Mingyu heard a soft giggle as he entered his house. It gave him quite a shock since the entire house was otherwise quiet.

Wonwoo should be at the lab as usual, and it’s still 5 PM so Seungkwan’s at cram school and Dad’s at work. The only one who could’ve been home was Papa; he told the family last night that his boss gave him a half-day for working overtime the past week (Papa should’ve asked for more compensation, Mingyu and his brothers had lectured him about that, but he’d always been rather reserved about these things).

As expected, Mingyu saw his Papa’s head protruding from their couch’s backrest as he walked into the living room. The head moved up and down as the giggle continued for a moment until he turned to give Mingyu a smile.

“Welcome home.”

Mingyu hummed his thanks and walked around the couch, plopping himself down on the empty space next to his Papa.

Papa had his feet off the ground, legs bent into a makeshift table for a large book he was holding. He was wearing a warm brown sweater with “JUN” written on the front, the one Mingyu knitted for his birthday two years ago. The sleeves were all loose over his Papa’s palms (Mingyu had told him to stop pulling them but he kept doing it, probably unconsciously).

“What are you looking at?”

“It’s our old photo album.”

Mingyu scooted closer and his Papa nuzzled up against him while bringing the album closer to Mingyu.

“Oh my God, this is one of the really old ones.” Mingyu gasped and his Papa chuckled.

Papa flipped the pages slowly, showing pictures of their family from about ten years ago, in an open space filled with greenery. Images of his Dad (no white hair!) picking up grade school Mingyu and Seungkwan in each hands. Photos of Wonwoo (looking awfully serious) and Papa reading a book together under a tree.

“I miss that park,” said Mingyu.

“Yeah, we haven’t been there often since we moved.”

The next pages showed the same park, but there were other people besides their family.

“Wow, I almost forgot Seokmin ever had that hairstyle. How could I forget?” said Jun, his voice filled with disbelief.

“It’s because after that Uncle Soonyoung got an even more hideous hair.”

“Oh, right.” Mingyu could feel his Papa shuddered. “What’s the occasion?”

Mingyu scrunched his forehead as he tried to recall why the families gathered with full lineup at the park.

“It’s Hansol’s discharged-from-hospital celebration picnic.”

“Aah, that’s right. Soonyoung and Seokmin were so sad that Hansol couldn’t play outside for a month, even sadder than Hansol, and arranged this.” His Papa hummed as he continued to trace the pages with his fingers. Then the fingers stopped at one photo at the bottom right of one of the pages. Mingyu’s heart skipped a beat when the photo came into his sight.

“Ooh! Look at this! You guys were so cute! I mean, still cute, but this is aww...”

The photo showed 10-year-old Mingyu and Minghao, dressed in identical shorts and shirts (they only differed in color, light blue and black for Mingyu, bright red and green for Minghao). They were sitting on the grass; Minghao had one of his trademark deadpan face (he had that perfected in his early years, no wonder he’s an expert now), while Mingyu was sporting a huge grin, canines fully exposed.

Their hands were intertwined.

“You used to say it all the time. ‘I want to marry Minghao!’ “ Papa mimicked his son with his best kiddie voice.

Mingyu felt a sting in his chest as he murmured, “I still do...”

He saw his Papa looking at him with sparkling eyes and lips curved up in a teasing smile.

“So... You’ve been thinking that far...”

Mingyu didn’t reply and just hung his head down. It seemed that his Papa took it as a sign of shyness.

“It’s okay.” Papa took one of his hands from the album to put it on top of Mingyu’s. “You’re big enough to think about that. Your Dad might go ‘Think again after you’re done with college!’ but I don’t think it’s too early to plan for the future you’ve always wanted. And I don’t think Jeonghan and Joshua would mind either, you know them.”

Mingyu let out a long sigh at that. He was grateful that his Papa didn’t asked him why and just rubbed circles on his hand.

“Thanks for your support...” Mingyu finally said after a few moments of silence. “But I don’t think it’s happening.”

Papa continued to rub his hand until Mingyu spoke again. “We’ve been fighting. A lot. I...” Mingyu lifted his head to meet his Papa’s eyes. “We’re not being supportive, caring, and nice to each other. Not like you and Dad.”

And it breaks my heart. Mingyu left that unsaid.

Jun nodded, and even though Mingyu still felt terrible, he no longer felt like he was freefalling. This was why he liked to share his thoughts with his Papa, even though he spent more time hanging out with his Dad. Dad had the tendency to let his love for Mingyu to take control and ended up getting involved much more than Mingyu was comfortable with. Meanwhile, with his Papa, Mingyu could always feel like he had the room to act for himself and still had a sense of security; Papa was his safety net under the tightrope.

“Your Dad and I...” Papa spoke after a while. “We almost got divorced.” His tone was calm, as if he didn’t just tell his son the most shocking revelation about their family.

“What? When? Why?”

“It was when Wonwoo just got into high school, so you were in 3^rd grade of junior high? Yeah, I think so.” His Papa smiled and moved a hand to pat his cheek. Mingyu realized that he was gaping.

Mingyu managed to squeak out a “why?” despite his shock.

“It was a culmination of things. Not spending enough time together and just talk. Your Dad and I not earning enough to pay the bills. Your Dad’s colleagues kept getting on the way of the project your Dad’s been working on passionately. Me being a weakling who can’t say no to people...”

Mingyu squeezed his Papa’s hand that was on his cheek.

“We thought hard about it. We thought about what it would mean. We thought of you kids. We thought about how we wanted to be together, despite struggling so much and couldn’t seem to find a way. We did though. We found a way.”

“How?”

His Papa tilted his head a bit, forehead scrunched in concentration.

“We took the time. Take distance from all of our problems and emotions. We made effort for it and slowly things weren’t so hard anymore.”

Mingyu nodded, again and again. He didn’t even know why and what for. His Papa didn’t stop caressing his cheek until the front door clicked and his Dad’s cheery “I’m home!” travelled to the living room.

Dad had his usual grin with dimples, which faltered when his eyes found Mingyu’s face. He rushed to Mingyu’s side with a worried look on his face, and that was when Mingyu couldn’t hold it anymore and dropped himself into his Dad’s chest, wetting the front of his Dad’s shirt with tears. Mingyu heard a confused “Mingyu, what’s wrong??” but couldn’t reply to it and just buried himself further in his Dad’s embrace. He felt arms tightening over his body and something wet on the side of his own head which was pressed to his Dad’s face.

The door clicked open again and Mingyu could hear Wonwoo and Seungkwan talking, something about an upcoming festival in the neighborhood. The conversation stopped with Seungkwan’s “What are you doing?” more in a judging tone rather than surprise.

Mingyu, not lifting his head from his Dad’s chest, said, “Just let me be like this once in a while!”. There were only an exaggerated gasp and a dubious “Once in a while?” as response.

A few moments later Mingyu heard a gentle clink on the table near the sofa. He finally looked up from his Dad’s hold to see Wonwoo putting two glasses of water. His older brother only glanced at him briefly before sitting on a chair next to the couch. Mingyu took the water and drink in huge gulps. His Dad followed suit.

“Are you done? Got some fried chicken here.” Mingyu heard Seungkwan’s voice from behind. He looked at his Dad (who had his eyes red and wet) and asked him to go to the dining room with him. Papa and Wonwoo followed behind them and the five of them spent the following hour nibbling on chickens and laughing over a variety of random things. Mingyu’s tears had dried before his third chicken.

Mingyu could hear his own scream mixed with Minghao’s. And unpleasant sound, but not at all unfamiliar. He looked at Minghao’s face in front of him, forehead scrunched and pulling his eyebrows into an upward line, lips moving vigorously as the screaming continued. Mingyu wondered if his own face was also as distorted as his boyfriend’s.

“Minghao...” Mingyu felt his heart crumbling apart and he tried to stop it by calling Minghao’s name, but Minghao didn’t stop screaming. He ended up calling Minghao’s name rather loudly.

“Minghao!”

Minghao, looking stunned, finally stopped screaming. His lips were stretched into a thin line.

“I need to get something first,” Mingyu lowered his voice, trying to be as gentle as raging heartbeat would allow him. “Can you please wait here?”

Minghao didn’t reply, not even with a nod, but he didn’t resume his screaming so Mingyu left the space of Minghao’s living room and walked to the small kitchen-slash-dining-room behind it. Mingyu took two glasses from the shelf next to the sink and filled them with water. When he came back to Minghao, he put one glass on the table and sat on the couch. He looked at Minghao, pleading to him with his eyes. After a few seconds, Minghao finally sat down and took the glass of water. They stayed silent as they drank. It was Mingyu who broke the silence first.

“I’m sorry,” Mingyu said with his eyes to the glass in his hands, but he thought that it was not good enough so he lifted his head to look at Minghao and saw his boyfriend still with forehead slightly scrunched, but visibly less tense and obviously surprised.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Mingyu continued, this time with eyes looking straight at Minghao’s. “No matter what, I shouldn’t have yelled.”

Minghao still didn’t say anything, but the creases in his forehead had diminished completely, encouraging Mingyu to go on.

“I want... I want to make this work. If you want to, can we try? Like, really try this time. We can talk again later, you know, when we’re less angry. I just—“ Mingyu choked up a bit. When he had calmed down, he said, “I still want to be with you. Since I was 7. Until many, many years to come.”

To his own ears, his voice sounded weak and pathetic. He thought Minghao would mock him for that, but changed his mind when he saw Minghao’s eyes gleaming with tears. Before Mingyu could do anything about it, Minghao leaned towards him and pulled him for a hug.

His boyfriend was sobbing with his chin on Mingyu’s shoulder, whispering sorry over and over. When Minghao started to curse himself for being “a short-tempered jackass”, Mingyu pulled Minghao away from him and leaned to kiss the tears away from his boyfriend’s face.

The sobbing finally subsided after a while, and they put their foreheads close together, the sides of their bodies leaning to the backrest of the couch. Mingyu knew that they still had a lot to work out, but for the first time in months, he thought that they could actually make it.

“That’s why I said to have the other band,” Mingyu said as he frowned at Minghao.

“They’ll put the guests to sleep, Mingyu. Do you want that?” Minghao replied with the same intense scowl.

“At least they won’t make them bleed their ears!”

Minghao just rolled his eyes to that and the creases in Mingyu’s forehead deepened.

“You’re lucky that I love you so much to let this slide,” Mingyu squinted his eyes.

Minghao gave him a side glare and stayed silent for a moment before grabbing the front of Mingyu’s white suit and pulling him into a passionate kiss. Mingyu responded to the kiss with the same amount of eagerness and dug his fingers into Minghao's waist.

“Oh my God, what are you doing?” Seungkwan shrieked in exasperation as he stormed into the room. He forcibly stepped between the couple and earned himself stares from them.

“Don’t give me that look! You’re about to ruin your impeccable suits before the ceremony! And you’re not even supposed to see each other before!”

The soon-to-be-spouses didn’t seem to take the younger’s words seriously and Seungkwan threw his hands up in the air as he walked away.

“Why did I agree to organize this??” he groaned. His groan turned into a whine when Wonwoo came in and let Seungkwan in for a hug.

Jun watched the whole thing without feeling particularly worried; it was just like a normal day in their family. Meanwhile, next to him was his husband, shaking his body as he was holding back sobs.

“Seungcheol...” Jun rubbed his husband’s back gently.

“Mi-Mingyu... He was just this small...” Seungcheol said as he moved his hand around his knees.

On Jun’s other side were Joshua and Jeonghan, busy tidying up each other’s appearance.

“Do we have to stand up during the whole walking to the altar and ‘I promise’ blah blah blah?” asked Jeonghan suddenly. It was unclear to whom he was addressing the question.

“Yes, Uncle Jeonghan!” replied Seungkwan, not even looking up from Wonwoo’s hold.

“Aw...” Jeonghan pouted.

“Try not to bicker at the altar and keep the vow short, okay?” Joshua said to his son and son-in-law (to be). “So your father don’t have to stand up too long.”

Mingyu’s “we will!” mixed with Minghao’s “no promises”. Jun laughed.