Kyungsoo steps into the blessedly cool interior of SuperGreenMart and takes a moment to calm his breathing. His slightly swollen feet and ankles are killing him already. Being six months pregnant will do that to one’s body, so he’ll have to deal with it. He’s barely walked any length today, only from his apartment to the nearby bus stop, and half a block to the supermarket.

But this couldn’t wait.

His mango-flavored cookie wafers couldn’t wait.

That was the y thing about cravings and having to fulfill them himself.

Kyungsoo sighs and massages the sides of his swollen stomach. He winces at the kick he receives. Someone isn’t happy about this little trip. “Sorry, Baby. I know you hate long walks, but just try to work with me here. After all, you are the one giving me these weird cravings.”

The baby moves a bit more and Kyungsoo bears it all with a small smile on his lips. The first time it happened, he’d freaked out at the weird sensation inside his belly, but after two weeks or so he’d gotten used to it. Once Baby settles down, he sets out in search of the cookies. In the sweets aisle there’s a cart with boxes and a boy on a ladder restocking the shelves.

A quick survey of the shelves provides him with no mango wafers, so Kyungsoo hobbles back to where the boy—nametag Oh Sehun—is and politely asks him.

Sehun nods when Kyungsoo explain what he wants. “We got a shipment this morning. I could check in the back if you’d like?”

“Yes, please,” Kyungsoo says. “Thank you.”

The boy is gone for a long time, so long that Kyungsoo and his swollen feet decide to take a break and sit on the small stepladder. A couple of people walk by with their shopping baskets, and Kyungsoo smiles politely when they look at him curiously.

“Maybe you could find another craving?” He says softly, and keeps a hand on his belly, rubbing soothing circles as he talks to Baby. “How about chocolate chip? Or peanut butter? Or peanut butter chocolate?”

The last suggestion earns him a kick and he chuckles.

Sehun comes back empty handed, his thin lips set in an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, but it seems we’re no longer bringing the mango wafers.”

Kyungsoo frowns. “You mean they were discontinued?”

“Ah, no. The cookies were imported from Latin America,” Sehun explains, “and our company is no longer importing products from them.”

It takes him a moment to understand that he can’t have his favorite cookies, the cookies he craves day and night, anymore. “Why not?”

Sehun chuckles. “I’m just a worker. I wouldn’t know.”

Kyungsoo’s lower lip trembles and dammit, he’s not going to cry over cookies. But this is the only place that sells them and now they won’t anymore. The one thing that he could always count on to cheer him up on his empty and bleak days, is now gone. 

“You could always try ordering them online,” Sehun says, his voice going an octave higher upon seeing Kyungsoo’s reaction. “I love to order chocolate from the UK. It tastes so much better—”

“I can’t.” Kyungsoo chokes on a sob. The cookies are gone. Gone like most of the people in his life. Gone like he is gone. 

“I’m sorry?”

“I can’t order them online because I have no credit card, and I won’t get one because my credit is !” Kyungsoo’s breathing faster now, trying to keep calm. But that’s hard to do with the growing knot in his chest and the rising panic. “So now I have to spend my days craving these stupid mango wafers because your ty company decided not to buy from Latin America?”

Sehun blinks. “I, uh—”

“What is so bad about Latin America, huh?” Kyungsoo rants on. He’s not even sure what he’s saying anymore. But maybe if he keeps talking about other things, the things that hurt him the most won’t spill out. “Is it that they’re too loud?”

“No, sir—”

“Is it their skin color?” Kyungsoo whispers angrily. “Because that is some racist right there and I WILL NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM THIS SUPERMARKET IF YOU ARE ALL DISCRIMINATING BASTARDS—” 

The kick to his ribs shuts him up. Kyungsoo winces and clutches his stomach with one hand. He grips the supermarket boy’s hand with the other and holds on. . He upset Baby.

“Oh my god,” Sehun says. “Are you okay? S-Should I call a doctor?”

“I’m fine,” Kyungsoo bites out and he hates that his eyes are tearing up.

He can’t do this.

He can’t be a single parent.

How the is he going to take care of another living being if he can’t even take care of himself? If simple things broke him down this easily, how could he be someone Baby could depend on? He’s so weak and pathetic that he’s having a meltdown in the middle of a cookie aisle in a supermarket. How ing low can he get? 

Poor Sehun is asking him useless questions and he can’t be bothered to answer, because he’s trying to breathe, not hyperventilate. And maybe he should’ve listened to his neighbor this afternoon and stayed at home. But no. He had to play at being strong, at being capable on his own.

Kyungsoo cradles his swollen belly and cries. It’s no longer about the cookies. It’s about the gaping hole in his heart, the one that used to hold a piece of his better half who is now gone, taken from him too soon. He’s learned many things about babies and his own body in these past eight months. But he hasn’t learned how to live without him. Kyungsoo is nothing without—

Two strong hands grab him, tightening around his forearms. “You need to calm down.”

Kyungsoo looks up and meets a stranger’s concerned gaze. He tries to speak, but the heaving sobs won’t stop.

“Try to think of something nice,” the stranger say. He has a nice face, tanned with full lips and kind, brown eyes. “Think of a happy memory.”

Kyungsoo blinks away more tears. He has many happy memories, but they’re all of a time he’d rather not remember. Remembering is unbearable heartache. He swallows and keeps thinking. 

The stranger’s small smile is encouraging.

There was this one moment a couple of weeks ago when he’d gone shopping for baby clothes. He’d refused to know the baby’s , so he was looking around for genderless onesies and shirts, anything that wasn’t pink or blue. He’d been talking to Baby as he always did, when he found the perfect little outfit. It read “I’m silently judging you” across the front and Kyungsoo had grinned then, because he had a shirt with the same quote at home. Even short on money as he was, he bought the onesie after Baby started kicking happily inside.

“That’s it,” the stranger says, bringing Kyungsoo back to the present. “Now breathe deep…and let go.”

Kyungsoo does it, focusing on the words, on the tone. The stranger has a deep voice that soothes over Kyungsoo’s nerves like the sweetest balm. The feeling is so strange. He has never felt this safe with someone else, much less someone he doesn’t know.

The man slides his hands down and grips Kyungsoo’s hands, pulling them away from his belly. “Relax your stomach. Slowly. Breathe in. Breathe out. There you go.”

Kyungsoo keeps doing as instructed until soon he isn’t shaking anymore and there are no more tears escaping from his eyes. “Thank you,” he says.

The handsome man grants him a blinding smile. “Jongin. My name is Jongin.”

“Thank you, Jongin,” Kyungsoo says. He openly stares, because wow, his smile is like sunshine, warming him all over. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Jongin rubs the top of Kyungsoo’s hands with his thumbs. It’s so distracting that Kyungsoo almost misses what Jongin says next. “I took care of my sister until she gave birth last month. I know how these things are.”

Kyungsoo blushes. Oh my god. He just made a fool of himself and this guy…this guy was being way too nice.

“Your feet are swollen,” Jongin mutters. “You shouldn’t be moving so much when you’re this far along. If you needed groceries you should’ve let your partner come.”

Oh.

“I…I don’t have anyone.” A fresh wave of tears starts up. Why the heck did he say that? He doesn’t want pity from anyone. Especially not from Jongin who clearly went out of his way to calm a pregnant man throwing a hissy fit over the lack of his favorite cookies.

Jongin curses and digs around in his pockets, coming up with a small hand-towel. Who carries a hand-towel in his back pocket? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you again.”

Kyungsoo takes the towel, dries his tears, and blows his nose. Loudly. He’s made a comple