Yixing found Jisoo was busy in the kitchen when he got home. He climbed to sit on the stool by the counter island, watching her making something like kimchi pancake, back facing him while she was stirring the dough.

"She'd been like that since two hours ago," the maid mouthed to him before she excused herself to find something else to do and left them alone.

Luhan told him what happened as he drove home, that Jisoo was some kind in the shocking state after an incident involving a woman named Kim Taeyeon, who apparently was trying to tell her that she was bearing a child. It shocked Yixing too the first time Luhan mentioned it, he couldn't stop swearing to see the twist of the story and withstand the growing vexation as he guessed what Taeyeon was trying to do right to his fiancée. She must have known what kind of person Jisoo was, she deliberately used her situation as a weapon to overpower Jisoo and got what she wanted from her that way.

He was furious and horrified at the same time, because, what did she wish to happen now? Because he could see that Jisoo must be in a mental breakdown after the incident. She was highly self-righteous that he knew how big this revelation would affect her. Yixing felt the need to get ready to give her the understanding because he saw the possibility that Jisoo might be thinking about dropping their charge because of the pregnancy itself. No matter how deep her sympathy toward Kim Taeyeon, Yixing couldn't let her make such a decision right now. Not after she made him drop the charge against the thousand netizens with their malicious comments.

"Baobei," he cleared his throat to catch her attention, and Jisoo spun around immediately to hear him.

"Oh, Yixing. I didn't hear you." she beamed happily, it's kind of strange. "I made some kimchi pancakes, try it."

Jisoo took the stack of pancakes she made and put them in front of him, who cringed at how high the stack was.

"You don't expect me to finish all this, do you?" he asked then.

"Why not?" her eyes widened as if he had said something shocking.

"Well, even though I want to eat everything, Beibei, it's just impossible. You basically made quite a lot to feed all the residents of this building."

Jisoo looked disappointed. She pursed her lips while staring at the pancakes she had made as if it were a pity if they were not eaten. And Yixing detested the look on her face, he felt like devouring the high stacks of the pancakes in front of him immediately so that the pout disappeared.

"Well, then, let's share them with the residents." Jisoo took out a plate from the drawer for him with the chopstick, and Yixing plated the pancaked for himself while watching her plating some layers of the pancake to several plates and covered them with plastic wrap. And then she called the maid and asked her to send all the packagings to the residents downstairs.

"I didn't think that it would be this much, so we need to share. Tell them that they have to finish this, don't bother to return the plate." 

Yixing couldn't help but wonder what was on her mind. She looked strangely happy and it's weird given to the incident happened earlier. He watched her putting the used plate to the sink and washed them, and then covered the rest of the dough with more plastic wrap before storing it at the fridge. All this looked like she was trying to get herself busy that she would have no time to mourn or being upset, and really, it bothered him to see her like this.

"Baobei," She just finished wiping the wet plates and pans, then put them back into the drawer when she heard him calling.

"Yes? Do need anything?" She smiled.

It's weird. The smile was weird, what's going on here?

"Are you okay?" he dared to ask.

"Yes!" her answer was too immediate that it sounded too airy. "Why would I not be? The pancake's good? How do you like it?"

He glanced at the mostly gone pancake on the plate and shrugged, he was too focused on watching her that he almost forgot how it tasted,

"It's good, I love it." He watched her wiping the marble countertop, took all the dirty dishes to the sink and washed them. Yixing didn't say anything when she did all that in silence, wiping the wet dishes and put them back to the drawer, opened the fridge door and stood there to see nothing in particular, only to close it without taking anything. She then wiped the countertop again, cleaning all the visible surface while her mind seemed to wander somewhere else.

Yixing couldn't take it anymore so he caught her wrist as she passed in front of him,

"Do you want to talk, Beibei?" he asked with his voice started to sound concerned, his tone serious. And Jisoo avoided his eyes by looking somewhere else,

"I, don't have anything to talk about," she said.

"Yes, you do. You've been really out of it, you know that? You stared into nothing, you keep wiping the same spot for the whole five minutes, you're giving away our plates. You do have something to say, and I'm here to listen." 

"But, I'm..."

"Baobei," he cut her and shook his head in displeased.

Jisoo said no words after that. She locked her eyes on his as if she was thinking of what to say, then after it seemed like almost forever, she sighed and made a turn to reach him for a hug. She pressed her face on his shoulder and started to cry, and Yixing wrapped his arms around her, taking her petite body to his tight embrace. He rested his chin on top of her head and her back gently while she lashed out her emotion in an exasperated sob.

"She's pregnant, Yixing. It's not, fair!" she whined irritatingly, clenched her fist and punched it to his back. 

Yixing didn't say anything. It's not a doubt that he was raging now, and he tried to hold back himself from flipping out and put an end to those people's lives right now.

It's really hard to believe that there were still those heartless people in this world, using their situation to overpower one's weaknesses to get what they want. They certainly knew how Jisoo really was, and they used her compassion to manipulate her, knowing how big this situation would get to her. They're really really petty, he's so disgusted. 

"The worst part of this is," she pulled away just enough to see him and Yixing wiped her tears with his thumbs, "I can't stop pitying her. I can't just ignore the fact that that I'm also a woman, and I feel sympathetic to her though another part of me felt how wrong this is. I'm so, maaaad!" she snarled.

His brow furrowed, somehow feeling the anger that she lashed out. He never saw her like this, and it just showed him how frustrating this situation for her was.

"Let's not listen to her. You keep it together, alright? Just forget her, she doesn't worth your attention..." he said.

"But I can't!" she snapped, "She jumped at me and begged to have her husband back. She showed me her baby's image and it's growing, for God's sake, what was she even doing?!"

Yixing cupped her face to have her focusing at him. She'd been cracking up, hammering the countertop with her fist and he didn't want her to hurt herself. She needed to calm down, and she seemed unable to do it by herself, he needed to help her.

"Baobei." he calmly said, "You know what I do when I'm pissed?"

Jisoo shook her head.

"I'll sleep on it." He told her, and she squinted her eyes as seemingly finding it hard to believe, "Believe me, sleep will help you freshen up your mind once you wake up tomorrow." And with that, he slid off from the stool and took her by her hand to her room. He climbed the bed to rest his upper body on the high pile of pillows and pulled Jisoo to lie next to him.

He had gotten used to this intimacy since they started to live in together, that it didn't feel awkward anymore just to lie here even with the lack of proximity between their bodies. Yixing wouldn't deny that it slightly bothered him sometimes, he was just a human somehow. He's a man with needs, while Jisoo was attractive; not to mention that she smelled so nice⁠—the nice cherry blossom scent from her shampoo and sweet raspberry from that body butter she always applied every day. And often he must really try to divert his attention from the rush that he felt from his lower body part because it was enough to intoxicate him, and he must refrain from losing himself.

Jisoo laid down to lean on his shoulder then curled on his chest as she wrapped her arm on him. A few moments of silence, he ran a hand to her head and it gently. Yixing could feel her emotions starting to calm down.

"For a split moment today, I had the thought to just put this to an end. Just let him go, because she needs him," she said then, her voice was as weak as her soul right now, and Yixing mentally sighed.

"If I were her, I want my husband to stay next to me, Yixing. I've seen people struggling with pregnancy, it's really hard to get this through alone." she paused, and he didn't say anything, just to wait for her to finish anything she would like to say. "But if we give this up, we will lose the chance to punish him forever and it's not fair. It's not fair for all the people he's wronged."

"She's trying to manipulate you, Baobei. Don't fall into the trick." he then voiced his thought. He was as vexed as she was, but it's more to 'he couldn't believe that a person would do that petty thing just to save themselves' vex. 

He had lived long enough to be among the people who were there to bring him down. Even to the extent when he sometimes felt hurt at those people's bad words and deeds, even though he never let himself be influenced by their negativity. But this was just the worst, those people were the worst human beings Yixing had ever met in his life.

It got him to recall his maternal grandfather once said that good men would pair up with good women, and vice versa, that bad men would end up with bad women too. Yixing could only say that those words have a point now that he met them himself. That Byun Baekhyun and his wife were the living proof that the latter words were much more than true.

"I won't. I'm just mad. I can't believe I've let my guard down and pity her, I hate this feeling."

"You don't have to hate it because that's your virtue. It just shows that you still have a heart, and it's a good thing." Yixing slid down his hand on her head to her upper arm and squeezed it lightly. "Are you still mad now?" he then asked a little later.

"A bit," Jisoo answered him shortly, she snuggled her face to his neck and Yixing took a deep breath for the tingling feeling she made from the light sniff of her nose. He pulled away slightly, just enough to let the sensitive spot of his neck free from her ticklish breath.

"Sleep then," he said as he felt reserved enough from all the blood rush sensation that climbing up to his head. He needed to calm down, he shut his eyes to think about the new project for Moscow instead.

He reached out to take the TV remote from the nightstand and turned the TV on to watch some western movies in Korean subtitle while keeping the volume off. Another moment of silence and it was about half of an hour later that Jisoo started to drift off, he tilted his head to the side to check if she had really fallen asleep, and when she had, he scooted away carefully to slid down from the bed. He pulled up the blanket to cover her body up to her waist, and it was then he finally able to breathe comfortably. 

Good job, Yixing, he praised himself with self-pat to his shoulder and slipped away from her room to get on his phone.

"Tao, sorry to call this late," he greeted his secretary as his call was connected. Tao asked him if something was wrong with the late call, and he replied to him, "No, everything's fine. It's just, I want you to find this woman. Her name is Kim Taeyeon, take her to see me once you get her. You don't have to do it now, get some rest and do it the first thing in the morning tomorrow. Thanks, Tao."

He put his phone on his vanity desk, sauntered the room to the closet to dispose of his clothes and went back to the bathroom. He got a long hot shower just to get rid of his fatigue from the all-day work and came out of the shower room about half an hour later to find his phone kept vibrating.

His father called, and what he told him was not good news.

Yixing didn't waste time to get off the jet as soon as the door opened. His steps were hurried as he got down the stairs and sprinted to the heliport with some security to help him climb to the awaiting helicopter to take him home.

He flew to Beijing early this morning, leaving office work with a short briefing he sent to Luhan about what he needed to do today; and that Tao would assist him today to sub him. His father called last night to tell him that his mother collapsed yesterday morning and was having a home treatment now. He intended to fly home right then and there, but his father told him to delay it until the morning so everyone would get a proper rest, and that's exactly what he did.

Yixing thought not to wake Jisoo when he saw that she was still asleep and left a note on her nightstand, but thinking twice, he stopped himself. He knew that Jisoo would not like the idea to wake up alone with just a note. So early in the morning, Yixing woke Jisoo at five o'clock to say goodbye, telling her that he would go to Beijing to see his mother and go straight home tonight. She was a bit disoriented because it was still too early, but she looked worried about the news. Yixing promised to give her a call later on, then he made his leave with a light peck on her lips.

News about his mother was enough to make his heart dropped. His mother was never very ill, if she got sick at most it was just the common cold. And was told that she suddenly fainted after helping the workers harvest tangerines, he was really worried. He couldn't sleep last night, snoozing a bit only to wake up every fifteen or twenty minutes to check the hour, and the previous two flight hours were the long