Chapter Text
***
Minho's in her office, reading the quarterly report and frowning over some of the numbers, when her phone lights up with a text.
She pinches the bridge of her nose, when she sees who it's from, but she swipes up and opens the message anyway.
It's a stupid selfie, clearly taken on the back of a public bus, and she can barely see Seungmin's face, given that he's got a mask on and his hair is mussed so that it's covering his eyes. He still looks incredibly attractive, for some weird reason, cheeky confidence evident in his gaze, and she stares at the message that follows the picture.
Hi noona~ free tonight?
Minho should really be better than this, because it should take more than a stupid selfie to get her to shelve the dinner reservation at that expensive sushi restaurant in Gangnam that she's been looking forward to, but alas, she's always been a little weak for wide-eyed boys.
She types back a reply, and begins packing up for the day.
"Jihyo," she says, slinging her handbag over her shoulder, "move my reservation at Ryo's to Thursday, would you? Something's come up."
Her assistant, fortunately, knows better than to ask questions, and so Jihyo just nods.
"Of course, Ms Lee. See you tomorrow."
***
“Ah,” Minho manages, her voice pitchy and needy, “fucking hell, Kim Seungmin-”
Seungmin, the bastard, takes the opportunity to fuck right into her, hard and deep, and she scrabbles for purchase on her silk sheets.
“Noona,” he murmurs into her ear, his large hands curled around her hips, probably leaving bruises on her skin, “you feel so good around me.”
Minho hisses from pleasure when he goes even deeper, the sounds of his cock thrusting in and out of her wet pussy absolutely obscene in the quiet of her bedroom, forming some kind of half-fucked symphony alongside her muffled curses and his harsh panting. They’re a right sight, really, her on her hands and knees swearing into her blankets as he takes from behind, so deeply entwined, something animalistic and raw.
“Noona,” he breathes out, “noona, I’m close-”
“Yeah?” Minho says, turning slightly to look at him, at his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, at the colour high on his cheeks, and she fucks back onto his cock, meeting each eager shift of his hips with her own, “you gonna come for me, Seungmin-ah?”
“Minho-”
“Go on, puppy,” she croons, “fill me up.”
He thrusts in again - once, twice, three times - and one of his big hands comes round to rub over her clit, the electric shocks of pleasure enough to send her over the edge, the orgasm pulled from her just as he spills inside of her, his cock pulsing deep in her warmth.
They catch their breaths for a few moments, and then Minho slumps down into the mattress, letting his cock slip out of her as she rolls over to look at him.
Seungmin meets her gaze, leaning in to pull her into a kiss, filthy and warm, and then he pulls away, eyes dropping down to her pussy, at where she’s probably glistening and messy, wet with her own pleasure and his release.
“You’re so pretty when you’re full of my cum, noona,” Seungmin murmurs, one hand coming up to spread her folds, thumbing over her hole.
Minho smacks him on the arm.
“Stop it,” she grumbles, rolling over, and Seungmin laughs.
“Of course,” he murmurs, settling beside her on the bed.
Minho’s not one for cuddling, really, but Seungmin is warm and broad, and the post-coital sleepiness is starting to set in, and so she shifts until she's found a comfortable position to lie in, tucked up against his chest with his arm serving as a pillow.
“I have finals in two weeks, and then a MT thing,” he informs her, petting her hair, “I don’t think I’ll be able to see you for a bit.”
“That’s fine,” Minho says, “I have a few business trips coming up, so I’ll be too jet-lagged for booty calls anyway.”
“That hasn’t stopped you before,” Seungmin interjects, smirking slightly, and Minho smacks him on the shoulder.
“Be polite to your elders,” she says, “and shut up, I want to sleep.”
“We need to clean up, noona,” Seungmin says, trying to move, and Minho curls one hand around his shoulder, digging her manicured nails into his skin. Sure, they need to wash up, because they’re both sweaty and gross and she’s well aware that his cum is dripping out of her, but she’s tired and she doesn’t feel like moving.
“Sleep first,” she grumbles, “clean up later.”
She expects Seungmin to protest, to insist on going to the ensuite for a washcloth, but he just sighs, and moves closer, brushing her hair out of her face.
“Whatever you like, Minho-noona.”
***
If you asked Minho how she fell into bed with Kim Seungmin, she wouldn’t quite know what to tell you.
By all accounts, they’re two people who should have never met. Seungmin is a college student, in the first year of his JD program, twenty-three and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and Minho is many years older, thirty-five and the CEO of a successful software empire, one she’d built up with nothing but her own two hands and her best friend by her side.
They're two people whose paths should have never crossed - but they'd met, one fateful night at a random bar in Hongdae. Seungmin had approached her first, bravado fueled by alcohol and the wolf-whistles of his friends, and Minho had been amused and intrigued enough to invite him to join her for a drink.
That drink had become two, and three, and then had led to Seungmin pressing her up against the door of her penthouse, kissing her deeply as he undid the buttons of her blouse.
The night had ended with him wringing four orgasms from her, and an agreement to start up some fuckbuddy arrangement, because Seungmin is wide-eyed and handsome and enthusiastic and Minho could do worse than a puppy-like college boy who seems to delight in making her come.
She'd expected him to get bored, really, because what does a twenty-three-year-old want with a woman in her thirties who spends most of her time drowning in her work, but nearly nine months on and her phone still lights up with messages from him asking if she's free.
She's no better, really, given the number of times she's texted him first, given the fact that she's let him spend entire weekends at her house, the two of them doing nothing but fucking and sleeping and eating takeout.
It's - things with Seungmin are convenient, even if there's no way they’re going to last, and she'll have fun with it while she can.
***
Minho is not having a good time.
"Ms Lee," Jihyo says, worriedly, "are you sure you don't need a doctor?"
"I'm not paying for a doctor in this forsaken country," Minho grumbles, because she hates being in the States, "if it doesn't blow over by the time we get back to Korea, I'll see a doctor then."
Jihyo sighs, and simply hands her a bottle of ginger ale, which Minho sips from gratefully. It's been an exhausting month, with three business trips packed across five weeks, and Minho's at the end of her rope in a hotel lobby bathroom in New York. She's been feeling somewhat unwell recently, nausea in the mornings and fatigue all around, and she absolutely loathes it.
She manages to drag herself out into the lobby, to where Chan is waiting with Sangyeon, and he arches a brow at her.
"You don't look well, Min," he remarks, "are you alright?"
"I've been a little under the weather," she says, "but I'm fine, honestly."
"If you say so," he replies, concern colouring his voice, and then they head off towards the car that'll bring them to their first meeting of the day.
It doesn't get better, as the trip wears on, and Minho schedules an appointment with her doctor to figure out what the hell is up once she's back in Seoul.
She suspects it's probably stress, as it usually is, or some bug she picked up in America, but she's proven very wrong.
"Congratulations, Ms Lee," the doctor says, showing her the two lines on the pregnancy test she'd just taken, "you're expecting a baby."
***
"I thought you were on birth control."
"So did I, Christopher," Minho spits out, swirling her fucking orange juice around in its glass because it's not like she should be drinking alcohol right now, and Chan makes a consoling noise.
He'd been the first person she told, after she'd cancelled all her afternoon meetings and had a bit of a meltdown in her office, and even now she's unsettled, her world tilted on its axis, although Chan's presence helps to ground her.
They've been through so much together, and he's always got her back, as her business partner and her best friend.
Chan hums.
"Have you thought about what you want to do?"
Minho presses her lips into a thin line.
The logical, sensible thing to do would be - to not have the baby. Minho is single, unmarried, with a career that has consumed most of her life, and she can already hear the tongues wagging, about her being pregnant out of wedlock, about whether she can keep her focus on her company with a child in the picture.
But Minho's never cared what people think, and deep in her heart she's always wanted a family.
She'd thought it something impossible, as life went on and her work became the most important thing in her existence, but this pregnancy, while unexpected, is almost like a gift, and she would be a fool to not welcome it with open arms, not when it makes something warm settle inside of her, not when it revives a hopefulness she’d thought long dead.
"I'm keeping it," she says, her voice steady, and Chan smiles.
"Wonderful, we have an excellent parental leave policy," he says cheerfully, clapping her on the shoulder, "which I expect you to take full advantage of, by the way "
"Oppa-"
"Come on, you know Sana and I can keep the company going for a few months without you," he tells her, and well, it's the truth, so Minho just sighs, letting him top up her glass with more juice.
They sit in silence for a while, the sounds of Seoul's evening traffic a distant hum in the background, and Chan clears his throat.
"Do you know who the father is?"
Minho winces. He's not unjustified in asking that question, given that he'd witnessed the hot mess she'd been in university, but it just hammers home the reality of the situation, because she knows who the father is, and that’s a whole other can of worms.
"There's only one possibility, really," she mutters, and Chan hums.
"It's that boy you've been seeing, right? The one who goes to SNU."
"How do you know this," Minho complains.
Chan waggles his eyebrows.
"You know Brian isn't just your driver, right?"
Minho swears, throwing a random post-it pad on her desk at Chan, and he catches it, tossing it back onto the table, laughing at her scowl.
His mirth fades, and he sighs.
"That's going to be a difficult conversation, isn't it? He's very young."
Minho sighs, leaning back against her chair, looking up at the ceiling.
"Tell me about it," she mutters, and Chan reaches out to take one of her hands in his, the gesture warm and reassuring.
"You'll be alright, Minho-yah," he says, and Minho wishes she could believe him.
***
Minho doesn't reach out to Seungmin.
She tells herself it’s because she knows he’s busy, that he’s studying for finals, that he’s got his club activities and other grad school things, that it would be cruel to break his focus and distract him, but the reality is that Minho herself doesn’t even know how to begin thinking about this. Seungmin is twelve years her junior, with his entire life ahead of him, and Minho sometimes feels like she’s lived a thousand years.
She can’t imagine him wanting to have anything to do with a child, and she can’t understand why she’s so unsettled by the notion.
And so Minho lets the days go by. She works, she does her yoga, she cares for her houseplants, and she goes for her first appointment at the obstetrician’s. It’s a whole production, blood being drawn and medical histories being checked and tests being run on account of the fact that she’s on the older side of childbearing, and it's enough to make anyone nauseous, as if the morning sickness wasn't doing a good enough job of that.
“I’d like to do an ultrasound,” the doctor says, after they’ve gone through the requisite check-ups, and Minho doesn’t expect the way her heart skips a beat when the doctor turns the screen towards her, when she sees the little alien-like being curled up on itself. It’s so tiny, barely formed at this stage, but there’s something about seeing it that makes Minho realize how real this is, that there’s life growing inside of her.
“There we go, Ms Lee,” the doctor says kindly, “there’s your baby.”
Minho goes home that day with several printouts of the scan in her purse, and she sits on her sofa staring at them, feeling a weight settle around her shoulders, her heart filled with a miasma of emotions, fear and awe and everything in-between, her new reality in the little black-and-white photos she cradles in her palms.
Her phone lights up with a text message, and something inside her twists, when she swipes up to open it.
It’s another terrible selfie. Seungmin’s dressed in one of his school shirts, the SNU logo clear across the front, and he’s wearing a baseball cap backwards, pointing a finger gun at the camera with a wink, young and bright.
I’m back~ can I come over tonight, noona?
He’s sent a sticker along with the message, a cartoon dog with big, wide eyes, and Minho decides she may as well rip the bandaid off, because there’s no use prolonging this, not when she knows how it's going to end.
Sure , she texts back, before she tosses her phone aside and settles back against her cushions, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes.
***
“Hi noona,” Seungmin greets, when he shows up at her door that evening, “it’s been a while.”
Minho snorts, letting him in.
"You're the one who was busy."
"I wouldn't have been opposed to a fuck or two if you'd asked," he remarks, toeing off his sneakers, and Minho rolls her eyes.
"As if I had the time anyway, I've been travelling," she replies, "have you eaten?"
"Not yet."
Minho hums, and Seungmin trails after her into her kitchen, his eyes lighting up at the rice and side dishes on the table, at the pot of stew sitting at the centre of it.
"Noona, you cooked for me?"
"It's just doenjang-jjigae," Minho grumbles, "I have to eat anyway, you're just lucky to be here at the right time."
"I'm very lucky to be able to eat your cooking," Seungmin says cheerfully, and Minho isn't sure if she wants to kiss him or smack him, "thank you for the meal!"
Dinner progresses as it usually does, the two of them making small talk and idle conversation, and Seungmin does the dishes, batting off her protests.
Minho's in her living room, examining the leaves of her money plant, when Seungmin comes up behind her, wrapping her arms around her waist.
"Hi," he says, resting his head on her shoulder, and when Minho turns to look at him, Seungmin takes the opportunity to kiss her, one large hand cupping her face as he draws her close.
Seungmin kisses like a hungry man, one who savours his meals, who devours everything on his plate with fervour, and it's evident in how he licks into her mouth, how he seems to want to just push ever closer.
Minho kisses back, and she hasn't realised how much she's missed him. He makes her hunger for his touch, and she leans into it, her breath hitching when his hands roam over her body.
Seungmin's hand slips up her shirt, skimming over her belly, and Minho pulls away, her heart thundering in her chest as Seungmin stares at her, concerned.
"Noona? What's wrong?"
Minho exhales, soft and slow.
"I- there's something I need to tell you," she says, going to sit down on the sofa, and Seungmin follows, confusion clear on his face.
"Is everything okay?" he asks, sitting beside her, his worry almost endearing, and Minho laughs, shaky.
She reaches for the envelope that's sitting on her coffee table, and tips the contents of it out, shoving them into Seungmin's hands.
He stares at them, at the ultrasound scans she'd gotten earlier in the day, and then he blinks at her.
"Noona?"
Minho sucks in a deep breath.
"I'm pregnant," she says, laying the truth out before him, "and it's yours."
Seungmin looks thunderstruck, and Minho can't blame him at all.
"What?" he chokes out, "wait- are you sure?"
"We've been sleeping with each other exclusively for the last six months," Minho mutters darkly, "I don't see who else it could be, I'm only about nine weeks along."
Seungmin just stares at her, and Minho sighs.
The room feels cold, even though she has the heating turned up.
"I’m keeping it,” she says, simply, “I don't expect you to want to be involved, or take on any responsibility, I just thought I should at least tell you."
Seungmin sets the ultrasounds aside, folding his hands in his lap.
“Noona,” he says, “what the hell do you mean?”
Minho blinks at him.
“What?” she manages, “Seungmin, you’re twenty-three, you just started law school - you’ve got so much of your life ahead of you, you’re not going to want a baby-”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me,” Seungmin interrupts, and Minho stares at him like he’s a fucking alien from Mars or something.
“Seungmin?”
Seungmin reaches out for her, taking her hands in his, and there’s something earnest in his eyes, something raw and real that scares Minho, a little.
“This baby’s mine as much as it’s yours, noona,” he says, quietly, determinedly, “I don’t-”
He pauses for a moment, and then he soldiers on, steadfast.
“You’re right, I don’t have much to offer,” he continues, “I’m a student and I’m broke and I can't give you anything, but I want - I want to be a part of this, in any way you’ll let me.”
Minho doesn’t even know how to respond, because she’d been so convinced that this would be the last time she’d ever see him, that he’d want nothing to do with her and the baby, and something twists in her belly when she looks at him, at how serious he is, at how he’s like an anchor in a storm.
“Please,” he murmurs, and Minho inhales sharply, forcing herself to slow down on the exhale.
“I have another appointment with the obstetrician in two weeks,” she says instead, “I suppose you can come along.”
Seungmin’s face lights up, like dawn breaking, and Minho hopes she isn’t making a big mistake.
***