“We’re going out,” Luhan heard Minseok say in the kitchen as he waited for him by the front door.

Sehun replied with a mumbled “Yeah, whatever,” probably still trying to finish the stack of French toasts Minseok made for him for brunch.

“Do you want us to get you anything?”

“Can you get some milk?”

“The usual kind?” Minseok asked, and Luhan looked at his watch, frowning. They were going to miss the bus if Minseok didn’t hurry up.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I should buy you new clothes. You’ve been wearing the same ones over and over again.”

“Mum didn’t pack any of my nice clothes.”

“Minseok, we’ll miss the bus,” Luhan said.

“Just a minute,” Minseok yelled back before lowering his voice to talk to Sehun again. “I’ll get you some.”

For god’s sake, Luhan thought, giving up on getting to the bus stop in time. He closed the front door and walked over to the couch in the living room to plunk himself down on it.

“I’m fine with what I have,” Sehun said.

“Think of it as a Christmas gift,” Minseok said. “I’ll ask Luhan to pick an outfit for you.”

“No, he at choosing clothes.”

“Okay, then I guess I’ll pick something for you. What kind of clothes do you like?”

Luhan sighed. He felt neglected to say the least. Minseok seemed to be more keen on befriending his grumpy adolescent of a brother than spending time with him, and that was definitely not what he signed up for when he said he wanted to move in with Minseok. Letting Sehun live with them was simply a compromise. He didn’t expect Minseok to become Mum 2.0.

It was ironic how after weeks of fighting they had simply reverted back to what they were before: two virtual strangers who functioned under the dubious pretense of being a couple. It was even more ironic that Luhan didn’t realize what they were doing until now. Living in the same house didn’t help them form a closer relationship in the slightest bit since they were still going through a routine of quick greeting kisses before going to class, having lunch, going to more classes, and going home. The only difference was that they started and ended their day at the same place. When the holidays rolled around, Minseok decided that he wanted to be off in his own world slaving away doing housework trying to impress god knows who. It certainly didn’t help that bloody Mr. Washing Machine carked it last month and Minseok couldn’t bear to chuck it out and insisted on doing all their laundry by hand.

Luhan had tried to help, he really did, but Minseok decided that they couldn’t just do the laundry together, they had to turn it into family fun time and got Sehun to do the laundry by hand too, which resulted in a whole lot of bellyaching from Sehun, which pissed Luhan off, causing Minseok to politely shoo the both of them away with a “Why don’t you two go watch telly?” and it was family fun time no more.

During the rare times when Luhan managed to drag Minseok away from detergents and pails to propose some bonding time for them, Minseok would raise a second hoop for him to jump through: Sehun. Minseok had apparently taken it upon himself to speak for Sehun. Any suggestions Luhan made would be answered with “I think Sehun would like that,” which just put him off making any more suggestions. Luhan honestly wouldn’t put it past Minseok to drag Sehun along on their planned date today.

“Are you ready?” Minseok asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“Yeah,” Luhan said, standing up. “You’re not taking Sehun along?”

“You want him to come? Sehun!”

“No,” Luhan said quickly. “Bloody hell, Minseok.”

“What?” Sehun asked from the kitchen.

“Have you finished eating?” Minseok asked him after a slight pause.

“No,” Sehun yelled back.

“Do you absolutely have to yell at each other?” Luhan said, frowning.

Minseok gave him a puzzled look before heading to the kitchen to speak to Sehun. “If you can’t finish everything then just leave it. I’ll eat it later.”

“Okay.”

Luhan walked out the front door and waited for Minseok to join him, frowning as he looked at the time on his watch. “We’ll have to take the late bus and there’ll be five million people on there and even more at the shopping centre.”

“Is there anything else I need to know?” Minseok asked, closing the front door and locking it.

“What?”

“You seem cranky today,” Minseok said, turning around to face him. “So if there’s anything else that I do that you don’t like then let me know and I’ll try not to do it.”

“Oh, are you talking about all that yelling? The coddling doesn’t sit right with me either.”

“What coddling?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We’re not going on a date, we’re going shopping for Sehun. And of course the baby needs his special breakfast and milk everyday and you just cater to that unquestioningly. I wonder why you don’t spoonfeed him yourself.”

Minseok stared at him for a few seconds before simply giving a shake of the head and deciding to just head to the bus stop without responding.

“I bet you’re worrying about what the baby is doing right now,” Luhan said, following him. “That must be why you were so eager to bring him along.”

“Are you going to keep this up?” Minseok snapped, halting his steps. “Because if you are, then I really don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

Luhan hesitated before giving a sigh. “No. It’s just that I feel like you’re morphing into my mum and I hate it.”

“I like your mum.”

“You don’t get it. Everything is Sehun this and Sehun that, and that frustrates the crap out of me.”

“You’re the one who brought him up,” Minseok pointed out.

Luhan gave yet another sigh. “Okay, let’s try this again.” He looked at his watch. “We need to hurry up. The bus should be here soon.”

They rushed to the bus stop and arrived with a few minutes to spare.

“I’ve been thinking,” Luhan said, quickly warding off the uncomfortable silence that was about to settle upon them as they waited on the bench at the bus stop. “Maybe we should buy a new washing machine.”

“No,” Minseok said, keeping a lookout for the bus.

“You won’t have time to handwash everything once uni starts.”

“I can’t replace him,” Minseok said, glancing at Luhan before returning his eyes to the road.

“You don’t have to replace anything. We can get a washer-dryer to join the family.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“At least let me and Sehun wash our own clothes.”

“No, that’s such a waste of water and detergent.”

“But-” Luhan halted when the bus arrived. He stood up and walked over to the bus door, letting Minseok enter the bus first. “The laundry is one thing, but what’s with your compulsive cleaning? You don’t have to scrub the floor everyday.”

“It keeps me occupied,” Minseok said, squeezing past the people crowding near the door. Seeing how packed the back of the bus was, he decided to grab onto the closest overhead strap and turned around to face Luhan.

“I’m complaining about not spending enough time with you and you’re deliberately making yourself busy?” Luhan asked, avoiding somebody’s elbow just in time and grabbing onto the same strap that Minseok was holding.

“You never had a problem with it before.”

“Just because I don’t say anything doesn’t mean that I like it.”

“Okay, I’ll try not to clean so much.”

“Excuse you,” Luhan said, glaring at the person who bumped into him. He turned back to Minseok. “We wouldn’t be stuck in this sardine can if you just left five minutes earlier.”

“The earlier bus is probably the same. It’s the holidays.”

“But of course you couldn’t because you were too busy talking to Sehun,” Luhan continued. “About Christmas gifts, of all things. Do we really need to get a fully grown adult a bloody Christmas gift?”

“I just want to get him new clothes.”

“New clothes that he doesn’t need. He’s old enough to buy his own clothes if he wants to.”

“He doesn’t have his own money.”

“It’s about time he starts working.”

“Like you do?” Minseok retorted.

Luhan frowned. “That’s not the point. You don’t buy things for me, I don’t buy things for you, and you don’t buy things for him.”

“It’s my money, I’ll spend it however I like.”

“He doesn’t need to be pampered anymore.”

“I’m not pampering him. This is the first time I’m buying anything for him.”

“Everybody just hands everything to him on a bloody silver platter. I think it’s time to break the cycle.”

“What are you even-“ Minseok halted. “You know what, I’m done.” He pressed the nearest stop bell.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Minseok pushed past Luhan to wait by the front door.

“No, wait, let’s try this again,” Luhan said, placing a hand on Minseok’s shoulder to stop him. Minseok brushed his hand off and waited in silence for the bus to arrive at the next stop. Luhan sighed and followed him as he got off the bus. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

Minseok waited for the bus to drive off before speaking, “Do you want to know why I like having Sehun around? Do you want to know why I’d rather scrub the floor until my palms bleed than spend time with you?”

Luhan had so many things he wanted to say to that, but it wasn’t often that Minseok got angry. It was obviously best for him to back off for now. “Why?”

“Because you can’t go two seconds without trying to pick a fight with me. When Sehun’s around, or even when we were with our friends last night, you’re putting on a charade and you’re the old Luhan again, but as soon as it’s just us, suddenly you’re the confrontational stranger that I fought with all those months ago.”

“But you’ve seen both sides of me, so I guess in time you’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it, I want you to change.”

“You want me to change,” Luhan repeated blandly.

“Yes.”

“Do you remember what you said this morning, or will you accuse me of nitpicking and bringing up old things if I repeat it now?”

Minseok sighed. “What is it? What did I say?”

“You said that being a couple to you means that two people love each other, so I’m assuming that means that you love me.”

Minseok hesitated before giving a slight nod.

“But I don’t think you do.”

Minseok frowned. “Are you trying to shift the blame and say that we’re fighting because I don’t love you enough or something?”

“I think you’re in love with an image of me that you’ve built in your head. Now that you’ve realized that I’m not that person, you don’t like it.”

“I’m just telling you to fix one thing about yourself.”

“I’ve changed enough,” Luhan said, standing his ground. “If you don’t like me now then I don’t think this is going to work.”

Minseok stared at him. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“This relationship isn’t going anywhere. You’re not helping, and Sehun’s definitely not helping either.”

“When I tried to break up with you-” Minseok started.

Luhan looked at him. What did they have here?

“-you practically got on your hands and knees begging me not to leave, and now you want to break up with me?”

Luhan smiled calmly. “Minseok, honey, you’re bringing up things that happened eight months ago.”

“Do you have to be such a-” Minseok managed, before turning around with a huffed out breath of annoyance and walking off.

“You said you wouldn’t,” Luhan called after him. He turned in the opposite direction and kicked a loose stone on the ground. .