“I’ll help you, eomeonim,” Kyungsoo said immediately, setting fresh towels down on a chair when he saw his mother-in-law already spreading the clean bedsheet over the queen-size mattress on the guestroom of Chanyeol’s home. 
 

Kyungsoo took hold of one side and pulled gently, while Baekhyun smoothed the surface and tucked the ends under the bed in a flourish.  
 

“Are you hungry, eomeonim?” Kyungsoo asked, mimicking his mother-in-law’s thoroughness on his side of the bed.  “Chanyeol and Minseok should return shortly with some food.” 
 

“I hope we aren’t too much of a bother, Kyungsoo-yah.  We would only be staying for a few days,” Baekhyun told his child-in-law apologetically. 
 

“Not at all, eomeonim,” Kyungsoo deferred, shyly smiling.  “I welcome the company, as I am often by myself here.”  He bit his lip, lowering his gaze.  “I am happy that you, samcheon and Minseokie would be staying here in the meantime.”
 

“I know my son built this house with four other bedrooms in the hope that we would be living with him eventually.  I told him that he should find a mate instead, and soon.”  Baekhyun laughed.  “Chanyeol didn’t disappoint.”
 

Kyungsoo’s cheeks grew rosy in an instant. 
 

Baekhyun walked over to face his child-in-law.  “While we always come over whenever Chanyeol invites us, I couldn’t stay here for more than a week, because I start to miss our family home in Gwanak.”
 

Kyungsoo’s smile faded slightly, knowing that it was not his place to disclose what his alpha was planning to do with the home, much less have a concrete idea of what the plan actually was.  “W-Well, we would be having the formal bow of the families in a few days.  This house would be a good venue since you are already here, and my parents could...”
 

His voice trailed off when he noticed a subtle yet perturbed change in Chanyeol’s mother’s expression.  “Eomeonim?”
 

Baekhyun had already met Kyungsoo’s mother, whom he was able to get along with just fine.  It was Kyungsoo’s father that he wasn’t looking forward to seeing again…
 

“You have such beautiful, soft hands.”  Baekhyun reached for Kyungsoo’s in admiration and squeezed them fondly. 
 

His child-in-law had the kind of hands he could only dream about—only one of the proofs as to how opposite ends of the spectrum Chanyeol’s and Kyungsoo’s family backgrounds sadly were.
 

“Kamsa-hamnida, eomeonim,” Kyungsoo whispered humbly, his mother-in-law’s rougher yet warm hands over his own.    
 

“When I was your age, Kyungsoo-yah, I had to mind two food stores to help my mother,” Baekhyun wistfully began, “so I would carry two-year-old Chanyeol on my hip at the crack of dawn to start buying ingredients at the marketplace.  I remember he would pick up the biggest cabbage for kimchi and play soccer with it!”
 

Kyungsoo giggled, vividly imagining a miniature Chanyeol doing something mischievous like that.
 

“He was a very happy kid, even though we didn’t have much,” Baekhyun admitted, looking at his beautiful child-in-law intently.  “I know my son still has that carefree, not-so-serious side somewhere in him…”
 

“He does, eomeonim,” Kyungsoo comforted, sighing.   His alpha hadn’t let his guard down because…
 

That was what kept him together, all these years.
 

Kyungsoo pressed his lips together, faltering but desiring nothing more than to confirm that nagging coincidence at the back of his head, so he still had to ask.  “Minseok said that… Chanyeol had to work in place of their father when he was younger… is that… true?”
 

Baekhyun bowed his head, not too proud.  “Hadn’t Chanyeol told you?”
 

Kyungsoo looked away, his heart hammering in his chest at the thought of Chanyeol finding out what he had discovered and yet Kyungsoo needed to find out the truth.   “I don’t mean to pry and it is fine if you don’t want to tell me—”
 

“M-My alpha had owed a debt so huge that we couldn’t pay it in this lifetime…” Baekhyun observed Kyungsoo for a few seconds before continuing, seeing the confused, baffled expression on the younger omega’s face.
 

So Yifan hadn’t told his child either?
 

Why?
 

What was Yifan’s motive?
 

Perhaps it was time for Kyungsoo to know.
 

“U-Until he ended up working for the person he owed the debt to.”  Baekhyun swallowed, hoping to divulge the details in a bearable, objective manner.  He was talking to his child-in-law now after all, and Yifan was now part of their family—whether they liked it or not.  “My a-alpha hadn’t finished school, all he knew was poker…”
 

Kyungsoo gasped.  “Chanyeol told me that his father was known around the poker circuit as Monkey…”
 

Baekhyun nodded, his spirit sinking, but comprehended that he had to go on.  “My son inherited his father’s genius for it, only Chanyeol had much better luck on the game than Yunho did.”  He exhaled painstakingly.  “My alpha could only do manual labor, so he worked as a carpenter for this construction company…”
 

Carpenter…
 

Kyungsoo’s eyes unexpectedly filled with tears.  “Eomeonim… d-did your alpha work for…” He swallowed, blinking rapidly so as not to cry in front of his mother-in-law, “for my father?”
 

Baekhyun decided not to answer directly, but rather proceeded with the story.  “A-And after a few years, my alpha’s liver was weakening.   Then we discovered that he had cancer… until he was unable to work, but we had hardly paid the money he owed… so Chanyeol had to beg the company to loan us some more money for the hospital bills…”
 

Chanyeol and his Appa knew each other.
 

And the hate that just coursed between them… Kyungsoo had felt its palpable energy whenever they were in the same room together.
 

The great lengths Yifan had gone, even wanting to kill Chanyeol, when he discovered that they had married in secret?
 

Had this rift begun more than a decade ago?
 

“S-So Chanyeol… had to go to my father...” Kyungsoo wiped the tears from his mother-in-law’s cheeks with his thumbs as his own spilled endlessly from his own eyes, connecting the pieces of an even bigger puzzle than he had anticipated. 
 

“I know just how cruel your father could be,” his alpha’s haunting words echoed on his mind.  “Yifan has no soul.”
 

“And my father told him to…?”
 

“T-To work until the hospital bills are paid, which had accumulated to 1 million KRW at the time…” Baekhyun wept, feeling as if some of the burden had been lifted from his shoulders.  “My son agreed right then and there, dropping out of high school and sacrificing his scholarship and insisting that Minseok continue because he wanted his dongseang to live his life as normally as possible.  Only less than a year had passed when my alpha… died… and it just… it destroyed Chanyeol.  We hadn’t been able to pay the debt in full and my son left home.  I didn’t see him for almost six years.” 
 

Baekhyun rubbed his throbbing temples, sniffing.  “And when he returned, Chanyeol had grown up so muc