I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols.

Jaremiah 16:18

Taesun looked out of the window. He had watched Taemin leave, again. He had always done that in the last few weeks. After he had done his work, he had left.

Where to, Taesun didn't know, and he didn't know if he wanted to know.

Something in Taemin had changed and it scared him.

"Is everything okay?" Jinki sat down at the kitchen table after pouring himself a coffee.

His father winced slightly. He hadn't noticed Jinki come into the kitchen, he was so caught up in his thoughts. With a sigh, he sat down with his son.

"Yeah." Jinki looked at him over his mug.

"Dad." He said meaningfully and glanced at him in a knowing way.

Taesun looked at the table in front of him. It felt wrong to him to ask Jinki for help and advice. In the last few years they had grown apart even if he had never wanted to. He didn't know how to stop it and he felt too weak to fix it.

"Jinki..." he said wearily.

"Dad, what's wrong?" Jinki's voice was patient, his gaze honest.

Taesun chastised himself. How could he ever think badly of his eldest son. He had even come to church again with him after years and now he was even reaching out to him. He did not deserve his sons.

"Nothing just..." He had noticed that Jinki and Taemin were reconnecting. Maybe Jinki really could shed light on his darkness.

"Is this about Taemin?" Jinki asked freely. Taesun sighed slightly and nodded.

"Your brother...he's become so..."

"... different now?" finished Jinki for his father when he was at a loss.

"So it's not just me who's noticed." Taesun stated.

Jinki dropped into the seat and smiled encouragingly at his father. He tried with all his might to sound upbeat.

"Well, I guess he's growing up."

He didn't want his father to worry about Taemin. He himself would sort it out. Taemin was a good man, a smart man, he would realise sooner or later that he had done wrong.

Jinki could not tell which would anger his father more. That Minho was a man or that he was from the city.

Either way, Taesun better never find out about this wrongdoing.

"You think so?" Taesun couldn't quite understand Jinki's words.

In his eyes, Taemin didn't need to grow up, he already was. Since his wife's death, Taemin had taken on more and more responsibilities. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was the reason. He shouldn't have handed everything over to Taemin so lightly. Maybe Taemin was growing up too fast. He couldn't even give Taemin a childhood. How could he ever call himself a father?

"He's out more than before." Jinki said nonchalantly.

He hoped that would reassure his father. It wasn't too bad a change. What was the big deal? It was perfectly normal.

"With Kai and Baekhyun?" The hope in Taesun's eyes drove restlessness into Jinki's limbs.

He had already lied to his father here and there. But now he didn't know what to say. He knew Kai, he knew how he had treated Key because of his ual orientation. The relationship between Kai and Taemin was surely just a remnant of the past.

He couldn't tell him the truth, but he couldn't tell him anything bad about Kai either. His and Kai's father had been friends forever, Taesun loved Kai like his own son.

"I don't know." He said therefore quietly.

Taesun wondered if perhaps he should check with Baekhyun or Kai to see if they too had noticed a change in Taemin.

"He's a good boy." Jinki assured his father as he read the concern on his face.

"Yes... right." But Taesun could only weakly agree with him.

In a helpless state, his thoughts circled around.

"Talk to him if you're worried." Jinki suggested. It was the only solution he saw that he knew could work.

"I don't know if he wants to talk to me." His father replied sincerely.

He thought back to the last conversations he had with Taemin. They had not gone very well. Taemin and Jinki came to church with him again, which gave him hope. But was that enough?

Of course Taemin was afraid to approach his father, he had never made a secret of his aversion towards homouality.

But Taesun didn't know how to talk to Taemin either. It was up Jinki him to pave a way that both of them could walk safely so that they could become a family again.

"Maybe you could surprise him." Jinki suggested.

Taemin should see that his father came in peace. Then the two of them could slowly find their way back to each other and eventually they would be able to talk openly.

It wouldn't happen overnight, but it would certainly be a good first step.

"He does so much for the farm." Taesun stated.

"He would really deserve it." He nodded decisively.

"I just don't really know what he likes. What do boys his age like?" he asked Jinki and he had to laugh.

"Weren't you once a boy his age?" Taesun couldn't remember the last time he had laughed like that with Jinki.

It did them both good.

"You used to play in the forest when you were kids." Taesun remembered fondly.

"I remember. We all went picnicking together." It didn't hurt when he thought of his mother. On the contrary, his heart