“Wake up, baby. It’s time to get up.” Kyungsoo gently patted his son’s head as he slept soundly in the bed next to him. He’d put the boy to bed only to have him wander into his room not an hour later, his left fist rubbing his eye drowsily and his right fist tightly curled around his patchwork blanket – a present from his friend Minseok and his son Jongdae, who was unfortunately Baekhyun’s best friend. Don’t get him wrong, the two were sweet kids but they were both equally as energetic as each other and when they were together you had no chance of calming them down.

“Can I sleep with you?” His son had mumbled softly, not waiting for a reply before climbing up underneath the blankets next to his father. Kyungsoo had simply wrapped his arms around him and his back to get him to fall asleep again. It hadn’t taken long, thankfully.

“Mm… Tired…” Baekhyun whispered, eyes still closed shut.

The young father laughed softly, before moving to lift his son out of bed and get him dressed. It was always the easiest to do things when Baekhyun was like this, he was almost like a rag doll.

He’d tried to find a babysitter last night, but there was still no one in the area that was available. And he surely wasn’t going to send his son somewhere four hours away. Kyungsoo was looking forward to next year as he’d be able to send his son to preschool and wouldn’t have to leave him at home with a stranger all day.

He spent most of last night contemplating whether he should take Jongin up on his offer this weekend, but seeing as though Baekhyun would be spending the entire week at school with them maybe he should give the man a break before pushing the toddler onto him for an entire weekend.

Kyungsoo had managed to dress Baekhyun in a cute flying squirrel onesie – as the kid had refused to put anything else on – and himself into his normal work clothes.

As he drove into the near-full carpark, he spotted a familiar figure getting out of an equally as familiar car.

“Good morning.” He greeted loud enough for the other man to hear as he opened his car door.

Jongin, who was in the middle of fixing his tie using the window as a mirror, jumped a bit at the sudden voice and turned around only to be greeted with the face he wished he could see every morning. And night. Basically at every point during the day.

“Morning!” He greeted cheerfully. “And good morning to you too, little buddy! How cute, you’re a squirrel.” He cooed as Kyungsoo got Baekhyun out of the car, all dressed up in his onesie and red backpack.

Baekhyun pouted at Jongin, “Not squirrel! Flying squirrel!” he corrected.

Jongin chuckled at the boy, “Right, sorry. Flying squirrel, then. Either way, you’re still cute.”

At this, Baekhyun let out a small huff and refused to look at him. There he goes again. Kyungsoo sighed at his stubborn son.

They walked to the Common Room together, and the staff who were not used to seeing the two come in with each other immediately jumped to conclusions.

“Oh my gosh! You’re finally together? It took you long enough!” Delia exclaimed, making the two males stop dead in their tracks.

“Together? What do you mean?” Kyungsoo asked warily.

Jonghyun walked over to them from the other side of the room and clapped him gently on the back, “You two have been dancing around each other for God knows how long. It’s good to see you’ve finally gotten past that.” He smiled.

By this time both of their faces were bright red, Kyungsoo was spluttering, trying to form words to clear up the mess but he was saved by Jongin who cleared his throat and taking in a deep breath to calm himself before speaking.

“I don’t really know what made you think that we are, but we’re not together.” At least not yet. He thought to himself. All Kyungsoo could do was nod in affirmation.

Delia and Jonghyun’s faces fell.

“Is that so?” Delia wondered. Both men nodded in sync, only adding to their suspicions. “Well, okay then.”

After setting Baekhyun down to play with his Iron Man figurines, Kyungsoo and Jongin decided to lounge around until classes began.

“So you haven’t found a babysitter yet?” Jongin questioned as they sipped their morning coffee.

Kyungsoo sighed, “No. There’s none available in-area. I’m going to try and get Baekhyun accustomed to strangers, though. So that they don’t keep ditching him.”

Jongin thought for a moment. How could someone ditch a kid like Baekhyun? Does he really not let strangers touch him? It was a little strange, to be honest.

“Why does he let me touch him? He doesn’t know me.” He asked thoughtfully.

“I honestly wouldn’t have a clue. He’s never warmed up to someone so fast before.” Maybe it’s fate. He added as an afterthought.

Jongin smirked, “It’s probably my good looking face that drew him in. My chiselled jaw, tanned skin, pretty eyes –”

“If that what you want to believe.” Kyungsoo cut in playfully.

Jongin laughed, “Of course. It’s the truth after all.”

The other teacher simply rolled his eyes at him and continued to drink his coffee and they settled into a comfortable silence.

Well, that was until a loud, “Appa!” broke it.

Both men turned their heads to see a crestfallen Baekhyun holding an Iron Man figure in his hand – well, sans an arm. Said arm was in Baekhyun’s other hand, the one he was currently shoving into his father’s face.

“He’s broken! He is going to die if we don’t fix him!” He shouted.

The father sighed, “Alright, Baek. Let me go find some glue and we’ll put him back together, okay?” He assured as he got up to find some glue. They were in a school; how hard could it be to find glue?

Unexpectedly, it was indeed quite hard to find glue in a school. Kyungsoo is fairly certain he’s spent a good fifteen minutes looking for some glue that isn’t total rubbish. He just hopes that Jongin is equipped enough to deal with an upset Baekhyun.

As it turns out, Jongin was not equipped enough to deal with an upset Baekhyun. He’d expected crying, screaming, possibly hitting, but not this. He was not prepared to deal with the absolute most heartbreaking face in the history of heartbreaking faces. Not at all.

The trembling, pouty bottom lip, the furrowed brows, the red, puffy cheeks, and worst of all, the shaking, shiny eyes that looked as though they were holding in a million tears. All over an Iron Man figurine. One might ask how that is even possible, but this kid seems to be weird in regard to everything he does.

The man cleared his throat before realising that he really shouldn’t have done that, because now those shiny eyes are directed at him and he feels like he’s kicked a thousand puppies and thrown them into a blender to be fed to supporters of animal abuse, even though he has nothing to feel guilty about.

“Is Appa going to come back? Iron Man doesn’t have much longer!” The boy cried out.

“Don’t worry, buddy, Appa is going to come back real soon and we’re gonna fix Iron Man up really quick, okay?” He reassured as he lifted the boy into his lap and took the toy to ‘examine’ the damage, “His injuries aren’t as bad as you thought, Baekhyunnie! He’ll be able to survive until Appa gets back for sure.” He smiled.

Baekhyun was still looking up at him with his depressed face, but relaxed ever-so-slightly at his words.

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

“Okay.”

It was at that moment that Kyungsoo walked back into the room, holding a small bottle of PVA glue in his hand.

He looked at Jongin with an annoyed face, “Would you believe that I had to go all the way to the Art section just to find some glue? And this was all they had! What kind of school doesn’t have glue?” He complained.

“Appa, quick! He’s dying!” Baekhyun’s wailing seemed to snap Kyungsoo out of whatever rant he was about to go on.

“Sorry, baby. Pass him to me and I’ll fix him up.”

It didn’t take much to fix it, just pour some glue into the arm socket then shove the arm back in. It wouldn’t ever move again, but that was a small price to pay for Iron Man’s life.

The teacher put the toy onto his desk to let it dry.

“Alright, Baek. You’re not going to be able to touch him for a while so he can heal himself, okay? So you’ll have to play with one of your other Iron Man toys or you can sit with me for my first class. You pick.”

His son stared at him as he thought about his options. A couple seconds later and he was looking up at Jongin from his position on his lap with a smile, all traces of his prior depression gone in minutes.

“Can I go with Ajusshi?” He asked sweetly.

Normally Kyungsoo would be surprised at this, but he was quickly getting used to his son’s infatuation with the other teacher. He might start thinking his son has a crush on him if things keep going the way they’re going, even though he knows that’s probably not the case.

“If he says you can go with him then you can go with him.”

Jongin was still a little unsure as to why Baekhyun wanted to come with him, but nonetheless relented. “He can come with me.”

The way both Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s faces lit up simultaneously made the thought of dealing with a three-year-old for the next two hours bearable.