The boy couldn’t sleep.

He shifted into another position for the eleventh time that night, trying to sleep. Yes, he had been counting. All of his friends in the room had been taken to dreamland by fairy of sleep. The boy wondered why the fairy left him out. Did she forget about him? Or maybe she was too tired to come to him. After all, it must be difficult to put his eleven noisy friends to sleep. The boy decided that he should forgive the fairy this time.

Giving up trying to sleep, the boy stared at the small stars decorating the room’s ceiling. They were not really similar to the real stars that he had watched with his real father once, but they were still beautiful. He wondered if his real father was watching the stars. He wondered if his real father misses him.

His eyes watered automatically and his throat choked painfully.

But the boy didn’t let it out. He bit his bottom lips to stifle the sound, blink his eyes to get rid of the tears and then took a long shaky breathe to swallow the lump. He shouldn’t cry. His friends told him that boys do not cry. He was a boy, so he shouldn’t cry.

But less than three breathes later, he felt the previous lump coming back to him.

Sitting up on his bed, he decided that he needed to do something to distract himself. Forget the sleep.

The boy slipped out of his bed, carefully stepping over his friends. Once he was off the bed, he slide open the bottom drawer slowly, careful of not making too much noise. He didn’t want to wake up his friends nor his appas.

The bottom drawer was their treasure chest. It got a lot of toys; balls, action figures, trucks, plushies, bricks, puzzles and many more.

The boy took a minute to decide which toy he wanted to play. He thought he should be happy to choose because he could take whatever he wanted without having to share it with his other friends like in the day. But he was wrong.

He couldn’t play his favorite soccer because he didn’t have any friends to play with and other games like trucks, puzzles and bricks were not interesting enough without friends to accompany him.

The boy suddenly felt sad and lonely.

Finally, he picked up a rubix cube. He knew how it worked. He had played with it many many times before. Twisting and turning them, the boy focused on matching the colors on the cube. He ended up completing it in less than five minutes and his eyes were more awake than before.

Putting the cube inside the drawer back, the boy searched for another entertainment. And he found it.

A book.

The boy was never likes reading as much as Chanyeol, but the picture of a boy staring at the stars on the front cover intrigued him.

He brought the book close to the sleep lamp. It was dimly lit and small stars appeared on his book but that’s alright because he got good eyes. With his small fingers, he opened the book.

Much to the boy’s disappointment, it was written in Korean. Even though his Korean had improved a lot that he could speak to his Korean friends freely now, he still had a hard time to read Korean letters.

 He flipped over the pages, trying to make out the story from the pictures. But sadly, it didn’t connect.

He should forget the book and find something else to read or just went back to his bed. But the curiosity inside his young heart was overwhelming. He wanted to know what the book was about. Why the boy in the book was staring at the star? And why he was alone?

Maybe he should ask his appas to help him. It was late but his appas always sleep late.

The boy was wrong again. When he pushed open his appas’ room door, he saw all of the adults were sleeping soundly in their beds. He was sure his appas wouldn’t scold him even if he wakes them up (at least not Jongupie-appa) but he knew they were tired and they still need to work tomorrow. He didn’t want to disturb them.

After closing the door as quiet as possible, the boy wandered to the living room; the only well lit place in the house. Maybe he could try to read it by his own. But his small step died when he saw a figure sitting on the coach with a laptop and a lot of papers scattered on the table in front of him.

The man had a headphone on and he was staring at the screen intently that his brows crossed in the middle while his fingers were busy jotting down on the papers.

Yongguk-appa was working.

The boy turned his course and about to walk back into his room when his name was called.

“Luhan?”

The boy felt his heart skipped a bit. He had always adored the deep voice but he was caught off guard this time. He turned around and saw Yongguk-appa was staring at him.

He got dark bags under his eyes but he didn’t look angry… just tired. His appa didn’t offer another word, so Luhan thought he should explain.

“I couldn’t sleep.” He made sure his Korean pronunciation was clear and precise. He was expecting some respond from his appa but when the minutes passed and his appa just sat there and stared at him indecisively, Luhan heart dropped a bit.

He had always fancy Yongguk-appa. Of course he loved all of his appas but he especially liked Yongguk appa. To Luhan, Yongguk-appa was a perfect man; masculine and strong; role model. But sadly, he seemed to notice that his appa didn’t really fancy him.

To be fair, Yongguk-appa was not a natural father person like Himchan-appa nor Daehyun-appa. He was awkward with kids, with all of his friends. But while the other appas had gave him many praises likes pretty boy, cutie, smart boy, good boy, and more, Yongguk-appa never said a thing to him.

The only thing that Luhan remembered Yongguk-appa told him was “you are not a girl” when Himchan-appa had put on a pink ribbon hair clip on his hair to keep out his long bangs from stabbing his eyes. Yongguk-appa wasn’t scolding or angry but he didn’t know why, he felt really bad. From that day on, he determined to be a real boy. He practiced soccer, kicked anyone call him “pretty” or “cute” and never to cry.

He just wanted to be praised by his Yongguk-appa.

Himchan had went to sleep after he checked the kids, leaving Yongguk as the only one who was still awake in the house, or so he thought.

Yongguk was working on their new upcoming song, like usual but tonight he got a major writer’s block. It’s not just tonight actually. It had been a few days already. He couldn’t write or produce any good song. He’s either couldn’t write anything or he forced himself to write something but ended up with craps.

He didn’t know what had happened to him. He might be not as great as many others prominent song writers and composers but he used to at least produced something that was nice in his opinion. But nowadays he felt like throwing his laptop out of the window when he listened to the complete song.  Even Jongup who rarely gave any opinion on music had hinted that he didn’t really like the song (while Youngjae and Daehyun told him straight on).

He was on the verge of destroying something out of frustration when he noticed a small figure from the corner of his eyes.

A little Luhan in his yellow pajama stood at the corner of the room. His brown hair was tousled but there was no evidence of sleep on his face at all. The kid must have been awakened for sometime or he hasn’t slept yet. The later reason was confirmed by the kid later on

Yongguk looked at the clock on the wall behind Luhan. It was almost two in the morning. It’s way past the child’s bedtime. He wondered why the boy couldn’t sleep. Was he hungry? Was he sick? Did he drink coffee? It was better to ask the boy himself.

But Yongguk didn’t ask.

If he asked, and the boy tell him he was hungry, sick or had drank coffee, then what? What should he do?

He felt bad for not spending time as much as his other members with the kids. It’s not that he hated them (he used to but not anymore) but he was busy. He was the leader of B.A.P. Other than regular activity as idols and practices, the company called him for discussion about his group most of the time and he had to make songs for B.A.P too. He spent a little time in the dorm and since he wasn’t here most of the time, the kids weren’t really close to him.

…

Okay, maybe it’s just because he was awkward with children.

He was never good with kids and he didn’t know how to act around kids. Of course he can take care of others, he was the leader of his group after all. But kids are … different. He didn’t know what the kids want and they are not very good at expressing it themselves. He still remembered that one time where he gave a soap bar to Sehun to play with because the baby seemed to want it. Himchan almost killed him when the baby chomped on the bar. It happened that little Sehun actually just wanted to take a bath, not play with the soap bar.

How would he know?

So, he chose to avoid the kids. It’s for the best for both.

But when the China boy stared at him with his pretty doe eyes, silently asking attention from him, he couldn’t ignore it.

“Come here.”

The boy shuffled towards him as fast as his little feet can take him, as if he had been waiting to be called. He saw the boy smiled.

Yongguk put away his stuff on the table and made space for the boy beside him. He helped Luhan climbed onto the coach. His feet were dangling from the coach.

The boy showed the book in his hands that Yongguk had missed before. It was ‘the little Prince’.

“Do you want me to read this for you?”

“Please read this to me.” 

He couldn’t help but smile hearing Luhan’s polite and fluent Korean. It felt like just yesterday, he watched the boy struggled with his first Korean word; shik-sah (meal).

“Of course.” He patted the boy’s hair gently and opened the book.

The book had many words and many chapters. So, Yongguk told Luhan he will only read two chapters and the boy need to go to sleep after that. The boy didn’t complain.

While Yongguk read the story, little Luhan listened tentatively and the man could hear the boy repeated some words that he could catch on silently.

The man stopped on the second page briefly. He’s not running out of breathe nor couldn’t read the word. It was the words.

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

He only resumed reading after Luhan looked at him because he had paused too long. He clenched his jaw reading the stabbing words.  Luckily, the boy didn’t seem to notice what was wrong and turned his attention to the book again.

Yongguk almost thought the boy didn’t understand what he was reading because he didn’t react to the story at all. He’s beginning to doubt if his reading skill was terrible.

But when he reached the part where the writer draw a box and told the little man that his sheep was inside of the box, the China boy suddenly burst into giggles.

Surprisingly, the giggles was nice to his ears.

When the second chapter ends, the boy still didn’t finish laughing. A little amused by it, Yongguk asked the boy.

“Was that funny?”

The boy only nodded excitedly as he pressed his palms over his mouth to keep his laughter’s volume down.

“That man was so smart.” The boy pointed out after he had calmed down.

“Next time, if teacher asked me to draw a bicycle, I will draw a box too. I’ll tell teacher the bicycle is in the box.” And he laughed at his own words.

Yongguk tried to laugh along but realized he couldn’t. Because that is wrong.

He knew Luhan didn’t mean anything bad but he too knew, what kind of trouble the boy will bring upon himself if he proceeds with his plan. The teacher will not take the joke well and the boy will learn it in a hard way. Yongguk didn’t want any of that. So, carefully, he told the boy;

“No, Luhan. You can’t do that.”

Luhan stopped giggling abruptly and looked at his appa slowly, almost afraid. Guilty stabbed at Yongguk. But when the boy was assured by his appa awkward smile, he dropped his guard – and attack.

“Why?”

Yongguk didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

“Is it because teacher is a grown-up?”

Yongguk looked at the child beside him in surprise. He had underestimated the child’s intelligence.

“and grown-ups don’t understand kids, right?” there was disappointment in his small voice, making Yongguk feel bad. It has reached to this, so he confirmed the answer with a nod.

“Does appa understand me?”

Once again Yongguk was taken aback and this time, the boy was staring right at him, with his ridiculously big pretty eyes and there was something else about them that he missed to see.

He didn’t want to lie to the boy. But he didn’t want to hurt the boy. He just didn’t know what to do. Here, he wished Himchan miraculously wake up from his slumber and save him. But it didn’t happen and Yongguk was at wit’s end. He tried to generate a few nice words inside his head but it seemed he was too slow because before he could give his answer, Luhan spoke.

“That’s okay.” He simply said with a small shrug and a distant smile that Yongguk thought he looked so much bigger than his body at that time. But when he added, Yongguk felt really bad.

“My father didn’t understand me too.” The boy pretend to flipped through the book in his hand as he said it.

Yongguk knew Luhan was talking about his real father and this time he could hear it clearly in the boy’s voice; pain.

“My father always bought me a lot of toys. Video games, remote control cars, helicopters, robots, NERF guns…” Yongguk watched the boy trailed off and his hand stopped flipping the pages.

“but he was never there to play with me” Luhan’s voice was so small that it was almost a whisper.

There was a moment of stillness. None of them were moving nor speaking. Until the boy sobbed.

Yongguk was obviously panic and didn’t know what to do. Kids was his weakness and crying kid was his fatal blow. But as he watched the small body next to him trembling, trying to subdue his sobs by himself, Yongguk followed his instinct.

He hugged the kid.

And Luhan cried harder that Yongguk almost thought he did the wrong thing. But when the small fists were clinging on him tightly, he decided to continue hugging the boy. When his body relaxed and the awkwardness went away, he tried rocking their bodies back and forth a little, just like a father did in his memory.

Slowly, Luhan’s cries died down and when he was completely silent and immobile, Yongguk peeked at the child.

The child had fallen asleep.

a/n: this was suppose to be short but I got carried away. Anyway, the book that yongguk read to Luhan was The Little Price by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The part that Luhan was laughing was when the narrator met the little price. The little price asked him to draw him a sheep. He drew a few for the little price but kept on being rejected. So, at last he drew a box with three holes and told the little prince that his sheep is in the box. Surprisingly, the little prince was happy with it ("This is what I want", he said).