It wasn’t too often that Onew and Key found themselves competing against each other, even when they were supposed to be competing against each other on variety programs, they were never really too serious about it because Minho always won anyway. However, this time was totally different; it was crunch time in their household.

It had all started out when Onew had brought up the topic of Jaesung’s first word and he didn’t know exactly how it ended up the ways things turned out but before they knew it, they were betting on who Jaesung would call out first. Onew had called dibs on “appa” so Key had chosen “daddy” instead because there was just no way he’d let his son call him “umma”.

That was exactly 3 weeks ago.

In the first 2 weeks, they had constantly tried to coax Jaesung into repeating after them but to no avail as Jaesung seemed perfectly content with his current vocabulary of monosyllables. Now, at the end of the 3rd week into the bet, Key was almost certain that Jaesung knew about the bet and was just set on mocking them by prolonging their agony…

Around the 5th week or so, just when Key’s and Onew’s competitive spirit were beginning to wane, Jaesung startled them by uttering his first actual word when he let out a high-pitched squeal followed by a very clear almost shout of the word “dog!” because Comme des and Garcons were running around him. And just like that, Onew and Key found themselves competing with renewed vigor.

Slightly over one and a half months into the bet, Key was in the kitchen preparing a mid-afternoon snack for Jaesung. The television had been switched on and was currently showing some weekend variety program which none of them really care for but was too lazy to change the channel, so they were both content with letting it be background noise for now. Key was in the midst of mashing a few cubes of steam pumpkin when he heard Onew’s voice over the television.

“Jaesungie, say appa? Ap-pa?” Onew cooed in encouragement. “Be a good boy, come on. Say ap-pa?”

Key gave his head the smallest of shakes as he smiled to himself when he looked over and saw Onew crouched down on the ground so that he was at eye-level with his son, who was happily sitting on the ground. He looked really silly trying to flatten himself as much as possible to the ground when he could have easily carried Jaesung up onto the couch but it was small moments like these that really made Key fall in love with his silly adorable boyfriend all over again. He took one last look before continuing to mash the pumpkin.

The next time Key looked up was when he heard the camera shutter sound go off. “Jaesungie, look at appa.” Onew requested. He was still in a crouched position on the floor but this time with his phone held out in front of his face. Jaesung, however, was far more interested in stretching out for a ball that was just out of his reach than to pose for a photo session though, so Onew had to resort to reaching out with his free hand and gently poking Jaesung in his side to get this attention. He succeeded in getting his son’s attention but at the same time, also caused him to erupt in a fit of high pitched squeals, almost as if he was protesting the ticklish feeling from the pokes.

This didn’t deter Onew from taking quick snap shots of his son though as he beamed at the screen of his phone, clearly extremely proud of himself for managing to capture more photos of Jaesung. He was probably going to flood Jonghyun’s kakaotalk with them again and then get nagged by the younger when they next see other. It was always like this and Key knew because Jonghyun always took screenshots of it and complained to him about it, asking him to tell Onew to stop making him jealous or he’d come over and kidnap Jaesung.

Key was about to return to finishing up the preparation of Jaesung’s food when he got the biggest shock ever. “Ahh-ppa!” Jaesung squealed out when Onew decided to launch a full blown tickle attack on his son. Onew immediately stopped tickling Jaesung and stared wide-eyed at the boy who was now lying on his back.

Key’s mouth gaped open in disbelief. He really didn’t want to believe that Jaesung had just said “appa”, or at least something that sounded very similar to that. Onew was the first to get back his motor responses as he immediately grabbed his neglected phone and fiddled with it. “Oh my god! I need to record this down on video! Jonghyun is never going to believe me if I don’t have hard evidence!”

“Come on, baby boy. Say it again. Say appa again, will you?” Onew cooed encouraging but Jaesung just grabbed his feet and beamed at him.

“Do I have to tickle you again?” Onew dangled his fingers above Jaesung and wriggled them threatening. Surprisingly, Jaesung seemed to know what was coming and made a noise that sounded something in between a squeal and a giggle before relenting. “Ahh-ppa!”

At that moment, Key finally snapped out of his frozen state of shock. “Not fair!” He whined and protested at the same time, stomping his feet and pushing his lips out in a pout.

Jaesung turned his head towards the direction of the kitchen at the sound of Key’s voice, probably wondering what was going on because he had this puzzled look on his face as he looked back up at Onew. Onew took one look at his son’s confused expression and burst out into laughter. It was just too adorable especially since he really had no idea what he had just done.

When he had finally calmed down and remembered about Key, he quickly ended the video recording and picked Jaesung up. “Let’s go look for your daddy~ He’ll cheer up much faster if we use aegyo, so you must help me, ok?” He whispered the plan to his son as he carried the boy towards the kitchen, with a bounce in his step.

The bragging could come later. For now, he had to make sure that he still had dinner later. 

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Don't worry, I'm not abandoning this story! Just struggled with a major bout of writer's block and couldn't for the life of me garner any motivation to finish up the chapter until this weekend! 

I'm just sorry that it's so short compared to my other chapters but this chapter was always meant to be a little shorter than the rest since I was inspired by a video I watched on youtube. 

Enjoy!