Chapter One

The sun has already set, making a way for the moon and stars to show off their beauty to the world. Well, it’s kinda impossible to see the stars now as the city of Seoul was brighten up with those colorful, artificial lights. We could see almost all the stores were decorated with red and green themed ornaments and ribbons. A huge pine tree was placed in the middle of the town, decorated with colorful balls and topped with a humongous star-shaped lamp on its tip. The city was quite busy with people shouting their best offers for their goods, trying to fish up as many customers as they could get.

Ah, it’s Christmas again.

Jeonghan was walking along the busy city, trying to find anything that he deemed eye-catching. Once in a while, the promoters will shove some goods to his face in which he just smiled and rejected the offers politely. He stopped in front of a toy store when something caught his eyes. There was a mini guitar for kids on the display. Jeonghan smiled. His nephew would like to have that as a gift.

Jeonghan wanted to move from his spot and enter the store when one of his legs was suddenly trapped by something. More like...someone.

He looked down to see a boy, about 4 to 5 years of age was hugging his leg. The boy looked up to face Jeonghan, the boy’s eyes were b with tears, making the adult felt guilty of the things that he wasn’t sure of what he did himself. Then the boy whimpered as he stuttered out ‘Mommy...’ in which causing the adult to freeze because... what the heck?!

It was even getting out of control when the boy began sobbing loudly and kept saying ‘Don’t leave Jihoonie...’ and ‘Jihoonie will be a good boy’ over and over again.

Oh, look how the people were staring at them while throwing the poor clueless adult a judging look.

Jeonghan began panicking but he crouched down to the same eye level as the boy. It took him some mighty efforts to coax the boy to let go of his leg. Jeonghan heart broke as he saw how the boy sniffled and sobbed pathetically. Jeonghan wiped the tears off the boy’s apple-red cheeks. He gave the boy a gentle smile.

“What’s your name sweetie?”

“Choi...Choi Jihoon” the boy replied. Jeonghan nodded, the smile never left his face.

“Jihoonie, where’s your mommy? You shouldn’t walk on your own without your mommy or daddy. It could be dangerous.”

Jihoon frowned. He tilted his head in confusion.

“But you’re my mommy.”

Jeonghan shook his head.

“No, honey. I’m not-”

“Jihoon!”

Jeonghan’s words were cut by a loud voice. The small boy’s face lit up as he heard the familiar voice calling his name. The boy excitedly waved his hand as he shouted out ‘Daddy!’ towards the incoming man. Jeonghan stood from his crouching position; his eyes followed the boy’s line of sight to see who the boy was waving at. In a distance, Jeonghan could see a man was striding his way towards them at a rapid pace, worry obviously etched on the man’s face.

The man let out a relieved sigh once he halted in front of the two of them. But then his expression turned somewhat strict. Arms folded as he tapped his foot on the pavement. The man was in his Daddy-is-going-to-scold-you pose. Jihoon whimpered before went to hide behind Jeonghan.

“Choi Jihoon, what did I tell you about wandering on the street alone?”

“B-but I found mommy... H-here...”

Jihoon small voice could be heard from behind Jeonghan. The dad had this somewhat confused face before realization finally dawned on him. He let out a sigh as he rubbed his temple.

“Jihoon, honey. We’ve been through this. No, honey. She’s not your mommy. Now say sorry to this lady for disturbing her.”

Jeonghan scrunched his face in distaste. Yes, another misunderstanding. He should be over it by now as people usually mistook him as a woman due to his long hair and feminine face. Jeonghan mumbled out ‘I’m not a girl though...’ under his breath but the words were still registered through the young dad’s ear if the comical bulging eyes were any indication. The young dad sure has sharp hearing.

After furiously apologizing to the feminine-looking man, the young dad excuse himself and his son as he deemed he had disturbed Jeonghan enough; in which the young dad left with so many difficulties as his son kept sobbing for his ‘newfound’ mommy and so the young dad resorted dragging his son by hauling the little boy on his shoulder and took off.

Jeonghan could only stand on his spot, stumped. That was one eventful night alright. Jeonghan was brought out of his trance when he heard the sound of the door of the store he was standing in front of.

Oh, he still needs to buy Christmas presents.

Mornings were never quiet in the Choi household. Choi Seungcheol would be seen as one lunatic man judging from the way he ran up and down the stairs with one of his socks on, his shirt was half tucked in and his tie was just hanging loosely around his neck. Now he’s screaming ‘Jihoonie, you better wake up now sweetie or we’re going to be late... again!’ on top of his lung while searching high and low for his other sock. Now where the that thing is?

A four-year-old boy emerged from his room while yawning and rubbing his eyes cutely, trying his very best to stay awake. The boy sleepily muttered out ‘Daddy...?’ as he looked up to see his father was on his fours, searching for something underneath the bed. The boy scrunched up his face in distaste as he saw the unappealing image of his dad.

“What’re you looking for?”

Seungcheol stopped his search and turned to see his favorite baby boy. He beamed at his one and only son.

“Oh, hey baby! Daddy is looking for my other sock. I wonder where it went...” Seungcheol continued his search for the mysterious sock.

“Umm...daddy?”

“Yes, baby?” Seungcheol replied while still continuing his search.

“What’s that on your bed? Wasn’t it your sock?”

Seungcheol stopped and looked at where his son pointed at.

“Oh, there it is!”

The four-year-old could only facepalm.

His dad is hopeless.

Seungcheol was positive that he couldn’t do this anymore. He’s absolutely positive that he would die at such young age of 30 if this continues on. Right now he was slumped on his mahogany desk in his office room with papers scattered around him. His computer screen showed a bunch of complicated plotted graphs that were hard to decipher. Seungcheol let his face planted on the cool table. His eyes were red and dark circles rimmed his once lively eyes, drools almost escaped his chapped lips but he couldn’t care less.

This morning was hectic. Wait, every morning was hectic. A half an hour ago he dropped Jihoon at the daycare before rushing to his workplace. He got only a minute spare before punching in for work. So that explained why he was sweating, out of breath and splayed lifelessly on his shiny mahogany table.

Just then his colleague entered his office while scanning some papers in his hands.

“Seungcheol, have you checked those--Woah! What the hell dude?? Who’s dying?” The brunette guy stopped scanning his papers and gave the other occupant his utmost attention. Seungcheol could only mumble ‘I’m gonna die’ and ‘I’m dead tired, it’s the same thing every morning. I’m gonna die young...’ in which the brunette could only chuckle in amusement. Seungcheol narrowed his eyes at the figure in front of him.

“What’s so funny, hyung? I’m dying here you know!”

The brunette shook his head. His chuckles turned into full-fledged laughter. His friend is really hopeless.

“Dude, stop being a drama queen. You can just find a nanny. Advertise it online or something. It wasn’t that hard, ain’t it?”

Just the brunette’s phone rang and Seungcheol could hear the former greeted ‘Yes, Jae baby. What is it?’ before the amusement on his face dropped completely and a scowl has taken place. The brunette rubbed his temple before saying ‘Haneul did what to Hana?’ in which the brunette could only nod lifelessly, albeit the person on the other line couldn’t see it.

Seungcheol guessed it might be the older’s husband, Youngjae, called and thus the older totally forgetting his beloved little brother who was in still in despair.

Seungcheol paused to think. Daehyun was right. He should find a nanny. Just then Seungcheol heard the older ended the call with ‘Kay, love you, babe. Bye.’ and Daehyun rubbed his temple. He let out a deep sigh.

“What happened?” Seungcheol enquired.

“Jae called and freaked out. Apparently, Haneul smudged green paint on baby Hana and now she looked like a mini Hulk or something. I need to make a call to someone before anything happened. Oh, and think about what I’ve said before Seungcheol. You really need that. Ok, gotta go. Bye.”

With that, Daehyun fled out of the office.

At this moment, Seungcheol was grateful that he was given only one child. Daehyun is one strong guy as he could deal with his two toddlers and a hormonal pregnant husband. Yup, he’s expecting another child. Seungcheol shuddered.

Just then Seungcheol pulled his laptop closer. His nimble fingers quickly typed some words, hoping that Mr. Google could be of help. A series of possible results came up on the screen and Seungcheol clicked on the first link on the page. A website called ‘Nanny-for-Me’ greeted him. His eyes scanned the page which decorated with an overly stretched smile of a middle-aged woman in an apron with a cheesy slogan like ‘Providing the best Nanny for your baby’ or something like that. Seungcheol sighed before clicking on the list of profiles of the nannies they’ve provided. Mostly on the list were women and married. It’s kinda hard to have a married nanny because Seungcheol didn’t want to limit their time with their own family, well, considering his job is quite demanding.

Seungcheol sighed and rubbed his face.

‘God, help me please...’

a/n: I'll post the other chapters one by one later :D