Mark stands in front of the mirror checking out his appearance. He adjusts his hair a bit and sighs when it doesn’t goes the way he wants it to go.

He feels somebody giving him a back hug, Mark wouldn’t even have had to look into the mirror to see it’s Yukhei - of course - he just knows it’s him. Who else could it be, not that he wants it to be anyone else for that matter.

“Isn’t it me who should be nervous about the way I’m looking?” Yukhei says teasingly. “Nope you always look good” Mark answers back still focused on the mirror in front of him.

“Well so do you” Yukhei tells him. Mark blushes even though they have been dating for a while now. The taller one places a kiss on his cheek before untangling their bodies to leave Mark to face the battles with his hair.

When Mark walks back into the living room he’s greeted by the sight of Mei and Yukhei having a discussion. “Mei you can’t wear that Elsa dress to the dinner!” Yukhei tells her in a strict voice. “But I’m an ice princess” Mei whines, pouting her lips and giving her dad the puppy eyes.

“Mei, princess you really can’t…” Yukhei tries to tell her once again but he’s interrupted by the little girl. “You say it yourself I’m a princess so I can wear this” Mei says back to Yukhei looking at him angrily with her arms crossed over her chest, no intentions of changing out of the dress uncle Johnny gifted her for her birthday.

Mark watches as Yukhei just stands there trying to come up with a solution to win the argument with his four-year-old daughter that he seems to be losing.

Just when he wants to jump in to suggest something he’s beaten to it by Ash. The four-year-old boy walks over to his BFF and whispers into her ear. “Mei if you wear that to dinner it might get dirty, I always get food on my clothes” he tells her.

The girl seems to be thinking about it until she thanks Ash for the idea and tells her dad:

“Daddy I don’t want to wear this dress to dinner it might get dirty”. Yukhei doesn’t know whether to feel relieved she changed her mind or to feel sad because, in the end, she didn’t listen to him.

They continue getting ready. As Mark helps Ash’s putting on his shoes - tying shoelaces is still quite difficult - the phone starts to ring. “You go and answer it, I’ll help Ash” Yukhei says.

So Mark picks up and is greeted by the voice of Taeyong. “Hi Mark, I’m calling to make our appointment for the parent-teacher meeting”. “Oh, yeah” Mark says walking over to the kitchen to check his schedule.

“You know if you want to you can just come with Yukhei” Taeyong says teasingly, still not being over the fact that the two were waiting. It remembers Mark of that awkward afternoon when he came to pick up Ash - and maybe Yukhei was with him to pick up Mei - where

Taeyong had basically run out of the classroom the congratulate them. Upon asking how he knew the man had just said the kids exposed them. He remembers Yukhei’s reaction on that had been: “Disappointed but not surprised”. When Taeyong was done firing all of his questions he had run away to the next door classroom while shouting “Jaeyong babe I was right, I have some tea to spill”.

Yeah, that had been a situation. Deciding to tease back Mark says “Fine”. “What ehm okay” Taeyong responded not having expected that answer. He tells Mark the details stating that “You should know cuz Yukhei is probably going to forget it anyways”.

The said man shows himself handing him his jacket “We need to get going baby lion”. “Stop it” Mark says blushing at the nickname his boyfriend (this was so satisfying to write lol) gave him.  “Is that Yukhei?” Taeyong questions him “In that case, I shouldn't interrupt any longer”. Mark is met with silence meaning that the man has hung up the phone.

He walks into the hallway where he finds the other three waiting for him. “Yukhei why are you carrying the kids?” Mark asks confused as he sees Yukhei carrying the toddlers in his arms. “The path to the door is very slippery because of the snow and I don’t want them to fall”

Mark chuckled, he really didn’t know if he should find it adorable or weird. He puts on his scarf and notices Yukhei’s scarf still hanging on the coat rack, the tall man had probably forgotten his own while making the kids into mummies of hats, scarfs, and mittens.

“Yukhei you forgot your scarf” Mark says walking up to him to tie the scarf around his neck since the said man has his hands full with the two kids. When he finishes the tying part he pulls on it to tug Yukhei closer to him so he can give him a kiss. It’s not like he’s going to be able to do that for the next couple of hours.

His boyfriend happily obliges and it’s great until Mark gets smacked in the face by an annoyed Ash “Eewww daddy that’s gross”. Mark looks up to find an equally disgusted Mei looking at the both of them.

They then decided it’s time to finally leave and after a short ride they arrive at Mark’s parent's house.

Yukhei again carries the children up to the door. Mark rings (dings dongs) the doorbell and rolls his eyes at him when Yukhei puts the children down. “What, they’re supposed to eat dinner not a mouth full of snow” Yukhei states making the smaller man laugh hard.

That happens to be the exact sight his mom comes to see when she opens the door. The kids immediately run inside freeing themselves from the many layers of clothing. “Hi sweetie” his mom says to him and if you think that was embarrassing you’re wrong what she said next was worse

“Hi sweeties boyfriend, come in” his mom say motioning for them to come inside. Yukhei greets his mom and politely steps inside but Mark doesn’t know if he wants to go inside or go hide under a rock in embarrassment.

“Dinner is already ready since you guys were a bit late” his mom says not that she minds.

“Yeah sorry about that Ash’s teacher called” Mark said who had decided to come in. “And they were kissing” Mei screams. “Yes it was super gross” Ash adds says sticking his tongue out. This time it’s Yukhei’s turns to feel embarrassed.

“Ah, young love” his dad says “honey do you remember when we were like that?”. His mom confirms that she does and then makes everybody sit down so they can eat before the food gets cold.

The rest of the dinner is filled with stories, questions and maybe Mark’s dad might have told a metaphor to make sure Yukhei would know what would happen if he ever were to hurt Mark.

After dinner, his parents, of course, had to pull out the old book with embarrassing photos, which made Yukhei clap so loud out of laughter the neighbors are probably going to fill a noise complaint. When the kids fall asleep his parents can’t and won’t stop gushing about how adorable Mei is and praising Yukhei for doing such a good job of raising her on his own.

When they leave both of them to get a hug from his parents and Mark is pretty sure they already like his boyfriend more than they ever liked his ex and to be honest so does he.

Which make him a little bit scared but as soon as he sees Yukhei taking his eyes off the road for a second to smile at him the worries all fade away.

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Yukhei walks up to the stairs to his apartment, carrying a sleeping Mei in his arms. He feels happy, happy of being accepted into Mark’s family, happy of being able to experience something like that which he hasn’t had before. He could have been okay with Mark’s parents not liking him but he’s not sure if Mark could.

When he reaches their home he unlocks the door. To his surprise, the light is already on. He must have forgotten to put it out because he was way too nervous and excited about the dinner. It causes him to chuckle at his own stupidity.

His laughing stops once he sees a familiar person sitting on his couch.

“It’s been a while Yukhei”