It’s finally summertime and the little family decide to head out to Daegu, Seungcheol’s hometown.

“It’s weird being back…” Seungcheol mused with a distracted chuckle as they cruised through his hometown. Much like Jihyo did when they took a stroll through her hometown on their first date night, Seungcheol absently mused at all of the places he remembered visiting as a child. When they got around to his neighborhood, they stopped at the nearby park because Hansol and Tzuyu wanted to play where Seungcheol had played all those years ago.

The rest of the little family’s vacation was spent together, of course. They went to all of Daegu’s most notable tourist sites, and then Seungcheol took them all to less appreciated places that he found the most joy in. And while the topic of Seungcheol’s family came up naturally amongst the children, Jihyo always swooped in and deflected the topic to something else so Seungcheol wouldn’t have to relive whatever pain he was adamant about not acknowledging.

There had been times where Jihyo wondered if this was another topic she should help Seungcheol open up about, and she had tried once, but the look in Seungcheol’s eye was a lot different from the Jeonghan situation. The look in Seungcheol’s eyes when the topic of his family came up was a much deeper sadness—the thought of his family seemed to exhaust him terribly, so Jihyo let the topic rest indefinitely.

In the end, when it came down to their last day in Daegu, Seungcheol and Jihyo decided to let the children decide what to do for the day.

“I wanna play games!” Tzuyu exclaimed while jumping up and down.

“I want to play with the piano!” Hansol suggested excitedly at the same time.

The two children looked at each other in confusion for a few seconds before going back and forth between what they wanted to do for the day. Seungcheol and Jihyo shared a look before collecting the children in their arms: Tzuyu in Seungcheol’s, Hansol in Jihyo’s.

“Kids, calm down.” Jihyo chuckled, smoothing Hansol’s hair down gently and tucking his head under her chin; Hansol simply huffed and pouted, but it wasn’t as aggressive as it could have been because Jihyo seemed to calm him down efficiently. Seungcheol smiled at the display then worked on calming Tzuyu down by making funny faces and talking to her in a silly voice. Tzuyu tried to resist his efforts, but it was in vain as she burst into tiny giggles and started making funny faces back at Seungcheol. “We can do both things, right?” Jihyo followed up with a look towards Seungcheol.

“Sure, we can just split up for today. One day apart won’t kill us.” Seungcheol laughed. “I’ll take Tzuyu to go play games, and you can take Hansol to play the piano...though, I really don’t remember there ever being a piano in the hotel…”

“Of course you don’t,” Jihyo teased under her breath with a grin. Seungcheol wasn’t going to pay attention to what she had said until Hansol snorted and broke out into quiet giggles.

“Wait, what—” Seungcheol began to ask by Jihyo hurriedly cut him off.

“Nothing, bye! Have a great time, don’t forget to be back in two hours for a quick dinner before we start heading back!” Jihyo and Hansol waved goodbye to Seungcheol and Tzuyu before they were off. Seungcheol and Tzuyu shared a look and then a shake of their heads.

“Bullies?” Seungcheol asked with a pout.

Tzuyu nodded. “Bullies.”

After their little agreement, Seungcheol took Tzuyu up to the hotel’s game room. Tzuyu had wiggled out of his arms and ran around to every game in amazement. Seungcheol watched as Tzuyu pointed and exclaimed excitedly about how many toys were in the claw machine or how did they get a bike (motorcycle) in there and why doesn’t it go anywhere.

“You’ve never been to a game room before, Tzuyu? Or you’ve never seen an arcade?” Seungcheol asked, taking Tzuyu’s hand and leading her back towards the entrance of the game room so they could get tokens. Seungcheol made sure to get a lot since Tzuyu was so fascinated by everything (and he maybe wanted to try his hand at the claw machine).

“Nope! Are they all like this?” Tzuyu asked as she watched the tokens pour of the machine. Seungcheol had to take a few minutes to explain that it was special money that only game rooms or arcades took.

“I suppose? Arcades are a lot bigger though, have a lot more games, and when you win a game, you get little tickets. With those, you can exchange them for prizes,”

“Eschain?” Tzuyu hopped over to the motorcycle game after Seungcheol collected their tokens.

“ Ex-chan-ge , Tzuyu.” Seungcheol chuckled, helping the little girl onto the motorcycle. “It means that you give the tickets that you win to whoever is working behind the counter, and they give you something back. That something is whatever prize you want, but of course, it has to be something that they’re giving away,” Seungcheol continued explaining as he instructed Tzuyu to hold onto the handlebars tightly so she wouldn’t fall off while he put in the coins.

“I want to go to an arcay!” Tzuyu kicked her little legs excitedly, and Seungcheol wished he could convert his memories into a video or somethingbecause it was one of the cutest things he had ever seen.

“We should go to one together sometimes, then,” Seungcheol smiled warmly at her.

After putting in the coins, Seungcheol hopped onto the bike along with Tzuyu and they both selected what kind of bike they wanted and what course they wanted to play. Tzuyu enjoyed the motorcycle game at first, until Seungcheol got a bit too into it and leaned farther than Tzuyu knew they could lean and scared her. Seungcheol immediately stopped playing and held Tzuyu in his arms, apologizing profusely for scaring her. Seungcheol decided that the two should play something else and so he took Tzuyu over to play Skee Ball.

The two of them had a much better time playing Skee ball; Tzuyu managed to sink a few balls in on her own and, since Seungcheol had to hold her, he was able to control his urge to get too into the game. After Skeeball, Seungcheol let Tzuyu play whatever game she wanted next; most of the games she chose happened to be ball games, so the two of them ended up playing basketball for quite a bit.

Seungcheol checked the time on his phone, and when he noticed how much closer it was until they had to head back, he finally brought up the claw game.

“The one with all of the toys?” Tzuyu’s eyes grew wider at the machine that Seungcheol pointed out. Seungcheol barely got in a singular nod before Tzuyu ran over to it, Seungcheol trailing behind.

“Now, Tzuyu, this game is really tricky. A lot of the times, it’s really hard to get stuff from here, so don’t be too sad if we can’t get a toy, okay? I’ll try my best though!” Seungcheol bent down to Tzuyu’s eye-level.

“Okay, I won’t be,” Tzuyu smiled brightly at Seungcheol, and he smiled back before putting coins into the machine. Tzuyu stood between Seungcheol and the machine, tip-toeing to try and see Seungcheol play. Seungcheol concentrated really hard on the claw machine, knowing very well the reality of playing the game, but very determined to get something out of it.

In the end, Seungcheol lost the chance to get every single cute toy there was in the machine (which wasn’t much), and with his last few coins, he tried to get another one that Tzuyu might like. However, Seungcheol ended up hitting the button too fast and he ended up grabbing a Yoda plushie instead. Seungcheol watched as the claw grabbed onto the Yoda plushie perfectly and dragged it over to the drop area without fail. Tzuyu cheered and grabbed the toy out of the drop area, hugging the Yoda plushie to her chest, jumping up and down.

“Sorry I couldn’t get a cute one, Tzu,” Seungcheol sighed.

“Yoda is cute!” Tzuyu whined. “Dahyunnie and Chaeyoungie call me Yoda too! I’m happy, Mr. Cheollie, thank you!” Tzuyu beamed, and Seungcheol’s heart swelled.

“You’re right, kiddo. Yoda is cute,” Seungcheol bent down to Tzuyu’s eye-level once again and he booped her nose, causing her to giggle. “and maybe this guy, too, I guess.” Seungcheol pointed at Yoda and the two laughed together. Seungcheol checked his phone once again and remembered that the two had to start heading back to their hotel room. Seungcheol hoisted Tzuyu up on his shoulders and they left the game room.

Along the way back, Seungcheol and Tzuyu talked about arcade games and Seungcheol had to explain that there weren’t arcades for the video games that he played at home, but there were internet cafes which was close enough. Somewhere along the way, Tzuyu had stopped talking, and Seungcheol wondered what the little girl could have been thinking about.

“Mr. Cheollie, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Tzuyu,” Seungcheol slowed his pace a bit.

“Can I call you Daddy like Hansollie?” Tzuyu’s voice was even smaller than usual when asking this question, and he felt her rest her chin on his. Seungcheol stopped in his tracks and let Tzuyu down from his shoulders only to bring her into his arms. “I call you that with Dahyunnie and Chaeyoungie sometimes...Sorry…”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, sweetie.” Seungcheol pressed a small kiss to Tzuyu’s head. “It’s more than okay, because even though your Mommy and I aren’t married, we’re all still a family. I intend to keep it that way for as long as your mommy will want to. You and Jihyo are the best thing to happen to Hansol and I in a long time,”

“Daddy!” Tzuyu beamed the brightest Seungcheol’s ever seen her, and she hugged him tightly. Seungcheol picked Tzuyu up and spun her around, holding her close to his chest the entire way back to their hotel room, with Tzuyu excitedly calling him “daddy” and Seungcheol calling her “daughter” the entire way as well.