"thank you Karina for agreeing on this, I'm sorry I had to disturb you though." Jeno said wholeheartedly yet also guilty for disturbing Karina's night.

The slightly older girl huffs out a laugh and reaches to ruffle his combed hair, "Jen, it's literally no big deal. It's not the first time I'm gonna watch over Jisung while you're out." She reassures.

"Yeah, but I still feel bad." The younger boy pouts.

"Please, you always feel bad because you think you're wasting my time, which you're not." The girl teases as Jeno blushes in embarrassment.

"Now go have fun on your dinner date with Woozi and Hoshi along with your fiancè too." She ushers as she opens the door of Jaemin and Jeno's bedroom.

They've been in there for the past 30 minutes discussing things and Jeno worrying over Jisung. Karina's pretty sure Jaemin has been waiting outside by now and wouldn't be surprised if the man had fallen asleep or something.

"Well with that man going with me, my night has already been ruined." Jeno rolled his eyes at as he checks if he has everything he needs.

Karina chuckles at him, "then you have Woozi with you, I'm sure you're not the only one having a quarrel with your lover. He'll accompany you." She tries to lighten up his mood.

Jeno widened his eyes at what she labeled Jaemin to him, "he's not my lover." He hissed.

His childhood best friend shrugs, "he's your fiancè." She points out matter-of-a-factly.

"It's complicated and more on forced to be with. You know that." He mumbles out and looks away.

Sighing, Karina gently places a hand on his shoulder, giving him a little squeeze. "Jen, we both know what you're thinking." She said softly.

Jeno doesn't reply and just chewed on his lips, she moves her hand around his shoulders to side-hug him gently.

"Since you're heading out now and I don't want to waste your time any longer, let's just go on a little friendly breakfast date tomorrow or the next day. I want to talk to you about it."

"What about your girlfriend?" Jeno raised a brow at her whilst being slowly led outside of his room.

Karina snorts and lazily waves her hand at him, "Winter's busy tomorrow and will leave early, besides, we already planned on a lunch date anyway."

Humming at her, Jeno walks towards Jaemin and Jisung who were waiting at the front door. He kneels down to Jisung's level and smiles.

"Be good to aunty Rin, okay? You know the rules and so does she, don't try any tricks on her." He boops Jisung's nose before pinching it affectionately.

The little boy giggles at him and nodded, "yes papa!" He salutes the man, cupping his face with his small hands and gave a quick kiss on his cheek.

Jeno lightly laughs and kisses his forehead in return before standing back up straight, he turns to Karina and exchanged hugs with her.

"We'll be back at 9. Call if you need anything and I'll also be telling you if we're coming back early." He said with his 'parent' tone as to what Karina likes to call it.

The older girl scrunched her nose with a smile as she pinches his cheeks, "Jeno~ stop worrying, it's me who's watching Jisung. Not some stranger newbie." She remarks.

Rolling his eyes, Jeno gave her one last hug as well as Jisung before walking out the door that was held by Jaemin, the latter smiling at him.

"Bye-bye papa and Mr. Jaemin! Come back soon!" Jisung waves at them after Karina picked him up in her arms.

Jaemin nodded curtly at them and waved back as well, closing the door and walking towards the elevator, side by side with Jeno.

𖡗

"Next time, I'll call in another one of our drivers." Jeno mutters as he fastens his seatbelt while Jaemin starts the car.

The elder turns his head to him and raised a brow, "what's wrong with me driving you around?" He asked and proceeded to look over his shoulder and rear view mirror as he began to back up.

"Obvious reasons." The younger boy retorts at him.

Chuckling, Jaemin turns back to look at the front and shrugs, "well you drive me nuts for obvious reasons too." He said nonchalantly.

Huffing, Jeno crosses his arms and leans back on his seat whilst looking out the window. "Just drive, we're going to be late." He grumbles along with his face turning red.

𖡗

Dinner has been... Awkward-ish.

Well, for Jaemin and Jeno's part. Woozi and his husband, Hoshi, has been loudly bickering in front of them since they started the night.

"Jeno, can you believe this idiot thinks it's okay to just randomly kiss me in a damn serious business meeting?" His cousin began to bring his name up.

The said boy blinks out of his stupor and nodded off anyway, clearly not paying attention.

Reason? Oh, just Na Jaemin's hand resting on his thigh while caressing him here and there.

"Is there something wrong with being affectionate and showing my love for you?" Hoshi retorts.

"Not in a business meeting!" Woozi scowls back.

Scoffing, the elder boy of the two turns to Jaemin, who's across from Woozi, and asks. "Jaemin, if Jeno was in a meeting or busy with something, would you still kiss him out of nowhere?"

Woozi's glare hardened and glances at his younger cousin, he knows the boy is panicking right now and is slightly uncomfortable with the question.

Considering it's about their 'relationship' which he's still having personal issues on. Mainly trust.

And he's sure to himself that he told Hoshi about it before, right as the whole forced-marriage idea came up.

But as always, Hoshi barely pays attention on what he has to say nowadays. Which gets on Woozi's nerves.

Despite the growing tension in the table, Jaemin answers Hoshi's question with a grin. "Well, of course." Answering nonchalantly.

He then turns to Jeno and moves his previous hand that was on his thigh to drape his arm around the younger boy.

"Just to prove to him how much I love him every second, no matter what he does." Staring deeply into Jeno's eyes with his voice slowly going lower.

Oblivious, Hoshi then turns to Jeno and unexpectedly asked him a question the boy definitely wanted to cut their dinner short even though their desserts just arrived.

"How about you Jeno? Would you get angry at Jaemin if he did that?"

𖡗

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ TBC☽༓･*˚⁺