#dad!bangchan

you both never thought that would happen, but over the years, the work began to spread out a bit more, due to chan back dating loads of songs, which were then ready for years to come.

it made life a whole life easier for him, and the relationship.

which is why he decided it was a perfect time for this family he so desperately wanted.

you and chan had tried for years, and it just seemed like it was never your time. failed test after test. tears after tears, with the whispered promise from chan, ‘it’ll happen soon’.

but how long was soon?

until that one cold day in november when the test sat on the bathroom counter felt different. you for once were hopeful.

you pulled chan into the bathroom as you both sat on the edge of the bathtub.

“hey,” he muttered, as he took ahold of you hand and rubbed the back of it, “whatever it says, we’re okay. there’ll be another time for us,” he promised.

you nodded through watery eyes, and a breath that shook. you let go off his hand and slowly reached for the test.

you took a second to yourself before flipping it over and staring at the answer.

| |

two lines.

you gasped out a broken sob, full of emotion, as chan grabbed a hold of you and pulled you closely in. chan’s shoulders shook as he cried with you.

“we’re having a baby,” he muttered into your hair, holding you tightly, “you’re gonna be a mom, and i’m gonna be a dad!” he whispered, as if saying it too loud would take it all back.

a few months later…

lucky for you, you were one of the lucky ones who didn’t show much during their pregnancy.

this was great, especially in yours and chan’s situation, with the boys and the world, who knew about you, as you were allowed to be open with the relationship.

however, once it came around to the second trimester and it was definitely confirmed that your baby was healthy, you both agreed this was the time to share the news with the boys.

you invited all the boys over to your home the following night, wanting this announcement to be small and private with those you both loved dearly.

“so… what is this?” seungmin started, eyeing you and chan suspiciously.

“you’re not like getting divorced are you? please don’t tell me your getting divorced!” han rambled quickly.

“no! no! god no,” you laughed, responding to han, who calmed down.

“we wanted to actually tell you, that, we’re pregnant,” chan told the group.

they blinked at him for a moment, glancing over at you, who already had tears in your eyes.

“wait what?!” changbin asked.

“your pregnant?” felix looked at you, to which you nodded.

han was the first to react, jumping up and screaming practically.

the other boys shortly followed as you and chan stood up, recovering various words of excitement and congratulations, while also receiving hugs from each member.

during your pregnancy, chan hated working. he hated missing moments of this; of the family that was soon to happen, even if the baby wasn’t here yet.

you insisted he went to the studio though. the boys still needed him after all, and the baby wasn’t here just yet.

but moments when chan would walk through the front door late at night, ways past the time he said he’d be.

to find you snuggled on the couch, phone open on yours and his chat, clearly to ask him how much longer. all the while you had a hand placed gently on your ground bump.

chan sighed at moments like this. he hated not being here for you, and he sometimes felt like he was already failing. but he tried; and you knew that.

july

come july, it was finally coming up closer to the due date of the baby. chan had managed to push the work off for a couple of weeks, while the two of you prepared for the baby.

the boys were absolutely ecstatic to meet the baby. anytime they saw you, they would immediately pile over on you like puppies to their mother, in desperate need of any updates about the baby.

so that one final night, when you woke up and seven hours later gave birth, you’d finally met your baby girl.

chan was there the whole time. from the moment you stirred in your sleep, groaning with pain, to when you stepped into the hospital.

even when you lay on the bed, crying your eyes out from the pain, chan stood by your side, holding tightly onto your hand.

chan cried the moment she was born, (he actually cried the whole birth, but you didn’t need to know that). but seeing you and his baby girl together for the first time was an experience he could never describe.

his two girls right in front of him. it was everything he ever wanted in life, and here it was.

a few months later

chan couldn’t love life any more than what he had right now. you were healthy, his baby girl was healthy, and he finally had the family he always wanted.

the first few months were different. a good different. a lack of sleep due to her crying throughout the night and not being the best sleeper.

but luckily, chan was use to the lack of sleep, spent in the studio, so he found solace in these moments.

the months were spent learning. learning about how to be a parent, while raising a literal baby.

there were tears. good and bad.

you’d have a few moments where you believed you weren’t a good mother. that maybe this wasn’t right for you. but chan was always there for you.

you and chan rarely co-slept with her, due to the risk. but day time naps, you sometimes like to join her.

moments like these were chan’s favourites.

where he could just watch you sleeping next to him, his baby girl in between the two of you, as you both leaned into his side. this was all he ever wanted.

the boys loved her.

jeongin was no longer the baby of the group, she was. and they all loved having her around.

it gave the other boys something to look forward to for the next few years with their own partners.

they saw the way chan and yourself were with your baby girl, and the love you had for one another, her birth bringing the pair of you even closer. and they all longed for a family like yours.

more months later

stray kids had gone on tour a month or so ago. touring the world and making many memories that chan loved sharing with you.

you’d both agreed it was too soon for her to attend, due to how young she was. so you both watched her daddy through the tv or on the phone, as she would squeal ‘dada!’ anytime chan became the main focus of a livestream or interview.

but chan. he secretly hated it. he missed so much while he was gone.

the time you were recording yourself and her, and she finally took her first few steps towards you.

chan had to watch it through a phone.

he missed those real important milestones; the ones that really mattered. and that’s what hurt him the most.

but you were always there to reassure him, “she’ll walk again soon,” you promised.

but despite your promises, he still doubted himself.

he lay awake at night in the various hotels, clutching his phone to his chest, as he replayed the videos of you and his baby over and over again, his chest wracking with sobs.

chan sometimes use to feel like he failed as a leader, but feeling like he failed as a dad, hit him a lot more than anything.

a few years later

as she reached a more appropriate age, which perfectly lined up with the next stray kids world tour, the pair of you agreed this was a perfect opportunity.

as the tour hit off its leg in australia, you and your girl moved into chan’s parents home for a while.

this was great.

they loved you and their grandchild, and you loved being around them. you were also immensely close to hannah, chan’s sister.

so on the day where his family had planned to attend, he also reserved two tickets for his family.

it was secured off in the pit. far enough but not too far; close enough so that she could see her dad.

you held her on her hip so that she had a clear view of the stage, dressed in her wolf-chan outfit; light-grey dungarees, with some ears on her head.

she looked adorable.

and she loved it.

chan even made it his mission to spend as much time during the concert waving over to his daughter and wife, ensuring they both felt very special. she’d giggle into your neck every time it happened.

when the concert was over, you were all led backstage. at this point she could walk really well; too well actually. she was now able to run off, without falling over.

which she insisted on doing in attempt to find her daddy.

as she rounded the corner, into one of the main dressing rooms, she saw her dad stood in the middle, talking to seungmin.

she squealed out in excitement, causing chan to turn around and open his arms wide. “hi baby,” he responded back, just as excited.

he placed her on his hip, as she rambled on about the show, asking silly questions about everything.

eventually, you’d managed to wrestled her off of chan, so that he could go see his family after the show, leaving you and her with the other boys.

as annoying as she could be, the boys still loved her.

she loved lee know, mainly because of soonie, doongie and dori, as she loved cats. but despite his sometimes hard exterior, it immediately melted when she was around.

changbin was probably her favourite. he was the biggest girls girl to ever exist, which you already knew, but he continued the prove it as she grew older. ‘changbin’s salon’ became something even more common everytime you brought her around or showed up at the studio.

hyunjin helped her draw and create. she liked her crafts, especially paint, which you and chan cringed anytime she got her hands on it, due to how messy she was. but hyunjin didn’t mind the mess, he encouraged her to, especially in his art studio in his apartment back in seoul.

han was probably the second favourite uncle of her. she loved his silliness, as she was also a very silly child. they bounced off of one another easily, especially because of han’s childlike personality at times.

felix was her kindest uncle; the one she turned to when she began to cry if her mommy or daddy weren’t around. he always held her with the upmost care, constantly carrying her anywhere, as he always managed to fall for her dramatics. he just couldn’t say no.

despite seungmin’s ‘mean’ exterior, and banter with his members, it was clear how good of a dad he would be. he taught her a lot of things, including baseball, which he loved being able to share with someone, who was so excited for the world. he always offered to help the two of you. you and chan knew how badly seungmin wanted a kid of his own one day.

ayen loved not being the youngest anymore. he loved not being the ‘maknae’ of the family. that he finally had someone to take care of, just how the members had with him. he was similar to seungmin. ayen always volunteered to babysit, but only if he could have assistance from one of the other boys. so typically seungmin and ayen were the babysitters.

chan finally had the family he wanted, the one he always dreamt about and told STAYS about on bubble. it was finally his, and she truly was a bundle of joy.

╭───────────────╮

And sure enough Chan pulled up 4 hours later.

You heard the car in the driveway, door slamming shut, and the frantic sound of keys at the door.

You were in the bed, back facing the door. Hand laid out over your stomach caressing the 6 month bump you had grown once again.

The tears ate your face were warm and hot. Small sniffles fell from you with you shoulder shaking every so slightly.

By the time Chan had reached their room he realized you did it without him.

Dinner, bath time, and the light kiss on their forehead before turning the light out.

God did his fucking heart hurt. The walk up the stairs felt daunting and painful. Like he knew exactly what was waiting for him.

But he didn’t expect the lights to be out and your back facing towards the door.

He listened closely for your soft snores but instead was met with heartbreaking sniffles.

His heart dropped, he rushed over to your side. Eyes scanning your face. Pleading almost begging you to say the first word. But all you did was turn to the other side.

Well, attempted to.

Chan let out a slight chuckle, small grin spreading across his face. Even in these moments you were so, yourself, and he loved that about you.

In the end you just gave up. Dropping the anger facade, you reached out your hand silently asking for help to get up.

Chan held a small smile. the dipples you loved so deeply popping through.

“I’m still mad at you.” your voice was low,tired Chan knew it was because of him.

Instead of responding he put his hand behind your back while the other held yours

Pulling you up and placing a gentle peck on your head. Then the palm of your hand, placing it on his cheek. Muscle memory kicking in you caress it.

“I know baby girl, I’m so sorry. I promised I wouldn’t let work get in the way and i did. But I swear to you and our beautiful babies, it won’t happen again.” he said the words so lightly. Almost like a soft kiss on one’s heart.

You didn’t respond with words. But brought him down into a kiss. Lips molding together, creating an atmosphere with just you two.

The kiss turned into long intense pecks. His hand moved down to your bump. Large hand laid across rubbing small circles with his thumb.

He broke the kiss, and moved down to where his hand laid placing feather kisses along the skin.

“I won’t make eomma stress anymore okay? I know it makes both you hungry.” he whispered to the bump.

You smacked his head lightly. He feigned a hurt expression, shooting his hand up to hold the stop you just abused.

His face held no true hurt, but instead a smile.Knowing he would do everything with yoh over and over again.

╰──────────────╯

lil something cuz ik i haven’t posted in forever 💔💔

You giggle softly, the sound bubbling out before you can stop it. “Channie,” you whispered. “We can’t.”

“Mhm… we absolutely can.”

You laughed softly. “Baby,” you whispered, trying again. “We have to wake up.”

“Nope.” His face pressed into your shoulder, curls tickling your skin. “Five more minutes.”

You turn around carefully until you’re facing him, his arm still hooked around you like a lifeline. He looks peaceful—lashes resting against his cheeks, lips slightly parted. You take a second just to look.

It’s been years, and yet somehow every morning feels like discovering him all over again.

Maybe it’s a new tiny mole near his jaw. Maybe a curl that’s fallen differently than yesterday, oh his soft, unruly curls sticking up in every direction is your most favourite. You love it most like this, untouched and real without any hair setting sprays.

You reach up and gently ruffle his hair.

“Wake up, baby,” you murmur fondly. “We can’t be late for our own child’s baek-il.”

That does it. His eyes crack open and he blinks at you for a second, processing, and then realization hits him like a switch.

“Our—” he sits up abruptly, curls bouncing, eyes wide. “Juliana’s baek-il.”

You laugh as he groans dramatically, dropping his head back onto the pillow. “Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”

“I tried,” you tease. “You said five more minutes.”

He rubbed his face, groaning. “I forgot I’m a dad for a sec.”

You lean in and kiss his forehead. “Come on, dad. Let’s go see our baby.”

He smiled then leaned forward and pressed a kiss to your forehead, then your nose, then your lips softly. “Happy hundred days to us being parents to our little bean.”

***************************

Chan opened the nursery door quietly, sunlight spilling over soft pastel pink walls and tiny decorations that had been chosen with so much love months before her arrival. Juliana sleeps peacefully in her crib, wrapped snugly in the blanket Chan’s mom had customized just for her, the letter “J” stitched delicately into the corner with a tiny crown above it. One of her little hands is wrapped around the teddy bear her auntie Hannah gave her, hugging it close even in her sleep.

For a moment, you and Chan just stood there, holding hands, hearts impossibly full.

Then, as if she senses you, Juliana stirs. Her little brows knit together, and her eyes flutter open.

Chan gasped. “She knows.”

“She sensed us,” you whispered, emotional already.

“She gets that from you,” he said proudly.

He leaned over the crib and scooped her up with practiced ease, cradling her against his chest. Juliana made a soft sound, stretching her little fingers before relaxing completely in his arms.

“Good morning, princess,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Happy baek-il.”

You lean in, kissing her tiny nose, then her soft cheek. “Happy hundred days, my love.”

Juliana let out a small sound that seemed like a mixture of half yawn and half coo, and Chan laughed quietly.

“Okay,” he says, shifting her slightly. “Let’s get you ready.”

While Chan takes her to freshen her up, you cross the room to the closet and carefully pull out the bag you’ve been waiting to open all morning. Carefully, reverently, you took out the hanbok.

Juliana’s very first hanbok, chosen by you and Chan together. The fabric is a soft silk in shades of pink with maroon accents, delicate embroidery stitched carefully into every detail, the skirt light and airy, custom made just for your little girl.

“Oh my God,” you whisper, even though you’ve seen it before.

“She’s so small,” you whispered, holding it up. “Chan, look.”

He turned, Juliana balanced on one arm. His eyes softened immediately. “She will look so cute, I might combust.”

You giggled as you reached back into the closet, pulling out the tiny matching shoes, the little hairbands, and the adorable accessories you and Chan had been way too excited to buy. When the two of you had wandered through the baby shops last week, you couldn’t stop yourselves and every time you saw something cute, you’d look at each other and say, “She needs this.”

Getting Juliana dressed took time—gentle hands, soft laughter, Chan apologizing every time she squirmed.

“I swear I’m being careful,” he murmured. “Please don’t cry.”

Juliana gurgled instead. Chan keeps stopping to take pictures, then videos, then more pictures.

“Chan,” you laugh, adjusting the ribbon. “We haven’t even finished getting her ready yet.”

“I know,” he grins. “But look at her.”

Juliana stares up at you both, wide-eyed and curious, dressed like a tiny princess. 

He looked down at Juliana—and the moment his eyes softened, the smile on his face turning gentle and reverent, you quickly took out your phone and captured it. And just like that it was you taking pictures with the cameras clicking sound nonstop filling the room. You lose count somewhere after a hundred.

You moved around him, crouching, standing, angling the light just right, while Chan turned slightly, murmuring soft nothings to Juliana so she’d look toward the camera.

“There you go, princess,” he whispered. “Daddy’s right here.”

Juliana blinked up at him, her tiny mouth opening in a gummy half-smile, and Chan actually froze.

“…did you see that?” he asked quietly.

You laughed. “Yes. And I got it.”

Then it’s your turn to get dressed up. You and Chan step back into the bedroom, slipping into your own hanboks—perfectly matching as a family. When you look at him, standing there adjusting his sleeves, pride shining in his eyes, you fall in love with him all over again.

You walk up to him and press a soft kiss to his lips, lingering just a second longer than necessary. 

“Ready?” you ask, smiling.

He nods, smiling gently. “Ready.”

Soon after, Juliana is carefully settled into her car seat, and Chan opens the car door for you like he always does. Once you’re both seated, he leans over and steals another kiss, warm and filled with quiet excitement.

“Let’s do this,” he murmurs.

You smile as he starts the car, your hand resting over his on the center console while the city passes by outside the window. Together, you drive toward the fancy restaurant you had booked for Juliana’s baek-il celebration.

***************************

By the time you arrive at the venue, the place is already buzzing with soft chatter and laughter. The restaurant glows warmly, decorated beautifully for Juliana’s baek-il, and nearly everyone has already arrived. The moment you step inside, greetings surround you from every direction.

“Happy baek-il, Bahng Juliana!”

“She’s so beautiful!”

“Look at her hanbok!”

“Baek-il-eul chukha hamnida!”

Chan keeps one arm securely around you as the other cradles Juliana, pride written all over his face.

Then Chan’s brothers, the Stray Kids squad, spot you.

“Hyung!” Changbin calls out, and suddenly they’re all there, crowding around with the biggest smiles. 

They are always overly excited to meet Juliana, as she’s the first SKZ baby and it’s their first time being uncles.

“She’s… tiny,” Minho says in awe, carefully peeking closer.

“Why is she already this cute?” Jisung adds, genuinely distressed.

“She looks like Chris,” Felix says softly, eyes shining. “Like… a mini version.”

They each hand over gifts—carefully wrapped, thoughtful, clearly chosen with way too much adoration. Chan laughs, a little overwhelmed, thanking them over and over while they coo over Juliana like they’ve forgotten how to act like grown men.

“She’s our baby,” Changbin declares proudly.

“We should all have joint custody,” Hyunjin adds.

“I’d make a great teenage dad,” Jeongin declares, dead serious.

“Aren’t you already, like, fifty-four?” Seungmin teases, earning a playful punch from Jeongin.

Juliana is soon passed gently from one relative to another, arms always ready to hold her, everyone taking turns admiring her tiny fingers and round cheeks.

Throughout the party, everyone was obsessed with her.

“It’s a mini Chan,” someone says again.

“That nose, those cheeks… Chan’s baby for sure.”

You laugh softly, nodding without hesitation. “I love it.”

Chan looks at you then, eyes warm and emotional, and presses a quick kiss to your temple.

Later, the room quietens slightly as the doljabi table is prepared. The items are laid out carefully: a thread for long life, money for wealth, a pencil and book for education, and finally a microphone resting right in the center.

Juliana is placed in front of the table, sitting steadily with a little support. Everyone leans forward, holding their breath.

“Okay, okay,” Chan’s dad chuckled. “Let’s see what she chooses.”

“Take your time, baby,” Chan whispers, crouching beside her.

For a moment, she simply stares.

Then, without hesitation, her tiny hand reaches forward and closes around the microphone.

The room erupts with gasps, laughter and applause.

Chan freezes for a second before his hand flies to his mouth, eyes instantly glassy. The members lose it completely.

“Oh my God!” Han blinks rapidly.

“She chose the mic,” Felix whispers, emotional.

 “I’m gonna cry,” Hyunjin gasps.

 “Our legacy,” Changbin says, tearing up.

Jessica smiles knowingly, eyes shining. “I knew it,” she says softly.

You blink, tears spilling over before you can stop them. You looked at Chan, his eyes were already glassy. 

“Oh,” he breathed. “Oh…”

You knelt beside him, hand immediately finding his back.

“I can’t—” he whispered, voice breaking. “She—she picked a mic.”

“She really is daddy’s girl,” you smile tearfully.

Chan laughed through his tears, covering his face for a second before reaching out to steady Juliana.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured, voice thick.

Juliana babbles happily, completely unaware of the moment she’s just created— the tiny microphone still clutched in her hand, surrounded by love, laughter, and a future already glowing bright.

After hours of laughter, music, and a feast that had everyone smiling, the celebration slowly came to an end. Plates were cleared, decorations carefully admired one last time, and the room hummed with warm, happy chatter.

As the guests began to leave, each person took a moment to shower Juliana with affection—gentle hugs, soft kisses on her cheeks, and endless congratulations. 

“She’s perfect,” your aunt whispered. “You two did such a beautiful job.”

Chan’s members lingered a little longer than the rest, kneeling down to wave goodbye to Juliana one last time. 

“We’ll always be here for her,” Hyunjin said, ruffling her hair gently. 

Chan chuckled, a little emotional, watching his friends, his family, and now their friends all adore their daughter so openly.

Finally, it was just the families. Chan’s parents and your own gathered around you both, pulling you into warm embraces. 

“You’re already such wonderful parents,” his mom said softly, brushing your hair back. “Juliana is so lucky.”

Your family echoed the sentiment, laughter and pride mingling as hugs were exchanged. “Look at them,” your sibling said, smiling at you and Chan. “You two were born to be parents.”

Chan’s hand found yours instinctively, squeezing it gently as he looked at you, his eyes soft and full of love. “We did it,” he murmured.

With hearts full and arms wrapped around your little family, you all finally headed back home. The car ride was quiet, filled only with soft coos from Juliana and the occasional sigh of contentment from both of you. The day had been magical, unforgettable, and entirely yours.

***************************

When you finally got home, Juliana was fast asleep in Chan’s arms, her head tucked beneath his chin, her little hanbok already changed into soft pajamas. His steps were slow and careful as he headed toward the nursery.

“I’ll run her a bath first,” Chan murmured softly, glancing down at her little form.

You shook your head gently, smiling. “Let’s just sit together first. Just us.”

He hesitated only a second, then nodded, a small, warm smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah. Okay.”

You settled onto the couch in the living room, and Chan lowered himself beside you, still cradling Juliana securely. You leaned into his side, your head resting against his shoulder, watching the steady rise and fall of your daughter’s chest.

After a moment, Chan tilted his head and rested it gently against yours.

“She’s tired,” he whispered.

“She is,” you replied. “She had a big day.”

You traced a finger lightly along her tiny arm. “I’m really glad she has your curls.”

Chan let out a shy laugh. “Yeah?”

“She really is your mini version,” you teased softly. “Your cheeks. Your nose. Even the way she pouts when she’s sleepy.”

You looked down at Juliana, smiling fondly. “Yah… I carried you for nine months, and you came out as your dad’s twin?”

Chan laughed quietly, shoulders shaking. “Hey, you love it!”

You giggled, and Chan leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to your hair. You turned your face toward him, and he met you halfway in a slow, gentle kiss, full of warmth and love. Pulling back slightly, his forehead resting against yours, he whispered softly, “Thank you… for this—for her, for us, for everything.”

You smiled, your fingers brushing against his cheek. “No… thank you, my love. For being the best daddy to her, for being you and for making all of this so perfect.”

He chuckled softly, eyes shining, and pressed another tender kiss to your lips. “We did this together,” he murmured.

“And I wouldn’t want it any other way,” you whispered.

Juliana stirred slightly between you, then settled again, warm and safe.

Chan let out a content sigh, eyes closing for just a moment. “I could stay like this forever,” he murmured.

“Mhm,” you sighed, tightening your arm around him.

 Chan glanced at you and whispered, “I love this life… and our little family.”

You smiled, resting your head on his shoulder. “Me too, baby. Me too.”

He smiled and you leaned in, savoring the quiet intimacy. Fingers intertwined, soft murmurs, shared warmth as the three of you cuddled. Juliana slept on, her tiny hands twitching occasionally, and you and Chan simply stayed there, together, letting the world fade away outside your little home.

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m a s t e r l i s t .ᐟ i n b o x .ᐟ

There are some people who enter your life like weather, all at once and impossible to ignore, and then there are people who become part of its structure so gradually that, one day, you look around and realize years have gone by.

Chan and Haneul are the second kind.

By the time you are twenty-three, halfway through a degree in childhood development and balancing lectures, readings, and practicum hours with more care than sleep, three years of your life have already been folded quietly into theirs. Not in a way that announces itself. Not in a way that invites questions. More in the way a favorite blanket grows softer with use.

You meet Haneul when she is two years old and too young to understand why the world around her has changed, only that it has. A terrible car accident takes her mother in a single, brutal instant, leaving behind a silence too large for a small child to name and too cruel for a man like Chan to fight with anything but endurance.

In the months that follow, his grief becomes something private and disciplined, tucked neatly beneath pressed shirts, beneath tired eyes, beneath the careful steadiness of a father who no longer has the luxury of falling apart.

He does not stop moving because Haneul still needs breakfast in the morning. She still needs her hair brushed, her shoes found, her tiny hands washed after snacks. She still needs lullabies and cartoons and someone to explain why the moon keeps following the car home. The world does not pause to honor sorrow when there is a toddler asking to be carried because her legs are tired.

That is where you come in.

At first, you are only meant to be help. A recommendation passed between neighbors and family friends and someone’s older sister who swears you are responsible, sweet, good with children, the kind of girl who actually gets down to eye level when a child talks instead of nodding absentmindedly while looking at her phone.

You arrive for the first time with your tote bag slung over one shoulder, your hair hurriedly fixed after class, and a nervousness you try to hide beneath a gentle smile. You expect a child made wary by loss, maybe even difficult in the way grieving children are often allowed to become by adults too afraid to say no to them.

Instead, you find a little girl with enormous eyes and a quietness that doesn’t belong on someone so young, sitting on the living room rug with a plush rabbit in her lap.

And you find Chan.

He opens the door looking older than twenty-five should allow, dressed in a black T-shirt and gray sweatpants, one hand braced against the frame as if he has not sat down all day. His face is handsome in a way that catches you off guard even then, but it is not beauty that lingers with you afterward. It is the exhaustion. The terrible, polished kind. The sort worn by people who have convinced everyone around them that they are managing because the alternative would frighten them.

You remember how carefully he speaks to you that first day, like he is afraid of coming across rude when really he is simply stretched too thin to decorate his words.

“Thank you for coming,” he says, voice rough from disuse or fatigue. “I know this is last minute.”

You tell him it is no problem, and you mean it.

In the beginning, Haneul watches you more than she talks. She is slow to trust in the quiet, wounded way of children who have learned that permanence is not guaranteed, and so you do not rush her. You sit on the floor. You let her bring you toys instead of asking for them. You read books in different voices until she starts to smile at the funny parts. You memorize the exact way she likes her apple slices cut, the songs that make her sleepy, the order of the bedtime routine that keeps tears from gathering in her lashes. Bath, pajamas, two stories, one song, the rabbit tucked beneath her arm, the hallway light left on just enough for the room not to feel endless.

You are studying childhood development, yes, but some things cannot be taught in lecture halls. Some things live in instinct. In patience. In the willingness to hold steady when a child tests whether you really mean it when you say you’ll still be there after they wake up from their nap.

Haneul tests you in all the ways that matter. You pass without ever making it seem like a test at all. And Chan notices.

Not all at once. He is too tired in those first months to do much beyond survive them, but even survival has its moments of clarity. He notices that Haneul cries less on the days you come over. He notices that she starts sleeping through the night more often after you begin watching her regularly. He notices that when she falls and scrapes her knee, she lets you clean it without fuss because your hands are gentle and certain and never tremble, even when hers do.

Most of all, he notices that you never treat his daughter like a fragile thing to be pitied. You speak to her like someone whole. And that alone feels like a miracle.

So what begins as occasional babysitting becomes something far more rooted. Your schedule bends around theirs. Tuesdays and Thursdays after class. Friday evenings when Chan works late or simply needs an hour to breathe without feeling guilty for it. Entire Saturdays sometimes, when errands pile up or Haneul grows clingy and insists on asking every hour when you’re coming.

You become a fixture of the apartment so gradually it almost escapes notice. Your sneakers by the door. Your cardigan draped over the dining chair. Your handwriting on sticky notes by the fridge reminding Chan that Haneul ate all her strawberries already and will definitely ask for more.

The apartment changes too. Not because grief leaves it, but because your presence teaches it how to hold something besides grief.

It is never a large place, but it is warm. The kind of warmth earned through living rather than design. Soft cream walls. Toys tucked into woven baskets that never fully contain them. Crayon drawings held up by magnets on the refrigerator. Storybooks stacked sideways on the coffee table. A faint scent of detergent, baby shampoo long outgrown but not quite forgotten, and whatever Chan has managed to cook between work and fatherhood.

There is always evidence of him everywhere, though none of it showy. A jacket thrown over the couch. A half-finished mug of coffee gone cold on the counter. His laptop open beside a pile of Haneul’s coloring pages because his life is a constant negotiation between responsibility and interruption.

He is the sort of father who carries everything without announcing the weight of it. The sort who wakes at the slightest sound from down the hall, who knows the difference between Haneul’s sleepy whine and her truly upset cry, who kneels beside her bed in the middle of the night with one hand smoothing over her hair while the other checks the temperature on her forehead. He remembers pediatrician appointments without reminders. Keeps extra wipes in the car, crackers in the pantry, Band-Aids in three different drawers. He moves through fatherhood with a quiet competence that would look effortless if you did not know better.

But you do know better.

You see the tiredness under his eyes when he lingers in the kitchen after you arrive, finishing the coffee he forgot to drink hot. You notice the way he thanks you every single time, never once acting entitled to your care even after years of it. You know how often he apologizes for being late, for the toys on the floor, for Haneul being fussy, as if you haven’t already seen him manage work calls while tying the laces on sparkly shoes and cutting sandwiches into stars because she once decided squares were too boring to eat.

There is a devotion in him that feels almost sacred. It lives in the smallest things. In the way he crouches to zip Haneul’s jacket all the way to her chin before stepping outside. In the way he always, always looks back if she calls for him, no matter how busy he is. In the way his voice changes around her, softening at the edges until it becomes something rich and tender enough to wrap around a child like a blanket.

You fall in love with him slowly enough to pretend for a while that you are not falling at all.

Maybe it starts with admiration. Maybe with the first time you see him asleep on the couch after a long day, Haneul sprawled across his chest, one of his arms curved around her even unconscious, as if his body itself knows to protect what he loves. Maybe it starts the night Haneul has a fever and Chan comes home early, tie pulled loose, panic tucked beneath composure, and the relief in his face at finding you there with her makes your chest ache in a way that follows you for days.

Maybe it starts a hundred different times, in a hundred small, impossible moments, until one day you realize your affection has become something far deeper and infinitely more dangerous. You never say a word because know your place.

You are the babysitter. The trusted one, yes. The beloved one, maybe. The one Haneul runs to with drawings clutched in her hand and secrets already spilling from her mouth. The one Chan relies on more than he probably means to. But still, the babysitter. Younger than him by five years, still in college, still building a life of your own. Whatever tenderness threatens to gather in the quiet between you is neatly folded away before it can become visible.

You are not careless with his grief. That, more than anything, keeps you still.

Because even three years later, his wife is not a shadow in this home. She is a presence. A photograph in Haneul’s room. A framed wedding picture tucked onto a bookshelf in the living room. A name spoken gently when Haneul asks questions in that childlike way that manages to be both innocent and piercing. Sometimes, when Haneul is already asleep and the apartment has settled into evening, Chan will look at that photograph for half a second too long before thanking you for staying late.

You never mention it. You never need to.

Loyalty clings to him with the same quiet persistence as grief. Not performative, not self-pitying—simply true. He loved her. He loves her still, in the strange enduring way people love the dead, where memory becomes both comfort and punishment. There are parts of him that remain turned toward that loss even while the rest of him keeps moving forward for Haneul’s sake.

You understand this. You respect it. You build your distance around it brick by careful brick.

And yet time has a way of softening edges no one meant to touch.

Haneul is five now, all bright chatter and quick feet and opinions about everything from cereal shapes to which stuffed animals deserve spots on her bed. She has grown out of her toddler roundness into the delicate, lovely little girl she was always going to become, and somehow, without anyone formally deciding it, you have become woven into the rhythm of her life. You know the names of her classmates, the songs from her favorite cartoons, the exact color she calls “princess pink,” though it looks suspiciously like regular pink to everybody else. She asks for you with the unquestioning certainty children reserve for the people they believe belong to them.

And that is where things begin to shift.

Not because you change.

You are still kind in all the same ways, still patient, still thoughtful, still loving with a steadiness that makes Haneul bloom toward you like something reaching for sunlight. You still arrive with little snacks tucked into your bag and kneel to fasten tiny sandals and sit through tea parties where the tea is invisible and apparently scalding. You still love Chan from a distance so disciplined it sometimes feels like another form of prayer.

No, what changes is harder to control because it is not yours alone.

Haneul starts to look at you with something deeper than affection.

Children do not always have the language for the shapes their hearts make, but they feel those shapes with startling clarity. The comfort of you. The safety. The constancy. The way your hands smooth back her hair when she is upset, the way your voice lowers instinctively when she needs soothing, the way you remember every small thing that matters to her.

The resemblance is not in your face or your voice or your mannerisms. It is in the role your love begins to occupy.

Chan notices it before he lets himself name it.

He notices Haneul reaching for you first after scraping her palm on the playground, even with him standing right there. Notices the easy way she leans into your side during movie nights. Notices the childish, unquestioning possessiveness with which she says your name, as though you have always belonged inside the borders of her world. At first, he tells himself it means only that she trusts you, that your presence has become important to her in the natural way caretakers become important to children.

Then one evening, standing in the kitchen while you help Haneul wash paint from her fingers, he looks up and sees the scene in the darkened reflection of the window above the sink.

You with your sleeves rolled to your elbows, smiling softly as Haneul chatters about the family of lopsided paper butterflies she made that afternoon. Haneul looking up at you with that unguarded little face, all trust and attachment and love. The domestic intimacy of it striking the room so cleanly that it takes the air with it.

Something in his expression changes before he can stop it. Because for the first time, the thought does not arrive as a blur. It arrives whole.

Haneul does not just adore you. She is beginning, in the tender unconscious way of children, to love you in a place shaped suspiciously close to where a mother belongs.

And Chan, who has spent three years carrying grief in one hand and fatherhood in the other, finds himself standing at the edge of a truth he does not know how to survive.

Not only because of what Haneul feels. But because when he looks at you now, his gaze lingers.

On your smile. On your patience. On the quiet grace with which you move through his home as if care is your native language. On the life you have breathed into corners of this apartment he thought would stay dim forever.

And worse than that, more frightening than that, is the part he cannot confess to anyone.

His thoughts linger too.

Not in a reckless way. Never that. Chan is not careless, least of all with you. But desire is not always something dramatic or easily shamed. Sometimes it comes dressed as tenderness that lasts a second too long. As awareness. As the dangerous warmth of noticing your beauty when you tuck loose strands of hair behind your ear while listening to Haneul explain a dream in serious detail. As the temptation to stay in the doorway just to hear you laugh again. As the ache of imagining, only for a moment, what it would mean to let himself want something more.

And every single time, loyalty drags him back. Loyalty to the woman he lost. To the life he thought he would still have. To the version of himself who believes moving on must feel like betrayal if it is ever going to count as real.

So he says nothing. You say nothing. And the three of you continue like that, poised on the fragile edge of something unnamed, each day carrying you a little closer to the point where silence will no longer be enough.

That is how you get here.

Three years after a tragedy that rearranged everything. Three years after you first stepped into Chan’s apartment expecting to offer temporary help and somehow became part of the architecture of his life. Three years of bedtime stories and shared routines and feelings tucked away so carefully they have started to sharpen with the pressure of being held.

Now Haneul is five years old, clever and affectionate and much too perceptive for her own good. You are older too, steadier in yourself, though no less cautious. Chan is twenty-eight and still trying to carry everything alone, still devoted, still gentle, still breaking in places no one sees.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, love has begun to gather.

Not the easy kind. The kind that arrives with history. With grief. With guilt and longing and the unbearable hope of being chosen anyway.

The front door unlocks with the familiar click that always seems to travel through the apartment a beat before Chan does, and the moment it does, Haneul’s entire body lights up.

She has been coloring on the living room floor for the last twenty minutes, tongue peeking out in concentration as she presses a purple crayon too hard against the paper, but at the sound of the door, she gasps like something wonderful and long-awaited has finally arrived. Her crayon rolls away forgotten as she scrambles to her feet.

“Daddy!”

Her voice rings through the apartment bright as bells, and then she is gone in a blur of little socks and wild hair, racing across the hardwood with all the unrestrained devotion of a child who has been waiting to see her favorite person all day.

You do not have to look to know what comes next.

Chan barely gets the door shut behind him before Haneul crashes into his legs, her arms wrapping around him with enough force to make him laugh softly under his breath. It is the kind of laugh you have learned to listen for over the years, quieter when he is tired, roughened around the edges after a long day, but always there for her. Always immediate.

“Hey, baby,” he murmurs, his voice worn down by hours of work and city traffic and whatever else the day has managed to drag over him, but turning warm the second he bends down to scoop her up. “Miss me that much?”

“Yes,” Haneul says with the seriousness of someone stating a fact beyond debate, her arms looping around his neck as he lifts her against his chest. “A lot.”

You can picture it without stepping away from the stove. The way his shoulders finally loosen once he has her in his arms. The way his cheek brushes the side of her head. The way exhaustion never disappears from him all at once, but shifts, settles, becomes something gentler the moment she is close enough to hold.

From the kitchen, you stir the sauce one last time and lower the heat, letting the apartment fill with the warm, savory scent of garlic and soy and browned onions. The pan gives a soft, steady hiss under your hand, steam fogging briefly against your wrist before curling away. Rice waits fluffed in the pot beside it, and the vegetables you chopped earlier are soft now, glossy under the kitchen light. It is not anything extravagant, just dinner, just something simple and comforting after a day that has clearly asked too much of him already, but you know by now that sometimes the smallest things land with the most force.

Chan rounds the corner into the kitchen with Haneul still perched on his hip, and the second he sees you standing there in front of the stove, the look on his face shifts.

It is subtle, the kind of thing someone else might miss if they do not know him the way you do. His tie is gone, probably shoved into his work bag the moment he got into the car. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled to his forearms, slightly uneven, and there is a tiredness clinging to him that looks almost physical, something draped over his shoulders heavier than the leather strap of his briefcase.

His hair is a little mussed, his eyes faintly shadowed, and for a second he simply stands there taking in the sight of you in his kitchen, dinner nearly finished, his daughter tucked close against him, home smelling like something warm and lived-in instead of the sterile leftovers of takeout containers or the rushed effort of a meal made too late.

Then his mouth softens.

You know that look too.

It is never dramatic with Chan. Nothing with him ever is. But gratitude moves through him like low light across water, quiet and immediate and deeper than he usually lets anyone see.

“You’re cooking?” he asks, though the answer is obvious.

You smile over your shoulder at him, lifting the wooden spoon a little. “I am. Haneul told me she was starving and then listed six different things she wanted, so we compromised.”

Haneul, entirely unbothered by being exposed, presses her cheek into Chan’s shoulder and says, “I wanted spaghetti and dumplings and fish sticks and mac and cheese and strawberries.”

“And instead,” you say, amusement warming your voice, “she is getting chicken stir-fry, rice, and strawberries after dinner if she eats enough actual food first.”

Chan lets out a breath that almost passes for a laugh, though it still carries the roughness of exhaustion in it. “You’re a miracle, you know that?”

The words come out easy, automatic perhaps, but the way his eyes linger on you as he says them makes something inside you pull a little tighter.

You busy yourself with the pan, even though it does not need much attention anymore. “It’s not a miracle. It’s just dinner.”

“Still.” His voice lowers, quieter now, more sincere. “Thank you.”

When you glance back at him, really look at him, the gratitude sits plain on his face. It does something dangerous to your chest every time, the way he thanks you as though your care is never expected, never owed, always something precious enough to acknowledge. Even now, after years of stepping so naturally into the space his home seems to make for you, he never treats your presence like entitlement. He treats it like grace.

Haneul wriggles, suddenly impatient. “Can I set the table?”

“You can help,” you say.

That is enough to make her squirm out of Chan’s arms at once, her little feet landing hard against the floor before she darts toward the cabinet where the plates are stacked. Chan watches her go, the same way he always does, with that quiet attentiveness that never fully leaves him, and then he exhales slowly, one hand settling on the back of a dining chair as if he needs the pause.

Up close, the weariness on him is even clearer. Not just tired. Pulled thin.

“Long day?” you ask softly.

His mouth tips in something that is not quite a smile. “You could say that.”

He does not elaborate right away. He rarely does, at least not until the apartment has softened around him and Haneul is distracted enough that he can let a little more of the day show on his face. Instead, he loosens the top button of his shirt and steps closer to the stove, drawn in by the smell.

“That smells incredible,” he says. “Seriously.”

“It should be decent,” you reply. “We’ve been taste-testing.”

“We?” he echoes, glancing toward Haneul, who is now carrying forks to the table with great concentration, as though transporting priceless artifacts.

“We meaning me,” you say dryly, “while your daughter declared herself head chef and supervised.”

That earns you a fuller smile this time, brief but real. It changes him every time it happens, makes him look younger than grief and responsibility usually allow. Then his gaze drops to the skillet again, curiosity touching the edges of his expression.

“What is it exactly?”

“Soy-garlic chicken,” you tell him. “With vegetables. The sauce is a little sweet, so Haneul approved.”

“Of course she did.” He studies the pan a second longer, then looks at you. “Where did you learn how to make that?”

The question is casual. So are you when you answer.

“Oh.” You set the spoon down against the rest by the stove and reach for the bowls. “I went to a cooking class once for a first date, and they taught us a version of it.”

The silence that follows is not loud, but it is immediate.

It moves through the kitchen like something invisible suddenly slipping between the cabinets and counters, small but unmistakable. You only really register it when you turn, two bowls in your hands, and find Chan standing exactly where he was a second ago, except now there is something different in his face.

Not anger. Not even disapproval. Just a kind of stillness.

It takes you a moment to understand why.

His eyes rest on you with an unreadable weight, his expression gone carefully neutral in the way it does when he is keeping something behind his teeth. For the briefest second, he almost looks startled, as though the words first date have landed somewhere in him he was not prepared to expose.

You blink, suddenly aware of how oddly intimate the conversation has become for something so harmless.

“It wasn’t recent,” you add lightly, setting the bowls on the table. “It was a while ago.”

Chan nods once, but it is delayed enough that you notice.

“Right,” he says.

That single word is perfectly even. Too even.

You glance at him again, trying not to let your confusion show. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not,” he says, which would be more convincing if he did not still look a little thrown.

A tiny smile starts tugging at your mouth despite yourself. “Chan.”

He drags a hand over the back of his neck, his gaze flicking briefly toward Haneul before returning to you. “You went to a cooking class for a first date?”

There it is. Not accusation, exactly. Just disbelief tinged with something you cannot quite place at first, something quieter and sharper than surprise.

You lean one hip against the counter, suddenly more aware of him than you should be, of the loosened collar of his shirt and the tired line of his shoulders and the way his attention has narrowed entirely onto you.

“Yes,” you say, a little amused now. “That is what I said.”

He lets out a soft breath through his nose, almost scoffing, though there is no edge to it. “That feels…” He pauses, like he is choosing a word he will not regret. “Specific.”

You laugh then, unable not to. “It was specific. The whole thing was supposed to be charming.”

“Was it?”

You tilt your head. “The class or the date?”

His eyes hold yours for a fraction too long. “The date.”

The answer should be easy. It should be nothing. A passing anecdote attached to a recipe and no more important than that. But Chan is looking at you in a way that makes the air feel thinner, and for a second you can feel the shape of something unspoken pressing against the edges of the room.

You look away first, reaching for the strawberries just to have something to do with your hands.

“It was fine,” you say. “Not especially memorable, apparently, since the chicken is what lasted.”

Chan hums quietly, though it does not sound like amusement. Something in his expression shifts again, gentling and darkening at once, a flicker so fast you almost miss it.

Jealousy is not a look you have ever thought to assign him. Not toward you. Not in relation to you. The very idea feels too impossible to touch directly, and yet there is something faintly unsettled in the way he stands there, in the careful blankness he is trying to hold over whatever instinctive reaction your answer has stirred.

He has no right to it. You know that. He knows that too. But apparently knowing does not stop it from existing.

The realization arrives slowly enough to be dangerous.

Chan’s gaze drops for a moment to your hands as you rinse the strawberries, then lifts again to your face, quieter now.

“I guess,” he says, voice low, “I never really think about you dating.”

There is no flirtation in the words. That would almost be easier to survive.

What there is instead is honesty, reluctant and unvarnished, as if the sentence slipped out before he could decide whether to keep it.

Your fingers still beneath the running water. You turn the faucet off carefully. “I date,” you say, aiming for casual and not entirely trusting yourself to hit it.

His jaw shifts almost imperceptibly. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

But he does not sound like he knew. He sounds like someone who has just remembered that you exist outside the borders of this apartment, outside bedtime stories and dinner prep and afternoons spent kneeling beside his daughter to help with tiny shoes and crayons. Like the image of you with someone else has caught him off guard in a way he does not understand well enough to conceal.

At the table, Haneul starts humming to herself while lining up napkins with painstaking precision, blissfully unaware of the strange, fragile thing gathering in the kitchen behind her.

You dry your hands on a dish towel and keep your tone deliberately light, though your pulse has begun doing something inconvenient under your skin.

“It was one date, Chan,” you say. “You look like I told you I ran away to join the circus.”

That gets the smallest laugh out of him, but it is brief, and when it fades, his gaze stays on you.

“Sorry,” he murmurs.

The word lands heavier than it should.

You shake your head. “You don’t have to apologize.”

Maybe he does not. Maybe he does.

He glances down, fingers curling against the back of the chair beside him, his expression tightening in a way that tells you he is aware, at least in part, that he has stepped somewhere he should not have. That whatever flicker passed through him a moment ago does not belong to him. Not with you. Not like this.

When he looks back up, he has smoothed himself out again, though not completely.

“Just surprised me, I guess.”

You could leave it there. You should leave it there. Instead, because some reckless little thread in you wants to tug at the seam and see what gives, you ask softly, “Why?”

Chan’s eyes meet yours, and something in the room stills all over again.

For one suspended second, he looks like he might answer. Really answer. Not with something easy or polite, but with the truth or some dangerous piece of it.

Then Haneul spins around in her chair and announces, “I did the forks all by myself.”

The moment breaks cleanly, almost cruelly.

Chan looks away first, that gentle father-softness returning to his face as he turns toward her. “You did?” he says, moving to inspect the table. “That’s impressive.”

You stand there for a beat longer, dish towel still clutched in your hands, the ghost of that almost-confession hovering between your ribs like heat that has nowhere to go.

Then you follow, setting the bowl of strawberries aside for later and bringing dinner to the table.

Conversation slips back into safer things. Haneul chatters about a girl in her class who insists pink crayons work better than red ones. Chan listens, asks questions, and eats like someone who did not realize until the first bite just how hungry he was. More than once, you catch him looking at you when he thinks your attention is elsewhere, and each time he looks away a second too late, the awareness of it settling over you both like a secret too new to name.

Haneul’s bath time has long since developed its own little rituals, the kind children attach themselves to with fierce sincerity once they decide a routine belongs to them.

One of them is the singing.

It starts nearly a year ago, after a phase where she becomes convinced that closing the bathroom door means vanishing, and though she has long since outgrown the fear itself, the habit remains. Whenever she is in the tub and you are not standing directly beside it, she has to sing the entire time. Loudly, continuously, and with enough enthusiasm that neither you nor Chan ever have to wonder where she is or whether she has decided, in some burst of five-year-old ambition, to attempt something reckless with a wet foot and too much confidence.

Tonight, her voice floats down the short hallway in cheerful, slightly off-key waves, rising and falling over the splash of bathwater.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little starrrr,” she belts from the bathroom, only to abandon it halfway through and pivot into a cartoon song about a rabbit who loves carrots and friendship. The words are mostly wrong. The volume is not.

You smile to yourself as you pull her comforter smooth over the mattress, tucking the corners just the way she likes so she can burrow under them dramatically later and declare herself a sleepy princess. Her rabbit is placed at the top of the bed, facing outward. Her nightlight is plugged in. On the small dresser beside the lamp, the framed photo of her mother catches the soft yellow light and gives it back in a muted gleam.

The room is warm with familiar things. Lavender lotion. Clean pajamas laid out in a neat little pile. A picture book already waiting on the pillow. Haneul’s world always feels especially tender at night, as though the room itself settles into a gentler shape once the day begins to dim.

From the bathroom, her voice rises again.

“I’m a bunny, bunny, bunny in the baaath!”

You laugh under your breath. “Keep singing, baby.”

“I am!” she shouts back, indignant and sincere.

You are fluffing the second pillow when you feel, more than hear, someone stop in the doorway.

Chan does not announce himself right away. He only stands there for a second, one shoulder resting lightly against the frame, watching you move around Haneul’s room with easy familiarity. By now, you know the weight of his silence well enough to recognize when it means thought rather than exhaustion, and tonight there is something deliberate in it.

When you glance over, he has changed out of his work clothes into a soft black T-shirt and gray lounge pants, the lines of the day gentled but not erased. His hair is slightly damp at the temples from a shower, and there is a stillness about him that tells you he has been carrying something since dinner and has finally decided to bring it back out into the light.

Haneul’s singing bounces down the hall again, louder this time.

Chan’s mouth tilts faintly. “She’s really committing to it tonight.”

You smooth your palm over the blanket one last time. “She knows the rule.”

“She also knows how to turn it into a full concert.”

“That too.”

He steps into the room then, slow and unhurried, his gaze brushing over the bed, the pajamas, your hands lingering near the pillow. There is always something dangerous in moments like this, in the domestic ease of them. In how naturally you fit here. In how much less space there seems to be between you when the apartment is quiet and Haneul’s little voice is the only thing filling the air.

For a second, he says nothing. Then, as casually as if he were asking about the weather, he says, “So…that cooking class date.”

You turn your head toward him fully, already suspicious of the neutrality in his tone. “What about it?”

He lifts one shoulder, feigning lightness badly enough that it almost makes you smile. “Nothing. I was just thinking about it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” His eyes flick to the stuffed rabbit on the bed, then back to you. “Guess I’m still surprised.”

There is that word again. Surprised. It shouldn’t needle at you the way it does, but something about it has been sitting under your skin since dinner, unresolved and quietly aggravating.

“Surprised that I can cook?” you ask.

A breath of amusement touches his face. “That’s not what I meant.”

You fold your arms loosely, leaning one hip against Haneul’s dresser. “Then what did you mean?”

From down the hall comes a splash, then an enthusiastic, “Bunny bunny bath time queen!”

Chan exhales softly through his nose, but his attention never leaves you. “I told you,” he says. “I just don’t really think about you dating.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

The words leave your mouth lighter than they feel, sharpened by something you had not intended to show. Chan notices it immediately. You can tell by the way his expression changes, something in it tightening just enough to make the room feel smaller.

“It’s not a problem,” he says quietly.

“No?” You tip your head. “Because you’ve seemed pretty bothered by it for someone who claims it isn’t.”

His jaw shifts. “I’m not bothered.”

You give him a look.

From the bathroom, Haneul transitions into a drawn-out version of the alphabet song, half of the letters swallowed by the echo of tile.

Chan drags a hand over the back of his neck. “I said I was surprised. That’s all.”

“And I said I date.”

The silence that follows is thin and fragile, stretched tight between you.

Maybe if he had left it at dinner, if he had let the moment break and disappear under the noise of plates and Haneul’s chatter, this would still be manageable. But he is here now, bringing it up again in the quiet of her bedroom, after bathwater has started sloshing against enamel and the night has settled enough that every glance feels heavier than it should.

Your heart is beating too hard for something so small.

Chan’s voice lowers. “You know what I mean.”

“No,” you say, and now the frustration is there, unmistakable. “Actually, I don’t.”

His brow furrows, not in anger but in a kind of guarded discomfort, as if this has moved beyond the shape he hoped it would keep. “You’re upset.”

You laugh once, though there is no humor in it. “You’re the one asking follow-up questions about a date I went on forever ago.”

“I asked one question.”

“You brought it back up.”

His eyes flash with something that is not quite irritation and not quite embarrassment, but close enough to both that it catches heat against your own. “Because I was trying to understand why it got under my skin.”

The honesty of that startles you, but only for a second.

“Then maybe you should understand it on your own,” you say, your voice softening in volume and sharpening everywhere else. “Because you don’t get to act weird every time you remember I have a life outside this apartment.”

Chan straightens a little, his face going still in that careful way it does when he feels something too much and is trying not to let it show. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Then what are you doing?”

He looks at you. And there it is again, that unbearable sense of something pressing at the edges of the room, something too big and too dangerous to stay unnamed much longer.

You are suddenly aware of everything. The soft lamp glow. Haneul’s distant singing, now wandering into nonsense lyrics about stars and strawberries and glitter. The framed photograph on the dresser beside your elbow. The fact that Chan is standing only a few feet away and somehow feels both impossibly close and nowhere you can safely reach.

When he speaks, his voice is quiet enough that it almost disappears into the room. “You know I can’t…”

He does not finish. But it’s enough.

All the restraint you have wrapped around yourself for years pulls tight at once, then frays.

“Can’t what?” you ask, and your own voice has changed now too, gone unsteady around the edges. “Be upset that I date? Want to know about my life? Feel anything?”

Chan’s expression flickers, pain and caution moving through it so quickly that you almost miss the distinction between them. “Don’t,” he says. It is not a warning. It is closer to a plea.

“No,” you say, because suddenly you cannot bear this version of him, this version of the two of you, where everything is measured and bitten back and left to rot in silence. “You don’t get to do that.”

His gaze fixes on you, unreadable except for the tension in it. “Do what?”

“This.” You gesture helplessly between you, frustration spilling out now that it has found a crack. “Acting like it bothers you when I date, acting like it means something, and then pretending it doesn’t. Pretending you don’t feel what I feel too.”

The words hang there.

For one terrible second, the room becomes perfectly still.

Even from the bathroom, Haneul’s singing seems farther away, thinner, as though the world itself has pulled back to listen.

Chan does not move. His face changes, but only slightly. A tiny falter. A break in the careful control he wears like armor.

You hear your own pulse in your ears.

The moment after a confession is always stranger than the confession itself. You expect release, maybe ruin, maybe relief. Instead there is only exposure, raw and immediate and impossible to take back.

Chan’s throat works once before he speaks. “You think I don’t know that?” he asks, and his voice is so low it nearly fractures under the weight of it. “You think I haven’t been fighting that every day?”

Your breath catches.

He takes half a step forward, not enough to close the distance, only enough to make it feel deliberate.

“You think I don’t see the way she looks at you? The way you take care of her, take care of us, like it’s the most natural thing in the world?” His eyes search your face, torn open now in a way that almost hurts to witness. “You think I haven’t noticed what this has become?”

Something hot stings behind your eyes before you can stop it. “Then why are you standing there acting like I’m the only one who has to live with it?”

Chan opens his mouth.

And then the apartment splits open with Haneul’s scream.

It is so sudden, so sharp and terrified, that both of you are moving before the sound has even finished leaving her throat.

“Haneul!”

Chan is out the door first, your feet nearly tripping over each other as you rush down the hall after him. The bathroom light is too bright when you burst inside. Haneul is half-sitting, half-sliding in the tub, water sloshed over the edge and onto the tile, her face crumpled in fear as she coughs and cries at once, tiny hands grasping blindly for something steady.

“I slipped,” she sobs. “I slipped, Daddy.”

Chan is on his knees beside the tub in an instant, all the tension from a moment ago gone, replaced by pure parental instinct. “I know, baby, I know. I’ve got you.” His voice is calm despite the fear flashing across his face as he reaches in and lifts her out, dripping and shaking, against his chest.

She is not hurt. You can see that almost immediately. Startled, frightened, maybe swallowed some water when she went under for a second, but not injured. Still, the panic in her is real, and that matters just as much.

Chan cradles her close, one large hand spread protectively over the back of her head while the other rubs slow circles between her shoulders. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, over and over, his voice warm and anchoring even while his own breathing is unsteady. “You’re okay. Daddy’s got you.”

Haneul coughs again, crying harder now, her wet hair plastered to her forehead and cheeks flushed pink from heat and fright. Chan adjusts her against him, trying to soothe her, trying to calm the trembling little body in his arms.

Then she lifts her face, tears clinging to her lashes, and reaches for you. “Mommy,” she cries.

Everything stops. Something inside the three of you, sudden and absolute.

Chan freezes. So do you.

Haneul’s small hand opens and closes toward you, her face crumpling harder as she reaches again through tears and panic, too scared to understand what she has just done, only knowing that she wants comfort and that your name, your shape, your love have tangled themselves in her frightened little heart until this is what comes out.

“Mommy,” she sobs again, desperate this time.

The word lands like a stone dropped into still water, the impact rippling outward too fast to outrun.

Your mouth parts, but nothing comes out at first.

Chan looks at you. It lasts barely a second, maybe less, but the weight of it is enough to make the room tilt. Shock, grief, tenderness, something rawer than both, all flickering through his face before he lowers his eyes.

You move then because Haneul needs you. Whatever this moment is, whatever it will become later, cannot matter more than the little girl crying in front of you now.

“It’s okay, baby,” you whisper, stepping closer. Your hands shake only slightly as you take the towel from the rack and wrap it around her small body. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

Chan hesitates for the briefest second before letting you take her. Not because he is unwilling, but because the transfer itself feels loaded now in a way neither of you can bear to examine. Then Haneul is in your arms, warm and damp and trembling, clutching at your shoulders with frantic little fingers as you gather her close.

You hold her carefully, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other rubbing up and down her spine beneath the towel. “You’re all right,” you murmur into her wet hair. “You just got scared. That’s all. I’m here. Daddy’s here. You’re safe.”

Her sobs do not stop right away, but they begin to soften, breaking into smaller hitching breaths against your neck.

Chan stands. For a moment, he stays where he is, one hand braced against the edge of the sink, his head turned slightly away as though he cannot quite bear the sight in front of him and cannot stop looking at it either.

When he finally speaks, his voice is rough. “I need a minute.”

It is not directed at Haneul. Not really. It belongs somewhere between you and the tiled floor and the word still echoing in the steam-thick air.

He does not wait for an answer. He only drags a hand over his face and steps out, walking past the open door with the kind of rigid control that tells you he is holding himself together by force alone.

The bathroom feels too small after he leaves. Too warm. Too bright. Too full of things that can no longer be mistaken for simple. But Haneul is still in your arms, still trembling, still burying her face against your shoulder as if she can hide there from the fright of what just happened. So you hold her tighter.

You sway on instinct, gentle and slow, your own throat aching with everything you are not allowing yourself to feel yet.

“It’s okay,” you whisper again, pressing your cheek to the top of her damp head. “You’re okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

Outside the bathroom, you can hear nothing from Chan at all.

And somehow, that silence is louder than anything.

You dry her carefully, gently, like she is something easily startled back into fear.

Chan does not come back.

You feel that absence like a second pulse under your skin, but you do not go looking for him. Not yet. Not when Haneul still needs your hands steady, your voice soft, your attention anchored fully in her.

“Let’s get you warm, okay?” you murmur, wrapping the towel tighter around her small body.

She nods against your shoulder, still sniffling, her lashes clumped together with tears.

You help her into her pajamas slowly, guiding her arms through the sleeves, smoothing the fabric down over her back, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head when she leans into you without thinking. By the time you carry her down the hall, her breathing has steadied, but her fingers remain curled into the front of your shirt. 

You sit with her on the bed first instead of laying her down immediately, letting her settle in your lap while you rub slow circles between her shoulders. The nightlight casts a faint glow along the wall, catching the edges of her mother’s photograph and turning the glass into something almost luminous.

Haneul’s voice, when she finally speaks, is small. “I didn’t mean to slip.”

“I know you didn’t,” you say gently. “Sometimes that just happens.”

She sniffles again, then presses her cheek into your collarbone. “I was singing.”

“I heard you. You were doing a very good job.”

That gets the faintest hint of a smile, though it fades quickly, her thoughts clearly drifting somewhere heavier.

You can feel it before she says anything. The shift. The way children carry fear into questions without meaning to.

After a moment, she lifts her head just enough to look at you. “Why did I say that?”

Your heart stumbles. You know what she means. Of course you do.

You smooth a damp strand of hair away from her forehead, buying yourself a second to breathe through the sudden tightness in your chest.

“You were scared,” you say softly. “And sometimes when we’re scared, we just…reach for the people who make us feel safe.”

She watches you carefully, her eyes still glassy with leftover tears. “But I said mommy.”

The word lands differently now. Not sharp like before. Just quiet. Confused.

You swallow gently. “Haneul,” you begin, your voice as steady as you can make it, “your mommy is…she’s in heaven, remember?”

She nods a little, though her expression remains uncertain.

“She’s always looking down at you,” you continue, brushing your thumb lightly across her cheek. “And she loves you so, so much. That doesn’t go away just because she can’t be here the way we wish she could.”

Haneul listens, her brows knitting slightly as she tries to hold onto something too big for her to fully understand.

“And I love you too,” you add, quieter now. “Even if I’m not your mommy.”

Her fingers tighten briefly in your shirt again. “I know,” she says.

The words are simple. Certain. But then her mouth wobbles, and the question that follows breaks something open in a different way. “It’s not fair.”

You blink.

“My friends all have a mom and a dad,” she continues, her voice trembling just enough to make your chest ache. “Why do I only have my dad?”

There is no easy answer for that. There never has been.

You draw her a little closer, pressing your lips to her hair for a moment before pulling back just enough to look at her again. “Sometimes life doesn’t give everyone the same things,” you say gently. “And that can feel really unfair. You’re allowed to feel that way.”

Her lower lip trembles. “I want my mommy.”

The honesty of it is unbearable in its simplicity.

“I know you do,” you whisper, your own throat tightening. “That makes sense. She was yours.”

Haneul leans into you again, quieter now, her small body softening with the weight of her feelings.

“But you know what you do have?” you continue softly, your hand smoothing down her back. “You have a dad who loves you more than anything in the world. You have someone who shows up for you every single day. And that matters so much, even if it doesn’t make everything feel better right away.”

She is quiet for a long moment. Then, very softly, she asks, “Why does Daddy look at you like he looks at Mommy’s picture then?”

The question lands without warning. For a second, you think you might have misheard her. Your breath catches in your throat, your hands going still against her back.

Haneul tilts her head slightly, studying your face with the same quiet curiosity she applies to everything she does not understand yet. “He does,” she says, as if clarifying something obvious. “Sometimes.”

There is no answer ready for that. No careful, gentle explanation you can give that will not unravel something you have spent years keeping neatly contained.

Your mouth opens, then closes. “I…” you start, and stop again.

Because what can you say? That she's wrong? She’s not. That she’s right? You cannot. That her father is a man carrying grief and love in the same breath and does not know how to separate them anymore? That is not something a five-year-old should have to hold.

So you do the only thing you can. You pull her a little closer and press your cheek against her hair. “Sometimes grown-ups look at people in ways that are hard to explain,” you say quietly. “It doesn’t mean anything bad. It just means…feelings can be hard.”

She considers that, her small face thoughtful in a way that makes her seem older than she should be.

Then, eventually, she nods. “Okay.”

It is not full understanding, but it’s enough for now.

You help her lie down, tucking the comforter around her the way she likes, making sure the rabbit is secured in her arms. Her breathing evens out more quickly this time, exhaustion finally catching up with her after the scare, her lashes fluttering as sleep begins to pull at her.

You brush your fingers lightly through her hair. “I’ll be right here,” you murmur.

She hums softly in response, already drifting.

The apartment feels different once you step out of her room.

The hallway stretches a little longer than usual, the light dimmer somehow, as if the walls themselves have absorbed everything that just happened and are holding it close.

You hesitate outside Chan’s door because you can hear him.

Not loudly. Chan does not fall apart in ways that draw attention. Even now, the sound is muffled, contained, like he is trying to keep it from escaping into the rest of the apartment.

But it’s there. A quiet, uneven breath. A stifled sob he does not quite manage to swallow in time.

Your chest tightens painfully and push the door open slowly.

The room is dim, lit only by the low glow of the bedside lamp. Chan is sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows braced against his knees, one hand covering his mouth as he tries to keep himself quiet. His shoulders are hunched forward, the line of his back rigid in a way that tells you he has been holding this in for too long.

He doesn’t notice you right away. Or maybe he does, and he just cannot bring himself to react yet.

“Chan,” you say softly.

He flinches. It’s small, almost imperceptible, but it’s there. Then he drags his hand down over his face, scrubbing hard as if he can wipe away the evidence of what you have just walked in on.

“I’m fine,” he says, voice rough and unsteady in a way that makes the words ring hollow immediately.

You close the door behind you. “No, you’re not.”

For a second, he does not respond. Then his shoulders sag, the fight draining out of him all at once like something finally giving way.

You cross the room slowly, giving him time to pull himself back together if he needs it, though you already know he will not. Not this time.

When you reach him, you don’t ask permission. You simply sit beside him and wrap your arms around him.

And Chan breaks. He leans into you like he has been waiting for something solid to hold onto, his forehead pressing against your shoulder as his breath stutters out of him, quiet and uneven. One of his hands grips at the fabric of your shirt, not hard, just enough to anchor himself, and you can feel the tremor running through him like something too big to contain anymore.

You hold him tighter. Your hand moves up to cradle the back of his head, fingers slipping into his hair the way you have done a hundred times for Haneul, the motion instinctive and soft and steady. “It’s okay,” you whisper, even though you know it is not.

He shakes his head against you. “No,” he breathes, voice breaking on the word. “It’s not.”

You don’t argue. You just let him have it.

The quiet sobs come and go, each one sounding like it has been dragged up from somewhere deep and long-guarded. You stay with him through all of it, your grip firm but gentle, your presence the only thing in the room that feels stable.

After a while, his breathing begins to slow. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” he admits, voice raw.

You close your eyes briefly, pressing your cheek against his hair. “You’re doing your best.”

“That’s not enough.”

The immediate certainty in his tone makes your chest ache.

“It’s for her,” you say softly.

He lets out a shaky breath. “That’s not what I mean.”

You pull back just enough to look at him, your hands still resting on his shoulders. “Then what do you mean?”

Chan hesitates. For a moment, it looks like he might retreat again, pull the walls back up, tuck everything away where it cannot be touched. But tonight has broken that pattern. Something in the way Haneul said that word. In the way you said what you did in her room. In the way he can no longer pretend this is something small and manageable.

He looks at you. And for the first time in a long time, he says her name out loud. “I still love Ki.”

The words land heavy between you. They don’t surprise you, but they do make your heart twist. “I know,” you say gently.

His eyes search your face, almost desperately. “I never stopped. I don’t think I ever will.”

“I know,” you repeat.

That part has never been the problem.

Chan swallows, his throat working around something painful. “But then there’s you.”

Your breath catches.

He lets out a quiet, broken laugh that holds no humor at all. “And I don’t know what to do with that,” he admits. “Because it feels like…” He trails off, shaking his head. “Like I’m betraying her. Like I’m betraying everything we had.”

“You’re not,” you say softly.

“How can you say that?” His voice cracks again, frustration and grief tangling together. “How can I look at you the way I do and not feel like I’m replacing her?”

“You’re not replacing her,” you say, a little firmer now, even as your heart aches for him. “She’s not something that can be replaced, Chan. What you had with her is yours. It always will be.”

He stares at you, torn. “Then what is this?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper.

The question hangs there, fragile and impossible. You feel it too. All of it. The years. The restraint. The love you have buried so carefully it has started to hurt just to breathe around it.

“This is something new,” you say quietly. “Something different.”

He shakes his head again, eyes closing briefly. “It doesn’t feel different. It feels like I’m…” He exhales sharply. “Like I’m letting go of her.”

“You’re not letting go,” you say, your voice soft but steady. “You’re just…making room.”

His eyes open. There is something in them now that you have never seen so clearly before: Hope. Fear. And something dangerously close to the same thing you have been carrying alone for far too long.

He does not move away from you. And you do not let go. Not when the room is still thick with everything he’s just said, not when his breath is still uneven, not when the weight of his grief and his confession and your own carefully hidden feelings have all finally been pulled into the same fragile space.

You just hold him. Your hand stays at the back of his head, fingers threading gently through his hair, the other resting warm and steady against his shoulder. You can feel the slow, gradual shift in him as the storm eases—not gone, not resolved, but quieter.

Chan exhales, long and shaky. Then, after a moment, he leans back just enough that he can look at you.

Your hands slide down to rest lightly on his arms as he pulls away, but neither of you fully breaks contact. There’s still a thread there, invisible but unmistakable, stretched between your bodies and your breathing and the way neither of you seems ready to let the other go just yet.

He looks at you for a long time. Not like before, not like the fleeting glances or the careful, restrained attention you’ve grown used to. This is different. Open. Unhidden. Like he’s finally allowing himself to see you without pulling back at the last second.

His eyes trace your face slowly, as if committing it to memory in a way he hasn’t let himself do until now. Your eyes, your mouth, the soft curve of your cheek where your hair falls loose from behind your ear. There’s something almost disbelieving in it, like he’s trying to reconcile the person he’s known for years with the person he’s just admitted he wants.

You feel it everywhere—in your chest. In your throat. In the way your hands tighten just slightly against his arms without you meaning them to.

“Chan…” you start, quiet, uncertain what you’re even trying to say.

He doesn’t let you finish. “I love you.”

The words are simple. No buildup. No hesitation once they leave him. And yet they land like something enormous.

Your breath catches, your entire body going still as they settle into the space between you. You knew—some part of you must have known, because nothing else could explain the way he’s looked at you, the way tonight unfolded, the way everything has been quietly building for years—but hearing it is different. Hearing it makes it real in a way that can’t be folded away again.

Chan swallows, his gaze never leaving yours. “I didn’t want to,” he admits, voice rough and unguarded. “I tried not to. For a long time.”

You don’t interrupt.. Because he’s still speaking like something is finally spilling out after being held back too long.

“I told myself it was just gratitude,” he continues, a faint, broken smile touching his mouth before it fades again. “That you were good with her, good for her, and I was just relieved. That’s all it was supposed to be.”

Your heart aches at the quiet self-denial in his words.

“But it wasn’t,” he says, shaking his head slightly. “It kept getting harder to ignore. The way you take care of her. The way you just fit here.” His eyes flick briefly around the room before coming back to you. “The way you make everything feel easier without even trying.”

Your fingers curl slightly against his sleeves.

“And I hated it,” he adds, more quietly. “Because every time I realized how much I…” He stops, exhales, tries again. “How much I needed you, it felt like I was losing something I wasn’t supposed to let go of.”

You can see it now, clearer than ever. The war he’s been fighting alone.

“I kept thinking,” he goes on, his voice dipping lower, “if I let myself have this—have you—then what does that say about her? About what we had? About the promises I made?”

You soften, your hand lifting instinctively to his cheek, your thumb brushing lightly along the line of his jaw. “It doesn’t say anything bad,” you whisper.

He leans into your touch without thinking. “I’m supposed to be enough,” he says, and there’s something almost desperate in it now. “For Haneul. For everything. I’m her dad, I’m all she has left, and I feel like if I don’t hold everything together perfectly, then I’m failing both of them.”

Your chest tightens painfully. “Chan…”

“I have to do it all,” he continues, his voice cracking slightly. “Because Ki can’t. Because she’s gone. And if I start needing someone else—if I start wanting someone else—then what does that make me?”

The question isn’t rhetorical. It’s raw. Real. Terrifying in its honesty.

You don’t answer right away. Instead, you let your hand slide fully to his face, cradling it gently, guiding his attention back to you when his gaze starts to drift somewhere far away again.

“It makes you human,” you say softly.

His eyes flicker.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” you continue, your voice steady even as your heart beats harder. “You were never meant to. Loving someone again doesn’t erase what you had with her. It doesn’t mean you’re failing her or Haneul.” You swallow, your thumb brushing once more against his skin. “It just means your heart didn’t stop when she left.”

For a second, neither of you moves. Then, slowly, you lean forward.

The kiss is soft. Tentative in a way, like you’re both stepping into something fragile and sacred all at once. Your lips brush his gently, testing, asking without words if this is real, if this is allowed, if this is something he can accept.

Chan stills completely. Then he exhales into you, something in him giving way all over again.

When you pull back just slightly, your forehead hovering close to his, your voice is barely more than a breath. “You don’t have to do it alone.”

For a heartbeat, he just looks at you. Then his hand comes up, sliding to the back of your neck, fingers warm and sure despite the tremor still lingering in them. And this time, when he kisses you, there is nothing tentative about it.

He pulls you closer, closing the space between you in a way that feels like a decision, like a line being crossed that neither of you can step back from now. His mouth moves against yours with a kind of urgency that has been building for far too long, not rushed but deep, grounding, as if he’s trying to memorize the feeling of you, the reality of this moment.

You respond without thinking, your hands finding his shoulders, then his chest, holding onto him just as tightly as he holds onto you.

Everything else fades. The room. The hallway. The years of restraint. There is only this—the quiet sound of your breathing, the warmth of his hands, the way his grip tightens. 

You both pull back to breathe, and before he can say anything, you speak. “Can I make you feel good? Can I show you how much I love you? ”

Your words hang in the quiet air of Chan’s bedroom, a soft demand that stops the slow sway of your bodies against each other. The light from the hallway casts a long, warm stripe across the floor, painting the edge of the bed in gold. His hands, which had been cradling your hips as you kissed, freeze on your skin.

“All of you,” you whisper, lips brushing his jaw.

Chan looks down at you, his eyes—a deep, tired brown that has finally started to shine again—searching yours. His breath, warm and steady, flows over your cheek. He doesn’t speak. He just nods, a slow, deliberate dip of his chin that feels like the dropping of a final, heavy weight he’s carried for years.

He lets go of you, his fingers sliding from the curve of your waist with a lingering drag. You stand and reach for his sweats before kneeling before him.

The floor is soft through the thin fabric of your summer dress. You look up at him as you peel his sweats and boxers down his legs, your hands working slowly, taking the time to feel the heat of his thighs, the strength in his calves. He pulls his shirt over his head, the fabric falling to the floor beside you. And there he sits before you, completely exposed.

Chan is perfect. His chest is broad, arms defined, shoulders solid, but they carry a permanent slope, a bearing of quiet burden. And between his legs, his cock stands half-hard, a promise waiting to be fully realized.

It’s beautiful to you. Not in a sculpted, idealized way, but in a real way. The shaft is thick, a solid, warm column of flesh with a slight curve upward. The head is a darker shade, a flushed plum color, already glistening with a single, clear bead of moisture at its tip. The skin is smooth, but you can see the faint tracery of veins underneath, a network of life pulsing just beneath the surface. 

You lean forward, bringing your face close. The scent of him fills your nose—the faint, musky aroma of a man, and something deeper, something uniquely his. You don’t speak. You just open your mouth and press your lips to the side of his shaft.

The skin is hot. Silken. You kiss it, a soft, closed-mouth press that makes his whole body shiver. You hear a shaky intake of air above you. Your tongue comes out then, flat and wet, and you lick a long, slow stripe from the base all the way up to the crown. The taste is clean, salty, male. That bead of precum meets your tongue and you take it, a tiny, sweet-bitter pearl that you savor.

You look up at him again. His head is tilted back, his eyes closed. His hands are clenched at his sides, fists balled tight. He’s holding on, you think. Holding on to control, to the memory of how to receive pleasure without guilt.

You want to give him that permission. To shatter that control.

Your lips open wider. You take the head of his cock into your mouth, circling it, sucking lightly. It’s not fully hard yet, but it responds instantly to the heat and wetness of your mouth, thickening, lengthening, the curve becoming more pronounced. You suck harder, pulling more of him inside. Your lips stretch around his girth. You feel the ridge of his crown press against the roof of your mouth, a firm, smooth bulge. Your tongue dances underneath, flicking against the sensitive seam where the head meets the shaft—his frenulum. You trace it with the tip of your tongue, a gentle, teasing stroke that makes his hips jerk forward.

A groan escapes him, low and ragged. It’s the first sound he’s made, and it cracks the quiet like thunder.

You pull back, letting his cock slip from your lips with a wet pop. It’s fully erect now, standing proud and rigid, pointing up toward his stomach. The shaft is thick, a deep, flushed pink. The head is swollen, dark and gleaming with your saliva and his own fluids.

“Chan,” you murmur, your voice husky. “Look at me.”

He forces his eyes open. They’re hazy, unfocused with need. He looks down at you, kneeling before him like an offering, your face level with his sex.

“I want you to feel this,” you say. “I want you to let yourself feel it.”

You don’t wait for another answer. You dive forward again, taking him deep.

This time, you don’t tease. You engulf him. Your lips seal around his shaft, and you push your head forward, taking him as far into your mouth as you can. The head presses deep, nudging at the entrance to your throat. You relax, letting your jaw go slack, and he slides deeper, a hot, solid invasion that fills your mouth completely. Your cheeks hollow as you suck, drawing hard on him.

The feeling is intense for you, too. The weight of him on your tongue. The smooth, insistent pressure against your tongue. The salty, living taste that floods your senses. You move your head back, then forward again, establishing a rhythm. 

Your hands come up to cradle what your mouth cannot take. One hand wraps around the base of his shaft, your fingers squeezing the firm root. The other hand cups his balls, weighing them in your palm, feeling their fullness, their heat. You roll them gently, a soft, kneading massage that makes his thighs tremble.

Your head bobs. Your lips slide along his skin, a slick, wet glide. Each time you pull back, his cock emerges shiny and dripping, coated in a mix of your saliva and his own essence. Each time you plunge forward, your mouth accepts him greedily, swallowing him down.

Chan’s hands come to your head. They don’t push or guide. They simply rest there, his palms on your cheeks, his fingers threading into your hair. It’s a touch of connection, of gratitude. His thumbs stroke your temples.

You increase the pace. Not frantic. Not desperate. But purposeful. Your suction becomes stronger, your tongue more active. You swirl it around his head each time you reach the top, licking across that sensitive ridge, teasing the tiny slit at the tip. You feel him pulse in your mouth, a hard, rhythmic throb that signals his building climax.

His breathing changes. It becomes ragged, shallow pants. His hips begin to move in tiny, involuntary thrusts, matching your rhythm. His cock slides in and out of your mouth with a wet, rhythmic sound—shhhlick, shhhlick, shhhlick.

“God…” he gasps, the word torn from him. “I’m…I’m gonna…”

You know. You feel it. The tension in his shaft, the way his balls draw up tighter against his body, the frantic pulse beating under your tongue. You want it. You want all of it.

You pull back until just the head is in your lips, suckling fiercely, your tongue fluttering against his frenulum in rapid, tiny strokes. Your hand on his shaft pumps in time with your sucking, a tight, milking motion.

His climax erupts. It’s not a single burst. It’s a series of them, a rolling, hot flood that pours into your mouth. The first spurt hits your tongue, thick and warm, a distinct, slightly bitter taste that is purely him. The second follows instantly, another gush that coats your mouth and fills your cheeks. You swallow, taking it down, but more comes. The third, the fourth—a continuous, generous release that you work to accept, sucking hard to pull every drop from him.

Chan cries out, a raw, unfiltered sound of release that echoes in the quiet room. His body locks and he falls onto the bed, his back arching, hands clutching your head. His hips push forward, driving his cock deeper into your mouth as he empties himself completely.

You stay there, sucking gently through the last few pulses, until his shaft softens slightly in your mouth, until the flow subsides. Then you slowly let him slip out.

His cock lays against his stomach, spent, glistening with a mix of your saliva and his own spend. You lean forward and kiss it once more, a soft, affectionate press against the damp head.

You rise then, your knees aching slightly from the floor. You stand before him, wiping your lips with the back of your hand. Chan’s eyes are open, staring at you with a dazed, awed expression. His face is flushed, his chest heaving.

“You…” he starts, but his voice fails.

You smile, a slow, tender curve of your lips before climbing onto the bed with him, straddling his hips. You reach for the hem of your cotton dress, pulling it up over your head and discarding it onto the floor. You’re naked now, save for your panties. You hook your thumbs into the sides of those and peel them down your legs, kicking them away.

You look down at him, at his body spread out before you, at his softened cock resting on his belly. You see the love in his eyes, the trust, the raw openness. It fills you with a warmth that spreads from your heart to every extremity.

You lean down and kiss his mouth. His lips are soft, pliant. He kisses you back, a slow, deep melding of mouths that tastes of shared intimacy. Your hands roam over his chest, feeling the beat of his heart beneath your palm, the rise and fall of his breathing.

“Do you have a condom?,” you whisper against his lips.

He nods. You reach over to the bedside table, to the small drawer and take one out, the foil packet cool in your hand. You open it, and you roll the latex down his length with careful, tender hands. He’s already beginning to stir again, his cock responding to your touch, filling out once more beneath the sheath.

When he’s protected, you position yourself over him. You kneel on either side of his hips, looking down at the junction of your bodies. Your own sex is ready, aching for him. You’ve been wet for a long time now. You can feel the heat pooling between your legs, the slippery evidence of your desire coating your inner thighs.

You guide his cock, holding it steady and lower yourself, slowly, letting the crowned head press against your entrance.

Your vulva is swollen with anticipation. The outer lips are plump, a deeper pink than usual, parted slightly by your own moisture. The inner lips are slick, glistening, framing the opening that now welcomes him. You feel the pressure of his tip against your flesh, a firm, promising nudge.

You sink down. The head of his cock enters you, pushing past your outer lips, penetrating your opening. The feeling is exquisite—a slow, stretching fullness that makes you gasp. Your walls are snug, gripping him immediately as he slides deeper. You feel every inch of his progress, the smooth drag of his shaft along your sensitive, soaked inner flesh.

You go down until you’re seated fully on him, his entire length buried inside you. Your body accepts him completely. Your walls stretch to accommodate his girth, hugging him tightly. The head of his cock presses deep, reaching a place that makes your eyes flutter. 

You stay there for a moment, just feeling him. Feeling the connection. The heat. The perfect fit.

Then you begin to move. You rise up, a slow, deliberate lift that drags his cock almost entirely out of you, until just the head remains nestled inside. Then you sink back down, taking him in again, a smooth, gliding descent. Your hips roll as you do it, a gentle, circular motion that grinds his shaft against your walls.

The pace is slow. Sensual. There’s no frantic pounding, no desperate race. This is a joining, a communion. Each upward lift is a tease, a near-separation that makes you both ache. Each downward plunge is a reunion, a filling that makes you both sigh.

Your breasts move with your rhythm. As you rise and fall, they bounce in a soft, circular dance, their weight shifting with each motion. Chan’s eyes are fixed on them, watching the movement, the way your nipples harden and peak in the cool air of the room.

Your hands find his chest. You splay your fingers over his pectorals, feeling the firm muscle underneath. You lean forward, changing your angle, and this shifts the sensation inside you dramatically. Now, as you sink down, his cock rubs directly along the front wall of your pussy, stroking over your most sensitive spot—the swollen, hungry bundle of nerves just inside your entrance.

A sharp, sweet pleasure bolts through you. Your breath catches. You moan, a low, continuous sound that spills from your lips without thought.

“Chan…oh, that’s…right there…”

He understands. His hands come to your hips, not to control, but to feel. His palms cup your bottom, feeling the flesh there jiggle and tighten with each of your movements. Your ass is firm, and as you ride him, it claps softly against his thighs, a gentle, rhythmic percussion of flesh.

You speed up slightly. Your rises are higher now, pulling him almost completely out before you take him back in with a smooth, wet slide. The sound of your joining fills the room—a soft, slick, repeating noise of flesh meeting flesh, of moisture spreading.

Inside you, the feelings multiply. Each time his cock enters, it stretches your opening wide, a brief, glorious pressure that gives way to a smooth glide. Your walls clasp around him, squeezing, then relaxing as he pulls back. The condom makes a slight difference—a faint, latex texture over his skin—but the heat, the size, the shape of him are all there, transmitted through the thin barrier.

His own pleasure is rebuilding. You can see it on his face. His eyes are half-closed, his mouth open in a silent, sustained groan. His hips begin to meet yours, pushing upward as you come down, adding his own force to your movements. The union becomes a collaboration, a shared rhythm.

Your clit, swollen and exposed, rubs against the base of his shaft with each of your downward strokes. The friction is indirect, but constant, a building stimulation that starts to coil a tight spring of tension low in your belly.

You lean forward further, bracing your hands on his shoulders. This changes your angle again, and now his cock is driving even deeper, pressing firmly against that front wall, stroking over your G-spot with every inward motion. The sensation is overwhelming, a deep, internal massage that makes your whole body shudder.

“I love you,” you whisper, the words coming out between gasps. “I love this…I love being with you like this…”

Chan’s eyes open fully, locking with yours. His hands slide from your hips to your back, pulling you closer against him. “I love you,” he rasps, his voice thick with emotion and arousal. “I feel…I feel alive again. With you.”

The words, the connection, the physical joining—it all combines, pushing you toward your own peak. The coil inside you tightens, winding tighter with every stroke, every deep fill, every grind of your clit against him.

Your movements become more urgent, though still controlled. Your rises are quicker, your descents more forceful. Your breath comes in sharp pants. Your breasts bounce more vigorously now, a faster, more pronounced dance. Your ass cheeks slap against his thighs with a firmer sound, a rhythmic beat that matches the pounding of your hearts.

Inside, your pussy is drenched, flooded with your own fluids. The condom is slick with them, making each stroke smoother, easier. Your walls grip him tightly, then release, a pulsing clasp that seems to pull him deeper each time.

You’re close. So close. The spring is wound to its limit.

Chan feels it too. His thrusts become more insistent, his upward drives meeting your downward rides with perfect timing. His cock is a hard, relentless piston inside you, stroking, filling, claiming.

You cry out, a sharp, broken sound as the spring finally snaps.

Your orgasm isn’t a single burst. It’s a rolling, wave-like series of contractions that grip your entire lower body. Your cunt clenches around his shaft in rapid, intense pulses, a squeezing rhythm that milks him through the condom. Your clit flares with a sharp, electric pleasure that radiates out through your pelvis. Your thighs shake. Your back arches.

You see stars behind your closed eyelids. A hot, blinding release floods through you, leaving you gasping, trembling, clinging to his shoulders.

Chan follows you, pushed over the edge by your internal convulsions. His hips buck upward, driving deep as he holds you tight. His own climax, muted by the condom, is still a powerful, physical event. You feel his body stiffen beneath you, feel the hard, throbbing pulse of his cock inside you as he finds his release. His groan is long, drawn-out, a sound of complete surrender. “Oh my God,” he pants out, throat raw.

You collapse forward onto his chest, your body spent, your muscles loose. You lay there, his cock still inside you, both of you joined, both of you breathing in ragged, synchronized gasps. The room is quiet again, save for the sound of your panting, the faint rustle of the sheets.

Slowly, carefully, you lift yourself off him. His softened cock slips out of you, the condom slick and full. You dispose of it quietly, then crawl back onto the bed beside him, curling into his side.

He wraps an arm around you, pulling you close. His skin is hot, damp with sweat. His heart beats a strong, steady rhythm against your ear.

“Stay,” he murmurs, his voice sleepy, thick with contentment. “Please don’t leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Channie.”

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This moment had been what y/n and Chris were looking forward to for what felt like the longest time. Being married to Chris for the last three years has truly been an absolute dream. Everything was going great. Chris is the kindest, most perceptive husband alive. Always taking such good care of y/n. Everything had been going perfectly. The only thing missing was the small bundle of joy that they both had been hoping for, for as long as they could remember. 

y/n had been feeling rather rough these past few weeks. A little more tired at the end of each day, some brain fog, and even some nausea. At first, she just brushed it off, thinking it was stress. The only thing was that her period had yet to start. Y/n tried not to let her mind wander, but she couldn’t help but get excited when thinking that she might be pregnant. 

Y/n was hiding from Chris in their shared walk-in closet. She was a naturally very shy and nervous person. While she was so excited to take the test, she had no idea how to tell Chris. Even though they talked quite often about how badly they wanted children of their own. 

“Babyyyyyyyy. Where is my baby at?” Chris said as he wandered around looking for his sweet wife. “Babygirl, where are you? You were just down here a few minutes ago.” Chris wandered into their shared bedroom and saw the light in their closet on. “Hmm, that’s weird.” Chris thought out loud. Then he saw y/n sitting on the floor, looking rather stressed.  “Wah, baby! This is where you went? What are you doing sitting on the floor?” he chuckled. 

Chris then sat right next to y/n, pulling her into his arms. Pressing light kisses to the top of her head. “Mmmwah. Mwah. Mmwahh.”  Y/n laughed even though she was overwhelmed by all the possible ways Chris could react. Even though the rational side of her brain knew that Chris would be nothing but absolutely ecstatic to learn he would be a father. 

“What's going on, babygirl?” Chris said sweetly. “You seem a little nervous. What’s got my baby feeling this way?”

Y/n finally took her head out from where she buried it in his neck, and smiled through her tears. “Chris, I uhm… I think I might be pregnant.” and then she quickly shoved her head back, too worked up to look at his loving brown eyes. 

“Oh… Really? Like, you're not joking?” Chris said calmly, despite the words his wife had shyly muttered. “Honey, would you mind letting me see your sweet face?”

y/n giggled in his neck but decided to finally look at her husband's sweet eyes. “Yes, baby. I think that I might be pregnant. I already got the tests and everything. I’m just too scared to take them. I want you to be there with me.” Y/n said in her sweet but shy voice. 

Chris smiled so sweetly at her. He was overcome with so much love and affection just watching her that he couldn’t help but squeeze her in a hug and press kisses all over her face.” 

“Ewwwww.” then a giggle. Then a yelp and,  “CHRISTOPHER.” The couple fell into a fit of laughter. They each started to poke at each other and press little kisses to each other's faces. 

It was times like this when y/n felt even more overcome with such love and affection for her husband. The way that Chris knew she felt very nervous and a little overwhelmed, he knew exactly how to calm her down and get her distracted. Giving her kisses and squeezing her in sickly sweet hugs. 

Chris would do anything to see her smile and to hear her warm laughter. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    

After a few more minutes of them goofing off, y/n decided that she would go ahead and take the test. y/n went to their shared bathroom and came out a few minutes later with a nervous but excited look on her face. She couldn’t bear to stay away from Chris any longer, so she immediately went and grabbed onto his arm. Chris hooked his long, muscular arms around her body and pulled her into his chest, hugging her oh so tightly. 

Y/n pulled back and smiled at Chris. “Okay, I took the test, and it should only be about three minutes until it gives the response,” she said. 

“How do you feel, babygirl? We don’t have to look right when the three minutes are up. I will be right here with you the entire time.” Chris said while pressing kisses to her forehead and nose. 

y/n giggled through her reply, “I actually feel okay. I’m not as nervous as I thought I would be. But I still want you to be there when we look.”

“Oh, of course. I’m going to be right there, baby.” Chris replied sweetly. 

Y/n looked down at the timer on her watch. It was getting closer and closer to the answer that could change their entire lives together. She grabbed his hand and dragged him with her the few steps to their bathroom. 

As the couple walked in and stood together, Chris was standing behind y/n with his hands wrapped around her. They look at the stick, then glance at each other through the mirror. 

“I want you to know that no matter what this stick says, I am going to love you through it. I will love you if it says ‘Pregnant’ and I will love you if it doesn't. When the time is right, we will have our own little family.” Chris smiled calmly. 

Just then, the timer y/n set sliced through their wholesome moment.

“Chris! I’m scared. I don’t want to look. But I do. AH, I don’t know.” Y/n said as she turned in his arms and hid her face against Chris’s chest.

“Oh, baby. C’mere. It’s all going to be okay.” Chris chuckled but held her tight. “Listen, I can look at it if you don't want to. I don’t mind.”

Y/n looked up at him shyly, “Well, I kind of want to look, but can you stay right here with me?”

Chris smiled down at her, “Of course, baby. I don’t plan on moving any time soon.” 

“Okay, I think that I’m ready to look,” Y/n muttered nervously. 

Y/n then turned around and picked the test up. She flipped it over, and both of them gasped.

PREGNANT

Chris immediately picked y/n up and squeezed her into the tightest hug. He pressed loads of kisses to the top of her head. Y/n giggled and squeezed him back just as tight. 

“Chris! This means that I’m going to be a mom! Oh my gosh, this means you’ll be a dad!” she grinned. “Oh, I. Wait, that means there’s a baby inside of me.”

“Yes, baby! You’re going to be a mum, and I will be a dad!” Chris said excitedly.

Chris then proceeded to set y/n down and then kneel down so his head was level with her tummy. “Hi, baby. I’m your daddy. I promise to take the best care of you and your mum. Please be kind to her. She is the best woman I know. She and I love you so much.”

Y/n started to cry at how sweet Chris was being. “Oh, Chris. You’re going to make me cry. You’re so sweet. You are meant to be a dad.”

Chris looked up at his wife and her beautiful face, despite the tear marks. “Don’t cry, baby. It’s okay,” he pressed his hands to her cheeks and brushed his thumbs to wipe away some of the tears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sun had now gone down, the moon and the stars shining in all of their beauty. Chris and y/n are cuddled up in bed, still in such a state of bliss. 

Chris lay on his back, shirtless of course, with his arm wrapped around his wife, who lay on his chest. Y/n presses soft kisses to his chest, while Chris runs his hand through her hair.

“Can you believe that we’re going to be parents? This all still feels so surreal to me,” y/n whispered. She had her arm resting over his chest, her fingers reaching to play with the curls at the nape of his neck. 

Chris smiled down at his wife and kissed her head. “I mean… I had a feeling it would stick with the trick I tried,” he said smugly, knowing it would get a reaction out of y/n.  

“CHRISTOPHER. You little brat. Here I am, all excited for our future, and you’re being a little perv.” Y/n said through a laugh. 

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“Sweetheart,” your husband’s voice got you out of your planning reverie, overthinking, he calls it. He had momentarily stopped turning the grocery store into the Formula 1 Grand Prix and looked at the Items in your hands, “Are we almost done? It’s his nap time soon, and we have yet to have lunch…”

“Right,” you said dropping the Items in the carts and ran a hand over Dae-min messy curls he got from his father, “we don’t have any freezer items that could go bad…so I was thinking we could get some of that rotisserie chicken from the shop outside …and Dae can start his nap in the car on our way back…”

Chan's eyebrow rose for a moment. “Rotisserie chicken?”

“Yeah, hadn’t had that for a long time…”

His lips tugged into a sheepish smile, amused, “Sounds good, babe.”

A few moments after paying, your little family settled into a cozy booth nestled in the corner of the food court. Now that he had won the Grocery Aisle Grand Prix, the almost three-year-old suddenly discovered another urgent sensation: hunger. And once that realization struck, there was no stopping him.

Dae-min, once he spotted the chicken rotating, kept yelling, “Uncle Bboki, Uncle Bboki” flailing his limbs around with wild enthusiasm, conducting a chaos orchestra….

” Uncle Bboki, Uncle Bboki!” 

Uncle Seungmin probably had taught him that…

As you reached for Dae-min’s toddler legs, which were bicycle-pedaling now, as he still kicked to join his father, to fit into the horrendously impractical kids' seat. 

Whoever designed them didn’t think that kids thought sitting down to eat was the worst thing on earth.

Chan got your guy’s order, of chicken, drinks, fries, and…coleslaw, you didn’t remember telling him that you wanted some…but he somehow knew you’d like.

Dae-min’s excited eyes glowed when he saw the spread, ignoring the chicken for the fries his appa was cutting into smaller pieces for him, holding out his arms, pudgy hands opening and closing in rapid motions that matched his kicking feet, “Gimme Gimme Gimme”

“Bahng Dae-min, how do we ask appa nicely?”

“Appaaaaa” Dae said, lengthening the last syllable sweetly and using a combination of his boba eyes and dimples, “may I please have Flies!”

Chan chuckled at his mispronunciation.

“Yes, Baby, you may have Flies.” he mirrored his inflection and added, “I’ll give them to you once they are cool enough so you can eat them.”

You use the time to get on your phone to put some things from your mental checklist into your notes app. There was still so much to do and organize before Dae-min’s first day, and in addition, you had to coordinate something for an upcoming wedding of a client until Thursday, too.

Getting back to work as an event manager after having an active child that kept up most of your brain’s capacity captive…that and the heat of summer was making the cogs in your brain turn even slower.

A cool touch to your cheek made you come back into reality, and you saw Chan holding a cold drink to your face

“She’s back again…” he smiled, and put the drink in front of you, with a small command, “hydrate…” Before pulling off part of his chicken for Dae-min, “Y/n I don’t want you stressing so much, darling…. Remember, it’s going to be fine…we outsourced a lot of the side dishes to our friends…my parents are going to help with the prep… Dad’s even said he’s gonna prep the barbecue…you know that he doesn’t let anyone else go near his meat prep.”

“Yes…I know“ you said starting to eat from your chicken, dang this tasted good, “But it’s Dae-mins’s first birthday, he’ll actually remember.”

“Yes…” Chan added and pushed the coleslaw towards you, “but I also want you to enjoy the day…and not crash, after our guests left on the sofa like last year….”

He sighed, “I’m helping you this year…remember that…we all are….. Hyunjin and Jisung even volunteered to do the Balloon Arch.

“They are gonna fight like they are their pre-debut selves again.”

“They are adults…they can handle arguments now.”

“Well… They’re gonna cry…..just warning you…”

“I’m used to dealing with crying…. Aren’t I buddy?” he glanced at his son, who looked up, clearly not having a clue about the conversation they had just had, but nodded, beaming because it was his dad he was looking at. 

“Yes, appa…. May I have Uncle Bboki?” he gestured to the chicken.

Chan laughed, “We really have to stop letting Seungmin teach him those things when he babysits.”

As predicted, his belly full, Dae-min fell asleep just as he was buckled into his car seat, despite his protest that he wasn't tired at all, another thing he got from his dad. Chan showed you the demo of the newest song he was working  on the way back, wanting your opinion on the matter.  You left the AC in the car running while bringing in the grocery bags with Chan, the heat outside making you start to sweat.

“Sweetheart, why don’t you go inside and start putting things away while I get the last bags and Dae…..get inside you look like you’re melting…”, he said and tapped your behind for good measure, “I got this…”

While putting away the groceries, your mind drifted back to lunch, the taste of the chicken still lingering in your mouth, making you want more; maybe you should go back there tomorrow.

“Say babe…” You said when you heard the shuffle of Chan getting back into the house, “We used to have this chicken a lot a while ago….why did we stop having it again?”

You lifted your head and watched as your husband came into the room, Dae-min nestled against his neck on one arm, while he patted your son’s back. In his other hand, he carried grocery bags, carefully balancing as he moved.

His Muscles? ….bursting

Him?…..subtle flexing

The veins in his forearms?….popping.

Your brain?..... rotting

He caught your gaze, and the corners of his lips twitched into a smile. “Care to help me out so I don’t drop our son?”

“Y-you’d never do that anyway,” you murmured, but took the bags from his hand so he had it easier to carry Dae.

“Never,” he said sincerely but softly, shifting so Dae drooled on his shirt and not into his neck, “I’ll be right back…” He said, and then went to put his son down in his room.

Halfway through the groceries, you decided to fix a refreshment and put pineapple and watermelon into the mixer to get some juice.

The buzz of your phone, a confirmation about the delivery and setup of the bouncy castle, and the people around you made you go into planning mode again. You still had to get the party favors for the few kids that would be there from Dae-min's playgroup, and had to make sure that the members of Stray Kids also got some shark-shaped water guns Dae-min carefully selected to be part of the favors.

A gentle hand on your lower back called you back to reality, “Daydreaming again, my sweet?”

Chan was back and set the baby monitor on the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, sorry, I think this weather is doing something to my head…” You said and offered him a glass of freshly made juice.

“Yeah, you looked kind of thirsty…” he smirked and sipped. “This is nice…especially after the food…” He glanced over the shopping, half of it already put away, “Let’s get this done…”

It was a comfortable quiet with the two of you putting away the chaos, tag teaming in silence, only occasionally disrupted by the sipping of juice.  You caught his glances, watching you with a careful interest, probably trying to catch you in the moment of daydreaming again.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, pushing back the hair that fell into his face.

“Lunch,” you said honestly, “The chicken was so delicious.”

Chan laughed, “Dae said the same thing when I tucked him into bed….glad we don’t need a DNA test to prove he is yours.”

“Good since he is a mini-you…” You murmured, “Ditto-copy dimples and all...”

His eyes softened when he looked at your son in the image displayed on the baby monitor. Dae turned in his sleep to hug his Sharkplushie, which he recently got.

“He was pumped to go swimming in the pool with you,” you murmured, wrapping an arm around Chan’s waist, digging your nose into his back, “So better be ready to hop in after his nap….

He turned around, arms embracing you, “Aren’t you gonna join us?”

 “You and I know that we bought this house with a pool for you and you only…. I might dip my feet in, but you and your son are part aquatic animals after all….”

“Sharks…” Chan smiled, dimples showing, “Daeminnie insists.”

“Right… Sharks”

A  while later…

You sat on the little piece of carpet right by the coffee table in the living room, laptop between your legs, hair up in a bun, and some files scattered around you like petals in spring. Your work phone, regularly buzzing with updates, and next to your private one, receiving messages now and then from people who ask if they could help you out in any way.

Naa you were good, AC in the house plus sitting to proximity to the cooling tiles….a drink…you were fine, this was fine. The tapping of little (and big)  feet let you know that your son and husband were making their way over to you, and you glanced up to look at Dae, in his post nap glory, dressed and ready for his pool afternoon with his appa. Behind him, in hot pursuit, Chan, swimming trunks on, as per usual, was allergic to any type of shirt in the vicinity of the house. 

Not that you minded. 

You ogled.

God forbid, a girl had hobbies.

“Dae-min-ah,” Chan said, struggling to get the clasp on Dae-mins swim vest to open, “Come here so I can put this on you buddy…”

“Nooo…I can swims…harabeoji taught me,” the toddler insisted. Fair, having your swimming coach grandfather teach you since he was small was a bonus.

“It's not about ability, Daeminnie …but about safety.”

“But its…its…” Dae stopped his little mind trying to find the words to formulate the issues he was having with the garment, lips pouty, and you saw that he was struggling to find the words in both Korean and English. 

“Deep breaths, Sarang,” you gently encouraged him…” What's wrong with the vest?”

“It does this…” Dae-min said, his thumb and pointer finger moving towards each other like a crab’s claws would. “Here!” he added, pointing below his armpit and neck.

“Oh, it pinches you,” you said and took the jacket from Chan’s hands, overseeing the straps, then held it out in front of Dae. “Yeah…this might be a little tight….I think you grew again….”

“With the amount he eats,” Chan kneeled to observe the size issue with you, “You are growing so quickly you might stop being fun sized buddy…”

“Snack time is important,” Dae-min defended himself, kicking his feet, “Can I go into the pool now?”

“Not yet, Buddy…” Chan looked at you,“ I think it's time….. I know the surprise was for his birthday but… I’d rather buy him something else next week than have a toddler that's too hyper to go to bed tonight because he didn't get his energy out during his swimming time….we have plans tonight…”

You sighed, ignoring the blush caused by Chan uttering the last sentence in a very Christopher way, “Yeah, we might as well…. I just have to remember where I hid it….”

You tried to remember where you had hidden Dae-min's birthday presents from the curious toddlers' hands…there were several places in the house, but your mind wouldn't let you access the memory storage.

“It’s either in the sock drawer in our closet….or behind the pasta….” Chan helped. “That’s where you last stored the Christmas presents….”

“Right….it's in the sock drawer… Keep him occupied and happy.” You snapped your finger and moved to retrieve the item. 

Chan saluted. 

When you returned a few minutes later, your husband and son were breaking it down to the sound of Baby Shark, the cursed song that has been on a loop in this house ever since Dae-min was small. No wonder he loved Sharks so much.

“Look Dae-min-ah,” you said, holding out the vivid blue swim fin swimming aid, “This can help you stay afloat in the pool and looks…

“Awesome!” Dae-min yelled out, beaming, “I can be a real shark now!  Hunt appa!”

“Right…but remember no biting…” you chuckled and moved to put it on him, “This will be a little different from the vest Sarang….so you need to get a feel for it in the water….its usually for big kids but appa and I know that you can swim well and would tell us if you get tired or feel weird right.” “Safety first,” Dae-min parroted the phrase he had heard lots of times, but the wiggling of his toenails told you how excited he was.

“Remember, appa will keep you safe,” you said, adjusting the strap of the swimming aid.

“Always,” Chan added, ruffling Dae-min's hair…” Now sun protection….I’ll get you while eomma gets appa’s back…what about it?”

“You could just wear a UV shirt, you know…” You sighed but reached for the sunscreen nonetheless.

The joyful screams and splashing distracted you from your work, so you eventually succumbed and closed the laptop, put away the work phone, and came out to sit in one of the lounge chairs after fixing a snack for your boys.

When you got out, you were balancing a tray with an assortment of snacks. 

Dae-min was in hot, sharky pursuit of his father, paddling through the pool with fierce determination. As soon as he reached him, Chan scooped the boy up and, with a grin, tossed him gently a few feet away, back into the water. Dae-min landed with a splash, erupting in gleeful giggles.

 “Oh no, you almost got me…” Chan cried in mock horror. “These shark-infested waters are terrible!”

“Would the sharks mind a little refreshment?” you asked, hands on your hips and dipping your foot into the water. “I got blueberries, watermelon, and goldfish crackers.”

“Shark-min likes goldfish,” your son exclaimed, and paddled himself to the shallow end of the pool to the edge and lifted his arms,  “eomma….uppies?”

You grabbed a big towel before kneeling and lifting him out of the water, embracing him in Turkish cotton.

“Did you have fun?”

He giggled, pressing a kiss onto your cheek, curly hair dripping with pool water as he shook his head like a dog, trying to get dry, “Lots …appa didn’t have a chance, I am too fast…”

He made race car noises again, gesturing wildly.

“Your appa is getting old,” you nodded, carrying Dae-min over to the lounge chairs, and sat down to pat him dry.

“Betrayal by my own wife and son,” Chan said, getting out of the water, the UV tank he somehow bothered to put on, clinging to his body.  When he caught your gaze, he smirked, and did it even more slowly, and you realized that it had been for this exact moment he put it on in the first place.

“How did he do?” you said after Dae was busy devouring his snacks, and you made sure Chan got the wrap you plated for him. “With the new aid and all”

“At first, it was a little strange for him to move…. This gives him a lot more freedom to move than the vest, but he’s a tough guy and tried it out, and it worked. Usually, kids older than him have trouble swimming with that…. He’s a great kiddo…but I am biased.”

He sighed, running his hand through his hair. It was getting long again.

Yeah, you are biased too…

Later, after some snacking, rest, and reapplying sunscreen, the boys returned to their aquatic habitat while you watched from the safety of your lounge chair. Eventually, you went inside to start preparing dinner while Chan and Dae rinsed off by the pool. After dinner, you tucked Dae into bed for the night.

His eyes were fighting to stay awake, arms tight around the shark plushie.

“Eomma….may we have Uncle Bbokki again when I wake up…and play sharks with appa?” he murmured, squishing the plushie to his chest, “and cuddles with eomma…. Sharks are cool…”

He kept babbling until his breaths slowed into that familiar rhythm that told you he was fast asleep for the night.

Baby monitor in tow, you made your way back to the kitchen, where Chan was cleaning up the dishes from dinner. He looked up from the plate he was putting away.

“That was quick…he usually takes longer.”

“Baby Shark was exhausted,” you said with a yawn, and stretched, “He kept babbling on how much fun today was…”

“Yeah, he does that,” Chan chuckled, “His tired babbles are the best…only second to yours.”

“I don’t babble when I’m tired…”

“Sure Y/n…”

You rolled your eyes, glancing around the kitchen, “Damn…you’re all done…”

“What can I say… I am efficient…” he reached out to pull you close by your belt loops, “I see someone else being very tired…”

“It’s the weather….” You yawned against your will. It was hot, and the fatigue made you want to just crawl into bed…. Maybe you should do afternoon naps too…Dae seems to like it.  That sounded like a good plan for tomorrow. Work from home, getting some rotisserie chicken again, then napping…

Chan’s eyes observed you carefully, “Are you thinking about chicken again?”

Your eyes widened, caught  “Yeah…Dae wants a do-over of today…chicken and pool.”

“Sounds good…” your husband chuckled and nuzzled your neck,  “But now I want attention and cuddles from my wife…you keep being distracted and not paying attention to me.”

“Gosh, you are so much like Dae-min…same pout…”

“Meanie….” he murmured against your neck, “And no, he might look like me, but he is like you…. Proof one...you both are obsessed with rotisserie chicken. Proof two, I’m obsessed with both of you…Proof three….you both snort the same way when you laugh.””

“Now you’re the one being mean,” you said, wiggling out of his grasp, giggling, and snorting when his tight hold proved true.

“See…and now I need your attention,” Chan moved swiftly to pick you up to carry you to your bedroom. “I was thinking since we have a visual mini me…how about a mini you next…”

“I just started to get back working again,” you laughed, squeezing his arm.

“Boo, work is bad for your health…quit…” he complained, finally setting you down on your bed and stepped a bit away.

“Says the workaholic,” you reached for him, your hands opening and closing in rapid motions, …then paused because Chan was looking at you. Again, curious and calculating. 

“Say…sweetheart….you asked me earlier today…why we didn’t have rotisserie chicken for the longest time…” 

“Yes….it really was a long time ago we had it…and at the time pretty frequently….when was it…” 

The energy shifting into something uncertain made you nervous, causing you to fold your hands in your lap. 

“You’re a smart girl…try to remember…”

You tried to fight through the discombobulated swirl of thoughts. It had been a while… and that particular rotisserie chicken? You’d only had it when Dae was tiny… wait, no…. Dae hadn’t been born, actually…not yet.

Oh.

“This was a craving I had when I was… pregnant with Dae…” you murmured, more to yourself than to him, rubbing the soft fabric of the duvet, “I craved it quite often actually and suddenly didn’t anymore when he was born….”

Your hand paused mid-motion, eyes widening as the realization hit. 

You slowly lifted your head to face him.

Chan had dropped to a casual kneel in front of you, arms resting loosely on his knees, eyes studying your face. A knowing smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he gave a single, slow nod, “Yeah…”

“You think?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper, uncertain and breathless.

He pushed off the ground and sat beside you, his expression softening as he put an arm around you, grounding you against his warmth, “I’m assuming... the fatigue, the distractedness,” he said gently, rubbing your shoulder. “Could be a coincidence...but we should make sure.”

Your pulse quickened. You stepped back with a nervous laugh, your hand going instinctively to your belly, “I’m gonna check in the morning… I think I still have a test!”

Excitement tangled with a thread of fear, and a swirl of nervous energy bubbled up in your stomach.

“We just got out of the diaper changing age….Dae finally sleeps through the night…. Are we ready to do it all over again?

“With you and me...we’ve got this,” he said softly. “Us against the tantrums and the chaos and...whatever else comes with it. We’ve had plenty of practice in that department.”

He smiled, eyes crinkling with quiet hope, and added, “I’m secretly hoping for a girl next…”

A sudden doubt clouded your mind, “What if it's just a coincidence? What if I am not…”

Chan’s lips curved into a sly smile as he leaned in closer to kiss you behind your ear. “Then we’ll just try… we’ve had plenty of practice in that department too...”

You snorted, he laughed, and pulled your head into his lap.

“One way or another, “Chan mumbled, stroking your hair. “We got this….”

The quiet stretching around you, air filled with future possibilities. More little feet running, grocery aisle Grand Prix, plushies, giggles, lullabies, and dance moves to nursery rhymes.

Chan let out a happy sigh. “Sounds like our shark tank might have a new little fish soon.” 

And you were excited about it.