“How did we end up here?” 

It wasn’t that he expected an answer, exactly, but it would have been nice.  

Dark, almond eyes stared back at him unblinkingly, and he swore he saw a challenge sparkle in them. Unfortunately, Jaejoong was not a quitter, and he rarely backed down from a fight. 

It was why he dragged his chair slightly forwards, leaning forward until his elbows were resting against his knees, fingers bridging together so he could support his chin across them. He could do this all day, stare into the pretty eyes of the stubborn one, surname Jung. 

He would have won too, without any sort of real struggle, if not for the plastic set of pink and white keys on a yellow ring that suddenly hit him in the face. The blonde flinched backwards, blinking owlishly as he tried to process the sudden assault, and his bewilderment was apparently hilarious. 

Loud giggles filled the silence, and he was certain it was an arrogant victory cheer as he reached down and snatched the keys from the floor. 

“I could have you thrown out of the hospital for that, you know. I could call security,” he threatened weakly. 

“If she answers you, you’ll go down in history, you know,” the air voice of Junsu floated through the doorway, causing Jaejoong to groan. 

Now there was a witness! What awful luck. 

“How on earth did I get stuck watching Yunho’s niece?” 

He was still in disbelief, honestly. The baby girl was 6 months old, hardly a bother but at an age where she definitely needed supervision and more stimulation than being strapped into a front pack, fed and changed in between naps. He was at work! And though he did like children, it absolutely wasn’t what he had had in mind- at all. Jung Jihye didn’t even know him, for christ’s sake! 

But the pretty young woman had breezed in that morning all the same with her pretty baby, asking him where Yunho was because it was his turn to watch the munchkin. He didn’t even want to think about the way his chest had constricted painfully, how inexplicitly distraught he was at the thought of Yunho’s wife bringing their child to him at work. 

He hadn’t been able to bring himself to answer, and Jaejoong suspected he had looked at distraught as he had suddenly felt, for some reason that made no sense, because Jihye had quickly added to the story.