written for my love: twitter user @ultxing i promised a domestic!baekxing w/ a kid to her for her birthday and i’m not sure if this can even count as a birthday gift considering how late it is but!! here it is. it’s kinda artsy and hipster and lame but that was the only way i could think of explaining how mushy baekhyun was for his two favourite humans.

 

张 爱兰. 장 아이란.

 

Zhang Ailan.

 

She was beautiful.

 

Then again, Zhang Baekhyun was biased — he probably always would be, it was hard not to be when it was your daughter. There was no way to tell which one of them she looked the most like yet, Baekhyun said she had his lips while Yixing said she had his eyes, either way, she was theirs, and that was what made her perfect.

 

She was beautiful.

 

Even when she had Baekhyun up in the middle of the night, mechanically lowering the side of her cot to bring her up into his arms while Yixing put together a bottle in the kitchen. He knew his husband had shut his fingers in the cupboard doors a few times in the haze that came with being woken from REM but not once did he hear him complain about it.

 

She was beautiful.

 

Don’t get him wrong, Baekhyun loved his daughter, as did Yixing, but it was an unspoken truth in the Zhang household that you breathed a sigh of relief when Ailan went down for her afternoon nap. Usually they too, napped, taking advantage of the hour or two of silence, curling into each other and their own lost sleep.

 

She was beautiful.

 

Their friends fawned over her too, Jongdae and Chanyeol brought over banana bread, and when Yixing innocently asked how that was meant to help raise a newborn they had excuses prepared. Minseok and Kyungsoo said that their present was their company and the distractions they’d provide for Ailan. Jongin, Sehun, and Junmyeon sent gifts and promised to visit when they could.

 

She was beautiful.

 

It was funny how before they’d brought her home, Baekhyun would complain about carrying even the tiniest shopping bags, but now he was content to stand in the airport with her in his arms, for hours on end. He pretended he didn’t hear when Yixing pressed a comment about it into his ear once he came out from the gate. He loved his husband too much to embarrass him by kicking him in the shins in public.

 

She was beautiful.

 

Yixing bought her first hair accessory while he was away on a schedule in China, a modelling gig he’d not been able to get out of before they’d picked her up from the hospital. Baekhyun knew he’d reasoned it away with facts about their budget and the dent that Ailan was going to put in it but they both knew money was no object and he just felt guilty.

 

She was beautiful.

 

Baekhyun didn’t miss the way his husband looked at her, soft and warmer than a Sunday morning on the cusp of summer. Often they were in their own world, Yixing whispering Chinese platitudes to her as she gurgled out vague acknowledgement that there were, indeed, words coming out of . Sometimes he caught what Yixing was saying and sometimes he was too damn sleep deprived to mind.

 

She was beautiful.

 

The Zhang Household became it’s own little world, with Ailan as it’s clock, and even when his sleeping schedule meant Baekhyun missed the opening showing of a show he’d been looking forwards to for months, he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind because instead he was sleeping on his king sized bed with his husband’s hand on his waist and their bodies curled around their six month old daughter.

 

She was beautiful.

 

Eventually, around the seven month mark it did become apparent that Yixing was the father, the way that Ailan would sleepily open her eyes, blinking away the sleep with her inherited doe eyes. It was a non-issue though, she was theirs, she was Baekhyun and Yixing’s. She was a Zhang. That was what was important, what Baekhyun held close to his heart as he kissed her forehead and lay her down in the nighttime.

 

She was beautiful.

 

He had a schedule earlier than he would have liked but despite their public appearances as a family, his manager had been bugging Baekhyun about not falling off the radar. As things turned out, being on the radar like this meant he’d needed to kiss Yixing and Ailan goodbye at the airport and fly away from his family. He didn’t like it one bit, but it became easier when his husband FaceTimed him that night, walking him through the house and showing him their sleeping daughter.

 

She was beautiful.

 

Coming home was the best thing that had happened to Baekhyun since he’d signed the papers for the first time as a father. The way that Yixing’s arms wrapped around him at the airport and the way Ailan smiled as he peppered her face with kisses almost made it worth the time away. Almost. It didn’t matter that people took photos of them as he and Yixing linked fingers or as Baekhyun clipped the Hello Kitty clip he’d found at a side market in Japan, into Ailan’s hair. This was his family. He was happy.

 

She was beautiful.

 

They found a certain set of touches, of looks, of nods that said more than words. There was this particular one that was specifically for the moments when they were doing something musical and Ailan started crying. Yixing would shoot him a frown and Baekhyun would blink, the left side of quirking up into a smile as he got up to help her — vice versa if it was Baekhyun plinking on the piano.

 

She was beautiful.

 

Little moments like these were Baekhyun’s favourite, they way he could just fold into the rocking chair Ailan tucked into his arms, bottle in his arms, and relax. These were the times where he truly felt like a father — like this was real. Occasionally Yixing would come in, slipping through the door almost imperceptibly, only to wind his arms around Baekhyun’s shoulders, not minding the occasional accidental (and not so accidental) hit of the rocking chair to his chest. This was when they were a family.

 

“She is beautiful.”

 

AN//

Ailan’s name is made up of the two chinese characters: love (ai) and orchid (lan)! I’m not sure if I mixed up the characters between traditional and simplified but since I’m not a Chinese reader/speaker I am relying on google (which is, regrettably, unreliable). please have mercy on me and be gentle in pointing out my mistakes! my only experience with chinese characters comes from japanese and that can be patchy with variation.

side note: yes, baekhyun took yixing’s name; it’s cute nd i wanna die

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