tonight (i still can’t remove the thorns you left in me)
the first thing he does when he reaches his apartment is put them to bed.
he doesn’t have anything infants less than half a year old should be sleeping in, and it isn’t a problem that he can solve until tomorrow when any of the stores open. right now it’s half past one in the morning, far past when they should be asleep so, as best he can, he bunches blankets around a section of his own bed, puts both of them there with a pillow in between them and hopes that nothing horrible will happen on his first night alone--the first of many nights.
the second thing he does is close the door to his room halfway, just enough so that the light from the living room and kitchen don’t leak in but wide enough that he could hear if either of them even so much as fuss (because he also doesn’t have the monitors with him).
the third thing minho does, once he reaches his apartment, alone, with the two sons he’ll have to raise himself from now on, is let himself collapse back against the wall outside of his bedroom, fall to the floor, and cry.
two weeks later, just three days after minho had gone to the hospital that haneul and minhyun were born in in order to request copies of all of their certificates and vaccination documents, among other housekeeping details (with lies of how he’d lost the original copies in a hectic move ready on his lips), he receives a package in the mail with all of the originals with no note, and no return address even though he obviously recognizes the handwriting that had written out his own address on the label.
he stands there at his kitchen counter, scissors still in his hand as he stares blankly down into the box’s contents. he thinks, maybe, he could have almost cried again right then, except he’d already cried too many times--over and over again--in the past two weeks. he had cried nearly every night, silent and shaking, only after he’d put both babies to sleep, and only when they were asleep. they’d never remember even if he did cry in front of them but it just didn’t feel right--it didn’t feel like he should. he only wants to raise them around smiles and laughs even from day one.
minho might have cried, but he’s already cried too much and minhyun starts screaming just at that moment anyway--not crying, not fussing, just babbling even though minho hadn’t expected either of them to start making sounds for another several months. minho puts the scissors down and turns around to see the younger twin red in the face and opening and closing his fist towards where his brother somehow has gotten both of the teething toys that minho had picked up yesterday--stocking up on everything he’d had to leave at taehyun’s. both boys are in walkers across from each other, legs still too short to obviously do anything in them except dangle.
he smiles faintly and pries one of the doughnut-shaped teething gels out of haneul’s hands and hands it to minhyun.
minho’s chest feels like a thousand shards of ice are trying to rip their way out of it, but he’d rather let those shards kill him from the inside out before he cries anymore in front of his sons.
he knows that there are swears and insults on the tip of all of his friends’ tongues as far as taehyun is concerned even though most of them have never even met him, and if they have, it was only an introduction and a meal. he also knows that they all hold back because they know that he’s still in love with taehyun, and minho is grateful for that. he’s doubly grateful that they don’t bring up the fact that he’s still in love with him even though he shouldn’t be.
he’s thankful that, instead, they channel all of that energy into buying gifts to the point of indulgence for the twins--that they’re always coming over to see them, that they keep offering to watch them so that minho can have some down time (to which minho usually refuses because he doesn’t trust ninety percent of them to even hold a child the right way).
he’s glad that they’re all involved in haneul and minhyun’s lives already, even from the start, because that at least curbs minho’s worry that there’ll be an empty, gaping hole in the twins’ lives that minho can’t fill completely.
as for the empty, gaping hole in minho’s heart--along with the shards of ice and glass that still prick him every time he takes a breath--he can deal with that himself.
he knew it would be hard, but there are times when the difficulty exceeds even his expectations.
nights like this--when both of them are crying and sick and tired, but too sick to fall asleep properly and yet too tired to stay awake until the medicine kicks in, and they’re both hurting and ill so of course they cry because they don’t know how else to relieve the pain and all minho can do is hold them, and he has to hold one in each arm even though they’re getting bigger and bigger and his arms hurt but he has no one else, and they have no one else but him, so what choice does he have--
nights like this, when minho is running on less than two hours of sleep from the past three days, when he hasn’t written anything in a week and hasn’t attended a show, hasn’t performed, in at least a month, when he feels like this hiatus period for his dreams will never end and that he’ll never be able to give the little souls in his arms even half of what they deserve, he thinks that maybe taehyun was right.
nights like this, all minho can do is keep pacing back and forth in the living room until they’re asleep, until he’s too exhausted to have any thoughts at all falls asleep on the couch with both of them still in his arms, heads pillowed on his chest.
nights like that are usually followed by better mornings.
they always wake up before him even when they’re sick, and this morning is no different. haneul wakes up first, rubbing his face against minho’s chest and smiling even as his nose still flames bright red from having had to get it wiped so many times because of the terrible cold. minho puts minhyun down carefully against the pillows of the couch first, sitting up and scratching the sleep out of his eyes and from his face as he sets haneul in his lap facing himself so he can press the back of his hand against the older twin’s forehead.
the fever seems mostly broken from what minho can feel and also judging from how haneul doesn’t seem upset and uncomfortable the way he was last night. the one-year-old seems perfectly content in wiping the excess snot that is still slightly leaking out of his nose with one fist and sucking on the thumb of his other hand.
when minho turns to minhyun, he finds that the other twin has his eyes open now already as well, blinking blearily, and gripping the edge of minho’s sweatshirt with his little fingers. minho presses his fingers lightly against minhyun’s chubby cheek, still a little pinker than minho would like with the remains of the fever. “bet you guys are starving,” minho says, as minhyun rolls into minho’s lap as haneul continues to sit on the cushion beside them, kicking his feet and watching his toes focusedly. “since both your dinners and lunches ended up on my shirt yesterday.”
he scoops both of them up into his arms, and for some reason the weight feels much lighter than it did last night even though, from the microwave’s clock, last night was only five hours ago. maybe it’s because when they aren’t limp and feverish, they usually sit up in his arms, clinging onto his shoulder or neck so that it feels like he isn’t carrying them so much as he is just holding them.
minho sets them in their respective high chairs and pours them each a sippy cup filled with half orange juice and half water to hydrate them after all the vomiting they did last night. he starts on breakfast while they’re occupied with that and with the usual staring contest they conduct with each other across the table the way they always do when they’re in their high chairs with no food yet in front of them.
while the vegetables are simmering, he leans back on the counter, sipping at a mug of leftover coffee he’d popped in the microwave because there’s no time right now to make a new pot, and minhyun catches him watching them over the top of his cup. when he grins at minho, it’s all eyes and cheeks, and haneul joins his brother when he sees where minhyun is looking. “what’s funny?” minho asks, unable to not smile back, and they both burst into laughter, the bottoms of their cups clanking down against the table as they set them down to laugh completely.
he lowers the heat on the vegetables until the flame is almost out, grabbing a few tissues from the box on the counter as he strides forward quickly, wiping off both their noses because the laughter had them snorting out the rest of what they still had from the cold and fever. they get huffy whenever he has to do that, frowning at him, but he ruffles their hair with a hand each, crumpling the tissues up then and tossing them into the trashcan.
when they’re digging into their food--after minho’s blown the heat completely away as both of them teeter on the verge of tears because they’re so hungry and he can’t let them eat yet until it’s room temperature--minho sits at the table with the mug of coffee he still hasn’t finished (it’s cold now) and knows taehyun was wrong.
nam taehyun is many things (funny, smart, talented, musical, witty, charming, brilliant, quiet, loud, understanding, patient, kind, cruel, heartbreaking, the love of minho’s life--the kind of love he’ll never have again), and he more than not always correct--during their time together, minho wouldn’t be able to count on his fingers even if he had ten pairs of hands how many times taehyun was right over minho.
taehyun was wrong about this.
taehyun has an instagram--a public account that minho supposes might also have a private counterpart, but this account is for taehyun’s career. some form of sns is a necessity, he supposes, in the field that taehyun has chosen to go into. connections are everything, and taehyun seems to have made all the right ones, and seems to be easily continuing to make more and more even better ones.
since it’s public, minho doesn’t need to follow it to be able to see the posts, and he doesn’t want to be notified every single time taehyun updates either, so he simply has it bookmarked on his phone--easily accessible whenever he’s feeling masochistic enough to check up on how the omega is doing. one day there will be pictures and videos behind a runway for fashion week, the next day there might be pictures and videos of sound equipment being tested before a chuseok idol special.
there are photos abound of taehyun with celebrities that he works with, as well as gifts they’ve given to taehyun, thanking him for being one of the most cooperative, understanding, and skilled producing directors they’ve worked with. the gifts will always be as lavish as the name that follows the celebrities in the photos with him, and as happy as minho is for taehyun, he wonders if there’s ever a moment--a quiet, still moment between all the fast-paced, thrilling ones--when taehyun thinks about the sons he never wanted.
minho wonders if taehyun even remembers or cares about them.
he wonders if taehyun remembers or cares about him.
when the boys are three, minho gets them little tricycles even though jiho had already gotten them cars. “they’re going to spend the rest of their lives just pushing down a gas pedal, they should at least get some real exercise before that,” he tells his friend, because jiho is currently pouting as he stands in between the boxes bigger than the twins themselves. “besides, they’re not tall enough to reach the pedals yet anyway.”
minho thinks jiho only relents and stops pouting because this means he can buy each of them a matching set of knee and elbow pads along with the helmets that minho had already bought with the bikes.
tricycles are easy enough to learn to ride once he’s taught the boys they have to exert a considerable amount of energy--more than they’re used to in running or walking or jumping--in order to get the wheels moving. it only takes a few hours after minho starts teaching them before they’re riding around the playground in front of the complex, though, and minho is left to stand back and watch them try not to bump into each other as he films them with his phone.
when they get bored of the bikes for the day and start climbing onto the actual playground, attempting to continue their venture for this week (walking up the biggest, curling slide without sliding down at any point), minho sits on the bench with the bikes parked near his legs (he’d had them both keep on the helmets and pads because he figures this is a great way to minimize the scrapes they usually get at some point whenever they play).
it’s been a while since he’s last posted anything of the twins--the last time being nearly two weeks ago when he’d caught them both sleeping on top of the life-sized stuffed alligator toy seungyoon had given them for their second birthday--so he opens instagram and sets to clipping the several minutes he has of the twins riding around on their new bikes just now.
as he watches it upload, his thoughts drift again to taehyun the way they still never fail to--even after three years--every time minho posts something of the twins. every time the twins reach another milestone, minho will always think of taehyun, think of what taehyun’s reaction might have been if everything had gone differently, if maybe minho hadn’t forced something taehyun didn’t want so early, if maybe--if maybe minho had just been more or better so taehyun hadn’t come to hate the boys for taking away his possibilities at a real career.
sometimes minho entertains the idea of asking seungyoon about taehyun. sometimes minho entertains the idea of asking for taehyun’s new number. sometimes, minho imagines that he texts taehyun and taehyun doesn’t ignore it, and taehyun inquires about the boys and, at the very least, is interested in seeing a video or a photo every now and then--as long as minho, of course, doesn’t ask taehyun for help and doesn’t burden him with having to watch the boys or spend any money on them or even meet them if taehyun doesn’t want to.
no matter how many of minho’s friends immerse themselves in being a part of the boys’ lives, regardless of how haneul and minhyun will never know who they’re missing in their lives, minho still knows and he can’t forget no matter how hard he tries.
no matter how hard minho tries, whenever he looks at his sons, he’ll always think about how they’ll never know why they’re so smart, why they have eyebrows that slant when they laugh, why when they laugh it comes out in short, loud, high bursts, why they’ll be doubly as artistic and musical as minho, why they’ll perceive the world in this brilliant, clear lens that lets them understand intensely and uniquely, why their eyes smile differently than minho’s, why their cheeks bunch up when they grin.
he supposes, though, that it’s a small price to pay.
he’d rather they go their whole lives not knowing any of that than for them to also realize that the reason they’re so smart and brilliant and beautiful and talented and sharp and enchanting and heartbreaking and kind and cruel and understanding and creative never even wanted them to be born.
