Day 7 - 10 PM

One downside of going to sleep at 9 PM is finding yourself awake and refreshed at 3 AM.

Well, at least then Daniel could drag Seongwoo’s to help him pack up the mountain of Woojin’s trinkets and necessities back to their neatly labelled boxes.

(Which means they also have plenty of hours to fool around with no risk of getting disturbed by the sound of crying babies or witches’ laughter. So, win win?)

It was probably the reason for why Daniel could greet Jinki with a smile on his face, instead of the usual frown he would sport when occasions like this presents itself to him.

“Good morning!” Without hesitation, Jinki essentially leaped from his spot and gave Daniel a big hug. Jinki’s lack of reservation for personal space often makes him wonder how Yena could stand falling in love with an overgrown golden retriever puppy.

(The same question posits itself on Daniel but he never realised it.)

“How are you?” Jinki patted Daniel’s back and propelled himself into the living room, seemingly unable to wait any longer to be reunited with his son.

“And how’s my Woojin?” He only gave Seongwoo a quick grin before he swooped a very pleasantly surprised Woojin out of his chair, giving his cheek a big kiss while bringing the kid up and down in a self-made rollercoaster ride.

It almost made Seongwoo’s heart leap out of his throat, but Daniel’s quick response of arm restraints stopped Seongwoo from screaming ‘STOP DOING THAT RIGHT NOW.’

Between his giggles, they both could hear Woojin say the word, “dada” in such a loving way that simultaneously, they felt their heart sinking to the bottom of their stomachs.

“I guess… we could never be his dad.” Daniel looked to Seongwoo with bitter smile on his face, and he swore he could see the buds of disappointment-induced tears collecting at the corner of Seongwoo’s eyes.

Between that, and them busy packing in Woojin’s things into Jinki’s car, the next time they could get back to their one week loaned baby was when they have to say their farewells.

“We will see you next week, it’s a promise.” They took turns waving their hands to Woojin and giving him forehead kisses, ignoring the fact that they were disturbing Jinki’s effort in buckling him into his car seat. Seongwoo also managed to snuck in his camcorder, and spent a considerable amount of time telling Jinki to step aside for a while so he could get a good shot. And probably because he was familiar with the plight of cameramen looking for the good shot, he did willingly step aside and allowed Seongwoo to play pretend, essentially. Because they all knew he must’ve captured everything he needed long ago.

That was a good thing though. Any method that could be employed to stretch their goodbyes would always be a good thing.

“Thankyou so much for taking care of Woojin,” Jinki gave them both a hug, the second hug of the day for Daniel, lingering longer around Seongwoo because he just had to give him his praises for the vlogs. “It really helped me with my homesickness.”

“I’m glad it helped,” from the tone of his voice and his understanding smile, it seemed that Seongwoo was warming up more than a little bit to Jinki. And to think for a second that Daniel had finally managed to recruit Seongwoo into the ‘I don’t know what’s the reason behind it, but I kindda dislike Jinki’ club. It seemed that he has to be content with being the sole member of that club for another long while.

“Say bye to your uncles Woojin!”

He waved his arms around, adorably so, while Jinki backed his car from the parking spot.

They were quite surprised for the lack of tears in the kid’s eye. Both of them were expecting double waterfalls, thunderstorm, tantrum throwing festival. But no. Woojin appeared to be really happy to be able to see his dad again and the wide smile he had as the car window rolled up showed nothing but excitement.

They should’ve felt good that it happened this way. Clean and drama-free. But of course they were slightly upset, because weren’t they worth at least a little bit of tears? Or any display to show that Woojin was unwilling to part?

But at least it gave them knowledge that the farewell wasn’t painful or distressing in Woojin’s part. And in the grand scheme of things, it was a much, much better outcome compared to a tear-jerking fest.

“So… what do you think about raising our own baby?” With his head resting on Daniel’s shoulder, Seongwoo completely missed the bright, embarrassed smile blooming onto Daniel’s face.

“Doesn’t seem to be a bad idea.” He shook Seongwoo’s cheek off his shoulder with a shrug, before walking back to the coolness of his apartment building. He could hear Seongwoo and the sound of his laughter following him closely,

“I’m glad to see improvements in you since last time.”

“I was eighteen, for god sake. The last thing I had in my mind was hitching off with a stranger.”

But now he was twenty one, a year away from graduating from university, and Seongwoo was no longer just a stranger crazy enough to ask ‘will you marry me’ after they had their first date. The concept of ‘something more’ has never sounded so tempting to him until that very moment.

_ _ _ _ _

Day 7 - 8 PM

They were eating their pizza dinner while catching up with TV shows they’ve missed throughout the week when Daniel’s phone rang with the more than familiar tune. A special one set for his one and only sister.

Even before anything else, they could hear a defeated sigh coming from the speaker right after Daniel pressed the green circle.

“He’s crying again.”

Daniel’s head snapped to look at Seongwoo the exact same moment when Seongwoo gave his arm a sharp, excited punch.

“Jinki is… quite overwhelmed.” Yena must’ve been pinching the bridge of her nose because her next words came out a little blocked out and quiet,

“Can you please go to my house and help them out until I’m home this Wednesday?”

Day 1 -