Chanyeol sits on the dining table with his iPad on his hands, his glasses perched up the bridge of his nose as he scrolls through the daily news. There's a steaming cup of coffee and a slice of the strawberry cheesecake Baekhyun bought for dessert yesterday resting in front of him. He hears the front door opening and lowers the device, waiting for Baekhyun's greeting. It's Saturday, and he's just returning from a day of shopping with Kyungsoo, but his mood doesn't seem to match his usual cheerful demeanor on this occasions. Chanyeol tilts his head, waiting for his husband to say something as he stands in the living room with his shopping bags hanging from his arms and his phone on his hands; he's looking at the screen, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted.

"Baek... everything okay?" Chanyeol asks and stands up. Baekhyun doesn't answer. "Baby?"

"I just go an email." Baekhyun finally speaks. "From the... adoption agency." Those two words are enough to catch Chanyeol's complete attention. He walks towards his husband and peeks over his shoulder to read what is written on the screen. "They... want to meet with us, Yeol. The agency deemed us as suitable parents to adopt." Baekhyun lets his arms fall on his side, causing all the bags to fall to the floor. Chanyeol is speechless, the only thing he can do in that moment is wrap his arms around Baekhyun on a very tight hug. Baekhyun does the same and buries his face on his husband's chest.

It's been three years since the biggest obstacle they've had to go through and in Baekhyun's opinion, everything has gone perfect since. They did a lot of talk and put all the cards on the table, Baekhyun let out everything he had been bottling up for the past few years and Chanyeol had only sat there, listening carefully, his heart twisting painfully at every word coming out of Baekhyun's mouth. He didn't have the right to complain, nor he had the words to defend himself because Baekhyun was right, there was no doubt on that.

Chanyeol had promised him to change and until the day, he has kept that promise. He learnt to stick to his normal work hours, sometimes bringing some of it home but never neglecting Baekhyun like he used to do. Not even himself could understand how's that it never crossed his mind to take Baekhyun to all those business' parties and introduce him to his co-workers; if he had to be honest, he never really thought about it and that was some stupid mistake. Baekhyun was gorgeous, smart and witty, worthy to show off, and had half of his department drooling over him. Well, maybe that part he didn't enjoy, but his chest would always swell with pride because Baekhyun was his and only his and well... his husband was just perfect in general.

Dates on the weekends became more frequent and even lunch breaks together also became an occurrence at least twice a week. Everything had fallen into place again, they renewed their vows in winter of the following year with the snow as their only witness.

Expanding the family became a serious topic between them. First, it was Smores, the small Welsh Corgi with the biggest ears Chanyeol had ever seen on a small dog ever and the cutest puppy eyes. And after giving it a lot of thoughts and night talks, they decided to go through adoption. It was a long process, they both knew that, but in the end, it was going to be so very worth it. They were visited by several social workers and after long talks about how the space in their apartment wasn't enough to raise a family of three and a dog, they decided to move into a bigger house with the hopeful thoughts that that would fix the problem. After that, they visited the agency a few times to meet the kids. Baekhyun's heart would race at the sight of each and every one of them, but it wasn't enough, he needed to fall in love with them.

It wasn't until one day that they saw her, sitting on her white crib slamming a bunny doll against the mattress while blabbering a bunch of nonsense and making drool bubbles with her little mouth. Baekhyun felt his heart starting to beat faster and faster at every step he took towards the seven months old baby girl.

"Her name is Jinhee." The social worker had told them. "Despite of everything she went through, she's the brightest ray of sunshine we have here." She continued, looking fondly at the baby, that was then looking up at the pair of strangers with a small smile on her chubby face. Baekhyun knew in that moment that he had found her.

...

"Unfortunately," the social worker says as they sit on her office "Jinhee had a large waiting list and another couple was accepted before you. I'm really sorry."

Baekhyun is speechless.

"But... we can take another look, right?" Chanyeol asks, hopeful.

"Of course, your accepted application still stands. The only thing would be that you’ll need to go through the adaptation process all over again if you decide on another kid."

"Yes, yes, absolutely." Baekhyun is quick to answer, not letting the disappointment get the best of him. There are a lot of kids on that place in need of a home and if he could, he would take them all with them.

The social worker smiles and gets on his feet, urging them to do the same and follow her to the area where all the kids are. It’s as colorful as Baekhyun remembers, divided in different areas with different purposes; there's the classrooms for different levels of education, from kindergarten to elementary school; the dormitories for the older kids, the dining area and far back are the nurseries, where they have babies from new born to two years old. Baekhyun remembers this area perfectly.

They make their way through the cribs, Baekhyun and Chanyeol smile to the kids that happen to look their way but just as the first time, none of them feel the same they felt when they saw Jinhee.

Baekhyun is starting to lose all hope when the sound of a funny sneeze catches his attention. He looks back over his shoulder and scans the place with his eyes until he finds it, in the last crib in the back of the room, leaning against the rails of the crib pops up a thick mop of black hair. Baekhyun looks at his husband and Chanyeol quickly understands; he follows Baekhyun across the room to the last crib and stops.

The boy sniffles constantly, his messy black hair falls over his forehead almost covering his eyes. He's draped on a red onesie with blue feet and the print of a cartoon flame in the front. The baby looks up at them and when Baekhyun smiles, hoping for the boy to do the same, but it falters when the baby just back looks down at his feet. Chanyeol notices that and takes a step closer t