seokjin starts the grilling, setting up his portable girl and letting the tantalizing smell of meat and veggies float through the air. yoongi reaches their mess of blankets and things first; jungkook shows up five minutes later, his eyes murderous but his smile wide and bright. that expression promises bad things, but yoongi simply shrugs his shoulders when jungkook gives him a look of death, blasé as can be, and offers to help seokjin with the cooking. sand is awful to get out, and most likely jungkook will be feeling phantom grains for weeks.

jimin has his camera out, finally, and he’s going around filming everyone and everything. the volleyball court is still put up a couple of meters away, but the group from before is gone. taehyung works on an ice-cream bar that he stole from the cooler, and yoongi snorts when he catches sight of namjoon - his hair is plastered against his forehead, hoseok next to him, patting him in commiseration on the back.

“i’m done,” he sulks, trying to find a good way to control all of his long limbs as he’s setting himself on the ground. pretty much everyone ignores him, because namjoon will try again soon, probably.

“you look angry, jungkookie,” jimin comments, loud enough for yoongi to snicker. seokjin sends him a questioning glance from behind the grill. yoongi takes one of the tongs and starts on the meat, feeling better with himself than he has in weeks.

“i’m not angry,” jungkook responds in a forcedly chipper voice. “at least, not as angry as yoongi is going to be soon.”

“i’m not getting up from this spot,” yoongi yells.

“what did you do,” jimin laughs, spinning the camera to the blonde.

bursting out, jungkook covers hayoung’s ears. “he put sand down my shirt and then ran. who does that?” hayoung makes little “ooh ooh” sounds, patting jungkook’s hands on her ears. it seems to calm him somewhat, because he sighs and leans down to nuzzle her cheek. “your papa is really mean, hana-ya.”

“papa mean,” she repeats, and yoongi gapes.

“oh my god i caught that on camera,” jimin shrieks, and yoongi crawls out of his space to sit next to hayoung. jungkook is valiantly trying to hold in his laughter and fails eventually, falling down on the blanket and holding his stomach so he can control his giggles. “oh my god, oh my god - “

“baby girl, how could you,” yoongi picks up hayoung and cuddles her close. she mouths at his shirt unrepentantly. “papa isn’t mean, papa is really nice!”

“papa,” she leans back and smiles at him, reaching up to pat him on the face. then she crawls off his lap and heads for her bucket and shovel. while jungkook is still working off the last of his laughter on the group, yoongi slaps him on the hip and tells him, “calm yourself down.”

“oh my god, papa is mean,” he gasps, laying flat on the ground still. jimin has gone off to continue filming hayoung as she attempts to shovel sand into her bucket. taehyung is begging seokjin to give him a piece of the unfinished meat, and namjoon is resolutely ignoring hoseok even though the dancer is trying to make him feel better about his lack of skill in swimming.

“you’re going to make her grow up to resent me,” yoongi sighs dramatically, and jungkook moves until he’s laying on top of yoongi’s thigh. “don’t try to act cute, i see right through you.”

“i am cute,” jungkook says matter-of-factly, looking up at him with a glimpse of teeth. “besides, you’re mean. princess’ word is law.”

yoongi pinches him.

it devolves into another silly fight that involves jungkook pushing him into the sand and then yoongi dragging him down by yanking sharply on the hem of his shirt; jungkook lands on top of yoongi and the older forces them to roll over in the sand, getting it all over jungkook’s hair. “yoongi!” he’s pretty sure he hears jungkook yell, but he doesn’t care - yoongi reaches down to run his fingers up jungkook’s spine, where he’s most ticklish, and his husband starts cursing.

from behind them, yoongi can hear namjoon scoffing. “they’re adults with a child, and they act like this?”

“i wonder every day,” seokjin answers him, rolling his eyes. jimin, meanwhile, is secretly getting all of it on film. taehyung is with hayoung, blowing spit bubbles with her - “oh my god, tae, that’s disgusting, are you a kid?!” “if you want to get them to like you, you gotta act like ‘em, jiminie.” - and yoongi can care less about the entire world around them as long as he gets to hear jungkook laugh like that again.

“get off, get off,” he gasps, pushing at yoongi’s shoulders. “i hate you, you’re the worst.”

“remember that,” yoongi snarks, biting at his shoulder briefly before setting himself upright.

“i have sand everywhere,” jungkook sighs, brushing himself down.

yoongi grins. the rest of the day is just like that; a repeat of sun, water, sand, and fun. hayoung buies her toes in the sand and freaks out when she can’t find them; then she buries her purple elephant in there and then screeches when she can’t find it later, leaving jungkook to bounce her in his arms to calm her wailing and yoongi to look around everywhere for the toy until he spots one dogged ear out of the sand. he practically dives for it, just to get her to stop crying.

jimin, unfortunately, gets it all on tape.

they leave at around evening, when it’s starting to get colder and jungkook starts shivering. hayoung is sleepy, tired from her long day outside, her head nodding back and forth. taehyung carries her to the car, which is fine by both her parents, who lug the rest of the stuff back inside.

yoongi ends up driving again because jungkook pushes insistently at him and kisses him softly on the cheek and yoongi just...caves.

the ride back is calm, at least. taehyung succumbs to slumber and naps with his head lolling on the side, forehead hitting the window. it begins to rain sometime through, and jungkook puts on classical music to help hayoung fall asleep. drowsily, as yoongi gets on the highway, her eyes close. jungkook leans over to cover her with a blanket, tucking in the corners. after a moment, he bites his lip and then takes out a bigger blanket, throwing it over taehyung haphazardly in the back.

the sounds of classical music still ring in the car, mostly because jungkook is too tired to change the cd. yoongi watches from the corner of his eye as jungkook leans back and gets himself comfortable, snuggling deeper in his soft black hoodie. he really did pack for everything.

yoongi keeps himself awake by sheer willpower and the knowledge that there’s precious cargo in the car. he takes a long swig of cold water from the side and listens to jungkook’s half hearted humming in the car. the rain is soft, soothing, and easy, a sweet background to jungkook’s lovely voice.

after a moment, yoongi groans and swipes his hand over jungkook’s shoulder, “please stop, i might just fall asleep.”

jungkook’s face is only a mere shadow reflected by car lights. yoongi sees the dark shape of him move around lazily, shoulder slumping, mouth slackening with sleep. it’s not even nine o’clock yet, but they’re all tired. he huffs out a sweet laugh, teeth glinting briefly. “sorry...i’m conditioned to sing her to sleep, i rarely recognize i do it anymore.”

yoongi is silent for a moment. “what song is it?”

“some song i made up,” he responds quietly. “i wrote it a long time ago; back when i was in college, i think. it was a lullaby i wrote for a class, but i ended up scrapping it and writing something else. i loved this one too much to share it with anyone else.”

“anyone else but me and your daughter?”

“our daughter,” jungkook says, reaching up to rub at his cheek. if yoongi would take his eyes off the road to notice, he’d see a slight pinkness on his cheeks; reminiscent of a familiar embarrassment, but too far in the past to be real. “yeah, anyone else but you guys.”

“would you sing it for me now?”

“now?” jungkook ponders for a moment. “i might go to sleep...”

“fine by me,” yoongi shrugs, half in jest, “might get some quiet around here.”

“mean,” jungkook says underneath his breath. inside of the car falls into quiet again. the rain is a beating heartbeat on the windowpanes. his car is a rush of movement and light in the cover of darkness; it feels like they’re taking back something magical with them, encased in their own little world. sunshine sticks to jungkook’s clothes, a scent embedded into his skin. yoongi feels like the ocean is holding him afloat, even still.

slowly, jungkook leans back and begins to sing. his nose is red and his mouth is a little dry, but he looks beautiful - bare faced and his legs crossed and his hands shoved haphazardly into his pockets. he hums at first, slowly, then it fades into words.

“hold tight, hold tight, the moon is green tonight,” he sings, voice high and soft, the way hayoung likes it. “the moon is green like the earth, deep underground, where i sleep. hold tight, hold tight, the moon is blue tonight . the moon is blue like the sea, roaming and free, where i sleep. hold tight, hold tight, the moon is gold tonight. the moon is gold like the stars, falling down to me, where i sleep. hold tight, hold tight...”

they follow the earth, the sea, and the stars all the way home.

/

yoongi is the one who goes downstairs to get the mail from their mailbox first, so he’s the one that finds the invitation in his letters. it’s addressed to him first, in neat handwriting: min yoongi, then his address. curious, he takes it inside - leaving the bills to the side, because in no way would jungkook ever touch those - and heads for his for his cup of coffee. it’s a decent sized envelope, a little bigger than standard ones, and it’s pretty light. hayoung is settled down in her high chair, picking off cereal from her little princess bowl in satisfaction. jungkook is at the stove, doing something or the other - yoongi can’t be too sure, but it looks like he’s got kimchi stew on the stove.

the letter opener is too close to hayoung’s hands and in her field of view, so he quickly sntaches it out and works the letter open. it’s a lazy saturday morning and yoongi’s too tired to be actually thinking, but when he reads what’s inside he quickly perks up.

jungkook slides over a bowl of rice and settles the steaming hot stew on the counter. “what is that?”

“looks like a wedding invitation,” yoongi flips it back and forth until he gets to the words, joining of min gulpyo and ryu jisung. “it’s my cousin; he’s getting married, it looks like.”

“when is it?” jungkook hands yoongi his chopsticks and a spoon, slowly adding more cereal to hayoung’s bowl and handing her a sippy cup of milk. she burbles at him in thanks and he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“next month, i think,” yoongi checks the date. it’s in the early weeks of june. “a summer wedding. think it might be outside?”

“do you want to go?” jungkook settles in across from his husband and starts in on breakfast immediately. his hair is mussed; he looks tired, but still looks at yoongi once in awhile with questioning eyes. “it’s your paternal cousin, isn’t it? i thought you were close with him.”

“yeah, he was closer to my age than my hyung,” yoongi frowns. “i don’t know - i haven’t talked to him in years...ever since i got cut off.”

the mood of the table turns into something different- from subtle and easy to a little melancholic. yoongi still hasn’t touched his food, fingers running over the edge of the gilded invitation. it’s a really nice one, made of cardstock and handwritten in calligraphic korean. jungkook sets down his utensils and reaches over to pluck it out of yoongi’s hands.

“do you want to go? i’m sure he’d be happy to see you, or else he wouldn’t have invited you,” jungkook points out. “right? you moved from where you used to live to here - look, it even says my name here too!”

he points out something on the bottom, where it says “please rsvp, min yoongi and jeon jungkook”. there’s contact info underneath it as well. “he wouldn’t have spent the time and effort to get to know if you were married or not if he didn’t care.”

yoongi lets a breath. that is true. he met jungkook long after he left his household, after all. “i guess so.”

jungkook smiles softly, already knowing yoongi’s answer. “i’ll call them, you eat breakfast. i have to go to work soon, i gotta get ready...”

yoongi does the dishes so that jungkook can head to the bedroom and get ready for work. he cleans up after hayoung and settles her down in her playpen so she can play. she’s already walking and itching to run, too, and yoongi thinks vaguely that he needs to go and buy safety gates to put around the apartment so she won’t hurt herself. there’s a lot of things he has to do, actually. yoongi puts a hand to his head and massages his temple.

the thing about going to his cousin’s wedding, he thinks, is that there’s going to be people there that he doesn’t think he can handle seeing again. there will be his older brother, his mother, and...his father.

yoongi hasn’t spoken to his father in over ten years. he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to face him. he doesn’t know if his father even knows he’s married, or that he’s got a kid. his mom - well, she hasn’t been on good terms with his dad either, so he can’t imagine her telling him anything. yoonseob is on friendly terms with their dad, but he doesn’t think that yoonseob has told him anything either. but he knows for a fact that his father will be there at the wedding. gulpyo was the child that his father always wanted; studious, determined, ambitious. while yoonseob also held those qualities when they were younger, he was brash and loud and not afraid to speak his mind - much like how he is now. yoongi was quiet and reserved but he lacked the ambition to do what his father wanted him to do. it was like gulpyo was the culmination of all their “good” traits.

he went on to become a doctor, yoongi remembers; despite the fact that his father favored gulpyo often, his cousin shared a sarcastic, dry wit with yoongi and they got along really well. he hasn’t talked to gulpyo in a long, long time, but yoongi can’t imagine he’s changed much. still average height, average build, with sharp fox-like eyes that are characterized by their family genes, dark hair straight as a pin, and those black rimmed glasses he’d always take off to wipe and clean. he’d always have circles underneath his eyes and he and yoongi would stay up all hours of the night in each other’s company, sharing quiet moments.

jungkook comes out a moment later, dressed up with a beanie on his head. he looks good in his white shirt, so yoongi presses a muted kiss against his mouth and runs his fingers over jungkook’s ears. “this is cute,” he comments airily.

the younger hums. “i gotta go. i promised i’d be there in the next hour.”

“say goodbye to your daughter,” he reminds.

jungkook holds hayoung in his arms for a second, spinning her around, and she giggles. with a last kiss to her cheek, he sets her down on the ground, where she crawls to yoongi and tugs on his pants.

“i’m leaving,” jungkook says, waving with one hand before closing the door behind him.

yoongi is still staring at the door even when he leaves. hayoung tugs on his pants again and yoongi smiles at her affectionately, pressing a kiss to her soft forehead. he pushes aside her hair and thinks that she definitely needs to get a haircut soon. she has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, too, so he might as well do two things at once.

hayoung goes straight for her plushie, putting her teeth on it aggressively. yoongi’s glad the thing has lasted as long as it has.

/

they’ve had bad memories - bad experiences with the doctor’s office. hayoung dislikes the office with a burning passion. at the smell of antiseptic and baby wipes makes her upset; yoongi is one hundred and ten percent sure that she’s memorized the smell of the doctor’s office and has, since then, associated it with bad things and shots. hayoung always, always knows when they’re at the doctor’s and she always cries, despite getting a shot or not.

he doesn’t know why she has this burning fear of the doctor, but he supposes that it may have something to do when she was a child and her mother left her on the doorstep of a hospital. maybe she has awful memories about this place, even in her subconscious. jungkook says that she’s a baby and she probably just hates being in a new place that’s so dull and white.

they’ve learned the hard way that having jungkook around would make the entire trip detrimental. hayoung clings onto his neck and refuses to let go; she cries and makes tiny whuffing sounds and bawls for him when he tries to let her go. jungkook always weakens under his daughter’s crying, leaving yoongi to sigh and try to talk with to her doctor about postponing her appointment. thankfully, their doctor is used to kids and always lets them go with a sweet smile. the second time around jungkook didn’t come with them but remained in the waiting room. hayoung had a check up then (at ten months) and while she cried, yoongi remained steadfast and murmured soothing words into her ear until she calmed down and let the doctor observe her.

he’s watching her play now, the white lights of the waiting room boring down on him incessantly. he doesn’t know why doctor’s offices have to be so - bland and boring. it almost feels like going to prison. he himself has never been a fan of the doctor’s, even as an adult. hayoung is walking around slowly, her footsteps clunky and loud as she patters across the linoleum floor. she talks to one other kid who looks to be about two years old, playing with a tower of blocks, babbling at him and waving her arms as he blinks at her in confusion.

yoongi doesn’t bother getting up, only making a soft noise of dissent when she tries to touch his blocks. hayoung looks up and moves her hand away, putting them in as she walks back to yoongi. clutching onto his pants. he reaches down to take off her small shoes and socks, remembering that it’s better for her to keep barefoot, anyway. jungkook just likes looking at little converse shoes at the mall.

“buh,” she says, holding up a block to him. “papa, buh.”

“block?” yoongi guesses. “what does it say, baby? can you say ‘sun’?”

“thun,” hayoung repeats cautiously, before making a raspberry sound and sitting down. she fingers the edges of the block, so different from the ones she has at home, and memorizes the texture and feel of it. yoongi reaches down to intertwine a lock of her silk hair in his; she glances up at him briefly and gives him a toothy smile before returning to her previous curiosity.

when hayoung’s name is called, yoongi takes her gently by the arms and sets her upright. he picks up her bag and she immediately holds onto his hand; yoongi takes small steps so hayoung can match them, using her little feet at a long pace. she doesn’t walk outside much - they want her to walk barefoot in their house so her feet form properly - but when she does, she always finds pleasure in stomping her little feet and marvelling at the noise that comes from the ground. her fingers can only wrap around yoongi’s pink all the way.

“hello, hayoung-ah,” the pediatrician, an older woman with short gray hair and glasses, smiles at hayoung. her lab coat is littered in stickers, and there’s a bunch of lollipops in her coat pocket. “how are you doing today?”

hayoung simply blinks at the doctor, shying away behind yoongi’s leg. he takes the opportunity to pick her up and settle her in his lap. “she’s doing good - just came by for her checkup.”

“that’s good,” she responds in kind. “and how are you, min yoongi-ssi? you and your husband doing okay?”

yoongi smiles, a little regretful; of course doctor kim remembers their family. hayoung had been the source of quite a ruckus back then. “we are, thanks. thought it was a better idea for him not to come along anymore - plus, he’s doing a bit of work.”

doctor kim chuckles. she settles down the files in her hands and adjusts her glasses. “well, i wouldn’t worry about that. kids are resilient, and as she grows, i’m sure she’ll find herself feeling less and less scared to come. right now, the different environment is just giving her a scare.”

“let’s hope,” yoongi replies simply. he doesn’t think he can handle a grown up hayoung clinging to him whenever there’s a need for a checkup.

“shall we get started?”

at first, hayoung is okay. she listens to yoongi and keeps quiet, wide eyes on doctor kim the entire time. she lefts doctor kim feel her hands, her arms, and her neck; she lets doctor kim run fingers down her legs and on her knee, as well as press a thumb to the soles of her feet. but when doctor kim brings out tools - such as her stethoscope, and the device used to check her ears - suddenly she’s curling up on yoongi’s body for dearlife. she grabs at his neck and refuses to let go, a fistful of hair in one hand. yoongi winces and reaches back to gently untangle it, but then she’s steadily devolving into tears.

“no, no, papa no,” she cries, when doctor kim comes near her with the stethoscope. she shakes her head repeatedly, nose turning red. her eyes are watery and screwed shut as doctor kim tries gently to place the stethoscope on her back, or her front. in response she buries her nose in yoongi’s throat and starts bawling, going, “no! no! no! papa no!”

“baby girl, please,” yoongi soothes her gently, hand on her back, rubbing up and down. seeing his daughter in distress, no matter if the reason is for her own good, brings yoongi pain. it causes a little twinge in his lungs that makes it hard to breathe. he never wants to see his daughter crying, especially not the kind of crying she’s doing now, but it’s going to be inevitable.

“c’mon, sweetie, she’s not going to hurt you,” he murmurs in her ear. slowly, she begins to calm down, but she’s still holding onto his shift with an iron grip. “papa promises she’s not going to hurt you, okay?”

hayoung sniffs, little wheezes and cries still coming from . he motions to doctor kim and says, “look, she’s going to do it to papa too, okay? it’s not going to hurt, it’ll okay take a minute.”

doctor kim comes forward again, catching onto what yoongi’s doing, and gently places the stethoscope on yoongi’s chest. hayoung watches, wetly sniffling, still pressing her tiny body against yoongi’s chest. he lets doctor kim inspect him, back and front, where hayoung can see everything. when she notices that yoongi isn’t crying or in distress, she lets doctor kim look over her too.

it goes on like that for every different thing that the doctor uses; if it’s to be used on hayoung, her papa has to check it out first by doing it himself. it’s not like yoongi minds, but it makes the trip longer than needed. doctor kim takes it all in good patience, though, logging hayoung’s information into her files.

“her growth and development are going along nicely,” doctor kim says, giving yoongi a placating smile when the silence starts making him nervous. he’s bouncing hayoung in his lap while she on a lollipop busily, playing with the sticky wrapper. “she’s a good, healthy weight, and there seems to be no nutrition deficiency. still, keep up introducing new foods to her. she should get used to different textures and tastes.”

“it’ll be a fight,” yoongi admits.

doctor kim laughs. “yes, this is the same time she’s learning how to say no to her parents, is that right?”

“oh yeah - and trust me, doc, she says it often.” he remembers just this morning when hayoung threw her bowl of oranges on the floor, stating very vocally about her resistance toward eating fruits for breakfast. jungkook simply spoonfed her the oranges, while he mouth twisted up and she kept on scratching at his sleeve for it.

“no is just another sign that she’s growing. does she call you guys by name?” yoongi nods. “that’s good, too. this is the time where you and your husband should be putting more words in her vocabulary. try naming things when you pick them up, repeating them often so she learns to associate words with certain objects. i’ve also got a general meal plan that goes along by the months - “

“jungkook still has the last one you gave us,” yoongi says, assuring her that they don’t need it. “he has it laminated and posted on our fridge door. i’ve practically memorized it by now.”

doctor kim chuckles, warm and grandmotherly. “ah, first children, huh? the time goes by so fast.”

yoongi smiles sheepishly, and hayoung offers him some of her lollipop.

they leave with another appointment in a couple of months. yoongi loads hayoung into her stroller, taking off her shoes and putting them aside. she kicks her bare feet and waves her hands out to feel the wind between her sticky digits; yoongi sets down the hood of the stroller so she can feel the sun. it’s wonderfully warm and beautiful today, he has to admit.

he pauses a couple of blocks away - didn’t take the car today, because it was nice and he wanted a walk - and sends jungkook a quick text. did you have your lunch break yet?

yoongi’s looking around for restaurants that offer to-go options when he answers back; no, not yet. i could take a break, though, why? is the appointment done?

how do you feel about pizza?

wow, it went that well?

yoongi snorts. just gimme your address, babe.

somehow i heard that in your voice when i read it, jungkook replies, and yoongi grins; that is exactly what he wanted. and then i realized it was weirder through text than it is when you say it. yeah, pizza is fine! he sends yoongi the address of his company a moment later. yoongi heads into the pizza place he’s found, tickling hayoung’s neck briefly before going in.