__

Children’s reading books littered the floor, some with its pages folded and some half-opened, complete with slips of paper that contained Jongdae’s unpracticed and scrawled handwriting—the beginnings of learning how to write. There’s big prints of letters and simplistic words, as well as a simplified version of Baekhyun’s uniformed neat handwriting, some of them stuck messily onto Jongdae’s wooden wardrobe to help him remember. Pens and pencils of all sorts scatter the desk, an opened tub of wax crayons with its contents spilled onto the bed, smearing the sheets with all sorts of colours Jongdae’s mother has to wash out later.

But they were abandoned, even though the two figures in the room were busy with them just a few mere minutes ago. Their attention has long averted to each other, their legs tangled onto the sheets, and Jongdae’s mother was wondering why not a noise had come out from their room for nearly fifteen minutes.

Baekhyun was resting his whole body completely against the headboard, Jongdae somewhat in front of him in a crawling position. They kissed with fervent but tender passion, taking each and every stimuli slowly, their quiet breaths shared between them. Jongdae’s glasses had fogged up slightly and Baekhyun had his eyes closed, one of the pink strands from his bangs caught between their lips, and they only pulled apart when Jongdae feels a pen stab his knee.

“Ow.”

Jongdae retracts his head back and rubbed his leg. Baekhyun doesn’t move but he half-smiles in amusement, blowing the hair out of his face, and Jongdae thought he looked pretty in the dim bedroom light.

“Your glasses are all foggy,” Baekhyun says in his soft voice.

“You breathed all over my face,” Jongdae retorts, scrunching his face. Baekhyun scoffs a little and his dainty hands took the glasses that rested on Jongdae’s nose, the latter momentarily blinded for a while. There’s a quiet, squeaky sound of Baekhyun wiping his lenses with his sleeve before Jongdae’s sight returns, the other boy having put them back on his face.

Jongdae needed new glasses. Badly. His eyesight had worsened since then and the pair had been five years old, the frames squeaky, slightly small to fit around his face. It could only fix the focus of his short-distance sight, but anything half a metre or further away from him was a complete undistinguishable blur.

Then Baekhyun pulled him closer and they kissed again.

Small sounds. Quiet breaths. Soft murmurs.

Jongdae buries his fingers in Baekhyun’s hair and the strands become as ruffled as his jacket, half-fallen onto his elbows.

Then one of them accidentally bangs teeth.

“Ow.”

“Sorry.”

Jongdae lets out a few chortles. Baekhyun was smiling again.

Jongdae leans onto the headboard, resting his head onto Baekhyun’s shoulder. They lay like this for a while, boring their eyes into the ceiling, sitting on the bed with pencils and paper amongst their legs.

Jongdae speaks first.

“What are we?” he blurts out.

The answer comes half a minute later.

“Whatever you want it to be,” Baekhyun’s voice is a soft murmur.

Jongdae picked Baekhyun’s hand and cupped it onto his own. Baekhyun’s fingers were dainty—Jongdae notices himself observing them a lot; whenever Baekhyun wrote, or picked things up, or carefully pinpointed every single brushstroke he made on canvas like a maestro. Every single detail, Jongdae watches carefully. The way that the strands of his hair covered his face whenever his head nodded down, or how his jacket often loosened itself and settled onto his elbows, or the fact that his eyes always sparkled to smile even if his lips didn’t quirk upwards.

It was as if Jongdae had met the universe.

Jongdae twined his fingers with Baekhyun’s—his own were tanned, far from delicate, rough from fiddling with mechanics and often dirtied with pen ink. But Baekhyun holds his hand all the same, and Jongdae took comfort in it.

“Can it be… something like…” Jongdae drew circles on Baekhyun’s knuckles, “’I love you’?”

Baekhyun’s skin had this certain glow. Jongdae’s eyes are immediately attracted to it.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun murmurs, “It can be something like ‘I love you’.”

Baekhyun picked up a pen underneath his thigh, and took hold of Jongdae’s hand. With his neat, cursive handwriting, he writes the words Jongdae last uttered on his wrist, the bespectacled boy watching the ink flow and bleed onto his skin.

“My turn,” Jongdae said. He retrieves the pen and, though he struggled to write, he tries to copy Baekhyun’s handwriting. He writes “I love you” onto pale, milky skin, the black contrasting against the blue of Baekhyun’s veins, and Jongdae chortles in delight as he accomplishes the task.

I love you.

Though like everything else, it was temporary. The ink eventually fades and disappears, as did their hearts, in a cold summer night as Jongdae guiltily murmurs that his feelings have washed away.

Baekhyun slowly nodded with his tears veiled behind his hair.

They would no longer hold hands for the rest of their lives.

__

It’s three years later. Somewhere else. Somewhere nicer. The room is white—yet to be decorated.

Baekhyun picked the child up in his arms, delicate as ever, careful to cup the head before supporting the rest of the body. He cuddled the baby into his arms, the infant’s wispy hair, rocking ever-so-slightly, swaying in his steps.

Newborn. As soon as Baekhyun saw the child, Baekhyun instantly fell in love—it was as if something pulled him towards it, like an instinct, and Chanyeol’s corporations made the papers a breeze; as if Baekhyun was practically given his license to parenthood. Baekhyun presses a soft kiss upon his head, cooing softly; and the child opens his eyes to this wonderful world, peering at this bright blurriness, his chubby starfish hands clumsily enclosing themselves to the cotton of Baekhyun’s shirt.

Chanyeol isn’t far behind him, pressing his chest onto his husband’s back, enveloping the smaller male in his arms. Chanyeol gazes at this wonderful little being, a smile creeping onto his face, and he leans closer to press a kiss onto Baekhyun’s cheek.

“He’s beautiful,” Baekhyun murmurs, feeling stupid as he feels his lips stretch into a grin. Chanyeol mutters his agreement, pressing his mouth onto his lover’s shoulder, gazing fondly onto the child.

“I don’t suppose we’ll name him Park Chanyeol the Eighth?” the taller man joked, and Baekhyun tinkled with soft laughter. He shakes his head, his hand moving carefully to the baby’s cheek—and the child murmurs a little, grasping Baekhyun’s jaw, and both of his parents chuckled slightly.

“… Minhyun. Minhyun—that’s our little boy, Minhyun,” Baekhyun smiled, and Chanyeol nods. The small child stirs, gazing at the two soon-to-be-familiar faces—and his teaspoon-sized mouth opens to mumble, grasping at Chanyeol’s nose, and the latter laughs before he kisses the tiny hand.

“Welcome home, poppet,” Baekhyun whispers fondly, and he presses a kiss onto