"Two salmon, Table 4." Yunho let the server take the plates before turning to the remaining dockets. It's late and service has slowed, but as he's checking the remaining dockets he's realizing they're all for the desserts.

Yunho lets out a painful exhale before schooling himself back into head chef mode. He turns to the kitchen and gauges who among his staff is not doing anything important at the moment. His gaze locks on the youngest cook, Yoo Sikyung, cleaning his station.

"Sikyung-ah, head next door to Fraiser and run the dessert pass tonight." If the young commis found it weird, he wouldn't say lest he lose the opportunity to run the pass by himself. He almost looks like penguin on ice as he stumbles through the door that connects the two kitchens of Frasier and L'Attitude.

Yunho's sous chef decides to take a break then. Hojun had noticed Yunho looked stressed all day and he can tell it's not because of work. He comes beside Yunho and starts cancelling the other half of the tickets. "Where's Jaejoong?" Yunho doesn't show if he heard Hojun, his pen cancelling each docket at a rapid pace. But the tightening of his jaw is something Yunho's childhood friend has always known is a sign that something is bothering him. "Yunho?"

"At home..." Yunho drops what he's doing and stalks off to the store room, Hojun in tow.

"He's not well?" Hojun asks shutting the door behind him.

 "I wish. At least then I'd know what to do." Yunho slides to the floor and slumps on the sacks of floor.

"What happened?"

"I don't want to say."

"So you'd rather torture yourself like this?"

Yunho lets out a shaky sigh and blinks away the tears smarting his eyes. He'd really like to get this off his chest and Hojun is the only one who understands. "An adoption fell through." Hojun's breath hitches as Yunho continues. "She decided to keep the child....a girl…"

Hojun hurts for his friend but all he can do is put a hand on Yunho's shoulder and hope his consolatory feelings come across. But what use is his consolation? It won't give his best friends a child. He can't do anything for them, useless as the last time his friends went through this.

After a surrogacy attempt failed, Yunho and Jaejoong could only afford another attempt at surrogacy not knowing if it would succeed or adopting a child. They decided to adopt. But the wait was long.

Hojun doesn't know when they were informed there's an expectant mother putting her child up for adoption. But to be given that hope only for it to be shattered had to have been devastating for them.

"What will you do now?"

"I don't know... We need to talk about this… but I'm afraid of bringing it up. Jaejoong took this harder than last time. He almost went back to scream at the girl if it wasn't for his sister stopping him."

"I don't know when will be a good time to talk about this to Jaejoong. But he probably needs you right now more than ever."

"Yeah..." Yunho stands while dusting the flour off his cheek. "I'm going to go home. Can you close up?"

"Of course. Take a few days off if you need. I'll run the ship. I'm sure Dara can manage Frasier too."

Yunho responds with a bear hug like he's prone to do, telling Hojun that his friend will be fine.

~~~

The house is dark when he returns. Even the kitchen doesn't look like it had been used all day. That only happens if they're away from home for more than a day.

For a second Yunho is afraid that Jaejoong is not at home. But he can't just assume without checking, can he? He turns on the lights first and takes a look around the first floor.

The first thing he notices that their coffee table is missing. The living room is mostly the same except for the table, armchair and futon that are not where they should be. A peek at the now bare space reveals a bunch of candles that seem to have been put out a while ago piled clumsily in a corner. There's also a layer of white powder, flour by the feel of it, scattered on the floor.

What has Jaejoong been doing? Yunho decides to ask him just that when he finds him.

Yunho runs upstairs and checks all the rooms. But Jaejoong is not around. He goes over to the balcony attached to their bedroom and looks over their backyard. To his relief, he can see the familiar platinum blonde hair under the dim garden lights.

He runs to the backyard just as Jaejoong is returning. "Oh! You're early..." Jaejoong looks shocked more than surprised Yunho notes. It's like he wasn't expecting Yunho yet. "I was... about to make a light dinner..." Jaejoong shows the plastic basket in his hands that has a few beetroots, herbs, and a lemon from their vegetable garden.

"We can do it together." Yunho takes his hand and leads him inside. Jaejoong washes the vegetables while Yunho fetches what they need from the refrigerator, the entire time not a word is said between them. Yunho can see Jaejoong is struggling to speak while he mentally prepares himself lest he says something he doesn't mean. "Yunho I..."

"I know..." Jaejoong is slightly startled by his response. "You do?"

"Yeah... I know how you feel and I want you to know that it's going to be okay. Let's take our time to...heal... okay? And we'll talk about our other options after that." Yunho drops the container of yogurt on the island, uncaring that it toppled on the side, and hugs Jaejoong. "I love you Jae. Whether we have a family or not, that will never change. Don't forget that."

Yunho doesn't loosen that embrace until Jaejoong responds by wrapping his arms around Yunho. "I love you too Yunho." Jaejoong pulls away slightly to face him. He's unusually sheepish, which is very disconcerting. "There's something else I wanted to tell you." Yunho an eyebrow and Jaejoong gulps. "I... uh... did something extreme."

Yunho jumps out of the embrace in fright. "Kim Jaejoong you didn't kidnap a child did you?"

"What?!" Jaejoong is shocked by his assumption. Oh good. Even he knows that kidnapping is way too extreme. "No... nonononono... I did something better."

"And that would be?"

"................. sign a deal with a demon."

~~~

The room is spinning and he can taste bile in his mouth. Can it get more absurd? As he peeks under the ice pack and watches Jaejoong sweep the flour on the floor, Yunho decides it could be worse. Though he's not sure he'd faint and hit his head on the floor hard in any other situation too.

After what Jaejoong said Yunho thought he meant the mafia or something. But as Jaejoong helped him to the couch, he said he literally made a binding contract with an actual supernatural creature. He's slightly relieved Jaejoong's not getting a kid off the black market like he feared.

 Jaejoong disposes the candles before sitting on the couch next to Yunho's leg. He his hip comfortingly and reaches to hold the ice pack against Yunho's crown. "Do you need anything?"

"An explanation."

Jaejoong sighs before letting go of the ice pack. The bag falls on the floor in a clump but neither care as Jaejoong lies down over Yunho's torso and snuggles him. "I was desperate okay. I didn't know what else to do."

"What did you do exactly?"

"Summoned one hell of a cat loving Weirdo. He was quite human-y mind you. Anyway we signed a deal that he will give us a baby."

".... a human baby?"

"Sort of..."

"Jaejoong..."

"I specifically told him it should look human."

"Jaejoong, if what you're saying is true our problem won't just be hiding a tail inside a diaper."

Jaejoong leans back to look at him affronted, "I'm not lying."

"I'm not sayin-"

"I really signed a deal with a demon and tomorrow we're going to have a baby."

"Tomorrow?!"

"Yes, so look cheerful." Jaejoong rolls off him and escapes to the kitchen to resume dinner.

Yunho is slightly appalled he'd just end this ridiculous discussion right here. He gets up too fast, feeling dizzy again. Grabbing his abandoned ice pack he follows Jaejoong. "Jae, can you just..." he sways and grabs the island to steady himself. "You're saying we're getting a baby tomorrow? What are we getting a baby off Amazon?”

Jaejoong briefly looks up from slicing beetroot to nod, "Think of it that way. It’d be easier."

"A human baby from a demon?"

"A human -like baby." Jaejoong emphasizes which is slightly disturbing to Yunho.

"What is a human-like baby?"

"A lot like a human baby but a demon. Aren’t kids generally like that?" Yunho takes a full minute to digest that while Jaejoong serves two plates of  salad. "Oh by the way," Jaejoong places a plate in front of Yunho, "we're out of ricotta a