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Chapter Text

Sunghoon finds himself reflexively making a turn into a once-familiar street, ignoring the droning GPS directing him to his new apartment somewhere downtown. Before he can change his mind or question this momentary mental lapse of his, he pulls over and parks his SUV by a staple of his childhood—his old neighborhood's park. 

The park sits right between Sunghoon's former elementary school and the apartment complex where his family lived more than twenty years ago. The neighborhood kids used to spend all their time here during the afternoons—playing on the creaking seesaw, hanging upside down from the rusty jungle gym, or tumbling down the deathly metal slide that used to sit here once upon a time. Sunghoon, on the other hand, used to only watch them from afar back then.

He kills the engine, impulsively getting out of the car to walk around for a bit. He is cruelly reminded that it is the middle of winter in Seoul the moment an icy gust of wind almost glues him to his car. He is quick to snatch up his coat and scarf from the passenger seat to bundle up before trying again. 

The gray slush soaking the ground makes the place look even more desolate, and Sunghoon shudders as the cold stiffens the muscles in his face.

The park has been renovated since Sunghoon was here last, he notes dispassionately. A much safer and modern plastic structure has taken the place of the old playground sets from his childhood days.

He stares at the structure pensively. An almost violent urge to climb up the new playground set overtakes him despite his almost 30 years of age. He bites his lip, vacillating for a fraction of a second before he decides to just go ahead and do it. Worst case scenario, Sunghoon gets stuck in the slide and someone has to call the police to rescue him. He digs for the gloves he knows are buried somewhere inside his coat pocket and tugs them on for good measure.

Sunghoon takes a surreptitious look around to make sure no one can see him and makes a go for it. He clambers up the plastic ladder with difficulty, folding his long limbs awkwardly, but soon stands victoriously on top of the playground set.

It takes Sunghoon all of five seconds to grow mortified at this emotional action of his. When he was a kid, all he had wanted to do was to join the fray of kids in the afternoons, sweat sticking his clothes to his back. The playground structures had stood as tall as fortified towers and never-ending spires to his younger eyes. Now, Sunghoon could probably sit by the edge with his legs dangling down, and his feet would be scant inches from reaching the ground below. He scoffs at his own sentimentality, yet is somehow still disappointed at how underwhelming it all now seems. The somewhat dreary weather also does not help.

Sunghoon is about to stuff himself into the tube slide and have his little impromptu excursion come to an end when he hears voices coming his way.

He crouches on the playground's floor to hide from view—he is aware that an adult male on a children's playground is questionable at best, borderline criminal at worst, but, in his defense, the place had been deserted when he'd arrived. He waits with bated breath. Sunghoon's knees start hurting from crouching down, and his neck is growing stiff at the unnatural position, so he has no choice but to lie down on the playground's set floor instead, spread like a starfish. 

He clenches his teeth, tampering the urge to yelp as the melted puddles of snow on the set seep into his clothes.

Sunghoon doesn't know how long he lies there, the minutes ticking by agonizingly slowly. He digs for his phone to check the time and realizes that his battery is only at two percent. He groans but is too paranoid of being found out, so he stays put long enough for the skies to start changing hues above. 

He can no longer feel his face thanks to the cold yet his mind is surprisingly empty of thought. The normally clamoring thoughts that bounce around his head at all times have decided to give him a break for once. He is not worried about the stuff he still needs to unpack at his place, the pile of paperwork waiting for him back at his office, or the unanswered messages piling up on his group chat with Heeseung and Jake. 

He is not worried about putting together the pieces of the life he'd left behind here in Korea so long ago for once. 

"Ahjussi ," a timid voice, far too close to Sunghoon, abruptly cuts through the silence. 

Sunghoon rushes to sit up. Staring at him with trepidation is a young girl that seemingly materialized out of nowhere. He had not sensed her at all because her scent is so faint—fainter than children's scents usually are—but now that he's paying attention, he thinks he can smell hints of hazelnut or maybe toffee nut in her. 

He clears his throat, flustered by the state of him, the back of his coat and slacks wrinkled and covered in mud from having lain on the playground set's floor for this long. He runs his fingers through his hair, self-conscious. 

The girl hasn't moved an inch, unblinkingly staring at him in a manner that unnerves him. He is aware that he has overstayed his welcome at this solitary children playground now that actual children want to play in it. 

"Sorry," he mumbles, gesturing at the tube slide's opening with his chin. "You can go."

The girl merely shakes her head, her long braids whipping around her at the action. There are pink hair-bows tied to their ends. A white puffy coat zipped from her chin down to her knees is keeping her warm from the inclement weather. 

“No?” he asks. “You don’t wanna get on the slide?”

The girl once more shakes her head, tucking her reddened hands against her cheeks shyly. Sunghoon is charmed by the child’s fuzzy, peach-pink cheeks. A prominent beauty mark sits high on the bridge of her nose, another one winking at him from her right cheekbone. 

“Why not?”

“I came here to cloud watch, not to play on the slide,” she murmurs, looking like she’s letting Sunghoon in on a big secret.

Sunghoon ahhs, wondering if cloud watching is a normal thing for kids nowadays to do. 

“You can watch them, too, if you want,” she offers graciously after a beat, seemingly remembering her manners.

“Why, thank you,” he half-bows, inwardly preening when the action makes the girl smile for the first time. 

It’s a bit awkward, like she is not quite used to it. 

“So, how do we do this?” he asks his new friend. Sunghoon is not one to feel comfortable around children, but it's somehow easy to speak to this one. “What should we do first if we want to cloud watch?”

“First, we need to lie down,” she explains, her serious countenance returning.

The girl apparently finds Sunghoon harmless enough because she joins him on the floor, sitting cross-legged with her back ram-rod straight. She primly smoothes her uniform skirt, demeanor almost regal and unusual in such a young person. She doesn't seem to be bothered by the damp ground at all. Sunghoon finds it amusing.

"Okay," he hurries to comply, returning to his earlier position. “Now what?”

Sunghoon can see the girl wringing her hands from where he’s laying down. 

“Could you scoot over so that I may have more room, please?" she mumbles, gaze glued to her hands.

“Of course,” he scooches to the side, giving the girl as much room as he can. 

The girl mirrors his position then—silently lies down on her back on the cold, wet playground floor, her fingers laced together and resting over her stomach.  

A few beats of silence go by before his younger friend next to him wiggles in place.

“What is it?” Sunghoon reflexively asks.

“Are you having fun?” she demands to know, eyeing him to better gauge his reaction. 

Sunghoon finds her awkward bluntness disarming. It reminds him of someone, somehow.

“I am,” he assures her, “and we haven’t even seen any clouds yet.”

She nods, mostly to herself, and turns her gaze back to the sky above. Sunghoon does the same.

"Those are stratocumulus clouds," she pipes up, pointing at the fluffy clouds drifting in the already darkening skies.

"Strato-what?" he mumbles, staring bewildered at the clouds in question. He points at one in particular. "I don't know what a stratocolumn is, but take that cloud, for example. It looks more like a cake that sunk in the middle, if you ask me."

"Stratocumulus, and no, it does not," she argues, though she furrows her thick eyebrows as she continues staring at it. "If anything it looks like a cereal bowl."

"I can see it," he hums consideringly, humoring her. "Look, that other cloud looks like a cat with its paws tucked. A cat loaf."

“We can’t have any cats at our apartment complex,” the girl sighs out. “Or dogs. Or birds. No pets at all. My mom is not really a pet person, either, but he did promise I could get a pet snail once we move.”

"A pet snail?” Sunghoon barks a laugh. “Why a pet snail?”

“My mom had pet snails growing up and he said they are great pets,” she hotly defends herself. “They are actually very interesting animals, and some of them are really cute! I have a book about invertebrates at home. I’m going to get a girl pet snail and her name is going to be Bijou . Oh, that's a cumulus cloud. I think."

"You think?" Sunghoon asks with a raised eyebrow.

"W-well, I'd have to look into my clouds book back at home to be sure!" she splutters.

Sunghoon laughs.

"Clouds book? What kind of book is that?"

He can't see it but he can hear her roll her eyes.

"It's a book about clouds, obviously. Uncle Jay got it for me as a Christmas present last year because he knows I like clouds. And he got me the book about invertebrates, as well. They’re all in English, too."

" Oh, so you can speak English ?" Sunghoon immediately switches up the language, wanting to mess with her a little.

" Of course ," she fires back, pronunciation near-perfect. " My Uncle says my accent is really good. I know a lot . He teaches me a lot. "

"Wow," Sunghoon slowly claps, eliciting a pleased harrumph from her. "I thought you got switched with an American kid for a moment. I had to look over and see if I was still talking to the same person."

She glows at the praise and her pleased expression makes him unconsciously smile. She redirects Sunghoon's attention back to the clouds.

"Ahjussi, look! That one looks like a flower!"

"I'm not an ahjussi. I'm an uncle, uncle. But yeah, it does look like a flower," he concedes, staring at the singular shape floating above their heads. The dying sun rays hit the cloud just right, giving it a burnt orange hue. 

“Pretty,” she whispers, and Sunghoon agrees. 

Something occurs to him then.

“Say, how old are you, kid?” he asks.

"I am almost eight-years-old," she tells him. "But my mom says I'm small for my age."

The girl does look small for her age, her thin frame almost swallowed by her jacket. He wouldn't have guessed she was seven. 

"Yah," he teases. "Almost eight is not an age, though. You're just seven. What's this 'almost eight' nonsense?"

The girl heaves a sigh.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she tells him. “I just can’t wait to get older so that I can present.”

Sunghoon wracks his brain for something to say, the mood around them swiftly souring. Sunghoon is not sure what he said wrong.

“I used to think that way, too,” Sunghoon rushes to say. “I think all children want to grow up fast. But once you actually present, all you want to do is go back to your days as a pup when things are much more simple.”

“Things are not really simple now,” she murmurs almost thoughtfully, her eyes fixed on the flower cloud floating away.

Sunghoon stares at her side profile, noting that the girl’s long, dark eyelashes reach impossibly upwards, long sunflowers straining for the getaway sun. Her exhalations condense above her cold little face, like her own personal set of glittering clouds. 

“What do you want to do once you present, then?” Sunghoon prods cautiously, uncomfortable with the almost melancholic air surrounding the child.

“When I present as an Alpha,” she shares her childish confession lowly after mulling it over for a long time, “I’m going to take care of my mom for the rest of my life so that we won’t need anyone else but each other. I love Uncle Jay and Uncle Jungwon, but I like it better when it's just the two of us because Uncle Jay can be very loud sometimes and it makes my head hurt.”

Sunghoon doesn’t know what to say to that. She sounds like a grumpy old halmeonie who considers loud noises the bane of her existence, but Sunghoon can see she's being completely earnest so he doesn't laugh at her. He also doesn't have the heart to tell her that there is a high chance that she won't present as an Alpha either.

Coincidentally, the names Jay and Jungwon happen to remind him of his college days. He used to have a classmate that went by the name Jay—though he had a Korean name Sunghoon can't quite recall—and a junior named Yang Jungwon. He wonders, not for the first time, what happened to them. He has not heard from them in ages.

He inevitably thinks of another junior he also hasn't heard anything about for longer than that, but he forcefully wrenches his mind away from that particular Pandora box. It’s been almost nine years since Sunghoon got his heart irremediably broken, and it coincidentally matches the almost nine years since Sunghoon saw Kim Sunoo for the last time.

He is not embarrassed to admit that the wound still hurts when prodded just as much as when it was first inflicted, but he doesn’t want to explain to a kid why a grown man is crying at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

“So, what does your mom do?” he asks her in an effort to distract himself from his lingering thoughts about the past.

“He’s a music teacher at a high school, but his voice and dancing skills are amazing. He is also the most beautiful out of all the grownups I've seen,” she adds, the most animated Sunghoon has seen her. “Even my classmates agree on that. That's also why I have to hurry up and present, so that I may keep all the Alphas that want to be with him away.”

“Aren't you quite the protective little thing,” Sunghoon laughs. He eyes her reddened hands and cheeks once more and sighs, unwinding his scarf from around his neck. “Here, sit up.”

He waits until the girl obliges, albeit eyeing him in guarded silence, to unceremoniously hand her the piece of clothing.

“Wrap this around your neck. I know it may be a bit stinky because I’m an Alpha, but I’d rather you be stinky than cold,” he gruffly tells her, finding it difficult to look her in the eye all of a sudden.

“Thanks, uncle. It's actually not that stinky. For an Alpha I mean.”

“I'll take that as a compliment,” Sunghoon tells her wryly, getting over his momentary embarrassment. “Anyway, surely your Mom has your father to protect him from those other big, bad Alphas you refer to. You don't have to do all the work yourself.”

“My father?” she asks, tone casual. She runs her small hands over the soft fabric of Sunghoon’s scarf. “He is not here. He has always been somewhere else actually, but it's okay, so don't make that face, uncle. I like it better this way.”

“Oh,” Sunghoon stills. “I—”

“What if he turns out to be louder than Uncle Jay? I wouldn't like him much, even if he was my father. Mom says he isn't loud, though. Most of the time, at least. He says we are very similar and that I’d surely like him.”

Sunghoon wants to smack himself over his blunder. The child had mentioned that it was just her Mom and her earlier, and somehow Sunghoon had still missed the glaringly obvious meaning behind her words. 

“I don't need more Alphas around me and Mom anyway,” she adds thoughtfully while Sunghoon continues to mentally berate himself. “We already have plenty with Uncle Jay and Uncle Jungwon.”

“Oh, y-your uncles, they—” Sunghoon stutters, still flustered over his carelessness from just now. “They live with you?”

“Ah, no,” she scrunches her nose, the beauty mark there winking with the motion. “They just come over when they can. Uncle Jay is a producer and Uncle Jungwon owns a Taekwondo dojang, so they're very busy, but they always make time for us.” 

The girl seems to have loosened up around Sunghoon now, increasingly more chatty than before. Her posture however remains impeccable. 

“Uncle Jungwon says I have to train just as hard and be as disciplined as Taekwondo martial artists if I want to make it to the big leagues.”

“What big leagues?” Sunghoon is mystified.

“The Royal Ballet,” she sighs dreamily, lifting her arms into a perfect fifth position. “The Paris Ballet Opera maybe.”

“You’re a ballet dancer,” Sunghoon states more than asks. The unnatural rigidity of her spine makes more sense now. 

“I am,” she folds her arms into first position and then lets them hang loosely at her sides. “I’m going to be in this year’s production of the Nutcracker. I'll make sure to get the part this time.”

Sunghoon smiles.

“I’m sure you will.”

“I'm getting tons of additional practice these days because Mom plays some of the pieces on the piano for me before bed if I do all my homework and eat all my food,” she shares proudly. 

“Good,” Sunghoon bobs his head in agreement. “Your Mom is right. Being strong and healthy and doing well in school are just as important, if not more important, than practice.”

“I like practicing way more than school,” she says matter-of-factly. “It's more important too because only ballerinas who practice a lot get to join the Royal Ballet, but I have to listen to my Mom or he’ll get sad.”

“That's right,” Sunghoon adopts a somewhat paternalistic tone. “You have to listen to your parents no matter what.”

“I only have to listen to my Mom anyway,” she shrugs. “Other kids have to listen to their dads and moms but I only have to listen to one person. ”

“Oh,” Sunghoon says, then falls silent again. He is still quite at a loss on what to say to the girl. He can't quite put his finger on it, but Sunghoon instinctively knows that the girl is claiming to be more unaffected than she actually feels about the whole thing. 

“Listen, young girl—”

“My name’s Kim Sunyoung, uncle.”

“Oh, Kim Sunyoung?” he repeats, steeling himself for an awkward but well-intentioned pep talk. “Well, Kim Sun—” 

“Kim Sunyoung!” a new voice interrupts the two, emptying Sunghoon’s mind of all thought immediately. “Kim Sunyoung, you better come down from that playground right now before I come get you myself.”

The threat is shouted out playfully; the person standing right below them is probably smiling widely, full lips parted enticingly, an unmistakable twinkle in his eye that Sunghoon can easily picture in his head. 

“Catch me if you can!” Kim Sunyoung taunts with a laugh, hurrying to stand so she can yell over the playground set’s banister.

“Yeah, no,” the voice answers with a laugh, “these old bones are not getting up there. Come down now, young lady.”

“You are not old!” she argues, promptly throwing herself down the tube slide to join her mother down below without a single backward glance in Sunghoon’s direction. Her voice, though more distant now, rings distinctive enough for him to still make out all her words clearly. “You just don't want to play with Sunyoung-ie today.”

Her voice is shock-full of aegyo , speaking about herself in third person. She suddenly sounds more carefree, more like Sunghoon expects of kids her age.   

"That's not true. I always want to play with Sunyoung-ie," the voice scolds lightly.

“You didn't even scent me today, either. Do you not love me anymore?”

"Oh, my goodness! I hugged you, gave you a kiss, and scented you before dropping you off at school today," the voice admonishes her. "Also, remember that my hip hurt for an entire week the last time I got up there. If that’s not a sign of your mom growing old, then I don’t know what is.”

Sunghoon can hear the pout that goes with that tone.

“You are just making excuses to not play with me,” Sunyoung whines. “The uncle hiding in the playground set didn’t complain about his hip the entire time we were up there.”

“What uncle?” the voice sharply demands to know after a charged pause. “What uncle, Kim Sunyoung?”

Sunghoon unthinkingly shoves himself into the tube slide, bumping his knees and elbows, even his head, on his descent. He fears he'll get stuck at one particularly sharp turn but instead lands on his ass the next second, finally spit out by the slide. 

Sunghoon groans, rubbing at the smarting spot in his tailbone. He is met by a surprised gasp and twinkling, girly giggles; he hurries to stand, cheeks flaming. 

The first thing his eyes see is Kim Sunoo, in all his 5’7” glory, arm protectively wrapped around Sunyoung’s shoulders. He is shielding her partly from view with his own body. 

He looks like not a single day has passed by since Sunghoon saw him last, like Sunghoon had unknowingly time travelled back to University.

Sunoo’s posture is tense, chest puffed up in an effort to appear somewhat threatening despite his winter coat almost swallowing him up, very much like his daughter. 

His brown-sugar-and-butter scent is amplified to the max, cloyingly sweet on the nose and the back of one's throat; for Sunghoon, who's literally dreamt of catching a whiff of his lovely scent again, it is the most delicious, mouth-watering aroma in the world.

Meanwhile Sunyoung is still giggling at his expense.

“Sunghoon- hyung ?” the love of his life asks hoarsely, stealing Sunghoon’s attention back to him.

“Sunoo,” he calls, voice cracking embarrassingly. He hurries to clear his throat. “Sunoo-ya.” 

Sunoo pales in front of Sunghoon’s eyes, all color draining from his face. His bottom lip noticeably starts wobbling, and Sunghoon’s eyes snap to it, fixate on how chapped it looks—he can’t help but remember how it felt to have his own lips pressed fervently against Sunoo's on the best (and worst) night of his life.

“You know him, Mom?” Sunyoung questions, tugging at Sunoo’s sleeve. 

She’s looking between the two men with narrowed eyes.

Mom . 

Sunoo is a mom. He is a mother. He is the mother of this child.

“She—“ Sunghoon starts, has to pause to take a deep breath before continuing. “She is yours?”

Sunoo doesn’t speak, only looks at Sunghoon with those shiny eyes of his wide open. Sunghoon starts growing desperate. He is still not sure he’s making up this entire thing in his head, and he just needs  to say one word and confirm that this is real, that this is indeed happening.

“Kim Sunyoung. It’s a pretty name,” he babbles. “Sunyoung, Sunoo. It suits both of you. Twin suns. Is she—?”

“Mom,” Sunyoung cries to a still unresponsive Sunoo. “You’re squeezing me too hard. It hurts.”

That snaps Sunoo immediately out of it. He is quick to kneel in front of the girl, whispering apologies as his hands flit nervously trying to take stock of her body. He softly runs the pads of his fingers over her cheek and neck, tugs lovingly at one of her braids, smooths out the front of her jacket, pausing at the scarf around her neck—the tender gestures inexplicably fill Sunghoon’s eyes with tears.

“I’m sorry, princess,” Sunghoon hears him say over and over. “I’m sorry. Mom is sorry.”

“Why are you crying?” Sunyoung demands to know, wiping Sunoo’s tears for him with her small hands. “What is it, Mom?”

The combination of distressed scents—Sunoo’s and Sunyoung’s both—is causing a number on Sunghoon; the gland on his neck itches for a good, comforting rub from the Omega’s and child’s gland against his own.

“Sunoo!” 

Sunghoon tears his eyes away from the mother and daughter at the sharp cry and sees Jay Park, his former university classmate, sprinting their way at full-speed. 

The scene must look condemning as hell—an Omega with a child, both upset, cornered by a strange Alpha in a remote location; Sunghoon can smell the sulfur of Jay’s fury before the man even reaches them. 

“Back the fuck away from them right in this instance before I—“ he growls, his Alpha rumble slipping through as he stands in front of the two Suns like an impenetrable barrier, but he stops dead on his tracks when he recognizes Sunghoon.

“Park Sunghoon?” he asks incredulously, even comically rubbing at his eyes.

Sunghoon resists the urge to hysterically laugh at this afternoon’s turn of events.

“Jay,” he strangles out a greeting. “Hi.”

Jay’s mouth is slack for a few moments, clearly struggling to form a coherent sentence, before an almost imperceptible whimper sounds from behind him.

It’s Sunoo. 

Sunghoon doesn’t even realize he’s taken steps in Sunoo’s direction until he crashes against Jay’s arm, currently blocking his way.

“What are you doing here?” Jay asks him brusquely. "You shouldn't be here."

Sunghoon frowns. 

He is confused, trying to reconcile every detail that Sunyoung shared with him earlier with the reality that is now in front of him—

That Sunyoung’s mother, the beautiful and talented high school music teacher, turned out to be the love of Sunghoon’s life and the man solely responsible for breaking his heart all those years ago, Kim Sunoo— 

That Kim Sunoo, his once university junior, now has a daughter, a child that he now realizes has Sunoo’s beautiful eyes, who is apparently just as sweet and talented as her mother and evidently raised in a loving household that made her into the respectful child that she appears to be—

That the Uncle Jay from her stories is indeed Sunghoon’s former university classmate and not a coincidence; hell, the Uncle Jungwon she mentioned earlier might actually be the Jungwon from Sunghoon’s university days, too!

He just wants a moment to put his thoughts in order, but Jay is relentless.

"Sunghoon, I won't ask again. What are you doing here?"

"I'm back in Korea for good. I just came back two days ago," he bites out, his inner wolf clamoring to be next to Sunoo and cataloguing Jay as a threat to be neutralized. 

He ignores that instinct for the time being.

"No. I mean what are you doing here, in this neighborhood, in this park?"

"This is my old neighborhood," Sunghoon snaps, "and I was here in this park first, then I met Sunyoung and—"

"You know Sunyoung? How do you know her?"

"I just said I met her earlier!" he cries, exasperated, his annoyance rolling off of him in waves. "Don't ask stupid questions, Jay."

"Stupid— What—"

"Uncle Jay!" Sunyoung cries, interrupting his spluttering. "Mom isn't feeling good."

Both Sunghoon and Jay turn to a still pale Sunoo, who's visibly trembling and lightly swaying on his feet. 

Sunyoung has her arms wrapped around his middle, as if holding him up, and is ferociously staring Jay and  Sunghoon down.

"Stop fighting and help me, please,” she urges the other man, and Jay turns his back to Sunghoon in favor of rushing to their side.

He and  Sunoo exchange a few whispers before Jay crouches down and gently encourages  to drape himself over his back to give him a piggyback ride. 

Once Sunoo has his legs securely wrapped around Jay’s torso and his arms around the Alpha’s long neck, Jay effortlessly stands up, added weight and all. 

The Omega lifts his head weakly from where it’d been tucked against Jay’s shoulder and finds Sunghoon’s gaze with his own. Sunghoon finds it to be filled with tears. 

“Sunoo,” Sunghoon croaks out imploringly, taking haltering steps forward. The urge to comfort, to console, is tearing him apart from inside out.

He then realizes with startling clarity that he’ll never see Sunoo again once Jay disappears off into the night with him and  Sunghoon can’t have that; he’s had to live without him for almost nine years and now, after being in the presence of his first and last love for mere five minutes, it is clear as day that he’s been but a husk of what he could’ve been if only he would've had Sunoo by his side. 

What Sunghoon had been doing can’t be called living; he just realized he’d been surviving without him this entire time.

“Back off, Sunghoon,” Jay warns; he pays him no mind. “Don’t get any closer.”

“Please, -Ah, just— Fuck— Let’s talk later, alright? Please. After you get some rest. Please Sunoo, let me see you again. It’s the only thing I’ve wanted to do for years and years. I called and texted so many times after— Never mind, it doesn’t matter now. Whatever the reason was for you leaving after what happened between us before is okay. We can talk about it later, okay? I-it’s almost my birthday. Remember? Jake and Heeseung are organizing a little get-together for me at that sports bar close to campus that we frequented when we were students for old time’s sake and I—" he babbles frantically, trailing after Jay, who’d started walking away from him mid-rant. 

Sunyoung had been clinging to Jay’s pant leg silently—fabric held tightly in her fist—until something that Sunghoon said apparently caught her attention. She stops dead on her tracks then, turning back around with the strangest look Sunghoon has seen on a child’s face.

“Sunyoung- ah , let’s go,” Jay urges, noticing the girl falling behind. “Let’s get you and your mom home already.”

“It’s almost my birthday,” she says, ignoring Jay in favor of pining Sunghoon with a look from those sharp eyes of hers. Sunoo's eyes.

“Huh?” Sunghoon blabbers out unintelligently. He mistakenly thinks Sunyoung is repeating his words from earlier. “Yeah, it’s almost my birthday. December 8.”

“No,” she shakes her head slowly. “It’s almost my birthday. It’s on December 9. I'm turning eight this year.”

“Oh,” he stills, wondering why that date feels like a vital piece of information but can’t for the life of him figure out why. “Happy almost birthday, then. You’re only one day after me.”

“Thank you,” she says quietly, and Sunghoon can’t help but notice her crestfallen expression. “Happy almost birthday to you, too. Goodbye, uncle . ”

“Bye,” he calls out thickly as she turns back and rejoins Jay and Sunoo’s side, straying further and further away from Sunghoon despite his roaring instincts to follow the Omega-and-child pair to the corners of the world.

He bites on his lip hard enough to draw blood to prevent more pathetic begging, or worse, a pitiful howl, from spilling forth. 

Kim Sunoo had dropped off the face of the Earth after he and Sunghoon hooked up during one of Yeonjun’s legendary parties back in university. Sunghoon had been 21 then and in love with Sunoo since he'd been just shy of 19, when he'd first met the Omega.

That night had been the best night of his life, but it became evident, the next following days, and weeks, and months—after he couldn't find the Omega anywhere, couldn't get ahold of him on the phone or SNS, heard from a friend of a friend that he had abruptly withdrawn from his university program and abandoned his apartment with all of his belongings—that it had actually been the worst night of Sunghoon's life.

That was the night he'd lost the Sun. Vanished just like that. A perpetual solar eclipse in his life.

Sunghoon would go on to run away to the States shortly after, just like his parents had been urging him to do back then, but he'd left his heart behind in Korea all this time.

Sunghoon thinks it's high time he returns to claim it back.

Chapter Text

“Jake.”

“Hey, what’s up?” 

There’s a giant knot in Sunghoon’s throat that prevents him from speaking further. It is scary, but not surprising, how fast Jake picks up on it.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he questions him, tone sharp. “Talk to me.”

“Can I come over?” Sunghoon manages to get out after much effort. “Please.”

“You don’t even have to ask, silly,” he can almost see his friend roll his eyes at him on the other side of the line. “Of course you can. Where are you?”

Sunghoon looks listlessly outside, noting that night time had fully fallen at some point without him noticing. He’d missed the blue hour, but the moon was out in full glory over him. He stares at it, his chest tightening at the sight.  “I’m in my car. Parked close to downtown.”

“Okay, that’s not weird at all,” Jake mutters, mostly to himself. “Whatever. Send me your location. I’ll have Heeseung pick you up.”

“Why?” Sunghoon asks, holding on to the steering wheel for dear life. It feels like the only thing tethering him to reality right now. “I just told you I’m in my car. I can drive myself there.”

“Forgive me but you don’t sound very good, Hoon,” Jake delicately says. “Let me just call Heeseung and he’ll be there soon. Dinner will be ready by the time you guys get here. How does that sound?”

“Sounds great,” Sunghoon forces himself to say, though the roiling nausea in his gut will certainly not allow him to eat anything anytime soon. “Thanks, bro.”

“Send me your location,” Jake reminds him and hangs up. 

Sunghoon hurries to do that and waits for Heeseung as promised. His mind is whirring faster than he can handle, thoughts painfully crowding against his skull. All he can see behind his eyelids are the there-seared images of Sunoo and the child, Kim Sunyoung. 

Never in his wildest dreams did Sunghoon conjure running into Sunoo again right after returning to Korea, not with the way the man had made sure to completely remove himself from Sunghoon’s life, but most shocking of all is the revelation that not only is Sunoo alive and well but that he is a mother to a full-grown child. 

After the initial pang of something at the discovery—a mix of jealousy, fondness, despair and sentimentality—came a notion so dangerous that Sunghoon hasn’t allowed himself to fully put it in words yet.

What if…?

He sits in his car in agitated silence after that, fingers restlessly drumming against his thigh as he waits for Heeseung. He grabs his phone, though it’s not done charging, and he looks up Jay’s SNS account. It’s easy to find; he devotes himself to scrolling through the over 2,000 posts there in hopes of maybe catching a small glimpse of a certain someone, but he is close to giving up after minutes of fruitless searching. He bites his lip as he considers whether or not to continue scrolling. 

Sunghoon’s small animosity towards the man solely stems from his feelings for Sunoo, he can freely admit. Jay himself had been a pretty chill guy back in university. He’d never acted haughty or lorded being rich over anyone. On the contrary, he’d always been nothing but polite to Sunghoon when he’d started hanging out more with Sunoo outside of classes, even after crashing more than a couple of their friend group’s hangouts. 

It had been in one of these hangouts that Sunghoon had learned, through a passing comment by a semi-drunk Jungwon, that Sunoo and Jay had dated for most of their high school years until they’d “mutually” broken it off on “amicable terms.” They’d remained good friends after that, and they had even entered the same university program and somehow kept it drama-free. 

Sunghoon personally hadn’t been able to wrap his mind around anyone being with Sunoo in all senses of the word and moving on just like that. One doesn’t just get over Kim Sunoo. God knows Sunghoon hasn’t been able to, even after all this time. 

A small part of him had always suspected Jay hadn’t been too happy about the end of their relationship, though. The man sometimes would get the most pensive look on his face when staring at Sunoo, and that was all Sunghoon had needed to confirm his suspicions and further cement Jay as his love rival in his mind.

A quick Naver search reveals that Jay is a producer for a studio that is home to a couple of up-and-coming R&B artists that Sunghoon has heard of, which begrudgingly impresses him. All his work is under the moniker of JongP, and Sunghoon grows even more surly when he listens to a couple of tracks that he’s worked on and finds that he likes them. The man seems pretty successful. He has participated in some important tracks though he hasn’t quite hit it big yet. 

It’s just a matter of time, though, Sunghoon thinks to himself as he watches a couple of clips of Jay in the studio. He’s good, really good at what he does. 

Besides, the man has always had a je ne sais quoi . He was hugely popular during their university days because of his gentlemanly manner and charming smile no matter the situation. His striking looks hadn’t hurt, either. 

A sudden knock on his window makes him jump in his seat, heart hammering in his chest. Heeseung urgently waves at him through the glass, dark brows furrowed. Sunghoon shakily lowers the window.

“Dude,” Heeseung greets him, eyes poring all over Sunghoon’s face. “You good? What happened? Jake called me all worried and said that something had happened to you but he didn’t tell me exactly what; he just said that you needed to be picked up immediately but that you were sitting in your car somewhere but that you shouldn’t drive so I came as fast as I could in a taxi–”

“It’s Sunoo,” Sunghoon rushes out, bursting at the seams. “I saw him, hyung.”

“ Woah ,” Heeseung gapes, obviously just as floored as him. “No, for real? Like, you actually saw Sunoo?”

“In the flesh,” he confirms. “Hyung, I–”

“No need to explain, dude,” Heeseung holds a hand up to stop him. “I get it. Let’s get to Jake’s place first and you can tell me everything there, alright? Let me drive.”

Sunghoon dumbly nods and gets out of the car to switch to the passenger seat and let Heeseung take over the wheel. Heeseung wastes no time pulling away from the curb, and Sunghoon can only watch as the park slowly falls from sight. 

Sunyoung had assured him earlier that she frequents this park, so their place is probably close by. Sunghoon went from having no idea as to what had happened to Kim Sunoo after hooking up that one night at Yeonjun’s party to virtually knowing where he lives—and it’s not too far from his new place, either. 

The thought doesn’t console him as much as he’d thought it would, though.

The look on Sunoo’s face when he’d recognized Sunghoon earlier is something that he’ll carry with him for a long time. It had looked like all of Sunoo’s worst nightmares had come to life, and it stings more than Sunghoon is willing to admit. He had done nothing to warrant such a reaction from Sunoo, except perhaps wanting too much from him back then. 

He can admit that he’s always been a greedy little thing when it comes to Kim Sunoo. Perhaps that had driven the Omega away, having caught wind of the intensity of Sunghoon’s feelings for him back then, but he stubbornly refuses to believe that to be true. Despite everything that had transpired, Sunghoon had truly known Sunoo before he’d disappeared—they’d understood one another like nothing else.

The concept of soulmates is more of a myth in modern society than anything else, but Sunghoon had secretly believed it to be the closest thing to describe him and Sunoo. They’d been evenly matched, two halves of one whole. One could take whatever the other dished out and give back just as much. 

Sunghoon couldn’t have mistaken what had been growing between them before that fateful March night—the lingering touches, the darting glances, the pleased smiles. 

There has to be another reason why Sunoo had run off and broken his heart like that. A big one.

What if…?

“We are here,” Heeseung announces, snapping him out of it. 

Sunghoon blinks slowly, just realizing that they are indeed in Jake’s apartment complex’s parking lot. He and Heeseung exit the car and take the familiar route up to their friend’s penthouse in silence. Heeseung throws an arm around Sunghoon’s neck and affectionately squeezes him for a moment. 

“We’ve got you, bro,” he reassures him seriously. “Whatever it is, we've got you.” 

“Yeah,” Sunghoon croaks out. “Thanks, man.”

“Okay, good. Now, will you please stop looking like that? You're gonna, like, scare Jake more than he already is.”

“Looking like what?” he asks just as the front door of Jake’s place bursts open before they knock, revealing a frazzled Jake. His favorite apron is haphazardly thrown over his clothes, not even tied properly, and his hair is sticking up in random places.

“What took you so long?” he scolds the both of them, impatiently dragging them inside by the wrists. “I was worried.”

“My bad,” Heeseung is quick to apologize. “There was way more traffic than I expected.”

Jake waves him off and shepherds them into the kitchen, where Sunghoon spies steaming bowls of something already served. 

“It's okay. Just sit for now. Dinner’s gonna get cold. Sorry it's nothing fancy. I wasn’t expecting any visitors so I didn't get any of the good stuff from the grocery store earlier.”

“Sorry about that, Jakey,” Sunghoon climbs onto the stool and rests his elbows on the kitchen island. “Thank you for having us anyway.”

Jake freezes, eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. He—very dramatically in Sunghoon’s opinion—stalks over and checks his temperature with the back of his hand. 

“You don't seem to be running a fever,” he tsks, looking at Sunghoon closely. “Who are you and what did you do to our Sunghoon?”

“Har har.”

“No, but seriously,” Jake levels him with a look that makes it clear that he's done joking around. “What happened? Earlier, when you called… You gave me quite the scare. You were all choked up. You look like death warmed over right now!”

Sunghoon doesn't even know where to begin. Heeseung knows Sunoo, had met him during university just like Sunghoon had. They'd actually been in the same Music Department, and he'd had front row seats to the train wreck that had been Sunghoon’s crush on the beautiful boy and the aftermath of their fallout. 

Jake, however, doesn't know much about him, and what little he does know comes from a collection of anecdotes shared over the years. He carelessly calls Sunoo “the one that got away” and believes that Sunghoon should've moved on for his own mental well-being a long time ago.

He's about to disappoint Jake once again with just how much he has not moved on from Kim Sunoo.

“Sunghoon says that he ran into Sunoo earlier,” Heeseung says after the silence stretches for a bit too long, confusing Sunghoon’s inner turmoil for shell-shock. He gently nudges his arm, wiggling his eyebrows in an encouraging manner. “So, what exactly happened? Because that's, like, crazy.”

“Wait, Sunoo as in your Sunoo?” Jake asks incredulously, and the elation that goes through him at Sunoo being referred to as his Sunoo is almost pathetic. He opens his mouth, ready to tell them everything about his encounter at the park earlier, but his brain has other plans. 

“I think I have a child.”

Putting it in words does make it more real, Sunghoon realizes just as Jake and Heeseung both blink at him in stumped silence. The possibility of that being true settles comfortably in his stomach, fills him in indescribable ways. Call it a gut feeling, but Sunghoon knows he's right.

“Come again?” Jake stammers. “I didn't—”

“I think I have a child,” Sunghoon repeats, slowly this time, savoring it. “A daughter. With Sunoo. I met her earlier.”

Heeseung looks at him like he's suddenly grown three heads.

“Slow down a little bit,” Jake scolds. “Last I knew was that you hadn't seen this guy in almost a decade, and now all of a sudden you are the father of his child? Are you hearing yourself?”

“Obviously it had to have happened the night of Yeonjun’s party,” Sunghoon mulls, crossing his arms as he does the math, letting himself fully entertain the idea. “Sunoo wasn't in heat when we were together but I've heard of pregnancies happening outside of heats even if you only do it once—”

“Yo, bro, I'm still hung up on the fact that you ran into Sunoo at all, yet you're over here talking about children and pregnancy and what not. Please, can we get some context? What are you talking about?” Jake demands.

Sunghoon lets out a borderline hysterical bark of laughter.

“Did you guys not hear what I said?” he wheezes out, looking between Heeseung and Jake. All he sees is concern. “I think I have a kid.”

He bursts into tears then. Heavy sobs wrack through him, all the pent-up emotions from his run-in with Sunoo earlier running through his system in one go. Heeseung hurries to wrap him in a hug and hold him through it. 

“This is not okay,” Jake mutters, patting Sunghoon’s shoulder. “I hate seeing you like this.”

“I'm okay,” Sunghoon blubbers after much effort. “Actually, I’m not. But it’s okay. I'm feeling lots of things.” 

Jake levels him with an unimpressed stare but hands him a tissue for his troubles. He accepts it gratefully and loudly blows his nose, effectively breaking the somber atmosphere that had settled over them. 

Heeseung snickers and pats his back one last time for good measure before releasing him.

“Alright. Now, will you tell us what happened?” Heeseung asks for the nth time that night. “Please.”

So Sunghoon tells them. He tells them about meeting Sunyoung, her idiosyncrasies and long braids with pink bows. He tells them about Sunoo, looking like a vision straight out of Sunghoon’s dreams. He tells them about Jay, still present in Sunoo’s life and the tense exchange between the two of them. 

Their dinner grows cold. 

He is forced to pause and take a sip of water to soothe his raspy throat some time later. Sunghoon realizes with a start that he’d talked non-stop for over an hour and that Heeseung and Jake had barely spoken and instead had attentively listened, only asking some follow-up questions here and there. 

He is struck by just how lucky he is to have them in his life—and physically by his side—during this entire thing after years of being abroad. Texts and video calls could never make up for the real thing. He is glad to be back home.

“Sooo,” Jake drawls after Sunghoon finally goes silent.

“So,” Sunghoon echoes, suddenly anxious about getting to hear his friends’ thoughts.

He tries not to visibly shift on his seat as he waits for Jake to finish formulating what he’s about to say.

“You think Kim Sunyoung is your daughter because she reminds you of yourself.”

Jake phrases it as a statement, not a question.

“No!” he cries, somewhat offended. “That makes me sound crazy, bro. And narcissistic.”

Jake sighs in relief. 

“Oh, good.”

“I think Kim Sunyoung is my daughter because Sunoo told her she was just like her dad and she acts just like me. That’s a completely different thing.”

“Hoon!” Jake scolds, and Sunghoon bursts out laughing along with Heeseung.

“Sorry, that was a joke,” he pouts at his friend’s disgruntlement. “For the most part.”

“You sound like an unhinged conspiracy theorist,” Jake laments. “Does the child look anything like you, at the very least?”

Sunghoon considers it for a beat.

“I can’t really say,” he admits. “She’s pretty. Thin and long. Absolutely adorable. Reminds me of Sunoo.”

“Okay, that’s not really helpful,” Jake dismisses. “If we could only get our hands on a picture of her! Does Sunoo have an Instagram account we can check out?”

“Jake, if Sunoo had this Instagram account you speak of, or any other social media account for that matter, I wouldn’t even be in this mess in the first place.”

“Fair enough,” Jake’s brow crinkles, but his expression clears immediately as he snaps his fingers. “However, if being friends with Felix for all these years has taught me anything, it is that everyone, and I mean everyone, has an online trace. I bet he could find us something to work with.”

“That feels a little, uh,” Heeseung vacillates, “you know, wrong . Stalking Sunoo and his child on the internet, I mean. He clearly has been keeping a low profile for a reason.”

“Well, perhaps he shouldn’t have hidden the existence of an entire daughter from my best friend,” he bites out, angrily composing a text message and energetically hitting send, “though, for the record, I am still not entirely convinced by your flimsy circumstantial evidence.”

“I’m not done yet,” Sunghoon challenges. “Sunyoung said she doesn’t like loud people. Guess who also hates loud people.”

“Oh, I'd say just about the entire ‘tism legion, give or take,” Jake sasses. 

“Ooh, yeah, imma hand that one to Jake, man,” Heeseung winces apologetically.

Sunghoon merely rolls his eyes. “Traitor.”

“Let’s get back on track over here. How old is the child?” Jake questions.

“She’s almost eight,” he is quick to answer. “She was very adamant about that.” 

“When was the last time you saw Kim Sunoo?”

“Almost nine years ago.” 

“Woah,” Heeseung whistles. “Scary coincidence.”

“I suppose you don’t know when her birthday is,” Jake crosses his arms, pensive.

“No— Wait!” Sunghoon yelps, accidentally knocking his hand against the kitchen counter in his haste to shakily point a finger at Jake. “I do! December 9! She told me that as she was leaving with Jay and Sunoo.”

“Wow, just a day after your birthday,” Heeseung whistles. “Even more of a scary coincidence.”

Jake seems almost afraid to ask the next question.

“And Yeonjun’s party happened when?” 

Sunghoon swallows thickly. 

“In March.”

“Oh,” Jake covers his mouth with his hands. “Sunghoon.”

“ I know ,” Sunghoon bites out.

Heeseung looks between them, clearly bewildered. 

“What? What am I missing?”

“Heeseung, sit there and do the math in silence, please,” Jake snaps without sparing him a glance, too busy squeezing Sunghoon’s hands with his. “Bro, I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither do I,” he hangs his head. “Told you it was a lot. But, Jake, I want it to be true so bad . I want this crazy conspiracy theory to be true. Is that wrong? Wanting her to be my kid?”

Jake emphatically shakes his head, bottom lip wobbly. “It’s not wrong. I know you’ve wanted a family for a while now.”

“I wanted a family of my own, running after a bunch of little ones with my cherished person by my side, the whole nine yards, and now— the possibility of that being within my reach is insane . I know there are a lot of things that will need to be resolved if it turns out to be true, I’m not dumb, but, yeah. I want it. I want it all, the good and the bad.”

“What are you going to do?” Jake asks seriously. “Are you going to demand a paternity test?”

“Before I even think of that, I need to find Sunoo first,” Sunghoon purses his lips. “All I have is a general idea of where he lives and that he is a high school teacher, which is admittedly not much.”

“Kim Sunoo can’t be that common of a name,” Jake encourages him. “We can narrow the search down to all Kim Sunoos who are teachers in Seoul.”

“Bro,” Heeseung gasps, interrupting the two. “If Sunyoung was born in December, then that means she must’ve been conceived in, like, March, which means that—”

“Yes, hyung, we already figured it out about twenty minutes ago, glad you could join us,” Sunghoon snorts. “The timeline checks out. There’s a high chance that Kim Sunyoung is actually Park Sunyoung.”

“Woah,” Heeseung stares at Sunghoon with his mouth open, completely ignoring his attitude. “Dude, you’d actually be a dad if that’s the case. Like, the first out of all of us to be a dad.”

Sunghoon exhales heavily, suddenly overcome by the sheer enormity of the situation, of all the time spent apart from his child and her mother by reasons he has yet to understand, and of the future that impossibly stretches out in front of his eyes. 

A future that does not seem as lonely as he’d dreaded when he decided to come back to Korea.

A sharp ringtone goes off and makes the three of them jump in surprise. Jake almost drops his phone in his haste to take the call. 

“Felix?” he urgently greets, putting the speaker on.

“Heya,” a tinny voice comes through the receiver. “Go to your computer. I got what you asked for.”

“Already? Felix, I could kiss you!” Jake gushes as he gestures for Sunghoon and Heeseung to follow him into his studio.

Felix gags on the line.

“Yeah, no need for that. I do it because I want to. Plus, this one posed a bit of an actual challenge for me. It was fun.”

Jake impatiently drops on his desk chair and boots up his computer. Sunghoon and Heeseung hurry to crowd him, eyes glued on the monitor in front of them in anticipation. 

“I’ve gotta ask, though. Who’s this MILF you had me digging into?” Felix sniggers, and Sunghoon immediately sees red. “He’s a real cutie. I’d love to do other sorts of digging with him, if you know what I mean.”

“Felix, I am going to kill you if you don’t shut the fuck up right now,” Sunghoon growls, accidentally jostling an affronted Jake. “I’m fucking serious.”

“Oh, Sunghoon!” Felix exclaims, a grin evident in his tone. “You’re here as well! To what do I owe the pleasure? Based on your reaction, I’m assuming the MILF is somehow related to you.”

“He’s the love of my life,” Sunghoon sternly amends, “and is, quite possibly, the mother of my child, so I would really appreciate it if you didn’t speak like a fucking degenerate about him.”

“Damn,” Felix sighs, and it actually sounds contrite. “Sorry, man. That wasn’t cool. It won’t happen again.”

Sunghoon huffs, letting the tension he’d accumulated ebb out of him. He nods slowly, though Felix can’t see him. 

“Thank you,” he gets out. “Whatever information you may have on them is much appreciated.”

“Yeah, well, now things make a little more sense,” Felix mutters, though he can still hear him. “Jake, I’m going to remotely connect to your computer now.”

“Yeah, go for it,” Jake waves him off, still on edge after Sunghoon’s outburst.

“Alright, so, you asked me to look into Kim Sunoo and his daughter, Kim Sunyoung,” Felix begins, and Jake’s monitor displays a picture of Sunoo that Sunghoon is intimately familiar with—the picture on Sunoo’s student I.D. the last year he attended Hanyang.

He’d worn his hair long back then, had dyed it blond shortly before that picture was taken. His smile went from ear to ear and he was wearing that lavender sweater vest of his that Sunghoon used to tease him for all the time.

He had spent countless nights staring at that same picture in their student yearbook, long after the Omega had dropped out and disappeared without a trace. 

“This is the last official record of Kim Sunoo we get for years,” Felix explains, “because after he drops out of his university program, he seems to disappear from the face of the Earth altogether. He didn't have any social media accounts for me to go through. He used to have a pretty active Instagram account back during his high school days, but he stopped posting around the end of his senior year and never revived it again.”

“That was around the time he and Jay broke up,” Sunghoon glumly realizes. 

“Glad you brought up this Jay guy,” Felix clucks his tongue. “I’m assuming this Jay you refer to is Park Jongseong, who did date Kim Sunoo for a couple of years as confirmed by their socials. Do the names Yang Jungwon and Nishimura Riki mean anything to you guys?”

“Yeah, they were all really good friends of Sunoo,” Sunghoon confirms. “Riki was actually his roommate.”

“Well, we get most of the pictures we have of Kim Sunoo before his disappearance from those three guys’ accounts, as well as from yours, Sunghoon, and then nothing. Nada. Zilch. This is where it gets interesting.”

Felix pulls up a picture, clearly from a couple of years back, where a younger Riki is with his back to the camera and seemingly holding something in his arms, something he seems to be watching intently by the tilt of his head. The walls around him are a sterile white, and it is not difficult to conclude that he’s in a hospital. 

“About ten, eleven months after the last picture we have of Kim Sunoo,” Felix retells, “we get this picture from Nishimura Riki with the caption ‘Holding the entire Sun in my arms.’ He doesn’t tag anyone, lest of all Kim Sunoo, and he doesn’t answer well-meaning comments inquiring after the odd caption. We also get this and this picture from Yang Jungwon and Park Jongseong at around the same time.”

Felix displays similar pictures of Jungwon and Jay holding a little bundle swaddled in blankets in their arms, both sporting the most besotted expressions Sunghoon has ever seen on their faces. 

“There's nothing after that for a couple of months until this one-way ticket to Okayama, Japan, for one Kim, S. and an infant passenger.”

An airplane ticket appears on screen with personal information that confirms this ticket was indeed Sunoo’s.

Jake frowns.

“Felix, how did you even get this?” he questions. “This is extremely confidential information, very different from stalking a person's social media.” 

“I know a guy,” Felix vaguely answers, dismissing him. “Don't ask too many questions, Jake.”

Jake doesn't seem too happy with this new development, but Sunghoon couldn't care less. He's desperate for any piece of information about Sunoo and Sunyoung he can get his hands on. 

“Again, we get nothing for a year until another one-way ticket to Korea for a Kim, S. and a child under three also named Kim, S. Here's where we start getting more sightings of the child, now back in Korea.” 

Felix shows them a barrage of pictures from Jungwon and Jay’s accounts where they get small glimpses of a growing toddler—her face never visible, only a small pigtail here, a chubby hand there. 

The child then starts looking noticeably older, the baby fat melting away and leaving behind a thin frame with long limbs. 

There's a picture of Sunyoung where she’s clinging to Jungwon’s neck at an aquarium, back facing the camera, another where she's getting a piggyback ride from Jay, face obscured by the sun overhead, and one where she is sleeping on an equally passed out Riki on the couch, face covered by a blanket. 

“Wow, Sunoo is, like, really serious about his privacy and Sunyoung’s,” Heeseung gestures at the screen. “There's no front-facing shot of the kid anywhere.”

“Anywhere easy to find you mean,” Felix corrects him, and Sunghoon’s heart starts racing.

“You found a picture?”

“I'll do you one better. I found a video.”

Felix proceeds to pull up Sunoo’s teaching certificate on screen. 

Sunghoon frowns as he takes in Sunoo’s appearance on his certificate’s photograph. He hadn't really noticed it earlier when he'd run into the Omega at the park, but he looks like he’s lost a ton of weight; his already sharp jawline is even more prominent in the picture, the lines of his neck impossibly long. 

“This is Kim Sunoo’s teaching certificate as a secondary school educator in Music & Performance Arts. By the way, there was another Kim Sunoo on the National Teacher Registry but he specializes in History and is, like, ancient so yeah. Not our man. Anyway, I dug around some blogs populated by high schoolers and found a barrage of mentions of a Mr. Kim teaching at a fairly new performance academy called Performance And Arts Academy of Seoul, or P3AS for short.”

“PEAS?” Heeseung questions, amused as he reads over the academy’s brass plaque on the picture Felix shows them. 

“It’s supposed to be PEE-THREE-AYS actually,” Felix smothers a laugh. “Students from other performance academies do refer to it as PEAS on the forums, though. From what I read, P3AS did not have the best of reputations. The principal was a well-known puppet for the school’s board, which was made up of mostly affluent Alpha businessmen with wannabe celebrities for children that ran the place like royalty. The staff were renowned educators from back in the day but pretty much retired until they were lured back to teaching by fat checks. A school for the rich by the rich.”

“Sounds like the setting for a drama,” Jake hums, failing to appear uninterested.

“It gets better,” Felix promises. “This ‘Mr. Kim’ enters the scene around three years ago as the youngest faculty member at P3AS and sponsor for both the men and women’s performing troupes, which apparently compete against other performing schools towards the end of the school year. Mr. Kim leads both groups to a sweeping victory during his first year, completely switching the narrative surrounding P3AS students. The video I’m about to show you is a clip from the end-of-the-year ceremony of the graduating class of that year.”

Felix remotely presses play and Sunghoon shamelessly shoves his face as close to the screen as he can before being rudely pushed back by Jake.

A girl donning her full graduation regalia is at the podium, obviously mid-speech.

“...to recognize the efforts and pay back a little of the trust that our sponsor placed in us. Mr. Kim, would you please join me on stage?”

Sonorous applause echoes across the school auditorium. Sunoo appears on frame, a huge smile on his face. Excited cheers erupt as he bashfully waves. 

“Mr. Kim, you truly helped us shine brighter than the sun. This graduating class wants to properly convey how thankful we are for your firm guidance, words of encouragement, but most importantly, for your love of music and respect for musicians young and old alike. Friends, it is time. Please join me on stage!”

Sunoo looks adorably confused as a group of 30 or so teenagers in their graduation caps and gowns hurry to climb up the stage and line up in three neat rows. The camera zooms in a little closer on Sunoo’s face as it goes from bemused to shocked in a matter of seconds. 

Loud coos and awws from the audience follow the entrance of a small child on stage, ambling along with a large bouquet of flowers clutched in her thin arms. Sunoo rushes to the child without a thought, meeting her halfway. Dropping to his knees, he carefully relieves her from the bouquet and hugs her.

The students on stage choose that moment to whoop at the top of their lungs as they flashily throw their caps up in the air, followed shortly by their black gowns. Taken aback, Sunoo protectively embraces the child even closer as the gowns flutter to the floor around them like giant petals. 

The students are all wearing matching yellow T-shirts underneath that read ‘The Shining Sun and its Stars - Class 6’ in a bold, black font. The same girl giving the speech earlier saunters up to Sunoo and hands him a T-shirt of his own. She produces a miniature T-shirt from behind her back and enthusiastically waves it in front of the little girl, who excitedly makes grabby hands at it.

Sunoo hurries to put his on over his clothes and then helps the girl put hers on. Once they're both properly decked out in their shirts, Sunoo lifts the girl in his arms and they smile brightly as the teenagers crowd the two of them to pose for a group picture. The camera zooms in on Sunoo and the little girl’s faces.

She poses for the camera, puckering her lips reminiscent of her mother, and makes those in her immediacy crack up, including Sunoo, who drops a kiss on her cheek. The video cuts off right after that.

Sunghoon is rendered speechless. He wants to see the close up of Sunoo and the little girl again, but he finds that he can't say a word, too overcome with emotion.

“Felix, can you go back to where they zoom in on their faces, please?” Jake asks softly, and Sunghoon squeezes his shoulder in gratitude.

Felix runs the clip again. 

He pauses it right where their features are more clearly discernible and Sunghoon’s eyes pore desperately over the girl’s features, hoping to find something familiar staring back at him. 

“Well, she has his eyes, that much is obvious,” Heeseung solemnly determines, breaking the charged silence. “But everything else… she is all you, man.”

“She kind of looks like your sister when she was younger,” Jake cautiously adds.

“Whatever. This girl is literally Sunghoon with a wig, and you all know it,” Felix snorts. “Except she's actually pretty. Clearly her mom’s looks are to thank for that.”

“I— Does she really look like me?” Sunghoon whispers, ignoring Felix’s barbs. “Do you guys really think she looks like me?”

“I know a Park when I see one,” Heeseung nods, squeezing Sunghoon’s shoulders in encouragement. “I think she really is yours, Hoon.”

Jake urges Sunghoon to stay the night after that, providing him with a pillow and a blanket so that he may crash on the couch, arguing that he needs to rest after the eventful night he'd had. Heeseung agrees with him before Sunghoon can protest so he has no choice but to concede; he strangely feels like a fussy toddler being put to bed by his parents.

Once Heeseung bids them goodbye and leaves, Jake locks the door after him and kills the main lights, only leaving on the bathroom’s at the end of the hall. He delicately pats Sunghoon’s arm, and the gesture feels comforting, not condescending, before softly bidding him good night and retreating into his room.

Sunghoon, nose stuffy and eyes practically sealed shut from all the crying, can only lay on the couch as sleep refuses to take him. His mind is going one too many places at once for that. 

The urge to run out there in that moment, to find Sunoo and Sunyoung and never let them out of his sight ever again, is so strong that his legs’ muscles twitch like crazy. 

That's his family somewhere out there, that's his Omega and his child out there.

What if…?

What if I'm the father of Kim Sunoo’s child?

The hopeful smile that overtakes his face as he finally drifts off to sleep stays until the morning, when the smell of coffee and Jake’s soft humming wakes him to a world where he is now a Father.

Chapter Text

“Mr. Kim.”

Sunoo looks up distractedly from the piles of assignments he’s been grading for the last hour or so when he hears someone call his name. His neck protests at the sudden motion.

He soothingly rubs at the spot as he catches sight of Park Minji, one of his students from his more advanced courses, vacillating by the door.

He’s surprised to see her here at the teachers’ lounge instead of tucked away in one of the practice rooms. She is not-so-secretly one of Sunoo’s favorite students, a promising young singer that has big choral dreams and an even bigger heart.

“What is it, Minji?” he asks her gently. “Come in.”

“Ah,” she hesitates, tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s just— There's someone looking for you outside.”

Sunoo senses more than sees the other teachers currently in the lounge turn their attention to Minji and their conversation, and it makes him inexplicably nervous.

“Probably a parent hoping to catch me for a word,” he lightly comments, tugging his coat on. “I better go see who it is.”

Minji just bites her lip and nods, shifting where she stands. Her skittish demeanor is making Sunoo anxious. 

They exit the lounge and make their way down the long, winding hallway. Soon it’ll be filled with the sounds of lockers slammed shut and excited chattering as students head out for the day; most of the kids are in their study periods during this time, but the school bell should be ringing in less than five minutes. 

“How’s your piece coming along?” Sunoo prods, hoping to make conversation. “You guys are doing Vivaldi Gloria, right? That should be fun.”

Minji turns and shoots him a wobbly smile.

“Yeah, fun,” she says after a beat. “It’s, uh, going well. We should hurry.”

She hastens her step, and that makes Sunoo frown.

“Right,” he hurries to keep up with her pace. “Wouldn’t want to keep that parent waiting.”

“It’s not a parent,” Minji shoots down immediately. “He doesn’t look like a parent at all.”

“Oh?” Sunoo wonders out loud, mystified. “A student, then? Former student?”

She shakes her head.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Kim.”

“Oh, alright,” he gives up, seeing Minji clam up even further. “Well, I’ll see who it is soon enough.”

They briskly descend the stairs to the school’s main courtyard. The gates are already open in preparation for the waves of students that will be streaming out in less than three minutes. Standing smack dab in the entrance, hands carelessly shoved into his coat pockets is Sunghoon.

Sunoo frantically entertains the thought of turning right back around and hiding, but he knows Sunghoon has spotted him already by the way he's perked up. 

He nervously thinks of all the students and teachers that will be out here in a minute and see the man—and he'll be impossible to miss. 

He looks stunning, long legs looking impossibly longer in those fitted dress pants. There is a knitted scarf wrapped around his neck that Sunoo thinks looks familiar somehow. 

“Do you know,” Sunghoon starts as soon as he is within earshot, “how many Kim Sunoos are currently high school teachers in Seoul?”

The question of just how Sunghoon found him dies in his throat. He doesn't seem discouraged by Sunoo’s lack of response. If anything, his smile widens even further. His fangs flash pearl-white.

“Two, if you're wondering,” he shares conspiratorially. “One of them was a History teacher and the other one was a Music teacher, and, honey, you've always sucked at History.”

The flirty term of endearment sends an unexpected frisson of heat down his body and he sucks in a shallow breath through his teeth in an effort to compose himself. 

Get a freaking grip, Kim Sunoo, he sharply scolds himself. 

If his Omega gets one good sniff out of Sunghoon’s scent, Sunoo doesn't know what will happen. Something embarrassing probably, like baring his neck for Sunghoon’s eyes in front of everybody. 

Minji is silently staring at them with her large, round eyes, and that is enough to shake Sunoo from his momentary stupor. 

“Thank you, Minji,” he makes himself say, tongue heavy in his mouth. “You are free to go.”

“Mr. Kim,” she starts, but visibly stops herself.

She throws Sunghoon one final look and scampers away, back to the school’s main building.

“One of your students?” Sunghoon asks, pointing at Minji's retreating back with his chin. “She seems not to like me much. I thought she would murder me when I asked after you.”

Sunoo can't help but laugh at the theatrical shudder that wracks through Sunghoon but he is quick to muffle it with his hand. 

Sunghoon raises a questioning eyebrow at him but Sunoo merely shakes his head, dismissive. 

“It's not like that,” he explains. “Minji is probably just protective. A strange Alpha asking after an Omega is bound to raise some questions.” And eyebrows, Sunoo grimly thinks to himself. “We shouldn't be out here like this, either.”

“But I'm not a stranger,” Sunghoon takes a step closer to Sunoo, the action making him appear larger than he already is. This wide-chested man is nothing like his Sunghoon from back in university. “I'm not just some Alpha, and you're not just some Omega.”

He abruptly leans his face forward, right into Sunoo's space, and Sunoo panics, thinking Sunghoon is going to do something absolutely insane— like kiss him in broad daylight— but his pretty lips merely part a little as he sucks in a deep breath into his lungs. His eyes flutter close as he leisurely breathes Sunoo’s scent in. 

Sunoo colors at the brazen action, but is powerless to hide the preening undertone in his scent at Sunghoon’s obvious relish of it.

“I know this scent , ” Sunghoon murmurs. “I know you.”

Sunoo sways forward as if in a trance, almost falling right into Sunghoon’s arms, when the bell rings. He jumps three feet in the air, spooked. 

“You have to go,” he urges him, pushing against his insultingly solid chest. “No one can see you here.”

Sunghoon doesn't budge an inch.

“No,” he refuses, and Sunoo wants to cry. “Why can't anyone see me here? Besides, I'm not leaving. I want to talk. Not here, if you'd like, but I'm not going anywhere before we settle things.”

“Hyung, don't be stubborn!” Sunoo grits out, obsessively looking over his shoulder. He thinks he sees the first students reach the courtyard. “Please, you have to go. If any of the faculty sees you here, or catches wind that you were here, an Alpha with an unmated, single parent Omega… I could get in serious trouble with the school board. Please.”

An unreadable emotion crosses Sunghoon's face then, and Sunoo is afraid that he'll insist on staying.

“Okay,” he whispers instead, reaching for Sunoo’s wrist and rubbing at the delicate bones there intently before taking one, two steps back. The skin there burns, burns , burns. “I'll get out of your way for now, but I’ll come back when you're done for the day. What time do you usually head out?”

“Four-thirty,” he unconsciously responds before mentally berating himself for telling him that much.

It must show on his face, for Sunghoon's lips twitch in subdued amusement despite the severe look in his eyes since Sunoo’s outburst.

He is gone from one moment to the next. It leaves Sunoo reeling; it's like he conjured the man up. The faintest trail of bergamot and pepper, as well as the tingling skin on his wrist, are the only evidence that Sunghoon really was here. 

His stomach flip-flops at the thought of him. Sunoo once again considers running away but dismisses the thought immediately. It's useless, anyway. 

Sunoo had known Sunghoon would come and find him. It has been about a week or so since their fateful meeting at the park; knowing Sunghoon’s impatient nature, Sunoo is surprised it even took him this long. He has spent the last couple of nights laying wide awake at night in his bed, terrified of the past catching up to him.

“Come to Japan,” Riki had told him when Sunoo finally broke down and Facetimed him with the news about two days ago. “Come hide out with me until Sunghoon grows bored and leaves to go back to the States. You know I'd be happy to have you and Sunyoung live with me again. Mom keeps asking me when Sunyoung is visiting her at the dance studio again.”

“I can't, Riki,” Sunoo had picked at his lips until they'd bled, the nervous tick out in full-swing as his anxiety grew and grew. “Back then I didn't really have a choice. You and your family really saved me and Sunyoung back then, you know that, right?  But now? I can't leave Korea just like that. I can't leave this job, either. Even though I really want to, this thing with Sunghoon aside. We’re not rich by any means, but it's enough to support me and Sunyoung for the time being. It pays for her after-school program, her dance lessons—”

“Those bastards don't deserve your consideration,” Riki had snarled, referring to Sunoo’s principal and fellow teachers. 

He knew full well how miserable they made Sunoo’s life. 

“At least they gave me a job when no one would,” Sunoo had laughed self-deprecatingly, and Riki had frowned. “At least they continue to employ me.”

“I hate them,” Riki had said. “They should be honored that they have amongst their staff someone of your caliber to give their wannabe performance academy some prestige.”

“Drop it, Riki,” he'd sighed tiredly. “We've talked about this before. It doesn't matter how I feel as long as Sunyoung gets what she needs.”

“I disagree. If you're not okay, then Sunyoung isn't okay. Both of you need to be okay for things to work. It's true that Sunyoung would take leaving a little harder now than when she was younger, I'll give you that. But does that mean you're ready for her to know the truth, hyung ? The truth about her father?”

“I don't know,” Sunoo had said, and it's still true.

Sunoo doesn't know if he's ready to face the music. He feels just as scared as when he'd been 20 and had seen the two colored stripes in the first drugstore pregnancy test all those years ago. Maybe even more so than then.

He hardly registers the swarm of bodies jostling him as he returns to the main building slowly, his head pounding. He mechanically greets back some students on the way back to the teachers’ lounge and returns to his cubicle there. Setting his papers down, he blankly stares ahead, unseeing.

“Mr. Kim,” a gruff voice calls him, startling him. 

Mr. Park is looking at him over the rim of his thick glasses with a mildly disapproving gaze, but that's nothing new. He always looks at Sunoo that way.

Park Youngchul is one of the oldest teachers at the academy, a traditional Alpha through and through, very vocally against what he calls the ‘youngsters’ libertine lifestyles,’ which was just code for Sunoo’s unmated, single parent status. 

Having a child out of wedlock had cemented Sunoo as the man’s public enemy number one ever since he applied for the open position as a music teacher at the academy, before he was even hired. 

Park Youngchul had loudly protested Sunoo’s hiring and made sure to let him know that he was not a welcome addition to the team on his very first day.

(Sunoo could respect his straightforwardness up to a certain point. The other teachers were probably of similar minds but kept their distaste to themselves mostly.)

The man has relentlessly harassed and questioned Sunoo during staff meetings and in front of students ever since; has publicly snubbed him, made scathing comments about every single thing Sunoo said and did, as well as what he didn't say and do. Sunoo always tries to keep his interactions with the man as swift and painless as he possibly can. 

He's not sure he can do that right in this instance.

“How can I help you, Mr. Park?” he forces out.

The other’s thick brows furrow even further.

“That sort of behavior is not acceptable of a staff member, Mr. Kim,” he scolds, “and I will not let it slide. I will have to report it to the principal immediately.”

Sunoo feels like throwing up. Did the man see him talking to Sunghoon…?

“Pardon?” he asks for a lack of anything better to say.

“Do not play dumb. It is not as becoming as superfluous Omegas seem to think. I'm referring to the mess your group of students left in the Brahms practice room.”

Sunoo wordlessly blinks once, then twice. He wasn't found out, then.

He expertly ignores the dig at Omegas, already used to comments of such nature from the man. Really, the relief that envelops him then is so absolute that Sunoo can't help the small smile that appears on his face. 

Mr. Park doesn't like that one bit.

“You think this is a joke? Is it funny to you, Mr. Kim?”

“Sorry, Mr. Park,” he quips, dropping on his seat and ruffling through his papers even if it is the most rude he's ever been to the man. “Class 3-C hasn't been scheduled to use the Brahms practice room in the last two weeks. We've been in the Chopin practice room, but I will heed your words and reinforce cleanliness and orderliness with my group. Thank you.” 

The roaring silence in the lounge satisfies Sunoo to no end. The angry spluttering that follows satisfies him just as much.

“Maybe it was the Chopin practice room the one I saw, after all,” Mr. Park grits out, furious that his berating has fallen sideways in front of an audience.

“If you say it is so then I must immediately check it out and rectify it if so,” Sunoo springs back up to his feet, adapting an oversolicitous tone with him. He keeps his face lowered and his neck tilted like Omegas of old were expected to do when talking to an Alpha. “Thank you for bringing to my attention this mishap.”

Mr. Park merely scoffs and shuffles back to his larger cubicle, dismissive of Sunoo. He waits the customary ten seconds before lifting his face and resists the urge to stick his tongue out at the man's retreating back, knowing he's being observed by the other teachers there. 

Sunoo once more picks up his grading papers and the rest of his stuff. He's not coming back to the lounge for the day if he can help it; he's had enough of his fellow faculty members. He shoves all of his things into his backpack and zips it up with a zeal that gets him a raised eyebrow from his cubicle neighbor. 

Sunoo pays the other teacher no mind and heads out of the lounge, in the direction of the practice rooms. He's going to make doubly sure that his group indeed has picked up after themselves since Park Youngchul will now be out for blood after the little stunt back there.

He still has quite some time to kill before four-thirty, which is when Nara usually drops off Sunyoung at the academy on her way home for him. 

Han Nara is an elementary school teacher at Sunyoung’s elementary and a good friend of Sunoo’s. They'd somehow found themselves enrolled in the same teaching certification course about three years ago and became fast friends. They had been delighted to realize that she was to work at Sunyoung’s school back then, and she had graciously offered to drop Sunyoung off with Sunoo after Sunyoung was done with her after-school program activities every day.

Sunoo remembers veritably crying in gratitude at the offer—much to Nara’s mortification—having struggled so much during the first months of that first school year. 

He'd been late to pick up Sunyoung twice at that point—his own work schedule and the distance between schools prevented him from being on time no matter how fast he booked it out of the academy as soon as the bell rang.

The principal had already threatened Sunoo with Sunyoung’s expulsion for his irresponsibility, and Sunoo had embarrassingly broken down in front of the school gates that god-awful afternoon. Sunyoung had started crying too at the sight of her mother in tears and, for a few minutes, they were the most wretched pair of souls in all of Seoul. 

That's how Nara had found them.

Needless to say, Sunoo owes the petite woman his entire life, and he makes sure to often thank her with a meal or helping her out in whatever way he can. 

He hums to himself as he fiddles with the practice room’s doorknob, wistfully thinking that he, Nara, and Sunyoung should go out for samgyeopsal some time soon when the door swings open before he even twists the key. 

He has but a second to feel alarmed that the room is unlocked before he meets the wide-eyed stares of three of his students, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the practice room with no books, music sheets, or homework in sight.

“Hong Yunjin, Min Jaehee, and Park Minji,” Sunoo crosses his arms, each girl wincing as he calls their name. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Studying,” Hong Yunjin, the sharpest of the three and used to getting away with murder, is quick to answer. 

The other two weakly nod in agreement a beat later. Sunoo hums.

“Studying? I don't think so,” he says with a raised eyebrow. “I don't see a single one of your notebooks out, but I did see Jaehee shove her phone under her leg just now.”

Yunjin deflates.

“We were just doing some online research, Mr. Kim,” she grumbles, but refuses to sustain eye contact. “We weren't doing anything wrong.”

“You know these rooms are exclusively for practice,” he firmly reminds them. “What would you guys have done if it'd been another teacher coming in through that door just now? You know what the punishment for misuse of practice rooms is, right?”

“Suspension,” Jaehee whispers, going pale as a sheet.

Minji looks like she's seconds away from passing out. Even Yunjin has lost her haughtiness at the word suspension. Sunoo sighs.

“Girls, I can't let this go just like that. I need you to learn your lesson. I can't be lax with my own group while strict with the other students. I need to be fair. I won't suspend you but you will be in detention tomorrow and Friday—”

“Mr. Kim!”

“No buts. Please make sure this does not happen again. All three of you. Now, please get your stuff and head home before I change my mind about the suspension.”

The three know better than to complain, but they have such a despondent look on their faces that makes it hard for Sunoo to stand his ground and remain firm.

“We were just gonna look for your handsome friend on SNS and then head out,” Yunjin pouts, hitching her bag higher up her shoulder. “Nothing more.”

“Yunjin!” Minji exclaims aghast.

Sunoo doesn't know what face he makes at that, but the three girls freeze on their tracks.

“I'm so sorry, Mr. Kim,” Minji cries, bowing her head repeatedly. The other two are quick to follow. “They made me tell them. I didn't want to but they insisted. I said it was a violation of privacy. They said they wouldn't tell—"

Sunoo urges himself to calm down. These girls are well-meaning and he knows that they at least like him as a teacher. 

“Minji, relax. If you girls were so curious about Sunghoon-hyung, you could've just asked me directly like you did with Jay-hyung when we all ran into each other at Lotte World last year. I would've gladly told you. I have nothing to hide.” 

“Not fair! I missed that trip to Lotte World because I was sick,” Jaehee pouts.

“You certainly missed out,” Yunjin tells her. “Mr. Kim’s friend is sooo hot.”

“Hong Yunjin,” Sunoo warns her half-heartedly. 

She puffs her cheeks childishly. “Don't worry, Mr. Kim. You're not far behind him in terms of looks at all. We won Hottest Teach Award for the second year in a row thanks to you!”

Sunoo rarely finds himself speechless by his students’ shenanigans anymore, but he's at a loss for words right now.

“Do I want to know what the Hottest Teach Award is?” he hesitantly gets out.

Minji shakes her head but the other two ignore her.

“It's a competition across all the performing schools that participate during Nationals on who's got the hottest teacher as a sponsor,” Jaehee gushes, “and we've won ever since you started working here!” 

“Your pictures on the voting blog got so many upvotes your first year that it broke the server for a couple of minutes. It was legendary,” Yunjin shares. “They called you the Fairy of Music and it's stuck ever since.”

“Oh my God,” Sunoo says faintly as the girls dissolve into giggles. He has to take a deep breath before asking the girls to pipe down.

“I'm going to pretend I did not hear anything about this award thing for my own mental well-being,” he says, mostly joking, before he lets them go with a stern promise to see them in detention tomorrow. 

He tiredly drops on the closest chair to him and rubs at his face, exhausted by the turn of events. He thought he'd get some grading done, but he's too overwhelmed to focus at the moment.

His phone pings loudly, and with a start he realizes it's Nara texting him to let him know they're almost at the academy gates. He hurries to lock up the practice room after himself and rushes to meet her. 

The school grounds are unnervingly quiet now that most of the students and staff are gone for the day, but Sunoo finds that he quite likes it. It’s peaceful, and it makes the stresses of every-day life seem insignificant. He can’t help but smile once he spots two waving figures in the distance. 

“Mom!” Sunoo is greeted by Sunyoung’s happy chirp. “Guess what I did today?”

“What did you do today?” he indulgently asks as he opens the gate with his own set of keys, not waiting for the custodial to come around. 

He and Nara exchange smiles in lieu of greetings as he bends down to kiss his daughter’s flushed cheeks. Sunoo frowns when he notes how cold she is despite being bundled from head to toe.

“I helped Miss Cho with the first graders during Music class,” she boasts. “They were practicing a short choreography for the Children’s Day program, but they couldn't do it at all. They’re too young, momma, they can't even do a plié!" 

“Ooh,” he absentmindedly tugs her hat down to cover more of her ears. “Look at you, helping your little juniors out. When is Miss Kim available for after-school dance classes? I think I need some extra help.”

Sunyoung giggles, shaking her head. Her long pigtails whip around her at the motion. “You don’t need dance classes, Mom. Don’t be silly! I was only helping those kids because they were truly hopeless.”

“Those hopeless kids are only six, Sunyoung,” he berates her lightly. 

“Not everybody can be dance geniuses like you, Sunyoung- ah ,” Nara pipes in good humor. “Also, isn’t it cool that you get to do a little bit of what your Mom and I do every day?”

“I suppose so,” Sunyoung pensively responds, hand on her chin, and Sunoo opens his mouth to tease her for the serious expression on her face when she lights up at something behind him. 

“Oh, it's that ajusshi from the park,” she gushes, excitedly bouncing on her tiptoes. 

Sunoo’s breath catches in his throat when her coincidentally pointy fangs peek in full display.

“What did we say about calling me ajusshi ?” he hears someone say behind him and feels, moments later, a solid presence right by his shoulder. 

He feels warmth instantly spread from his neck up to his ear, and Sunoo valiantly tries to keep his breathing shallow to prevent himself from inhaling too much of Sunghoon into his lungs.

He’s afraid that these particles of him will still find a home within Sunoo, even after all these years.

Sunghoon curls his hand around Sunoo’s bicep and squeezes, dark eyes assessing Sunoo’s face. The action doesn’t go unnoticed by Nara and Sunyoung.

“Nara,” Sunoo clears his throat, forcing the next words out of his mouth. “This is Sunghoon, uh, I mean, Park Sunghoon. He is—”

“I’m Sunoo’s Alpha,” Sunghoon interrupts, extending his free hand for Nara to shake.

Nara’s mouth drops open.

“No, you’re not!” Sunoo shrilly protests. Sunghoon pouts, the expression almost comical if Sunoo wasn't having a veritable aneurysm.

“Fine, his boyfriend—”

“That is not true!” Sunoo frantically denies, going impossibly redder. “He is a friend. A friend back from university, that’s all.”

Sunghoon merely shrugs, his hold on Sunoo’s arm just as tight as before. “Wow, all your university friends are very handsome, then,” Nara weakly jokes, her tepid smile a testament to how awkward she must be feeling. “First Jay, then Jungwon, and now, uh, Sunghoon—”

“You know Jay?” Sunghoon asks sharply. “How?”

“Uh, I always see him at Sunyoung’s school festivals—”

“That’s none of your business,” Sunoo bites out, harsher than he means to.

Sunghoon gives him a look which Sunoo realizes with a start is filled with hurt, and it leaves him feeling ashamed by his outburst.

“Mom, we’re gonna be late for my dance lessons,” Sunyoung nudges Sunoo, effectively pulling the attention to her. 

“I’ve gotta go as well,” Nara apologetically adds, already walking off. “It was a, uh, pleasure to meet you, Sunghoon.” She gestures at Sunoo and Sunyoung both with her chin. “See you two tomorrow.”

“Bye, Miss Han!” Sunyoung waves as the woman makes a hasty retreat. She then turns to face Sunoo and Sunghoon with a deadpan expression. “We are so not going to make it on time.”

“Where are your dance lessons at?” Sunghoon asks, and both Kims turn to him at the same time. “I can drive you guys there.”

“It's an academy on Insadong,” Sunyoung hastily replies before Sunoo can say anything, reaching for Sunghoon’s hand in an overly familiar gesture that has his eyes bulging out of their sockets. The significance of the action seems to go right over Sunghoon’s head, simply holding Sunyoung’s hand without complaint. “It’s between the post office and the traditional masks shops.”

“Surely you don't mean the Kwang Music Performance and Arts Academy?” Sunghoon looks at her with his eyebrows raised. 

Sunyoung wrinkles her nose at him. “That's the one.”

“B-but I've heard that KMPAA only accepts students after a round of tough-as-nails auditions,” Sunghoon stutters, “and even then only 27 percent of the students make it through the first year.”

“Well, I'm in my third year already,” Sunyoung gives Sunoo a look that clearly reads ‘What is this guy’s deal’ about Sunghoon. “I don't know about any percentages but they are pretty strict about tardiness so we really have to hurry, uncle.”

“She auditioned when she was five,” Sunoo is kind to share, given how stumped Sunghoon seems to be at the fact that Sunyoung is a KMPAA student. 

Sunoo himself finds it hard not to gloat when it's brought up during any conversation, truthfully. There is no dance academy in Seoul that matches KMPAA’s level, and the students who graduate from its 15 levels never lack opportunities in the world of professional dance. 

Sunghoon whistles, beyond impressed. “That's amazing. You're pretty amazing, Kim Sunyoung.”

“Thank you,” Sunyoung half-curtsies as she walks, still holding Sunghoon’s hand. “It comes with the package of being a Kim.”

“I have yet to meet a Kim that wasn't amazing,” Sunghoon agrees, throwing Sunoo a look that makes him flush. They turn a corner and Sunghoon signals for them to stop. “Here's me. Hop in.”

“Woah,” Sunoo and Sunyoung both take a step back in fear of the sleek, all-black Lincoln Navigator in front of them.

“I feel like I'll scratch the paint with my eyes if I stare at it too long,” Sunyoung mutters, and Sunoo silently agrees.

“C’mon,” Sunghoon urges them, holding the door open for Sunyoung and Sunoo both. “We gotta go now if we're to make it on time.” 

Both hurriedly climb inside—Sunoo on the passenger's seat and Sunyoung on the backseat. 

Sunoo swiftly buckles up, tries to twist on his seat to instruct Sunyoung to do the same, but Sunghoon is already buckling her in and adjusting the seat belt so that it sits across her chest properly.

“Why are you so cold, huh?” Sunghoon fake-scolds her. “Are you Princess Elsa?”

“Uncle, that's so lame!” she protests despite her giggles.

Sunghoon barks a laugh.

“Here, put this on,” he urges her.

Sunoo watches in astonishment as Sunyoung obediently wraps Sunghoon’s scarf around her neck. Her token protests about Alpha stench never come.

“This one is fluffier than the other one,” she comments instead, and it is then that Sunoo understands why the scarf looked so familiar earlier—there's an exact replica of this scarf, albeit in a much sober color, in his living room. “I like this color better, too.”

“It’s the same color of the flower in the sky from the other day, remember?” Sunghoon tells her. “I got it because of that.”

“It's nice,” she says. “Thank you, uncle.”

“You're welcome,” Sunghoon harrumphs, and closes her door.

Sunghoon is behind the wheel and already pulling away from the curb in no time. That is when he pins Sunoo with a look.

“What?” Sunoo asks self-consciously, lightly touching the shell of his ear.

Sunghoon doesn't answer for a long time. When he does, it is with a surprisingly husky voice and he's quick to drop Sunoo’s eye in favor of staring right ahead. “Nothing. I'll get you guys there on time, I promise.”

“Thank you,” Sunoo whispers, tone subdued. 

He tries to discreetly shift on his seat, but the noise of his clothes rubbing against the leather is incredibly loud in the otherwise silent ride. 

Sunoo is sweating under the collar of his shirt, his belt is digging into the soft flesh of his belly, his socks are tight on his calves—his senses are hyper-focused on all these external stimuli and it's driving him insane.

He tries to focus on something else, anything to get his mind off of things, and his sight lands on Sunghoon’s arm, lazily resting on the car’s console. He drives with one hand on the steering wheel while the other just innocuously rests there. Sunoo could reach over right now and hold it just like that, it'd be that easy. 

He has long, attractive fingers and almost-too long fingernails. Sunoo knows, from first-hand experience, just how much strength is in those hands, how they can easily hold him down in bed, but also can just as easily hold his daughter's hand like it's made out of fine china.

He almost whimpers at this train of thought and tears well in his eyes in embarrassment. Sunoo feels like he's spiraling, losing all semblance of control he may have over his body and heart. 

He is seconds away from climbing up the walls of the SUV in desperation when Sunghoon suddenly breaks the silence between them.

“Do you mind if I turn on the A/C?” 

It takes a moment for his words to register in Sunoo’s mind. When they finally do, he dumbly nods and then shakes his head when Sunghoon raises a questioning eyebrow at him. 

The low hum of the A/C and the burst of cold air on Sunoo’s feverish skin are such welcome sensations that he closes his eyes in bliss, swallowing heavily. It helps immensely, the cool air. 

He doesn't notice a pair of eyes scrutinizing every minute expression of his.

Sunoo surreptitiously wipes the sweat beading on his forehead with the back of his hand and fully settles back with a deep exhale. 

He almost feels silly now. It is the middle of winter in Seoul, and yet here he is, sweating like a whore in church by merely being close to an Alpha after so long. He purposefully chooses to forget about Sunghoon’s ‘I’m not just some Alpha’ from earlier.

The circulating air also helps with the potency of Sunghoon’s scent trapped in the cabin, which was wreaking havoc on him. 

“Mom, can we please listen to some music?” Sunyoung asks, breaking his inner musings.

“It's not my car, princess,” he gently reminds her. “You’d have to ask Sunghoon-ssi.”

“Uncle,” she pouts, taking advantage of the fact that Sunghoon can see her through the rear view mirror to maximize her cute act. “Can we please listen to some music?

Sunoo smothers a laugh at Sunghoon’s stricken expression, figurative arrows sticking out of his heart.

“Of course we can, you don't even have to ask,” Sunghoon is quick to assure her, tapping away at the car’s screen dexterously fast.”What do you wanna hear?”

“Whatever uncle wants,” Sunyoung innocently chirps, and Sunoo is suspicious enough of the tone. 

Sunoo's daughter is bossy and opinionated, not one to let others pick for her.

The moment a familiar overture starts playing on the speakers everything starts making sense.

“She told you about The Nutcracker,” Sunoo tells him more than asks, and his tone sounds accusatory even to his own ears.

Sunghoon risks a quick side glance at him before he fixes his eyes back on the road once more.

“She did,” he confirms, and it's the neutrality in his tone that incenses Sunoo more. 

He can't explain why he's this upset at how quickly Sunyoung opened up to Sunghoon despite not knowing anything about him. 

Sunoo can't help but think of poor Jay who lives to cater to every one of Sunyoung’s whims and how long it still took the child to warm up to him, even as a little baby. To tolerate any Alpha, really. Sunyoung had been just as wary of Jungwon and Riki too, yet here came Sunghoon, waltzing right back into their lives—a perfect stranger to Sunyoung—with little to no issue.

Sunoo is afraid, he realizes. About what this means for his daughter. What this means for them. For the first time in almost nine years, Sunoo mourns the could-have-beens with something akin to regret.

—they arrive at KMPAA.

“Oww,” Sunyoung whines, reluctantly unbuckling her seatbelt. “We didn't get to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

“We’ll play it first next time,” Sunghoon consoles her. “If that's okay with your Mom.”

Sunghoon shyly looks over at Sunoo as he says that. Sunoo frankly doesn't know what to say. Anything he does say can and will be used against him in the near future, either by Sunghoon or Sunyoung or both. He hesitates.

“You guys should go inside,” Sunghoon makes a big show of looking at his watch after Sunoo fails to say anything, “or you'll actually be late.”

He's giving Sunoo a way out, and that makes Sunoo feel even worse. There is this perfectly blank expression on Sunghoon’s face that speaks of deep emotion lurking right underneath. Sunyoung mutedly bids him goodbye and exits the car.

Sunoo bites his lip.

“Friday,” he tremulously says, hand squeezing the door’s handle for dear life. “Sunyoung is staying over at a friend’s house after school. Come over then. I'll send you the apartment's address later in the week.”

He can't possibly look Sunghoon in the eye right now. Only the dragging silence between them makes Sunoo wonder what he could've possibly said wrong. When he turns to face the man once more, he sees a furious blush sitting high on Sunghoon’s cheekbones.

“To talk!” Sunoo cries with a start, coloring all sorts of pinks and reds himself. “Just to talk! Not to— God, not to— I wasn't trying to proposition you—”

“Sunoo-ya,” Sunghoon cuts him off before Sunoo can twist himself further into knots. “If I'd have actually thought you were propositioning me just now, I would've simply locked the doors and ravished you right here and now, so just—  just relax.”

Sunoo cannot relax; in fact, he's the textbook definition of whatever the opposite of the word ‘Relax’ is. The small spurt of slick that now stains his underwear thanks to Sunghoon's frank words are testament enough to that.

“Thank you, Sunoo," Sunghoon murmurs, leaning across the console, suddenly crowding Sunoo. 

“You—!” Sunoo yelps, freaked out.

His large hand rests over Sunoo’s extended one, gently squeezes it, before pulling the handle and opening the door for him. "I'll see you on Friday.”

Sunoo all but flees the vehicle, almost tripping over the sidewalk. 

He can feel this ghost of sensation on his hand long after Sunghoon’s SUV disappeared from view—long after Sunoo entered the building and collapsed on the lobby’s chair to wait for Sunyoung to be done with her lesson for the day.

Long enough to last him until Friday, but only just so.