"They were talking about me again," Yixing said as he looked down at the kitchen table and moved his potatoes around with his fork. 

     "Who, the kids at school?" his father asked as he looked up at his son over his copy of Vogue: Korea. Yixing nodded slightly, still staring at his plate. "Don't worry about them, Xing. They're all just stupid and insecure and-"

     "Normal?" Yixing quickly shot at his father, snapping his head up. His father sighed in response. 

     "You're normal, Yixing."

     "No, Dad, I'm the weird kid with no friends who reads 24/7. I don't have a problem with being the weird kid that reads, but I'm nothing like the other kids. They all have normal friends and normal hobbies and have normal parents with normal jobs-" Yixing ranted, rolling his eyes. 

     "You have a normal parent with a normal job-" his father tried to defend. 

     "You're a stripper!" Yixing screamed across the table. 

     "I'm a male model," his father corrected.

     "With a stripper name," the boy rebutted.

     "That's enough, Yixing."

     "Fine, Suho," Yixing spat, leaning back in his chair and glaring at his father. 

     "Yixing!" his father's eyes shot open in surprise. Yixing cocked his head to the side and sent daggers towards his father. "Yixing... I told you, if you're not going to call me 'dad' then you're going to call me 'Junmyeon'. I'm fine with that. But not Suho... I really do not need work following me here. There's a reason you've never been to the set and you know that. I thought you cared enough to respect that." Yixing scoffed and crossed his arms, pushing his plate away. "What?" his father asked after sighing.

     "Would you have a different job if Mom were still here?" Yixing asked, still not meeting his father's eyes. 

     "You know I would. But I don't have that option anymore, Yixing. Do you like this house? Your bed, running water, your phone, food on the table? It's not easy, Xing and I do what I do so that you can have that! So you can be comfortable! Nevermind what other people say, what matters is that we all do what we have to to get by! Can't you see that, Xing-"

     "Stop calling me that!" Yixing screamed as he stood up from the table, his chair falling to the ground behind him. His mother used to call him Xing and his father knew that. It seemed as if his father was doing everything possible to upset him more. "You think I don't know why you do it? You think I care why you do it? That's not the problem! Haven't you ever once dreamed of having a real, normal family? One where both parents are there for everything their kids do, one where the father doesn't have to hide his work from his son, one where the kid's friends are always at the house, the mom is loving and the dad is supportive and the kid doesn't get harassed at school?! Haven't you ever wanted that?" Yixing yelled at his father, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and threatening to spill over. 

     "Yixing-" Junmyeon started to walk around the table, but Yixing just backed away, his hands balled into fists so tight his knuckles turned white. 

     "No," Yixing shook his head. "You know what I wish? I wish Mom were still alive so that I wouldn't have to be stuck with you." And with that, he was gone, Junmyeon left alone in the kitchen, speechless for the first time in his life. 

-----------------

     Yixing was halfway through rereading The Grapes of Wrath for the third time, when he heard a knock on the door. Without waiting to be granted entrance, Junmyeon slowly opened the door and quietly strode into the room, sitting himself down on the side of Yixing's bed, where the boy was curled against the headboard, his face as close to the pages as he could get it. 

     "Yixing," his father whispered, looking at his son, who's blonde waves were poking out from the top of his book. Yixing had insisted on bleaching his hair when he was thirteen. "It'll be an adventure," he told his father, who just laughed and ruffled the boy's then-black locks.

     When he received no response, he sighed and placed his hand carefully onto Yixing's knee, who instantly jerked back and scooted farther to the other side of the bed. Dropping his head, Junmyeon sighed again and nervously wrung his hands together. "Yixing, I'm sorry, I just- I know how hard it was losing your mom. I know what it did to you, and I should've been more sensitive to that. But I need you to know, son, I'm trying," Junmyeon said, shaking his head. "I really am. I'm sorry I'm not home as much as I'd like to be... as much as I should be... but everything I do, I do for you. I don't" Junmyeon paused and took a shaky breath, willing the tears to stay back. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you like I lost her... That's why I'm trying to do everything that I can. For you, Yixing." Junmyeon looked up at his son, who still hadn't moved from where he sat, nose pressed into the pages of the novel. Junmyeon sighed (he had a habit of doing that) when Yixing didn't respond. Heck, Yixing probably hadn't even heard him; he was used to tuning out the world around him, especially when he had a book. Junmyeon looked back down at his feet and closed his eyes. 

     "I miss her," came the soft whisper from his left. Junmyeon slowly lifted his head back up and turned towards his son, who was staring at him with red, shimmering eyes. "I miss her, Dad. I miss her," Yixing cried as the glistening drops poured from his eyes and onto the pages of the book he had dropped onto the bed. Junmyeon let out the breath he didn't know he was holding and realized that his cheeks were wet as well. 

     Yixing had been taller than him since the boy was 15, but Junmyeon ignored that fact as he carefully wrapped his arms around Yixing and pulled him into his chest. "I miss her too, Yixing," he whsipered into his son's golden hair as the younger buried his head in Junmyeon's shoulder, soaking it instantly with tears. Soon, when Yixing started shaking in Junmyeon's arms, his father thought of the only thing besides a book that could calm the boy down; he began singing the lullaby Yixing's mother used to sing to him when he had fallen and scraped his knee or when he would wake up crying from a nightmare. Junmyeon knew he had poor Chinese, and Yixing only spoke it when he was talking to himself or when he was dreaming, but he had heard this song enough times to know the words and their meaning like they were in his own laguage. 

     "-甜蜜蜜你笑得甜蜜蜜

    好像花儿开在春风里

    开在春风里-" 

     Yixing's mother was a young, beautiful, talented woman, only 36 when she died, who was loved by everyone in her life, especially her two boys. Kim Junmyeon had met Yixing's mother in Hong Kong when his family had taken a trip to China for the summer at the age of 15. Zhang Zhi Lan was the neighbour of a close family friend of the Kims who the family was staying with for two months. Though she was two years older than Junmyeon, she had taken to him fairly quickly, and soon the two were virtually inseparable. After the Kims returned to Korea, the two teenagers didn't lose contact and Zhi Lan eventually convinced her parents to let her travel to Korea to stay with the Kims when she was 19. After almost two weeks, the two decided that they were destined to be with each other. 

     "Let's get married," Junmyeon said one night as he sat on his porch, Zhi Lan resting her head on his soulder. She instantly shot up and laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiled so bright, Junmyeon had often joked that she could blind the stars. 

     "We're too young to get married," she responded with a gentle smile. 

     "Says who?" Junmyeon smiled back. 

     "Says me. And, you know our parents would never allow it," she responded with a sigh. Junmyeon was convinced he picked up his habit of sighing from spending so much time with the Chinese girl. 

     "C'mon, Zhilan-ah. You know we're supposed to be together. Besides, you love spontaneity." 

     "I love practicality," she shot back and rolled her eyes.

     "You love adventure," Junmyeon said, knowingly. They both stared at each other for a while before she sighed again.

     "Our parents, Junmyeon-"

     "Let's elope." 

     "Excuse me?" Zhi Lan said, pulling back suddenly. 

     "Let's elope, Zhi," the boy said excitedly. 

     "You're crazy!" she screamed and hit his arm.

     "I'm brilliant," he replied, not missing a beat.

     "You're-" she stopped and looked up at her boyfriend. Her eyes suddenly widened and her smile grew to the size of the chesire cat. "You're right."

     "I am?!" Junmyeon asked, his voice going up an octave. She nodded and stared into his eyes.

     "You're right. Let's do it."

     "Call?" Junmyeon asked holding out his pinky. Zhi Lan linked her pinky with his. 

     "Call." 

---------------

     "Do you regret it?" Yixing asked when he had calmed down enough to breathe properly, though he was still curled in his father's protective embrace. 

     "Regret what, Yixing?" Junmyeon asked as he pulled away enough to look down at the taller boy. 

     "Me..." Yixing whispered. "Having me... do you ever regret it?" Yixing asked, looking away at the edge of the bed. Junmyeon just wrapped him tighter in his arms and let tears slip from his eyes. He could feel the younger start to shake again, a sign that he too was crying. 

     "Never, Yixing. I regret nothing, and I never will. You're my son and the best gift I could've ever asked for. And I'm not letting you go so easily." 

     Suddenly, Yixing didn't feel like the weird kid anymore. He wasn't the loner, the book freak, or the oddball. He was just Zhang Yixing, and he would make his own adventures one step at a time. 

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A/N: THIS is the song that Junmyeon sings to him. Notice the irony in who sings the actaul song. ;)