After every single document had been signed, and after everything had been finalized, they were allowed to leave the hospital two days after the baby’s birth.

It had been the wildest and scariest thing in the world.

Kyungsoo holding baby Jia in his arms – a little bundle of joy, so tiny in his arms – as they headed back home. All three of them.

“Welcome home, little one,” Jongin was the one who still sounded choked up even after two days, as he held the door wide open. His eyes were full of love when he let Kyungsoo enter before him, a hand naturally falling to the small of his waist as he moved behind him, peering over his shoulder at the little face peeking through the blanket.

Jia’s eyes were glazed over - pretty little things, still unable to focus on anything. Her little mouth was pulling back every now and then, little head moving and tiny arms and legs wriggling in his hold. Every single move had Kyungsoo’s heart skipping a beat, afraid that he was doing something wrong even if all he was doing was just holding her tight.

His heart skipped another beat when Jongin leaned closer and kissed his head on the side, just above his eyebrow. His hand was wrapped securely around his shoulder, before he dropped their bags and the keys on the sofa, arm moving up so he could trace the back of his finger gently over their little girl’s puffy cheek.

Her tiny little mouth moved into the most adorable yawn Kyungsoo had ever seen, a sight that tugged at all his heartstrings, before her eyelids fluttered. Kyungsoo almost coo-ed out loud at the sight, rocking her gently back and forth at the same time Jongin moved even closer to him, his arm moving to circle around his waist and hold him tighter.

“The nurse said they just fed her before we left,” Jongin said, whispered almost. As if afraid that being loud might scare their little baby girl. “She should sleep now.”

“Right,” Kyungsoo croaked out, absolutely hating the fact that he’d have to let go of his little angel.

They walked together all the way up to the baby room, and Jongin the light switch. The dreamy yellow of the baby room was illuminated by the soft lights, along with the dancing projections of stars and teddy bears on the ceiling from the little baby light projector.

Kyungsoo held his breath as he lowered the little bundle in his arms into the cradle.

Jia was already half-asleep by the time she was lying down in the bed, eyelids now shut closed, but little, tiny fingers still moving every now and then. The diaper was entirely too big on her little body, it made her look like a little frog in her minty green overalls.

Kyungsoo bit on his lower lip to stop himself from letting out the happy sob, but Jongin’s arms were wrapped around him tightly, keeping him grounded.

“Sleep well, angel,” he whispered quietly, moving to arrange the blanket around Jia carefully.

Jongin’s fingers squeezed his sides again, briefly, before he let go and shuffled to the side of the room. Kyungsoo tore his eyes away from Jia for a couple seconds, to only see Jongin was dragging the two beanbags that had been set at the corner of the baby room closer to the cradle.

Kyungsoo smiled when Jongin puled him down on the chair, pulling him on top of himself so he could rest his head on Jongin’s shoulder and rest his palm on his thigh.

“We’re home now,” Jongin whispered, and his fingers squeezed around Kyungsoo’s shoulders, holding him tight. A kiss landed on his hair, and Kyungsoo’s lips pulled into a smile.

He extended one of his hands towards the cradle, finger slipping between the bars and on Jia’s little palm. Her tiny fingers immediately reacted at the soft press and wrapped around his finger. Her small fingernails turned white from the strength she was using to hold on to him, and Kyungsoo’s heart was swollen with all the love in the world.

He rested his head back on Jongin’s shoulders, eyes trained on their baby girl, the new centre of their universe.

“We are.”

They spent Jia’s first night in their home standing over her crib, bodies reacting automatically to every little sound she made and every little twist of her tiny body.

Jongin’s breath was bated as he leaned closer, afraid that she wasn’t breathing every time she sneezed or coughed, and Kyungsoo’s heart flipped in his chest every time she kicked her tiny legs or let out a gurgling sound.

They spent the few short hours sitting there together, in each other’s arms, looking over their biggest treasure.

Jia was crying.

Kyungsoo was holding her, still scared to death, because she was as light as a feather in his arms, and she was crying so loudly, he could not believe her tiny little lungs were capable of producing such a powerful sound.

Jongin was not fending any better. He looked just as distraught as the baby was, eyes blown wide and mouth open as he flailed his arms.

“What should I do?!”

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows twitched at yet another piercing cry that resounded in their house, trying to rock Jia soothingly in his arms.

“She must be hungry,” he shook his head, before nodding mostly to himself. “That must be it. It’s been a few hours.”

“Right,” Jongin nodded, hair sticking out in all directions. “Right. Formula. Where did you leave it?”

Kyungsoo’s breath hitched at the loud piercing cries of his baby, even the soft rocks of his arms not doing a single thing to calm her down.

“Kitchen. Come on.”

The shrieks grew louder by the second, and Kyungsoo’s heart was breaking. He felt so useless, as Jongin dove forward to grab the ready to feed formulas.

“We need some warm water,” Kyungsoo said, shifting his weight from leg to leg, trying to soothe the crying baby in his hands.

His husband nodded, looking so lost and out of his zone as he set the bottled formula on the kitchen counter.  He dove to grab one of the pots under the counter, moving to fill it up with water.

Kyungsoo panicked, already realizing the intent in Jongin’s eyes as he moved.

“You can’t put a metal pot in the microwave, Kim Jongin!”

Jongin startled at that, and if Kyungsoo wasn’t already so stressed about their crying daughter in his arms and about the fact that he was so clueless and so suddenly not ready for any of this, he felt another wave of panic washing over him when his husband looked at him as if they were in the middle of a horror house.

“Just…get a plastic container,” Kyungsoo tried to keep his voice steady, for the sake of both of them. Jongin nodded, immediately moving to follow the given instructions. “Fill it with water and put it in the microwave.”

“Okay,” Jongin did, breathing out as if he had just overcome the biggest hurdle in his entire life when the microwave’s light came on and the soft buzz filled the kitchen in the middle of the night. “Okay, now what?”

“Wash your hands,” Kyungsoo sighed out. “And open the bottle. Remove the lid.”

He didn’t think he’d ever seen Jongin washing his hands so thoroughly. He was careful when he opened the bottle and leaned down to sniff it.

A soft smile pulled on Kyungsoo’s lips at Jongin’s confused and not entirely pleased expression. Right. Infant baby formula probably didn’t smell as appetizing as his steak dinners at fancy restaurants, but it would have to do.

“Pour it in the baby bottle and then put it in the container with the warm water,” Kyungsoo turned down to look at Jia, making little shushing sounds, trying his best to calm the crying baby girl.

Jongin rounded the counter then, wrapping an arm around his middle and raising a hand to pull on the blanket at Jia’s chest. He, too, seemed heartbroken and confused.

“Don’t cry, little one,” he coo-ed, and Kyungsoo leaned his head against his husband’s. He closed his eyes when the little sobs continued, and Jongin’s fingers tightened around him. “It’s almost ready. Don’t cry.”

Kyungsoo let out a little sigh when Jongin’s hand moved from his sides up to his head, fingers buried in his unruly dark hair as he pulled him closer and sighed out against his skin.

“We can’t use the water dispenser next time to warm the formula?”

“I have no idea,” Kyungsoo breathed out, still rocking little Jia in his arms. “The water from that is almost boiling. Probably no.”

“Makes sense,” Jongin sighed against his skin once again before detaching himself from Kyungsoo. “Do you want anything? Coffee? Tea?”

But Kyungsoo couldn’t even think about himself at this moment, his undivided attention was all on their baby girl, still writhing and crying in his arms. He really did feel so useless.

His eyes flashed up to Jongin, who was looking at the baby bottle suspiciously. Kyungsoo pursed his lips.

“Try it.”

Jongin, again, seemed scared, as he hesitantly picked up the bottle and dried it with a paper towel that he discarded somewhere on the counter. He turned the bottle upside down, a few drops of it falling on his skin.

“Is it still cold? It’s not too hot, is it?”

Jongin dropped some more of it on his skin, eyebrows knitted together as if he was facing the world’s hardest math problem.

“I think it should be alright,” he mumbled, before leaning down. Before Kyungsoo could stop him, his husband’s tongue had darted over those few drops of baby formula. His expression shifted, and whatever worried he had evaporated, replaced now by utter disgust and shock. “Oh my God!”

“What?!” Kyungsoo asked, alarmed. “Too hot?”

“No. Too disgusting,” Jongin’s face was still twisted in a grimace as he eyed the baby bottle distastefully. “No wonder the poor kid’s crying. I’d be crying too if I had to eat this crap ten times a day. It tastes like wet cardboard.”

“Jesus, Jongin,” Kyungsoo let out an exasperated sigh, Jia’s cries sounding louder by the minute. “Give me the damn bottle.”

Jongin seemed to snap back to reality, eyes immediately focusing on their little baby girl, as he rounded the counter again. He was almost glued to Kyungsoo when he raised the bottle to Jia’s face. Her tiny lips immediately latched on the bottle’s , and just like that, the cries ceased.

Kyungsoo let out a sigh of relief, and he felt Jongin relaxing beside him too, finally resting his free arm on his shoulders, the other supporting the bottle as Jia was gobbling up the formula.

“The doctor recommended this formula because of the minerals and vitamins,” Kyungsoo said as they both sat down on the couch. His eyes were trained on Jia’s little face, her fists flailing around as she fed. “I know it tastes horrible, most formulas probably do, but it’s the best we can give her now.”

“Right,” Jongin’s sigh was a little dejected. “We should look into baby bottle water dispensers. Or a warmer or something. Maybe it will be faster than the microwave.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“I’ll have Haechan look into it tomorrow,” Jongin said, and Kyungsoo turned just in time to see his husband’s face twitching when he tried to suppress his yawn.

When their eyes met, Jongin smiled at him sweetly. He pulled him closer.

“Look at us,” he said quietly, fingers brushing a few loose strands of hair away from Kyungsoo’s face. “I think we did pretty well.”

Kyungsoo let out a soft chuckle. Now that their baby girl was not crying anymore, he too felt calmer. All things considered, Jongin was right.

Kyungsoo’s smile was small and genuine, as he leaned closer into Jongin, his arms tightening around their baby. She was still drinking, and he was supporting her head while Jongin held on to the bottle.

He felt his husband’s lips landing in a kiss on the side of his neck when he pulled him closer, wrapping an arm both around him and Jia.

“I think we did.”

It was just after only about one week on their journey as new parents, when duty called and Jongin had to return to work.

Kyungsoo knew he had no choice. They had talked about this for hours and hours on end. Jongin was reluctant, but he knew he had to return to VOGUE eventually, do his job. Even if he wanted to stay home and spend his entire days with Jia.

Kyungsoo, on the other hand, had decided to take the month off on paid leave. He knew their baby needed to be taken care of. This had caused a lot of discourse and a lot of problems within the magazine’s structure – one of the fashion segment editors was suddenly going on paid leave, and all writers in his department were lost and confused. Baekhyun and Junmyeon had split up the workload for this one week, taking care of his writers and arranging their articles.

After this one week, he would start doing some of his work from home. He knew it was no fair to let others do his work. Besides, he wanted to do his work. He just didn’t want to do it away from his baby. So working from home for a while was the perfect solution to his problems.

He was grateful for everything him and Jongin had. He was grateful for their beautiful house, he was grateful for the love in their family. He was grateful for the amazing people around them, and he was especially grateful to their own parents, who had stepped in to help them when they needed it most.

Kyungsoo’s parents had come to visit them during the weekend, showering Jia with all the love grandparents could produce, which was a whole lot of it. His mom had decided to stay with them for the week after, as well, after Kyungsoo’s somewhat unsure ask whether she could help take care of Jia while he was reviewing the articles. She had been more than ready to agree.

Jongin’s mother, too, had been more than ecstatic to step in and help. She was visiting almost every day, playing with Jia and chatting gleefully with his mom, while he sat down to finish his work. He would throw worried glances towards the women and his daughter every now and then.

The days were long, and they seemed to be getting even longer with every passing second. He had lost count already at how many times he had been scolded about the correct way to prepare baby formula, or about the proper way to shower a baby. He didn’t even want to think about all the nagging coming from both sides of the family after his inadequate attempts to wrap the blanket around Jia properly, the hands of the two women clawing his own arms away in order to show him in excruciating detail where every corner was supposed to go and how everything should be tucked.

But despite the nags, and despite the complaints of Jia’s grandmothers, Kyungsoo was grateful. If it wasn’t for them, he didn’t even want to imagine how hard it would have been to get through the days while waiting for Jongin to return from work, so they could share all the workload.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?” Kyungsoo asked, holding Jia tighter to his chest as he looked at Jongin’s mother putting on her jacket. “Jongin will be home any minute now. He said he’ll bring Italian.”

“As much as I’d love to stay, I’m afraid I have some work to do at home,” she said, and Kyungsoo hummed. She had told him last week that Jongin’s siter was coming home for the holidays. She probably wanted to prepare the rooms for her and her family, for Rahee and Raeon. “Call me if you need anything, my boy.”

“Thank you,” Kyungsoo smiled, supporting Jia in his arms when Jongin’s mother leaned down to place a soft kiss on her tiny head. She wriggled in his arms again.

He didn’t know how many times he had uttered those two words throughout the week. Thank you.

He really was grateful. He didn’t think he’d ever find a way to actually show his gratitude properly. Then again, both women seemed to immensely enjoy being here with them for this journey, around Jia. He was grateful for that as well.

The evenings were the best part of his day. When Jongin was back at home, orbiting around Jia at all times, playing with her and holding her, sitting with her on the couch and just looking at her with the biggest smile Kyungsoo had ever seen on his husband’s face.

He was such a fool for her, and it was warming Kyungsoo’s heart.

The evenings were the best part of his day. Jongin was at home, and the three of them were all together, and all work was forgotten and ignored.

All that mattered was their family.

“No, I haven’t seen the samples,” Kyungsoo spoke into the phone that was secured between his ear and shoulder. His neck was hurting already. He was trying to sort through the papers while Doyoung kept reporting to him with every missed phone call from the office and every contract deal, and every damn article that he was going to send him tonight. There were no layout samples in the folders, and he sighed. “Are you sure you sent them?”

“Yes,” Doyoung confirmed. “I