Not a week had gone by, and already Chanyeol was smothering Luhan like Kanga from Winnie the Pooh. He'd even called Kyungsoo over to help him, because Chanyeol was completely clueless. In college, Luhan and Kyungsoo had often nursed each other back to health, since one would get sick and the other would care for them, and then they would get sick and cared for in return. Kyungsoo knew what he needed to feel better, even if he wasn't physically sick.

         "But I can take care of you just fine!" Chanyeol whined, hiding his earthy brown locks in Luhan's lap as he lay in the bed. Something about this position made Luhan feel like a parent to a whiny Chanyeol.

         "Yes you can Chanyeol," he lied, "but I haven't been to work, I'm worried about my kids and I want to see Kyungsoo because he's my best friend."

         "Fine." He huffed, rolling his face into Luhan's belly and closing his eyes.

         "Chanyeol, be aware that if you make one wrong move while your head is there, then I'm going to club you with a crutch." Luhan warned as he looked through the latest selection from Yesstyle on his tablet PC.

         "I'm gonna move then." Chanyeol said, as he rolled off of Luhan's stomach and sat up next to him. "The last time you were angry at me you broke your foot and I got yelled at." Luhan put down his PC and looked to Chanyeol.

         "I'm really sorry I was angry at you. It was-"

         "Unnecessary? Cowardly? Terrifying?" Chanyeol said, smirking.

         "Do you want an apology or not?" Luhan snapped.

         “I’m sorry. Apology accepted.” He said, hurrying the conversation along. "Will you let me take you to a movie? " He asked, sitting with his back fully straightened and his hands in his lap, legs crossed.

         "What?" Luhan asked, again taken for a turn by something from Chanyeol's mouth (and it wouldn't be the last time).

         "Let me take you out, as your apology to me." Chanyeol explained, making less and less sense to Luhan.

         "But if you take me out, isn't that a favor to me and a chore for you?"

         "No, because the way you're arguing means I have to convince you to go, and I really want to take you out." That wasn't entirely true, because Luhan sort of did want to go out with Chanyeol, but he wasn't going down easily.

         "But why do we have to go for a movie? I can't really walk up any stairs you know." He stirred.

         "I carried you up these stairs." He retorted, becoming impatient for an answer.

         "Yeah, but there's nothing in cinemas right now that I wanna see, so-"

         "Oh for sakes, will you go out with me?" Chanyeol said, reaching his patience breaking point. Laughing, Luhan finally got the response he was baying for.

         "Yes!" He said between breaths as he laughed. His ridicule didn't go unchallenged, as Chanyeol started to tickle Luhan in spite of the cast. Making a pointless effort to cease his laughing had lessened his defenses and only made it easier for Chanyeol to prod all of his ticklish sweet spots he’d spent the past month probing for.

         "Should I leave for this?" Kyungsoo said, looking wildly unimpressed as he stood in the doorway to the bedroom. The two straightened up like a couple of teenagers caught making out, Chanyeol clearing his throat to stop laughing.

         "Hey Kyung." Luhan said smiling. He held out his hands to welcome a hug from his best friend, who very much obliged. Out of Luhan's sight, Kyungsoo looked into Chanyeol's eyes during the embrace and stuck his tongue out, provoking the first of many best-friend-versus-boyfriend arguments.

         "Yah! He's mine shorty, hands off from now on." Chanyeol retaliated, holding an arm around Luhan's waist that wasn't entirely opposed to (not that he was really in a position to object).

         "I had him first, and what makes you think he's yours Dumbo?" Luhan knew as soon as Kyungsoo asked a question in that vein, it was going to end badly. He'd hoped to tell him over the phone and deal with the flack later on.

         "Luhan asked me out on a date." Chanyeol boasted, though Luhan had other ideas.

         "Woah woah woah, that's not what happened.” He shrugged off Chanyeol’s arm and looked him in the eye reproachfully. “You practically begged me so I'd say yes when you asked me out." He corrected.

         "You still said yes." Chanyeol reminded, which was true.

         "Well," Kyungsoo's mind went slow from the sudden news. With revenge on Chanyeol more important than a freak out (though he sort of expected it), he finally found a suitable retort, "Luhan and I slept together in college for years." Kyungsoo rather expertly burned back.

         "We didn't sleep together! We slept in the same bed, but we never slept ." Luhan protested, apparently inaccurately.

         "That's not true, and you know that Kim Luhan!" A name that only Kyungsoo was allowed to call him.

         "But we never had !"

         "Since when were you a Kim? I thought you were Chinese." Chanyeol asked, so far off topic it was ridiculous.

         "We still slept together. ." Kyungsoo said, the word sinking into Chanyeol's ears like liquid nitrogen; cold words that burned.

         "I changed my name when I got married. I told you, since the government wouldn't acknowledge our marriage, we did the next best thing for everything, including names."

         "So why did you take his name?"

         "Ugh," Luhan pinched his nose, "Kyungsoo just cool it for a bit." He said to his hyperactive friend. "When I came to Korea, I bastardized my name from Lu Han, to Luhan like a Korean name, so I added Xí as my family name, you know for s and giggles. So since I made up my last name, it seemed appropriate to lose it when I got married. Plus, I'm always going to be the woman in the relationship."

         "So when we get married, you'll be Park Luhan?" Chanyeol asked in all seriousness.

         "Yah! We haven't even gone on a date and you're already talking about marriage?!" Luhan had turned scarlet red in embarrassment, not knowing how to respond. Kyungsoo stood edgily by himself, not really knowing how to process the entire marriage scenario. He didn't feel like dealing with another round of Luhan-wedding-mode antics, like last time, which was petrifying enough.

         "Did I freak you out?" Chanyeol crept hands back around Luhan's waist, since he'd hidden his face in his hands to escape the conversation. "I'm sorry." Those two words alone pulled Luhan from his anti-social shell, and widened his eyes with surprise.

         "You apologized?" Kyungsoo began to slink back downstairs, starting to feel the recurrent effects of the third-wheel.

         "What? Just because I'm a guy I can't talk about marriage or apologize?" Chanyeol defended, going a bit bright around the cheeks himself. Luhan laughed, giving him a hug to reassure.

         "Of course you can. Except that marriage part, you've got a long while before you can talk like that." He told him. "Now carry me downstairs, you owe me that much since you -blocked my friendship."

         "Well if it's that kind of friendship, maybe I won't." Chanyeol said, with a complete poker face in play.

         "Yah!" Luhan protested.

~~~~~~~~~

Luhan had been busy organizing a visitor’s pass for himself with Kyungsoo so he could visit his students, especially the older ones to help with their upcoming tests. With Halloween over, he'd set out a list of present and Christmas-related vocabulary, as well as a lesson on how to give, exchange, and receive presents. Although technically his and Kyungsoo's qualifications were identical, Luhan still called the shots in the class simply because of the position Kyungsoo had taken as his teaching assistant. Also, when it came to his students, Luhan was a total control freak.

         "Alright, thanks Lu. Do you want me to bring you anything from the store after work?" Kyungsoo offered, picking up his binder file, the holy grail of OCD in its organization.

         "No, but there's something else I'd like, but you're not gonna like it." Luhan warned.

         "Anything for my bestie." Kyungsoo affirmed. He looked overly sympathetic; as if he was over-compensating for some wrong he’d done Luhan in the past, which hadn’t been the case.

         "Can you bring me some marking?" He said, leering with a piteous expression that Kyungsoo had a hard time saying no to.

         "You should rest Luhan, you don't need all that extra stress." His voice was heightened and strained, trying his best to be able to say no. The mantra went around in Kyungsoo's head just so he wouldn't cave and give Luhan what he wanted.

         "Kyungsoo I need help!" He pleaded, holding Kyungsoo's hands and leaning over the dinner table. "I'm bored out my mind and I need something to do, I'm going to go insane in this house!”

         "Oh, but aren't you going out on a date soon? That should be a nice refrain from sitting inside all day." Kyungsoo said with a straight face, walking towards the front door knowing full well that Luhan couldn't follow at any reasonable pace.

         "Kyungsoo you little !" Luhan frowned, giving his best friend the bird. It was this that made Kyungsoo cave for his best friend. The bird was a sacred signal between the two that was getting crazy.

         "I'll bring you the grade twelve’s latest tests, and the year eleven's as a bonus."

         "Oh my god I love you!!!"

         "Yah! What about me?" Chanyeol complained as he came down the stairs.

         "We've been dating for an hour Chanyeol!" Luhan argued, turning around to face him. "And put a shirt on, this is a house, not a locker room." Chanyeol went back upstairs, grumbling and groaning about all sorts of things, namely being bossed around. Luhan said goodbye and thanked Kyungsoo before he left for work.

~~~~~~~~~

One morning, Chanyeol had slept in later than usual. Luhan woke up at sometime past midnight, lying awake and uneasy. It had been a while since he'd had to lie so lightly so as not to disturb someone else in the bed. Getting fed up with lying there with nothing to do, he had a craving for a good page turner so, falling back into old midnight habits, he carefully crutched down the stairs, extremely cautious not to slip and fall. In the last week he’d had little practice coming down these stairs and absolutely none going up, but he was determined to get down these stairs and slowly but surely, his determination (and patience) rewarded him. He’d gone to the living room and plucked a book off of the lower shelves. He slid down into the windowsill sofa he’d sat at the night of Chanyeol and Kai’s sudden arrival, ready to break into an old favorite. He fluffed the resident pillow of the seat, setting it down behind his lower back and putting his foot up, the cast still on the floor beside him. The second he opened his book he noticed a faint glow through the corridor to the right of the stairs. The corridor itself wasn’t visible, but still the light was. It could have been one of two things: the spare room, or the laundry room. Curious, and hopeful for another midnight soul such as himself, Luhan put his book down beside the pillow and took hold of his crutches, legging it to the corridor to see the light on in Kai’s room.

         "Morning." Luhan smiled, opening the door to see Kai lying on his side with his face lit up by Luhan’s tablet and just as shirtless as Chanyeol. He heard Luhan and looked up, suddenly feeling self conscious about his body.

         "Woah, sorry!" He said, pulling the blanket over himself. The form beneath rustled around a bit before Kai popped back up with a Black Sabbath shirt on. "I know you always yell at Chanyeol for being shirtless."

         "No, it's okay, you're in your own room. And I'll let you get away with it." He winked, sitting down next to Kai on the bed. "Are you okay? You’re up so early."

         "I could say the same for you.” He winked heartily. “I was writing my resume." Kai admitted, pointing to Luhan's (now communal) tablet PC on the dresser. "A part-time job is better than no job I guess." He shrugged, looking a little sad around the edges.

         "You don't have to pay any rent if that's why you're looking for a job." Luhan assured him. He'd been very clear about that for the past few weeks, but the two kept insisting they hand in some sort of financial payment for their stay.

         "No, it's not right if we stay here and don’t help out." Kai affirmed. "Plus, Christmas is soon." Luhan hadn't thought about that. His seasonal clock was out of balance since he hadn't been to work to see his student's wonderful posters be put up.

         "Do you have any family in Korea?" Luhan asked, tilting his head slightly as he ran a hand through the back of his hair. He thought if Christmas was on Kai’s mind, then he most probably wanted to buy presents for his family.

         "I do," Kai affirmed, hesitantly, "but they're not really big on Christmas. I do have this one nephew though." He said smiling. He reached for his phone and pulled off the case on the back. "He's such an awesome kid, I really miss him." Kai pulled a photo from the back of his case of himself holding a younger child, nearly a spitting image of Kai himself. The two were smiling in an identical fashion, with a broad display of cloud white top teeth and smile creases at the edges of their mouths. Kai's hair was shaggy and curly, as was his nephew. They looked more like father and son than uncle and nephew.

         "You two look almost identical. He's so cute!" Luhan mused, clearly enamored by the magical smile the two were showing in the photo. He handed the photo back and Kai continued to talk whilst staring at the photo caringly.

         "He's a great kid. I'd really like to buy him something special this year, but I don't know where he's living right now." Kai now looked at the photo with a guilty face of remorse, then he clicked it back behind his phone and in the case.

         "I'm sure you can find out from your family, right?" Kai gave a very unenthusiastic 'yeah' compared to the joy he'd beamed when talking about his nephew. Deciding not to press a seemingly delicate family matter, Luhan let it go. After a long pause in the conversation, Luhan's mouth began running on autopilot. "So Chanyeol and I are dating now..."

         "What?" Kai asked, neck snapping up in surprise. Luhan went on the defensive, not knowing how Kai was going to react after that. "I mean, that's good. Congratulations." He redeemed Luhan's tense attitude with a smile, clearing the unsure air in the room. "Truth be told, he's actually never forgotten you since college."

         "What?” Luhan's usual angelic timbre turned shrill with amazement, and a bit of embarrassment.

         "You remember the day we met?" Kai asked, to which Luhan nodded. "I swear, it was like sitting in the middle of a Shakespeare novel."

         "How so?" Luhan thought the turn of phrase was odd, since he hadn't really read a lot of Shakespeare. He was supposed to in junior high, but he’d tuned out of ninety percent of literature classes.

         "Love at first sight." Kai told him, plain and simple. Luhan's heart began to palpitate, not with excitement, but something closer to terror. "Well, less romance and more 'he's really y', but for Chanyeol, even that means something." He explained. "Initially, the rumor was that you and Kyungsoo were dating," something that didn't surprise Luhan, he'd heard it before (and they did sleep together), "but then he found out you were dating Jonghyun, and then everything got serious."

         "I don't understand this bad blood between him and Jonghyun." Luhan said as he pulled up his foot and his cast onto the bed, sitting with the cast out and his foot in a cross-legged position.

         "Chanyeol wouldn't tell me about it either, but it must have been pretty bad." Kai's attitude turned to a sour, solemn disposition at that. "I couldn't ever bring up Jonghyun without him getting really crappy. But Chanyeol couldn't deal with the fact you two had gotten engaged, he acted as if he'd been stolen from or something. Anyway, after we graduated you never really came up again, and neither did Jonghyun, but there were signs."

         "Signs?" Kai was being awfully cryptic for some reason. Luhan supposed it was because it might have been a bit awkward to air Chanyeol's dirty laundry, especially when he was conversing with the topic of the conversation. "Signs of what?"

         "That he still thought of you." Kai chuckled, as if to say what else? "He would get this deep, content look in his eyes, a really peaceful gaze. When he did that, I think subconsciously, he traced words with his finger, sometimes he'd even do it with a pen in his hand."

         "What words?"

         "Odd words," Kai tried to recall, struggling, "I forgot most of them, but the one he'd write most often would be deer." He smiled. "Subtle things like that. He also bought a pair of cuff links; small, pressed metal ones that were rose gold of a deer's face. He wore them everyday at work, even in the summer." Luhan smiled at the gesture, a slight wave of guilt that he never really reciprocated such feelings, but how could he? He had been married for two years, and spent their third year apart in a state of grief as solid and stubborn as granite. But then Chanyeol had come like an earthquake, shaking his world and shattering the worst of the grief that allowed him to make a start on moving on.

         "Wow..." Luhan really was amazed. Chanyeol was in no way in love with Luhan the entire three years, but he had thought of him often and in some way, that was more wondrous than three years of silent, lonely pining.

         "Don't tell Chanyeol I told you any of this, otherwise-"

         "I know, I promise I won't. And if he ever suspects, I've got your back. Come here." He extended his arms out for a hug, which was well received as the two embraced. "Oh, can you help me upstairs?" Luhan asked. Kai agreed, waiting for Luhan to crutch to the stairs, before he leaned Luhan's crutches against the dining table when he handed them to him.

         "Ready?" Kai prompted.

         "Yup." Luhan answered as he balanced himself on his good ankle and the dining table. Kai held an arm against his back as he put pressure against the back of his knees with the side of his arm. Giving in like two children playing trust, Luhan fell back and into the net of Kai's arms with only a slight breath of hesitation, which had only been pure human instinct. Consciously, he trusted Kai completely, but there was always that lingering human instinct of what if?

Kai was warm, and Luhan had begun formulating a thesis correlating increased body temperature and testosterone. Chanyeol had been warmer than Kai, something Luhan noted when they'd all been sitting on the couch with him in the middle, but Kai was also able to open up more than Chanyeol ever could, at least not at first. He liked holding his arms around Kai whilst he cradled him in his own body; it was that same longing for contact that had forced him and Chanyeol into such a close and comfortable physical relationship; that, and Chanyeol's overtly flirtatious behavior.

         "Yah!" Chanyeol's voice sounded like a sonic boom. He'd just come out the bathroom and nearly collided into Kai, carrying Luhan. "He's mine, get your own."

         "Chanyeol stay the back." Luhan freaked out, his eyes going wide and his mouth turning sour. In the split millisecond where he'd registered Chanyeol's presence, he played out several scenarios in which Chanyeol struggles to take Luhan from Kai and Luhan ends up at the bottom of the steps with his neck broken. "Let Kai put me down and I'll come to you, no one has to die today." Chanyeol looked at him, at first a bit tender after Luhan’s rejection, but after that last sentence his pain had been overwritten by a strong sense of what the ? Kai did as he asked, setting him down beside Chanyeol who caught him, regardless if he'd been falling or perfectly balanced. He ran back down stairs to retrieve Luhan's things, whilst the fresh couple conversed.

         "What were you doing in the bathroom? I thought you were asleep." Luhan queried.

         "Nothing." Chanyeol said, hastily. His expression was highly suspicious, as his poker face had eventually been the downfall of his criminal career. Luhan squinted his eyes in a way that said 'I know you've been up to something'. He leant in and took one whiff of Chanyeol, the evidence hitting him immediately. The smell of was thick against his skin, like an offensive cologne.

         "Oh Chanyeol, gross!" The cat was out the bag. Or rather, the soldier was out the pants.

         "What? A guy's got needs!" Chanyeol said, as if it was perfectly normal for a man just to service himself in the middle of the night. "No need to get so sticky about it." Luhan looked at Chanyeol with a daring look.

         "Really? Really Chanyeol?" His rhetorical question seemed to be lost on Chanyeol, who hadn't even realized his own distasteful witticism.

         "What?" He stared at his boyfriend, confused. Kai came up with Luhan's crutches and PC, which he handed to him dutifully.

         "Thanks Kai." He said softly. He wormed out of Chanyeol's embrace to take his things and stand on his own one foot. "Never mind." He said to him.

Author's Note:

Hey guys! Sorry for the ranty little fluff chapter, but it's an important bridging chapter (ﾉ≧∀≦)ﾉ I hope you enjoyed it though! Next chapter coming sooner rather than later, but don't keep me to my word please! School starts TOMORROW and I've done no work (((╹д╹;))) Not looking foward to that. BUT ANYWAY, comment and tell what you thought~ I'm always ready to answer your comments and I'd love to meet some of you guys ♦ Don't forget to up-vote too if you like it! please ♡♡

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