From: Kyu Umma <3
Subject: -
Don’t bother picking me up and sending me home starting from today. I’m currently busy.
Take a good care of Donghae.

Siwon woke up to the worst morning of his life as he read the cause of it all, before his hand quickly pressed the call button, which was as expected.

“Appa? Wonnie appa? Appa!” Donghae, who was crawling around his father called out at his father’s distressed face.

“Oh, Hae, your umma won’t be going with us starting from today and he didn’t pick up his phone. What should we do now, Hae?” Siwon rubbed his face, feeling miserable.

“Umma?” Donghae looked at his upset appa with wide-eyes.

“We will have to look for him ourselves. What do you think, Hae?” Siwon carried his son out of the house and into his Audi before speeding towards the place where it all started; the bus station.

After waiting for ten minutes, Siwon started to grow anxious at not seeing his object of affection as he kept dialling the lawyer’s number.

“Appa, appa, Wonnie appa, umma?” Donghae looked at his father expectantly.

“We will meet him tonight, Hae,” Siwon sighed as he drove to the daycare, no sign of Kyuhyun at all, even at the younger’s usual stop.

Worst day ever.

“What happened to Kyu umma? Donghae kept crying the whole day, calling his umma,” Jessica frowned as she put the wailing baby on Siwon’s hands.

“I-It is just a misunderstanding,” Siwon chuckled nervously and said his farewell before entering his  car.

“Yeah, hope it was just a misunderstanding, right Hae?” Siwon tugged the still-crying baby safely in the baby’s seat. “We will definitely meet Kyuhyun tonight,” Siwon said to his son, and the boy stopped crying.

Less than thirty minutes later, the flashy sedan stopped in front of Kyuhyun’s skyscraper building, not far different from Siwon’s own. An hour of waiting later, Siwon was just going to retire for the night, when his eyes caught the man he was searching for.

Only to be embraced by another man, taller than Donghae’s umma. It wasn’t really an embrace since the stranger only wrapped an arm around Kyuhyun’s shoulder, but still, it was terribly intimate in Siwon’s eyes.

“Hae, wait quietly alright?” Siwon took off his safety belt and decided to approach the man, when said man suddenly laughed at what the stranger said.

All thoughts of meeting Kyuhyun instantly vanished, and Siwon had never felt this empty and cold before. It was like someone just dumped him with a cold ice water, or maybe even a huge ice block.

“Appa? Umma?” Donghae stared at his father inside the car and at his favorite person outside the car with curious expression.

“He never even laughed freely like that in front of me,” Siwon muttered as he rested his head on the driving wheel, cautious enough not to press on the horn.

Lifting his head, he saw the man he yearned for entering an unknown car, definitely that stranger’s car.

“Appa! Umma! Umma!” Siwon turned to look at his son to see the younger pointing at the leaving car.

“We can’t follow him, Hae. Kyu might not even want to meet us anymore,” Siwon sighed and drove home, passing a few red lights on the way. The father was still wondering how he didn’t get caught by police.

The single father carried the sleepy baby down before bathing him and tucking him to the baby’s crib without much interaction between the two, where usually, the father would coo and tickle his son until the baby laughed before tucking the child to bed.

“You are so messed up, Won,” Heechul shook his head as he put the packs of can beer onto the coffee table, where there we already empty cans.

After the baby had been lulled to sleep, Siwon had toaken out all of his beer and soju stock, setting it up on the table, before calling Heechul and Hangeng, earning a grumbling Princess-Chul from the other line.

“Hyung,” Siwon nodded a greeting before sipping his drink again.

“Where is baby Hae?” Heechul sat on the couch opposite to his best friend and beside his boyfriend.

“He is asleep,” Siwon rubbed his face before bottoming up the can.

“What happened, Won? I have never seen you this depressed,” Hangeng frowned in worry as he looked at his best friend.

“I don’t think Hae will have any time soon,” Siwon shook his head and drank another sip of the alcohol before his drink was taken away by a disapproving Heechul. “Hyung!”

“You are not drinking anymore until you tell me what’s going on,” Heechul put the half-filled can on the glass table with a loud sound.

“You know that I pick Kyuhyun up every day and send him home every night, right?” Siwon started and saw both guests nodding their heads. “He messaged him this morning to not pick him up nor send him home again starting from today. He said he was busy,” Siwon smiled bitterly and shook his head at the thought of the haunting message.

“Have you tried calling him?” Heechul asked, looking most serious Siwon had ever seen him.

“What do you think I have been trying to do in all my free time today?” Siwon looked at his hyung with desperation.

“Maybe you should wait?” Hangeng unhelpfully suggested.

“I saw him tonight, after picking Donghae up from the daycare, I went to Kyuhyun’s office. He was there,” Siwon paused.

“Did you approach him?” Heechul inquired.

“I couldn’t. He was with someone else, and they were really close. And he had never laughed for me like that before,” Siwon lifted up his can of beer again before Heechul could prevent him and drank again.

“But that is impossible! Kyuhyun doesn’t seem like the person to play with someone!” Heechul opened a bottle of soju instead and poured it into a glass before drinking it up.

Five bottles of soju and eight cans of beer later, Hangeng dragged a drunken Heechul who was pointing at an equally drunk Siwon.

“You! You need to confront him, Won!” Heechul pointed to the drunken CEO. “And you should bring back Hae’s umma, alright!” Heechul punched his arm to the air as Hangeng dragged him out the grand house.

“Yes, Hyung!” Siwon punched his hand to the air too as he shouted, before immeidately droping down to the couch, falling asleep.

Beep. “Good morning, Mr. Choi, this is Secretary Kim, I am just checking up on you. Today, you have no schedule, but do you need any help, Sir?” 

“Appa! Wonnie appa!”

“Hae...?” Siwon woke up and instantly held his head with his hand. “!” the man cursed before slapping his mouth with his free hand and glanced at Donghae, who thankfully, was too focused at the fish plushy in his crib.

Siwon pressed the dial number on his phone and requested a day off, perks of being a CEO.

“Appa!” Donghae called, demanding his daddy’s attention.

“Not now, Hae, appa needs to...” Siwon immediately puked his guts in the toilet bowl before he splashed himself with water from the shower.

Twenty minutes later, the man wiped himself with towel before wearing fresh clean clothes, although the man’s face was still far from fresh. He was tempted to call someone to help him take care of his son since he wasn’t in the state of mind and health to do that. Someone who understood his son so well... someone like... Kyu.

Siwon’s mood plummeted and it was even worse, hearing Donghae’s cry.

“Hello? Leeteuk-hyung? I kind of need your help. Can you take care of Hae today? I feel unwell right now,” Siwon called his neighbor, whose house was just a few feet away.

Five minutes later, a dark brown haired man with a taller big-built man entered the house, followed by a five-year old boy, who ran into the house with a monkey doll.

“Don’t run, Hyuk,” his dad warned him and the boy immediately stopped running.

“Thank you so much, Leeteuk-hyung, Kangin-hyung,” Siwon closed the door and rubbed his sore head.

“What are you thinking? Drinking when you have a baby you need to take care for,” Kangin grumbled as he saw Siwon’s condition.

“Drinking?” Leeteuk looked at Siwon then his husband.

“I know when someone’s having a hangover,” Kangin shrugged as he walked towards Siwon’s fridge to grab some cold soda, while Leeteuk busied himself with baby Hae.

“You go take a rest, Won. I will be taking care of your son here,” Leeteuk told the house owner.

Siwon nodded and entered his bedroom, drifting back to sleep.

The next time Siwon woke up, the sky had set, and Siwon could hear faint noises outside his bedroom. The man sat on the bed and drunk the painkiller provided by Leeteuk on his bedside table, before slowly making his way out of the dark room. The CEO squinted at the light in the living room, before he spot a laughing Donghae who was currently playing with Eunhyuk, his neighbor’s son.

“Ah, you have woken up. Dinner is on the dining table. We have eaten, so you go eat,” Leeteuk told the taller as he sat beside his husband and watched the currently popular variety show on the TV.

Siwon put his plate of food on the coffee table as he sat opposite to the couple and checked his phone. There were lots of messages, but none interested him.

He pressed the call button and waited, still no answer.

Sighing, the man continued to eat, gulping down the supposed-to-be-delicious food, although it tasted bland for him. Alcohol and heartbreak had that kind of effect.

The next morning wasn’t that much better from before, although Siwon’s health reverted to normal.

“Hae, let us go meet umma,” Siwon strengthened his resolve as he carried his son – after he had the baby’s diaper – and entered his car.
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