.’ Being tiny and thanks to the crowd, he easily slips past the red ribbons keeping the audience away from the stage and the tall security guys in sharp suits.

Changmin zigzags around the other people on the stage and goes straight for his ‘mother.’ “Ummaaa~” he squeals and glomps his legs.

“wh-what?” His ‘mother’ nearly falls by the sudden koala that has wrapped itself around his legs but he’s caught by someone behind him before he falls.

“Perawat, what’s going on?” Said man doesn’t answer the handsome tanned man holding him steady by his shoulders. He’s only concerned with the kid clinging to his legs.

“H-hey kid, let go?” The man named Perawat tries to coax the boy to at least loosen his hold but the child’s vice-like grip only tightens and he buries his face into the side of his leg.

The tanned man looks at the people around him. Their fellow actors are still greeting the audience a little in the front and signing autographs for anyone to notice them, though a few members of the audience spot the child clinging to Krist Perawat Sangpotirat, the hottest young star in the country right now.

“P’Singto, help me.” Krist whispers to  his co-star-turned-boyfriend. Singto discreetly tries to pry the boy from Krist’s leg but the child only clung tighter. “Aniyooo~” Singto jumps, afraid he hurt the child. The boy peeks at the person trying to separate him from his ‘mother’ and sees a faint resemblance to his father. “Appa?”

By now, the security staff has noticed the little stage-crasher. One of the burly men comes over to help Krist. But the second he feels those rough hands on him, Changmin lets out a howl. “Aniyoooo~ My Ummaaaa~”

The loud music mostly drowns it out, but to the people in close proximity to the boy, it was a startling sound. This kid really has a set of pipes.

“Let him go. You’re scaring him.” Krist gets the security guard to back off while rubbing soothing circles on the child’s back till he mellows down.

“Krist, just take him before he makes a scene.” Singto says when he notices the boy has some attachment to his boyfriend. Looks like the boy feels comfortable with Krist. “Let’s go back. We can look for his parents once we’re out of here.”

Krist agrees and with nary a glance at his fans, he picks up the child and runs off backstage. Of course he is noticed by a few but Singto comes to the front and joins his co-stars to sign some autographs while he sneakily makes his way backstage.

~~~

“He’s this tall and he’s wearing a bear hoodie-”

“Jaejoong, they don’t understand Korean.” Yunho grits out in frustration when Jaejoong interrupts him for the fourth time while he’s trying to talk to the mall security.

After searching all over the store for Changmin, Jaejoong and Yunho approached the mall security to find their missing son. But to their dismay, the language barrier was making it difficult.

To make it worse, a panicky Jaejoong is forgetting they are in Thailand and these people don’t understand what they’re saying in Korean. Unfortunately, the two guards don’t know English either. Yunho has been trying to explain to them but Jaejoong keeps interrupting to get them to hurry.

And now Jaejoong is getting irritated himself. “Don’t yell at me. If you didn’t keep an eye on Minnie, he’d not be missing!”

“This is not the time Jaejoong! You’re not doing anything to help find our son this way.”

“Oh so I’m a bad mother now?”

When their argument got worse, the mall’s security head in whose office they were interrupted them. “Stop, stop!” He pushes each of them away, “Friend… English…He Come…” He tried to explain and was slightly relieved when the two men dropped the argument.

But the fear and worry is still there. Yunho reaches out and pulls Jaejoong against him. Jaejoong lets a shaky breath and leans his face on Yunho’s chest as they wait for the person the security officer called.

~~~

Krist enters the dressing room he’s sharing with Singto. He can feel the child he’s carrying fearfully gazing at the security guard who followed him. If this continues, the boy will be too afraid to talk.

“Please wait outside. And see if there is anybody looking for a missing child.” The guard complies and leaves the room.

It’s just Krist and the child now. His entourage is probably waiting someplace else but they should be here any moment. Till then, Krist decided he need to ask this child where his parents are.

But there’s a problem he noticed earlier.

Krist moves the bags and clothes from the couch and puts the child on it. Knowing the scary guy from earlier is not around, the boy doesn’t resist being separated from his ‘mother.’

But now that he gets a good look, Changmin finds something different. “Umma?” The child his head sideways to observe this person from a different angle. There are a few similarities to his mother, but at this distance without the blinding stage lights, this person is visibly different.

It’s starting to dawn on Changmin that he just ran up to a completely different person, a stranger more like it. Fear and embarrassment take over and he curls backwards in the couch. “Who are you?”

Krist sighs tiredly. The sentence confirms it for him. This child is not Thai.

The door flew open just then and Singto stumbles in. He finds the room empty, save for his boyfriend and the child. He evaded their colleagues’ inquiries to hurry here and he’s pretty sure their respective staff will be barging in here soon.