Chapter Two

One Month Later

Lu Han was pulled out of his light slumber when the noisy ringing of his phone disrupted the dark silence of his room. With eyes half closed, his fingers blindingly reached for the bedside table to locate the blaring object, then swiped several times across the screen to turn off the alarm. When the sound ceased,  Lu Han dug his face back into his pillow and resumed his snoring. It was way too dark outside to be 7 AM in the morning, and he figured snoozing for an extra ten minutes wouldn't exactly hurt. 

That was, until Lu Han heard a shrill wail coming from his phone that was definitely not his ringtone. 

He immediately shot up from his bed, eyes wide open, and lunged for the device before hastily putting it up to his ear. He heard some loud scuffling from the other end of the line before a hoarse voice hollered into the phone. 

"Lu Han, this is an emergency!"

The said male furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Who was this person calling him so early in the morning?  Lu Han didn't recognize the sound as any of his close friends' voices. 

He hesitated for a while before cautiously mumbling, "Um...hello?" 

"Lu Han, I need to talk to you right now! Please!" 

It took Lu Han a long minute to recognize the voice as Minseok's, and when he did so, Lu Han inaudibly gasped into the phone. Never before in his life had he heard his friend sound this desperate, with his voice so scratchy it would take a gallon of water to relieve the raspiness. Minseok was always calm and tractable, and to hear such a strangled tone come from him was unexpected, especially at such an early hour in the morning. All of Lu Han's senses went into guard before he carefully answered, "What's wrong, Minseok? Why do you sound like that?" 

The other male heaved a shaky breath. "Everything, Lu Han. Everything. Oh my God, I've messed up so badly. What have I done!" 

Lu Han's worry hiked up a notch. "Calm down, Minseok," he said cautiously. "Tell me what happened." 

Instead of answering coherently, Minseok let out a muffled cry. "She isn't here, Lu Han. She's gone. She's gone. She's gone." Then he let out a hysterical shriek before a loud crash resounded through the phone. 

. 

"Minseok, don't hurt yourself!" Lu Han yelled, fingers clammy as he tried to hop out of the bed and pull on his pants. After throwing on a light jacket over his wrinkled white tee, Lu Han dashed from his apartment at the speed of lightning and got into his car, pulling out of his neighborhood in a flash. All the meanwhile, the phone was still lodged between his ear and shoulder, just so Lu Han could make sure that Minseok wasn't going to do anything to harm himself. 

But as shown evidently in the state of his house when Lu Han got there, Minseok was not okay. 

The door wasn't even locked, but was slightly ajar as if the guy already knew Lu Han was coming. The shards of a shattered flower vase littered the doorway, and inside, Lu Han could see couch pillows thrown haphazardly in every direction. The wedding photo of the couple that used to hang proudly against the left wall was now lying face down on the floor, and torn pieces of paper decorated the entire expanse of the house. With the current state of disarray, the small, cozy home of a once happily married couple looked like a messy storage house. 

The occupant of the abode himself was sitting by the master bedroom doorway, coiled up into a ball. He was sniffling into his arms, his hair sticking up wildly in all directions. With this image that Minseok was displaying, it would be hard for anyone to believe that the boy was almost half of fifty and married with a child on the way. 

He looked too fragile. Young. 

Breakable. 

Eyes softening, Lu Han quickly rushed over to Minseok's side and grasped his arms to pull him up from his fetal position, then hugged his friend tightly as he tried to wipe away his meager tears. It was a rarity for Minseok to ever be extremely emotional, and the fact that the grown man was now crying in his friend's arms, despite being older and usually always composed, meant that he was breaking down. Vulnerable. 

Lu Han patted Minseok's shoulder reassuringly for an immeasurable length of time before the older male pulled away and stopped sniffling. Even still, Minseok's face looked as if he had just recovered from his deathbed. His skin was pallid, his eyes were swollen, and his nose was redder than Rudolph's. 

"Do you think you can talk now?" Lu Han asked tentatively. 

Minseok nodded before moving to sit on the couch, Lu Han following after him. They fell into a heavy silence, Minseok seeming to have drifted off into his own thoughts, before Lu Han prodded his elbow to bring him back. 

The older male heaved a sigh before starting. "I'm so screwed, Lu Han. I don't know what to do. The other day, my parents called me unexpectedly and asked me how I was doing. It was the weirdest thing in the world, because I thought they hated me and would forever hold a grudge against me. But instead, they casually asked how Ha Ni was doing with the baby, how I was managing in Seoul, and if I was living well. The entire time, I was practically rendered speechless. Never before had they shown any concern for their daughter-in-law or future grandchild, but here they were, asking for the two's well-being as if we had been getting along just fine." 

Lu Han was just as surprised as Minseok to hear this. "Are you serious? They actually forgave you?" 

Minseok shook his head miserably. "No, that would've been too easy. My parents are hard-nosed people, and they're not very proud of me for impregnating a girl out of wedlock when I hadn't even introduced her to them yet. I should've known that call had a different purpose to it. But I was so fazed that I just blindly agreed to whatever they said, not realizing that they mentioned they would be coming to visit in a few days' time, expecting to see my wife, and tagging along my brat of a sister who I haven't seen in ages. I know they have something up their sleeve, but I don't know what yet. The fact that they're willing to come see me and Ha Ni is just too good to be true. Just think about it: they turned down their only son's wedding invitation, completely disregarded a new family member, and refused to reply to all calls. I understand that they're mad at me and they have a valid reason for being so, but for them to change so suddenly is...strange." 

It was indeed strange. Lu Han knew that everything Minseok said was right. It was abnormal for his parents to abruptly change their attitudes toward him overnight, and their proposal to visit seemed to come out of the blue. Lu Han could easily read most situations, and something like this wasn't hard to figure out. Minseok's parents definitely had an ulterior motive. 

Sudde