“Dads!” shouted in despair a high-pitched voice.

Yixing dropped the spatula he was holding, not caring about burned pancakes, and rapidly ran towards Jeno’s room. Junmyeon was already there holding and consoling their sobbing six-year-old child. “Jun, Jeno, what happened?” he asked.

Jeno left Junmyeon’s arms and strode to his other dad. Yixing crouched down and started cleaning his tears, while whisperings sweets nothings to calm down the child.

“It’s Crackers,” Junmyeon said sadly.

“He-he-he is de-dead,” Jeno uttered amid sobs and hiccups.

Yixing turned to see the fish tank, and indeed, the little goldfish was floating around upside down. He sighed and caressed Jeno’s hair, then hugged him. Junmyeon joined the family hug and embraced them both.

Yixing remembered the day they went to the pet store and let Jeno choose whatever he wanted for his birthday. They had expected him to pick a dog or a cat, but Jeno had surprised them and said that he wanted the fish that looked like the crackers. So, they bought the goldfish that Jeno later named Crackers.

Crackers had lived ten good months with them, and despite not being able to play with it, Jeno had grown attached to it. Before anyone else in the house, Jeno would wish good mornings to Crackers. Sadly, today Jeno couldn’t, and instead, he found little Crackers floating lifelessly around the fish tank. Yixing’s heart broke hearing his son’s cry, it was the first time little Jeno encountered the loss of a loved one in his life.

“I’m so sorry, Jeno… But remember Crackers had a very happy time with us, and he’ll always be with you here,” Yixing cooed and palmed Jeno’s chest. “In your heart.”

“I couldn’t even say goodbye to him baba Xing,” Jeno said in despair.

“Perhaps we can fix that, Jeno,” Junmyeon said. Yixing looked at Junmyeon to see what antics his husband would come up with.

“How daddy Jun?” Jeno asked, his sobs were slowly calming down.

“We can host a funeral. Do you know what that is?”

Jeno shook his head.

“It’s when you bury a loved one, say your last goodbyes or maybe pray, usually together with friends and family,” Junmyeon explained.

“Bury… Say goodbye… Friends…. Family,” Jeno repeated. He let go of Yixing and freed himself from both his dads’ embrace. With his little fists, he rubbed away the tears. “Can we, can we do that daddies?” he asked.

Yixing stared at his husband’s face, and they both nodded, smiling softly. This wasn’t how they anticipated spending their Saturday, but a day at the zoo could wait for another weekend. “Of course, honey,” Yixing said. And it was the smell of burnt that made Yixing burst downstairs to most likely throw away the pancakes.

The couple spent the morning making some snacks and aperitives, calling here and there, and preparing the backyard to receive the guest. They invited over some of their friends and neighbors to remember Crackers.

When they had called Sehun, he had mocked them for the idea of holding a funeral for a dead goldfish, but when Jeno innocently chimed in and asked if Sehun could also bring their dog Vivi, ‘Cracker’s best friend,’ with them, Sehun thought otherwise. Even though Sehun was nervous about taking the baby out on what was her first outing, after filling their bags with everything he thought they might possibly need, he, his husband Chanyeol, Vivi and their baby daughter made their way to Yixing’s and Junmyeon’s house before anyone else.

Their still single friends, Jongdae and Minseok, also arrived early, neither of them had anything better to do on this hot summer day.

Slowly more people reunited in the backyard of the Kim-Zhang household to bid their farewells to the very much-loved goldfish, Crackers. Some of Jeno’s kindergarten friends had even brought their own pets, be it cats, dogs, birds or iguanas, everything to make the funeral memorable.

And right now, Jeno and his friends were sitting in a circle while he talked about his best memories with the deceased fish. Yixing was glad to see his son wasn’t crying as much as he did that morning, and when he stopped staring at Jeno, he returned to his own conversation with his friends.

“So, have you two finally decided a name for this precious baby girl?” Yixing asked. He was holding the baby in his arms, rocking her back and forth slowly as Sehun watched him like a hawk.

“I suggested Gamora, but Sehun doesn’t like it,” Chanyeol said and shook his head.

Sehun rolled his eyes, “Because we’re not naming our daughter after some superhero movie,” he said.

“It’s not a movie. She’s a guardian of the galaxy. But Sehunnie, you didn’t let me name our dog! Guys, isn’t it fair that I name the baby this time?” Chanyeol asked the others.

Jongdae interrupted and said, “Everyone in favor of Chanyeol naming the baby, raise your hands.”

Nobody moved an arm.

“There you have it,” Jongdae said and laughed along with the group of friends, except for Chanyeol.

The group of friends continued talking about their lives and daily struggles at work or at home. Sehun and Chanyeol were still insecure about lots of things regarding child care, but both Yixing and Junmyeon were more than willing to help them. Meanwhile, Minseok had his own insecurities since he still couldn’t know why or how he managed to get a date with the beautiful dance teacher, Luhan. And Jongdae was as hopeless as ever when it came to his love life.

“I’m telling you, Dae, Baekhyun is great!” Junmyeon said, “Just one blind date and you’ll see.”

“Don’t let your love life at Junmyeon’s mercy, please,” Sehun muttered. “We still don’t know how he got Yixing, but it was certainly a miracle.”

“Hey!” Junmyeon complained.

Author's Note

So, I wrote this one way back in 2017. Actually, the idea was to make it a domestic sulay fic featuring chanhun, baekchen and xiuhan but... Yeah, it's been over a year and the project has pretty much died lol. First time writing family!sulay though :D

I don't have more drabbles to share for now, but I'll dump them here in the future! I'm also thinking of including my "outtake" scenes, basically scenes that for different reasons didn't make it into the final cut of my stories. I guess it might be interesting to have them here than just deleting them from the original stories.