it’s on a busy day that hayoung walks. yoongi’s got a bunch of work to do, especially since one of his songs is in consideration as a title track for a recently debuted girl group. it’s full and vibrant and has some emotion in it, much more than the typical cookie-cutter bubblegum pop, and the production team is very keen on using it; the directors love it. they want him to come into the office more, but are thankfully understanding when he tells him he has a baby daughter that needs to be taken care of - his husband works too, after all, and yoongi will never ask jungkook to put either his career or his family in front of the other.

hayoung has taken a shine to helping herself stand up with the aid of things that are eye-level with her. she bounces up and down on her own two feet often, getting the feel of her tiny knees and toes. whenever she does it jungkook tends her copy her bouncing to help encourage her, something she’s taken note of.

right now she’s propped herself up against the coffee table, reaching for a pen that’s on the other side of the table. yoongi’s sitting half propped up on the couch, smiling at his daughter’s antics. she doesn’t think to go around to table the get the pen - no, she has to get it by reaching for it herself with this particular method. he can already tell she’s going to grow up to be stubborn.

“c’mere, baby girl,” yoongi calls, wanting to hold her. hayoung understands simple commands: yes, no, open mouth, close mouth, come here, stay, give, take, high five. he expects her to turn around and wiggle herself over to him by crawling, like she tends to do, but instead she turns around and lets go of the coffee table.

it takes a moment for yoongi’s brain to come back online after that, because all he does is blankly stare at his daughter for a moment. she takes four steps towards him then falls, hurting her bottom in the process. not a moment later, she’s crying.

“oh wait what no - “ yoongi swoops in and gathers her in his arms, bouncing her a little too high. “you just - you just walked.”

“papa,” hayoung croons, touching his face.

yoongi grins, wide and happy. his chest feels like bursting. “oh man, your daddy won’t be happy that he’s missed it. i’m going to rub it in his face forever. we’re going to walk together and your daddy won’t be able to do a single thing about it, yeah?”

“yeah,” she sniffles.

yoongi is delighted. “let’s walk again, hayoungie - c’mon baby, i’m gonna put you on the ground, okay - “ he sets her against the sofa and walks a couple steps away. hayoung is looking at him with slightly watery eyes, wondering what he’s doing, but not crying just yet.

he takes out his phone because he’s not that cruel. with the camera steady, yoongi says toward hayoung, “come here, baby girl.”

it’s like some sort of switch. hayoung’s attention moves from the phone in his hand to him; she peers up at his face and notices her father smiling at her encouragingly. that’s enough to make her let go of the sofa and toddle toward him with tiny, wobbly steps, one foot in front of the other in a choppy imitation of a natural walk. she looks down at her feet, confused, wondering how they’re moving and why she’s not going where she wants to. yoongi has to bite his lip to prevent an adoring noise from escaping.

hayoung takes more steps this time, faster and faster. “yeah, that’s it baby girl, come here!” he encourages, holding out a hand for her to take. hayoung makes a little sound and aims for it, she goes too fast and ends up falling. she lets out a large wail.

“aw, no, no, you did such a good job!” yoongi practically throws his phone on the ground, heading over to soothe her. he picks her up and rubs her chest in comfort. she calms down quickly, sniffling her face in yoongi’s shoulder and making little noises.

he cuts the end of the video and sends it to jungkook privately at first, before sending it on the group chat so that everyone can see it as well.

not even a minute later, jimin texts back: OH MY GOD I’VE BEEN BLESSED.

yoongi raises an eyebrow and wipes away snot and tears from hayoung’s cheeks. he texts back to the best of his ability with one hand. seriously?  

i check all my notifications, okay, and when i saw it was my adorable niece, nothing could stop me. this is such a beautiful moment, hyung TT

yoongi snorts and closes his phone. he turns to hayoung. “make sure that you choose someone other than jimin as your favorite uncle in the future? okay? choose taehyung, that’ll get him real good.”

she slobbers a wet kiss on his cheek. he takes it as agreement.

/

“hyung,” woohyun whines, “can we please take a break? we’ve been rapping the same song for nearly two hours now. my throat hurts.”

yoongi glares. “your throat? you should have said earlier, brat - keeping your voice in pristine condition is important. drink some water, or some tea.”

“you’re scary sometimes, hyung,” ilhoon sniffs, “but less scary than the other trainer-hyung.” at this, woohyun nods his agreement.

yoongi sighs and rubs at his temple. for some reason, these boys have been less motivated to do anything lately. ilhoon keeps staring at his phone, and woohyun seems uncomfortable to be in the same room as him. from what he can see, yoongi thinks that they might have some sort of problem in their group; but that’s not his duty to think about, it’s their manager’s. he looks down at his own phone and notices that there’s nearly fifteen minutes left before the session ends. he makes a split second decision, closing off all the mics and the equipment.

woohyun looks up at him as he’s doing so, a questioning look on his painfully young face. “hyung? what are you doing?”

yoongi drags his chair so that he’s sitting in the large gap in between woohyun and ilhoon. he takes off his snapback and runs his hands through his hair briefly. “look, kids, what’s the one thing you need for music?”

ilhoon’s eyes flicker around, wandering the room’s walls for an escape. finally, he mumbles questioningly, “...talent?”

“no,” yoongi says, but it’s gentle, not harsh. “passion. emotion. people can love music, but it’ll just go through your ears if you don’t feel anything. do you understand what i’m saying?”

“we do love music, hyung,” woohyun cuts in. “we’ve been practicing for so long - before debut, and even after, to make ourselves perfect - “

“it’s not about being perfect,” yoongi interrupts, frustrated. “it’s good to try and want to be perfect. strive to reach perfection, yes, but recognize all that you do along the way. wanting to become perfect is how you get better; but the way you begin to perfect yourself is what makes you the better performer. i don’t know why, but you two are going through something, aren’t you?”

they both look at him, stricken, tight-lipped.

“i don’t care what it is that you’re going through. but whatever you are feeling, stop bottling it in. let it out. let it hurt. then come back and try again to be better.”

woohyun stares down at his hands. ilhoon looks at his lap, his mouth in an uncharacteristic frown. with a wave of his hand, yoongi dismisses them. when you’re young, he thinks vaguely, all your problems seem like a mountain unable to be conquered. it just means people like yoongi have to work twice as hard to show them that you can.

he opens up his phone and stares for a while longer at the picture of jungkook and him, way back then; jungkook at age 19, yoongi at age 23, both of them grinning up against the camera. jungkook took the photo and the end of one of their earlier dates; yoongi is on the side, awkwardly smiling. he used to stare at this picture for hours on end. it’s been seven years and he still has it saved.

/

“no, apple,” jungkook says again, this time clearing his pronunciation even more. hayoung looks at the cards in front of her and after a moment of serious thinking, she points to the card with the apple on it. “good girl! now try another one, hana - banana.”

as she goes looking for the banana card, yoongi looks down at the tax forms he’s supposed to fill out. jungkook absolutely despises math - it’s the one thing he’s not good at, actually - and he’ll rarely volunteer to do the taxes or the bills, leaving them undone for weeks at a time if left up to him. the first few times they had to do it, namjoon was roped in as their crash course professor in the adult world. yoongi still scowls while having to do them; mind-numbing, boring work.

“banana, hana, bananas are yellow. where’s the banana?” hayoung is consistently pointing at the watermelon, so sure that it’s what her dad is asking for. jungkook is sitting cross-legged on the carpet with her, leaning back against his hands, looking at ease.

yoongi rubs at his eyes. “this is...ridiculous.”

“don’t think i didn’t hear the hidden curse in there,” jungkook says from the floor. “good job on covering it, by the way.”

“i’m suffering,” yoongi deadpans, running a hand through his hair. to get his mind off of what’s at hand, he peers consideringly at jungkook. “i think i might go blonde again.”

“not feeling the dark brown, anymore?”

“no,” yoongi sighs. “besides, i think you like it when i’m blonde.”

jungkook tries to stifle a smile, but it doesn’t really work out.

“do you think hayoung will still recognize me?” he muses.

“oh yeah,” jungkook says, sneakily switching out the watermelon card for the banana, “i don’t think she could ever not recognize you.”

/

by the time yoongi makes it home for the last day of work for the week, mrs. im and her daughter are outside their door, looking fairly belligerent at each other. he doesn’t want to get involved, but they’re both in the way of him getting to his home and eating dinner, cuddling with his daughter, and sleeping in his own bed instead of a hard chair. he jangles his keys, not having put them away yet, and the sound draws mrs. im’s attention.

“so sorry, yoongi-ssi,” she scowls, stepping away from her daughter. he will never not be amazed at how women can change their voice from scalding to sweet in a split second. “come here, yeonha, you’re blocking the way!”

“no, i’m standing right here until you tell me why you went to my school, mom,” she grits her teeth. “you had no right! i told you i was studying fine! i told you that the fight was not hongsil’s fault, and yet you still went to get her suspended! i didn’t want to do anything, she’s my best friend and it was my fault she was so mad!”

“i’m just going to go through, here,” yoongi starts awkwardly, but mrs. im forgets that yoongi is there and turns back to her daughter. she’s still holding onto yeonha’s wrist, her grip unflinchingly tight, and yoongi is a little concerned about how she’s using it to physically control her daughter.

“she’s such a bad influence on you,” mrs. im snaps. “what is all this - this, this makeup? and you’re constantly on your phone! you should be studying! kids these days are studying ten, eleven hours, what about you? i send you to cram school for a reason, yeonha, this is all for you!”

yeonha tears her wrist away from her mother’s hand, and there’s an imprint of red fingers on her pulse. yoongi vaguely realizes that someone’s come up behind him. the smell of smoke follows vaguely. he turns and sees kwon eunbyul out of the corner of his eye. he, too, has stopped, his door blocked by the quarrelling mother and daughter.

“all for me? what is? i don’t want all this! i don’t even want to go to school! all anyone ever does there is talk about college and studies and i hate it!i don’t want to go to college, i don’t want to study anymore - my head feels like it’s going to burst every day! what’s all for me? i didn’t want this,you wanted it! you did, mom! you always make these decisions on your own - “

mrs. im’s face turns an interesting shade of red. “im yeonha, you stop talking right now - “

“ - you don’t care about what i want, you’ve never cared about what i want,” yeonha screams, her face streaked with tears. she steps away from her mother. “just - stop it, okay, stop it.” she turns and runs away, breaking through both yoongi and eunbyul on her way downstairs.

yoongi doesn’t know what to do; he feels frozen. those words, spit out so poisonously, reminds him of a time he doesn’t particularly like being reminded of.

mrs. im notices them both and gives them a stiff bow, this time the center of attention. “please have my apologies for my daughter,” she says, her voice like steel, before she turns and walks inside. the door shuts behind her loudly, like a clean cut to a ragged conversation.

yoongi and eunbyul both stare at the space the im family just occupied. the elder of them turns and raises an eyebrow; eunbyul looks uncomfortable, the corner of his mouth bruised. yoongi doesn’t know if he wants to ask.

fortunately for him, he doesn’t have to; eunbyul speaks first. “why didn’t you do anything?”

“excuse me?” no way was he getting in the middle of that  fest.

eunbyul shifts on his feet, looking bothered. “you - you don’t seem like the kind of guy to let something like that go. i could tell by your face, you didn’t like the way she was talking to her daughter, but you didn’t say anything.” yet you weren’t afraid to rip one on me, is what he’s not saying, but yoongi hears it anyway.

“i didn’t like what she was saying,” yoongi agrees. “but it wasn’t my place to say anything. this is something that girl and her mother have to sort out for themselves; she’s in high school. they can still work things out. if i said anything, a complete stranger to their situation, they wouldn’t have listened to me. what place do i have in their argument?”

eunbyul starts, “but with me - “

“you weren’t arguing with anyone,” yoongi says swiftly, “you were being stupid. you’re already away from your parents, but you’re being stupid. at least she’s being stupid in front of her mom.”

eunbyul’s jaw sets. he looks like he’s about to say something, but yoongi notes the bag of food next to his closed door and hums. it’s fairly high, with metal dishes to keep them warm. he eyes it before saying, “did you have dinner?”

“what?”

“i asked if you had dinner. no?” eunbyul shakes his head warily. “well, good. come in and follow me.”

“what are you doing?” eunbyul asks, incredulously staring when yoongi shuffles aside the metal dishes until they clang against his door. “hey - hey!”

yoongi tugs at his jacket. the kid is taller than he is, which makes him moderately irritated. “just follow me, you little brat. no questioning - i’m not in a good mood because i should have been home already.” he quickly punches in his keycode and opens the door, yelling out, “jungkook!”

“what?” comes a voice faintly from the bedroom. yoongi motions from eunbyul to come in and take off his shoes. the kid looks like he’s regretting everything already. “i brought someone over for dinner.”

“you brought your floozy on the side to your husband’s house? classy, yoongi,” jungkook jokes before he catches sight of the obviously young man beside him. instead of taking back his words, he just laughs. “what, now you’re going for even younger ones as the years go by? a four year age difference isn’t enough anymore?” he’s grinning while he’s saying it though, patting hayoung’s bum in a way that tells yoongi he’s just finished changing her.

“shut up,” yoongi mutters, kissing him on the cheek. “that’s the kid from next door. he has no dinner, so i told him to eat here.”

jungkook turns the college kid, who is still standing around awkwardly at the doorway. when he meets jungkook’s eye, he bows once at ninety degrees. yoongi snorts to himself; why is the kid polite now? “hello, thank you for having me in your house. i’m kwon eunbyul.”

with a smile, jungkook waves. “i’m jeon jungkook. yoongi forced you here, didn’t he?”

“did not,” yoongi scowls.

eunbyul doesn’t say anything, to yoongi’s surprise. he sort of looks away, not really wanting to admit that he is an unwilling participant in yoongi’s schemes. jungkook gives yoongi a pointed and knowing look that makes him want to drown himself in coffee.

“is that stew,” he says loudly, going into the kitchen. “what is this? ilhoon kept bothering me about taking him out for mandu, i was about to clock the kid a good one.”

“tofu stew,” jungkook hands over hayoung to yoongi easily, turning off the stove. the stew, underneath it’s clear lid, is still simmering. “i put all the side dishes on the table - i was about to eat, too, but then hayoung needed a change.”

“you would have waited,” yoongi dismisses, taking his baby and ambushing her with kisses on the cheek. as she giggles loudly, he settles her in the high chair and firmly sets the clasp. she’s starting to learn how to open it, and god, what a nightmare that would be.

he spies kwon eunbyul looking increasingly more uncomfortable as the moments pass by; a growling sound comes from his stomach, and yoongi stops the snicker coming out of his mouth. “go sit, kid, you’re making me antsy by standing there.”

eunbyul scowls. “it’s not like i chose to be here - you just dragged me here, ahjussi.”

“it’s yoongi-ssi to you.”

“you’re an ahjussi,” he repeats rebelliously.

jungkook appears behind him, playfully plucking a strand of his hair. “well, you could get gray soon, yoongi,” he teases. “it might be all the stress.”

“i’m gonna quit my job,” yoongi grumbles, but no one takes him seriously.

“you can sit anywhere you like, eunbyul-ssi,” jungkook points out, sort of kindly telling him that it’s okay to take a seat at their table. over his head, jungkook shoots yoongi a look saying, you're explaining this later.

“thanks,” eunbyul is still being polite in front of jungkook, sitting upright and still in the way of the properly trained only do. jungkook notices it immediately, but doesn’t say anything. instead he just asks yoongi to get another bowl of rice and settles the soup down on a hotpot holder in the middle of the table, flinching when his hand touches the side of the pot.

“always, without fail, this will happen,” he sighs, shaking out the pain. yoongi comes back with another bowl of rice, a pair of chopsticks, and a spoon.

“this is why i tell you to buy longer oven mitts, up to your forearms at the very least.”

“i just bought these,” he waves around the oven mitts that only go up to his wrists, the kind that seokjin had told him to get. they’re a muted red with pictures of apples on them.

“buy another and give those to hyung,” yoongi throws out; honestly, he’s not really thinking, overtaken by the smell of food. he puts the extra rice bowl in front of eunbyul, who looks entirely out of his element, and hands hayoung her spoon and her smaller bowl of rice. he bops her nose as he’s leaving.

dinner goes on as usual, their conversation only a slight bit stilted because they’ve got eunbyul here. jungkook talks about the music he’s done today, the writing and the piano practicing, and then sighs about the numerous people contacting him from his company about the girl group he’s teaching. they’re a duo going for jazz and r&b, but that’s all he’s able to say in front of eunbyul. other than that, he talks about hayoung, and how she’s starting to walk on her own and stubbornly screams ‘no’ when jungkook tries to give her a bath. yoongi laughs at this, and jungkook just glares at him.

“wait until you have to give her a bath,” he says, in that snide little tone that yoongi just loves, “i hope she gets all your clothes wet. all the way down to your boxers.”

“i’ll just take a shower right after her, then, problem solved,” yoongi shrugs. “when’s her next doctor’s appointment?”

“two weeks from now, at the beginning of may,” jungkook sighs. “you’re taking her. i’m not going through that anymore until she’s in her toddler years.”

“she’s going to cry for you,” yoongi warns.

“deal with it, superdad.”

“do you guys always fight like this?” eunbyul’s voice suddenly pipes up from the extra seat; jungkook turns, a little startled, and yoongi steals a piece of kimchi off his rice. with the attention on him, eunbyul flushes a little.

jungkook frowns, confused. “we’re not fighting?” he stops hayoung’s spoon from nearly flying off her seat. she laughs at him, delighted, thinking it’s a game. jungkook grimaces when she tries to do it again. “it’s just how yoongi and i talk.”

“oh,” eunbyul quiets down again, and yoongi points his chopsticks at him.

it’s terribly rude, and eunbyul blinks at the motion. “listen here, kid, if you’re gonna say something, say it now. we’re not your parents; you’re not gonna get scolded.”

“i know you’re not my parents,” he blurts out, perhaps against his own volition. “they eat on opposite sides of the table, or in their room. my parent’s don’t fight with each other,” he doesn’t sound happy about it - in fact, he sounds kind of bland, like it’s a salty meal that he’s gotten used to the taste of. “they don’t talk to each other at all.”

yoongi shoves another spoon of rice in his mouth. “boy, do i know the feeling,” he intoned underneath his breath.

“stop being a bitter old man,” jungkook bickers, “it was cute and sympathetic when we were younger, but not now. go call your mom.”

“i will, if you stop bothering me about it.”

“i won’t stop bothering you if you don’t do it.”

at this moment, hayoung thinks it’s an opportune time to fling her rice out of her bowl. it lands straight in eunbyul’s spoonful of soup, splashing all over his shirt. he looks down at it in surprise, dropping his chopsticks in the process.

“song hayoung!” yoongi takes her bowl of rice away, firmly putting her hands back her sides. “no, that was not a nice thing to do.”

“i’m so sorry about your shirt,” jungkook reaches out to pull aside the fabric, which sticks to eunbyul’s collar and chest. “wait here, i’ll get you something of mine.”

“it’s okay, i mean, i live right next door - “ but jungkook’s already gone to the bedroom, presumably to get a spare shirt. yoongi wipes at hayoung’s messy face, smeared with rice and bits of kimchi. she gives him a gummy, two-toothed smile.

eunbyul does look a bit pathetic, all things aside, so yoongi sighs in resignation. “sorry about that. i forced you here and then you got messy, so...”

“no, it’s fine,” eunbyul says, voice quieter than usual. he sounds much less defiant, too. “i mean - can i ask a question?”

“shoot,” he replies in surprise.

“are you two really married?”

yoongi lets out a chuckle. “why, because we keep arguing?”

“yeah. no offense, but...” eunbyul wipes his hands on a napkin. “i’ve never seen a couple fight like you guys do, except in dramas. and i’ve watched around two dramas in total.”

“no time for entertainment in the life of an elite, huh?” yoongi says dryly. eunbyul’s faint smile answers that question pretty well. “yeah, we’ve been married for a couple of years, but we’ve been a couple for much longer than that. almost seven years. you’d think that we’d get tired of each other by now, but i’m not - which is how you know that person is the one, okay, i hope you’re taking notes.”

“i don’t get tired of seeing your grouchy face in the morning either,” jungkook retorts, swiping a hand on the back of yoongi’s neck as he passes. “that, and you’d be surprised at how romantic this guy is.”

eunbyul’s eyes flicker to yoongi, looking a little disbelieving, and yoongi scowls.

“i’m not romantic.”

“yeah, okay,” jungkook says unconvincingly. he hands eunbyul a black shirt. “here, this should be comfortable enough. you can change in our room; it’s down the hall, to the left. just leave your messy clothes on the floor.”

“thanks, jungkook-ssi,” eunbyul quickly heads out.

“why are you ‘jungkook-ssi’, and i’m ahjussi?” yoongi scoffs. “i’m not that old, dammit.”

“you’re just prickly, so that’s why he’s acting like that. like how jimin-hyung does sometimes. it’s because you always give a reaction.”

yoongi scowls. “i didn’t want an answer to that.”

jungkook pinches his cheek. “i liked you better yesterday, when you were admitting your everlasting love to me through piano. let’s go back to that time.”

“let me eat in peace,” yoongi says, but his ears are flushing red.

when eunbyul comes back in jungkook’s black shirt, he looks much more approachable than he did in his button up and rolled sleeves. the lines of his shoulders are softer. he looks like...a teenager. jungkook must see it too, because he starts being more open with his questions and offering more openings for eunbyul to talk; yoongi just eats, feeling sleepier by the minute, feeding hayoung some kimchi and spoonfuls of soup from time to time.

from listening, he learns that the kid likes to paint - a lot. it’s one of the reasons why he wasn’t fazed by the stains on his shirt, because he already has a lot of stains on a lot of shirts. he doesn’t like classical music no matter how many places he has to go to listen to it, his favorite soup isgalbitang, and he had to fight to even live outside of his home instead of his parent’s home. the only concession they would make for his living conditions was that he’d have to live where they provided for him. while a dream come true for some kids, having their parents help in rent and tuition, this meant that eunbyul only had an illusion of freedom. he couldn’t do what he really wanted in his own home or in school, because it would reach back to his parents.

jungkook frowns deeply at that, holding his chopsticks a little tighter. “that’s quite a short leash they’re keeping you on,” he comments.

eunbyul doesn’t reply. yoongi learns that the parties weren’t his idea, but his friend’s, who simply took advantage of his home. unknowing and uncaring of what to do next, he just went with it. and although eunbyul didn’t start it, he didn’t stop it, either.

“sorry about that,” he adds on to the end of that story, eyes roving over to where hayoung is making patterns on her tiny attached table. he looks a bit guilty. “i didn’t know there were so many kids in this place, really.”

jungkook accepts his apology, never minding the fact that he was about to go crazy that night from a lack of sleep. in the end, when the stew is almost done and yoongi is nearly snoring in his chair, he offers, “you’re always welcome here for a meal, eunbyul-ssi. or company.”

yoongi jerks awake. “what?”

eunbyul’s eyes widen, surprised; it’s one of those rare expressions that makes him look like a child. “oh, uh - “

“hayoung, make sure you welcome this oppa nicely next time, okay?” jungkook continues, rolling over the both of them. “and no more food throwing, that’s not nice.”

hayoung burbles something that may be a claim of accident or innocence, yoongi isn’t sure.

“thanks,” eunbyul says, looking slightly overwhelmed. he sets his chopsticks down neatly, and after a moment, manages to get out one more thing. “it was delicious. the meal. thanks for making it.”

jungkook’s smile turns genuine, and yoongi knows that he’s resisting the urge to ruffle eunbyul’s hair like he’s a puppy. yoongi groans, because this means that jungkook has taken a shine to the kid. which means that he won’t ever get rid of him now. which was really yoongi’s fault, because he was the one to bring eunbyul over in the first place but okay that was not the point. that was a heat of the moment thing; this is invitation withintent.

hayoung, at the very end, offers her last piece of sticky rice to eunbyul. he takes it, confused, and she waits patiently for him to eat it. when he does, she claps her hands and leans over to tug on jungkook’s shirt.

“yes, that was nice of you, hana,” jungkook praises. “you’ve been learning how to share with papa, haven’t you? what a good girl.”

eunbyul stares at the baby, his face flickering up in a smile.

yoongi brought this on himself, he truly did.