The phone in the office rings, and Baekhyun sighs from where he’s leaning against the counter. Yifan stifles a laugh and watches as his husband walks back to his office. The phone has been ringing nonstop since his shift started, and they were all requesting the manager. Joonmyun transferred to a higher up position in corporate and recommended Baekhyun as his replacement. It’s higher pay and more hours, but Yifan thinks he’s doing great. 

    The front desk is slow, Yifan leaning his elbows on the counter as he scrolls through their check-ins to see if he recognizes any of the names. Baekhyun comes back out a few moments later, his keys in hand and his brows furrowed. Yifan stands up straight, head cocked to the side. It’s not unusual that the managers get called to other locations sometimes, but Baekhyun doesn’t normally seem so upset about it. “What’s going on?”

    “Our son needs to be picked up early from school,” Baekhyun sighs, rubbing his hand over his face. 

    “Why?” Yifan doesn’t try to hide the concern from his voice. Jian rarely needs to come home early. The last time was because he had strep and missed the rest of the week of school. It was a pain in the trying to find someone to cover Yifan’s shifts, since Baekhyun can’t just take off whenever he wants now. Jian seemed fine this morning.

    “All they said was disciplinary issues,” Baekhyun tells him, opening the door that separates the desk from the rest of the lobby. “I’ll bring him back here and we’ll talk to him together, okay?” 

    Yifan finds himself bouncing on his feet. Jian never got into trouble, not even at home. “Can’t I go get him?”

    “I need someone at the front, Yifan,” Baekhyun sighs again, reaching a hand up across the desk to cup his face. “I’ll be right back, okay?” Yifan sighs back and nods, leaning forwards to press a kiss to the side of his mouth. The school Jian goes to isn’t too far from where they work. Baekhyun should be back before he has to take his break, and Yifan can get to the root of whatever happened with his son. 

    It’s just not like Jian to have disciplinary problems. At all the teacher conferences, his teachers raved about how polite and well mannered he is. He was called the star pupil on multiple occasions. Yifan has never felt more proud. Even at home, Jian does his school work and plays and rarely talks back. He’s such a happy and joyous child and Yifan doesn’t think he’s ever had to raise his voice at his son. It might be a little worrying, but Jian is only six. There’s still plenty of time for him to misbehave. Yifan just prides himself on being a good father. Baekhyun, too.

    In the time it takes for Baekhyun to get back, only one person came into the lobby. It was just to extend their stay for an extra week, but Yifan appreciated the brief distraction. One of the housekeepers came in to ask if there was still a guest in 203. He knows it was less than thirty minutes that Baekhyun, but it still felt entirely too long to not know what happened to his son. 

    Baekhyun walks in the door with Jian perched on his hip, his head on his shoulder, and a pensive look on his face. Yifan hurries to open the door for them, but when he reaches for Jian, he clutches Baekhyun tighter, hiding his face. Baekhyun gives him a look and he follows them to Baekhyun’s office. 

    Jian gets set on Baekhyun’s chair despite his protests, his face blotchy and red and Yifan doesn’t know if he wants to be angry or sad that his son was crying. He still doesn’t know what happened. “I’m going to talk with your daddy for a minute and we’ll be right back, okay?” 

“Jian not in trouble?” Jian sniffles, and Yifan already doesn’t want to have to reprimand him. 

“Not yet,” Baekhyun tells him. Yifan, still confused, follows Baekhyun into their breakroom. Baekhyun gestures for him to sit, so he does. 

“Are you my boss or my husband right now?” Yifan tries to joke, taking a seat where he can still see Baekhyun’s closed office door. 

“Technically?” Baekhyun chuckles, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. “Both.” 

Yifan bounces his knee impatiently, arching an eyebrow at him. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“You have to promise me not to react until I’ve told you the whole story, okay?” He finds it reasonable enough and agrees. “Okay, so. Jian hit another student-”

“He did what-?”

“I’m not done yet,” Baekhyun cuts him off before he can continue. He stares in shock at the closed door, mouth open. Jian never had any outbursts like that. He’s always been good about sharing his toys. “The other student was making fun of him for having two dads.” That shocks Yifan even more. His eyes dart back to Baekhyun, his mouth wide open. “Jian asked him to stop multiple times and even told the teacher, but he did nothing. So Jian hit him in the face with a book.” He doesn’t know whether to be angry or proud. “He asked the principle to call me because he knows how upset you get when people… disagree with our family.” 

Yifan takes a moment to let the words sink in. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to have happened, but it certainly wasn’t this. He hasn’t had to think about how having two loving fathers will affect Jian until now. They talked about it before, when Jain asked why he didn’t have a mother. He understood perfectly and then thanked his fathers for loving him. It was really that easy. 

“He’s not in trouble,” Yifan decides after a moment, looking back up at Baekhyun. His voice comes out a little more stern than he means it to, but it’s not directed at him. He’s really not upset with Jian. He’s upset that the whole thing happened in general, but he needs to calm down before going to see him. Jian picks up on emotions incredibly well for his age, and even if his anger isn’t directed at him, Jian will know that he’s angry. Yifan doesn’t want that. 

“No,” Baekhyun agrees, pushing himself off the wall to card his fingers through Yifan’s hair. “But the parents are expecting an apology from him.”

Yifan laughs. He laughs. “Yeah, that’s not happening. They should be apologizing to us.” 

The door to Baekhyun’s office creaks open, and they both turn to see Jian peeking through the crack. He looks cautious, but after he takes in their faces, steps out the door and walks to them. “Trouble?”

“No, baby,” Yifan tells him, holding his arms out. Jian doesn’t hesitate to climb into his lap and wrap his arms around his shoulders. “You’re not in trouble.” 

“He was being mean,” Jian tells him, resting his head. His breath tickles his ear and Yifan leans back to make sure they’re both comfortable. “Saying mean things about daddies. Daddies aren’t mean!” 

The rest of the shift goes by relatively slow. Baekhyun stays mostly in his office with Jian while Yifan stays at the front, only stealing away to the back when there’s nothing to do. Since they’ve had Jian, he’s been coming to the hotel with them, so there’s plenty of toys for him to play with in the office. He keeps himself occupied and only crawls into Baekhyun’s lap when he’s ready for a nap. 

Baekhyun has to transfer a call to the front and Yifan has the pleasure of seeing him with his arms full of Jian, his head resting on his shoulder, with a little drool stain seeping through his shirt, as he holds the phone between his shoulder and his ear and uses his free hand to scroll through the ipad. It’s an incredibly domestic sight, and Yifan is reminded again just how perfect his little family is. He can’t wait to marry Baekhyun. 

They get ice cream on the way home and Jian only slightly makes a mess of his carseat. They’re walking from the car to their house when another car pulls in front. They pause to glance for a moment, but continue until they get to their door. It’s only then that they realize they’re being followed, and turn around to look at them.

It’s the student Jian hit at school today with his parents. The mom is holding his hand as they walk up, the dad leading the way. Yifan towers over him by a good few inches, but Baekhyun has always been better at barking back. 

“Oh, you’re just getting home now?” The woman asks, scoffing as her and her husband come to a stop before them. The son, to his credit, doesn’t look like as much of a slob as Yifan thought he would. He looks like any other six year old. “And you rewarded him with icecream?” 

Baekhyun glances down to where Jian has the spoon sticking out of his mouth, his hand still holding the small cup of strawberry ice cream they had gotten him. “Well, yes,” Yifan answers, crossing his arms over his chest. He knows he looks scary when he’s mad. They don't have to know he’s never been in a physical fight before. “We had work, and why would we not get our son icecream?” 

    “Because he hit our son in the face,” the man growls, but Yifan doesn’t think he sounds very scary. “With a book.” 

“And your son was making homophobic comments to our son,” Baekhyun casually throws back, shrugging his shoulders. “Even after he was asked to stop. Seems fair to me.” 

“He was only speaking facts,” the mother shrugs back, her eyes narrowed at Baekhyun. Yifan thinks that isn’t a smart idea for her, but he doesn’t feel the need to warn her. His heart is beating in his chest at this kind of confrontation, but the blood is boiling beneath his skin. “You shouldn’t exist. It’s unnatural, and you shouldn’t put an innocent child through that. I feel sorry for him.” 

Baekhyun laughs, and Yifan knows it’s coming. “I feel sorry for your child,” he shoots back, taking a step towards the women. She flinches the slightest bit, but Yifan knows Baekhyun saw it because the corners of his lips turn up. “Being raised by such hateful people? It’s really sad,” he shakes his head at them, glancing at her husband. “It’s a parents job to teach their kids love and acceptance, and if you can’t handle that, then you have no business bringing a child into this world.” 

He turns and takes Jian’s hand, leading the rest of the way to their door. Yifan stays behind because he’s good at looking intimidating and he wants to make sure these people leave. “How would you know what it takes to be a parent?” the husband finally speaks up, red faced. “You can’t even make a child.” 

Yifan feels really bad for these people. “Making a child doesn’t make you a parent. It’s something you earn.” 

“We’re not leaving until we get an apology,” the woman states.

“.” 

Yifan and Baekhyun both turn wide eyes to their son, who’s still nonchalantly trying to clean all the ice cream off his spoon. The woman behind them makes a noise of disbelievement and hurriedly covers her sons ears. “I mean, he said it best,” Baekhyun shrugs with a grin, glancing over his shoulder at them. “If you don’t leave I’ll call the police. How would a hate crime look on your record?”

He follows them into the house and locks the door behind them. Yifan and Baekhyun stare at each other with wide eyes, trying to comprehend what just happened. Jian holds up his empty ice cream up and hands it to Yifan before turning for the stairs. 

“Who taught him that word?”

“Probably me,” Baekhyun admits.

“He can’t be saying it.”

“He was right, though.”

“Baekhyun-!”

Yifan watches with his mouth hanging open as Baekhyun turns and walks into the kitchen. They were going to have to have a serious conversation during dinner tonight.