“So I’ve set up a futon in Gyeommie’s room with sheets and a pillow, it might be a bit of a squeeze, but it’s better than staying out in the living room with temperatures dropping like this. If you get cold in the middle of the night there are extra sheets in the linen closet,” Jaebum overhears Jinyoung talking from where he’s washing the dishes, slowly getting louder as Jinyoung approaches the kitchen. “The same one you helped me put the blankets back into this morning- yep, the one on the left. You can go on ahead and sleep first if you’re feeling tired.”

Jaebum sets the last dish on the rack as Jinyoung walks in, heading towards the pantry with an absent smile, and sighs, drying his hands on the guest towel.

“Sweet or salty?” Jinyoung asks into the pantry, then, and Jaebum turns to face him, leaning against the sink, glancing at the boxes of microwaveable popcorn that Jinyoung’s holding.

“Whatever you and Gyeom want,” he half-yawns, rubbing his eyes before heading out of the kitchen to start setting up.

It’s a final tradition to end off their weekends- when Jaebum doesn’t have a report to rush and Jinyoung’s deadlines can still be casually ignored, the three of them will gather out in the living room and pop a movie into the DVD player until it finishes, or till one of them falls asleep (usually Jaebum) (usually within minutes of the opening credits). Jinyoung's always complaining about only ever seeing the first half of every movie he’s ever watched with them, but Yugyeom’s just happy he gets to pig out on popcorn or chocolate milk on nights like these.

Yugyeom’s sitting by himself on the floor, little legs splayed out as he riffles seriously through the worn old album of Blu-Rays and DVDs that Jaebum and Jinyoung have stockpiled over the years, and he squirms when Jaebum pokes a finger into his side as he settles beside him to take a look. He’s wearing the fading yellow and white Bart pajamas Jaebum had bought for him, half as a joke, which had gotten him and Jinyoung into a pretty serious argument about his priorities, and that had lasted for the entirety of about a day. Jinyoung still brings that up to torture him during dinner parties, much to Jaebum’s eternal embarrassment.

Jaebum notes that the pyjama pant legs are riding much higher above his ankles than they should, and makes a mental note to go out and buy him a bigger set some time soon. With winter coming, too, they need to go about getting Yugyeom a proper thick jacket soon, since he’d long outgrown his toddler one ages ago. Kids just grow up so fast, Jaebum notes, disgruntled.

“Papa likes this movie,” Yugyeom says, then, all of a sudden, flipping back to one of the pages he’d previously been using his finger to bookmark, before pointing at The Great Gatsby, and Jaebum looks over, chuckling.

“Yeah, he does,” Jaebum nods, looking at the other DVDs on the page. “What do you want to watch, though?”

“And you like these ones,” Yugyeom continues, quickly flipping to the movies at the back, with all of Jaebum’s favourite indie films. “Papa likes some of them too.”

“You know, we could just watch an action film for a change,” Jaebum suggests, reclining until he’s flat on his back on the floor, sighing. “What are kids at the kindergarten watching these days, Gyeommie? Do they still like Transformers?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s really nice. It’s noisy,” Yugyeom scrunches his face up, wriggling his bare toes. “And there are a lot of bangs. It’s very-…” he pauses here, frowning at the DVD album as he tries to remember the right word. “Stressful.”

Jaebum lets out a barking laugh, patting Yugyeom proudly on the back. “Spoken like a true Im. How about a cartoon film? Totoro? Cars?”

“The one with the toys?” Yugyeom flips to a pre-memorised page on the album, before pointing hopefully at the Toy Story 3 Blu-ray disc, his fourth birthday present.

“Yeah, sure,” Jaebum smiles tiredly, nodding towards the DVD player. “Careful with the disc.”

Yugyeom cautiously fishes the disc out from the pocket like Jaebum had taught him- not touching the top or bottom, but his hand’s too small to get a forefinger and thumb around the centre and side, so he awkwardly balances it between both hands, standing unsteadily and hurrying over to the player to put it in.

“The other one joining us?” Jaebum asks, half in a yawn as he rolls over onto his front as Jinyoung steps out into the kitchen, holding the popcorn.

“Nope, he said he was tired- I was too, the first few hundred times I had to face Jackson for a whole day,” Jinyoung rolls his eyes, laughing. “Is the DVD in?”

“Is it the yellow one?” Yugyeom’s already running up to the bowl of popcorn, tiptoeing to get a look, gravitating towards it as Jinyoung sets it on the table. “The one with the butter?”

“Yeah, just the way you and your daddy like it,” Jinyoung settles on the couch, pausing for about a moment, before sighing explosively, drawing the alarmed attention of the two other males in the room. “Crud, I just remembered- I need to send something off, I kept telling myself to do it last night but I forgot, the editor’s probably spamming my inbox right now,” he stands, sending a regretful look at the television. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead,” Jaebum nods, and Yugyeom pouts, but Jaebum knows he’s probably happy he gets to eat more popcorn now. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“That goes for both of you too,” Jinyoung says warningly, pressing a quick kiss on both their foreheads, before hurrying off to the bedroom, muttering under his breath about ridiculous deadlines and dumb reports.

Jaebum settles heavily on the couch, grabbing the remote to start the movie, and Yugyeom eagerly bounces on beside him, trying to imitate the way Jaebum had sat down.

“Guess it’s just you and me,” Jaebum takes a handful of popcorn, nudging Yugyeom’s shoulder with his elbow, and the boy giggles, reaching into the popcorn bowl himself to follow him, before popping three into his mouth and chewing with relish. It isn’t often Jinyoung lets him indulge in junk food like this, so it’s no wonder he treasures moments like these so much- Jaebum can testify to that.

Jaebum feels his eyelids grow heavy, however, even as the Pixar logo shows up on the television, and shakes himself awake. Mark and Jackson’s visits usually consume him with a relieved sort of exhaustion that’s not necessarily unpleasant- the type one would feel from intensive physical exercise. Regardless, he tosses some popcorn into his mouth and wills his eyes to stay open for the duration of the movie, at least.

Predictably, though, he falls asleep about fifteen minutes into the show.

When he stirs awake, the clock shows that it’s only been about an hour since the movie had started, but the show’s been shut off, and Yugyeom’s yawning, the remote on his lap.

“D’you turn the TV off?” Jaebum asks drowsily, rubbing a hand into his eyes.

“It got boring,” Yugyeom shrugs, his fingers free of popcorn butter. “You fell asleep, Daddy.”

“Ah, I’m not bored, just,” Jaebum yawns here, stretching. “Tired.”

Yugyeom yawns in tandem with him, before frowning at him with teary eyes. “You passed your yawn to me. Like a flu.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to watch it anymore?” Jaebum nods towards the television, and Yugyeom shakes his head, rubbing his eyes now. “Great, that means we can,” Jaebum yawns again as he reaches for the remote. “Sleep. Gosh. I yawned a lot, didn’t I. C’mon, let’s go to your room.”

“Don’t wanna,” Yugyeom sprawls out on the couch, clinging to one of the cushions, and Jaebum chuckles. “We have to do something else- you have to go to work again tomorrow, so we should play video games or hide and seek now.”

“Yah, it’s past ten now, you brat,” Jaebum grins, reaching out to grab one of Yugyeom’s ankles, poking the soles of his feet, and the little boy squeals, kicking out blindly to wriggle his foot out of Jaebum’s grip. “Wait till you start school- you won’t be able to wait till you get to sleep,” he lets go, and Yugyeom rolls over onto the floor like a noodle, whining reluctantly. “Come on, before Papa gets out and gets upset you aren’t in bed yet.”

“Carry me,” Yugyeom stretches out his arms, and Jaebum laughs again, a little louder this time. He obliges though, not missing the delighted look on Yugyeom’s face when he does so.

“Can you imagine,” he pauses, exhaling with the exertion it takes to get his arms around Yugyeom and lift the boy up properly. “When you were little, you could sit on my lap, and my chin could touch your forehead when I leaned over,” he pretends to tut and sigh. “What happened to our little baby Yugyeom?”

“I ate food and I grew,” Yugyeom says seriously, as Jaebum lifts him up, giggling as Jaebum’s shoulders shake with laughter.

It’s ironic, in a sense- Yugyeom had been one of the smaller kids at the adoption center, quiet and curious, with a smile that made his eyes disappear the same way Jinyoung’s did, touted proudly by the caretakers as a good kid- he can get playful sometimes but he’ll never get in trouble, and Jaebum knew from the look in Jinyoung’s eyes, the moment they got to know him, that it was going to be him.

It’d taken a while for them to get used to it- it’d been enjoyable, sure, setting up Yugyeom’s room, sticking up glow in the dark stars and buying all sorts of clothes, but then there were other things, things like Jinyoung having to give up his career to start working from home, Jaebum forced to ask for money for the first time in one of his regular calls to his mother, to just tide them over a particularly rough month, but like any other time in their life, they’d adjusted, figured things out. Jaebum remembers coming back from working overtime one night, half dead on his feet and worried to death about bills and how they were going to pay off the car and the apartment now, before opening the door and being attacked by a truck drawing, courtesy of three-year-old Yugyeom. Call him clichéd, but in that moment, it was like that had made up for everything else.

“You know,” Jaebum muses, then, standing with Yugyeom clinging to his back, chin on his shoulder. “One day you’re going to eat and grow until you’re taller than Papa and I. What are you going to do then?”

“But I can’t,” Yugyeom says, sounding appalled by the idea. “I’m younger than you. How can I be taller?”

“It’ll happen, I’m sure,” Jaebum chuckles as he walks over to the switches, taking one hand away to turn off the ceiling fan, before returning it to support Yugyeom. “Then Papa and I will be old, Gyeommie-ah. We’ll have wrinkles and our hair will be all grey.”

“Like Mark-samcheon’s?” Yugyeom asks curiously. “Is he old?”

“That’s dye, Gyeom, it’s different, but yeah, he is old,” Jaebum laughs, setting Yugyeom down carefully by his bedroom door. “For us, though- we won’t be able to walk as fast, too, and we might have problems seeing and hearing.”

Yugyeom seems a little shocked at that- he stills for a moment as he stumbles on his feet, seemingly thinking hard.

“But you can wear your glasses, right?” he finally asks worriedly, little hands clutching the sides of Jaebum’s face as he peers into the man’s eyes, as though checking if anything’s wrong with them now. “That’ll make it better, right?”

“Even with the glasses, I might not be able to see anything properly, once I get old enough,” Jaebum chuckles, hands closing around Yugyeom’s wrists to gently pry them from his face. “You’ll have to do all the seeing for me then, alright?”

“How will you see the road when you have to cross and take the bus to work?” Yugyeom’s frowning hard at a spot on the wall, already mapping out all the apparent flaws to that theory. “How will Papa cut veggies for soup if he can’t see the knife properly? Or write all his fasshun articles?”

“That’s still a long time away, Gyeommie-ah,” Jaebum chuckles. “You’ll be all grown up by then, a big adult who’s taller than both of us and with your own partner and your job and maybe even your own family," he fondly brushes the hair out of Yugyeom’s eyes, reminding himself to go get it cut sometime this week. “You’ll take care of us then, right Gyeom?”

“Yeah, of course,” Yugyeom sounds affronted that Jaebum would think otherwise. “We have to go to Jehjoo with Uncle Mark and Uncle Jackson and Bambam, and eat barbeque, and I have to drive us in a Lamborghini to Paris,” he uses the French pronunciation for that last word- something Jinyoung’s probably absent-mindedly talked about while writing one of his articles, no doubt. “There’s still so much to do, Daddy.”

“And we will do all that, someday,” Jaebum yawns again, patting Yugyeom’s shoulder as he gently steers the boy around to his room. “Let’s get some sleep now, alright? Daddy’s got work early tomorrow, be happy you don’t have to wake up early. Oh, careful, careful,” the volume of his voice drops as he pushes the door open into the semi-darkness, illuminated by the soft orange glow of Yugyeom’s Power Rangers nightlight. “Let’s not wake up your hyung now.”

The little boy tiptoes past the futon, and Jaebum looks over carefully as Yugyeom’s shape shifts restlessly under the blanket, before stilling again. Jaebum takes a step forward to close the door slightly behind him, trying to block out the living room light so he doesn’t wake the teen, before he almost trips on something hard and rectangular beneath him.

Squinting in the semi-darkness, the culprit turns out to be some sort of book lying by the teen’s futon- it’s the planner he’d seen on the first night, he realises. There’s a pencil lying on top of the book that’d been jostled when Jaebum stumbled on it, so Yugyeom must’ve been writing something down before going to sleep.

He bends down quickly to tidy it up, before noticing the photos spilling out of the book- the same Polaroid shaped pieces of film he’d seen on the first night, except here they haven’t been glued yet. They must’ve fallen out when he’d stumbled on it just now. Jaebum hastily tucks them back in, but one of them catch his eye before he can- it’s a selfie that Yugyeom must have taken with Bambam this afternoon. Yugyeom’s smiling, holding the phone just out of reach, the little boy sitting on his lap and reaching out to grab it with chubby fingers in his excitement, a gleeful smile on his face. There’s a little annotation on the back that he’d noticed when picking it up, words in an untidy scrawl reading for Bam, and Jaebum chuckles.

He does find it strange, though, that Yugyeom would have kept this, if it’d been meant for Bambam. The boy must’ve forgotten to give the photo to him, in the whole chaos of everything that’d happened that night.

Gyeommie’s clambered onto his car-shaped bed, by this time, burrowing under his blanket, sighing in contentment at being in his bed again, and Jaebum stands, having carefully pushed the book aside. The same thought pulses through his mind, it’s his business, I shouldn’t interfere, but for once, now, after what he’d found out this afternoon, he feels the urge to ask, maybe to offer to pass the photo to Mark and Jackson for Bambam, even.

“Night, Daddy,” Yugyeom whispers then, careful not to wake the other sleeping boy in the room up, and Jaebum shakes himself from his thoughts, and beams through the semi darkness.

“Night, Gyeommie,” he waves goodnight, smiling at his son, before heading out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him, pushing that thought aside for now- he’ll have time to worry about it in the morning.

a/n: so a shorter chapter now, because the next one is coming soon, hehe. hope you enjoyed this! (though nothing much happened) (or did it ;)) as usual, comments will be treasured and loved very much (honestly all your feedback gives me strength, and it's so fun reading your theories!!) /tincan evil cackle resounds in the background/ wait sorry whoops hehe let me just shut that recording off hang on

 so i hope you all have a great week guys! exams are kinda sorta mostly over for me (ok i lied there's like 2 left i'm slacking rn) and i hope the rest of you are having great days at school/work/life \o/ be happy friends <33

p.s. have a picture of baby yugyeom and baby bambam plus this super cute fanart of preschool!jingyeom, totally brightened my day 300% recommend A+++ <33

p.p.s. i'm sorry idk why the font is different for this chapter, computers hate me sobs

p.p.p.s. somehow the story was marked as complete ahAHAHA im sorry guys, but the ending is coming soon! (depending on your definition of soon)