Yifan remembers clearly how small Sehun was when he just born. He remembers how he snuggled quietly on Yixing’s arms and how Yifan couldn’t stop crying and saying thank you to his husband for being strong for nine months and giving birth to a beautiful and healthy boy. Yixing only laughed at him, saying he should have shown their son his handsome face instead of his ugly crying face, but not long after that, Yifan heard another sniffles came from Yixing and it became a crying fest.

He remembers the first time he held Sehun on his arms. He refused at first, but his husband gave the baby to him, sternly saying that he needed to learn how to hold him properly. So he carefully slid his arms under Sehun’s tiny body and made sure to support his head and body before he lifted him and brought him closer to his chest. Yixing instructed where his hands should go until Yifan ended up cradle him correctly.

“You did it!” Yixing exclaimed happily, and Yifan remembers how he kept saying ‘don’t drop him’ multiple times in his mind and tried to calm himself down while Sehun looked happy on his arms, big smile plastered on his face before he closed his eyes and took another nap again.

Yifan remembers at that moment, he promised he wouldn’t let anyone harm his baby and take him away from him and Yixing.

It might be why Yifan started to become an overprotective father.

And maybe, it’s the protectiveness that he felt when he sees Yixing and his son coming home from the park with another boy holding hand tightly with Sehun.

“Bàba, this is Jongin!” Sehun introduces the boy and Jongin bows awkwardly to him. “He’s my soulmate!”

It’s like everything stops at that moment, including Yifan’s breath.

“What?”

There’s a voice at the back of his mind saying that his son is joking, but he can see the glimmer on his eyes and his big toothy grin. He knows instantly that he’s not joking at all.

Yifan’s first reaction is looking at Yixing and hopefully his husband takes the hint and explain what is happening right now. But instead, Yixing only laughs and says, “Jongin’s family just moved out to our neighborhood three days ago and we met on the park.”

Yifan wants to protest that the answer doesn’t explain why his son suddenly said that this Jongin kid is his soulmate, but before he can mutter another words, Sehun already yells ‘Let’s go playing on my room!’ and drags the boy along with him, leaving Yifan and Yixing standing alone at the front door.

“Um, what’s with the soulmate thing?”

Yixing shrugs. “Sehun just took an immediate liking to Jongin after playing with him for a while, and Jongin seemed to feel the same way.”

“And why this Jongin kid is here?”

“We couldn’t separate them so I suggested to take Jongin with us and his mom will pick him up after dinner.”

Yifan frowns at that. He should have feel happy that his son found a friend because sometimes his grumpy face—as he quotes his husband ‘Which he got from you, but it’s cute anyway’—scares another kids, and it makes him lose confidence.

But he’s not happy.

“Why do you look so calm? Our kindergarten son just declared to us that he found a soulmate already!” Yifan can’t help to ask.

Yixing blinks innocently. “Because they look cute together?”

Yifan lets out a frustrated groan. “But they’re too young to be together!”

Yixing shakes his head in amusement. He already expected this kind of reaction from his husband because Yifan is very protective over Sehun, of course he’s gonna be cranky just because their son brought home another boy.

Yixing himself doesn’t mind it that much because he does think they look cute together, and the second reason is—

“They’re still kids, Yifan. You know how simple their minds are,” Yixing says, running his hand on Yifan’s arms, hoping it will help soothing whatever Yifan is feeling right now.

But it doesn’t help much as his husband clicks his tongue and murmurs, “But I’m not ready.”

“For what?”

“For him to forget me.”

Yixing gasps softly. “Why are you thinking like that?”

“Sometimes growing up means you’re also growing apart. There’ll be time where Sehun’s gonna explore the world out there and we can’t be together as often as now.” Yifan’s shoulder slump forward in disappointment. “But now, he had found a soulmate and he will forget me soon.”

Yixing heaves a sigh. He can’t say he didn’t expect this kind of reaction as well because Yifan likes to overthink stuffs sometimes, but he didn’t know it would happen.

“Y-Yifan, what are you doing?” he asks as he sees Yifan walking to the direction of Sehun’s room. He doesn’t get any answer and there’s no choice other than following the tall man.

The door to Sehun’s room is not close because he made a promise with Yifan and Yixing so they can easily watch and hear everything he does on his room. Both of them take a peek inside and sees Sehun playing a puzzle with Jongin on the floor. It’s a puzzle that Yifan bought for him yesterday and Yixing notices how Yifan pouts and grumbles under his breath, “He promised we would play that puzzle together.”

Before he can say any encouragement, the silent is cut by a small growling sound.

“Jonginie, are you hungry?” Sehun asks.

Jongin nods slowly.

“Oh! Let's eat chicken tonight because my Bàba makes the best fried chicken!”

Jongin’s eyes shines at the mentioned of fried chicken. “The best fried chicken?”

“Yeah, the best fried chicken! And Bàba cooks the best pancake too!”

“I like pancakes!”

“Me too!” Sehun yells. “Bàba can do anything! He can talk in many language, and he can rap!”

Jongin gasps. “Like big hyungs on the TV? They talk so fast that I don’t understand what they talk about.”

“Bàba can talk faster than that!”

“That’s cool!” But seconds later, the excitement dies down as Jongin continues, “But do you still want to my soulmate? I’m not cool like Sehunie’s Bàba.”

It clearly makes Sehun upset as he frowns and scoots closer to Jongin. “It’s okay, Jonginie. There’s also some things that Bàba can’t do too.”

Jongin blinks. “Really?”

Sehun nods. “Yeah. Bàba doesn’t like to wake up early, doesn’t eat tomato and clumsy. One time he fell when he put on christmas decoration and he broke his arms.”

“Oh! Is he okay?”

“He’s okay now! But you know, that’s why we have Papa Yixing! Papa always help Bàba to wake up early, he’s good at hiding tomato so Bàba won’t know there’s some on his food and he took care of Bàba until his arms is good again!”

“Sehunie’s Papa sounds cool too!”

Sehun looks proud because of that. “I know that! That’s why we can be like Bàba and Papa! We can do anything when we’re together!”

“Does that mean we gonna live together too?”

“We are!” Sehun nods. “Bàba and Papa saved up together to buy a house so we should do that! Oh, do you like dancing, Jonginie? Papa can dance so he can teach you, and Bàba will teach me how to be a model, so we can save the money from dancing and modelling to buy house.”

“Can we have biiig room to play together?” Jongin opens his arms wide to point out his words.

“Yes! We can do everything together, just like Bàba and Papa!”

It takes a moment for Yixing to grasp the situation but once he is, he can help to smile so wide it hurts his cheeks a little bit. He takes a glance at his husband who’s currently having a jaw drop.

“Sehun praised me,” he says in disbelief, “Do you hear that, honey? He said we’re cool and they want to be like us! They make us as their role models!”

Yixing giggles. “Yeah, I heard that.”

They stay for another minutes to hear Sehun and Jongin rambling about another plan for their future together, before Yixing slips his finger through Yifan’s and tangle them together.

“Feeling better?” he asks.

His hand gets a light squezee in returns. “Never been better.”

“That’s good.”

Not long after that, Yifan pulls his hand and tilts his head toward the direction they came from. “Wanna make the fried chicken for dinner together?”

Yixing laughs before nodding his head.

He can’t be more happy than now that the problem is solved.

Or so he thought.

“Why Jonginie can’t stay here?” Sehun asks, a pout on his face while folding his arms across his chest, clearly not happy with what just happened.

Short story, Jongin’s mom came right after dinner and it was hard to separate them, even harder than before. At the end, Jongin’s mom promised she would let Jongin come again tomorrow so they settled with a pinky promise and finally, Jongin went home.

“Because Jongin’s parents will be worry if he’s not home.” Yixing caresses his son’s cheeks gently. “He’ll be here tomorrow so don’t be sad, okay?”

“Yeah, let’s have fun with Bàba now!” Yifan adds. “How about Bàba read you a story tonight?”

Sehun pout just get deeper. “I don’t want Bàba, I want Jonginie.”

Not noticing the damage he made, Sehun doesn’t look back as he just walks straight into his room. Yixing warily glances to his husband, who looks even more upset than he was this evening.

“Did you hear that? Sehun chose Jongin over me. He doesn’t love me anymore.”

Yixing sighs.

It’s gonna be a long night ahead.