#f: three

Letting out a breath that had settled deep inside you, you closed your eyes for a moment to let the warm sun of the countryside wash over your face. The peace you felt lasted only a second when something darted between your legs. Your eyes snapped open, immediately locking onto your target. Kim Yeonwoo, the brunette, troublesome, sweet, and energetic little boy who had been in your care for nearly a year now. Eight and a half months, to be exact. You stayed most days and some nights at his grandparents’ house to take care of him while they ran their small corner shop in the small town just a few minutes from their small house. And this small child was big trouble sometimes.

‘Chasing’ after him, you reveled in the beautiful sound of the boy’s laughter, wiggling your fingers whenever he would look back to see if you were still behind him. Just at the edge of your field of vision, you saw a movement, and glanced over in time to see the backdoor swinging closed, leaving a tall man standing just outside it. You remembered the hurried conversation you’d had with Mr. and Mrs. Kim this morning before they left for work. Their son, Yeonwoo’s dad, Jungwoo, was supposed to be visiting today. Never in your nearly nine months as Yeonwoo’s nanny had you ever met his father. The only reminder you got that this boy had a father was when some array of extravagant gifts would be delivered on a holiday for him, all labelled to be from his father.

In the brief time between their departure and Yeonwoo waking up, you had done some research on Kim Jungwoo. He was the newly-appointed CEO of NCTech, the first to get the position without being related to his predecessor, beating out the former CEO’s own two sons who were involved in the company. The former CEO had accepted a new position as Chairman of the Board, promoting Jungwoo to CEO. And he’d gotten the position nine months ago. Other than the occasional dating rumor that never had any evidence, there was no mention of him being married or having a girlfriend. Or of him having a kid. It was as if Yeonwoo didn’t exist to anyone except you and his grandparents.

Figuring that you should introduce yourself, you herded the boy towards the backdoor. As you neared, you were more and more sure that this was Kim Jungwoo, even if the pictures online did him no justice.

“Oh hi!” You said brightly, a little out of breath from running after Yeonwoo, hoisting him up onto your hip as you greeted the man who had walked into the backyard. “You must be Kim Jungwoo, I’m Y/L/N Y/N, Yeonwoo’s nanny.”

“I was not aware… that my parents had hired a nanny. It’s uh, nice to meet you,” he nodded politely to you before reaching out to the boy with a smile on his face, “Hey Yeonwoo! Come here, bud!”

The boy recoiled away from Jungwoo, burying his face in your neck fearfully. Jungwoo seemed confused, and yet again tried to reach for him, this time succeeding in getting a hand on the boy’s side before he burst into tears, screaming and crying and screeching. He was still crying even as you took a couple steps back from the newcomer, stroking his back soothingly and cooing gently at him. Every step you took away from Jungwoo seemed to confuse and hurt the man more.

Giving him an apologetic look, you walked by him back towards the house, still consoling the child in your arms. You knew that you must have left him dumbfounded, but he had apparently gotten his bearings as you were halfway back to the house when he yelled after you, “Wait, that’s my son! Come back here!”

Yeonwoo let out another wail at the surely frightening sound of Jungwoo yelling, and despite culture telling you to give the man his own son, the fearful child that was soaking your shirt with tears and spit convinced you otherwise. So you continued into the house and to Yeonwoo’s room, sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of his room. You coaxed the boy’s head out of your chest, grabbing a soft rag to wipe at the tears, snot, and spit that had accumulated across his face.

“You’re so red, bub,” you commented in a hushed voice, stroking his dark brown hair away from his incredibly red eyes. “You must be tired too, huh?”

Yeonwoo hiccupped, another strand of spit coming from his mouth that you dutifully wiped off. Humming lightly, you were happy to see that he was coming down from his fit, his pout turning into a gaping yawn.

“Oh, big yawn for a big boy.” Lifting him up, you made one-sided small talk with him as you usually did, changing his play clothes into clothes more suited for naptime. “Time for a big nap, right?”

He wasn’t quite at the talking stage yet, but he had no problem letting you know what he wanted, as he fussed when you went to try to put him down onto his little toddler bed. “What?” you chuckled as you had completely let go of him, yet he was still clinging to your neck, “I’m not going to be able to fit in there with you, Yeon.”

After finally getting him to detach from you, you laid him down and draped a blanket over him. “Nap well, Yeonnie.”

With that, you shut the lights off in his room and departed, leaving the door slightly ajar in case he woke up again. You were planning on returning to the kitchen to make yourself and Jungwoo some tea, but thankfully you caught your reflection in the mirror in the hall. Now that Yeonwoo was asleep, you could see the sorry state of your shirt. It was as wet, snotty, and gross as he had been. You’d definitely have to change.

After tossing your shirt and the rag you used to wipe his face off into the washing machine, you grabbed a fresh one from the dresser in the spare room you stayed in when you slept here, then made your way back out to the kitchen. You couldn’t see Jungwoo anywhere and decided to ready some tea before going to find him. This next encounter with him would be awkward, no matter what anybody said or did, there was no way around that situation: his own son was afraid of him and chose you over him. You forced your hands to be steady as you carried the two steaming mugs with you to the living room, where you were pretty sure you had heard someone in a few minutes ago.

Your guess was right, Jungwoo was tucked into the corner of the couch, laptop open across his thighs and hands poised over the keyboard. But the screen was off, and his fingers weren’t moving over the keys.

“Mr. Kim?” You called out to him softly in the dead quiet room, coming into his field of vision as his head snapped up.

He closed his laptop as he chuckled darkly and accepted the mug from you, “You call my dad Mr. Kim, right?”

“Well yes, he’s my employer.”

“Call me Jungwoo, then.” Jungwoo gestured for you to sit on the couch as well, and you sat a polite distance away from him. “Because I’m not your employer, and neither is my father. Not anymore.”

“Excuse me?” You were confused and deeply unsettled by his words, brow furrowing so tightly that you’d get a cramp in your forehead soon, and eyes widening enough to make the man laugh lightly at your expression.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, making my own son hate me—”

“Sir—”

“But you are not allowed here or anywhere near him ever again—”

“Ple—”

“Whatever you did to him—”

“Kim Jungwoo!” You finally snapped, “I did nothing to your son except feed him, clothe him, bathe him, change his diapers, teach him his colors and the alphabet, and care for him! It’s not my fault that you never come and see him, or spend time with him, to the point where he doesn’t know who you are. He only knows your parents and me, he knows nothing of the mysterious man who sends presents on every holiday. You cannot leave your young son for nearly a year then come back and expect him to immediately love you and treat you like his father. He has no idea who you are, of course he would cry like that! To him, you’re some stranger who tried to grab him!”

This time it was Jungwoo’s turn to be surprised, the only indication of it being his grip on the handle of his mug tightening until his knuckles turned white, and his response coming through gritted teeth, “I want you out of this house tonight.”

There was a sudden screech from the hallway to your left, one that also registered through the nanny cam placed on the table beside Jungwoo. He jumped at the sound while you leapt to your feet, reaching over him to turn the small speaker off then storming out of the room, throwing a careless comment over your shoulder, “You gave up the right to decide who cares for Yeonwoo when you traded him for your career.”

Even after soothing Yeonwoo back into his nap, you didn’t leave the boy’s room. You could still hear the furious sounds of Jungwoo moving around between the kitchen, living room, and garden just outside the kitchen. Earlier, you had lost your temper, your blood still boiling when you replayed his words in your head. How dare he try to swoop back into Yeonwoo’s life after almost a year and throw out one of the few consistent people in his life? Did this man seriously think you were poisoning his two-year-old son against him? He must really know nothing about children at all.

Yeonwoo woke up again peacefully this time, babbling mellowly and looking up at you with endearing and calm eyes from his bed. Sighing mostly to yourself, you offered him a hand down from the bed, letting him explore around on nearly-steady legs. The sight of it made you happy, but also filled you with worry. It was his third birthday at the end of the summer, and while all his motor functions seemed to be developing normally, you, his doctor, and his grandparents were all worried that he hadn’t yet said his first word. He would babble, scream, cry, and laugh just fine, but had yet to speak anything holding remote semblance to a word. The doctor tested his hearing and everything, and it all checked out. The mechanical parts functioned, but his language was still locked away from you for some reason.

The sounds of Mr. and Mrs. Kim coming back from their shop came to your ears, and you knew that you couldn’t hide away in Yeonwoo’s room anymore. Calling for the child, you patted his head as well, ushering him towards the door you then opened widely for him.

Yeonwoo lit up when he saw Mrs. Kim at the end of the hallway, his grandmother gasping dramatically and greeting him with a big smile. The boy ran as fast as he could on his little legs towards her, giggling as she tickled his sides. Mr. Kim bent over to ruffle his hair a little but grabbed his back and had to stand up straight again. You knew that both of them were getting to be too old to keep up with a little kid who only wanted to run around, play in the dirt, and climb all over his caretakers. Which was another reason why you had been so offended at Jungwoo’s attempt at firing you, he didn’t know what kind of impossible burden that would put on his parents.

You shared a frank, tight-lipped smile with Jungwoo as you stepped back from the happy sight of the family. Yeonwoo suddenly attached himself to your leg again, apparently hiding from Jungwoo now. And not playfully either, you knew the difference between his mischievous streak and when he was genuinely afraid. Picking the boy up, you tossed him gently a little bit to get him to laugh again before settling him on your hip, catching his father’s eyes bitterly.

The elderly couple clearly didn’t miss that split-second interaction, Mr. Kim stepping in awkwardly to introduce you, “Uhm, if you didn’t meet earlier, Y/N, this is my son, Kim Jungwoo. Jungwoo, this is Y/L/N Y/N, the nanny we hired to take care of Yeonwoo when we go to the shop, or whenever we may need her.”

Jungwoo let out a short, hissing sigh before answering quietly and coldly, “I’ve told you two before, you don’t need to work anymore, I can take care of you financially.”

“If I didn’t work, I might finally go crazy, you know.” His mother deflected her son’s coldness with a light-hearted joke, tugging on his shirt to guide him towards the cabinets, “Now come on, help me get the bowls for dinner, they seem to have migrated up a few shelves out of my reach.”

“Oh, I am so sorry!” You cried out as soon as Mrs. Kim had mentioned that, bustling by the both of them to reach the cabinets. Still with Yeonwoo on one hip, you retrieved four large bowls and one small bowl, still in the middle of your apology, “Yeonwoo was getting too adventurous with the stool while I was cleaning up breakfast this morning, so I moved them out of his reach. I completely forgot to put them back, so sorry.”

Turning back to the three Kims, you were met with two warm smiles and an icy scowl. Mrs. Kim patted your cheek, “It’s quite alright, Y/N. I’m just glad our little monster didn’t actually get his hands on anything.”

She then pinched her grandson’s cheek, and you took a few steps away, feeling comfortable with setting Yeonwoo down again. His grandfather was already sitting at the table and played with the boy a little bit before Mrs. Kim and Jungwoo came from the kitchen with bowls. You moved to take them from Mrs. Kim, but her stern look stopped you. Instead, you lifted Yeonwoo into his high chair, attaching his bib and taking your usual seat next to him.

Jungwoo seemed a little affronted, apparently thinking that he would sit there. Silently, he took the chair on the other side of his mother from you. Mr. Kim relayed a story about an interesting customer they had at the store while you raised a spoonful of soup from Yeonwoo’s bowl, gently blowing on it to cool it down before offering it out to the little boy. He grabbed your hand to bring the spoon closer to his mouth, successfully spilling half of it out of the utensil. You caught it with your other hand that was underneath the spoon as he eventually got the remaining broth into his mouth.

Drying your hand off with a napkin, you brought his bib up to wipe at the sides of his mouth before taking a few sips of your own serving of soup. Yeonwoo tapped your hand that was resting on his high chair, signaling that he wanted more food. You obliged, and the dinner continued on like this, almost completely normal, except for the cold and scrutinizing glare that Jungwoo had trained on you and Yeonwoo for the entire meal.

To your relief, it was soon over, and you released Yeonwoo from his high chair, “Go pick a movie to watch with Grandma and Grandpa, okay?”

He nodded dutifully before taking off to the living room, not heeding your call of walking. Mr. Kim was amused as he went to follow the boy, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t pick Minions for the fifth time this week.”

“Thank you,” you groaned at the thought of watching that movie again, clearing the table with Mrs. Kim.

Before his father was completely out of the room, Jungwoo spoke up, voice clear as he declared, “I’ve realized… that I have not been a father enough to my son. And I want to fix this before it’s too late.”

While you were caught off-guard, you were happy at this sentiment, figuring that it meant that he would visit Yeonwoo more frequently at the elder Kims’ house. That’s why his next proclamation nearly made you drop the three bowls in your hand, “Yeonwoo is going to come live with me.”

Mrs. Kim was the first to get over her surprise, “Jungwoo, have you thought this through? Who will take care of Yeonwoo while you’re working? Do you even have a toddler bed at your house? Or know how to feed him? Or change his diapers? Or potty-train him? Or—”

“No,” Jungwoo admitted before training his sharp eyes on you, “That’s why she will be coming too.”

Finally setting the bowls in the sink, you began fervently washing them in an attempt to avoid his piercing stare, “What do you mean?”

“My own son is afraid of me, but incredibly attached to you. You must come with us.”

“Jungwoo, you can’t just order Y/N to come live with you!” His father seemed more exasperated than anything at his son, rubbing his face. “Really…”

Ignoring Mr. Kim, Jungwoo focused in on you, moving to stand beside you at the sink. You continued scrubbing the already-clean bowl as he said quietly, “You have to reintroduce my son to me. Help me be his father again. I’m not trading him for my career anymore, I can have both, I know that now. But not without your help.”

Biting down on your lip, you held back a doubtful scoff. In its place, you turned to look up at Jungwoo, narrowing your eyes to study him for a moment, gauging how serious he seemed about this. He cocked an eyebrow at this but ultimately was silent as you observed him.

“When do we leave?”

As Yeonwoo happily watched Minions with his grandparents in the living room that night, you determined the details of your arrangement with Jungwoo in the kitchen. He’d have to return to Seoul tonight, but arranged for you and Yeonwoo to join him in two days, at which he promised to have both your rooms completely prepared. You’d be staying in his condo with him, with strict orders not to talk to the press, tell anybody who exactly Yeonwoo's dad was, or release the address to anyone. Surprisingly, at Jungwoo’s insistence, your pay would be tripled. You’d be on the job 24/7, either taking care of Yeonwoo while Jungwoo was gone, or trying to get the boy accustomed to his father. The unspoken rule was that once this happened, you’d be let go. Jungwoo didn’t like you, and probably figured that once Yeonwoo liked him again, he could fire you and hire any other nanny he wanted to take care of him.

Mr. and Mrs. Kim saw him off at the front door as you turned the TV off and picked a sleepy Yeonwoo up from the floor to get him ready for bed. After changing him into his monkey-themed pajamas, you held him in your arms for a moment, stroking his soft hair in an attempt to calm yourself more than him.

“Everything is going to change really soon, Yeon. It’ll be like a really awesome adventure. Me, and you, and… your dad.” You kissed his head before laying him down on his bed and tucking him in. He stirred a little bit but ultimately decided to go to sleep instead of making a fuss for you.

Flicking the lights off, you whispered a final goodnight before leaving his room. You’d have to be going to your own tiny apartment tonight rather than staying the night, which the Kims usually had you do if you stayed past dinner, but you needed to start packing. With the promise of returning in the next morning, you bid the older couple goodnight at their door and started the short walk to the bus stop that would eventually carry you home.

One of your roommates was asleep when you got home, passed out on the couch beside your other roommate who was wide awake, crunching on popcorn as he was heavily invested in the movie playing on screen. You'd seen it before, it was about a single dad who fell in love with the nanny of his seven children. Shaking your head, you thought back to the pure hatred Jungwoo seemed to harbor for you for… taking care of his kid?

“Y/N!” Chan waved enthusiastically to you, eyes still trained on the TV. “How was the little dude today?”

Walking over to the couch, you plopped down beside the sleeping Yeeun, “Yeonwoo's doing okay. His father came to visit today.”

“He has a dad?”

“Yeah. This dude hasn’t seen his kid in like a year and expects Yeonnie to just accept him as his father with no questions. Instead, he screams and won’t let go of me, so I had to carry him away from the dad.”

“That’s rough for him.”

Fidgeting nervously, you started gently shaking Yeeun awake, “I have something to talk to you guys about.”

Finally, Chan paused the movie and looked over to you as Yeeun stirred. Her annoyed glare softened to a smile of greeting as she took your hand in hers to squeeze it momentarily, “Hey, I thought you were staying over with the kid tonight.”

“No, Yee, I’m here tonight.”

“Something’s wrong,” she declared, taking in the concern across your face. “What happened, Y/N?”

“This is going to be my last night here for… probably a while,” you told them, wincing a little at their confused and upset faces. “Yeonwoo’s father is taking him back to Seoul to live with him, and I have to come too.”

“You’re moving to Seoul?” Chan whistled lowly, apparently that was the only thing he took from your statement. “When?”

“In a couple days. I have to pack tonight and go back to the Kims’ tomorrow, then the next morning Yeonwoo and I will leave. I’ll continue paying my part of the rent for as long as you guys need me to.”

Yeeun seemed much more upset than him, completely ignoring the financial part, “This guy can’t just waltz back into his son’s life and take him and you away!”

“He can, legally,” you shrugged, shoulders heavy as you thought about this new predicament you’d be in. “The part about taking his kid away. Me coming with is an unfortunate necessity in his eyes. He hates me because his kid doesn’t know who he is and chose me over him today. So I’m supposed to reintroduce them or something, get Yeonnie to trust him again.”

“And once you do?”

A tight-lipped smile came to your face, “I’ll be fired and replaced by a nanny that he doesn’t see as a threat.”

Your friends seemed to have more to say, but they knew there was no way of talking you out of this. Yeonwoo had been your world for the past eight months, and if this is what it took to continuing caring for him, even though it had a foreseeable end, this is what you’d do. Yeeun pulled you up by your hand, Chan following as she dragged you towards your bedroom, “We’ll help you pack!”

In the morning, you were awake before the sunrise, as you had to get to the Kims’ before they left for the store, which opened at seven. Throwing all your toiletries into your bag after you finished using them, you did a final cursory look around your apartment to make sure you got everything you wanted to take. A few things, like the lamp in the bedroom you’d brought with you from your college dorm, or the comforter on your bed, you left. No need to bring those, Jungwoo had assured you that everything like that would be taken care of.

Chan was in the kitchen, one cup of tea in hand and another on the counter, “Morning, Y/N.”

“Morning,” glancing at the time, you groaned, already running behind. “Don’t have time for tea, I’m sorry.”

“Come on, it’s not like they’re going to fire you for being a few minutes late. Especially not today.”

“They have their store to open.”

“It’s Sunday, don’t they open later?”

Realization dawned on you, and you happily set your bags down and took the mug in your hand, “Yeah, eight. Thanks, Chan.”

And so you sipped your tea as you carried on a quiet conversation about this and that, feeling strangely normal. Not like anything was ending or changing really. Maybe because as far as any of you knew, you’d be coming back to resume your life here again. This was a minor leave, like an extended vacation of sorts for you from your apartment.

A pair of arms wrapping around your middle nearly made you drop your tea. Ready to chastise Yeeun for scaring you, the scolding stopped in your throat as you took in her tired appearance. She must have set an alarm just to see you off this early.

“Are you sure you have to go?” She mumbled, “Please don’t make me live here with him alone.”

“Hey!” Chan scoffed indignantly as you giggled, patting her head.

“Sorry, Yee. The first day I get off I’ll come back, or you guys can come to Seoul and visit.”

Peeking at the time again, you set your mug down before tightly reciprocating her hug, “I’ve got to go now. Bye Yeeun.”

She grumbled when you peeled her off of you to hug your other roommate. Chan patted your back, similar to how you soothed Yeonwoo yesterday, quelling your nerves momentarily. Letting go of him, you grabbed your bags again and headed for the door.

“Bye guys.” You gave them one last goodbye before closing the door behind you.

Time to go to the Kims’ for what you guessed to be your last breakfast with them as well.

“Shh, Yeon, come on bub,” you tried to calm the boy down as he kept hysterically crying in your lap.

The two of you were sat in the backseat of the luxurious SUV that had pulled up to the Kims’ less-than-luxurious house that morning. The whole ordeal of saying goodbye to the Kims, having yours and Yeonwoo’s luggage taken by the driver, and then attempting to get used to the idea of having a driver was already overwhelming.

As soon as the car had left the Kims’ small neighborhood, Yeonwoo could sense that something was off and hadn’t stopped crying yet. He had a momentary reprieve for approximately forty-seven seconds before it came back even louder and more heart-wrenching than before. The driver glanced at you in the rearview mirror, and that was when you could smell it.

“Pull over,” you requested, shifting to grab the diaper bag you had with you.

“I have orders to take you directly to Mr. Kim’s condo.” The driver replied simply, continuing on down the busy streets.

“Okay, guess I’ll change his diaper on these nice leather seats.”

“I’ll find somewhere to pull over!” He said, frantically looking around as a triumphant smirk came to your face.

Arriving at the apartment building you were informed to be your home for the near future, you took in a short breath of awe. It was a skyscraper, the tallest building you’d ever seen, windows glinting against the brilliant blue sky and slightly greyish clouds. To your surprise, the driver continued past the front door, where you had expected to get off at, instead pulling around the small parking garage hidden behind the building.

“So you don’t get caught up in the mess,” the driver explained cheerfully, and you remembered seeing a few people standing out front, but it didn’t seem to be anything remarkable to you.

“What do you mean?” You queried softly, unbuckling Yeonwoo from his carseat as gently as you could. He had fallen asleep almost as soon as you had changed his diaper, and you wanted him to rest for as long as possible.

“Mr. Kim doesn’t want you or Yeonwoo to be seen by the reporters.” He explained as you climbed out with Yeonwoo in your arms.

He grabbed most of the bags, and you slung the diaper bag onto your shoulder before taking your own suitcase from him. When it looked like he was about to complain, you gave a nonchalant reply, “It rolls anyway.”

The driver relented, leading you towards the backdoor, and pulling out a keycard to scan against a box near the doors. They unlocked, and he gestured you into the building. He then used his keycard at the elevator as well. The doors opened with a light bing! and the three of you stepped on. The noise from the elevator car arriving had woken Yeonwoo up, and he looked around at everything suspiciously, wide awake.

“You’ll get your own card soon enough, for access to the building,” the man assured you, pressing the button for the top floor. Did Jungwoo really live in the penthouse of this building?

Yeonwoo let out a few distressed babbles as the elevator started going up, and you grinned widely at him, saying in an excited and reassuring voice, “Isn’t this cool, Yeonnie? Your first ride in an elevator!”

This relaxed him, and he instead looked around in wonder rather than fear. The elevator stopped right before the top level, and the driver then input a short code, prompting the car to go up to the final level.

“You’ll also get your own code, for access to Mr. Kim’s residency.”

“Wow.” You were impressed by the security not only for the building but for the elevator, and then the extra level for just Jungwoo’s floor.

“He’s also getting biometrics installed within the next six months as well, in addition to the codes.”

You figured you wouldn’t be here by the time he did, but still astonished by the overwhelmingly sophisticated security. The elevator opened to a small hallway with a single door that once again had a code box for the driver to input his code. The door swung open on its own, and the man ushered you in, following with your bags.

“This is where I leave you, Ms. Y/L/N. Mr. Kim will be home at six tonight for dinner with Yeonwoo. Until then, make yourselves at home. Your rooms are down the hallway on your right, yours is the second on your left, Yeonwoo’s is across from yours, and Jungwoo’s is at the far end. I have a pager on me, press the button by the front door if you need anything.”

Just before he went to leave, you managed to break through your head spinning at the information he’d just given you to ask, “Wait. What’s your name?”

“Just call me Yu,” he nodded to you before opening the door again, “Have a lovely evening, Ms. Y/L/N. Don’t forget to page me if you need anything.”

And now you were left with Yeonwoo in this huge, intimidating condo. Well, might as well start unpacking. Unfortunately, you couldn’t set Yeonwoo down on his own, as it seemed that Jungwoo had nothing childproofed around here, and the place was so big that you’d lose Yeon if you weren’t keeping a close watch on him. To his indignation, you herded him towards the hall where Yu had said your rooms would be, bringing most of his luggage with you.

“Here, Yeon,” you set him down in the room Yu had informed you was his, and definitely was based on the toddler bed in the corner of it. “Can you put your toys away? In the trunk over there.”

He nodded, taking this task very seriously, and you kept one eye on him as you opened the drawers of his dresser to put his clothes away. But they were already full, and you were now left with half of the boy’s closet from his grandparents’ house. Taking a shirt out from the dresser, you frowned when you realized that it was at least a size too small, and it seemed that most of the clothes in there were as well.

You methodically checked the tag of every article of clothing, reminding yourself of the sizing difference between brands, making a pile of the clothes that were too big, too small, and then the ones that actually fit him. Figuring that you should keep the ones that were too big for him to grow into, you put those all back in the top drawers, putting the clothes that fit him as well as the ones you’d brought in the bottom drawers, for him to be able to reach on the days you let him choose his own outfit. Now you weren’t sure what to do with the too-small clothes, deciding to let Jungwoo know later.

Yeonwoo was investigating the bookshelf in the corner of the room, reaching up for something. On the top shelf of the small three-shelf bookshelf that was just out of reach for him was a familiar blueish cover. His favorite book.

“You want to read Max the Minnow?” You asked, reaching for the book as he fervently nodded. Pointing to the object in your hand, you expectantly said, “Book. Can you say book for me, bub?”

Yeonwoo was silent as always, but still grinning up at you with the brightest smile you’d ever seen, one that always washed away your frustration over his lack of speech.

After reading him a few books, you took him back out to the main space, glancing at the clock. 5:17, Jungwoo would be home soon. Yeonwoo followed you into the kitchen, where you thankfully found a high chair. It didn’t look as though there was any food prepared, and you were unsure as to whether or not Jungwoo expected you to cook dinner. Figuring that it was better to have done it and surprise him than not do it and get scolded or something, you set Yeonwoo down in the high chair and gave him a few of his crackers that you carried in the diaper bag. That would keep him occupied for a while.

Jungwoo’s fridge and pantry were stocked with most every ingredient you could need, some of which you didn’t even recognize. At the very back of the bottom shelf, you were able to find a singular box of mac and cheese. Your specialty.

You took out your phone to play some music from it, gently humming and occasionally singing along to the songs. Yeonwoo tried his best to mimic the tune and follow along, his noises still incomprehensible and nowhere close to the actual words you were saying. Once Yeonwoo’s mac and cheese was done, you set the pot aside to start on something else for you and Jungwoo. You weren’t sure what kind of fancy meals he was accustomed to, but the best you could do was really just rice and beef with a simple tomato sauce, something you’d make once a month at your apartment and the three of you would have enough leftovers to be sharing it for a week.

Hearing the buzz of the front door unlocking then swinging open, you quieted your music and turned the stove off, having just finished combining the rice and sauce with the browned ground beef. You pulled two large bowls and one small bowl down from the cabinet, spooning Yeonwoo’s mac and cheese out first, then yours and Jungwoo’s own portions as well.

“You cooked?” Was the first thing Jungwoo decided to say to you, instead of a hello, or introduction, or anything remotely close to welcoming you to his home.

You turned slightly to be able to eye him for a moment as you turned Yeonwoo’s high chair around to face the kitchen table, “Yes, I hope you don’t mind beef and rice.”

Jungwoo was at the threshold of the kitchen, still in his work suit, the tie slightly loosened and work bag in hand. Setting Jungwoo’s bowl down at the head of the table, you then put Yeonwoo’s on the tray in front of him, and your own in the seat just beside him. Jungwoo was a few seats away from the two of you, but you figured that he’d appreciate being at the head of the table more than anything else.

Yeonwoo had immediately turned silent when Jungwoo walked in, looking down at the tray across his high chair where a couple crackers were still left. You cleaned them up and tossed them in the trashcan before turning back to Jungwoo once more. He was still standing in the entrance to the kitchen, the same judgmental and disdainful look across his face when he addressed you.

“I have a dining room, you know.”

“Yes, I just figured that was for dinner parties or some other kind of occasion, this felt more like a place for just a regular dinner.” You explained, standing between Yeonwoo and Jungwoo awkwardly as the man set his bag down on a nearby counter.

“Is this his dinner?” Jungwoo took a couple steps forwards to gesture to the mac and cheese, seeming unenthused by it.

“Yes.”

“This is it?”

“He’s only two, they don’t eat extravagant meals yet.” You explained with the most level tone and patience you could muster. “Too many different things at once can make him sick. So for now we’re just sticking to the basics. You can start developing his rich boy palate in a couple years and feed him whatever truffle oil and fancy cheese you want.”

“I hate truffle oil.”

Keeping your snickers at bay, you moved to stand beside Yeonwoo’s high chair, getting his attention for a moment. “Hi, Yeonnie,” you smiled softly at him, moving some of his hair off his forehead. “We’ve got someone special at dinner with us tonight. That’s your dad, bub.”

You then gestured to Jungwoo, who suddenly threw on a smile at being put on the spot, stepping forward to greet him, making the already-suspicious child scrunch up his face and turn his head as far back as he could to avoid looking at him.

“Hey, you can’t eat if your face is over there,” you sat down in the chair beside Yeonwoo’s, waiting for him to be done with his small fit.

He relented, seeming more relaxed as Jungwoo took his seat further away. You fed Yeonwoo and ate your own food in near silence. From what you knew about Jungwoo, he would say to your face if he thought your cooking was disgusting, so you took his lack of comments as a good sign. Jungwoo seemed to be observing the two of you intently, not with malice as before, but more so trying to analyze and decipher every action and pattern the two of you had. After the fifth time Yeonwoo had tapped your hand to get you to scoop more mac and cheese onto his spoon for him, his dad spoke up.

“Don’t two-year-olds talk?”

Ah, so he had at least read some kind of parenting manual or looked something up online in preparation for this. You, however, could already imagine the slew of disdainful comments he would be making about your standard of care for his child when you told him the answer.

“Most do, yes.”

“Why isn’t he talking? Didn’t you ever try to teach him—”

“Of course I did! His doctor says that everything works, he can hear perfectly, he can make all the necessary sounds to speak, he just… doesn’t. He babbles, and cries, and laughs, but he doesn’t talk.” Your initial scoff faded out to your mellow concern for the boy’s lack of speech, tenderly pinching his ear just enough to make him giggle, “But we’ll get something out of him one of these days.”

Surprisingly, Jungwoo conceded and accepted your answer, looking at his son curiously, “How do you know?”

“Well all the parts work, so I’m pretty sure Yeonwoo just doesn’t… want to speak. His body language and nonverbal communication is so good, maybe he thinks he doesn’t need to speak.” You gave out one of your theories, then hesitantly started on another one that you weren’t sure Jungwoo would like, “Or maybe he has you know… something else going on. A problem with his auditory processing, or the language parts of his brain.”

Bracing yourself for the surefire rant from Jungwoo about how dare you suggest that his son had some kind of learning disability or anything wrong with him at all other than how you have taken care of him, you were surprised when it never came. Instead, Jungwoo’s voice was quiet yet firm, “There’s testing for that, right?”

“His doctor said any tests will be inconclusive until he’s elementary-school age, so you’ll find out then. Problems with reading and writing, following directions, that kind of stuff.”

“I see.”

“Ah, also, some of the clothes in Yeonwoo’s room are too small for him. I made a pile of them, I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do with them.”

“I’ll have Yu return them tomorrow, thank you.”

There was a beat of silence, and in a bid to keep a somewhat friendly conversation going, you said, “You got Yeonwoo’s favorite book, Max the Minnow.”

“I asked my parents about some of that kind of stuff, I’m glad they were right.”

You were surprised at how far he’d gone to cater to his son’s preferences and wants, but had nothing else to say, resuming your quiet feeding of the boy.

When Yeonwoo had finally eaten all the mac and cheese he wanted, he started fidgeting in his high chair, letting you know that he wanted to get down. You went to stand to start clearing the table only to find Jungwoo also standing, looking at you expectantly, “So now what do you do?”

“Uh, normally I let Yeonwoo down to go pick a book or a movie or a toy for him to play with before bedtime. But I don’t really want to do that here, since it’s not child-proofed.”

“How do I go about doing that?”

You were surprised by how earnest and serious he was about this, “There’s more detailed guides online, but the major things I can see here is that your lower cabinets don’t have any kind of locks, you have a glass coffee table in the living room with sharp edges— is it tempered glass? If not, then it can shatter and hurt him. Also, you have an open fireplace that he could crawl into or hit his head open on the stones around it, not to mention the kitchen isn’t gated, so he could find his way back in here and make trouble. The outlets don’t have any covers on them, and you have a package of batteries on the coffee table too.”

Jungwoo seemed surprised at your list, “That wasn’t detailed?”

Shrugging, you looked down at Yeonwoo again, who was still fussing in his high chair, “I’ll get you down in a second, bub.”

“I can watch him in the living room,” Jungwoo claimed, making your eyebrows shoot up in disbelief. But nonetheless, you didn’t want to discourage the dad.

You gave him a short nod, unbuckling Yeonwoo from the high chair and lifting him up, “You’re going to play in the living room with your dad, okay? I’ll be right in the kitchen, Yeonnie.”

Jungwoo had followed you into the living room, smiling encouragingly at the toddler as you went to set him down. His little hands balled up into fists, capturing the front of your shirt with them. Sighing, you tried to get him to let go of your clothing, “Come on, Yeonwoo, I’ve gotta go clean up.”

He still hadn’t let go, and you tried a different approach, noticing how Jungwoo’s face fell at his son’s unwillingness to be left alone with him, “Kim Yeonwoo,” your voice turned stern as you scolded the boy, “Let go of my shirt. Now.”

The boy did so, but still buried his face in your chest. Keeping your same tone of voice, you said, “If you stay here while I go clean up, you get two books before bed.”

But even your bribery couldn’t win him over. You were about to apologize before bringing Yeonwoo with you to the kitchen when his father spoke up, “I’ll go clean up. You stay here and make sure he doesn’t shatter the table or crack his head open.”

“Thanks,” you replied quietly, watching him return to the kitchen in defeat.

An idea formed in your mind, and you headed back to Yeonwoo’s room for a moment. Setting him down, you then kneeled down in front of him to seriously look at him, “Yeonnie, you remember how in PJ Masks, they all live at home with their mom and dad?”

He nodded, still listening to you intently as you compared his own life to that of his favorite TV show.

“Well that man out there, Kim Jungwoo, is your dad,” you continued on, taking in his wide eyes. “And you live here with him now. So why don’t you choose a toy and go back out and play with your dad, okay?”

Yeonwoo reached out for your face, and you caught his smaller hand with yours, shaking it affectionately, “Don’t worry, I’m coming too.”

The boy lit up at this, dashing over to the trunk where he had put his toys away earlier to retrieve the ones he wanted. He brought out his dinosaur figures, struggling to carry all of them, but he didn’t look like he was going to ask you for any help. Instead, you merely held the door open for him and let him lead the way back out to the living room.

You could hear the sounds of Jungwoo cleaning up dinner in the kitchen. The sight of the coffee table still worried you, so you took it upon yourself to scoot it off of the area rug that Yeonwoo had dropped all of his dinosaurs onto. He looked at you expectantly, and you knew he wouldn’t sit down until he saw you sit, to know that it was okay. Plopping yourself down, you grinned brightly at him as you waited for him to sit with you as well. Yeonwoo held his bright purple triceratops out for you.

“Oh? Is this for me?” You asked excitedly, chest swelling with happiness as he nodded enthusiastically, “Thank you!”

Yeonwoo immediately opened his arms, nearly falling onto you as he hugged you. You dramatically fell backwards with him on top of you, his giggles right next to your ear as you announced, “You knocked me over!”

Sitting back up and readjusting Yeonwoo in your lap, you spotted Jungwoo standing hesitantly at the doorway. You waved him over, addressing Yeonwoo as his dad approached the two of you, “Look, your dad’s going to play with us. Which dinosaur are you going to give him?”

Despite the brave face he had put on before, the boy recoiled away from the man into your chest again, his t-rex smushed awkwardly between your chests. You let go of your triceratops to take the pointy plastic toy out, patting his back and trying to keep your sighs at bay.

“Yeonnie,” you said calmly, wincing at Jungwoo’s third rejection of the night. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, face still buried in your shirt.

“Yeonwoo, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s making you upset.”

Yeonwoo whined lowly, bringing his face out to look out you, bottom lip quivering and eyes glistening with tears. He was trying not to cry, despite how scared you figured he must be. Standing with him still attached to you, you propped him up on your hip and gently rocked him.

“Oh, my brave boy,” you praised him quietly, offering Jungwoo a sorry and tight-lipped smile before continuing on, “You tried your best, right?”

He once again nodded against you, and you hummed your approval, “Thank you, Yeonnie.”

Jungwoo suddenly spoke up, already moving to leave the room, “I have some work to finish. Goodnight, Yeonwoo.”

You went to mouth a sorry to him, but he stopped you with a glare before pivoting on his heel and going down the hall opposite from your bedrooms. Biting your lip, you pulled Yeonwoo off of you a little to see his face again. It was pink, but you were thankful that he hadn’t fully started crying yet.

“I wish you would just… tell me how I can help you trust your dad again,” you mused, truly feeling the weight of your task on your shoulders.

Yeonwoo knew that Jungwoo was his dad, but that word meant nothing to him. Sure, he was his “dad,” but what really was a dad to him? A person that he didn’t know, he didn’t trust, and scared him. Did he remember when Jungwoo left him with his grandparents and didn’t come back for him?

As these questions came to your mind, you looked into Yeonwoo’s still teary brown eyes that unblinkingly looked back at yours. He suddenly jutted forward to leave a messy and clumsy kiss on your cheek, breaking your pensive face into another smile.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, bub.” You shook your head, carrying him back into his room.

Getting him to bed was a longer ordeal than usual, getting used to the setup of the room, reading books until he was finally sleepy, changing him, and tucking him in and leaving the room taking well over an hour. You contemplated whether you should try to talk to Jungwoo or just leave him be for tonight. But it seemed as though Jungwoo had decided that for you, as you emerged from Yeonwoo’s room right as he was going to his own. He paid you no attention, brushing right by you and firmly shutting his door behind him.

Leave him be, you thought. At least for tonight.

Yeonwoo woke you up screaming and crying at the top of his lungs twice that night, the first in a long time. You figured that the new house and scenario was probably distressing him. By the time the sun was attacking you through your window in the morning, you had gotten less than four hours of sleep. It reminded you of the beginnings of nannying him, when he would have a night like this at least three times a week.

When you woke up, you didn’t hear any screaming through the doors or the nanny cam Jungwoo had provided you. Maybe you could have a few minutes to yourself—

knock!knock!knock!

Three firm knocks at your bedroom door ended that fantasy.

Rubbing the exhaustion out of your eyes, you sleepily opened the door and tried to hold back the yawn building in your throat. Jungwoo was standing there, not dressed in his work suit as you had expected him to be, instead in the same kind of casual clothes he’d worn at his parents’ house the other day. Afraid that he would be complaining about Yeonwoo waking him up during the night, you braced yourself for the seemingly inevitable scolding.

But it never came, as when you opened your eyes again, Jungwoo was peering down at you curiously, something that you almost thought was concern on his features, “How much did you sleep?”

“Not much. I’m sorry if Yeonwoo woke you at all,” you shook off his question, returning with your own, “It’s Tuesday, right? Don’t you have work today?”

“I have a meeting at one. Until then, I was hoping to spend more time with my son.”

“Right. I’ll go see if he’s up.”

Jungwoo stepped back to allow you to cross the hall to Yeonwoo’s door. Quietly, you turned the handle and cracked the door open, praying to every deity you could imagine that he had worn himself out crying and would be sleeping for a little while longer. That fantasy had at least come true, the only noise coming from the room being the gentle and even sounds of his breathing.

As silent as you had opened the door, you closed it just as softly, trying not to show your enthusiasm to Jungwoo, “He’s still asleep.”

He nodded understandingly, and the two of you stood there for another moment in silence, neither seeming quite sure of what to do. Finally, you took charge of the situation, “We should talk.”

Jungwoo seemed about to argue, but closed his mouth instead, leading the way out into the living room again. You could feel nerves fluttering around in your chest as you took seats a comfortable distance away from each other on the couch. What would you even say? ‘Sorry that your kid hates you, and I can’t guarantee that one day he won’t?’

“Yeonwoo’s just tired from the trip and disoriented from the new surroundings and people. He’ll calm down soon.” Was how you decided to phrase it, marking it up to the fact that he had moved instead of the fact that his dad pretty much abandoned him when he was younger, and he might still be traumatized by it.

“Don’t feed me bullshit,” Jungwoo replied shortly, “Tell me the truth, whether you think I’ll hate it or not. I just want my son to love me again.”

Taking a moment to gather your thoughts, you bluntly gave it all to him, “You left him. He doesn’t remember exactly what happened, but kids are great at remembering how people make them feel, and you made him feel abandoned and unwanted. Unlike most parents, you’re going to have to earn the unconditional love that comes from having a child. It’s going to take more than fancy gifts or just living in proximity to each other. Yeonwoo has no clue what it means to have a dad, or what a dad does. You’re going to have to teach him that.”

When Jungwoo replied, it was barely a whisper, only audible because of the dead quiet in the room, “What if I don’t know how to be one?”

And for once, you truly felt for Kim Jungwoo. Those few words pierced your heart like no others had, accompanied by the heart-wrenching sight of the normally confident and judgmental man hunched over, his head in his hands and unable to even look you in the eye.

“I’ll teach you that, then.”

The sounds of Yeonwoo’s familiar morning babbling reached your well-trained ears, cutting your conversation with Jungwoo short. You leapt to your feet, giving him a final smile that you hoped came off as reassuring before darting off to the boy’s room.

Slowly but surely, Yeonwoo and Jungwoo started making progress.

Two days later, Yeonwoo no longer cried when Jungwoo looked at or spoke to him.

A week later, and he stopped shyly hiding behind your legs when they were in the same room.

Two weeks later, he gave Jungwoo one of his toy dinosaurs before running back and hiding his face in your chest, much to the elation of the older man.

Seventeen days later exactly, Yeonwoo let Jungwoo feed him at breakfast one morning, such an ordinarily extraordinary thing that delighted the dad.

Three weeks later, and Jungwoo held him for the first time. You might have almost cried. Jungwoo definitely did.

A month later, and the three of you were watching PJ Masks, Yeonwoo absolutely enraptured by the TV screen. He’d never admit it, but Jungwoo also liked the show, almost as much as he liked the fact that Yeonwoo would now sit in between you two without feeling the need to hide or throw himself into your lap. You went to the bathroom for a moment and came back to see Yeonwoo on his father’s lap. As soon as you sat down, however, he retreated into yours quietly. You had to hold back your snickers at that one. Later that night, after you got him ready for bed, Yeonwoo wordlessly climbed back out of his bed, approaching the door. You opened it for him curiously, watching as he walked back out to the living room where Jungwoo still was. He stopped in front of where his father was sat, opening his arms wide. Their first goodnight hug.

You taught Jungwoo what kind of food to make him, how to change his diaper, how to bathe him, when to let him figure things out on his own and when to help him. And you could tell, Yeonwoo was learning what a dad was too.

Six weeks after you and Yeonwoo had started living with Jungwoo, you were surprised one Saturday morning to have woken up all on your own, not by Yeonwoo managing to open your door and leap onto your bed with you, or by him screaming, or by a frantic Jungwoo who couldn’t remember how to change him. Looking at your clock, you had even slept in. Listening suspiciously, you could hear Yeonwoo’s giggles, but they sounded further away than his room. Sleep slowly receded from your eyes as you treaded out from the hallway, emerging by the kitchen. From inside it, you could hear the sounds of Yeonwoo babbling and Jungwoo’s gentle tones replying, and it was accompanied by a delicious smell. You stood in the doorway of the kitchen, heart warming at the sight before you. Yeonwoo was sitting in his high chair, angled so that he could see Jungwoo and Jungwoo could see him as he attended to the stove.

“You cooked?” You questioned Jungwoo teasingly, letting your presence be known.

Yeonwoo turned to face you excitedly, holding his hands out towards you. Jungwoo had also whipped around to face you, the small and light chuckle coming from him letting you know that he thankfully found your question amusing as well.

“Why yes, I did,” he proudly answered as you gave in to Yeonwoo’s grabby hands, picking him up and setting him on your hip.

“Morning, bub,” you kissed his head before peering around Jungwoo to see what he was cooking. “Ooh, eggs.”

“Yeonwoo’s is plain, not even salt or pepper.”

“Good.”

You took a couple steps back from the stove again, resuming your playful interaction with Yeonwoo, blowing raspberries on his stomach and gently tossing him around. Jungwoo spoke up again, “What do you want in yours?”

“Oh, uhm, just some salt and pepper,” you said before bending over to hold the boy upside down, “Oh no! You’re just too heavy!”

He squealed as you brought him right-side up, then did it again, bringing him even closer to the ground. After doing that a few times, you were already out of breath, stopping for a moment. When you did, you saw that Jungwoo had three full plates of eggs, then went to put Yeonwoo back in his high chair. You’d just gotten him strapped in and his bib attached when a warm hand was at the small of your back and Jungwoo was nonchalantly leaning over you to set Yeonwoo’s plate down. The jolt you’d gotten travelled through you quickly, spiking your heart rate just a little as he moved away from you as imperceptibly as he had come.

You forced yourself to become unfrozen, skirting around Jungwoo—who was carrying yours and his plates to the table—to reach the cabinets for a beverage to distract yourself. Why did just that one touch frazzle you so much? Maybe it was because you could still feel his warm and large hand on your skin, or still smell his freshly clean hair from the shower he must have taken before you woke up, or maybe because of how simply… domestic that one interaction had been.

“Milk or juice?” You asked Yeonwoo, ignoring the short crack in your voice. In your hands were his blue cup, for juice, and his green cup, for milk. He pointed to the green cup, and you returned to the fridge for the milk.

The coffee maker went off just then, and you pulled two more mugs down from the cabinets. You took care of Yeonwoo’s drink first, setting it on his tray then turning back to fix yourself and Jungwoo cups of coffee. Sitting down at the head of the table, as Jungwoo had taken the seat beside Yeonwoo’s high chair to start feeding him, you then took a bite of your eggs.

“Oh, hey,” Jungwoo suddenly seemed to remember something, turning back around to face you, “We’re going to visit my parents today.”

“Ah, have fun!” You replied with an enthusiastic smile, happy that Yeonwoo would get to see his grandparents again.

His face dropped a little, “You’re coming with us, aren’t you?”

“I—yeah, right.”

You assumed that he meant only him and Yeonwoo, seeing as how ‘we’ had never really included you before. You were the nanny, this sounded like a family thing.

“Okay, good.” Jungwoo’s smile came back as you took a short sip of your coffee, “Because my parents would kill me if I didn’t bring you too, they miss you almost as much as Yeonnie. And definitely more than they miss me.”

You’d been welcomed back at the Kims’ house with open arms, the familiar surroundings bringing back fond memories. It had only been a month and a half since you’d been here, but it felt closer to years. So much had changed, but also somehow stayed the same. You were different, but everything about this place was exactly the same, a comforting sight.

Yeonwoo had been more excited and energetic than usual as soon as the car stopped in front of his grandparents’ house. And now, he had dragged his dad outside to the backyard, running around with him endlessly. Even Mr. Kim seemed to have enough in him to join in for a while, concerning you but amusing his wife. Mrs. Kim joined you on the porch to sit in her chair and absentmindedly knit, truly focused on affectionately watching the three generations of Kim men all play together.

“You’re a miracle-worker, Y/N,” she commented approvingly, drawing your eyes away from Jungwoo dramatically falling after being ‘tackled’ by Yeonwoo, carefully controlling his descent as to not crush the toddler.

“All Yeonwoo needed was time to get used to his dad again,” you tried to shrug off her high praise, but she scoffed in return.

“I don’t mean just with Yeonwoo. I meant my son, too. Jungwoo had Yeonwoo for only a few months before he gave him to us, he was never really his father even before that. He didn’t know how to be one, he just got this kid dumped on him and freaked out. Thank you for making him actually learn to be the father Yeonwoo deserves.”

You were winded by the exaltations she had about you, but she still wasn’t done as she kept musing, “I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen him smile so much. Ever since he joined that damned company out of college, he was so busy and cold, even with us. But now… he’s as soft and bright as when he was Yeonwoo’s age. You gave him his son back, Y/N, but you also gave us ours back too.”

“I don’t-I don’t know— thank you,” you stuttered out, taking in the wistful smile gracing her lips and the tears shining in her eyes.

Mr. Kim let out a groan just then, and you snapped your attention back to the yard, seeing him crouching and holding his back. You left Mrs. Kim on the stoop, jogging out to where Jungwoo was now supporting his dad, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just need to tap out for now. Mind taking my place, Y/N?” He still had a grin on his face as he swatted Jungwoo’s hands off and started hobbling back towards the house.

“What did you two do to him?” You rounded on Jungwoo and Yeonwoo sternly, both of them freezing up sheepishly, Yeonwoo hiding behind Jungwoo’s legs.

“Hey, don’t throw me under the bus!” Jungwoo said indignantly to his son, “You were the one who insisted on tackle tag.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that was Yeonwoo’s idea.” You shook your head, a smile coming to your face as Jungwoo was still trying to shake Yeonwoo off of him.

Just then, you lunged forward and pushed on the man’s chest, making him tumble backwards until he was flat on his butt, “You’re it!”

Without waiting for a reply, you and Yeonwoo tore off across the grass, leaving his dad to scramble to get to his feet and chase after the two of you.

You all stayed way past dinner, finally saying your goodbyes to the Kims at their front door about an hour after Yeonwoo’s bedtime. He was already half-asleep in your arms as you stood a few steps away from the front door, letting Jungwoo say goodbye to his parents. After Jungwoo got his last kiss from his mom, he approached you, holding his hands out. Slightly confused, you handed Yeonwoo to him, then saw the Kims waving you over.

Walking back up to them, Mrs. Kim teasingly scolded you, “Did you think you could get away without a hug?”

Laughing lightly, you let her hug you, pressing a kiss to your cheek, then Mr. Kim also hugged you. “Thank you for taking care of our boys, Y/N,” he said, referencing the two behind you, “Make sure they don’t wear you out too much, okay?”

“I don’t mind it,” you shook your head, looking back at them affectionately. Jungwoo was trying to load Yeonwoo into his carseat, a skill he hadn’t quite yet mastered. “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t pinch his finger again. It was great seeing you two, take care.”

“Bye Y/N,” they gave you their final goodbye as you retreated back to the car, carefully reminding Jungwoo of how to do all the different buckles.

Finally, you were on the short trip back home. Home, you repeated to yourself. Was that really what you considered the condo to be? Your home?

Glancing over at Jungwoo, who was happily maneuvering the car through the streets, you found your heart thudding in your chest. This whole day reminded you of some picture-perfect family movie, and you couldn’t quite pinpoint when it had started happening. One of his hands was on the steering wheel, while his other was resting just above the stick, elbow resting on the center console. Half of you felt that it would only be natural to reach out and hold his hand, but the other half was screaming at you not to, to remember what you were: the nanny, the help, the employee. No matter what this felt like, what cheesy movie this reminded you of, that wasn’t your life.

It was just over an hour later when the car pulled into the parking garage behind the building. “I don’t think I’ve ever gone in the front door of this building,” you mused as you took the dead asleep Yeonwoo out of the car and into your arms.

“Do you want to?” Jungwoo offered, making your eyebrows shoot up.

“I thought you didn’t want Yeonwoo and I to be seen by the press.”

“Most of them go home at night. It’ll be fine,” he reassured you, leading you around the side of the building with a gentle and nonchalant arm across your shoulders. “Come on.”

His simple but kind words paired with the casual physical affection sent your heart racing and a tightness to bloom in your chest.

Emerging onto the sidewalk, you were surprised at how… normal it seemed. No mass of reporters like on your first day, just the peaceful hum of the city surrounding you on the short walk from the parking garage to the front door. Yeonwoo was still passed out against you, so Jungwoo buzzed the two of you in with his card, holding the door open for you to slip in. The people at the front desk—who you’d met once to receive your keycard from—gave you all a polite greeting.

“Well?” Jungwoo asked expectantly once you had boarded the elevator, taking his arm off you to lean against the wall with a smirk. “How was it? Going through the front door?”

“It was… underwhelming,” you admitted with a short laugh, happy to have his arm off your shoulders again so you could breathe properly. “So can Yeonwoo and I always go through the front door, or only when its ten at night and the press have gone home?”

“I’d still prefer if you went through the back door,” he explained, seeming reluctant to do so, “Since most people at my company don’t even know about Yeonwoo yet.”

You nodded, the weight that had lifted off your shoulders coming back. It still felt like you and Yeonwoo were his dirty little secret or something. Readjusting Yeonwoo in your arms, you were silent as you looked at the screen that slowly showed the floor numbers going up.

“Is he getting heavy?” Jungwoo seemed to have noticed you shifting the boy around, “I can take him.”

You shrugged off his offer with a tight-lipped smile, “No, I’m okay.”

In the condo, you parted ways with Jungwoo to bring Yeonwoo to his room and start getting him ready for bed. You had just changed him and tucked him in, watching his sleeping form fondly for a moment when a warm hand was once again on the small of your back. This time, you let out a surprised yelp, answered by poorly-concealed laughter from Jungwoo, who was apparently behind you. He must have been trying to lean over you again, probably to give Yeonwoo his goodnight kiss, but was now struggling to stifle his snickers at your reaction.

Yeonwoo suddenly babbled something, yawning and rolling over towards you.

“Look at what you did!” You hissed quietly to Jungwoo as the boy stirred in his sleep.

“You’re the one who screamed,” he was still laughing, but thankfully kept his voice low as well.

“I did not scream.”

“No, that was definitely a scream.”

“You—”

“Dada?” A small yet tired voice broke into your spat, stopping the both of you in your tracks.

Jungwoo looked at you with wide eyes, “Did he—?”

You gestured around wildly, and Jungwoo seemed to get the message. He kneeled down beside where Yeonwoo now had his eyes fully open, looking at the two of you endearingly. “What was that, Yeonnie?” Jungwoo asked, desperately trying to get him to say it again. “What did you say?”

“Dada,” Yeonwoo repeated, and you were sure Jungwoo was about to faint on the spot.

“Yeonwoo,” you joined his dad in kneeling beside the boy’s bedside, pointing at Jungwoo, “Who is that?”

“Dada?”

Jungwoo’s hand was over his mouth in amazement, absolutely speechless at this.

“You’re right, bub. That’s your Dada,” you confirmed this happily, bumping Jungwoo’s shoulder with yours as a silent congratulations.

Yeonwoo focused his deep brown eyes on you next, “Mama.”

This snapped both you and Jungwoo back to reality, sharing a look before you both hesitantly let out awkward laughter at this. Jungwoo took the lead, “No, Yeonnie. That’s Ms. Y/N. Can you say that? Can you say her name?”

Your hopeful smile fell when he simply repeated, “Mama.”

Forcing yourself to stand up, you feigned a cheerful and teasing tone as best you could as you addressed Jungwoo, “You woke him up, you get to put him back to sleep.”

With that, you left the room quickly, darting down the hall and back out to the main space. This meant nothing. Yeonwoo’s used to seeing people with a mom and a dad, of course he’d assume that you, the woman taking care of him, would be his mom. It only made sense. What didn’t make sense was the happiness that had swelled up in your chest when he said it, and how it only felt… right.

You needed some fresh air. Treading across the living room, you reached the sliding glass door that opened to what you would call a backyard if it wasn’t hundreds of feet off the ground. It was an open patio area, a pool on the far end, small patch of fake grass where Yeonwoo had a slide, and an area with a grill and dining table and chairs. It’d be a nice place to host a dinner party, not that you’d ever seen Jungwoo host one. You’d never met any of his friends, and he hadn’t even mentioned any to you. There was one time he had complained about a man named Yukhei, but the way Jungwoo talked about him, you couldn’t tell if they were friends or not.

Sitting on one of the lounge chairs beside the pool, you focused your eyes up to the sky. You couldn’t see many stars because of the lights of the city, but nonetheless you still took some comfort in them. It was a late July night, meaning that a warm breeze would pass over you every so often, soothing the goosebumps flaring up along your body. You let out a deep sigh that resonated through you, bringing your knees up to your chest and dropping your head to rest on them in defeat.

You didn’t really like Jungwoo, you convinced yourself. It was just because you’d been living with him for a month and a half, and watched him get close to his son again, that must have incited some kind of biological motherly response in you to find that attractive, right? Not to mention that you’d seen nobody except him, Yeonwoo, the Kims, and the people who worked in this building in six weeks. Even when you took Yeonwoo out to places, you didn’t make friends with the moms at the park, or chat with the lady who owned the ice cream shop you frequented. This was some strange sort of cabin fever, you needed to see other people again and all of this nonsense would be over.

Bringing your phone out from your pocket, you opened up your group chat with Yeeun and Chan, which hadn’t been used in almost two weeks.

[you: we need to hang out]

Yeeun immediately responded, and you were surprised that she was awake.

[yeeun: yes, it’s been like eight million years]

[chan: six weeks, yee]

Your other friend had entered the chat, and you smiled at their familiar bickering.

[yeeun: shut up, its felt like eight million years]

[yeeun: anyway, when do you want to meet up?]

[you: as soon as possible. tomorrow?]

[yeeun: i’m working]

[chan: i’m free for lunch]

[yeeun: that’s not fair!]

[you: we’ll facetime you on your break or something, yee]

[chan: so that’s a yes on lunch?]

[you: yes]

[chan: you’ve never been able to make plans with us since you moved, and now you can do it on the spot? don’t yeonwoo and his dad need you?]

[you: he’s going to give me tomorrow off whether he likes it not]

[yeeun: if chan’s taking you to lunch, i get to take you to dinner another night]

[you: sounds like a deal]

The sliding glass door opened behind you, and you hastily went to finish the conversation.

[you: i need to go, see you tomorrow chan]

You’d just tucked your phone back in your pocket when Jungwoo approached your side, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Hi,” he greeted you simply.

“Hi,” you repeated with some humor in your voice, jerking your head a little to offer the other half of the lounge chair to him.

Jungwoo accepted it, sitting a little further away than he had been as of late, but your mind told you this was better. He was quiet, and you didn’t know why he had joined you, or went to find you anyway. You weren’t sitting anywhere visible to someone inside, meaning he purposefully went looking for you out here.

“He’s asleep.”

“Good.”

There was another prolonged bout of silence between you two, and you turned your head to rest your cheek on your knees, able to properly see Jungwoo now. He had his hands behind him on the chair to prop himself up, leaning back just enough that his hair fell away from his forehead, gentle features illuminated by the nighttime lights below you. And he was already looking at you. You’d had some moments like this with Jungwoo, unaccompanied by Yeonwoo and left to your own devices. The two of you usually made small talk about this and that, nothing substantial. Another reason why your feelings were completely illogical: you knew nothing about him.

“Could I ask you a question, Y/N?” Jungwoo requested, adding onto the tension suffocating you.

“Yeah,” your voice cracked, which you cleared out with a harsh cough, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. “Go ahead.”

“What did you do before you started taking care of Yeonwoo?”

You weren’t sure what you were expecting him to ask you, but it definitely wasn’t that.

Taking a moment to reminisce in your own thoughts, you turned your focus back up to the inky black sky, fond smile tugging at the corners of your mouth, “I was in school to be an astrophysicist, actually.”

You weren’t sure what Jungwoo was expecting your answer to be, but it definitely wasn’t that.

“Then how did—”

“My dad got sick,” you informed him with a shrug. “I had to leave school and took the first job I could, and I just couldn’t believe how lucky I had gotten.”

“Lucky?”

Your smile only grew at his surprise. Going from a promising career as an astrophysicist to being some random kid’s nanny in a small neighborhood outside Seoul didn’t really sound lucky to most people. But you had your own reasons, “Yeah, I get to spend almost every day with this adorable kid who doesn’t care if I could recite every part of string theory correctly and then apply it and write a twenty-page research paper on it. Which I got an A on, by the way.”

Jungwoo seemed amused by your spiteful addition at the end, returning to the beginning of your story, “Is your dad okay?”

“Oh yeah, he’s perfectly healthy now. We paid off all the hospital bills just a couple months after I started working for your parents.”

“Then why aren’t you back in school?”

That—your choice of permanently leaving school and taking care of Yeonwoo—you weren’t quite sure yourself why you did it. At the time, it was something that you could never explain to your confused family and friends, other than you just… needed to.

But now, as you thought about it, you could realize and admit your reasons to yourself. And Jungwoo, apparently.

“Because I saw someplace where I could make more of a difference than I ever could with my head in the stars all the time. Or, black holes and theoretical vibrating strings that make up the quarks that make up the subatomic particles that make up the atoms that make up all matter in the universe, really,” you took a short breather in between, a little happy at the stunned look on Jungwoo’s face at the physics jargon you had just spit out at him. “Your parents, and Yeonwoo, they needed me. But… I also needed them. I’m a little selfish. Because kids are more incredible, kinder, and wonderful than we adults could ever hope to be. They look at every adult in their life as perfect, even when you admit your faults to them. Being adored despite everything you may think you’ve done wrong is the purest kind of love, and I wanted to have that every day.”

“That’s not selfish at all, Y/N.” Jungwoo reassured you, his sincerity catching you off-guard as much as the hand that found its way to your knee, patting it kindly before resting there, “What’s selfish was me giving up my kid for my career.”

Realizing that he was repeating your own words to him from the first day you’d met, you thwacked his arm just hard enough to get him to snap out of his remorse and look at you, “Hey, don’t listen to what I said. I was pissed that you were trying to fire me, and I didn’t know your side of it. You were a single parent and thought that was what was best for your son. You sent your parents money to provide for him, and gifts whenever you could. That’s not selfish.”

“But you were still right. No matter my intentions behind it, he didn’t know who I was. I was a total stranger to him.”

“You’re not anymore.” You pointed out, hesitantly resting your smaller hand atop his, “You’re Dada now.”

“Yeah.” A tender smile played across his lips as he remembered it, one that suited his face much better than the cold scowls or dark smirks you’d seen months prior, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Teaching me how to be a father, helping me teach Yeonwoo what a father should be, and holding me accountable to be the kind of father he deserves.”

His words went right to your heart, tears rising up in your eyes that started falling before you could even try to stop them. You pulled your hand back to wipe at them, and that’s when Jungwoo’s face became concerned as he looked at you closer.

“Woah, hey, did I say something?” He scooted closer to you, and you continued pressing your hands harshly against your eyes.

“No—well yeah, but nothing bad, I promise,” you managed to sputter out, wishing you had long sleeves to aptly dry your face.

“You’re crying because I said something… good?”

You chuckled, sniffed, then replied in something akin to a blubber, “Guess so.”

“Come here,” he murmured, arm once again coming to encircle your shoulders, this time the other one joining to fully pull you flush to his chest.

Selfish as ever, you let yourself bask in the moment, being tucked under his chin, one of his hands rubbing your arm soothingly while the other rested with its fingers entwined with your hair as you could feel the heat coming from his chest and the fresh scent he always had enveloping you. Admittedly, it only made your tears fall harder, but you appreciated his attempt.

“I know you said it was nothing bad, but I’m still going to apologize,” Jungwoo’s mouth was right above your ear as he spoke softly.

You chuckled, nodding your head a little, “I know I said it was nothing bad, but I’m still going to forgive you.”

“Sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

Finally, your tears decided to cease, and much like how meteors strike Earth, the gravity of the situation hit you like—well, a meteor. You slowly started to pull away, and Jungwoo took the hint, letting you go, but still with a fond look on his face when you made eye contact.

“Oh, uh, tomorrow: could I have a few hours off around midday?” You requested, remembering the conversation you’d had earlier, an even greater desperation for your lunch with Chan to happen now after what had just transpired. Your heart was thudding loudly in your ears and you were sure that if it were any brighter out, Jungwoo would be able to see the dark pink flush along your face, neck, and ears.

“Sure, of course. I have to go in for a few hours in the morning, but I’ll be back around eleven,” Jungwoo offered, seeming confused but humored nonetheless, “I’m surprised you haven’t asked for time off yet.”

His tone was teasing, but you couldn’t let yourself give into the playful banter, shooting up to your feet, “Yeah. Thank you, I’ll see you then. Goodnight.”

“Uh, goodnight, Y/N.”

You gave him one last tight-lipped smile before hastily closing the sliding glass door behind you and disappearing inside.

You set to work as soon as you woke up: changing Yeonwoo then warming up and feeding him the leftover breakfast Jungwoo had made before he left for work. It was an early morning meeting, which you were thankful for. This way you didn’t have to see him in his pajamas, soft brown hair mussed up, fighting back small yawns as he giggled with Yeonwoo. Taking a deep breath that smelled heavily of dish detergent, you focused back in on scrubbing the plates you’d used for breakfast.

There was a tug on your pants, and you shut the faucet off and grabbed a dish towel to start drying the plate as you looked down at Yeonwoo attentively.

“Up?” He requested, holding his arms up.

Ever since he’d woken up this morning, all he seemed to want to do was talk. It was as if saying ‘Dada’ last night had opened some kind of language dam and he was saying the right words for everything, making small sentences if needed. He didn’t seem to be slow or lacking in anything, in fact it was almost as if he was speaking better than the average nearly-three-year-old.

You still weren’t used to it, even after a very talkative breakfast. You were about to give into his request when you caught yourself. Yes, you were ecstatic that he could talk, but he still needed be reminded of manners. Setting the plate down, you stressed, “Up what?”

“Up, please.”

“Good boy,” you praised him, reaching down to lift him up onto your hip. “I don’t know why you suddenly started talking, but I’m getting the feeling that it’s going to be very hard to get you to stop now.”

“Yes, Mama,” he nodded mischievously, reigniting the conflict raging inside you.

Half of you wanted to chuckle and cradle him closer to you, cherishing the moment and the boy in your arms, while the other half was reminded just of what you were not. You were not his mom, and he couldn’t keep going around calling you that. Especially not when Jungwoo got home, you couldn’t have him thinking you were encouraging his son to call you that.

“I’m not your Mama, bub,” you tried to explain it to him, readjusting his shirt as you spoke. “I’m Ms. Y/N, your nanny.”

“Ms… Y/N?” He repeated hesitantly, and a wave of relief washed over you at this.

“Yes! That’s me!”

You glanced at the time just then, realizing that you’d be leaving to meet up with Chan soon. After escaping to your room last night, you’d finalized the details with him, agreeing to meet at a small café on the outskirts of Seoul at eleven-thirty. You’d wanted to be able to leave as soon as Jungwoo got home, which is why you chose a rather early time, and were now sitting Yeonwoo down on your bed with a couple toys as you dashed around to get ready. First, you needed to not be in your dirty pajamas. As you tossed them in your hamper, you reminded yourself that you needed to start on laundry soon.

After getting dressed in the few clean pieces of clothing you had left—which admittedly were probably a little too dressy for where you were going—you heard Yeonwoo speak up from behind you.

“Ms. Y/N going where?”

You turned to give him a breathless grin as you struggled to find your piercing with the post of your earring, “I’m meeting a friend for lunch.”

“Dada?”

“No, not your Dada. Your Dada is coming home, and then you two are going to hang out together while I go to lunch.”

“Dada is not your friend?”

“Oh, of course he is,” you reassured the pensive-looking toddler, stroking his hair before you finally got the earring in. “This is a different friend. Do you remember Chan?”

Chan and Yeeun had each met Yeonwoo a handful of times, at his second birthday, Christmastime, and the occasional times the Kims would go on vacation and have you house-sit and watch Yeonwoo, giving you permission to have a friend stay over too if needed. Yeonwoo had taken a liking to Chan, but you were unsure of if the boy would remember your roommate since he hadn’t seen him in months.

“Yes.”

“That’s who I’m going to have lunch with.”

“I’m coming?”

You adjusted your hair in your mirror, patiently explaining to him again, “No, bub, you’re staying here with your Dada.”

“Why?”

“Because you have fun with your Dada, right?”

“Ms. Y/N have fun with me?”

“Yes, of course I have fun with you, Yeonnie. But I’m going to have fun with Chan for a little bit while you have fun with your Dada.”

“Why?”

Thankfully, you could just then hear the sound of the front door unlocking. Despite him still being the cutest and most perfect child ever in your eyes, Yeonwoo was now starting to get on your nerves with all these questions. You grabbed the last few things you needed before snatching Yeonwoo and his toys off your bed.

“I’m home,” Jungwoo called out right before you turned the corner, offering him a strained smile.

“Hey!” You handed Yeonwoo to him as soon as he had set his briefcase down on the coffee table in the living room.

He excitedly greeted his son but still watching you in slight confusion, “You’re leaving already?”

“Yeah, we’re going to lunch,” you tucked your phone in your pocket and grabbed your wallet. “When should I be back?”

“I’m not your parent, I’m not going to give you a curfew,” the man chuckled, following you as you made your way to the front door.

“Okay, thanks,” you nodded, turning back to Yeonwoo for a moment, pinching his cheek, “Have fun with your Dada, okay?”

“Can Dada and I come too?” Yeonwoo pouted, and Jungwoo couldn’t even register his question as his jaw pretty much dropped to the floor. Yeonwoo must not have spoken to Jungwoo this morning before he left for work.

Jungwoo sputtered out, “Did he just—?”

“Talk? Ask a question? Yes, he’s been doing that all morning. Can’t shut him up, honestly,” you were still itching to leave, every moment spent here was a moment spent not away from Jungwoo and your swirling mind and heart.

“Wh—this is huge, Y/N. Do you really need to go right now? Stay for a few minutes, to…” Jungwoo trailed off, and you were standing at the front door, hand on the door handle as you waited for him to continue.

“To…?”

The dad gave up, taking a physical and metaphorical step back from you in that moment, “Never mind. Have fun at lunch.”

You gave the child a final wave, “Bye, Yeonnie.”

With that, you left the condo, for the first time in six weeks unaccompanied by Yeonwoo or Jungwoo. You should feel free, but instead you just felt… bad. There was no way Jungwoo could’ve not noticed your complete disregard of him and desperation to just get out of there. And instead of worrying about Yeonwoo because this would be the first time they were together completely without you, you were instead worrying about if you had hurt Jungwoo’s feelings. Jesus Christ, of course you didn’t, you were his freaking nanny, he couldn’t give a single shit. Even as you told yourself that, you knew you were wrong. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have found you last night, and he wouldn’t have asked about you, and he wouldn’t have listened to you, and he most certainly wouldn’t have comforted you or held you for so long.

Chan was as mellow, fun, easy to talk to, and crackhead-ish as ever. It was honestly refreshing, as you got updates on his and Yeeun’s misadventures of living together without you, including when she almost hit him in the head with a pan because he had come back at three in the morning and she thought he was a murderer.

“She’s been really off ever since you left, Y/N,” Chan mused, a notion that both surprised you and made you feel guilty. “Normally she never would have even woken up at me coming home at three in the morning, much less be ready to fight me. When are you coming back?”

You sighed, a dull ache in your chest as you contemplated this, “Soon, I think. Really soon.”

“Good,” he grinned, pausing the conversation to take a bite of his food.

It was then that your phone rang, and you eagerly brought it out, thinking that it was Yeeun calling you on her break. Instead, the caller ID worried you much more: Kim Jungwoo.

Thinking that the building was on fire, or Yeonwoo had fallen off the balcony or something, you scrambled to accept it, “Hello?”

“Who is that?” Chan asked through his mouthful of food.

You titled the mic away from your mouth to answer shortly, “J—My boss.”

“Y/N, can you come home?” Jungwoo’s voice was different when he finally answered, and you strained your ears to try to hear any indications of Yeonwoo suffering in the background.

“Of course, what’s wrong?” You held your phone to your ear with your shoulder as you started rifling through your wallet for some money to pay and run. Chan watched you with interest, still munching on his lunch.

“Yeonwoo threw up and I—”

At this, you suddenly slowed down, returning your phone to your hand and cutting him off, “What color was it?”

“What?”

“Was it pink with little seeds in it?”

“Yeah,” he almost sounded disappointed as he confirmed your suspicions.

You let out a sigh of relief, knowing smirk on your face as you explained, “That means he got into the raspberries on the kitchen counter. His stomach can’t handle the acidity of them yet. Just give him some rice and bananas, he’ll be okay.”

“Rice and bananas? That’s it?”

“He just has an upset stomach, he’s a toddler. I promise, he’ll be just fine.”

“Okay. Bye.”

Before you could say goodbye as well, he’d already hung up, and you set your phone down with mild offense on your features.

“What was the emergency?” Your friend questioned as you returned your cash to your wallet and picked up your fork again.

“Yeonwoo threw up and his dad freaked out.”

“You can still eat after talking about the color and contents of his puke?”

“You get desensitized,” you shrugged before taking a mouthful of your lunch into your mouth.

“Your boss?” Was the first thing you heard when you had returned to the condo in the early evening. You and Chan had walked around the city after your meal and ended up losing track of time. Not that Jungwoo had given you a curfew, and not that you were exceptionally eager to go back anyway.

Jungwoo was sitting at the breakfast bar that was between the kitchen and the living room, twisting his stool to face you. Caught off-guard, you hesitantly set your wallet down on the side table in the hallway by the front door, stepping further inside the condo, maintaining your piercing eye contact with him.

“What?” You were utterly confused, and glanced around the room, “Where’s Yeon?”

“He’s down for his nap,” Jungwoo informed you shortly before immediately returning to the original lack of a topic. “Your boss?”

That’s when you realized he was referencing the hasty phone call from earlier, when Chan had asked who was calling you and you told him that it was your boss. And he seemed… offended by it?

“What was I supposed to call you? The guy who pays me to live in his condo and take care of his kid?” You were on the defensive, crossing your arms and feeling your blood starting to boil just beneath your skin.

“I have a name.”

“You’re the one who said I wasn’t allowed to let anyone know who Yeonwoo’s dad really was. You’re the one that wants to keep him in the dark. I’m just playing along until you fire me.” Your blood had officially boiled, overtaking the hurt that had returned when you walked in and saw Jungwoo.

You’d clearly confounded him, as he could barely sputter out, “Wh— fire you?”

“Isn’t that the plan? Get Yeonwoo to like you again and then hire another nanny who you don’t see as a threat to your relationship with him.”

Jungwoo sighed, looking ashamed as he admitted, “That was the plan, for the first two weeks…”

You were still worked up, as if you hoped that anger and bitterness would be able to cover up your incredible want to just kiss him, and hold his hand, and all the other things that couples did, “Then what’s the plan now?”

“To not fire you.”

“Oh wow, thanks,” you scoffed, voice heavy with sarcasm.

“And, to go watch the meteor shower tonight.”

Now it was your turn to be dumbstruck, “The…?”

“Meteor shower,” he confirmed, looking almost nervous as his eyes dropped to the hem of his shirt that his fingers were also fidgeting with. “I looked into it after you mentioned what you’d studied in college last night. There’s one that’s been happening for a few days now, I guess. The P-Per… uh—”

“Perseids? The Perseids meteor shower is happening?”

“Yeah, the peak is happening tonight, and you’re supposed to be able to see it from this overlook a few hours outside of Seoul.”

You were still speechless, mind hurtling towards a single terrifying and too-good-to-be-true conclusion. Jungwoo nervously looked at the time on his watch, “Uhm, if we want to make it in time, we need to leave in like thirty minutes.”

“I’ll go get Yeonwoo,” you confirmed his unspoken question, earning a gentle smile from the man.

Yeonwoo was still exceptionally chatty as you were trudging up to the overlook later that night, “Where are we going?”

“To watch a meteor shower, Yeonnie,” Jungwoo explained as he shifted the boy in his arms. Normally, he’d be walking on his own, but the terrain and mediocre hiking skills the trek required were far too advanced for the little boy to manage on his own two feet.

In your hands were the blanket you were to sit on, small handheld telescope that you’d brought with you from college to your apartment to the condo on a whim, a small picnic, and some toys to keep Yeonwoo occupied just in case.

“What’s that?”

Jungwoo looked over to you expectantly, clearly waiting for the astrophysicist inside you to jump out. And she did.

“It’s when a bunch of… uh, rocks that are in space,” you forced yourself to simplify the rant you were about to go on for the two-year-old. “All start falling towards Earth, where we are.”

“Are they gonna hit us?”

“No bub,” you reassured him, offering the boy a bright smile. “They actually burn up way before they even get close to the ground.”

He still seemed worried, and as Jungwoo slowed to a stop at the small expanse of flat area on the mountain, you poked Yeonwoo’s sides until he giggled, “There we go.”

Jungwoo set his son down to help you start spreading out the blanket and bringing out the other contents of the bag. According to him, the peak of the meteor shower was supposed to happen within the next hour, and despite knowing this, you couldn’t sit down. You were too excited, standing up and bouncing on your heels as you recalibrated the telescope that hadn’t been used in a year.

“Ms. Y/N, what are you doing?” Yeonwoo’s voice came from beside you, and you looked down at him with a grin that you couldn’t wipe off.

“I’m… Got it!” You sighed in relief as the moon finally came into focus. Bending over, you picked Yeonwoo up, propping him up on your hip with one arm as your other held your telescope. Holding it out in front of his face, you said, “Here, put your eye right there. Really carefully, okay?”

Hesitantly, he did as you asked, gasping in delight as he saw it, “The moon!”

“Yeah, that’s the moon, bub,” you were practically giddy as you moved it a little bit, “And do you see the little red dot?”

“No, Ms. Y/N.”

“Look really hard, Yeonnie.”

His face lit up again, “I see it! I see it! What is it?”

“That’s Mars, it’s another planet.”

“What’s a planet?”

As you answered Yeonwoo’s seemingly endless stream of questions, pointing out various things in the sky, you couldn’t help the excitement overflowing from inside you. It had been so long since you’d gone stargazing, or even really thought much about space or anything at all related to astrophysics. Originally, you’d wanted to be an astronomer, which is why the night sky was so amazing to you. But you found that while pure astronomy didn’t make much money, astrophysics did, and was related enough that you decided to pursue that instead.

Being able to teach someone else about astronomy warmed your heart as you took in Yeonwoo’s amazed face as he soaked in every word you said, eager to ask more questions and learn even more. A warm hand was suddenly on your shoulder, and you looked to your other side where Yeonwoo wasn’t.

“Could I look?” Jungwoo was standing there, looking down at the two of you fondly.

“Sure,” you held your telescope out to him, giggling as he squinted into it.

“I can’t see anything.”

“Here.” Setting Yeonwoo down, you readjusted Jungwoo’s position, moving where the telescope was pointing, and tapping by his temple, “Relax your eye, you’re squinting way too hard.”

He did as you asked, and you eagerly awaited his reaction when he finally saw it. But instead, he was frowning, “I still can’t see it.”

“It’s the little red dot, it should be right there.”

“Dada, come on!” Yeonwoo whined, tugging on his pants. “I want to see it again!”

“Yeonwoo, you need to wait your turn,” you chastised the boy sternly, gently grabbing at Jungwoo’s fingers until he let go of your telescope and let you take it back.

Holding it back up to your own eye, you relocated Mars, grin coming back to your face. As you kept it in that exact position, you tugged Jungwoo over, “Right there.”

You moved over, holding the telescope in the same spot as he leaned down to peer into it, remembering your tip about squinting too hard. And finally, he seemed to have found it, “Oh! That’s really small.”

“Well it’s like 55 million kilometers away from us!” You huffed, taking your telescope away from him.

He grinned apologetically, “Sorry, it’s really cool.”

“Sure,” your tone was teasing as well as you went to sit on the blanket, gesturing Yeonwoo over. “You need to eat.”

You didn’t stay seated for long, just enough to get Yeonwoo’s stuff set up in front of him before standing back up with your sandwich in one hand and telescope in the other. You couldn’t help it, you were way too excited. Pacing in anticipation, you vaguely listened to the conversation the father and son were having behind you in between bites of their food and dinosaur battle they were having. According to Jungwoo’s newest Internet search, the peak of the Perseids meteor shower would be visible within the next ten minutes and would last for a few hours.

And then… it was happening. The first brilliant streak of light shot across the sky, an excited squeal escaping your mouth. A few more moments passed, the inky night looking the same as it before the first meteor. Keeping your eyes peeled, you saw another one, the same elated noise coming from you as before. You suddenly remembered the man behind you after the third one you’d seen.

“Jungwoo! Come look at this—” When you turned around, you were cut short by the sight of Yeonwoo fast asleep in Jungwoo’s lap, essentially rendering the dad unable to move for fear of waking him. Your chest swelled at the sight as Jungwoo gave you a sheepish look.

“Here,” you sat down beside him, scooting closer to hold the telescope out in front of his face.

His hand reached up to close around yours, holding the telescope steady as he moved it to his eye to peer into it. He frowned a little at the apparent lack of meteors, about to ask you something when it happened. His jaw dropped a little, lips parting in awe at the night sky as the next one happened, this time he was able to track it with the telescope lens. You, however, didn’t even see it.

Your focus was entirely on Jungwoo, the look of pure amazement across his features. His eyes round and wide, mouth open, features heightened by the soft moonlight illuminating them. If he wasn't handsome to you before, then you would've been even more taken by him then. Admittedly, you were literally speechless as you gazed at him.

He seemed to have finally noticed you looking at him, as he gently moved your hands down, encouraging you to set the telescope on the blanket. His hand turned over to gently lace his fingers through yours, a simple but breathtaking gesture for you. Jungwoo lifted your linked hands towards his lips, brushing them against it in a gentle and chaste kiss. You let out a small sigh at this, one that was only audible because of the oppressing but somehow comforting silence around you two.

Jungwoo spoke quietly, half in fear of waking Yeonwoo and half in fear of ruining the moment, “Y/N, I don’t know what this is, and I’m not asking to define it either. Just… I’d like to figure it out, with you.”

You nodded, pulling your hand from his until he willingly let it go, only to replace it with your other one, a more comfortable fit. Readjusting yourself, you leaned against his shoulder, conscious of the small child on his lap as you got comfortable. He gently pressed a kiss to the top of your head, then Yeonwoo’s as you continued watching the night sky.

The sound of a scream coming through the speaker of a baby cam roused you one morning. A groan came from beside you as an arm reached over you to turn it off.

“I'll get him,” Jungwoo grumbled, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead before rolling himself out of bed.

You squeezed your eyes shut, hoping to get back to sleep. You didn’t know exactly what time it was, but your body was telling you too fucking early. Burying your face in your pillow, you desperately willed sleep to return to you. Or at least Jungwoo, so you could have some semblance of peace and comfort before the toils of the next two days hit you. Today you were supposed to be attending a dinner with Jungwoo. And Yeonwoo. And also all of his company's board members, COO, CFO, and his closest employees. Yes, Jungwoo had finally decided to take the two of you out of the dark from the people he works with. Then tomorrow was Yeonwoo’s birthday, and you’d decided to throw him a small birthday party.

Just thinking about it stressed you out, and you tossed around, perpetually uncomfortable now. A knock came at the doorway, making you look over. Jungwoo was standing there, Yeonwoo on his hip.

“He was asking for you,” Jungwoo explained, cut off by his son.

“Mama!”

You pressed your lips together, looking to Jungwoo hesitantly. Ever since you'd started your relationship with his dad three months ago, it had become harder and harder to explain to Yeonwoo exactly who you were to him. Especially since you now slept in the same bed, were physically affectionate, and called each other pet names or terms of endearment.

Jungwoo nodded slowly to you as Yeonwoo kept repeating ‘Mama!’ hands stretched out towards you. A grin broke out across your face as you sat up, holding your arms out to accept the toddler.

“Hi bub! Good morning!” You greeted him excitedly, pecking his temple, and then his cheeks, and his nose until he was giggling and hiding his face in your chest.

When you relented, he popped back up and replied brightly, “Good morning, Mama!”

Jungwoo joined the two of you on the bed, coming to sleepily rest his head on your shoulder as he fought back a yawn. “Yeah,” he mumbled, endearingly kissing your shoulder, “Morning, Mama.”

And you couldn’t have been happier.

“Mama!” Came an excitable and enthusiastic voice right before a small but solid body landed on you the next morning.

Letting out a small ‘oof,’ you opened your eyes to see Yeonwoo now moving onto his next target, leaping on top of Jungwoo as he yelled, “Dada!”

“Morning, bub,” you plucked him off of his dad's back, setting him in your lap as you sat up. “Happy Birthday.”

“It’s my birthday! It's my birthday!” He repeated ecstatically, finally seeming to make Jungwoo stir with his yells.

“Happy Birthday, Yeonnie.” Jungwoo had an affectionate smile on his face as he turned over to gaze at his kid.

“I have some stuff to get from the store before the party,” you told Jungwoo as you continued mindlessly playing with Yeonwoo. “Do you want me to take Yeonwoo with me?”

“Yes please,” he didn’t seem enthusiastic about this as he sat up and looked at the clock. “I actually have a conference call at ten.”

He had said that he’d gotten the whole day off for Yeonwoo’s birthday, and that his work wouldn’t bother you all today. At the frown you were sure you had, Jungwoo sighed, “I couldn’t get out of this, I’m sorry. It’s with the Chairman of the Board, to finalize the plans for our next expansion. But I promise, when you to get home, everything will be set up!”

Satisfied, you set Yeonwoo down on the ground, “You get to pick out your own outfit today, birthday boy.”

“Yay!” The boy took off down the hall, giving you and Jungwoo a moment alone together.

Jungwoo wasted no time in wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you back into his chest, “So who is coming, again?”

“You, me, Yeonwoo—”

“Duh,” he pinched your side, earning a tiny giggle from you as you twisted his arms for a moment.

“Your parents, Chan and Yeeun… and some people from your work, right? Yukhei, Kun and his daughter, and then did you say that the Lees were coming?”

“The younger brothers are, Jeno and Donghyuck. Taeyong and Mark are stuck in meetings all day with their father and the rest of the board. They’re actually uh… taking over for me today, so that I could be here with you and Yeonwoo.”

You smiled to yourself, turning around to place a firm and sweet kiss to his lips, “Thank you.”

The corners of his mouth quirked upwards as you pulled away, nothing but adoration in his features as he kissed you again before resting his face in the crook of your neck, still sleepy. As you let him hold you, you thought back to something that had been playing in the back of your mind ever since Yeonwoo had officially started calling you Mama yesterday morning. His birth mother.

“Woo,” you murmured to him.

“Hm?”

“So how did… where’s Yeonwoo’s mother?” You hadn’t wanted to just drop that question on him, but you couldn’t help yourself from blurting it out.

“You’re right here, Y/N.”

Despite the sweet words making your heart swell, you also knew Jungwoo well enough to know that he was dodging the question, “I meant… his birth mother, Woo.”

He stiffened for a moment before relaxing again and sighing against your skin. Jungwoo sat back up, voice flat and face rather neutral as he replied, “I know… I ask myself the same question.”

The two of you were quiet for another moment, listening to your asynchronous breathing. You could see Jungwoo thinking again, getting lost in his own mind. Reaching a hand out towards his face, you tenderly stroked his cheek to get him to look at you again. When he did, you ran your fingers through his hair as a gentle reward, “Talk to me.”

And he did.

“She was an old… acquaintance. She contacted me when he was a couple months old, saying that she couldn’t take care of him, that she didn’t sign up for a kid and that I needed to take him. She stayed just long enough for the DNA test to prove that he was mine, and then gave up custody and disappeared. Last I heard, she was somewhere in Europe.”

“That’s… terrible,” you finally replied, upset and frustrated at a woman who wasn’t even around for you to be angry at.

“Better than having an inept mother, right?”

“I guess.”

Another beat of silence happened, and you couldn't help yourself from asking, “What’s her name?”

Jungwoo seemed reluctant to answer, but did nonetheless, “Han Hyungha, and I don’t know what you need that information for but—”

There was suddenly a voice at your doorway, “Mama! Dada!”

Yeonwoo was proudly standing there, dinosaur print pants on backwards, lime green longsleeve haphazardly tucked into it, and his red ladybug rain boots adorning his feet. You couldn’t hold back your laughter, moving to stand up as you giggled, “Oh, bub.”

Jungwoo grabbed your hand before you could walk away, “As far as Yeonnie and I are concerned, you’re his mom, Y/N. Not her.”

Nodding, you squeezed his hand before letting it go and returning to your original mission: turning Yeonwoo’s pants the right way around.

A screech reached your ears as you were in the kitchen grabbing the birthday cake, but you recognized it as thankfully a screech of delight from Yeonwoo. Shaking your head at the laughter that followed from the rest of the partygoers, you placed the third candle on the cake. Jungwoo sidled up beside you, wrapping an arm around your waist to pull you closer to him, and gently kiss your temple, “Hi.”

“Hi,” you said humorously, bumping his hip in return. “What was that scream?”

“Yukhei’s playing with Yeonwoo and Meiqi,” he referenced one of his employees that was frequently managing projects under his department, whom you had met yesterday at the dinner. Wong Yukhei was nice, but also loud, playful, and overall a bit much to you.

“You left that rambunctious giant with our kid?”

“There’s other people there,” Jungwoo scoffed, seeming unfazed about your concerns, even giddy. “Our kid.”

Your eyes turned downwards as your face and neck flushed and you were suddenly very warm as you realized what you said. Jungwoo only held you tighter, peppering your face with kisses as you tried to hide your face away from him.

“Our kid,” he repeated almost teasingly between kisses. “Our kid, our kid, our kid.”

“You’re annoying.”

“Tomorrow we should go to the amusement park.”

“Sudden change of subject, but okay,” you entertained this new idea, happy to get off the previous topic. “Yeonwoo’s too small to go on any of the rides.”

“No, just you and I.”

“Not that I don’t love that idea, Woo, but uh, whose going to watch Yeonwoo then?”

“I’ll find a babysitter.”

“I’m the babysitter.”

Jungwoo thought for a moment before more squeals came from the living room from the two children in there, apparently giving him a lightbulb moment, “I bet Kun wouldn’t mind. Besides, it seems like Yeonnie and Meiqi are having fun together anyway, we should think about scheduling playdates.”

You couldn’t deny that you hadn’t truly gone on a date with Jungwoo or spent a considerable amount of time without Yeonwoo there. The whole premise and evolution of your relationship was unorthodox, so it never really struck you as strange until he brought it up.

“As long as Kun can watch him, fine. Sounds like a date.”

“Yes!” He cheered in victory, and you couldn’t help but giggle at how much of a dork he was.

“Now come on, we’ve got a birthday party to finish, Woo,” you picked up the cake and spun out of his grasp, back out towards the living room.

In the living room, you saw both Yukhei and Chan on the ground playing with the kids. Meiqi—Kun’s daughter—and Yeonwoo were hiding behind Chan as Yukhei tried to grab them, playfully growling at them just to hear their delighted laughter and screeches in return. You could see Donghyuck sneaking up on the scene, and watched with amusement as he knocked Yukhei over, allowing the kids to run out from behind Chan and climb on the much larger man. The others were sitting on the couch, watching the spectacle before them.

“See? Our kid is just fine,” Jungwoo pointed out smugly, earning an eye roll from you before he raised his voice to address the rest of the room. “Cake!”

Yeonwoo, Meiqi, Jeno, Donghyuck, and Yukhei’s heads all snapped up at this before they dashed over. Yeonwoo made a beeline for your legs, and Jungwoo managed to get the cake from you right before your son crashed into them, stumbling you back a few steps, “Mama!”

You picked him up with a laugh, setting him on your hip as the others gathered around too. Jungwoo set the cake down on the table you had most of the other food set up on, lighting the three candles for you. You nearly cried as Yeonwoo sang every word to ‘Happy Birthday’ along with everyone else, remembering how last year he didn’t even want to mumble a tune for it, and you didn’t know if he would ever speak until a few months ago. Nobody tried to correct him, to tell him that you’re not supposed to sing Happy Birthday to yourself, all equally enthralled by it.

After they finished singing, you bent down with Yeonwoo and Jungwoo, helping the now-three-year-old blow out his candles. Yeonwoo was overjoyed by the cheers he got, absolutely hamming it up for the guests. You could see Chan taking pictures the whole time, and reminded yourself to ask for them later, wanting a new lockscreen to replace your current one of Yeonwoo on Jungwoo’s shoulders at the park from a couple months ago.

Letting Yeonwoo go to happily get his own slice of cake from his father, you took a few steps back from the table, content to just watch the happiness unfold in front of you.

“Mama, huh?” A teasing voice beside you was paired with an elbow in your side that could only belong to one person. Yeeun was standing there, small grin on her face as she watched your face turn red, “Didn’t you just start dating his dad a few months ago?”

“Three, and yes, he calls me Mama,” you replied quietly, unable to suppress your grin. Watching Yeonwoo desperately try to lick frosting off the tip of his nose, then looked at Jungwoo, who was already reaching for a napkin to help him wipe it off, your grin increased by tenfold. “We might be doing this out of order.”

“If it works for you, Y/N,” she shrugs nonchalantly, but took your hand in hers to give it a firm and supportive squeeze. “I’ve never seen you so happy. And that makes me happy.”

“Thanks, Yee.”

Before she could reply, someone had called out your name, “Y/N!”

“Hm?” Your eyes focused on Jungwoo attentively, holding half a piece of cake on a plate.

“Yeonnie wants to make sure his Mama eats some,” he holds the plate out to you, and you suppress a giggle, addressing your son.

“Mama’s not hungry right now, bub. I’ll have some later, okay?”

“Okay!”

Someone slipped up to your other side then, tone mischievous they asked, “Mama?”

“Chan, I just explained this to Yee!” You groaned in exasperation, earning laughter from your former roommates.

Everyone had gone home, Jungwoo had organized the babysitting/playdate with Kun for tomorrow, you’d cleaned most everything up, put Yeonwoo to sleep with a final Happy Birthday, and were now sleepily changing into your pajamas. While most of your clothes and things had been moved to Jungwoo’s room, some were still in the dresser in your old room, where you were currently pulling out your last pair of clean sleep shorts.

Han Hyungha suddenly came to your mind, and you let out a short but heavy sigh.

Making a split-second decision, you pulled out your phone and went into Google. Han Hyungha couldn’t be too common of a name, right? You weren’t even sure why you were searching her name. Were you trying to find a picture of her, to see what she looked like? Were you trying to find a social media account? What would you do if you did? It’s not like you could just message her out of nowhere, and if you did, what would you even say? Would you even want to?

Too many questions hurtled around in your head, all coming to a screeching halt on the one thing you knew you weren’t hoping to find. An online obituary. Shaky fingers clicked on the link, and your eyes desperately scanned the words.

‘Han Hyungha, 29, passed away on September 1st, 20XX in Dusseldorf, Germany. Hyungha was born just outside of Seoul, South Korea, and left for Germany nearly three years ago to pursue her own spontaneous business projects. She is survived by her mother, father, twin sister Youngha, and younger brother Hyungin…’

Your morbid curiosity had you reading it all the way through, unsure again of what you were looking for. There was no mention of Yeonwoo or Jungwoo, you remarked, which only made sense.

There was no way you couldn’t tell Jungwoo this. With a heavy heart, you treaded out to the living room, slightly suspicious when you didn’t see him. At the end of the opposite hallway, you could see the light of his study on. He must have some work to cram in that he didn’t tell you about before. Normally, you’d chastise him, but nothing came to your mind except the content of your phone screen.

Pushing the door open, the sound thankfully got Jungwoo’s attention. He spun his chair around, sheepish apology stopping in his throat as he saw the grim expression on your face.

“Y/N?”

“Jungwoo… I’m so sorry,” you whispered as you held out the article with her obituary in it.

His gaze hardened as he read over the passage, then it softened again as he looked up at you. He reached a hand out for your waist, coaxing you into his lap as his arms went to wrap around you tightly. Jungwoo was quiet as he took a couple deep breaths, faced nuzzled against the nape of your neck. Finally, he spoke, mumbling against your skin, “It’s okay… Yeonwoo never knew her, so at least he’s not losing anything that mattered to him.”

“And what about you?”

“We were never close,” he admitted, bringing his face back out to rest his cheek against your shoulder, voice clearer now. “I met her at a conference and we hooked up a few times, but there was nothing there for either of us.”

Still, Yeonwoo would eventually grow up, and question who his birth mother was, and would in that moment learn what he had lost so long ago. And even if Jungwoo claimed that there was never a spark or that they weren’t close, he was still losing someone, losing the mother of his child. You gently ran your fingers through his hair, pecking his forehead.

As if he could read your thoughts, he looked up at you, leaning up to catch your lips with his momentarily, “Yeonwoo and I aren’t losing anything, unless you leave us.”

The notion of that made you immediately shake your head, kissing him again and again, “Never. Ever.”

“Good,” Jungwoo smiled against your lips, taking your promise to heart. This was how it was meant to be: you, and him, and Yeonwoo. All three of you, together.