Chapter Text
He ignores Minho for another day. He calls in sick to work and sleeps till afternoon, then rots in front of the television until dinnertime, which he’s feeling too sick to eat.
They don’t see each other, which is typical these days, and Minho is busy preparing for a game overseas, so the communication is limited. He probably assumes Kibum is mad at him, which he is, and that he should leave it alone, which he should.
The last couple weeks of his pregnancy have been a hellish stretch of relentless nausea, sealing him away in his office’s bathroom to puke multiple times per day. The ninth is no different. In earlier years, on the lower rungs, that would have been more embarrassing. But he’s a CEO now, first in command for one of Korea’s up and coming designer fashion labels, and he takes special care to keep his personal business withheld from the public. One scandal could threaten the entire label’s credibility, including a bastard hazelnut baby.
He can’t explain why terminating seems so impossible, but at the end of the day, it’s his bastard hazelnut baby on the line. His, and Minho’s, with his striking model face and big doe eyes.
Minho, the pretty star athlete, who’s never been shy about how much he likes Kibum. How much he likes looking at him, likes fucking him, likes listening to him complain about annoying fashion snobs smearing his brand in their blogs.
Surely he’d be equally obsessed with the baby they’ve made together. Wouldn’t he? Kibum’s not sure he wants that. He’s not even sure he could even handle that.
He forces himself to go to work the next day. A Friday. He thinks some productivity will do him good, but every time he settles in to get any actual work done his mind wanders.
Choi Minho.
He’s nice enough. Pretty enough. Certainly slutty enough. Sexual compatibility isn’t an issue, Kibum knows. He knew that the moment he laid eyes on him. That serendipitous sexual compatibility is how they got into this situation to begin with. How did it happen?
Between seven and eight weeks along…
Minho had been unchaperoned. The first time he came with his agent, and then with his manager, but there had been an evening, not long before Kibum was due to leave, that Minho showed up with ‘inquiries’ about their collaboration. A clothing line. It was urgent, Minho said, because he wouldn’t be able to meet for several weeks after.
Kibum shakes his head. Choi Minho is too busy for a baby.
Maybe he shouldn’t tell him. That’s the merciful route for them both, isn’t it? Minho doesn’t have to agonize over a baby he can’t take care of, and Kibum doesn’t have to agonize over Minho’s pathetic broken heart.
He cringes at the thought. Minho’s poor heart. Would he even care? Some part of Kibum seems to already know, and is whispering petulantly in his ear, Minho would absolutely fall over himself if he knew.
Kibum pulls up an interview. A recent one, uploaded within the last month. An interview he gave in Japan, in Japanese.
He could teach the baby Japanese. Smooth, cool Japanese. He’s not perfectly fluent, Kibum can tell, but he works elegantly around the gaps in his vocabulary. He’s a smooth talker in Korean too. Flirty. Sweet. Pathetic, when he needs to be. He can complain just right, so that Kibum does whatever he wants. Within reason, of course, but still far more than he’d ever do upon anyone else’s request.
Before Minho, Kibum had never had sex at work. But something in Minho’s eyes that day, something in his body language, all of it screamed for Kibum. And Kibum, as ridiculous and stupid as he is, reacted to it. Pheromones? The smell of desperation on him? Or was he only reacting to Kibum and got them tangled up in a whirlpool of reckless wanting?
Kibum scrubs his eyes with his hands, frustrated. Glitter comes off on his fists, expensive, luxury glitter. Kibum can’t possibly be at fault, all of this has just been so chemical from the very beginning. There’s no discretion to be had, no prudence. Just Minho and his boyish face and pleading eyes and needy demands.
It had been on this desk, hadn’t it? Right here on this fucking desk.
Kibum closes the tab, face flushed. He exhales. “Fuck, what have I done.”
A call comes through then. Minho, probably sensing that something is terribly, terribly wrong. Kibum stares distrustfully down at the screen, at his sweet smiling face that pops up whenever he calls Kibum. Which, recently, has been increasingly often. Kibum likes that photo of him.
Only now, his heart breaks In a way it never has before. He covers his mouth to keep the flood of emotions at bay.
“I have to tell him,” he mumbles into his hand. “God, I’m a fucking idiot.”
In person, though. Absolutely in person. He silences his phone and runs to the bathroom to keep the tears from leaving glittery streaks down his face. This is a problem for later, in person.
And, sure enough, Minho shows up unannounced to Kibum’s place, tail between his legs. It’s not his day, and Kibum can’t seem to remember when he started letting Minho get away with breaking all of these rules.
“Kibum-ah,” he says, pouting, as he leaves his shoes in the entryway. “What did I do? Are you mad at me?”
Kibum glances up from his book. It’s been a bad distraction from how awful he feels, and now, with Minho here, his anxiety is only spiking. Tell him. Spit it out.
“Bummie,” Minho whines again, seating himself on the couch beside him. “Talk to me. Why did you ignore me all week?”
Kibum grips his book tighter. He knows Minho deserves to know. He knows Minho is bound to find out eventually.
“Kibum,” Minho says, voice rigid. “Are you sick?”
Kibum flings down the book and rises from the couch. “Jesus, Minho, would you—”
He races for the bathroom, leaving Minho staring after him, dazed.
Vomiting three times per day is routine now, worsening as the first trimester ticks onward. Eventually Minho appears at the threshold to the bathroom door, knocking awkwardly as Kibum finishes his third and probably final puke of the day. It’s cathartic as always, and Minho just watches him collapse against the side of the bathtub, heaving for breath.
“You’re an asshole,” Kibum mutters, wiping his mouth. “You and that dumb face. Usually I have better self-control when it comes to men like you, but you just had to blink your big dumb eyes and flap your big dumb mouth at me, and now your dumb hazelnut is hellbent on punishing me for my sexual indiscretion.”
Minho blinks. “My hazelnut?”
“That’s what I’ve been calling the baby.” Kibum chances another glance at him as he struggles up from the ground to brush his teeth. “I’m pregnant.”
Minho says nothing. His lips are slightly open, jaw dangling, even after Kibum finishes and pushes past him on his way out of the bathroom.
“Anyway, I’m keeping it and I don’t need anything from you,” Kibum says, over his shoulder.
Kibum orders himself dinner, something light, and resumes reading his book. From the couch, Kibum can see Minho poised in the bathroom doorway, frozen in place. Eventually he shifts, leaning against the frame and sliding all the way down, straddling the threshold with his head in his hands.
He stays there until the food arrives, and Kibum gives him a kick to the leg as he passes him on his way back from the door.
“Gonna eat or what?” he asks, holding up the bag.
Minho looks up, stunned face somehow more tired than when he came in. “Are you really pregnant, Kibum?”
Kibum lifts his shirt. “You think this is just a result of stress snacking?”
Minho marvels wordlessly at the bump, visible below Kibum’s ribs. He wonders how he hadn’t noticed it before, small as it is. A baby, absolutely there, undeniable from this angle. Minho scrubs a hand over his gaping mouth.
“Holy shit, Kibum, you’re already showing,” he mumbles, dumbfounded, eyes trained on Kibum’s hand as it strokes across his belly. “There’s really a baby in there. An actual baby.”
Kibum knows better than to ask any questions. He knows he’s not prepared for the answers, anyway. Whether Minho wants to be involved. Whether Minho wants to pay him for his silence. Whether Minho wants Kibum to abort. Whether Minho will panic once he discovers that Kibum isn’t going to change his mind.
“Kibum…” Minho begins, grasping for words. “I don’t understand how…”
“I’m not changing my mind,” Kibum tells him plainly. “I’m having it.”
“Whose…” Minho swallows, fists clenching. “My baby…?”
“Yes, dummy.”
“You’re sure?”
“It’s not like I’m sleeping around.” Kibum gives the bump a pat before pulling his shirt back down. “If you don’t want to eat, you know the way out.”
Kibum returns to the kitchen with his food and sits down alone at the table. There’s a heavy silence all through the apartment, until it is broken by the sound of Kibum’s front door opening and closing.
Kibum cries a little, then eats his dinner alone.