Day 6 - 5 AM

They couldn’t believe they only have one day left with Woojin.

“Jinki will pick him up at 10 in the morning, if his flight didn’t get delayed or anything,” Yena told Daniel on their now routine 5 AM morning calls.

“Isn’t he… tired? Like, doesn’t he want to chill in your house alone and undisturbed for a day or something like that?”

Yena quickly picked on the hesitation in his word and began to mercilessly, “what’s wrong Danny? Why are you suddenly so caring of my Jinki?”

“How do we know he can take care of Woojin all on his own? We don’t trust him.” Seongwoo was lounging beside him on the sofa, nodding his head as a sign of agreement to what Daniel was saying. He demanded to be included in this discussion, joining Yena and Daniel’s conversation for the first ever conference call concerning the hand-over of Woojin planned for tomorrow morning,

“Since when do you refer to yourself as a plural unit.”

“Since you forced us to be Woojin’s guardian.” They both said in unison, and in varying degrees of sleepiness.

Yena took a quick pause before continuing, and when she did, Daniel could hear her smile in her words, “I know you’re worried, but Jinki knows what he’s doing, I assure you that. Besides, you can always visit our home to check on him, right?”

She has a point, but one look to Seongwoo and they both knew what the other was thinking.

They didn’t want to let go of their make-believe family so quickly. Not when they’ve finally learned on how to settle into their roles and find the joy poorly hidden between all the endearing chaos.

_ _ _ _ _

Day 6 - 4 PM

“Maybe we could kidnap him.”

“I can’t do that. You know my coaching tutorials are mandatory. I can’t skip them.”

“Ask for some ransom. He has to stay with us for a minimum of two months in a year. Two months every half a year. Every three months.”

The little family of three was spending some alone time acting like any other normal nuclear families on a semi-crowded park near Daniel’s apartment. Covered under the shade of a bushy tree, eating snacks, and scheming some strategies on how to get Woojin to stay with them a little bit longer.

They could prove their stellar ability at taking care of this one year old with a very strong, concrete argument courtesy to Seongwoo’s vlog coverage. In one week, they’ve only encountered one blunder. A major one, yes, even though it was hard for Daniel to admit it, but not catastrophic. Besides, everytime Seongwoo tried to bring that topic up, Daniel will just say, “piss face,” and Seongwoo would be silenced. Woojin has been eating really well, he’s been sleeping really well, he’s been playing and picking up new words and being an overall charming little baby.

For a first time dads, they didn’t do that bad of a job at all.

“Wait! I have a fantastic idea.” With his mind’s lightbulb suddenly , Seongwoo lurched up from laying down on a throw blanket into an upright sitting position. “Tell them to get a second honeymoon!”

“Oh my god... that’s perfect.”

In his excitement, Daniel accidentally threw the little pop-up story book he was reading to Woojin to the edge of their makeshift picnic blanket. And in their increasingly heated discussion, Daniel didn’t notice that Woojin wanted it back. He wanted it back now.

He tried tugging on Daniel’s shirt. Didn’t work. Woojin wanted to reach for Daniel’s arms, but they were somehow… flailed around so wildly around his head. Besides, they were too high for him to reach.

The two grown ups didn’t notice him at all. Not even after he let out a few gurgling sound of distress.

‘Oh bugger.’ That, or an equivalent of that in baby speech, was what Woojin was thinking about as he looked over to the just barely, barely out of reach storybook.

Or maybe… maybe I could reach it. (Or an equivalent of that in baby thought.)

Meanwhile, Seongwoo was busy brain mapping their newfound plan that he was totally not paying attention to what was happening right beside him. Typical Seongwoo and his horse blinders. It took Daniel’s hand rapidly tapping his arm before Seongwoo bothered to avert his gaze from the slightly cloudy sky.

“Sshh, sshhhh,” Daniel’s taps slowly crawled up, up his shoulders, then his jaw, then right in front of his mouth. But however much Seongwoo wanted to swap it away, he knew he couldn’t.

He couldn’t possibly mess up this monumental moment with something as measly as getting annoyed by Daniel’s fingers pressing against his lips.

“Get your camcorder outGETYOURCAMCORDEROUTNOW.” Daniel aggressively hissed to Seongwoo’s ears while trying to keep the rest of his body as still as possible. Because Woojin was using his legs as a balancing bar. Because… he was in the process of taking his first steps.

Baby steps. Using his two legs. Little human trying to walk.

Seongwoo was thankful he’d considered the camcorder as an extension to his arm, it only took him a fraction of a second to set it up and get it running. Because what happened next happened so quickly it would’ve just be a memory in their minds if Seongwoo wasn’t so quick in capturing it.

One step, two steps, three and four.

After Woojin was happy with the distance between him and his book, he plopped onto his hands and knees and traversed the little gap with a quick crawl.

And when Woojin got his little hands on the little book, he turned around to give Seongwoo and Daniel a satisfied smile. Just then, Daniel felt like he was a dose of cuteness away from shedding a little tear.

“He’s too cute why is he so cute,” Daniel let out a long babytalk babble while shifting his sight from the small display of the camcorder and the real view of Woojin as he made his way back, crawling into his arms.

Oh, Woojin was in the seventh realm of heaven with all the praises Daniel and Seongwoo was giving him. Hugs and kisses and nose-to-cheek nuzzling, everything that was needed to leave him blubbering over in giggles.

“We have a ransom,” Seongwoo was holding his camcorder as if he was a guerilla journalist who just got an incriminating evidence of some important politician. Although, the grin on his face matched the one on Daniel’s lips. A kind of sinister, cheeky, and cunning with kind a tad bit of mischievous twinge to it. Woojin was also grinning, what with the sudden shower of attention from his two ‘new dads’ (and also his achievement in getting back his storybook), albeit it was done in a less macabre fashion. “They gotta let us take care of Woojin if they want to see their first born’s first steps.”

“We’re geniuses.”

“Well, it’s mostly me and Woojin who kindda did all the work but-,”

“I threw the book away.”

“But,-”

“I threw the book away.”

It was a bit of a reach, still, but Daniel has a point. Without motivation, there won’t be any first steps taken.

_ _ _ _ _

Day 6 - 9 PM

Jaehwan has been mysteriously silent in the past few hours, and Seongwoo would not stop worrying about it.

“When he bothers you, you nag,” Daniel mumbled while trying to prevent the mouthful of toothpaste froth from spilling out of his mouth, all done at the same time as him trying to keep Woojin from throwing his own toothbrush clean across the bathroom, “when he leaves you alone, you nag too.”

Beside him, Seongwoo was drying his hair with one of his own towel that’d mysteriously showed up in Daniel’s laundry rack, “he promised me he’ll give feedbacks on the edit today.”

“The guy has his own life, don’t fuss about it too much.” Daniel gave Seongwoo’s neck some soft pats, his fingers cool on his heated skin that was fresh out of a hot shower. Also cool was his lips on Seongwoo’s cheek with breath smelling like spearmint and cinnamons. With all that, it would be a crime if Seongwoo decided to keep on fussing. And so he relented and quietly followed Daniel out of the bathroom, with Woojin perching on his arms like a little koala bear.

Little did Seongwoo know, there was a solid reason for Jaehwan’s disappearance. Hidden carefully within Daniel’s phone in a tiny little bit of conversation between the two of them.

‘Don’t bother us today.

-D.K’

‘You think I’ll be deterred with that sort of threat?

Try again.

-K.J.H’

‘I remember you once said it was a dream of yours to have Lee Jinki sing an ost for one of your “projects”, am I right?

Well, if that wish still stands,

Don’t bother us.

-D.K’

‘You’re a monster.

-K.J.H’

But that was the least of their problem now. They have one very important thing that they needed to do, something that’s been put at the back burner for the last few days that they really, really, really desperately craved.

A good night sleep.

Even better, that night Daniel finally caved in on Seongwoo’s wish to let Woojin sleep on the same bed as them after repeatedly reassuring him that no, they won’t accidentally smother Woojin with a stray arm or leg or something.

“We’ll have the worst time doing our farewells tomorrow.”

But Daniel’s worried mutters were met only with the innocent excitement of two kids, there was honestly no evidence of age difference between them when they held up a storybook picked up from the stack lying on the floor beside Daniel’s bed.

“It’s the third night in a row now, aren’t you bored of this story Woojin?”

It takes a long time for babies to get tired of things they like. Especially for the things they love. And Woojin loves all the sounds that came out of Daniel’s mouth. How he could seemingly imitate the sound of cars driving by, and horns honking, horse galloping, thunders and rain pattering against the roof, everything.

Seems that Woojin was getting a little bit too excited from this special, unusual bedtime routine, what with his favourite uncle Seongwoo laughing beside him, when usually he won’t be able to spot him anywhere after Daniel told him it was time for sleep.

He just wouldn’t fall asleep.

One book turned to two, grew to three, and by the fourth one, Daniel was getting a little bit frustrated.

“Ok. You know what. You’re over-stimulating him.”

Seongwoo pretended to be exaggeratedly scandalised over Daniel’s accusation, “you’re the one who go about all this so animatedly. Don’t you dare blame me.”

And thus, much to Woojin’s disappointment, four turned out to be the last it for Daniel. He rolled off his bed after putting the book back on the tower made out of its brethrens and switched off the light. “We’ll continue tomorrow, okay?” He said those words without giving it a second thought and he made himself sad. It served as a reminder for them that there was not going to be a tomorrow night.

But at least Woojin didn’t need to know about that. They’ll leave their tearful farewell for tomorrow although nobody in the room was ready to even entertain that possibility.

They’ve all snuggled into the blanket and ten minutes have passed in silence, but Woojin was still tossing and turning and playing with his toy car (nobody knew how did it even ended up on the bed in the first place) with no apparent intention to sleep anytime soon.

“Danny,” Seongwoo whispered while flicking his fingers on Daniel’s elbow, “sing to him.”

Daniel slowly opened his eyes and sighed, “not today.” He took the red toy car from Woojin and set it aside on the floor, followed immediately by pulling him to a hug and patting him softly on his back to stop Woojin from getting upset over that action.

“Then, may I?”

Daniel denied the offer not because he was uncomfortable with singing in front of other people (especially people with high enough cognitive functioning who will be able to give some criticism). He denied the offer because after the 1:38 minute video debacle from two days ago, he was struggling with the concept that maybe he really did not want to part with Woojin. Singing a lullaby would just seal everything up in a nice, tidy bow, and he didn’t want to do that.

But it seems that Seongwoo wanted to do that, and before Daniel could stop him, he already started.

Woojin has calmed down considerably from Daniel’s hug. And with the addition of Seongwoo’s voice, it didn’t take long before he stopped playing with the sleeve of Daniel’s shirt and let the tides of sleep carry him away.

Seongwoo’s singing has always been slightly airy, perfect for lullabies, Daniel thought. When whispered it sounded like mere wind slipping by the window. When sung, it caused Daniel’s finger to fiddle nervously with the back of Woojin’s pajama, something he didn’t realise he was doing until Seongwoo pried them off and linked it with his own.

When the song went away to a hushed end, Seongwoo leaned in. First to wish Woojin goodnight, whispered quietly with a kiss on his temple, then secondly to also give Daniel his own soft, lingering goodnight kiss, “sleep tight.”

Too lazy to put a distance between them, too tired to truly process the literal meaning of Seongwoo’s words, Daniel mumbled back the first thing that seeped to the forefront of his mind,

“Hm… love you too.”