Wooyoung-ah, wake up, wake up." The loud voice in his ears and the soft slaps on his cheeks slowly bring him into consciousness. Everything still feels like a haze and Wooyoung squints his eyes to avoid the light coming through the windows. The face in front of him still looks blurry, but he would recognize those bushy eyebrows anywhere.

"Five more minutes, hyung," he groans upon realizing the culprit who is attempting to cut short his beauty sleep. He rolls his body away from Nichkhun, his face now nestled on the hotel's fluffy pillows. 

"Hurry, I'm bringing you to meet my family," Nichkhun says in a nagging tone, tugging on Wooyoung's arms to drag him out of bed.

Wooyoung sits up straight away, blinking like a deer caught in the headlights, confusion written all over his face.

"Your- your- family?" he stutters, the weight of Nichkhun's sentence slowly sinking in.

"Yes. Now hurry."

He sits there trying to digest what all of this might mean, until a flying shirt from across the room lands on his head and interrupts the jumbled thoughts he is still trying to sort out.

"Hyuuung~"

"Go wash up and change, quick, I'm only giving you 10 minutes."

So, with a fluttering feeling in his stomach, Wooyoung takes off from the bed and enters the bathroom groggily.
 

 

They are outside the hotel and Nichkhun is flagging a taxi when Wooyoung realizes something is wrong. Very wrong. 

"Hyung, aren't the others coming?" 

"I'll bring them next time," Nichkhun says quickly, eyes focusing on the yellow taxi halting in front of them.

"Why?"

"I just want them to meet you first," he says vaguely, before pushing Wooyoung into the taxi and following right behind him.
 

 

Wooyoung is halfway in the process of bowing ninety-degrees to Nichkhun's parents when he finds himself being dragged to be introduced to someone else. "Wooyoung-ah, this is my sister Sherleen." 

Wooyoung nods his head and gives her a casual smile, which somehow sends the young girl in front of him blushing to no end. She keeps her head bowed low, trying to hide behind Nichkhun while tugging his sleeves and whispering some stuff in Thai.

"She's shy," Nichkhun explains, half suppressing his giggles. She smacks his arm lightly, a faint blush creeping up her cheeks.

It just dawns upon him, the reason why Nichkhun is so insistent on bringing him home to introduce to his family. No, it isn't to introduce Wooyoung to the family, but it is to introduce Wooyoung to the sister. He is in such happiness that he fails to recall how Nichkhun had raved on in the past about how his sister is really fond of Wooyoung. 

Wooyoung feels a pang of disappointment in the depths of his stomach.

What is he expecting, really?

So when Nichkhun asks him what he thinks of Sherleen, Wooyoung puts on the biggest grin he can muster before saying, "She's pretty, hyung, can I have her?", then watches as Nichkhun's eyebrows knit together, eyes thinning into that mock angry look that he usually gives Wooyoung whenever he does something Nichkhun disapproves of.

Wooyoung forces another smile and walks off, pretending that it's jealousy that he sees in Nichkhun's eyes.

Nichkhun calls after him, but Wooyoung is too busy trying to find at least one corner of this house that doesn't smell like Nichkhun.

Wooyoung tries really hard to find any sort of imperfection in Nichkhun’s family that will make him not want to be here, but like Nichkhun, his entire family is perfect, and the more Wooyoung tries to find a fault in them, the more he discovers they have none. 

So Wooyoung tells himself to give up trying, and just starts avoiding them as much as he can.

Nichkhun finds him an hour later in the back garden, squatting down and trying to have a conversation with the family dog, crouched down on top of dry grass that shatters loudly with every step Nichkhun makes towards him. Nichkhun taps him on the shoulder, not that Wooyoung isn’t aware of his presence already. In fact, he actually hates how he can pick out Nichkhun’s presence anywhere, even when it’s something as trivial as a few steps, or one light cough.

"Why are you here?" he asks, hovering over Wooyoung's hunched form.

"Just... just needed some fresh air," Wooyoung answers quietly. Even without looking at his face, Wooyoung can just imagine the way Nichkhun's eyebrow knit together in confusion.

"How’s the family? Are they treating you well?" Nichkhun asks again, now squatting down beside Wooyoung, which makes the latter feel uncomfortable because like so many other times, Nichkhun is evading his privacy bubble. If he didn't seem to care much in the past, today is a totally different story; Nichkhun's presence sticks out like a sore thumb, and it bothers Wooyoung somehow.

"Hmm?" Nichkhun prompts, and Wooyoung realizes he hasn't answered Nichkhun's question. 

He opens his mouth and the answer comes so naturally before his brain can even process the question properly.

"Yeah, they're nice." As nice as you, even, so nice that I wished I could stay here for a while, not as Jang Wooyoung the crush of Sherleen, but as Jang Wooyoung, someone important to Nichkhun Horvejkul. 

But the most important words get stuck in his throat, and Wooyoung thinks it might be better this way. Because who is he to kid, someday Nichkhun will bring another woman here and introduce her to his family as his future wife. A beautiful woman who the family would love and adore. Wooyoung doesn't want to think of the possibility, but it pains him to know that it will happen someday, so Wooyoung tells himself to start preparing from now.

"So, do you want to stay for dinner?" Nichkhun’s next question takes him off his thoughts. 

"No, thank you, I think I'll go back to the hotel, I'm tired."

No, because it will only pull him deeper into wanting to be part of this family. No, because he just shouldn't even be here in the first place. No, because he should avoid overstaying his welcome in this place. And no, just no.

Nichkhun catches Wooyoung’s determined eyes, and he knows that there’s nothing he can say to change Wooyoung's mind. So Nichkhun lets Wooyoung be when he realizes the smaller boy is already on his way to exchange goodbye greetings with his family.
 

 

A few hours later he calls to the hotel and checks with the boys if Wooyoung is with them; what he gets isn't an answer, but another question.

"You mean you let him go back by yourself? Khun, seriously what were you thinking? It's Wooyoung, and this is Thailand, and he doesn't have a working cellphone," Taecyeon yells into the phone and Nichkhun realizes that Taecyeon is right.”

"I'll look for him. I-"

"We'll never forgive you if something happens to him." Taecyeon cuts off abruptly, his voice stern and accusing.

Nichkhun wouldn't be able to forgive himself either.
 

 

Nichkhun has walked around the block three times when he sees Wooyoung's back view in front of the gates to his house, shuffling his feet around the gravel, eyes boring through the soles of his own shoes. 

Relief washes through Nichkhun's face as he runs and hugs the smaller boy from the back, an action that startles Wooyoung as he starts trashing around.

"I don't have anything, please don't kidnap me!" he screams, desperation clinging into his voice.

"Shh. Thank God you're alright"

"K- Khun Hyung?"

Nichkhun loosens his arms around the younger boy and turns him around.

"Where did you go?" He asks, and Wooyoung finds it easier to stare at his eyebrows rather than answering his question. 

"I kept walking, but I think I've been walking in circles, I've come back around here five times already."

"Then why didn't you come in?"

Wooyoung keeps quiet, half of it because he is tired from all that walking, and half of it just because he can't think of an excuse of what to say. He can't tell Nichkhun why, because not only his reasons are incredibly stupid, but also he can't let Nichkhun know about his feelings. Not now, not ever.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?"

The second time that question comes, Wooyoung is glad because it distracts him from thinking of an excuse of not coming into the house. This time, before he can answer, Nichkhun puts his arms around his shoulder and drags him in, and then everything Wooyoung does from then on is futile.

Wooyoung knows then, that he will keep walking in circles trying to avoid overstaying his welcome in Nichkhun's heart, trying to find faults in the depths of those inviting brown eyes, and he will fail every single time, but Wooyoung will keep on trying everyday, until someday he will be able to walk out of the warmth of Nichkhun’s hugs without feeling empty. Wooyoung will keep trying to numb his heart everyday until, someday, he will be able to genuinely smile when Khun-hyung tells him he is head over heels in love with this beautiful, perfect girl. 

So Wooyoung will keep on walking, even when it's only in circles. Wooyoung will keep trying to convince himself that Khun-hyung is indeed a bad, bad man. Wooyoung will also try to find faults in Nichkhun’s perfect family, because he is in no place to stay. 

And Wooyoung will keep walking in circles until someday, he will be able to find another way back home that doesn't involve someone named Nichkhun Horvejkul.