Standing on the front lawn, frowning at the closed trunk of a little blue sedan, Joonmyun crosses his arms over his chest and verbally checks his mental list. “Bed sheets are already at the apartment; the rest of the clothes you’re taking are packed here; you have toothbrush, mouthwash, cleaning supplies… Where’s your purse?” His daughter holds up her arm, brandishing the Molang clutch hanging from a strap on her wrist. Joonmyun nods and takes takes her shoulders. “Are you sure you don’t want us to come with?”

Jaeeun mimics his tone, crossing her arms over his to take his shoulders. “Positive.” She smiles shakes her head. “Papa...you and Baba helped me find a place, deal with the papers, move in, and are even paying for it until I get a job—you deserve a break, so just relax!”

“I’m a dad, honey. We don’t get breaks. I’ll relax when I’m dead.”

“You’ll still be stiff when you’re dead.” She bites her lips at her joke; Joonmyun rolls his eyes but smiles. It’s that humor that makes him believe they’re truly related.

Yixing ambles out of the house with a purple gift bag tied with curled ribbons. “In exchange for leaving us behind, take this with you.”

“Oh, Baba...!” She sniffles and wipes her nose on the back of her hand, laughing when Joonmyun produces a tissue out of nowhere. She hugs him, then Yixing, then both of them together, standing on her toes to draw them as close as possible. “This is why I didn’t want to wait so long,” she mumbles into Yixing’s chest. “I didn’t want to cry in front of you. You raised me stronger than that.”

“We raised you to be honest with yourself and your emotions.” Joonmyun, a sympathetic crier, kisses her forehead. “And we couldn’t be more proud.”

She smiles a watery smile and takes the gift bag from Yixing, turning her cheek to accept his kiss. “I’ll open this later,” she says. Her friend is getting antsy behind the wheel, wanting to leave before traffic picks up in the city. “Text you when I get settled, okay? I love you.” She kisses them both one more time.

“Love you, too, xiao baobei. Drive safe.”

She waves through the window until they’re down the street; Yixing and Joonmyun stand out front for a little while longer before each releasing a heavy sigh.

“I miss her already. I feel like a dog when his owner goes to work.” Joonmyun looks at his husband, glassy-eyed. “Is this healthy? Missing her so much?”

“I think so,” Yixing says easily. “She’s been with us near constantly her whole life, after all.” He takes his husband’s hand and gently tugs him to walk beside him. “I’ll make some tea.”

Joonmyun allows himself to be lead into their longtime home and eases onto the loveseat in their living room. It faces a low coffee table that doubles as a footrest and casual dining table, although it's currently covered in a new script he's been memorizing. Across from it is the television and entertainment system set against a wall dedicated to family photos. When Jaeeun was fifteen, she decided to search Pinterest for ways to redecorate their home and found templates for hanging photos. Her weekend project was dragging Yixing around to various stores, searching for the perfect frames. They then came up with a plan to keep Joonmyun out of the house for a day, so they could print, reframe, and hang the photos to surprise him.

They’re not chronological, but Jaeeun expressed her artistic genius by centering photos of her dads’ wedding and expanding into their early wedded lives, her earliest baby photos when she was first adopted and brought home, learning to walk, birthdays, first days of school, family vacations; everything branches out from a central frame.

It all started with two men.

“Laogong...” Yixing sets a mug of steaming tea on the coffee table. He never uses coasters, and Joonmyun’s long since given up on reminding him to, sitting forward to place the mug on a nearby magazine, instead.

“You’re not going to sit by me?” Joonmyun asks, a little bit whiny. His baby just left him; he can’t be denied his hubby, too.

“I thought you could use something to relax,” Yixing replies with a dimpled smile, sitting at their upright piano.

“So you brought me tea.” It’s something herbal; Yixing started mixing his own teas before they married. Joonmyun doesn’t know how he knows what works for this, that, or the other thing, but it’s a rare day when the tea Yixing makes him doesn’t help him relax. He sighs when his husband sits at their upright piano and plays a random tune. It’s always amazed him how playing nonsense can sound so good, but Yixing is music. Innate creativity and understanding.

Yixing settles himself properly and plays a song he had composed for their daughter’s first birthday with them. Back then, he’d carried her in a sling a lot and would have her at his front, watching with eager eyes as his fingers danced across the keys. When she was older and bigger, she’d “play” with her hands over Yixing’s. He’d switch their hands, so she could feel the keys and the way the piano carried the sound.

Joonmyun feels something against his foot. Jaeeun’s old black and white rabbit, Bai—meaning white in Mandarin Chinese, although it is more black than white—nuzzles his ankle. At fourteen, it’s the oldest pet Joonmyun has ever had and probably the longest lasting gift he’s presented to Jaeeun, a birthday present for her fifth birthday.

“Bai Bai...” He carefully takes the rabbit around its middle, setting it on his lap. There was a time when it would hop around a little and nuzzle a long time before settling down, if it settled at all. Now, it’s content to be held and leech warmth.

“What a pair you make,” Yixing teases.

“We have nothing better to do but mope. If you truly loved and missed your child, you’d be here moping with us.”

“I mope with music.” He plays an easy chord.

“You do everything with music.” Joonmyun sighs and pulls Bai’s ear a little, just to see it twitch. “It’s annoying how much I love that.”

Yixing smiles, dimples digging deep into his cheeks. He takes a hand from the piano keys and pats the bench beside him. “Bring your tea. Come sit.”

“When I said I felt like a dog, I didn’t mean I wanted to be treated like one.”

“Come. Sit.”

“If we had a doghouse, Kim Yixing…” Joonmyun tucks Bai against his shoulder and picks up his tea, placing it on top of the piano, protected by the old doily his grandmother made a long time ago. Yixing, the endearing old fool, plays one-handed and holds his other hand out palm up, so Joonmyun can lace their fingers together. They’ve spent many evenings at the piano, playing for one another or together—often with Jaeeun, who excitedly told her parents one day that she decided to go to college for music therapy while playing one of her dad’s songs on the very same piano.

Bai the rabbit falls into an entranced doze, lulled by warmth and calming music.

Joonmyun leans against Yixing’s shoulder, following along with his right hand as Yixing plays with his left. He knows the song by heart; he’d helped Yixing write the sheet music back when he was still learning notes.

“How are your hands?” Their doctor diagnosed Yixing’s aching wrists and fingers with arthritis a few years ago.

“They’re okay, today.”

“You’re taking your meds?” Yixing is a believer in natural, home remedies. Folk medicine his grandparents and great grandparents used. Sometimes, it works. Other times, Joonmyun wishes he’d just take the pharmaceuticals and not make a fuss.

“Every morning.” Yixing picks up his husband’s left hand and kisses the back. “I promise.”

“Good. Once parts stop working or you lose your hair, though, I’ll look to upgrade to a younger model.” He pecks Yixing’s cheek. He doesn’t shave on the weekends; his stubble irritates Joonmyun’s lips.

“I didn’t marry you for your looks,” Yixing comments.

“Oh? Why did you marry me, dear?”

“You asked.”

Joonmyun keeps playing, watching his husband’s profile. “So if I hadn’t asked, you wouldn’t have asked me? Or are you saying that you’d’ve married anyone who asked?”

Yixing flounders a little, finding himself trapped between his smiling husband and the wall. “Uh…”

“I’ll repeat the question,” Joonmyun says kindly. In Mandarin, he asks, “Why did you marry me, Kim Yixing?”

He smiles and tucks an arm behind Joonmyun’s back. “Because I loved you and knew I’d love you more every day, xingan.”

“Good answer.” Joonmyun kisses his mouth and sets Bai in his place on the bench. “I don’t feel like cooking. Let’s order takeout.”

“Sure.” Yixing pets the rabbit’s back, grinning when it hops to burrow against his hip and close its eyes again, and starts to play another song.

Halfway through dinner and watching the news on TV, Joonmyun’s phone chirps with a video from Jaeeun’s roommate. She had recorded Jaeeun opening the gift Yixing and Joonmyun had sent with her—a photobook and audio recording of them expressing their love and pride having her as their child—and Joonmyun started crying along with his daughter, so Yixing ended up holding onto his clinging husband and not finishing his food until it was cold.

It’s one of the things he wondered about when he and Joonmyun first looked into adoption. Jaeeun was so tiny, a precious life that easily fit in his arms and seemed too fragile to even be real. He imagined her growing up and going to school, making friends, participating in sports or art or music… Years have passed in an instant, and here he sits with the second love of his life—Joonmyun knows he came after music and accepts it—thinking about the past and wondering where all the time went.

“It probably went into the wrinkles,” he thinks aloud, climbing into bed after showering that night.

Joonmyun looks out from the bathroom, frowning with dots of moisturizer beneath his eyes. “Who's got wrinkles?”

“No one, dear. Just thinking out loud.” They may not have a doghouse, but Joonmyun isn’t above making Yixing sleep on the sofa or the floor.

Yixing puts his arm out, and Joonmyun slides into bed beside him, lying his head on his husband’s shoulder with a tired sigh.

It’s quiet. They both had grown accustomed to the soft sounds from their daughter's room, whether it be the squeak of her bed springs or the muffled laughter as she talked to her friends after bedtime.

“I hope she does well,” Joonmyun says softly.

“We raised her to confident and passionate, and she is. She’ll be fine. If she ever isn’t, she knows we’re always here for her.” Yixing kisses his cheek. “So stop worrying and go to sleep.”

“But what are we supposed to do without her? It’s just you and me, now.” He backtracks a little, adding, “Not that it’s a bad thing at all, being the two of us, but I miss my baby!” His calendar is color-coded by family member, and he often ran out of room trying to write everyone’s events and shows and meetings and appointments. Jaeeun has to do it for herself, now, and Joonmyun’s calendar seems so empty and a lot less vibrant.

Yixing gets up on an elbow. “Joonmyun, we don’t have to plan our future together. We didn’t before—we don’t have to now. Especially right before bed.” He shifts and shuffles down the mattress until they’re eye level with one another. “I look forward to everyday with you, just because it’s you. I don’t need anything else to get me out of bed in the morning.”

Joonmyun drapes an arm over Yixing’s shoulder and plays with the hair at his nape. “There was a time I was the reason for you not getting out of bed.”

“Those days were fun, but my doctor says I have to be mindful of my back and waist.”

Joonmyun bites back a wry smile. “It’s hell getting old.”

“Not with you.”

“Cheesy,” Joonmyun replies affectionately. His cheeks are pink; Yixing can still make him blush. He feels Yixing’s smile against his lips and relaxes into the familiar rhythm that still makes his heart skip and his toes curl, even after so many years.

“I love you,” Yixing murmurs. Kissing Joonmyun’s brow, he adds, “Sleep well.”

Yixing and Joonmyun fall asleep to the sounds of nighttime. Bai the rabbit chews some lettuce in its cage in Jaeeun’s bedroom. The hall clock ticks seconds through the night. The husbands’ even breaths are a complementary lullaby, although Joonmyun pinches Yixing when he starts to snore. Over twenty years, and he’s still not over that, but he looks forward to at least another twenty more.