The car was filled with a light-hearted one-sided conversation sharing session as Young Mi began the journey by ranting about the few articles she had been working on all week. Yunho, on the other hand, was half listening as he tried to recall where he could get quality carpets off the shelves as he usually had them tailor made (’cause he’s filthy rich).

Having noticed that the elder had stopped nodding every 10 or so seconds when she talked, Young Mi turned to look at Yunho and asked, “You have completely blocked me out right?”

Yunho gave her a quick glance before replying, “There is a more pressing issue at hand and I guess you haven't noticed it yet.”

Young Mi tilted her head in question.

“There’s this car that has been tailing us since 5 minutes ago.” Yunho shared.

Young Mi panicked and immediately turned to look though the back window, “Which one?”

“The white one.”

“Looks familiar though…” Young Mi bit her lip as she struggled to recall where she had seen that vehicle before. She could have safely sworn that she had actually sat in it on a previous occasion.

Yunho couldn’t sense any foul play so he decided to just ignore that white Lamborghini behind them and turned into the first soft interior furnishing megastore he could find. Yunho expertly parked his car in a parallel lot, which earned him wide unbelieving eyes from the ex-Fashion Assistant.

“How did you do that!?” She gasped like a fish out of the water, “And with such a huge Rolls Royce!?”

“Math comes in handy.” And before ‘how’ could come out of Young Mi’s mouth, Yunho smirked and added, “I came up with a formula that helps me achieve perfect parallel parking.”

“What about a formula to predict whether Jaejoong will shout at a certain employee or not?” Young Mi tried her luck.

“That would not be necessary. The closer you are to him- and I’m just talking about distance here, the higher the probability of him screwing you up even if you don’t screw up.”

“Seems like you love Jaejoong lesser these days,” Young Mi remarked.

“I’m going though my teenage phase now, so please do understand,” Yunho sighed.

“Okay…” Young Mi sing-songed as she opened the door into the megastore for them both.

The duo looked at the store directory before proceeding to get what they had set out to purchase.

Seeing that Yunho was just looking at dark coloured carpets, Young Mi sighed softly to herself and suggested that he look for something of a lighter or brighter colour so the house wouldn’t look so dead.

“You think?” Yunho sighed, “Why don’t you pick one instead? I can’t appreciate colours other than black and white.”

Young Mi nodded and started looking around while the elder stood to one side and fiddled around with his phone.

Moments later, Yunho could feel someone tugging at his shirt, so when he turned, he was face to face with a pleasantly surprised Kimchi and Jaejoon, who was giggling toothlessly up at the elder.

“Hi, Yunho!” Kimchi beamed, “Seems like Joonie adores you as much as Jaejoong does.”

Yunho’s mouth twitched a little when the baby spread his arms wide like as if asking to be carried by the owner of the Blitz Empire.

“Go on,” Kimchi used the baby to nudge Yunho and he complied with a faint and unwilling grunt. Jaejoon immediately latched onto Yunho tightly and giggled even louder than ever.

A few meters away, the ninja-s in training, namely Kim Fabulous Jaejoong and Sumire, were carrying out their spying mission. Jaejoong was pouting angrily when he realised that his baby Joonie liked his elder brother more than himself, and wasn’t even drooling on Yunho clothes despite having his mouth wide open (he was still giggling) for the past 5 minutes.

“What are you doing here?” Kimchi asked Yunho.

“Buying a new carpet,” Yunho answered while frowning when the baby started playing with his hair.

Kimchi looked around and noticed someone familiar not too faraway. She gave the elder a cheeky grin and asked, “With Young Mi?”

“Not you too,” Yunho gave an exasperated sigh.

Kimchi simply laughed.

“How about you?” Yunho questioned and lightly slapped the baby’s when Jaejoon started to on his neck.

“This little guy here destroyed the curtains when he kept tugging at it while his ing blind bat of a Dad was right beside him.” Kimchi rolled her eyes irritably.

Jaejoong almost blew their cover by standing up to retaliate but Sumire pulled the diva back down to their squatting positions behind the gondola of shower curtains.

“That’s…quite careless of Jaejoong,” Yunho commented and struggled to keep Jaejoon’s mouth off his skin, “Can you get him off me? I’m sure I already have lovebabybites all over my neck by now.”

Kimchi laughed heartily and patted Joonie’s back, “Mommy wants you back now, come on.”

Jaejoon pouted and turned away to ignore Kimchi.

“Oh, hi!” Young Mi got back with a heavy looking carpet in her arms.

“Hey,” Kimchi gave Young Mi a brief hug, “Now help me get this overly clingy baby off Yunho.”

Young Mi nodded, placed the carpet against a wall and gently pried the baby’s chubby fingers off Yunho’s neck while Kimchi pulled her baby’s body rather violently off the elder.

Joonie started crying his heart out and the 2 ladies stopped trying to tear the baby apart from the frowning Yunho.

“Jaejoon, stop crying,” Yunho commanded and the wailing mess instantly stopped his nonsense.

Kimchi gaped.

“Hands off me and go back to your mother now,” Yunho continued and the two females watched in amazement when Joonie turned his head to look his Mommy and reached out towards her.

“Even babies fear you,” Kimchi shuddered.

The three adults plus baby (who seemed to have a massive ‘crush’ on Yunho) got whatever they had set out to buy and ended up hanging out at a café across the street from the soft interior megastore.

“Gawd, this is ing good,” Kimchi commented with half filled with cheesecake.

“You sound like you haven’t eaten in years,” Young Mi chuckled.

“I’m too busy to even eat a proper meal these days,” Kimchi rolled her eyes and jabbed a thumb at the baby on Yunho’s lap, “He has such perfect timing I tell you, whenever I’m about to eat, he cries and demands to be cuddled.”

“What an annoyance,” Yunho muttered and watched half amusedly when Jaejoon started playing with his fingers like as if they were the most fascinating things in the world.

“You know…” Kimchi began with a small smile on her face, “Jaejoong doesn’t have patience like you do…”

“When it comes to taking care of Jaejoon?” Yunho asked and when the baby heard his name from his favourite person of the moment, he clapped his hands gleefully while bouncing clumsily on the elder’s lap, causing the two ladies seated opposite him to spazz over the cuteness of the infant.

When Kimchi recovered from her stitches, “Yeah, when Joonie giggles, Jaejoong flees. He said it’s the most disturbing thing he has ever heard.”

“Are you serious?” Young Mi laughed.

Kimchi nodded tiredly.

“Does he even love Jaejoon?”

“I know he does, but I’m sure he’ll treat Joonie better once he stops drooling and giggling.” Kimchi replied.

Jaejoon was now on Yunho’s fingers and the elder looked away while groaning like as if he was experiencing excruciating pain.

“You little ,” Kimchi chuckled and retrieved Jaejoon from Yunho’s lap and strapped the cutely pouting baby in the high seat.

Yunho paused the moment he entered the office for there was an eerily familiar guy sitting at the last of the empty desks in the department.

“Yunho,” the fair skinned lad stood up and came over to shake hands with the him.

“I forgot your name,” Yunho lied.

Yunho knew exactly who the newcomer was: Cho Kyuhyun.

Yunho and Kyuhyun used to be course mates while they were still undergraduates in the Mathematics degree programme. Kyuhyun was a genius who had skipped a billion grades and was only still a prepubescent child when he entered university. Kyuhyun saw Yunho as his competitor but the elder couldn’t care less of the kiddo.

“What are you going here?” Yunho asked again when Kyuhyun didn’t respond to him.

“I’m the new webmaster here,” Kyuhyun smiled brightly and Yunho hated the fact that many things hid behind it.

“Shouldn’t you be working for your father?” Yunho raised a brow.

“It’s too boring,” Kyuhyun walked back to his seat and settled down on the swivel chair, “I wanted a challenging and fast paced work environment to work in, and where better than the number one magazine in South Korea right?”

Yunho could sense that the younger wanted to achieve something out of this but fortunately, it wasn’t an agenda against Blitz, so he decided to just keep Kyuhyun here…for now.

“Morning, Dad!” Young Mi beamed as she entered the department but immediately stopped in her tracks when she saw the newcomer.

“Dad?” Kyuhyun looked at Yunho amusedly.

“What are you doing here?” Young Mi frowned and Yunho started to look back and forth between the two of them with a million scenarios running though his brain.

“Work,” Kyuhyun replied.

“Go get a job elsewhere,” Young Mi’s mood for the day was immediately soured as she angrily flung her bag on the table and switched on the desktop computer to channel her attention elsewhere.

The trio worked in silence though emailing each other.

When lunch hour arrived, Kyuhyun left on the dot without asking the other two whether they should go down together as a department to eat.

“You can talk now,” Yunho looked up at his colleague.

Young Mi sighed as she continued working on an article, “I have nothing to say.”

“You do,” Yunho urged.

Young Mi simply kept mum and kept typing like a machine.

“He’s the jerk, isn’t he?” Yunho smirked as he leaned back in his seat to study the shocked expression on Young Mi’s face.

“H-How did y-” 

Yunho shrugged.

“Right, no wonder you are known within Blitz to be the ‘All-knowing’,” Young Mi sighed again.

“You want me to fire him?” Yunho suggested.

“As much as I would love that, I don’t think I would be able to sleep at night knowing I had a part to play with his dismissal.”

“But he’s supposed to be the bad guy here.”

Young Mi kept quiet.

“Don’t cry on me.” Yunho frowned.

“T-Trying n-not to…”

Yunho shocked even himself when he walked over to wipe Young Mi’s tears away with his thumbs.

“Y-Yunho?” Young Mi looked up at the elder shyly.

“Don’tsayanythingyou’lljustmakemefeelevenmoreawkward.” Yunho immediately retracted his hands and walked out of the office and the younger couldn’t help but gush at his cuteness.

“Why did you employ that Cho-boy?” Yunho demanded.

“You should have seen him during the interview, he was so filled of determination and eagerness to work for Blitz,” Jaejoong beamed as he clasped his hands together in glee.

Yunho frowned, “Jaejoong, are you losing your mind? You painted this whole building red, made me work in some sort of child’s wonderland, hired my ‘enemy’ and now, you even dragged Young Mi into your mess.”

“Hold up,” Jaejoong straightened up from his seat with wide eyes, “Did you just say 5’s name?”

“Yes, I did, so?” Yunho drawled, “Don’t make me take you off that seat.”

Jaejoong stood up in retaliation, “Why are you so PMS-sy today?”

“You’re the cause of my irritation,” Yunho stated.

Jaejoong pouted, “What happened to you, Yunnie?”

“He grew up and is now experiencing teen angst,” Yunho walked out of the Editor-in-Chief’s office.

“You look like ,” Young Mi commented as she handed Yunho a cup of black coffee, “Sorry for the language.”

Yunho had messed up his hair in frustration earlier and was now lying on the floor of the rooftop of Blitz building. He sat up and took the cup of warm drink from the younger while muttering a soft ‘thank you’.

“Why am I so bothered about the fact that Cho-boy is here to make our work life awkward?” Yunho asked, “I usually don’t really care about insignificant people such as him.”

Young Mi chuckled lightly, “You’re becoming human.”

Yunho looked at her for a moment then shrugged, “Maybe.”

The two just stared into oblivion for the next couple of minutes before Young Mi muttered an ‘oh’ and reached beside her to pull out a plastic container of stir fried noodles.

“Are you hungry?” Young Mi asked as she handed Yunho a spare fork.

Yunho nodded wordlessly and took the plastic utensil.

As Yunho ate, Young Mi spoke, “He left me a note on my table earlier.”

Yunho simply looked up at her.

“He wrote…‘I’m really sorry’.” Young Mi sighed dejectedly.

“But you already forgave him right?” Yunho asked.

“I guess so…” Young Mi answered uncertainly.

“I envy you,” Yunho commented and it earned a raised brow from her, “I heard that being in love is the most amazing feeling in the world.”

“It is,” Young Mi smiled.

Yunho started to choke on his food and Young Mi immediately leaned over to pat his back while offering him her bottle of water. He made a face before stating, “The guilt of telling Jaejoong off earlier is now coming back to haunt me.”

“You’re so unbelievably soft hearted,” Young Mi chortled.

Yunho smiled sheepishly.

“Smile more, won’t you?” Young Mi pinched his cheek.

“Why am I not annoyed with you when you do annoying things to me?” Yunho sighed.

Young Mi doubled over with laughter, “Because I’m special?”

Yunho highly doubted that but settled on a shrug.

“I saw her pictures, she’s such a ,” Sumire huffed as she stuffed popcorn into and snuggled closer to Jaejoong on the couch while they watched a seriously plotless chick flick.

“Legs up, pretty boy,” Kimchi commanded as she came into the living room to vacuum the area.

“Yes, wifey,” Jaejoong sneakily d her and earned a hard smack to the side of his pretty head when she was done vacuuming the floor under them.

Sumire hid her face in the cushion as she tried to stifle her laughter.

Jaejoong nudged the 11 year old, “Why’d you say that?”

“You know Daddy gives me money as long as I demand for it right?” Sumire asked and Jaejoong nodded, “I hired a private investigator.”

“I’m amazed,” Jaejoong smirked, “And then?”

“The PI found out that she was in Seoul on a school exchange trip and so he snapped pictures of her with her classmates while she was sightseeing. Apparently, she’s in some international school and is quite popular.” Sumire explained, “And she dresses in micro short mini skirts or dresses.”

“You think she had already?” Jaejoong asked nonchalantly and Sumire blushed.

“Kim Jaejoong, could you please control that mouth of yours!?” Kimchi had an utterly scandalised look on her face when she overheard their conversation.

“But you loved my mouth so much last night,” Jaejoong fluttered his lashes innocently and Kimchi waved her white flag and fled with a thoroughly flushed face.

Sumire on the other hand was blinking profusely, trying to decode what Jaejoong was saying that made Kimchi so flustered.

“Be patient, you’ll experience it some day,” Jaejoong patted the 11 year old’s back.

“Experience w-what?” Sumire stuttered.

“Having se-”

“WAHHHHHHHHHHHHH-” Jaejoon’s terribly loud cries resounded around the house and Jaejoong rolled his eyes.

“Let’s go get dinner, I don’t want to change that monster’s diapers and spend another half an hour cooing it to sleep.” Jaejoong sprinted towards the main door and started putting on his Prada brogues.

Yunho watched with mild mirth as Young Mi pulled out piles and piles of photo albums from the drawers of her coffee table. After she was done, she swiftly walked to the window still to grab the faced down photo frame and handed it to Yunho.

The elder took it and pretended to act like as if he was looking at it for the first time.

“That’s a nice picture.” Yunho commented and returned it to the owner.

Young Mi was silent as she reached out to grab the closest album to her and flipped though it.

“It was here that he promised to bring me to France for our 10^th anniversary.” Young Mi angrily jabbed at a photo and she repeated the action a few pictures later, “And here, he said he promised to love me for life.”

Yunho could only nod slowly.

“Why am I still keeping all these junk…” Young Mi muttered as she got up and headed to the kitchen, only to come back with plastic bags and Yunho presumed she was going to throw all of the photo albums away.

The two of them worked in silence as they began putting everything into the bags.

“I asked my father many years ago why he didn’t clear out her room…” Yunho began and Young Mi looked up at him in surprise at his willingness to share something that seemed so personal, “After the divorce, her own family shunned her for she was deemed a ‘shame’ for her infidelity. I just couldn’t understand how my father could forgive her and even let her have a place to come back to. Then he said even though she had no ties to him anymore, she did after all give birth to me and hence, would always have a place in the house. I found it absurd, even till now.”

Young Mi looked at the filled up bags, “I guess…it’s a part of me that I can never let go as well then…”

Yunho just nodded and pulled out the photo frame before handing it to her, “At least keep this…and insist that you’re just retaining this in memory of your school life.”

Young Mi gave the elder a small nod, took the item and returned it to its original place by the window still.

“Let’s go throw these then?” Yunho gestured at the bags on the floor.

Young Mi shrugged and the both of them got to work.

After the clear up, Yunho bade Young Mi goodbye and walked towards his car.

“Yunho!” Young Mi called out and ran back towards him.

“Yes?” He turned with a raised brow.

“Thank you.” She smiled up at him.

“Why?”

“For making me feel better since it’s always good to have someone who lends a listening ear…and…”

“And?” Yunho urged.

“For sharing your story.” Young Mi beamed, “It’s one step closer to healing your heart.”

Yunho was stunned but didn’t show it on his face.

“Goodnight, Dad.” Young Mi gave him a light hug and ran off at the speed of light while giggling to herself.

That night, Yunho dreamt that Young Mi came confessing her love to him and he accepted her by kissing her senseless.

“I’m screwed,” Yunho muttered darkly and decided against going back to sleep as he prepared himself to head to work instead at a shocking 4am in the freaking morning.

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