He must admit he swerved a bit because of those plush red lips – like, who wouldn’t?

“Yoon Jeonghan.”

God damn those voice-

Aish, this is not time for this! Get a grip of your ert mind!

“So you’ve known it along-”

“Why did you lie?” He was cut off by the y deep voice again.

“Why did you pretend not to know me?”

“Answer my question.” The almost growl got both back to silence.

“Appa?” At the doorway was Chan who appeared just to witness the pretty inapt standing position for a host and a guest (but a one-year-old baby couldn’t care less anyway), and just to save the poor guest’s life – or at least dragged it out a little longer.

“H-how about we get out of this stuffy room first?” Take that piercing gaze away, please…

Seungcheol still eyed him with the same amount of suspicion.

“I mean, you know, it’s not good for my allergy.” Mideo jwo, jebal!

The mention of health eased those orbs a little bit, but the other still didn’t make a move.

Do I really have to do this? “I will answer everything you want to know.”

The other returned him with a cocked brow like Jeonghan was an untrustworthy person, not that the long-haired himself also thought so.

“I promise.”

“Don’t go back on your word.” Seungcheol finally backed away, giving the chaebol room to breathe, and picked up the eavesdropping happened-to-overhear boy. “Chanie, kaja.”

The long-haired, on the other hand, could only blow a strand of hair that covered his face away in irritation. What’s gotten into him all these eight years? How did he become so stubborn and almost impossible to convince? Not to mention those dangerous stare and lips-

“You coming?”

Agh, is he even capable of reading people’s minds now? “E-eo.”

-

“So,” “So,” They both started at the same time after they had sat down at the certain coffee table, the guest on one side, the host on the other with the baby in his lap.

Seungcheol gave him the you-are-not-the-one-asking look and kept on going, “Why did you lie that you were not you, Yoon Jeonghan ssi?”

Why don’t you call me ‘Jeonghan-ah’, ‘Han-ah’ anymore? He cleared his throat to get rid of his childish thoughts. “You not seeming to recognize me that day made me believe you had forgot all about me.” About us.

“That’s true.” The man answered deadpan, much to Jeonghan’s surmise, except the following part, “I did forget most of you.”

“Most of me? What do you mean?”

“There’s only one thing,” The older continued like he didn’t hear him, “that I never forgot.”

“…Why?”

Maybe because of his response, the host let out a small chuckle, “..Most people would ask ‘what’, but you, Yoon Jeonghan, you asked ‘why’. Yeogsi, our chaebol is different.”

He didn’t know why that sounded rather like a mock to him, like he’d made a set of wrong decisions at coming in, sitting here, promising to answer his every question in hope of getting some truths out of it, like this man in front of him wasn’t the Choi Seungcheol he knew, and if that was the case, he didn’t like this Choi Seungcheol. Holding or trying to hold his growing annoyance in, Jeonghan demanded, “Why?”

“Woah, easy there, chaebol-nim. I am going to tell you now.”

Did he just smirk?

“Nado…molla.”

“Muo?” Such a simple answer to a simple question made his brows knit.

“I’m telling you I myself also don’t know why that hit on my head made me forgot about almost everything including you.”

That hit on his head? What happened?

The man shrugged in advance, “But anyway, thanks to that one thing and Myungho, I didn’t turn into a fool, which I almost did.”

This kind of talking really wasn’t his thing but he was trying his best to play it cool. “Is that supposed to be a riddle?”

“Well, if you say so...” That sounded rather playful than serious.

“What is that thing?” He just needed to play along though he wasn’t having it.

“Scent. Yours.” A kiss was fondly planted on sleepy Chan’s forehead. “Weird, isn’t it?”

Okay, so that has to do with the sniffing. “Ye-” He was about to agree, but a thought came to him. “No, that’s impressive. You are impressive.”

The older seemed quite surprised too but he didn’t let it show for long. Jeonghan noticed it nonetheless.

“How old is he?” He shifted his attention to the cute boy who hadn’t said a word and now was peacefully asleep in his appa’s arms.

“One year…” The dad looked up thinking, “and eighteen days? Is that right? Yeah, that’s right.” The last part was rather to himself.

“Where’s his eomma?”

The light in those bulky orbs faded at the context. “Eomma neun…eobseo.”

So that woman in front the café wasn’t the mother? …That’s why the house looks like it’s just the two of them.

“...She ran away when he was just two weeks.” The dad delicately brushed stray strands of hair away from the unconscious boy’s face.

“…I’m sorry.” The room fell into short silence as the dad didn’t say anything but continued rocking his son to sleep, and the long-haired just stared at him doing so. “Can I ask h-”

“Hmm?” Those orbs with pretty lashes looked even softer this time.

And that was the second time Jeonghan changed his mind that day. “I mean, can I hold him?”

Seungcheol again didn’t answer but crawled over to him, much to Jeonghan’s surprise, and gently placed Chan in his arms. And Chan, this time much to the dad’s surprise, promptly snuggled into the long-haired’s warm embrace like it was Seungcheol’s own.

“That’s impressive. You are impressive.”

“Huh?” He couldn’t help but lift his brow at the sudden compliment.

“Chan never does that to anyone, not even Myungho.” Seungcheol added with an admiring smile.

Jeonghan returned the smile with a reassuring one. “He’s so precious… I think I understand now how it feels,” his voice became a whisper, “…how she must have felt.”

“Who?”

“Eomma.” A tear dropped at the word as he held Chan closer. Please don’t leave me, eomma, not this soon. You don’t have to wake up, just don’t leave me…

-

Jeonghan felt really good today since he was sleeping an actual bed, not on the hospital couch like he had been doing lately. The bed was comfortable, warm and cozy, and all that. The only couple of things that disturbed his mind to the point of waking him up was that someone’s arm was resting on him, that something was nuzzling in his chest, and lastly, how he didn’t remember getting on the said bed.

It was a hard task cracking his eyes open but he succeeded after a while. And he thought his heart had just escaped him.

A baby?! Whose baby is this? How-

The heavy exhalation on his neck reminded the long-haired of the person he was being held in, if not clutched in.

…If this is Chan, it’s most likely that..that is…

Words could be scarier than you thought, and Jeonghan wasn’t brave enough to finish the sentence, even in his head. Things got worse as the man suddenly tightened his arms, squeezing all of them together. The heart Jeonghan thought had escaped him clearly didn’t as its beat raced up along with the unwelcomed heat he could feel on his cheeks, his ears, his face.

The people he was between, however, seemed to be too enjoying that Jeonghan didn’t want to ruin this moment despite the awkwardness only he could feel; one who was smiling in his chest, another who was softly nosing his hair. Above all, there was this undeniably satisfying warmth he himself didn’t want to let go.

“Mianhae,” Jeonghan mumbled into quietness when all the motion had settled down, “At first, I thought you were the one who left me – to somewhere that I couldn’t follow, to somewhere there’s no going back – but I was wrong. In the end, wasn’t it me who left not just you, but everything behind? I knew I should’ve believed in you, I knew I should’ve stayed and waited for you. But despite knowing everything, I still did what I did…

“I’ve never told anyone this because I was so afraid. You found me…firstly in church, then at home, on my way to school, in classrooms, to hospital, at parks, in dreams, everywhere. Those years had been that painful for me that I wondered how you got over me, like, mustn’t it have been unimaginably painful for you? Coming back to emptiness, having no idea what, was, going…on-”

The long-haired tried not to spill any tears on Chan. It took him a while to successfully stifle the broken bay. “hic- So you don’t have to forgive me… No, you must not forgive me, a coward who doesn’t have a single clue on what happened to you,” he momentarily paused to appreciate the beautiful rising sun. “The only one thing I know is, Choi Seungcheol, I’ve missed you…the same you.” Sleep was slowly overcoming his conscious again.

“I missed you, too.” But someone broke it before Jeonghan could even close his eyes.

His breath hitched. “H-how long have you been-”

“The whole time.” The soft chuckle was emitted onto the back of his neck. “I mean, I’m sure I was up before- Hey!”

The long-haired couldn’t take the embarrassment that was flaring up his entire body. He was more than certain that his face, his ears, his neck had turned redder than a beet.

No, this is not right!

“Jeonghan-ah, wait!” Seungcheol wasn’t fast enough to hold the other back from getting up, but he was fast enough to grab the younger’s wrist and surround him with his arms before he could reach the door. “Are you gonna leave after telling your story just like that?! What about mine? Do you not wanna know how I almost didn’t survived to be here holding you back like this?”

Jeonghan could try to escape but the older would be faster and get him in his hold again.

“I-I, I feel bad for you, Chan, and his mother.” The long-haired finally muttered into darkness.

“What do you mean?” But the older mumbled back in his hair.

“You got over me after seven years! So, I, shouldn’t-”

Not only their bodies were trembling, their words also came out quavering. “I never got over you.”

“You seemed so distant the whole time we were talking, like the old you were dead!”

“I am sorry.”

“…” All the fight came to an end with just three simple words, no more one’s trying to escape the other’s hold – though only to no avail.

“I’m sorry that the only thing I have for you is ‘I’m sorry’. I’m sorry that I couldn’t be as affectionate as when I still remembered you, you and your sweetest voice, you and your calm posture, you and your vulnerable bony hands, you and your effortlessly beautiful smile, you and…” He paused to catch on his breath. “But you know what? Despite everything, I haven’t been able to love anyone, let alone starting over, for something in me told me not to. And it’s always been this something, ever so small yet so important, that told me to believe, to stay, to have hope, and to wait.”

The younger was too dumbfounded to say anything as he felt a warm tear drop on his hand, Seungcheol’s tear.

“Keureo-nigga…ddeona jima.” His voice was as light as his breath, the mild morning breeze. “Let me hear the sweetest voice every morning, let me appreciate that calm posture, let me protect those bony hands, let me admire the effortlessly beautiful smile…let me return those to my memory.”

Another tear on his hand, but this time it was Jeonghan’s own. “…Seungcheol-ah, I-”

Waa…

The baby seemed to be up due to the loss of warmth.

“Chan’s crying.” The other seemed to notice it too but still didn’t let go. He can be cute at times, Jeonghan chuckled before urging, “I won’t leave, so go get him.”

Seungcheol lifted his head up and their eyes met.

The long-haired made a small smile. “Eoseo.”

Maybe his voice was reassuring or something, Jeonghan couldn’t know, but Seungcheol slowly released him and did as told.

Gosh, I can’t believe one’s hug could be that eerily addictive. The chaebol secretly let out a long sigh when he was sure the older had disappeared into the other room.

“Wanna go grocery shopping?”

“What?” He was taken aback a bit by the random question from the one who popped his head out along with the adorably yawning boy.