Kyungsoo shot Kris a sarcastically serious look that clearly said, "How am I supposed to call in and say I'm sick if I can't even say anything in the first place?!" At least, his large, owl-like eyes and menacing glare expressed more or less this message, and Kris just frowned at the obvious insubordination, but did nothing because he could exactly fire one of his best employees because of a look.

 

"It's called text, Kyungsoo," Kris replied to the other's expression with equal sarcasm as he grabbed a Little Mermaid themed notepad and it under Kyungsoo's nose. "Learn to use it."

 

Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow, unimpressed by his supervisor's retaliatory quip; his would have been much better, if he could talk. But he couldn't, which was also why he accepted the notebook, scribbled a quick note onto it, then attached it to his uniform with a plastic grin. Kris wanted to throttle him for it, Kyungsoo could just tell, but the Chinese man instead rolled his eyes and swept Kyungsoo out into the storefront, taking great care to slam the back room door firmly behind as he did so.

 

Though Kyungsoo wanted to roll his eyes at Kris too, he didn't. There were parents and children everywhere, and Kyungsoo took his job seriously enough that he didn't want to possibly ruin someone's experience with the magic of Disney because an employee at the store was having a bad day. He straightened his name tag and perfected his smile in the Frozen vanity mirror right next to the back door, before stepping into the foray and making his way to the front. He saw one of his coworkers, Suho, greeting customers at the door, and saw the other two on shift, Minseok and Jongdae, manning the registers just fine, so he added one more line to the note he'd written and tried to look available.

 

It wasn't long before someone came up to ask him a question, and Kyungsoo assisted the best way he could without actually using words. That first time was relatively easy: a dad looking for the Tinker Bell section. The next, though, wasn't as simple. The woman who tapped Kyungsoo on the shoulder for assistance said she wanted to buy a Cinderella night gown for her niece, but she didn't know the size. Kyungsoo spent the next ten minutes trying to suggest alternative, non-clothing presents, but the woman had thought he was making a lewd come on to her and ended up leaving the store in an offended huff. Kyungsoo hoped that wouldn't come back to bite him in the later, but in his defense, he'd done his best and directed her to Suho instead, so he washed his hands of it and found his smile again for the next needy customer.

 

This time, though, it was a little boy with another in tow, who just sort of looked at Kyungsoo curiously for a moment before asking with a point at the notepad, "What's it say?"

 

Obviously, Kyungsoo couldn't speak to tell the child that the note essentially said he couldn't speak. Luckily, a pair of adults appeared behind the two children a few seconds later, and Kyungsoo noted with interest that both were not only men, but also holding hands and wearing wedding rings.

 

"Baba," the smaller of the two children, but not the one who'd lead the charge to Kyungsoo in the first place, turned to one of the men and repeated his friend's question.

 

The child's father smiled endearingly at his son, and then somewhat apologetically at Kyungsoo before he suggested, "Why don't you ask Appa, Baekie? Baba and Baek are learning to read together, remember?"

 

Kyungsoo thought he detected a slight accent in the man's voice as he spoke, but could tell from the twinkle in his eye and the smile in his tone that he was much better at reading Korean than his child might think.

 

"Chanyeol too!" The taller, skinnier boy, the one who's first talked to Kyungsoo, added strongly.

 

The man—Kyungsoo guessed he was Chinese—chuckled but nodded. "That's right," he amended his earlier statement, "Baba, Baekhyun, and Chanyeol are all learning to read together." Chanyeol looked pleased while Baekhyun nodded thoughtfully, and Kyungsoo watched as the other man made a point to brush a loving hand across his husband's cheek before crouching down to talk to their son on his level.

 

"Let's see," he drawled slowly, emitting a slight lisp that Kyungsoo thought matched the other's accent quite nicely. "What if we read it together. How does that sound, you two?" He stood up and looked at the boys while he said this, but really he was speaking to Kyungsoo. Truthfully, the four had already taken up at least five minutes of his time, but he wasn't supposed to be doing anything other than working anyway, and he thought they were all very adorable together, so he just smiled with a slight shrug.

 

"That sounds like fun, Baekie's Appa!" Chanyeol cheered, raising his small fists into the air in excitement and inevitably dragging Baekhyun's up with his because neither one was willing to let go of the other.

 

"Yay!" Baekhyun crowed in agreement, and Kyungsoo's small smile spread into a heart-shaped grin as he took in their cuteness.

 

Baekhyun's dad took that as a willingness to put up with their group for just a while longer, and crouched down once more. "How about we sound it out. Chanyeol first, okay?"

 

"Chanyeol, fighting!" Baekhyun's excitement was obvious, and the encouraging kiss he gave to Chanyeol's cheek gave Kyungsoo hardcore relationship goals. The grimace on the Chinese father's face was hilarious, too, but Kyungsoo knew his throat would hurt even worse if he tried laughing, so he did his best to focus on the Korean dad as he helped the taller boy read.

 

"I can't speak!" Chanyeol finally managed to make it to the end of the first line and he was so pleased with himself that he didn't even blush this time when Baekhyun rewarded him with another kiss.

 

"He needs to stop doing that," Kyungsoo heard the Chinese dad say to the laughter of the Korean one, and he wished he had a healed throat to tell the small family—plus Chanyeol—how much they were making his day.

 

"Relax," the taller dad, the Korean one, replied. "Young love is adorably harmless." He turned away from his husband after pressing a quick peck to the Chinese man's own cheek, and said, "Alright, Baek. You're up next!"

 

Baekhyun gave Chanyeol a sideways glance but the other was too interested in the next line on Kyungsoo's notepad to realize the smaller boy probably wanted a good luck kiss too. With a sigh, Baekhyun stepped closer to his father and together they read, "Ursula the sea witch stole my voice!"

 

"The nerve," the Chinese father agreed to the horrified looks both boys shot him at that. The taller man laughed again before finishing their little reading project and said the words aloud while Baekhyun, especially, gasped.

 

"I'll need to find my true love to get it back," he read, clearly pouring on the dramatics for his small son's sake, "but until then, I'm happy to assist you!"

 

When he finished, the taller man took a step back to relace his and his husband's fingers together. To Kyungsoo's surprise, though, as he watched the two men hold hands lovingly in front of him, he felt a the warm touch of a small hand in his own. Looking down abruptly, Kyungsoo was startled to see Baekhyun, Chanyeol still in tow, clutching at his hand desperately, and was even more shocked when the small boy began to pull him, too, across the store.

 

"Baekhyun!" His two fathers called after their son in disciplining alarm, but the boy ignored them as Kyungsoo allowed himself to be swept along until they were standing directly in front of Suho at the front.

 

"Are you a prince?" Baekhyun asked Kyungsoo's coworker boldly.

 

Suho looked confused and shook his head slowly. He was about to saw something, Kyungsoo thought, when Baekhyun let out an annoyed huff and took off again, hands still wrapped securely around both Kyungsoo's and Chanyeol's.

 

It was probably quite the hilarious sight, a small boy holding hands with another boy and a Disney store employee as two adults ran hand in hand behind them shouting things like "Oh Baekhyun, you stop that right now" and "Baekhyun, if you don't let Kyungsoo-ssi's hand go this instant, no more play dates with Chanyeol!" None of their threats seemed to work, though, and so the hilarity continued. Baekhyun skidded to a stop in front of a boy probably a little younger than Kyungsoo and asked again, "Are you a prince?"

 

The boy looked a little flustered by the question, and asked, "Shen me?"

 

Baekhyun, blessed to be naturally bilingual as a result of his dual-ethnicity parentage, impatiently repeated the question in Mandarin, to which he received an "Oh!"and a cat-like grin as the Chinese boy nodded indulgently. The smaller boy asked something else in Mandarin that made the Chinese boy blush, and Kyungsoo wished he could understand what was happening because he was admittedly still a little confused. Chanyeol, as it turned out, was too, and all it took was one yank of Baekhyun's sleeve for the smaller to repeat his second question, in Korean this time.

 

"I asked if he wants to be Kyungsoo hyung's true love so that Hyung can stay human." Suddenly, Kyungsoo understood completely, and his blush was just about as red as Ariel's hair as he bowed in apology to the unassuming Chinese man and dragged the two mischievous children away.

 

"But hyung!" Chanyeol pleaded as he dug his heels into the ground and tried to get Kyungsoo to stop, "You need to find your true love!"

 

Kyungsoo didn't know when he'd given these two tiny troublemakers permission to call him hyung, but he didn't mind the term as much as the fact that he was most likely on his way to getting his second ual harassment complaint of the day. Kris was right; he should have just called in sick because Kyungsoo sure as hell didn't get paid enough for this.

 

He shook his head vehemently and tried to speak, before he remembered a little too late that he couldn't. What can out, instead, was a pathetic little croak that had Baekhyun tearing up just as his two father's finally managed join them. Baekhyun's hand released Kyungsoo's to grab onto his Korean father's as he practically wailed, "It's happening! It's happening! He needs a prince!"

 

Kyungsoo watched in wry amusement as the little boy's panicky made his parents hide their smiles and roll their eyes. Chanyeol looked just as upset by the whole situation, but he at least pretended to listen when Baekhyun's Chinese dad explained patiently, "He might like princesses, Baekhyun-ah. Don't be so quick to judge, alright?"

 

"Not judging!" Baekhyun denied. He couldn't have been more than five or six, but Kyungsoo was still amazed at the stubbornness in his small form when Baekhyun declared indignantly, "Ariel's true love was a prince; Kyungsoo hyung's is a prince too!"

 

"Did someone call for a prince?" A new voice asked kindly.

 

"Hyung!" Kyungsoo looked up as Chanyeol crowed in excitement and launched himself at the boy, who was maybe a little younger than Kyungsoo and must have been Chanyeol's elder brother, from the looks of things. "Hyung!" Chanyeol repeated as he remembered the supposed gravity of Kyungsoo's situation and glanced over at Baekhyun, who was now actually whimpering while mumbling, "Poor Kyungsoo hyung," under his breath.

 

"Hey, Luhan-ssi, Sehun-ssi," Chanyeol's brother greeted with a bow before returning his attention to Chanyeol and answering his earlier exclamation with "What's up with your boyfriend, Chan-Chan?"

 

Kyungsoo thought he heard one of Baekhyun's parents scoff—Luhan-ssi probably—but he was too captivated by the fall of the other boy's platinum blonde locks across his tanned forehead, by the lithe gracefulness with which the boy got down onto his little brother's level, by the sweet indulgence with which the boy addressed Baekhyun's tears.

 

"Why you cryin', Baek-baby?" The boy asked his younger brother's friend, and Kyungsoo swooned at the term of endearment so kindly bestowed onto a child not even related to him.

 

Baekhyun sniffled pathetically, but allowed Chanyeol's brother to pull both of the small boys into a hug while the two parents looked on and Kyungsoo just sort of hovered, awkward and unsure. The smaller of the two children waved a hand in Kyungsoo's direction and for the first time, the full force of the other's eye-crinkling smile was directed to the Disney store employee for whom Baekhyun's tears fell.

 

"Kyungsoo hyung's voice was stolen," Baekhyun explained between hiccups. "He needs a prince to be his true love or else he can't be human anymore."

 

Chanyeol looked a little helpless for a moment before a look of achievement cross his small face and he grinned large enough to move his ears. "You're a prince though, Jongin hyung! Right, Baekie?" He asked his friend for confirmation, to which he received an increasingly animated nod. "You can be Kyungsoo hyung's true love, can't you Jongin hyung?"

 

Kyungsoo thought he'd never experienced anything so embarrassing in his entire life. With Suho, it had been awkward, but hilarious, and with the poor Chinese customer, the only feelings Kyungsoo had in that situation were apologetic. In front of Jongin, though, faced with the hopeful looks of two small children and without a voice to explain an escape for himself out of the situation, Kyungsoo didn't know what to do. He stood still and silent as Jongin got up from his crouch to walk a little closer and peer down at the note attached under Kyungsoo's name tag.

 

"Sorry," he muttered a flushing apology as he moved even closer, so that their breath practically mingled and their faces almost touched. "Forgot my glasses."

 

Kyungsoo said nothing, because he couldn't, but he felt like his mighty blush said it all. He bit his lip hard between his teeth when Jongin finished reading the note and glanced down at him, maintaining that eye contact even when he stepped away to rejoin his brother and Baekhyun a little nearer down to the floor.

 

"I'm not sure your Kyungsoo hyung need you to find him a prince so he can stay human," he explained to the two children gently. "Maybe Ursula is fighting his true love right now to get it back for him. That sounds like something a prince would do, don't you think?" He glanced up at Kyungsoo as he spoke, and Kyungsoo had to keep from shaking his head frantically that no, he didn't currently have a prince, and yes, he'd really like if the two children could find him one—specifically if Jongin was the one.

 

Chanyeol nodded agreeably, but Baekhyun crossed his arms and stomped his foot defiantly. "No!" He bossed, much to his parents' dismay. "You're his prince. I know it."

 

Jongin just sort of raised a curious eyebrow at that and Baekhyun continued eagerly, "Besides, if he had a prince, he wouldn't have written that he needs to find his true love. Then he'd have just said he needs his true love."

 

Both Jongin and Kyungsoo gaped at the small child's intelligence, while Chanyeol clapped happily and the two dads argued behind them—"That's my Baek!" (Sehun-ssi) "You were just complaining as we ran all over the store that, "Oh, your child is a menace!"" (Luhan-ssi).

 

Baekhyun ignored his parents and grabbed Chanyeol by the hand again, dragging them both so they stood staring up at Jongin expectantly. Jongin looked unsure, but Kyungsoo shook his head and gave another quiet croak, hoping the other boy would be able to figure out his meaning, that whatever he needed to do was fine.

 

"Um, in that case," Jongin cleared his throat and gave Kyungsoo a searching look, "I guess I can be your Kyungsoo hyung's prince."

 

The two children cheered and hugged each other tightly, exchanging exuberant high-fives once they pulled apart. Luhan-ssi and his husband, having resolved their bickering with a quick kiss while the rest were distracted, took advantage of their son's vastly improved mood to apologize heavily before sweeping Baekhyun and Chanyeol out the door. Kyungsoo got another long look from Jongin before he, too, followed the four to the store exit, and the Molly's watched Suho bid them farewell with a strange sort of bittersweet longing.

 

The two children were devilishly cute, and Baekhyun's parents unbearably sweet together, sure, but Kyungsoo almost wished he'd never have encountered their adorableness. That way, at least, he wouldn't have had the pleasure of meeting Jongin only to have that taken from him. He heaved a burdened sigh, dutifully straightening his name tag and his smile before turning to assist the customer who'd just said "Excuse me" from behind him.

 

After the excitement of Baekhyun's idyllic little family, Kyungsoo's shift was paralyzingly boring, but he got through it with masochistic remembrances of Jongin's lilting laugh and resonantly deep speaking voice. At 4 that afternoon, Kyungsoo hummed a little of Ursula's theme song as he gratefully escaped from where he'd taken Minseok's place behind the register into the back room so he could change out of his uniform and finally go home.

 

Before he could even unpin his name tag, though, Kris' voice called him sternly into the supervisor's office. The taller man had his intimidating eyebrow face on, and it usually didn't scare Kyungsoo in the slightest, but today he had a pretty good idea what this impromptu meeting was about.

 

"The woman?" He scribbled quickly onto the Little Mermaid notepad still on Kris' desk from where he'd tossed it that morning. When Kris raised an eyebrow and shook his head, Kyungsoo wrote beneath that, "Then the Chinese boy?"

 

Kris shook his head, looking intrigued and like he really wanted to ask what Kyungsoo was talking about. Kyungsoo, fearing the safety of his job, plead the fifth because he could—and because he had to, really—and waited with anxious impatience for Kris to explain why he was there, then, if not for one of those two reasons.

 

"Why," Kris broke the silence eventually as he leaned back in his office chair and crossed long arms over his broad chest, "is someone calling the store to ask for your personal phone number? I asked for a name and he said "This is Kyungsoo hyung's prince."" Kyungsoo blushed instantly, but could t help the grin that curled his lips into their signature heart.

 

"I didn't give it to him," Kris continued, "because I didn't know if you knew him or not, but I did tell him you were working tomorrow, too, if he was interested." The supervisor looked smugly pleased at his small part in what he considered a budding romance, but Kris also made sure to threaten seriously, "If you flirt on my floor again, I'll have your job, Kyungsoo," before telling the smaller man that he could go. Kyungsoo shot Kris the same sort of sarcastically unimpressed look which had started their work day together, but left gladly when told that he could.

 

Unfortunately, though, Kyungsoo's sore throat turned into a cold that left him bed ridden and calling in sick every day for the rest of that week. It was Friday, by then, and he was silently lamenting that he had the worst luck when it came to love, when suddenly his phone vibrated twice.

 

He checked the notifications to read that Kris had magnanimously given Jongin Kyungsoo's number after the former had stopped by the store three days in a row to search for his prince. The second text wasn't much, just a "Hi" and a smiley face with a sort of shy-sounding explanation of "This is Jongin. The guy at the store who said he'd be your prince?"

 

Certainly, it didn't magically get Kyungsoo his voice back, but it did make him smile happily, and actions speak louder than words sometimes, don't they? At least, that's what Kyungsoo thought as he fired off a quick reply and saved Jongin's number in his phone so that when the other boy responded 30 seconds later, the name that appeared in the notifications wasn't Jongin or Chanyeol's Hyung or even Disney Store Guy.

 

No; instead, it simply said My Prince.