Because here’s the thing; you kept your pregnancy a secret. It was a difficult endeavor, harder than keeping your marriage to Jiyong a secret those first few months before it all exploded across headlines. Once it was out in the open, more eyes were on you, and the internet had done what the internet does, which was speculate and produce rumors at a steady rate that you have done your best to ignore. It’s been easier lately, with Ji-na here and this new, strange, exhausting, extraordinary life you have now, but you can understand why it’s been on his mind.

“I don’t know yet,” he says and looks down at Ji-na. “But not her face. I just want…”

You smile. “You want to show her off.” 

He laughs softly, the small movement making Ji-na stir against his chest with a tiny sound of protest. He immediately lowers his voice. “Maybe. Honestly it’s a miracle I haven’t gone up to the roof to scream I’m a father now.” He pauses, then repositioning Ji-na again, he continues to pat her back. He then looks up at you. “But I won’t do it if you don’t want to. I know that posting something opens the door to everything.” He pauses again to press his lips to the side of Ji-na’s head, a brief and unconscious gesture, the kind that has become almost a reflex in just a few weeks. “I suppose I also want to do it on my own terms. Most of my life has ended up in the news whether I wanted it to or not, even private moments I didn’t want anyone to see.”

You know this, he’s told you how for most of his life he felt like everyone was watching him everywhere he went. How he’d look at social media and find clips of his own private outings, how at his lowest moments, he’d be paranoid that his own phone and home weren’t safe. He’d been extra careful for some years now, especially with you. I don’t want any of that touching you, he’s said once. 

“I trust you,” you tell him. “I know you will protect her, so post whatever you feel is right.”

You lean forward to press a soft kiss to the top of Ji-na’s head. Jiyong puckers up his lips and you smile as you comply, giving him a kiss too. After, when Ji-na is sleeping against his chest, you rest your head on his shoulder and you look at her, at this tiny person who is completely unaware of how much she’s about to change with just one picture. 

********

You forget about this conversation for most of the day. 

This is the thing about the first few weeks postpartum that no one fully prepares you for: the way hours dissolve. Time no longer moves the way it used to. It’s now measured in feeding intervals and nap windows and the small victories of a shower taken or a full cup of coffee consumed while it’s still warm. Whole hours go by before you even notice. You’re always either exhausted or feeding Ji-na or watching her breathe like it’s the most important thing in the world, which it might be. 

Jiyong’s parents arrive around noon. There is food, lots of it, neatly packed into containers that fill the fridge so that you and Jiyong don't have to worry about dinner for the rest of the week. His mother sits you down and feeds you seaweed soup and tells you how it helped her after Dami and then after Jiyong, and then she takes Ji-na so you can sit on the sofa and do absolutely nothing. Jiyong tolerates this for fifteen minutes, which is five minutes longer than last time, and then approaches his mother to take Ji-na back. He’s rebuffed, and then he proceeds to pace around his mother for another ten minutes before his father eventually takes himby the arm and steers him to another room. 

Ji-na gets her first proper bath with his mother’s guidance. The hospital had given you instructions for this moment, a pamphlet that Jiyong had immediately taken for his collection, but having someone show you in person is something you are very grateful for. Ji-na makes her feelings known with cries so loud that Jiyong abandons his father in the living room to stand behind you both with his hands locked behind his neck, the very vision of a man stressed beyond reason, as he does his best not to intervene.

“Do we have to do this now?” he asks. “Is this hurting her?” He paces behind you and his mother. “Eomma, I think—”

“She’s overstimulated,” his mother says without looking up from Ji-na. “New sensations, new experience. Of course this is upsetting her. And you’re not helping hovering like this.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Jiyong! Watch and learn. You’ll need to do this yourself to help your wife,” his mother says and that makes Jiyong shut up. He moves to the side and watches, talking to Ji-na in a low, calming tone throughout the whole ordeal, and at some point her cries stop. 

“I’m her favorite person,” he tells you and his mother. 

Afterward, when Ji-na has been fed and wrapped and handed back to Jiyong, his father takes her. Jiyong sits beside you on the sofa and leans close to whisper. 

“How rude would it be to tell them to leave?”

“Very,” you say. “So don’t.”

You then watch him pull out his phone and type a message to his sister. You need to have another baby. PLEASE. New baby needs to exist by tomorrow if possible. I haven’t been able to hold my baby today.

You press your lips together to keep yourself from laughing as you lean against his shoulder, watching his parents coo at Ji-na across the room.

********

You wake up to Ji-na whimpering.

“Sorry.” Jiyong is already walking towards you. “She’s hungry.” 

You push yourself upright on the sofa, still half asleep but your arms already reaching for her. You have one eye open. “Your parents…. Did they leave? Did I fall asleep while your parents were still here?”

“Yeah,” he settles Ji-na in your arms. “I was given strict instructions not to wake you unless it was feeding time.”

“Were they offended? I didn’t mean to—”

“Nah,” he says, sitting beside you, his arm coming around your shoulder. “Mom was glad you were relaxed enough to sleep. She left happy knowing she helped her daughter in law and grandchild today.” Ji-na’s whimpers quiet down the moment she latches. “Fridge is full but she also made food for today. Want me to heat it up while my princess eats?”

My princess. You smile at that. 

He nudges your shoulder with his, smiling too. ”Yah. Don’t make fun. She is my princess.” 

“I didn’t say anything,” you say. “And yes, please. Dinner sounds good.” 

He gets up and then pauses. “Oh, by the way, I posted something.” 

“Oh?” You look around, looking for your phone, before remembering you left it somewhere in the bedroom. 

“Here,” he says, and hands you his before heading to the kitchen. 

You settle Ji-na more comfortably in your left arm before opening the app, You navigate to his profile. 

The thumbnail on the grid is small so you cannot see all the details clearly. It’s compressed into its square, sitting alongside other squares, pictures of events and selfies and behind the scenes pictures of the tour that just ended. You tap it. 

It fills the screen and then you see it.

It is a simple black and white photograph. There’s enough light that you know he took this earlier in the day, perhaps when you were taking a shower before his parents showed up. It’s a close crop. Close enough that the whole frame is just hands. 

His hand, large and familiar. The hand you know the way you know your own, the softness of it, the small rough patches he gets on his fingers when he spends long hours in his art studio. And there, on the back of it, the small tattoo. The smiley face. The one that’s been there for years, the one you’ve looked at across tables during dinner dates and when he holds your hand. 

And beside it, just an inch or two away from his, Ji-na’s hand. Small with perfect skin, soft in the way only babies have. 

Her whole hand is just barely the width of his thumb. And on the back of her hand, positioned with great precision over the exact spot where his tattoo is placed on his, is a small yellow sticker. 

A smiley face. 

Under the picture, in the caption section, six words and a hashtag. 

The light of my whole universe. #matching

You look at the whole picture of it. At the fact he had thought of this, had found the sticker somewhere, had placed it deliberately so that it would match the placement of his tattoo, and had then taken this picture in the early morning to announce the birth of his daughter. 

You read the caption again. The light of my whole universe. No name, no gender reveal. Just his hand and Ji-na’s hand, the smiley face tattoo and its small yellow mirror, and six words that tell you everything about who Kwon Jiyong is turning out to be as a dad. 

You look down at Ji-na who is nursing with her eyes half-closed, her tiny hand resting flat against your chest, directly over your heart, and you wonder if she knows how loved she is. You hope she knows. 

“I love you,” you say it in case she hears the words and understands them. “We love you so much.”

Then you look at the phone again, because you are only human and curiosity sometimes wins, and you scroll down to the comments. 

There are already thousands of them, some of them posted just seconds ago. You scroll slowly, reading:

_youngbae_: welcome to fatherhood, brother 💙 

famnation: THE SMILEY FACE STICKER I AM GOING TO NEED A MOMENT

kwonjinetwork: DAD REVEAL 😭 😭 SO HAPPY FOR YOU

d_lable_official: Hyung! A bit late (like a year) but thank you so much for promoting my song. Stream #Universe

You laugh out loud at that one, loud enough that Ji-na startles slightly before settling again. “Sorry, sorry,” you whisper before looking back at the phone. You see that Jiyong has already replied, also laughing at Daesung’s comment. 

jiyongdaily_official: he put a sticker on his newborn’s hand to match his tattoo I have to go lie down on the floor

vipfam: No filters to kill my eyesight. That’s how you know this is serious!! 

usergdbaby: I can’t believe this is how he chose to reveal that he went and made a whole baby. We have two dads in BIGBANG now 🥲

damikwon_: Can’t wait to hold my precious baby again. Tomorrow ❤️

And underneath, Jiyong’s reply. xxxibgdrgn: 🚫🚫 Wait a month or four. Need to hold my child for more than five minutes. 

You snort. 

dolgoraebap: this is the same man who refused to hold the parasol on zip daesung because taeyang and daesung were already holding it and he said he won’t do what everyone else does. he was just waiting to match with his baby 🥹 

fam4ever: The light of my whole universe. Gonna go cry now. 

You scroll a little longer and you see comments from his friends, your family, and what must be thousands of people celebrating this new adventure Jiyong is now part of. 

Jiyong comes back a few minutes later. “Food is almost ready. Want me to take her to the—” His phone buzzes on the cushion beside you where you left it. He picks it up. “—nursery so you can eat?” He glances at it, just to check who’s calling. He’s been letting most calls go to voice mail these days. “We can….” 

You look up from Ji-na when he trails off. He’s staring at his phone. 

“What is it?” you ask.

“It’s uh…” He looks at you, then back at his phone, like he’s making sure. “It’s Seunghyun.” 

“Pick up!” you tell him. “Go. Go on.” 

“Dinner—”

“Forget dinner. Go. Talk to him.”

He walks towards the bedroom and you watch as he brings the phone to his ear, his voice soft as he speaks. You can’t hear the words and you don’t try to.

You know it’s been a long time since they last talked. Too long, perhaps. It’s something that pains Jiyong in a way he rarely talks about. You’ve learned to notice it in the way he sometimes trails off when he’s talking about the early years, about the way he goes quiet sometimes when certain songs come on. You hope this is the first call of many. 

After a while you get up, settle Ji-na against your shoulder, and go turn off the stove yourself. Then you come back to the sofa and sit with Ji-na the way you do multiple times a day, every day: watching her, talking to her, bringing your face close so she can study yours.

That’s how Jiyong finds you twenty minutes later. 

He sits beside you and you notice that his eyes are red rimmed. “Everything okay?” you ask.

He smiles. “Everything is perfect.” He looks at Ji-na. “He saw the picture and she now has another uncle who wants to meet her.” 

You look at him, and you notice his eyes are shiny in that way they get when there are tears he’s trying to hold back. “Jiyong… that’s wonderful.” 

 “He said he couldn’t miss this milestone.” He laughs softly. “He’s also already appointed himself her art mentor.”

You smile and you don’t ask for more than that. You know there’s more that was said, twenty whole minutes of conversation, but you know Jiyong will tell you when he’s ready.

“Let me get dinner,” he says. He leans down to press a kiss to Ji-na’s forehead, then to your temple, and gets up to go to the kitchen.

You look down at Ji-na, milk drunk and already asleep, her small chest rising and falling with each soft breath, completely unaware of what she’s just done. 

“Good job, baby,” you whisper. 

********

Later that night, Ji-na decides to cry her little lungs out. 

It’s not the crying that happens when he’s hungry or when she needs changing. This is something else, a sustained, inconsolable crying that started somewhere around nine at night and hasn’t really stopped since.

You know because everyone told you, from your mother to Jiyon’s mother and the nurse at the hospital who’d handed you the discharge papers, that this is completely normal. That there are times when babies cry and it’s difficult to understand why. That there is no amount of reading or preparing that gets you ready to witness this at one-fifty in the morning.

You know this, but it still doesn’t make it easy. 

In the last five hours, Ji-na has been fed three times, changed twice, once in a way that required a full outfit change and a brief crisis, and then was held by both of you in every position the internet had suggested. She’s been swaddled and unswaddled and re-swaddled when the absence of her blanket was met with contempt so strong she turned red from the effort. She has cried for what feels like the last five hours, but you know that in reality there were brief intermissions where she settled and you both got your hopes up before another whimper that quickly turned into crying extinguished them. 

Nothing seems to be wrong. She has been fed. She is dry. She is warm. You had called the pediatrician’s after hours line around midnight, feeling slightly ashamed of needing to, and had been told in a calm voice that babies have these moments where they cry because they’re still adjusting to the world. That this is normal, that you’re doing everything right. 

Knowing that it’s normal does not make it less upsetting to hear. There is something about the sound of Ji-na’s crying that bypasses every rational thought and lands somewhere deep in your chest, and by two twenty-six you are standing in the nursery with Jiyong, Ji-na against his shoulder still crying, and you feel your own eyes beginning to sting. 

Jiyong, looking just as upset, notices. “Go lie down,” he says. 

You shake your head. “I’m fine—”

“You’re not. You’re still recovering.” He adjusts Ji-na, his hand moving in slow circles on her back. “There’s no point in both of us being awake right now. Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up for feedings. I’ve got this.”

“Jiyong—”

“Sweetheart.” The word is quiet but firm. “I’ve got her. Go. I want you to rest.”

You look at him, then at Ji-na. “Only until a feeding,” you say. “And if anything—”

“I’ll come get you, I promise.”

You step closer and you kiss Ji-na’s cheek, then Jiyong, and you go to bed. 

********

You are not asleep. 

You lie down, which is the most you can do to comply with Jiyong’s request, and the bedroom is dark and your body is exhausted, but you’re still awake. You’re holding the baby monitor you usually have on the nightstand. You told yourself you were going to check it once to make sure the picture was clear, so that you could see both of them properly in case Jiyong needed your help. 

That was fifteen minutes ago. 

The nursery in night vision is that sort of greenish tint but you can see everything clearly. You watch Jiyong as he paces around the room, Ji-na against his chest, one hand gently cupping the back of her head, his head bent slightly toward her as he whispers to her. 

She’s still crying. You can hear it through both the monitor and through the open door. 

You watch him unswaddle her only for Ji-na to make her feelings about this known with even louder, piercing cries. He swaddles her again and tries a different position, her head at his shoulder and his chin just touching the top of her head. She doesn’t stop crying. He tries giving her a pacifier and she rejects it with furious contempt.

"Ok, I'm sorry. Bad idea, huh?" he whispers.

You watch him pace for a couple of minutes. Then he starts to sing. It’s a lullaby, an actual children’s lullaby that you remember your mother singing to you when you were a child. It’s something old and traditional, gentle and meant to soothe. 

Ji-na cries through all of it. 

He tries another one, something softer and slower. He walks and sings and pats her back, and when she continues to cry, you watch him wipe his free hand across his face. Not frustration. This emotion has never existed when it comes to Ji-na. He is feeling what you are feeling. There is anguish in knowing Ji-na is upset and not knowing how to fix it.

He tries a song from a popular children’s program next. You can’t make out the words, but you recognize the rhythm from the many times you heard it while shopping for baby clothes. You watch and you know Jiyong performing a song from a toddler’s television show at almost three in the morning is something you will remember for the rest of your life. 

Ji-na, however, remains unmoved. 

He walks, then sits in the rocking chair in the corner, then stands up to pace around the room again. At three fifteen, he stops in the middle of the room, Ji-na still crying in his arms, and he tips his head back briefly toward the ceiling. You sit up, intent on going back to the nursery to give him a break, to help. 

But then he looks down at Ji-na again, adjusts her in his arms, and begins to rap. 

You recognise the song immediately. Something from years ago. One of his own, and Seunghyun’s. Knock Out. Jiyong’s verse. His voice drops into that register he uses when he’s rapping, the one that belongs on stages and studios, and now, apparently, in Ji-na’s nursery. 

The crying softens. 

You smile.

Jiyong keeps going, finishing the whole song, as if he’s afraid that stopping early will undo this tiny miracle. When it ends, he starts the song again, this time he sings all of it, Seunghyun’s verse and his own. 

The crying softens more until it’s just a few hitching breaths, the kind that come after a long crying session. Jiyong pauses when the song ends. And then he starts Doom Dada. He has fun with this one, moving a bit more now. Performing the song. 

Ji-na makes a small sound and settles, her head turning toward his chest, a gesture you’ve come to recognize as Ji-na feeling content enough to sleep. He continues, but his voice lowers, softens until it’s barely sound at all. He comes to a stop and just stands there, looking at her. Ji-na is not quite asleep yet, you can see it in the way her tiny hand curls against the fabric of his shirt, but she is quiet now. 

Jiyong laughs, you hear the sound through the monitor. Soft. Delighted. You cannot see his face from this angle, but you know he’s smiling. You can hear it in his voice when he speaks again. 

"You have excellent taste in music."

In the bedroom, you laugh softly. And you cry a little, too. Hormones and exhaustion, a combination that always seems to hit harder at night these days.

Through the monitor you watch as Jiyong starts moving again. "That first song, I performed it with your uncle Seunghyun. Want me to tell you about him?" You watch as he walks, Ji-na still awake but quiet and settled comfortably against his chest. 

You lower the volume, just enough to make sure her crying will wake you up if needed, but low enough to make Jiyong’s voice a soft murmur. You give this conversation the privacy it deserves. This conversation belongs to them, to the father and his daughter and the uncle she’ll meet soon.

You put the monitor down on the nightstand and you close your eyes. You let the dark and the quiet settle over you. 

In the nursery, Jiyong is smiling as he tells Ji-na stories about the days before he was G-Dragon and Seunghyin was T.O.P.   next>>

Have you guys seen that video of GD with the lamp and Soohyuk takinf it away? GD's reaction? That's him when someone takes Ji-na away from him. Here's the video. And here's the video of GD singing Doom Dada. Tag list: @daesungsleftnostril @hex-girls-stuff @bunnygirlgonewild @missleezylou @chocomintlatey @nessas-archive @coffea-16 @itsonlyskye @aemrsy @idkkpop @bearleez @jiyongsraven @bitchynightkitty @valkeryiexx @stacyyyystami

@svetamillss @clemetinesis @moonlight52moonlight @anonymous2505 @shooo00taaa44 @jiyongieahx @vfihvffn @gabrielleqz @beaferni @@supertrouble143

@choiseunghyunwifwxx4 @bi-panic03 @lyation @kiraaazz000 @million-dollar-baby

“That smile on your face right now…” you say, one hand coming up to trace it with the pad of your thumb. “It’s really cute.”

He looks up, moves closer again. “Oh? Cute enough to cuddle?”

You roll your eyes, hiding a smile. You mean to tell him no, absolutely not, when a full contraction hits at seven fourteen in the morning. 

You know the time because the clock on the stove is right in front of you and your eyes go straight to it. The noise you make has Jiyong stepping back immediately, both hands raised.  

“What did I do? Did I do something—”

You breathe through it, one hand on the counter, the other held out towards him in some gesture that’s meant to say don’t touch me but also don’t go anywhere.

He stares at you. “Is that—”

“Yes.”

“Right now? Right now?” His eyes have gone very wide. “But your due date—” he stops. Looks at your belly, then up again at you.  “Are you sure? Because—”

“Jiyong,” you interrupt. “I think I’ve been in labor since last night.” 

“You think?” The words come out at a slightly higher register than his normal speaking voice. “What do you mean you think—” He looks down at your belly. “Okay,” he breathes in and out. “Okay, we’re doing this. This is happening. Okay.”

And then he crouches down and holds his hands out in front of him.

You stare at him. “What are you doing?”

“The baby—” he says.

You laugh because there’s absolutely no way you cannot laugh at him right now. “Jiyong… the bag. Go grab the bag so we can go to the hospital.” 

“The bag. Yes,” He straightens up and is already moving. “The bag. I know where the bag is.”

You turn off the stove. You make your way toward the main door to grab your jacket and your purse. You put your shoes on. You do all these things slowly, talking yourself through it, because you told yourself you would remain calm. And you manage to remain calm until another contraction comes and you have to lean against the wall and close your eyes and breathe. Forty seconds. When it passes, you think to yourself that you really should have paid more attention last night. 

“The bag, Jiyong!”

“Coming!”

The hospital bag has been packed for three weeks. 

You packed it together going through a checklist you’d found online, adding things, removing things, going back and forth on others. Jiyong had contributed suggestions that weren’t on the list, including a framed photo of Iye and Zoa. You had tried not to laugh as you watched him tuck it carefully under the little set of clothes his mother had knitted for the baby. The bag has been in the same spot for three weeks: the bedroom closet, right side, on the floor, in front of everything else so that it cannot be missed. 

You hear him in the kitchen. In the living room. Somewhere further in the penthouse. 

Another contraction. You grit your teeth before you remind yourself to breathe, in and out, in and out, then you check the time, note the gap between the last one and this one, and you breathe again. You know this baby is coming soon. When it passes you straighten up from where you were leaning against the wall and call out: “Did you find it?”

“Got it!”

He comes running and stops in front of you. He’s holding a reusable grocery bag.

You look at it. You look at him. “Jiyong.”

“I’m ready. Let’s go. Jaeho is downstairs with the others. The cars—”

“Why do you have a grocery bag?”

He looks down at it. “There’s—it has snacks,” he says. “I put snacks in it. Rice crackers. Chocolates. Popsicles. You’ve been eating a lot of those lately, so—I also brought—”

“Where is the hospital bag?”

He looks at you. “Oh.” A pause. “I’ll be right back.”

“Leave the popsicles!”

He returns thirty seconds later with the hospital bag in one hand and the grocery bag still in the other. “Left the popsicles like you said.”

You do not ask what else is in the grocery bag. What you want is to get to the hospital.

Jiyong walks beside you, holding both bags, and with one arm stretched out towards you like in the kitchen. Like he’s ready to catch the baby in case it drops right then and there. In the private garage below, Jaeho is already waiting. He opens the rear door as you approach, taking one look at the two of you: you, breathing like they told you in those classes you took, and walking slowly, and Jiyong, holding both bags and one arm extended, with the obvious energy of a man losing his mind, and is professional enough to keep a neutral expression.The other bodyguard bites his lip and looks away. 

“I’m driving,” Jiyong says. 

You don’t argue. You get inside the car with his help and grab the bags from him before watching him walk around to get in the driver’s seat. The car pulls out of the private garage at seven twenty-five and joins the morning streets of Seoul. You watch the buildings pass. Slowly. As if you were sightseeing. 

Another contraction arrives and you grip the front seat and breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. When it passes you check your phone and make a mental note of it. 

“How was that one?” he asks. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel.

“Bad.”

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll slow down.”

“Oh my god, Jiyong. You cannot—” You stop. Breathe. “Drive faster.”

“Okay, okay, I’m driving faster,” he says, his hands gripping the steering wheel as he leans forward. 

He does not drive any faster. 

Or at least, not as fast as you’d like him to, and when the next contraction happens, it’s significantly worse. You make a sound that, judging by Jiyong’s reaction, is alarming enough to cause him to slow down the car even more so.

“What happened—are you—should I stop—”

“Jiyong.” You say through your teeth, before taking a breath. The contraction crests and you ride it out until the pain ebbs away so you can speak again. “I need you to listen to me carefully. If you don’t let Jaeho drive this car, I’m going to have the baby right here. You’re going to have to help me deliver the baby in the backseat of your car. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

He drives for a few more seconds. Then he pulls over on the side of the road..

The handover takes forty-five seconds and it happens with an efficiency that suggests Jaeho has been waiting for this moment since you left the garage. He says nothing, he simply gets out, gets in, adjusts the seat, and starts to drive. The second car follows.

Jiyong sits beside you and he takes your hand and kisses it. His hands are cold and clammy. “I’m sorry I’m freaking out.”

“It’s okay,” you say, shifting to find a more comfortable position. There isn’t one. “It’s kind of funny.” You laugh a little at the face he makes. “Come on, it’s a little funny. How many pamphlets did you read? How many hours spent online reading how to prepare for this moment? And look at you.”

He sulks for approximately three seconds, then goes back to worrying when you grimace. He doesn’t speak as your hand closes around his with a grip that is probably painful as another contraction starts.

“Breathe,” he says,”In and out. I’ve got you.” And then to Jaeho: “A little faster, please.”

You think Jaeho is extremely gracious for not pointing out Jiyong had been driving like a grandfather just moments ago.

“How are you not freaking out?” Jiyong asks when the contraction passes. 

“Who says I’m not?” you ask. “But I’m keeping track of the contractions.”

“Oh.” He realizes he hasn’t. “I should have been doing that, I’m sorry—”

“It’s fine,” you say and then redirect him before guilt can take root and have him spiral. “Tell me what you brought in the grocery bag.”

Jiyong grabs the bag, opens it to peer inside. “Rice crackers. Chocolates.” He pauses. “The TV remote control.” You stare at him. “I grabbed it off the coffee table. I don’t know why. I was moving fast.”

You let out a laugh. “Is that all?”

“...And a scented candle.”

********

You arrive at the hospital at seven forty-one.

Jiyong is out of the car the moment it stops and he comes around to your side with both bags, the hospital bag, and yes, the grocery bag, which is apparently going to make the entire journey to the inside of the hospital. He helps you get out of the car, and Jaeho comes around the back of the car carrying a duffel bag. Jiyong looks at it, then at Jaeho, 

“A change of clothes for you,” Jaeho answers the unspoken question. 

It’s only then that you get a proper look at Jiyong. His hair is a mess, from sleep and from running his hands through it approximately nine times on the way here. He’s wearing a Saint Laurent jacket, and underneath… mismatched pajamas. He looks down at himself like he’s just realizing what he’s wearing too. 

“Thank you,” he says to Jaeho, sounding genuinely grateful.

“Yes, thank you,” you add. Then to Jiyong: “My baby’s first impression of you cannot be that you’re a fashion disaster.”

“Aish, now it’s not the time for jokes,” Jiyong says and with a hand at your back, he steers you toward the entrance. 

You start walking because if you stand on this pavement for one more second you’re going to laugh and you cannot laugh right now because everything hurts. Jaeho takes both bags from Jiyong so he can focus on helping you. 

What follows is, despite the pain and the fear, remarkably fast. 

Not easy, you will never use that word for pregnancy labor and all that entails, but fast in a way that you are deeply grateful for because you know it could have been worse. 

One moment you’re being ushered into a private room, Jiyong helping you change, and doing what he can to make you comfortable, which for Jiyong means putting up the framed photo of Iye and Zoa on the bedside table next to the scented candle. And the next moment the doctor comes, checks, looks at you and says: “It’s time.”

Jiyong holds your hand through it all, still in his Saint Laurent jacket and mismatched pajamas, and he tells you that he loves you over and over again, his lips on your temple and then on your hand. His voice is low and steady, and he’s calm right now, when it truly matters and that helps you focus as you follow the doctor’s instructions. 

There is a moment, a single suspended moment as you move from one world to another, where everything goes still and quiet. 

And then there is sound. 

Small and enormous at once. A baby crying, and you’re laughing and crying at the same time, and beside you Jiyong making a sound that might also be a laugh or it might be a sob, but it’s definitely something that’s been lodged in his chest since a Friday morning several months ago when a pregnancy test changed everything.

********

She’s swaddled in a hospital blanket with a small hat on when they place her on your chest for the first time. 

You don’t have words for what you feel, so you just hold her, this impossibly small person, and you feel the warmth of her and the weight of her, and the way she seems to be exactly the perfect size for the space in your arms. Like she was always meant to fill it. 

Jiyong is close. His hand moves to your hair, then your shoulder, then hovers somewhere near the head of the baby without quite touching, like he’s still working up the courage to do so. Like he’s trying to comprehend what he’s seeing.

“Hi,” you hear yourself say. 

The baby blinks. Her eyes are dark and unfocused, and you know it’s too early to tell, everyone has said it’s hard to tell right away, but you look at her and you think: you look like your appa. 

You laugh softly. Jiyong’s fingers come up to wipe the tears from your face. 

“Hi,” you say again. “My tiny love.”

After, when the baby has had her first feeding, which is its own adventure, the nurse asks Jiyong if he’d like to hold her for skin to skin contact so you can rest. He nods before she finishes the sentence. 

He sits in the chair they’ve pulled beside the bed, and you watch the nurse settle the baby against his chest, adjusting his arms, explaining how to hold her, and Jiyong is still and careful in a way that doesn’t come naturally to him. He is, in most situations, someone who moves, who fills a room with his presence, who finds it impossible to share his thoughts without moving his hands. But right now he is very still and his hands are steady as he supports her small body and her small head with so much gentleness that it makes you want to cry.

The nurse steps back and checking that you are both good, she leaves the room to give you two a moment. The room is quiet as you watch Jiyong look at his daughter.

He takes his time looking at her. But as you watch him, you realize it’s not the look of someone cataloguing features or searching for resemblance or doing any of the things people say they do in these first moments. He is simply looking at her after imagining her for a very long time and realizing that the real thing has made every version he imagined pale in comparison. 

His daughter looks back at him, or more like in the direction of him, with the tiniest of frowns on her face.

Jiyong exhales, like he’s finally allowing himself to breathe since this morning when the first contraction hit at seven fourteen.

“Hi,” he says softly. 

She shifts, a tiny movement, her fingers spreading against his chest. 

“Hello, Ji-na.” 

Her name in his voice, for the first time. 

His jaw moves. He presses his lips together as he blinks rapidly, holding back his tears. Ji-na, for her part, makes a small sound and turns her face slightly toward the warmth of his chest. Something in Jiyong’s expression breaks apart completely. He smiles, lets out a soft laugh, and his expression fills with a tenderness so pure you don’t think you have ever seen it on him before. 

“My Ji-na,” he says. “Do you like your name?”

********

When you were four months pregnant, Jiyong came to you one evening and said, “I have a short list of names we can go through.”

The short list was three pages, front and back, with additional names written in the margins in a different color, suggesting he’d checked these pages multiple times before deciding to show you. 

You went through them together, marking each one as a maybe or no.

“How about this one?” he asked, pointing with the pen. “Onyx.”

You looked at him. 

“What?” he asked, immediately defensive. “It’s distinctive. You’re not going to have four Onyxes in the same classroom, which—”

“No.”

“Why?” he asked. “You can’t just say no without a reason.”

“We are not naming our baby after a gemstone.”

“It’s also, technically, if you change the spelling, the English name of a Pokemon,” he said. 

You stared at him for a long moment.

“...Okay, okay. We will not be naming our baby after a Pokemon.” He made a note, which you caught a glimpse of: vetoed unfairly. “What about—”

“What’s that one?” you asked, pointing with your own pen.

There was a name, near the bottom of the third page, written in red ink and circled. 

Ji-na.

“Ah.” He looked down at it too. “It came to me one night and I kept thinking about it.” He traced the circle with his finger. “Kwon Ji-na. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” He smiled, a little self-conscious. “I mean, we don’t even know the gender yet, but…”

You looked at him, at the smile on his face, the way his finger traced the name on the paper. 

“I love it,” you told him. “If it’s a girl, I want this one.”

********

You keep watching him from the bed even as exhaustion creeps in. 

You are so tired you feel it in your bones, and the lights are too bright, and there are things that will need to happen soon. Calls that need to be made to people who have been waiting for Ji-na too, your family, his family. Friends. But right now, in this room, there is only you and Jiyong and Ji-na resting on his chest. He barely blinks, as if just a fraction of a second of not looking at her is too much for him to handle. 

He is talking to her in a low voice and you close your eyes and it reminds you of those conversations in the dark that he used to have when she was still in your belly. You only catch fragments.

“—waited so long for you. A lifetime— 

—ballet? Piano? What do you want— 

—Zoa and Iye are waiting, you’re going to love them and—

—your grandmother is going to lose her mind—

—aunt, your mom’s sister, she is flying across the world for you—”

You don’t interrupt. You just watch him, this person you know better than anyone, the one who highlighted pregnancy pamphlets and brought the TV remote control to the hospital in a panic, and you witness him melt completely because of someone who weighs barely four kilograms and has been in the world for under an hour. 

His hand cups the back of her head. And when she makes another sound, neither happy nor unhappy, Jiyong answers it like it was a complete sentence, like he’s been learning her language for months and it’s only now that he gets to use it. 

“I know,” he says softly. “I know. I’m here.”

********

Later, when calls have been made and Ji-na has been fed again and is settled in the bassinet beside you, Jiyong sits on the edge of bed. He takes your hand and brings it to his mouth and holds it there for a moment with his eyes closed. Then he opens them. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. He presses another kiss to your knuckles. “Thank you.”

You smile, then you pull him close, and he goes easily, fitting himself next to you on the bed. He looks at you, then leans forward to press a soft kiss to your lips. 

“You look like a mess,” you say when he rests his head on the pillow. “But I probably don’t look so great either.”

He shakes his head. “You look beautiful.” His smile turns mischievous. “I’d call you a MILF but–”

“Ugh. You had to ruin the moment!” you say, fighting back a smile. “How long have you been saving that line?”

“Nine months,” he says without an ounce of remorse. 

“Tsk… bring me the grocery bag. I want snacks. I didn’t even get to have breakfast.” 

He gets up and when he brings over the grocery bag, he sits down and pulls out the rice crackers. Then he pulls out the TV remote control, and he holds it up, and you both look at it, then at each other. You both start laughing and shushing each other at the same time, with the slightly hysterical edge of two people just coming down from an adrenaline-packed morning. 

And then, still laughing, Jiyong leans down and rests his head against your chest, and a moment later you realize his shoulders are shaking not from laughter but because he’s crying. 

“I’m a dad,” he says. “I’m a dad for real.” 

You laugh a little, your own eyes filling with tears. You look over at the bassinet, at Ji-na who is sleeping, who doesn’t know yet how lucky she is to have a father who has waited, a lifetime he said, for her. 

You hold him tighter.

"Yeah," you say softly. "You are."

next>>

Tag list:

@daesungsleftnostril @hex-girls-stuff @bunnygirlgonewild @missleezylou @chocomintlatey

@nessas-archive @coffea-16 @itsonlyskye @aemrsy @idkkpop

@bearleez @jiyongsraven @bitchynightkitty @valkeryiexx @stacyyyystami

@svetamillss @clemetinesis @moonlight52moonlight @anonymous2505 @shooo00taaa44

@jiyongieahx @vfihvffn @gabrielleqz @beaferni @supertrouble143

@choiseunghyunwifwxx4 @bi-panic03 @lyation @kiraaazz000 @million-dollar-baby

@thevelvetseries @honeymoonheartt @alyfff @issysato @mariaemiliasblog

@ivush @hadesismyimaginaryfriend @leajanesblog @sanniix33 @nsainmoonchild