it’s beginning to get warmer and warmer as jungkook wakes up.

the world is bathed in yellow light, his room flooded with the sound of the city roaring behind him. hayoung’s mobile is still spinning; the stars look dim, because it’s not dark enough for them to shine.

there is, of course, a tiredness built into jungkook’s bones that don’t seem to leave anymore. hayoung is exhausting; her messes, he crying, her whining. but then she does things like curl her hand into jungkook’s hair or call him dada and he knows that it’s all worth it. she smiles at him with her baby teeth and he can’t help but hold her face gently in his palms and whisper the secrets of the world into her temple.

spring is coming, and although it’s never been jungkook’s favorite season, he finds that hayoung settles nicely into spring. her cheeks fill with rosy color; her eyes glitter in the sun. she’s always been a happy baby, but this is her first year of spring, her first cycle of the seasons, and she panders through them like a baby would. jungkook relieves her of her mittens and her socks and instead puts on her thicker dresses and tights, her hair clips, her rose-petaled shirts and her grass-colored bibs and watches as his baby girl grows with the flora.

it’s the beginning of march. taehyung’s come back from his two week long vacation in the north - where the last edges of snow lay - and seokjin’s gone down to busan to oversee some restaurant project (jungkook’s sent along a care package to be passed on to his mother). hayoung bites on everything and attempts to chew it all in . she takes jungkook’s fingers and attempts to gum at them. she always pulls off her caps and giggles because she’s figured out how to make her papa melt into gush; just call him “papa!” when he’s around and yoongi is sure to be flustered, taken aback still with the name.

she’s saying a lot more words too, repeating after sentences they both say in unintelligible sounds. jungkook thinks she’ll be a bit of a chatterbox when she grows up.

in the morning he’s setting up breakfast for himself, noting yoongi’s cup on the counter and the cold remains of the coffee pot, when hayoung awakens. he can hear because the baby monitor is situated right next to him in the kitchen and she makes her little cute sounds of discomfort. jungkook pauses in his making of breakfast to take her from her crib.

“is my hana awake?” jungkook coos; his voice goes a little bit higher pitched on purpose. he’s been conditioned, now, to talk to her like this. “are you hungry, baby?”

“nu hunny, baba,” hayoung pats her hand on jungkook’s face, as if to make sure that he’s there. jungkook bites on her fingers playfully, smiling when she gives a little shriek. he shifts her in his arms so she’s resting comfortably against his hip and then he returns back to his breakfast. it’s nothing big, nothing like he’ll usually make if he can on the weekends; just a simple sandwich for him this time around. he’s still toting hayoung around, and she’s making curious little sounds as he’s walking around the kitchen. jungkook gets himself a cup of milk and then he takes out the muffins he bought yesterday from the bread basket. they put the loaves of bread in the fridge, anyway.

it’s a corn-banana muffin, handmade, and it’s also one of hayoung’s favorite foods. she loves bananas, just like she loves sweet potatoes and yogurt. she makes flailing arms when she sees it.

“who wants a muffin, hm?” jungkook asks, setting her down in her high chair and carefully closing the liftable table. “who wants a muffin? muffin. muf-fin. it’s a yummy banana muffin, who likes banana muffins?”

“mup!” hayoung slaps her hands on the table and almost jumps in her chair. jungkook puts a bib around her neck so she won’t get even more of her clothes dirty. he has enough to handle with yoongi already.

he picks apart the muffin for her so it’s in a nice mess inside the bowl. he takes his own mug of milk and drinks it slowly, blinking in lulling tandem with the sound of the curtains blowing. hayoung’s baby chatter is background noise as she digs her hands into the bowl and then puts it in , slowly chewing and making a mess of herself on the front. she even has the gall to look up at jungkook from time to time, face bright and searching for attention that he so readily gives her.

jungkook pats down the front strand of her hair and blows a raspberry her way. she likes that sound, and attempts to blow one back at him, only serving to get mush on the table.

with a sigh, he takes a picture of his messy baby and sends it to yoongi. mondays make them both tired, worn out, and ruffled with the want to sleep. jungkook wonders if he should start bringing her to playgrounds and other places where there are other babies. he’s read that it’s important for a baby to be social, but he doesn’t know if it’s too early yet? hayoung still cries for him and will rarely leave her parents side when it comes to strangers...she’s not even walking on her own yet, maybe it’d be better to wait just a bit longer...

he’s so indecisive when it comes to these things. jungkook breathes out and looks down at his phone, resisting the urge to look it up on his phone. if he does that, he’ll never be able to stop reading those tips, and then he’ll get doubtful of himself and insecure about his parenting, wondering if he’s doing this all right, if his daughter is going to grow up alright. he wonders how he’ll survive in the later years. in these times, he’s insanely grateful for yoongi with his calm steadfastness. he’s the anchor to jungkook’s constantly rocking ship. it’s at these times jungkook wishes his husband was here.

it’s his birthday in about a week. jungkook still doesn’t know what he’s going to do; yoongi doesn’t like parties, finding them unnecessary. even after all this time, he doesn’t like people making a fuss about him, which - naturally - makes jungkook fuss about him ten times more often.

he wonders if he should go somewhere with yoongi. it’ll be on a friday, so he’ll be working... would there be any place that they could go that would be nice and calm and baby-friendly? does a place like that exist in seoul where they won’t have to take the train for? jungkook groans and rubs at his right eye.

“dada,” hayoung babbles, swirling her hand around in her bowl. “dada.” following that is a series of incoherent babbles, but jungkook supposes she’s sensed his pondering somehow and felt the need to comfort him.

“what do you want to do for your papa’s birthday, hana?” he asks, slowly using his fingers to guide pieces of muffin into . “what do you think papa would like to do with you?”

hayoung gurgles. of course she does.

if they were two years younger jungkook would surprise him with a birthday cake in the morning and then the entire day would be left up to yoongi. that meant sleeping in until the night broke and then eating whatever fast food he’d want and then going for a movie, maybe, or a walk through the park, or something else simple and easy. neither of them liked having to do anything obnoxiously big, like the party their friends will most likely throw on the weekend after.

but now that they have a baby...

jungkook tickles her slightly and watches as she giggles. her little toothy smiles make his day. after the muffin is finished, he wipes her down and blesses god that her clothes aren’t ruined she’s put in her playpen, among all her toys, where jungkook can see her. for his part, he works in the kitchen for a while, cleaning up the haphazard mess yoongi left behind. maybe he should buy yoongi a collar for his birthday, with a buzzer every time he leaves an empty coffee cup in the sink.

that would show him.

jungkook’s not that petty, though. maybe. no, no, he’s not. he’s just going to buy his favorite cologne (of yoongi’s) and then there’ll be a lot of cuddling, so that should be enough punishment. whenever jungkook curls up with yoongi on the couch, his husband gets this far off look like he’s in some sort of heaven. or hell. jungkook supposes it’s heaven, seeing as how their marriage has lasted this long for a reason.

hayoung’s birthday is coming up soon too. she’s turning one. an entire year old. no longer an infant in jungkook’s arms, but a breathing little girl with big eyes that have the ability to turn yoongi into putty (jungkook derives so much amusement from this) and a ready smile and a little bit of an obsession with her purple elephant. and jungkook. he can’t forget hayoung’s innate need to constantly have him in her line of sight.

everything he’s read online (and in...that mom forum that he tells no one about) says that it’s natural for a baby to fixate on both parents, especially when they’re so young and they’re learning about everyone and everything. some babies fixate more than others. some babies are more outgoing. jungkook hopes that for his sake, hayoung will soon toddle off to be more social instead of shy; and yet...he loves when she sleeps on him, when she looks at him like he’s her world. if only she knew how much he and yoongi look at her like she’s their world.

/

jungkook takes hayoung grocery shopping. they’re at a big mart somewhere in seoul. he can never ask yoongi to get things unless they’re the bare basics - milk, bread, eggs, toiletries - because he’ll never get the good ones or the right brands. jungkook didn’t care about brand names, once upon a time, until he learned about how some things are safer for children and how some companies use artificial food products in their food and how some things that can help save a lot of money. then he started paying attention. he learned the hard way.

hayoung’s happy to be in the mart, able to sit up in the little children’s seat now, but she’s always trouble. if jungkook looks away for a second - even a second - she’ll get her little hands on something in the shelves and knock them to the ground. he can’t move her to the middle of the aisle or else everyone else won’t be able to pass through, so he has to memorize his list and then go into the aisle to quickly pick up what he needs and put it in the cart. by the time she realizes there’s something to touch, jungkook is already moving the cart away.

today he’s in what could be counted as his pajamas, a pair of his comfiest, baggiest black pants, a sweatshirt he stole from yoongi, and tims. hayoung is the one that’s dressed up in a little cat onesie, just another addition to her multitude of animal-themed onesies. (jungkook might have a slight problem. she’s just so cute.)

he’s in the fresh produce section, so luckily, there’s not much she can get her hands on. jungkook rips a plastic bag from the little dispenser and hands her one to play with; she takes it in her hand and makes a sound of awe, stretching it in her hands. her hoodie slips and jungkook absentmindedly pulls it back on so he’ll be able to look at her cat ears for longer.

he’s looking at the various types of napa cabbage, wondering if he should go to another mart, when hayoung throws the plastic in front of jungkook and giggles. with infinite patience, he puts it back in her hands. then back to the napa cabbage.

he eventually decides to buy some (they’re running out of kimchi) and he looks toward the cart, which already has some other produce and some other things he’s decided to buy.

hayoung throws her plastic bag on the floor. when jungkook doesn’t pick it up, she starts crying for it, kicking her little feet.

“dada,” she cries, and jungkook sternly tells her, “no.”

she seems to pout at him. “that might fly with your papa,” jungkook starts pushing the cart again. “but it won’t work on me all the time. don’t throw things, hana.”

she cries for a bit longer, fingers playing with , until jungkook caves and wipes away her tears gently. she holds onto his pinky finger and he just sort of crumbles, sighing and taking her in his arms. hayoung buries her head in jungkook’s neck and sniffles.

“are you a tired baby?” he asks, shifting his hold so her weight is settled comfortably in one arm and he’s pushing the cart with the other. “do you want nap time? or are you hungry? does hana want lunch?”

“hana,” she repeats. he has no idea what it means, so he just continues his stream of nonsense mumbling to her as he goes through the motions. she’s soothed by his voice and eventually, she stops being such a sad little sack of cuteness. jungkook blows a raspberry to her cheek, something yoongi started, and then grins when she laughs her adorable fart-laugh at him.

after a while, he sets her back down in the cart and hands her a bottle. it’s half filled with milk and still room temperature, light so she won’t feel like it’s too heavy, and hana drinks from it greedily, content to also keep the plastic in .

“what a troublesome little baby,” jungkook sighs, running a hand through his hair. feeling a little mischievous, he snaps a picture of her as she’s staring up at him from the cart, on her bottle. he sends it to yoongi and says, do you want to return it?  

a couple of minutes later, while he’s looking at pickled radishes, yoongi responds. no, i spent a lot of money on that. we’re ing keeping her.

jungkook bites his lip to hide a smile. i can just return her and get another baby.

i’ll know the difference, jeon jungkook, he replies, followed by a rare selca of him with a playful scowl on his face. jungkook’s grin becomes wider and he quickly saves the picture, showing it hayoung who makes “oooh oooh” noises when she sees yoongi’s face on the screen. she taps it, wondering why she can’t seem to touch him. when yoongi’s still face doesn’t respond, she gets annoyed and turns to jungkook, waving her hands and demanding in baby talk why the picture of yoongi won’t do anything.

“papa isn’t here, hana,” jungkook tells her in futile. “we’ll see him when we get home.’

she won’t be persuaded, though, demanding to see yoongi right now. jungkook sighs and calls his husband, who picks up after two rings with a questioning tone.

“please just talk to your daughter,” he asks, wincing as hayoung gets louder and people around them start to look.

“she’s crying? i’m with the kids, though - “

“just a minute or two, so i can get what i need and move on,” jungkook whines a little. he’s getting tired and honestly, the checkout line looks good at the moment.

“alright, alright, put the phone near her.”

jungkook does so. hayoung’s never been this devastated over not having yoongi before, but jungkook supposes that most of the time, yoongi’s around to assuage her fears. plus, he showed her that picture of him. out of sight, out of mind.

yoongi croons to her in his low, soothing voice, just a simple, “hey there baby girl, why are you crying?...” but it calms her down, and hayoung tries to touch his phone as if that’ll bring yoongi closer. jungkook bends down to pick up the bottle she threw on the floor, and when hayoung sees it, she makes grabby hands for it. jungkook cautiously gives it to her and returns to yoongi on the phone.

“sorry about that, yoongi-ah,” he sighs. yoongi chuckles, low and steady from the other side, and jungkook feels a burn at the bottom of his belly. it’s something similar to attraction. he wishes he had yoongi’s easy going demeanor and firm decision making beside him right now.

“no problem, babe,” he says, using the pet name he gave jungkook in college and never really stopped using. it makes jungkook feel like he’s in a high school gang. “i’m going to get back to work, though. i was working on a new track with the boys.”

“alright,” jungkook replies. he feels, to his surprise (or non-surprise) a little saddened. he could talk to yoongi all day. “do well. tell - what were their names? ilhoon and woohyun i said hello!”

this makes yoongi laugh, for some reason. “yeah, okay. love you.”

“love you too,” he echoes. the call drops, and he wishes that it wouldn’t have.

he looks down at hayoung who’s chewing on the bottle’s again, and sighs. “maybe i’m that one that misses papa, huh?”

hayoung just gives him a little blink, like she knew all along.

at the cash register, she knocks down a candy display, because of course she does.

/

jungkook’s checking through his social media sites, because he still uses those thank you very much yoongi, after setting hayoung down for an hour long nap. there’s a pot of soup on the stove boiling and the living room has been shined and polished until he could see his reflection in the wooden coffee table. jungkook is texting seokjin in the meanwhile on a recap on how to bake cheesecake, yoongi’s favorite, and while seokjin takes a while to answer jungkook goes through his instagram and kakaostory. he sees taehyung’s updates on his store, which jungkook really needs to visit more, and jimin’s “official” account for his new drama.

he’s been finishing the filming on his old one, having done a superb job with a wonderful rating, and recently he’s told jungkook that the company wanted him to do another by - a live adaption of a famous web comic. he admitted to reading that web comic himself and could barely stop himself from squeeing out a yes in front of his boss.

now there’s little bits and pieces about the new drama he puts out, making jungkook smile at his best friend’s contagious happiness. he goes to jimin’s youtube account to see if he’s put up any vlogs recently.

there, on one of the ‘most viewed’ videos, he sees a familiar face - yoongi’s. when he clicks on it, jungkook has to prevent himself from laughing out loud; it’s the video jimin took so many months ago, when hayoung was still little, the day namjoon brought over kimchi to their house. so jiminwasn’t bluffing them.

jungkook knows, then and there, that yoongi must never find out. he’d growl at jimin and threaten him to take it down, but jungkook quite likes it.

he checks his v app to see if any of his favorite musicians have posted anything, spends a few minutes paying attention to the soup, and then settles down for an hour of working on his music. it’s a nice, relaxing hour, where all he does is just play and play and write, using his knowledge of four years in college to create something new. he doesn’t have the innate talent that yoongi seems to have, but just playing beautifully is enough.

there are so many of yoongi’s scrapped songs that jungkook still owns, unable to bear the thought of throwing them away. his songbook, another in a long line of them dating back to his middle school days, have a few tucked into their pages. while he may not be able to write music as well as his husband, he does have a lot to say in his lyrics and poems, even ‘till this day.

that goes on for a while, relieving him of his stress with work and his husband and the baby. jungkook lets go of all his worries and lets the music just...wash over him.

when it’s nearing time for yoongi to come home, jungkook settles into the couch and turns the channel to a drama. the house smells nice, like food and home, and hayoung woke up two hours ago to sit with her dad in the living room, on her playmat with her blocks.

when yoongi comes home, it’s just another day that’s coming to an end. jungkook greets him hello, like how yoongi had joked about weeks earlier - with a kiss and a helping hand with his bags. yoongi groans and hugs jungkook from behind, effectively holding him in place just for a second.

“who said being an adult was fun?” he murmurs, and jungkook laughs. something inside of him that’s been raging and jittery finally calms down, and he turns around to pat yoongi’s cheek gently. he rubs his nose against yoongi’s.

“no one did,” he replies. “hurry up, or else hana is going to put something in when i’m not looking.”

at the sound of her name, yoongi groans again. “my baby,” he drawls out, stumbling into the living room comically and dropping onto the sofa. hayoung claps in delight. “where is my baby girl? is this my baby girl? is this my little sunshine?”

hayoung burbles in sheer, plain joy. she crawls over at lightning speed and jungkook hears yoongi gasp, “ow! ow- baby girl - “ when hayoung proceeds to pull his hair.

he smiles to himself. it’s better when they’re all together.

/

after dinner, hayoung falls asleep. she’s leaning against jungkook, who is leaning against yoongi. her head is nestled against his neck, her small fist curled into his shirt. jungkook murmurs a half-spoken, half-sung lullaby to her, her back as she slowly drifts off into sleep.

he wonders what she dreams about. he wonders if she dreams about her parents. he wonders if she dreams about the world, about going on adventures with her elephant, if she dreams about conquering mountains and racing across oceans. he wonders if she’s singing songs and exploring deserts, running her hands through the sand. he wonders if her dreams will become reality one day. she’s so small, growing bigger in the blink of an eye. he won’t be able to fit her hand in his own anymore. she’ll hug yoongi goodbye as she walks on stage to get her diploma, and she’ll kiss jungkook’s cheek when she’s leaving home.

yoongi’s is running his hand up and down jungkook’s arm, from his shoulder to his elbow. the television speaks of some historical drama now, white noise in the background.

it’s a little too early, jungkook thinks. they’re making it through well with hayoung, yeah; there’s always enough time for one of them to be around, and they have enough money to get by. babies are expensive...babies are a lot of trouble and sleepless nights and moments of heart-twisting emotion. he knows yoongi is busy and yoongi is often tired and yoongi still stares at them both, sometimes, off to the side, looking like he’s wondering what he’s done in life to deserve what he has now. he knows yoongi sees them as the family he doesn’t deserve, as love that he’s not sure how he procured but will work to the day of his death to keep. it’s why jungkook married him.

but maybe...jungkook sings the last line of his lullaby, noting that not only has his daughter fallen asleep, but so has his husband. maybe, one day, they can have another child.

he’ll keep it to himself for now. silently, he shifts from yoongi’s grasp and heads to the bedroom to set hayoung down in her crib. he puts on the mobile so it’ll be in place of his voice. he returns to the living room and lays down next to yoongi again; the elder is sitting up, slumped against the side of the couch. jungkook sets his chin down on yoongi’s shoulder.

he studies the curve of a nose and jaw that he’s memorized by heart. the closed movement of eyelids, a flutter of short eyelashes, a tinge of a flush on his cheekbones. jungkook kisses him softly where his jaw meets his ear and carefully shakes him awake.

“bed,” jungkook whispers, when yoongi looks around him, confused. without a word, he grunts and stands up; jungkook gathers the blankets to take with them. while he’s moving to take the pillows, too, he’s halted by yoongi who stretches himself out on the length of the sofa. he pulls jungkook down abruptly, making jungkook fall on top of him painfully, dropping the blankets.

their hips clash; jungkooks elbow ends up in yoongi’s stomach. and yet, when he looks up, yoongi s only smiling.

“you’re crazy,” he says out loud, shuffling so that he’s lying in between yoongi’s legs, head next to yoongi’s. all of his weight is on top of him.

“you’re warm,” yoongi mutters. “let’s just stay like this.”

it feels like they’re the only two people in the world.

vaguely, jungkook wonders if this is what it means to love someone more than words can describe.