23-24 weeks

Kyuhyun has really been on a bender, and it is obvious to even the casual observer. The bloodshot eyes, wide and insane, should be an indicator, if the stink of expensive alcohol isn't enough.

He doesn't care, though. He doesn't. He might not have a clue what time it is, or what day it is, but he knows where he is, and he knows why he's here. He's here because Zhou Mi is, and his intoxicated, ed up brain wants Zhou Mi.

So that's what he'll have.

His discordant rapping on the door echoes in the lonely, opulent doorway, and he knows he's probably pissing off Zhou Mi's neighbours, probably pissing off Zhou Mi himself, but his ability to care was lost years ago. He gets like this, sometimes, when the whirring in his brain is too much and the visceral delights of the flesh just aren't enough to distract him, off his mind though he is.

It's not like he took anything bad, he reasons with himself. Just acid...maybe? Coke, but that's a given. And MD barely counts. Weed is practically for children. He snickers to himself, not really sure why he finds it all so funny, but too drunk to care.

He raps on the door, louder this time, and when Zhou Mi wrenches the door open, he snorts at the thunderous expression on his face.

“What the do you want?” The first thing Kyuhyun registers is that he is half-dressed. The second is that he has a , and – for reasons unknown even to himself – that makes him giggle even more.

“Am I interrupting something?” He leans into Zhou Mi, swaying to the beat of the broken rhythm in his head, fingers resting against the bare skin of Zhou Mi's chest.

Zhou Mi pushes his hand away roughly, eyes glittering darkly. “ off,” he says, but there is an undercurrent of nervousness to it. This is not how the game goes. This is an isolated incident, and Zhou Mi does not like isolated incidents. He likes routine.

“It's okay,” Kyuhyun laughs a low, mirthless chuckle, still oddly seductive, “I'm down for threesomes.” He tilts his head, still laughing. “And foursomes. Any kind of some, really.”

Zhou Mi is not nearly so amused. “I'm not having an , Kyuhyun,” he tells him, through gritted teeth, “and neither are you. Go home.”

“Call me Kui Xian,” Kyuhyun interrupts, voice somehow plaintive. “I like it when you call me that.”

Zhou Mi stares at him, taken aback. If he were less drunk, or not on a cocktail of extremely illegal drugs, he'd never admit that.

“Kui Xian,” he says, soft despite himself, “go home."

Kyuhyun pushes through the invisible barrier between them, body hard against Zhou Mi's. “I don't have a home,” he snorts, “you know that,” he presses his mouth against Zhou Mi's neck, the kiss a clash of teeth and tongue against yielding skin. Zhou Mi tilts his chin up, even as he berates himself for doing so. “I have a hotel room.”

“You have a penthouse suite,” Zhou Mi reminds him, as if the distinction matters to Kyuhyun. His fly is open. He wonders if Kyuhyun has realised this yet, and with anticipation he will later deny, he both hopes he has and wishes that he hasn't.

“Same thing,” Kyuhyun mumbles, the words slurred, muffled against his throat. He represses a shudder. “Let me in, Mi,” he murmurs, arms wrapping around his neck of their own volition, “let me in.”

“I can't,” Zhou Mi says, almost – almost! – regretfully. He lowers his mouth to Kyuhyun's – a short distance, despite his own unusual height – and kisses him anyway. He tastes of vodka and the dry, bitter taste of some kind of pill that Zhou Mi has no desire to identify. “You know I can't.”

Kyuhyun's eyes are hooded when he pulls back, tired and somehow alert. “Got a better option waiting inside?”

He can't bring himself to agree. “I'll get someone to take you home,” he says instead, and Kyuhyun shrugs, smirking bitterly. He doesn't remark on Zhou Mi's cowardice.

Somehow, that makes it worse.

***

Kyuhyun is busy rolling a joint in Zhou Mi's kitchen when Siwon turns up. He turns to him, and smiles jovially, despite the stab of guilt. “Ah, my rescuer,” he says, and waves an unsteady hand at him.

The weed scatters out of his poorly-rolled joint, and he stares at the floor sadly. “.”

Siwon folds his arms, and doesn't say anything, used to Kyuhyun and his regular losses of control. “Come on,” he nods towards the joint, “I'll let you smoke that in the car.”

Kyuhyun grins, the expression lopsided, but Siwon doesn't smile back. He pulls Kyuhyun by the arm, and gently drives him out of Zhou Mi's kitchen. “Wait,” Kyuhyun digs his heels in, just before they get to the front door, “I need to say goodbye.”

Siwon sighs. “It's fine. I'm sure he's busy.” He tries an experimental push, but Kyuhyun remains solid. “Come on, Kyu,” there's a warning in his voice, despite the nickname.

Kyuhyun ignores him – and all of his rational kindness – to call “Zhou Mi! Mi!” as loudly as he possibly can. Possibly he is being a on purpose. Possibly he just doesn't realise how loud his voice is. Siwon winces all the same.

Zhou Mi appears anyway, drifting from an unknown room. He regards Kyuhyun with an unreadable expression on his face, arms folded. “Yes?”

“I wanted to say goodbye,” Kyuhyun walks towards him, unsteady and yet strangely sure of his movements. “Here,” he shoves his unsmoked joint in his hand, and clumsily pulls Zhou Mi towards him.

Siwon looks away, the moment too intimate as Zhou Mi sighs Kui Xian into Kyuhyun's mouth and pushes him away seconds later.

As they finally leave, Siwon turns to see Zhou Mi leaning in the doorway, lighting Kyuhyun's joint with bejewelled fingers and bringing it to his lips. He notices Siwon's look, and salutes him sardonically, joint held between two fingers, before letting the door swing shut.

Siwon is sure he hears a muffled “!” as it shuts.

***

“No limo?” Kyuhyun asks, as soon as Siwon pours him into the passenger side of his car. He seems to find this funny. “Going incognito, are we?”

Siwon doesn't dignify that with a response, and gets into the car himself. He's too used to Kyuhyun's flights of fancy, and it's as if Hyerin tore a piece out of his heart when she left; nothing really seems to matter to him anymore.

He doesn't mention that he has eschewed his limo entirely since his wife left. There are too many memories attached to it, too many strings, and he can't take it. So he drives instead.

The streets are quiet, this late at night (or early in the morning, depending on your perspective), and Kyuhyun seems to find it uncomfortable, chattering away about nothing to fill the silence. Siwon doesn't respond.

He doesn't have anything to say. He's too afraid that if he opened his mouth, he'd just start talking about Hyerin, and he doesn't want to be that guy. He doesn't want people to pity him, or tell him he brought this upon himself. He knows that. He knows his stupid, self-pitying jealousy has ruined what was possibly the best thing to ever happen to him.

When people ask how he is, he wants to scream that of course he's not okay – how would they like having what feels like half of your very self ripped away? – but it all seems a little bit too over-dramatic, and he has never been given to histrionics. His father trained that out of him years ago.

So when Kyuhyun asks that very same question, he grunts, and gives a half-hearted shrug of one shoulder.

“She loves you, you know that?” Kyuhyun says, still babbling on. Siwon refuses to feel anything about it, even as hope bubbles in the pit of his stomach. “She was looking for you everywhere when you went AWOL. She even came to me.” He snorts, as if the idea of anybody asking him for help is laughable.

His heart clenches painfully. Maybe if he'd come back to her quicker, she wouldn't have pushed him away.

Kyuhyun seems to straighten, becoming more alert, as if having said something he shouldn't have, but Siwon doesn't notice, too mired in his own self-hatred. He swallows, casting one short glance at Siwon, before the words tumble out without his control. “I'm sorry,” he mumbles, “I didn't mean to.”

Siwon raises one dark eyebrow, confused. He speaks for the first time. “Sorry for what?”

“It didn't mean anything.” . Why can't he keep his mouth shut? Siwon raises the other eyebrow, now looking extremely suspicious, and unease bubbles in his gut. “She wanted you.”

Siwon's hands tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening, and Kyuhyun knows that comprehension is beginning to dawn. “What are you talking about, Kyuhyun?” The words are calm and polite, but he can hear the effort behind them.

“We were drunk,” he stumbles on the words, knowing it's a poor excuse – the excuse of cheating spouses everywhere – but he has to say them, “you broke her heart.” He can't help the accusation behind the words, though he knows they are not entirely directed at Siwon.

If it's even possible, Siwon's hands tighten even more, the bone popping up against skin in a way that is kind of gross. Kyuhyun finds himself focusing on Siwon's hands as his head whirls. Too much vodka, he decides. Much, much too much vodka.

“It was a one time thing.” Shut up, he tells himself, you're making it worse! He almost wants to laugh again. He always makes everything worse. That's why his family chucked him into the hotel.

“Kyuhyun,” his name sounds very strange, the way Siwon is forcing it out, “are you trying to tell me that you had with my wife?” The way he says wife is a little too proprietorial for Kyuhyun's liking, but he can hear the pain underneath it.

“You left her,” he repeats, as if it matters, when he knows it doesn't – when he knows what Siwon feels for Hyerin is beyond any rationale – and looks anywhere but Siwon's face. He just hopes they don't crash. “Anyone would have done.”

They swerve, violently, and Kyuhyun feels like he's about to throw up his entire stomach. Okay. Definitely the wrong thing to say. He is never drinking again.

Somehow, Siwon regains control – Kyuhyun is impressed, he doesn't think he would be able to in this situation – and carries on towards their destination. Kyuhyun honestly wishes he would just throw him out onto the kerb, but he knows Siwon isn't that kind of guy.

They remain deathly silent for a moment, before Siwon hits the steering wheel once, twice, and then for a third time. “,” he says, the word a throaty sob, and as they near the parking lot of the hotel, he slides into a parking spot in a way that is very definitely illegal.

A valet comes towards them, but Kyuhyun shakes his head frantically, and – probably thinking this is another one of his conquests for the night – the man backs off, nodding in understanding. “Siwon?” He is way, way too ed to deal with this. .

The other man is hunched over the steering wheel in a way that can't be comfortable, shoulders shaking on soundless sobs. Kyuhyun – even through the haze of chemical toxins – has never felt more guilty in his life.

“She loves you,” he whispers, “I know that.”

Siwon doesn't respond, shoulders shaking so hard it's as if he's caving in on himself. Kyuhyun wonders what it is like to love somebody so much that the thought of them having with someone else feels like a knife in your stomach.

“I don't mean anything, Siwon,” he tries again, and bites back the laugh that follows, “I really don't.”

He never has.

***

Hyerin shifts uncomfortably in bed, kneading at her back to try and soothe the ache. Her bladder feels impossibly full, and although she knows she can't possibly need the toilet – the last time she drank anything was five hours ago – she drags herself upwards.

Slowly, still rubbing at her back, she stumbles to the bathroom, and as she lowers herself onto the toilet, a movement inside her belly causes her to stiffen.

The baby – having now had its inaugural kick – seems to have decided that he needs to move all the time, and she still has no idea how to deal with it. She's no longer a gibbering wreck every time it happens, but she's still not comfortable, and she has no idea how to see this as a good idea.

Of course, it means the baby is doing well, and that it is developed enough to move, but even that is a difficult idea to wrap her head around. She's never truly acknowledged the pregnancy; though she has moved past denial, she still refuses to think much about what's going on inside of her.

When the baby moves, however, she is forced to admit to herself that there is definitely something going on, and that that something is going to want to come out of her at some point.

She sighs, and – having finished her ablutions – goes to wash her hands. Her face, when she looks at the mirror, is drawn and pale, stress-induced spots pockmarking a complexion she works so hard to keep smooth.

The baby carries on shifting, his movements a strange churning in her belly. When she looks down, the hard curve of her stomach pushing out the fabric of her nightgown, she feels slightly sick.

She is now so far along that even clever tailoring cannot disguise the fact that she is pregnant. Oh, she can lessen the effect of the bump, make it look smaller – but she cannot eradicate it, and every time she looks in the mirror, she is disgusted.

There is no Siwon to tell her she is beautiful every time her face falls, and no matter how many times Narae tells her how good she looks, she cannot believe her. Her skin is not glowing, her body does not feel amazing at the blossoming of new life inside of her. She just feels fat and sick and exhausted. She throws up more than she eats, and when she goes to the doctor about it, he mutters something along the lines of hyperemesis gravidarum and tells her to visit some kind of specialist.

It doesn't help, and every time she looks at a meal, it's all she can do to eat a few mouthfuls. She becomes expert in hiding this, however, pushing her food around her plate and offering to scrape her own bowl out so Sungah doesn't notice how little she's eaten.

And she dreams of Siwon every night, dreams of his fingers teasing her, of him inside of her – of his arms around her, her hand in his. Sometimes she even dreams of them together in bed, laughing and joking about the baby inside of her, Siwon's hand on her swollen stomach, excitedly waiting for a kick. Occasionally, his head will be bent, and she'll hear is him tenderly talking to the baby – who in these dreams, is always theirs, instead of just hers.

But most of all, she dreams of telling him she loves him.

The words burn inside of her, eating her up when she remembers the desperate way he told her he loved her; the way she walked away when he couldn't give her what she wanted. She wants to say it back, wants to let him know that she didn't just marry him because she could, because now everything has been torn apart and broken, she can finally admit it.

She loves him, and she has done for longer than she ever realised. They almost had it all, to quote Rolling in the Deep, and the thought of what they almost had is killing her. She would do anything for him, anything but stay with him when he doesn't understand that sorry isn't enough.

Sorry won't keep him with her when the next inevitable up happens, sorry won't help him understand when she hands this baby over to other parents, and she needs him to be there for her. He broke her heart, smashed it to pieces in ways Hyunjae never could, and even as she gasps for him at night, she knows she's right to stay away.

He calls so much she's had to buy herself another phone, unable to do anything with the other one except press ignore on his constant calls. She doesn't want to; the only thing she wants to do is pick up the phone, and say yes, yes she will come back to him and she loves him, oh god, yes.

But she doesn't. Instead, she keeps her old phone charged, secretly listening to the messages he leaves when Narae is in bed and can't stop her. It's a guilty pleasure of sorts, hearing his voice say “Hyerin, please” over and over. When he says “I love you,” voice hitching, she finds it hard to breathe, heart thumping double-time as she resists the terrible urge to call back.

It would be so easy. One call, and she could have everything she never knew she wanted. One call, and she could have him in her arms by the evening, hearing him tell her he loves her for real as she rests her head against his chest.

Sometimes, her imagination is so convincing, she can almost feel him against her when she closes her eyes, only for the image to dissipate as soon as she opens them. She would give anything – anything – for the excuse to call him and hear his voice properly, but she can't.

She can't, because there is a baby that isn't his in between them, a baby she doesn't want and he won't acknowledge as a problem. In another world – another life, maybe – they could work out, but she only has this life, and they've gone too far to fix it.

She only has a few months to wait until she will be free of the parasite taking up space in her body; months until she can come back and start all over again. Maybe she'll even be able to see him – to forgive him enough to take him back.

It's that hope she clings to, deep in the middle of the night when the weight of all her fears presses down on her (and the baby presses down on her bladder).

***

She can't sleep. It is past two in the morning, and she should really, really be asleep, but all she's able to do is toss and turn, staring at the little green numbers on her alarm clock.

By 2:30 am, she gives up, and pushes herself into a sitting position. Her phone lies on her bedside table, and – more out of habit than any real expectation – she checks it for texts. There's nothing, of course – nobody except for Narae really has this number, and that's only for emergencies.

Her other phone, tucked into the drawer, however, is a different story. Texts and calls from both friends and people she barely speaks too clutter up the lock screen, but the only notification she focuses on is the voicemail.

Almost without even thinking, she clicks on it, drawing her legs underneath her as she screens each message. Message from some nosy reporter: delete. Heechul urging her to call him if she needs him: save. A clipped message from her estate agent: delete.

And then, the voice she's been waiting for.

“You're everything to me, Hyerin,” he whispers brokenly, and her heart twists as she presses the phone into her ear. “I miss you so much, sweetheart. Just tell me you're okay, just – just text me, or something. One text, that's it, and if you tell me to stop calling, I will, but...” He trails off, and she hears him swallowing, tears prickling in her eyes. “I can't – ” only she knows how much of his pride it costs to admit that, “I can't stop, not when there's still a chance, however slim, that you might respond.”

Narae would tell her to cut her phone off; to make a clean break of it, she knows. But she can't, not when he leaves messages like this, not when she's still desperate to hear his voice. She's so lost she replays the messages before she goes to bed, just so she can drift off to his voice, and she still has his cologne, tucked away in the drawer of her dressing table.

It's not enough, not at all, but it's all she has of him, and even though every logical bone in her body is screaming at her to give up on him, she can't. This is love, simple as, and nearing thirty she may be, but this is her first love and it's too fresh and too real to ignore.

He's the only love she's ever known, and the feeling of loving and being loved back is as foreign as it is wonderful. It might not be enough to bring her back – it might not be enough for her to forgive him – but it keeps her going.

And as he keeps talking, his beloved, familiar voice rising and falling, she drifts off, phone still clutched to her ear.

***

She wakes up a few hours later, thighs spread and her knickers so wet it takes almost nothing to finish off what the dream started. And all the while, the baby stirs inside her, an insistent reminder of why the instigator of these feelings is not here.

It's the kind of dream you can't distinguish from real life, so convincing that she wakes up disoriented and can't remember why she is alone in the bed. She swears she can still feel Siwon's touch, taste his mouth on hers as she bolts upright and wonders if the last few weeks have all been a horrible nightmare.

Of course, they haven't been, and she falls back against her mountain of pillows, groaning into her hands. Why? Why does she have to keep dreaming of playing happy families with Siwon? What is her mind trying to achieve – true madness?

She presses her face into a pillow, wishing the cat would jump onto her bed and distract her for a moment. But Minki has found somewhere else to snooze, not amused by his human's constant tossing and turning. How's a cat supposed to sleep if there's a leg in his favourite napping spot?

"Oh god," she murmurs to herself, as the memory of dream-Siwon's hand on her stomach, the other reaching under her skirt fills her mind.

"I want you," he murmurs, voice husky as he teases her legs apart.

She gasps as he sinks a finger inside of her, already slick with desire for him. "You don't want someone else?" She asks, voice teasing, as her leg bends upwards.

And then he withdraws his finger, shaking his head. She has no chance to complain, because then he wraps her leg around his hips and hovers, the tip of him just brushing her entrance. "I just want you."

She swallows, the dream so vivid in her mind that she can almost feel him there. Her hand slides down, knee pushing up as she plucks her underwear away. It's getting hard to reach over her stomach, but she manages, luxuriating against the bed as she slips one finger inside.

Her back arches as she teases herself, imagining Siwon's fingers in place of hers. It's not enough, and she growls in frustration as the illusion of Siwon himself inside of her slips, and disappears, leaving her and tearful.

She misses him, and not just for . She wants him here, as she confronts the fact that the baby is now so fully formed it actually has a biological , that it moves – that it is a being rather than a thing.

It scares her. Everything about this baby scares her.

Title taken from the My Chemical Romance song. Nostalgia ftw.