Kibum wanders into the kitchen when he hears Jonghyun arrive home with grocery bags. He walks up behind Jonghyun, hands shaking around his waist to hug him and kiss his cheek sweetly.

"Did you get cottage cheese?" He asks finally, grinning and taking the tub of it when Jonghyun holds it over his shoulder. "Jjong, it's not large curd!"

Jonghyun turns and gives him an incredulous look. "I hate cottage cheese, so I don't even know what that means. You asked for cottage cheese, and I got cottage cheese," Jonghyun watches Kibum get a spoon and scoop it into his mouth. "It doesn't seem like it's putting you off."

"I've been dying for this stuff all day. Normally, I would care more, but right now I don't," Kibum lets out a little grunt as he sits on the barstool. "Thank you, by the way."

"Sure, sure. It'd be thanks enough if that doesn't become your fancied food. It's gross. How are you eating it plain anyway? Aren't you supposed to put it on pasta?"

"You can eat it plain, and that's exactly what I'm doing... Hey, do we have any hot sauce?"

Jonghyun makes a face but grabs the bottle out of the fridge and slides it across the counter to Kibum. "I can't watch you eat that. I'm going to watch the news. Stay in here with it."

Kibum protests half heartedly but stays in his seat. Once he gets his fill, he goes out to the living room to be with Jonghyun, his fingertips and making sure there's nothing on his chin.

"That hit the spot."

Jonghyun rolls his eyes but grins anyway. "Where's Hara? Asleep?"

Kibum shakes his head. "Your mom picked her up. She was going out and wanted to bring her. I'm not sure if she's keeping her overnight or not. It was a welcome break though. I did nothing all day."

"Are you not feeling well?"

"It's not that. I just forgot how tiring being pregnant is. It's even worse with Hara running around."

Jonghyun looks over at Kibum, hand coming to pat his bump gently. You're already halfway done, Kibum. It's amazing, really. You've been doing well, so just keep it up.
 
Kibum sets two hands on his stomach, nodding. "I know. One hundred thirty-six days left. I'm barely showing though. I was measuring big, now I'm measuring small. Little baby, where are you hiding in there?"

"When is your anatomy scan?"

"There isn't one."

"Huh?"

Kibum grins. "I want to wait."

"Really? That'll be a nice little surprise for us, won't it?"

"Mm. That's what I was thinking. Hara might be upset though. I think she wants a little brother more than a sister... I thought she'd want a sister."

Jonghyun shrugs. "Kids are weird. She probably has her little reasons," he stretches out on the couch, settling his head on Kibum's lap. "I doubt we'll ever understand her reasoning to be completely honest."

---

Kibum has a smooth pregnancy for the remaining twenty weeks. This time around, there's less tears and next to no stress. He's got Jonghyun (and Hara) by his side throughout the experience. Neither may have been there from start to finish, but they didn't need to be because Kibum knew how much they supported him, even from afar.

They welcome Kim Jae, a healthy baby boy with round rosy cheeks, into their family three days after Jonghyun's twentieth birthday. Kibum doesn't think the name rolls off the tongue like it should, but Jonghyun had his heart set on the name as soon as he held the baby for the first time. Kibum couldn't say no to the look he had given him and thus, Jae was chosen. It grows quickly on Kibum anyway.

Jae is heavier than his sister, nearly an entire pound more. Kibum doesn't say it out loud, but he thinks Jae may beat Hara in cuteness while they were newborns. While Hara's skin was red for nearly two days, Jae is pale, much like Kibum. Or maybe it wasn't Jae's skin, so much as it was how much of Jonghyun Kibum saw when he looked at him.

Hara welcomes her new brother in the hospital room proudly, like the big sister she wanted to be. Kibum and Jonghyun can barely get her to hand over Jae for a feeding or sleep. She insists that she's old enough to feed him from the bottle, but Kibum is too wary and takes the duty on himself, just for now, although Hara protests loudly and ends up crying. It's a chain reaction that ends in Jae screaming also.

Even so, Kibum isn't sure if he'd have it any other way.

---

Back at home, everyone falls easily into a routine. If Jae's crying throughout the night bothers Hara, she doesn't let it show. Kibum was worried that he'd have to deal with her tantrums when she's woken up by the baby too, but once again, she proves to be most mature than Kibum has given her credit for.

---

Time begins moving faster for Jonghyun and Kibum after that.

Jonghyun graduates from college (mostly online courses by the end with how much he has to work) and takes over his father's eyewear business as president not long after when he decides to retire for good. It's around the same time that Hara begins kindergarten. 

Kibum isn't sure he'll ever forget the morning of her first day. He was a blubbering mess as he kissed her goodbye in the threshold of the front door, Jonghyun standing close by to pick her up. His little baby was growing up, he remembers crying over and over.

It was then that he realized that he couldn't stop it either.

Jae grows just the same, just as quickly, as his sister. He's walking and talking and getting potty trained right on track, but he's the exact opposite of Hara when it comes to his personality and behavior. While Hara was always well behaved and quiet, Jae is loud and always has his nose (and hands) in something he shouldn't around the apartment. He doesn't demand as much attention though and generally amuses himself with his own little toys, but it doesn't make him any less of a menace.

The family grows again soon but not with another child. Jonghyun arrives home late one Thursday night with a puppy of only two months curled in his arms, asleep. It's a breed that Kibum can't ever pronounce right, and Jonghyun deems her name to be Roo before Kibum even says that they're keeping her. It's a stupid name, Kibum argued, although it was a lost cause. He demanded Jonghyun choose a different name, but Roo was easy enough for the kids to pronounce at their young ages. The name stuck. Kibum never admitted that it was any less stupid though.

Roo and Jae become partners in crime faster than Kibum can believe. They're always together and causing trouble around the apartment for Kibum to pick up after on a normal basis. Kibum has half the nerve to kill Jonghyun for encouraging the bold behavior.

---

Jonghyun doesn't propose to Kibum until he turns twenty-five. It's barely a surprise to Kibum, but he finds himself crying anyway, in front of friends and family at his twenty-fifth birthday, both children, now nine and six, coming to hug his legs.

The ring doesn't exactly fit, and Kibum is sure his finger will fall off from his circulation getting cut off, but he wears it still. 

The pair never do officially get married. In spirit, yes, but never in reality. They never get the papers that so many couples insist they need. Kibum won't realize this until he's almost thirty-three (but he never regrets it), of course, so for the time being, Kibum lives in euphoria.

---

When Jonghyun leaves for the military, Kibum is left to care for the business and the kids. He manages what he can from home with two kids to take care of. Kibum doesn't have the schooling Jonghyun had, and generally allows the vice president of the company make the decisions Jonghyun asked Kibum to.

Kibum and the kids sees Jonghyun sometimes, when Jonghyun has extended breaks or he sends a letter with a polaroid of himself from wherever he's stationed, but for twenty-four months, Kibum struggles. He battles depression (and so much more) while Jonghyun is away for his service. Both kids witnessed him cry more times than they ever should have in one lifetime.

When Jonghyun returns home, home for good, Kibum cries until he's sure there are no more tears left in him and thanks every and any God there is that he was deemed physically unfit to serve after two kids. He couldn't deal with another two years without Jonghyun. He physically couldn't bear to be away from him like that again.

Jonghyun's hair begins to grow back slowly. It never fully reaches the length it was when they were younger though, to the style that Kibum always loved. Kibum couldn't run his fingers through Jonghyun's hair properly anymore. It's dark and thick, but no longer shaggy and silver. I'm thirty now, Jonghyun tells Kibum as he pats his hair, that kind of hairstyle is for the young kids.

Kibum begins crying all over again.

---

Hara turns sixteen before Kibum can believe, and Jae not long after. They're both beautiful, he thinks. They're a perfect mixture of both Jonghyun and Kibum, although Jonghyun swears up and down that Hara is the female version of Kibum. Kibum, on the other hand, thinks that Jae is the spitting imagine of Jonghyun instead of himself, and he loves it.

Kibum talks a lot about his struggles with them then, when they're both old enough to understand. It's his way of begging them to make the right choices. Even if they don't, he hopes that he can at least right the wrongs that they do. He doesn't want them to face badness in their lives, not if they could prevent it in some way. Kibum might be speaking empty words to bright faces, faces that he sees himself and Jonghyun in, but he could watch them grow now that they've at least learned of the struggles that stem from bad decisions.

Kibum knows he doesn't have to worry. They're both good kids, not perfect, but they're not bad in any way. Kibum knows that he's blessed. He's blessed to have kids that are better than he was himself at their age. Even so, Jonghyun tells Kibum that they aren't blessed, that it's only their fantastic parenting that's gotten them to the point they're at.

As Kibum watches both his children grow and excel, he thinks that, maybe, getting pregnant at sixteen wasn't as much of a curse as he once thought it to be.