Sixteen
Push-ups
Minho was staying over for the weekend and Jonghyun had left the two kids to play on their own while he prepared dinner, planning to surprise Jinki by making his favorite dish. But he had to switch off the stove because he heard shouting and crying from Taemin’s room. He rushed into the room, calling out Taemin’s name because the dominant voice in the ruckus was his son’s.
When he entered the room, he found Taemin shouting repetitively, crying big fat tears, “I dun like you! I dun like you! Go away!”
Minho was clutching onto the toy keyboard he had gotten from his home to play, lips quivering, on the verge of tears.
“What happened?” Jonghyun asked in an alarming tone and Taemin wailed, running towards him and hugging his legs, “Appa! I dun like Minho!”
“What did Minho do?”
Taemin just wailed harder at that question and Jonghyun sighed, understanding his wailing. Taemin cried when he was the victim, but he cried harder when he was the culprit. He walked to Minho, Taemin glued to his legs, shouting “Noooo!” when he realized that his appa was going to Minho.
Jinki had come home and entered right then and it took him only one look from Jonghyun to more or less understand the situation. He called out to Taemin and peeled him away from Jonghyun’s legs, pacifying him as he carried him away.
Jonghyun waited for them to be out of earshot before he crouched before Minho, “What happened, Minho?” he asked softly, worried, “You can tell me.”
“Taemin…” He whimpered, “…broke my keybo.”
“As expected,” Jonghyun whispered to himself before he knelt down, extending his arms and the boy got onto his lap, still hugging his broken keyboard. “We’ll go and tell Taemin that was not nice of him, okay?”
Minho nodded.
“And we’ll get a new keyboard, so don’t feel sad, okay?”
Minho shook his head, “New keybo won have names.”
“Names?” Jonghyun asked and Minho showed him the keys upon which alphabet stickers were stuck a little crookedly, spelling out both his and Taemin’s names.
Jonghyun smiled softly, “Okay, show me where it’s broken. We’ll fix it together.”
Minho turned in his lap, revealing the keyboard completely and Jonghyun found the broken area. It wasn’t exactly broken, the upper part had just wobbled out of its frame and Jonghyun pressed it back together in place. When it clicked back, joining into the lower part, Minho’s eyes widened in awe. Jonghyun chuckled, handing it over and Minho smiled, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Jonghyun caressed his cheek, letting Minho climb out of his lap before he took his hand and led him out.
Jinki was on the couch, cross-legged and Taemin was huddled into his lap, his face buried in his chest as he let out soft, forced wails.
Jonghyun led Minho towards them and called out to Taemin, “Taemin, what you did wasn’t nice-”
“Nooo!” He screeched and he wailed louder and Minho flinched, hiding behind Jonghyun.
“Taemin!”
“I dun like Minho I dun like Appa!” He screamed and Jinki grew worried, finding his voice break. “What happened, Taemin?”
“Why did you break Minho’s keyboard?” Jonghyun asked as well but Taemin just cried and Jinki clicked his tongue, picking him up and entering the other room.
Jonghyun dropped down onto the couch and Minho sat down as well, hugging his keyboard, nose a little red as he refrained from crying.
“Why did he break your keyboard, Minho?” Jonghyun asked him after a while and Minho shook his head, finally sobbing, rubbing his eyes as his tears fell.
Jonghyun was really worried after this reaction and he just hugged the boy, gave him some juice and left him to draw while he got back to preparing dinner. Both of them weren’t telling how their fight had started. Taemin’s cries might have given Minho the scare, and Taemin would never tell as long as he thought he could cry his way out of it. There were times he could realize his fault, but at times he couldn’t- he was a kid after all. But Jonghyun knew Taemin had to learn to sort his way out of things without crying. That was the reason why he wasn’t forcing the kids to reconcile, but trying to get to the root of
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