[Fic] The Birthday Wish
Title: The Birthday Wish
Pairing: Kris/Tao
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, fluff
Summary: It was Yuqin’s wish, her fondest, dearest, most special wish, to ride a real, live horse for her fifth birthday.
***
They said Tao had changed, and he thought that was true. When two people showed up at the house of his parents with a carrier, asking to talk to him and his parents, his life had changed. He’d accepted responsibility of the tiny, sleeping baby. His parents had insisted on a paternity test, of course. But he’d known before that, known by the way Yuqin had fit into his arms. There were bits of himself he could see in her, bits of her mother. He finished college with her sleeping in a crib in his room, waking to feed her, feeling like a zombie, and he did not resent her.
Maybe a few times, in the middle of the night when she seemed to cry without end. And then he thought of his own parents, remembered almost being in fear of them for years because he’d been left to his grandmother so much.
But he changed. His life became centered around Yuqin, doing his homework and listening to her burble, burping her as he brushed his teeth (while sitting down).
He graduated, found a job, and was forced to see her off to a loving day care. They watched cartoons together, and he was amazed by her as she walked, and talked and grew and laughed. His life was cluttered with toy ponies, sundresses, monster trucks that she used as her imaginary world’s version of a villain.
It was Yuqin’s wish, her fondest, dearest, most special wish, to ride a real, live horse for her fifth birthday. She drew him little cards with decent renditions of horses on them. She shaped her food on her plate into little horses until he scolded her to eat while the food was hot. When he washed her hair in the sink, she told him of the horse book she’d been reading to the other kids. When they rambled out for walks in the park, she likened the dogs to small horses.
He’d gotten the message, loud and clear, and booked her a private lesson at the nearest stable he could find. It was dear, and he suspected he got a bit of a discount, but for the look on her face when he told her, it had been worth it.
They outfitted her in her new birthday boots, a pair of jeans, and long-sleeved shirt, and tied her hair in two pigtails. He’d have bought her a cowboy hat, if he hadn’t known it’d cause a meltdown - she couldn’t wear it over the helmet and he wasn’t wearing it on the ground for her. And she knew, gripping him with a sweaty, trembling hand as they approached the stable. The distant sound of a horse neighing was like a siren call to her, and he was almost afraid she was going to start crying right then and there, that or just bursting into a jig. They were almost too alike in temperament sometimes.
“Daddy,” Yuqin said, hanging back, pulling on him like she’d changed her mind.
“It’ll be fun,” he told her. He wasn’t so much scared that she was going to hate it, as much as he feared that she would love it too much. One horse ride on her birthday was one thing, but they could hardly keep a pony in their bathtub.
***
Yuqin fell in love with the horse, a shorter one compared to some of the ones they’d walked past going in. Tao was more interested in the instructor. For some reason, when he’d been imagining who would be teaching his tiny baby to ride, it had been a kindly older woman. He hadn’t expected a man taller than him, with a deeper voice. She’d stared at him in almost fear, shyly staring at her boots until Kris had crouched and they’d made friends with each other first. She’d held Kris’s hand as he showed her how to be safe, how to pet the horse, how to feed it. Her. Daisy, Tao was told, with reverence befitting a minor deity at the very least. She steadfastly held Daisy’s bridle as Kris showed her how a saddle was put on, and helped him pull the bridle over Daisy’s ears, giggling as they flicked at her. For such big hands, they were careful fingers that adjusted the straps on the tiny helmet, fitting it so she grinned at Tao in it.
And Kris boosted Yuqin into the saddle.
For a second, Tao thought they were sharing a brain, because his thought was that he hadn’t expected her to be sitting so high on the horse, and he could see the same thing written all over her face. But Kris stayed with her, adjusting the stirrups for her boots to fit against, showing her how to hold the reins. Yuqin squeaked, as Kris left her side, holding the lead of the horse.
But it took not even a tenth of the way around the pen, her swaying with the horse’s gait, to see she was desperately in love with everything to do with the horse, the barn, the ride. Everything. Tao took video with his phone, waving at her as she passed him by.
“Daddy look! Daddy, isn’t Daisy pretty? Daddy!”
He was riddled with delight and sickness, because he didn’t know how to top it. She would be talking about it nonstop for weeks, if not months. She’d start saving the coins she found until she could visit and ride Daisy again.
“Do you want to try going around by yourself?” Kris asked her, when they came to a halt near Tao.
That was not in the plan, Tao thought. Even if it had been in the plan, that was before he’d realized his daughter was going to be on a giant wild monster that could leap countries and destroy buildings. Horses had teeth. And they were tall. And Kris talked her through everything, how to stop Daisy, how to urge her to walk.
“She’ll be fine,” Kris said, leaning against the boards near Tao. “Daisy’s sweet and placid. I don’t think I could get her faster than a walk without a lot of urging.”
Horses could go faster than a walk.
“Daddy, she’s walking for me!”
“I’ve created a monster,” Tao moaned almost under his breath.
He very much suspected Kris was laughing at him.
“You were good with her,” Tao said, and realized Yuqin would be happy to walk Daisy in endless circles until they both passed out from hunger.
“I didn’t know at first if I would do well teaching kids,” Kris admitted. “But they come in here, and they’re excited and scared. But they have so much enthusiasm and awe, that once they get past getting up onto the horse, they’re just blissed. She was really brave, though.”
“You put her at ease. And me. Well. I wanted to snatch her back down.”
Kris chuckled. “Yeah, that’s typical. You’re brave, too. Some parents never leave the paddock, always walking beside their kid just in case.”
“Not sure how these kids manage to make us look out for them. Maybe because they’re cute.”
He wasn’t sure how Yuqin could’ve been any happier.
“All of the horses here are well-trained and docile. Just in case you were wondering, if she wants to come back.”
“I don’t think I’ll have any say in that.”
“We have group lessons on the weekends,” Kris suggested.
And Tao just scowled at him, and then caught fast to the idea, both because he was familiar with Kris’s ease with the horse and his daughter, and because… He wasn’t going to go much further than thinking how nice Kris’s jeans looked on him. “Do you teach any of them?”
“I do. One for beginners, with kids her age. It’s good. It gets them out of their rooms, teaches them responsibility since we teach them to take care of the horse as well. Bad weather, we’re inside the barn, or out in the paddock like this. There are always parents that hang around, and I’m never the only one in case something happens. Worst hurt I’ve seen in one of my classes is someone getting their toes a little bruised because they had a hoof planted on their foot.”
Tao winced, and thought. If he cut back a little, maybe took his parents up on the offer of eating at their house a couple of times a week. If he couldn’t afford every week, then maybe a couple of times a month.
Kris helped her down off the quiet horse, and she stood a bit bowlegged for a minute.
“Did you like it as much as you thought?” Tao called, before Kris could go on to teaching her again.
“I liked it more and better than more,” she swore, tiny fist against her heart.
Yuqin was sunk. So was he.
***
Kris had walked with them after, after the tack was taken care of, and the horse was cared for and happily eating in her stall. They walked up and down the rows of stalls, Kris pointing out this horse or that, telling her funning stories about them as she clung to Tao’s hand and walked just short of skipping delightedly.
And then Kris shook her hand, and thanked her very seriously for taking good care of Daisy, and to take care of her daddy, too. And Tao was grateful that Kris did not say anything leading, like that Kris hoped to see her back again, or that Daisy would miss her. Nothing that could be used against him, if it turned out he could not bring her back. He was fairly positive Yuqin examined the space beyond the dumpster to see if a horse could survive there, or maybe under her bed, or in her toy box.
It was possible she also sized up his bedroom. If they just got rid of the bed, and he could sleep in the tub instead…?
Yuqin chattered off the ears of her grandparents, her friends, her teachers, strangers in the grocery store and on the subway. He finally printed her out a picture off of his cell phone so she could stop asking him for his phone so she could admire herself and Daisy’s long face.
He consulted the price he was quoted when he called the stable, his finances. If she had wanted to dance, he would have found a way to pay for lessons. It would get her out of the house, introduce her to other children, teach her responsibility.
Tao was amazed the roof of the building was still on after the scream Yuqin emitted when he told her she’d be going back every week. She didn’t bat an eyelash when he told her there’d be other people there, and that she’d have to behave.
Nor did she when they arrived, and she discovered Daisy would not be her horse for riding. Tao hung back and watched Kris introduce her to the horse she would look after.
“His ears are kind of long, so we call him Bunny.”
Yuqin was suitably charmed.
***
Tao almost found the parents more interesting to watch than the kids over the next few weeks, the variation between the blatantly bored, the ones trying to be interested, and the ones actually calling out advice. Tao was content to wave at Yuqin when she went by, and stare at Kris’s ass in his dark but filthy jeans. He was sure stables offered lots of nooks for little escapades. And thinking about his daughter’s riding instructor while he was teaching a group of shining faces was testament to just how long it’d been since he’d gotten laid. He’d tried the dating thing, and even tried the women-approved-by-family dating thing since his parents kept asking when he was going to procure a mother for his neglected child. He didn’t think she was neglected. She had her friends, and her grandparents, and her school. He expanded her horizons on food, and with museums, and ponies. He didn’t want to marry someone because he felt he had to, and he didn’t figure that’d make Yuqin happy, either. But not dating, not having anyone of his own, that wasn’t good for him, either. She had a lot more varied human contact than he did.
Most of the people he met weren’t so keen on taking on a child not theirs. And no matter how at ease Kris looked as Yuqin pulled on his hand after the lesson, that didn’t mean he’d want Tao’s hand.
“Mr. Kris, Mr. Kris, can you come to dinner? My friends come to play sometimes! Daddy makes good food.”
He wasn’t sure whose eyebrows rose further, his or Kris’s and Kris shifted as he processed her request. There was something soft in those eyes, something caring that Tao wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about. His friends were weak to his daughter - Sehun never failed to get her riled up - but Kris was…
Different. He could admit that.
Tao reached out and tweaked one of her braids. “Maybe you should ask Daddy before asking, first.”
She frowned at him, silently judging his interruption, and nodded. “Okay.”
“But even if she did ask first, you would be welcome. Not that you have to give an answer now!” Tao said, before Yuqin could open her mouth. “Thank Mr. Kris, and in the car. Shoo. Shoo.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kris! See you next week!” she said, just as they’d practiced at home. Only perhaps with a few more puppy eyes that said “Don’t listen to mean old Daddy, he just doesn’t want me to have fun., so you should definitely come to dinner please.”
And when Yuqin had shut herself in the back seat, face against the window as though she could divine what they were saying, Tao turned to Kris.
“I’m sure you get a lot of invitations like that. I meant it, that you were welcome, but I can talk to her. You don’t have to feel obligated.”
Kris just watched him speak and ramble, a smile on his face that made Tao want to ramble more.
“I don’t get that many invites, actually. You don’t have to feel obligated-“
“It’s nice to be able to talk to adults for a change,” Tao admitted. “There aren’t any rules…?”
Kris grinned, wide. “I’m not a doctor, so no. It’d be fine.”
Though he’d look good in a lab coat. Tao cleared his throat.
“We’ll talk next week, then?”
“Sounds good,” Kris said. “Have a good week.”
Kris waved to Yuqin, before walking back toward the stable.
So he buckled Yuqin into her car seat, and drove home, finally giving in to the realization that they both had a reason to look forward to the lessons.
***
Tao did not have to make excuses to dawdle until Kris was free the next week, because his daughter, despite all his best urgings, did it for him. She very carefully, very precisely, put every brush away, straightening the others, polishing Bunny’s name tag and telling him how they should run away together and ride across Siberia. First off, Tao wasn’t sure where she’d been learning about Siberia, second, if she really meant to do that, telling the chewing horse with her father beside her - and he was poking her shoulder - was not the way to go.
But she seemed to have the same idea, pivoting around Tao and making for Kris after he was abandoned by another parent.
“I had fun today!” she said, grabbing Kris’s hand with both of hers.
“I thought so. Bunny behaved for you.”
She nodded, not impugning the horse in the least.
“I hope you had a good week,” Tao said, and Kris lifted his head to meet Tao’s eyes.
“I did.”
As though sensing impending Adult Talk, Yuqin wandered down the stable corridor, fingers poking at lead ropes and buckets and Tao half watched her to make sure she didn’t do anything she wasn’t supposed to. For all that they’d only been coming to the stable for a month, she had learned quite a few rules. And yet still, there were thousand pound animals around.
“I have a class coming up soon, so I need to get ready for that, but I wanted to give you this,” Kris said, and handed him a business card, his cell phone number printed on it. “Might make it a little easier.”
“You mean so she doesn’t have to dust every comb waiting to hope to talk to you?” Tao joked.
Kris’s smile was illegal.
“I’ll call,” Tao said. “Have a good lesson.”
“Thanks, you- Have a good day,” Kris said, laughing as he corrected himself.
Tao wiggled a little internally as he patted Yuqin’s head and she waved behind her to Kris as they made their way out.
“What’d he give you?” Yuqin asked they second they were in the car, desperate, as though he’d been given the secret key to the land of unicorns.
“Just his phone number.”
“He’s going to come eat with us?!”
His sigh was fond.
***
Yuqin didn’t actually bounce off the walls waiting for Kris to arrive, but she put in a solid effort. He stopped in the middle of food preparation to write her out a “real list” of toys she wanted to show Mr. Kris and her horse books, and would he let her sit on his knee, and where he was going to sit at the table.
Tao was out of breath by it and he wasn’t even the one speaking.
“He’ll sit where he’s comfortable, yes probably by you, and you probably shouldn’t bring too many toys out to show him. Yes, I’m sure he’d like to see your ponies.”
It was a miracle dinner was mostly done by the time he answered the door with Yuqin dancing behind him. But in a way it was nice, because they got to greet each other, and then Yuqin played tiny hostess as Tao finished. No help required, and Kris had brought both a very nice bottle of juice that they all could drink, as well as a well-loved copy of a horse book. That was cheating.
Their boring after-dinner talk of jobs and the state of the universe had her abandoning them for the solace of her toys, and Tao could hear her reading to them from her new book.
“I’m not entirely sure she wasn’t thinking that you were going to ride up on a horse, and maybe bring one inside.”
“I guess I could start carrying a horse in my back pocket,” Kris mused, and Tao threw his head back and laughed. “She’s a sweet kid. I’m glad she’s getting to spend time with the horses, and not just because it keeps me in a job.”
“Yeah. I hope she can, as long as she’s interested.” And Tao decided to address the obvious, not because he felt Kris deserved to know, but because he felt the need to let him know. “We haven’t seen her mother since a couple of weeks after Yuqin was born. Even then. I hadn’t seen her for… Almost a year before that. Her mother and I weren’t married. So it’s been the two of us. And my parents, helping, especially when I was in college still.”
“Ah,” Kris said, soft. “I had wondered, since she only spoke about you. She thinks you’re a superhero. No, honestly. It’s a brave thing, raising a child alone.”
“It’s…lonely,” Tao admitted. “I keep waiting for the day I’m going to feel qualified.”
“I think the ones who are always wonder.”
“Ooh,” Tao hummed at the sage words, and made them both chuckle.
It was useless trying not to feel the things he was already feeling, the tingle of interest, the press of heat into his cheeks when Kris nudged his knee, and the increased urge to reach out and push against Kris’s arm, his shoulder, just to touch. Watching Kris’s face move through a range of emotions, laughing at his terrible jokes.
And Tao wondered if it was more obligation than want, when Kris said he had to leave. Yuqin was fast asleep on her bed when Tao went to see if she wanted to say goodbye, and he shook his head as he went back to where Kris was pulling on his shoes.
“She’s out, and she’ll regret not saying goodbye, but I shouldn’t wake her. She enjoyed having you come over. We both did,” he said, before he sounded ungrateful.
“I’m glad. That you both did,” Kris told him.
He put a little emphasis on that word, both, and Tao’s head tilted, wondering.
“I’ll see you Sunday?” Kris said, raising his eyebrows.
And that Tao knew the answer to. “Yes. Both of us.”
And Kris had not been gone out the door more than fifteen minutes when Tao’s phone buzzed.
“Had a good time! Did you teach yourself to cook?”
Tao replied back in the affirmative.
“Maybe next time I’ll bring something so you don’t have to do so much work.”
Tao chuckled. “People appreciating it makes it worth it.”
“Another good point. How soon isn’t too soon?”
And Tao decided that if he was going to be in the dark, if he was going to not know if Kris really just needed a friend, he was going to do that in another lifetime.
“Am I reading you wrong? If not, there isn’t a too soon.”
It took pacing around his room for a minute and a half and wondering if he’d made a mistake - he’d apologize, hang back at all her classes - when his phone buzzed and nearly made him trip.
“You got it right. Can’t be too soon for me 2.”
That last casual usage had him laughing, slumping against the wall and typing quickly with his thumbs.
“You already know it’s complicated. Brave and good looking!”
It was also never too soon to flirt, since he knew he had the go-ahead to do so.
“Look who’s talking. ;)”
Tao laughed, sending back, “Have a good night~”
“I did. And you too~”
Tao was already ready to climb a wall, and they still hadn’t finalized another night for dinner.
***
And yet, he was still apprehensive when the next riding lesson occurred. They arrived at the usual time, and he joined the pack of parents. Ten minutes in, Kris caught his eye, smiling and nodding at him.
He felt like he was in fifth grade again, being passed a note. And even more so when Kris came up to him at the rail.
“Tomorrow?” Kris asked, his eyebrows raising.
Tomorrow was nowhere near too soon.
***
Yuqin was calmer, that time. She’d already shown Kris all of her relevant toys, sitting between them and being included in their conversation after they had eaten. She got to chat about her art projects, her friends, how some of them wished they could ride horses too, but they also got to dance and things, so it was okay. Kris listened to her very seriously, and Tao was proud of how she spoke, getting a bit too loud at times but she was so grown up. She was going to want to go on dates in the next week at least.
“They grow up too fast,” Tao said, after she skipped away to put her stuffed animals on parade for Queen Monster Truck. Though if he was seeing right, the monster truck had on a dress.
“That’s what they say,” Kris said, putting his hand down on the cushion so that their hands were close, but not quite touching. Tao remedied that, tracing his fingertips just above Kris’s nails.
“She goes to stay with my parents every so often. I wouldn’t be able to meet you much alone.”
“I know. If that wasn’t something I could deal with, then I wouldn’t be here. Horses have a different schedule than people, so I’m not always free, either. She’s here and happy and I’m still getting to talk to you.”
He had been assured, and he was still not truly confident. But there was no point in pushing it, since if it worked, it would work. Most men he had any feelings for at all had never even met Yuqin. If that was the cause of his concern, both his hurt and hers, maybe it enhanced it.
“There are things we can all do,” Tao mused.
Kris nearly clucked in agreement. “I’m sure you’d like riding. It’s good exercise, and you’d look good up there. There’s nothing like having a strong animal like that between your legs.”
Tao’s head shot up, just as Kris’s lowered, a hand covering his face. Tao’s mouth was moving but no words were being made as Kris’s shoulders shook.
“That didn’t come out quite the way I meant.”
But Tao’s head was taking it exactly the way Kris was thinking right then. And as he stared from Kris’s hand to his shoulders, he wasn’t thinking of any horse. But Kris finally met his eyes, a little sheepish.
“Sorry, my mouth is always getting me into trouble.”
And Tao lost it, almost crying into the back of the couch as he held up a hand to let Kris know he was okay. And the dawning look of realization on Kris’s face had him breathing very carefully, little huffs of laughter as he straightened up and had to compose himself.
“We’ll pretend this never happened,” Kris said, patting his shoulder.
As though that was possible.
“Can you stay a while? I need to get Yuqin in bed or she’ll be cranky tomorrow.”
“I can stay.”
Tao half stood, and then went for it, leaning in and brushing his lips against Kris’s. And he smiled as Kris started grinning, before getting a frowny Yuqin to sleep.
“But Mr. Kris is still here,” she groused into his neck.
“You’ll see him again soon. I promise I’ll take care of him.”
She’d already been half drooped over her favorite book when he’d gone into have her brush her teeth, so tucking her in and shutting her door was without too much argument.
Being able to relax, listening to talk about Kris’s family, the horses, and his friends, had him both on edge and almost too relaxed himself. But he still regretted it, when Kris checked the time on his phone.
“I should go. I think we both have early mornings.”
But he felt like a prince in some fairy tale, when Kris cupped his cheek as they stood at the door, kissed him.
“Can I call you tomorrow?” Kris asked.
As though he would say no.
But he was content to stay there a few minutes longer, with Kris warm against him.
***
Six months of horse riding lessons, one new pair of boots, stickers for her helmet. They tried to coordinated eery night that Yuqin was with his parents or staying with a friend, so that Kris was free. Even if he wasn’t, Tao spent time at the stables, making rounds with him as they checked in on the horses. One of his tiny fantasies of getting to press Kris up against a wall had gotten fulfilled, even if it had only been a little kissing. Two or three times a week Kris was over having dinner with them both, or going out with them, and Tao grinned at the way Kris hoisted Yuqin as they walked. She looked as secure as Tao felt. It had taken another month for Kris to sleep over, and it hadn’t even been a leisurely morning, both of them stomping into their shoes in attempts to not be late for work. But it had been worth it.
Yuqin climbed up to sit beside him on the bed, the apartment quiet without Kris in it. He curled his hand around hers, and for a moment, they sat in silence.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I know we don’t have a mommy,” she said, and Tao for a moment forgot to breathe. “But do you think Mr. Kris likes us?”
He squeezed her hand a little tighter. “Yeah. I think he does.”
“He’s nice. And he has ponies.”
Worked with ponies, at the very least.
The next best thing to having a pony, it seemed, was having a nice man who worked with them.
***
Pairing: Kris/Tao
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, fluff
Summary: It was Yuqin’s wish, her fondest, dearest, most special wish, to ride a real, live horse for her fifth birthday.
***
They said Tao had changed, and he thought that was true. When two people showed up at the house of his parents with a carrier, asking to talk to him and his parents, his life had changed. He’d accepted responsibility of the tiny, sleeping baby. His parents had insisted on a paternity test, of course. But he’d known before that, known by the way Yuqin had fit into his arms. There were bits of himself he could see in her, bits of her mother. He finished college with her sleeping in a crib in his room, waking to feed her, feeling like a zombie, and he did not resent her.
Maybe a few times, in the middle of the night when she seemed to cry without end. And then he thought of his own parents, remembered almost being in fear of them for years because he’d been left to his grandmother so much.
But he changed. His life became centered around Yuqin, doing his homework and listening to her burble, burping her as he brushed his teeth (while sitting down).
He graduated, found a job, and was forced to see her off to a loving day care. They watched cartoons together, and he was amazed by her as she walked, and talked and grew and laughed. His life was cluttered with toy ponies, sundresses, monster trucks that she used as her imaginary world’s version of a villain.
It was Yuqin’s wish, her fondest, dearest, most special wish, to ride a real, live horse for her fifth birthday. She drew him little cards with decent renditions of horses on them. She shaped her food on her plate into little horses until he scolded her to eat while the food was hot. When he washed her hair in the sink, she told him of the horse book she’d been reading to the other kids. When they rambled out for walks in the park, she likened the dogs to small horses.
He’d gotten the message, loud and clear, and booked her a private lesson at the nearest stable he could find. It was dear, and he suspected he got a bit of a discount, but for the look on her face when he told her, it had been worth it.
They outfitted her in her new birthday boots, a pair of jeans, and long-sleeved shirt, and tied her hair in two pigtails. He’d have bought her a cowboy hat, if he hadn’t known it’d cause a meltdown - she couldn’t wear it over the helmet and he wasn’t wearing it on the ground for her. And she knew, gripping him with a sweaty, trembling hand as they approached the stable. The distant sound of a horse neighing was like a siren call to her, and he was almost afraid she was going to start crying right then and there, that or just bursting into a jig. They were almost too alike in temperament sometimes.
“Daddy,” Yuqin said, hanging back, pulling on him like she’d changed her mind.
“It’ll be fun,” he told her. He wasn’t so much scared that she was going to hate it, as much as he feared that she would love it too much. One horse ride on her birthday was one thing, but they could hardly keep a pony in their bathtub.
***
Yuqin fell in love with the horse, a shorter one compared to some of the ones they’d walked past going in. Tao was more interested in the instructor. For some reason, when he’d been imagining who would be teaching his tiny baby to ride, it had been a kindly older woman. He hadn’t expected a man taller than him, with a deeper voice. She’d stared at him in almost fear, shyly staring at her boots until Kris had crouched and they’d made friends with each other first. She’d held Kris’s hand as he showed her how to be safe, how to pet the horse, how to feed it. Her. Daisy, Tao was told, with reverence befitting a minor deity at the very least. She steadfastly held Daisy’s bridle as Kris showed her how a saddle was put on, and helped him pull the bridle over Daisy’s ears, giggling as they flicked at her. For such big hands, they were careful fingers that adjusted the straps on the tiny helmet, fitting it so she grinned at Tao in it.
And Kris boosted Yuqin into the saddle.
For a second, Tao thought they were sharing a brain, because his thought was that he hadn’t expected her to be sitting so high on the horse, and he could see the same thing written all over her face. But Kris stayed with her, adjusting the stirrups for her boots to fit against, showing her how to hold the reins. Yuqin squeaked, as Kris left her side, holding the lead of the horse.
But it took not even a tenth of the way around the pen, her swaying with the horse’s gait, to see she was desperately in love with everything to do with the horse, the barn, the ride. Everything. Tao took video with his phone, waving at her as she passed him by.
“Daddy look! Daddy, isn’t Daisy pretty? Daddy!”
He was riddled with delight and sickness, because he didn’t know how to top it. She would be talking about it nonstop for weeks, if not months. She’d start saving the coins she found until she could visit and ride Daisy again.
“Do you want to try going around by yourself?” Kris asked her, when they came to a halt near Tao.
That was not in the plan, Tao thought. Even if it had been in the plan, that was before he’d realized his daughter was going to be on a giant wild monster that could leap countries and destroy buildings. Horses had teeth. And they were tall. And Kris talked her through everything, how to stop Daisy, how to urge her to walk.
“She’ll be fine,” Kris said, leaning against the boards near Tao. “Daisy’s sweet and placid. I don’t think I could get her faster than a walk without a lot of urging.”
Horses could go faster than a walk.
“Daddy, she’s walking for me!”
“I’ve created a monster,” Tao moaned almost under his breath.
He very much suspected Kris was laughing at him.
“You were good with her,” Tao said, and realized Yuqin would be happy to walk Daisy in endless circles until they both passed out from hunger.
“I didn’t know at first if I would do well teaching kids,” Kris admitted. “But they come in here, and they’re excited and scared. But they have so much enthusiasm and awe, that once they get past getting up onto the horse, they’re just blissed. She was really brave, though.”
“You put her at ease. And me. Well. I wanted to snatch her back down.”
Kris chuckled. “Yeah, that’s typical. You’re brave, too. Some parents never leave the paddock, always walking beside their kid just in case.”
“Not sure how these kids manage to make us look out for them. Maybe because they’re cute.”
He wasn’t sure how Yuqin could’ve been any happier.
“All of the horses here are well-trained and docile. Just in case you were wondering, if she wants to come back.”
“I don’t think I’ll have any say in that.”
“We have group lessons on the weekends,” Kris suggested.
And Tao just scowled at him, and then caught fast to the idea, both because he was familiar with Kris’s ease with the horse and his daughter, and because… He wasn’t going to go much further than thinking how nice Kris’s jeans looked on him. “Do you teach any of them?”
“I do. One for beginners, with kids her age. It’s good. It gets them out of their rooms, teaches them responsibility since we teach them to take care of the horse as well. Bad weather, we’re inside the barn, or out in the paddock like this. There are always parents that hang around, and I’m never the only one in case something happens. Worst hurt I’ve seen in one of my classes is someone getting their toes a little bruised because they had a hoof planted on their foot.”
Tao winced, and thought. If he cut back a little, maybe took his parents up on the offer of eating at their house a couple of times a week. If he couldn’t afford every week, then maybe a couple of times a month.
Kris helped her down off the quiet horse, and she stood a bit bowlegged for a minute.
“Did you like it as much as you thought?” Tao called, before Kris could go on to teaching her again.
“I liked it more and better than more,” she swore, tiny fist against her heart.
Yuqin was sunk. So was he.
***
Kris had walked with them after, after the tack was taken care of, and the horse was cared for and happily eating in her stall. They walked up and down the rows of stalls, Kris pointing out this horse or that, telling her funning stories about them as she clung to Tao’s hand and walked just short of skipping delightedly.
And then Kris shook her hand, and thanked her very seriously for taking good care of Daisy, and to take care of her daddy, too. And Tao was grateful that Kris did not say anything leading, like that Kris hoped to see her back again, or that Daisy would miss her. Nothing that could be used against him, if it turned out he could not bring her back. He was fairly positive Yuqin examined the space beyond the dumpster to see if a horse could survive there, or maybe under her bed, or in her toy box.
It was possible she also sized up his bedroom. If they just got rid of the bed, and he could sleep in the tub instead…?
Yuqin chattered off the ears of her grandparents, her friends, her teachers, strangers in the grocery store and on the subway. He finally printed her out a picture off of his cell phone so she could stop asking him for his phone so she could admire herself and Daisy’s long face.
He consulted the price he was quoted when he called the stable, his finances. If she had wanted to dance, he would have found a way to pay for lessons. It would get her out of the house, introduce her to other children, teach her responsibility.
Tao was amazed the roof of the building was still on after the scream Yuqin emitted when he told her she’d be going back every week. She didn’t bat an eyelash when he told her there’d be other people there, and that she’d have to behave.
Nor did she when they arrived, and she discovered Daisy would not be her horse for riding. Tao hung back and watched Kris introduce her to the horse she would look after.
“His ears are kind of long, so we call him Bunny.”
Yuqin was suitably charmed.
***
Tao almost found the parents more interesting to watch than the kids over the next few weeks, the variation between the blatantly bored, the ones trying to be interested, and the ones actually calling out advice. Tao was content to wave at Yuqin when she went by, and stare at Kris’s ass in his dark but filthy jeans. He was sure stables offered lots of nooks for little escapades. And thinking about his daughter’s riding instructor while he was teaching a group of shining faces was testament to just how long it’d been since he’d gotten laid. He’d tried the dating thing, and even tried the women-approved-by-family dating thing since his parents kept asking when he was going to procure a mother for his neglected child. He didn’t think she was neglected. She had her friends, and her grandparents, and her school. He expanded her horizons on food, and with museums, and ponies. He didn’t want to marry someone because he felt he had to, and he didn’t figure that’d make Yuqin happy, either. But not dating, not having anyone of his own, that wasn’t good for him, either. She had a lot more varied human contact than he did.
Most of the people he met weren’t so keen on taking on a child not theirs. And no matter how at ease Kris looked as Yuqin pulled on his hand after the lesson, that didn’t mean he’d want Tao’s hand.
“Mr. Kris, Mr. Kris, can you come to dinner? My friends come to play sometimes! Daddy makes good food.”
He wasn’t sure whose eyebrows rose further, his or Kris’s and Kris shifted as he processed her request. There was something soft in those eyes, something caring that Tao wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about. His friends were weak to his daughter - Sehun never failed to get her riled up - but Kris was…
Different. He could admit that.
Tao reached out and tweaked one of her braids. “Maybe you should ask Daddy before asking, first.”
She frowned at him, silently judging his interruption, and nodded. “Okay.”
“But even if she did ask first, you would be welcome. Not that you have to give an answer now!” Tao said, before Yuqin could open her mouth. “Thank Mr. Kris, and in the car. Shoo. Shoo.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kris! See you next week!” she said, just as they’d practiced at home. Only perhaps with a few more puppy eyes that said “Don’t listen to mean old Daddy, he just doesn’t want me to have fun., so you should definitely come to dinner please.”
And when Yuqin had shut herself in the back seat, face against the window as though she could divine what they were saying, Tao turned to Kris.
“I’m sure you get a lot of invitations like that. I meant it, that you were welcome, but I can talk to her. You don’t have to feel obligated.”
Kris just watched him speak and ramble, a smile on his face that made Tao want to ramble more.
“I don’t get that many invites, actually. You don’t have to feel obligated-“
“It’s nice to be able to talk to adults for a change,” Tao admitted. “There aren’t any rules…?”
Kris grinned, wide. “I’m not a doctor, so no. It’d be fine.”
Though he’d look good in a lab coat. Tao cleared his throat.
“We’ll talk next week, then?”
“Sounds good,” Kris said. “Have a good week.”
Kris waved to Yuqin, before walking back toward the stable.
So he buckled Yuqin into her car seat, and drove home, finally giving in to the realization that they both had a reason to look forward to the lessons.
***
Tao did not have to make excuses to dawdle until Kris was free the next week, because his daughter, despite all his best urgings, did it for him. She very carefully, very precisely, put every brush away, straightening the others, polishing Bunny’s name tag and telling him how they should run away together and ride across Siberia. First off, Tao wasn’t sure where she’d been learning about Siberia, second, if she really meant to do that, telling the chewing horse with her father beside her - and he was poking her shoulder - was not the way to go.
But she seemed to have the same idea, pivoting around Tao and making for Kris after he was abandoned by another parent.
“I had fun today!” she said, grabbing Kris’s hand with both of hers.
“I thought so. Bunny behaved for you.”
She nodded, not impugning the horse in the least.
“I hope you had a good week,” Tao said, and Kris lifted his head to meet Tao’s eyes.
“I did.”
As though sensing impending Adult Talk, Yuqin wandered down the stable corridor, fingers poking at lead ropes and buckets and Tao half watched her to make sure she didn’t do anything she wasn’t supposed to. For all that they’d only been coming to the stable for a month, she had learned quite a few rules. And yet still, there were thousand pound animals around.
“I have a class coming up soon, so I need to get ready for that, but I wanted to give you this,” Kris said, and handed him a business card, his cell phone number printed on it. “Might make it a little easier.”
“You mean so she doesn’t have to dust every comb waiting to hope to talk to you?” Tao joked.
Kris’s smile was illegal.
“I’ll call,” Tao said. “Have a good lesson.”
“Thanks, you- Have a good day,” Kris said, laughing as he corrected himself.
Tao wiggled a little internally as he patted Yuqin’s head and she waved behind her to Kris as they made their way out.
“What’d he give you?” Yuqin asked they second they were in the car, desperate, as though he’d been given the secret key to the land of unicorns.
“Just his phone number.”
“He’s going to come eat with us?!”
His sigh was fond.
***
Yuqin didn’t actually bounce off the walls waiting for Kris to arrive, but she put in a solid effort. He stopped in the middle of food preparation to write her out a “real list” of toys she wanted to show Mr. Kris and her horse books, and would he let her sit on his knee, and where he was going to sit at the table.
Tao was out of breath by it and he wasn’t even the one speaking.
“He’ll sit where he’s comfortable, yes probably by you, and you probably shouldn’t bring too many toys out to show him. Yes, I’m sure he’d like to see your ponies.”
It was a miracle dinner was mostly done by the time he answered the door with Yuqin dancing behind him. But in a way it was nice, because they got to greet each other, and then Yuqin played tiny hostess as Tao finished. No help required, and Kris had brought both a very nice bottle of juice that they all could drink, as well as a well-loved copy of a horse book. That was cheating.
Their boring after-dinner talk of jobs and the state of the universe had her abandoning them for the solace of her toys, and Tao could hear her reading to them from her new book.
“I’m not entirely sure she wasn’t thinking that you were going to ride up on a horse, and maybe bring one inside.”
“I guess I could start carrying a horse in my back pocket,” Kris mused, and Tao threw his head back and laughed. “She’s a sweet kid. I’m glad she’s getting to spend time with the horses, and not just because it keeps me in a job.”
“Yeah. I hope she can, as long as she’s interested.” And Tao decided to address the obvious, not because he felt Kris deserved to know, but because he felt the need to let him know. “We haven’t seen her mother since a couple of weeks after Yuqin was born. Even then. I hadn’t seen her for… Almost a year before that. Her mother and I weren’t married. So it’s been the two of us. And my parents, helping, especially when I was in college still.”
“Ah,” Kris said, soft. “I had wondered, since she only spoke about you. She thinks you’re a superhero. No, honestly. It’s a brave thing, raising a child alone.”
“It’s…lonely,” Tao admitted. “I keep waiting for the day I’m going to feel qualified.”
“I think the ones who are always wonder.”
“Ooh,” Tao hummed at the sage words, and made them both chuckle.
It was useless trying not to feel the things he was already feeling, the tingle of interest, the press of heat into his cheeks when Kris nudged his knee, and the increased urge to reach out and push against Kris’s arm, his shoulder, just to touch. Watching Kris’s face move through a range of emotions, laughing at his terrible jokes.
And Tao wondered if it was more obligation than want, when Kris said he had to leave. Yuqin was fast asleep on her bed when Tao went to see if she wanted to say goodbye, and he shook his head as he went back to where Kris was pulling on his shoes.
“She’s out, and she’ll regret not saying goodbye, but I shouldn’t wake her. She enjoyed having you come over. We both did,” he said, before he sounded ungrateful.
“I’m glad. That you both did,” Kris told him.
He put a little emphasis on that word, both, and Tao’s head tilted, wondering.
“I’ll see you Sunday?” Kris said, raising his eyebrows.
And that Tao knew the answer to. “Yes. Both of us.”
And Kris had not been gone out the door more than fifteen minutes when Tao’s phone buzzed.
“Had a good time! Did you teach yourself to cook?”
Tao replied back in the affirmative.
“Maybe next time I’ll bring something so you don’t have to do so much work.”
Tao chuckled. “People appreciating it makes it worth it.”
“Another good point. How soon isn’t too soon?”
And Tao decided that if he was going to be in the dark, if he was going to not know if Kris really just needed a friend, he was going to do that in another lifetime.
“Am I reading you wrong? If not, there isn’t a too soon.”
It took pacing around his room for a minute and a half and wondering if he’d made a mistake - he’d apologize, hang back at all her classes - when his phone buzzed and nearly made him trip.
“You got it right. Can’t be too soon for me 2.”
That last casual usage had him laughing, slumping against the wall and typing quickly with his thumbs.
“You already know it’s complicated. Brave and good looking!”
It was also never too soon to flirt, since he knew he had the go-ahead to do so.
“Look who’s talking. ;)”
Tao laughed, sending back, “Have a good night~”
“I did. And you too~”
Tao was already ready to climb a wall, and they still hadn’t finalized another night for dinner.
***
And yet, he was still apprehensive when the next riding lesson occurred. They arrived at the usual time, and he joined the pack of parents. Ten minutes in, Kris caught his eye, smiling and nodding at him.
He felt like he was in fifth grade again, being passed a note. And even more so when Kris came up to him at the rail.
“Tomorrow?” Kris asked, his eyebrows raising.
Tomorrow was nowhere near too soon.
***
Yuqin was calmer, that time. She’d already shown Kris all of her relevant toys, sitting between them and being included in their conversation after they had eaten. She got to chat about her art projects, her friends, how some of them wished they could ride horses too, but they also got to dance and things, so it was okay. Kris listened to her very seriously, and Tao was proud of how she spoke, getting a bit too loud at times but she was so grown up. She was going to want to go on dates in the next week at least.
“They grow up too fast,” Tao said, after she skipped away to put her stuffed animals on parade for Queen Monster Truck. Though if he was seeing right, the monster truck had on a dress.
“That’s what they say,” Kris said, putting his hand down on the cushion so that their hands were close, but not quite touching. Tao remedied that, tracing his fingertips just above Kris’s nails.
“She goes to stay with my parents every so often. I wouldn’t be able to meet you much alone.”
“I know. If that wasn’t something I could deal with, then I wouldn’t be here. Horses have a different schedule than people, so I’m not always free, either. She’s here and happy and I’m still getting to talk to you.”
He had been assured, and he was still not truly confident. But there was no point in pushing it, since if it worked, it would work. Most men he had any feelings for at all had never even met Yuqin. If that was the cause of his concern, both his hurt and hers, maybe it enhanced it.
“There are things we can all do,” Tao mused.
Kris nearly clucked in agreement. “I’m sure you’d like riding. It’s good exercise, and you’d look good up there. There’s nothing like having a strong animal like that between your legs.”
Tao’s head shot up, just as Kris’s lowered, a hand covering his face. Tao’s mouth was moving but no words were being made as Kris’s shoulders shook.
“That didn’t come out quite the way I meant.”
But Tao’s head was taking it exactly the way Kris was thinking right then. And as he stared from Kris’s hand to his shoulders, he wasn’t thinking of any horse. But Kris finally met his eyes, a little sheepish.
“Sorry, my mouth is always getting me into trouble.”
And Tao lost it, almost crying into the back of the couch as he held up a hand to let Kris know he was okay. And the dawning look of realization on Kris’s face had him breathing very carefully, little huffs of laughter as he straightened up and had to compose himself.
“We’ll pretend this never happened,” Kris said, patting his shoulder.
As though that was possible.
“Can you stay a while? I need to get Yuqin in bed or she’ll be cranky tomorrow.”
“I can stay.”
Tao half stood, and then went for it, leaning in and brushing his lips against Kris’s. And he smiled as Kris started grinning, before getting a frowny Yuqin to sleep.
“But Mr. Kris is still here,” she groused into his neck.
“You’ll see him again soon. I promise I’ll take care of him.”
She’d already been half drooped over her favorite book when he’d gone into have her brush her teeth, so tucking her in and shutting her door was without too much argument.
Being able to relax, listening to talk about Kris’s family, the horses, and his friends, had him both on edge and almost too relaxed himself. But he still regretted it, when Kris checked the time on his phone.
“I should go. I think we both have early mornings.”
But he felt like a prince in some fairy tale, when Kris cupped his cheek as they stood at the door, kissed him.
“Can I call you tomorrow?” Kris asked.
As though he would say no.
But he was content to stay there a few minutes longer, with Kris warm against him.
***
Six months of horse riding lessons, one new pair of boots, stickers for her helmet. They tried to coordinated eery night that Yuqin was with his parents or staying with a friend, so that Kris was free. Even if he wasn’t, Tao spent time at the stables, making rounds with him as they checked in on the horses. One of his tiny fantasies of getting to press Kris up against a wall had gotten fulfilled, even if it had only been a little kissing. Two or three times a week Kris was over having dinner with them both, or going out with them, and Tao grinned at the way Kris hoisted Yuqin as they walked. She looked as secure as Tao felt. It had taken another month for Kris to sleep over, and it hadn’t even been a leisurely morning, both of them stomping into their shoes in attempts to not be late for work. But it had been worth it.
Yuqin climbed up to sit beside him on the bed, the apartment quiet without Kris in it. He curled his hand around hers, and for a moment, they sat in silence.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I know we don’t have a mommy,” she said, and Tao for a moment forgot to breathe. “But do you think Mr. Kris likes us?”
He squeezed her hand a little tighter. “Yeah. I think he does.”
“He’s nice. And he has ponies.”
Worked with ponies, at the very least.
The next best thing to having a pony, it seemed, was having a nice man who worked with them.
***