Once the couch is down in what will be their new living room, Yixing’s already on it, stretching out across it.

“I’m tired of being tired,” he complains. “I can barely make it through 3 songs without needing a break.”

Yifan grunts and drops the mattress he’s dragging to the master bedroom. “How much longer do you think you’ll perform with them?”

“Mmm, maybe a month or so? The doctor said I might start feeling uncomfortable soon when I start getting bigger, but right now I don’t even feel pregnant.”

“How do you mean?” Yifan joins Yixing on the couch, half-lying on top of him.

Yixing shrugs. “I just don’t? All I felt these past few weeks is gassy, but I’m not sure if that’s a pregnancy thing or because I’ve been eating my weight in cheese.”

“The expensive, French cheese that they only sell at one place in town.” Yixing frowns and lightly shoves him. “Just making conversation; I don’t mind buying it for you.”

“It’s the least you can do after you still made eggs lask week, knowing how sick they make me.”

“I know, I’m sorry, but I-“ He’s cut off by a small knock on the door. “…maybe if we stay quiet, they’ll go away.”

Unfortunately, after just a few seconds, the knocks start again and they don’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. Sighing, Yifan rolls off Yixing and opens the front door.

Standing in the hall is a man, no more than 10 years older than Yifan, and a small boy clutching his hand. The latter shrinks slightly when he looks up at Yifan.

“Hello! I’m Luye and this is my son Luhan,” the boy looks up at the sound of his name, but immediately looks back down when he makes eye contact. “We live in the house next to you, and we came over with a welcome gift.” The man holds up a fruit basket that Yifan had previously overlooked and smiles warmly.

“Oh! Well, um, our furniture isn’t quite set up, but please come in.” Yifan steps to the side to allow the two in, taking note of how Luhan is trying his best to not get too close to him.

“No worries, we won’t stay long,” Luye voices. “My wife, his stepmother,” he gestures to the figure hiding behind his leg, “is visiting her parents in Seoul, so I have to get Luhan to his aunt before I go in to work.”

Yifan nods in understanding. “Well I’m Wu Yifan, and this is Zhang Yixing.” He gestures towards the couch, realizing then that the man has drifted off to sleep. “Oh, I apologize, he’s been very tired lately, but I’m sure he’ll enjoy the fruit.”

“Tired from all the moving?” Luye asks.

“Sort of. We’re expecting our first child, so that’s kept him out for a few weeks.”

“Congratulations!” He looks down at his son. “Did you hear that? They’re having a baby like Xiumin’s parents.”

“I do-“ the boy starts to speak, but immediately stops when he realizes Yifan’s attention on him.

Yifan’s starting to think that there’s something wrong with him. “Is he always this shy?”

Luye shakes his head. “Luhan’s usually very friendly and talkative, but I guess today he’s being a little bashful.”

It’s then that Yixing stirs from his nap and eases himself up into a sitting position. “We have guests?” Yifan smiles and nods, enjoying how quickly his boyfriend’s hair gets tousled after a few minutes of sleeping.

“This is our next door neighbor Luye and his son Luh-“

“Are you really having a baby?” Luhan questions, detaching himself from his father and wandering over to Yixing.

Yixing hums and nods. “Yes, I am. In about 6 months.”

“What are you gonna name it?”

“Well, we haven’t gone over names yet since we have a while to go.”

“My name is Luhan. I like my name. Do you like my name? What’s your name?” Luhan fires his questions so rapidly that Yixing can help but let out an amused laugh.

“Yes, I love your name; it fits you. My name is Yixing.”

Yixing’s lap is suddenly full of a very eager 5-year-old, who immediately launches into his life story (all that he can remember) with random interjections of what he likes about Yixing.

“That’s the Luhan I know,” Luye laughs.  Yifan frowns and crosses his arms.

//

Luhan makes it a point to make himself a part of their life, to Yifan’s dismay. It’s not that he dislikes the boy, no it’s quite the opposite. The 5-year-old seems determined to not make any kind of contact with Yifan.

They’ve been unpacking, slower than would have without the presence of the child, as the boy seems to question ever object they have.

“Xing ge, why does this box have a blue sticker and Mr. Wu’s box have a green sticker?” Luhan points out the sticker on the box of clothes Yixing’s unpacking.

“Well, because of our jobs we both have a lot of clothes, so when we packed we put stickers on the box to show which ones belong to us.” Yixing hands Luhan a shirt to hang up, and the boy clumsily puts it on the hanger wrong and lays it on the floor.

“Where do you work? My daddy works in a factory so he’s always gone at bedtime, and my step-mommy teaches Korean.”

“I play guitar in a band,” Luhan lets out an ‘ooh’. “And Yifan works as a model.”

“A model?”

“Mmhmm. He mostly does runway shows like you see on tv sometimes, but for a few months he’s been modeling sunglasses.”

“Me and Minseokkie saw a big picture on a building on the way to school. There was a man wearing sunglasses and smiling like this.” Luhan shows Yixing a toothy grin.

“Oooh, you could be a model,” Yixing comments, picking up his shirt from the ground. “Did you recognize Yifan from the picture? That’s his ad.”

Luhan drops another shirt in shock. “That picture is Mr. Wu? But… but he doesn’t look scary in it, and Mr. Wu is scary.” He nods matter-of-factly.

“Is that why you never talk to him? You think he’s scary?” Luhan nods. “I promise he isn’t. Honestly, I thought he was scary too when I first met him, but he’s actually very cute.” Luhan looks at him very skeptically, so Yixing disappears further into the closet and returns with a stuffed unicorn. “When I made a surprise visit to Yifan’s apartment a long time ago, I found out that he slept with this. That doesn’t make him so scary, right?”

“Yeah… I guess so,” Luhan mutters, taking the stuffed animal from Yixing’s hands.

Not too long after the exchange, Yifan walks into the room with a box of linen and sees Luhan holding his unicorn. Completely mortified at the sight of his old bed companion, he calmly takes the toy from Luhan’s arms and places it back in the closet.

At least, that’s what he meant to do because really he snatches the stuffed animal away and pitches it to the back of the closet.

Luhan stands there in shock for a few seconds before he bursts into tears and hides behind Yixing, clinging to his legs. Yixing frowns and shoots his boyfriend a look. “Come on. Luhan. I think it’s time for you to go home and sleep for a little while.” He picks up the distraught boy, who immediately buries his face in Yixing’s shoulder and locks his arms around his neck.

Yixing delivers the crying boy back to his father next door, and briefly explains why he’s so upset. When he  comes back in the apartment, he shoots Yifan an annoyed glare and goes back to organizing the closet.

“Xing,” Yifan whines lowly. He’s not one for acting cute, but he’d do anything to not be on the receiving end of Yixing’s anger. “Don’t be mad at me, please?”

“You know, I had just almost convinced him that you’re not scary, but you completely threw that out the window.”

“I know, I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”

“He’s only five, and I can’t understand why you don’t like him.”

“I don’t dislike him. He just doesn’t like me much, so I don’t speak to him often.” Yifan furrows his eyebrows. “Why are you so upset over this?”

“Because imagine how that makes him feel! He barely knows you, and he probably feels that you hate him! That’s not fair to him!” Yixing suddenly turns his back to Yifan, hiding the tears that are welling up in his eyes.

Yifan steps closer and hesitantly places a hand on Yixing’s lower back. “This is about more than Luhan, isn’t it? Tell me what’s wrong; I hate seeing you cry.”

“You know how easily I cry now. I’ll be fine.” He wipes his eyes and leans back into Yifan’s touch.

“No, tell me. You’re really upset.” Since Yixing hasn’t pulled away by now, Yifan wraps his arms completely around his waist.

“It’s just… if we send a 5-year-old home crying after just a few hours, how can we raise a baby that completely depends on us?”

Yifan sighs. “You know you’ll be a great parent. You’re amazing with kids, and kids love being around you. I know I’m… really awkward around them, but I’ll learn as we get along.” Yixing nods. “If it makes you happy, I’ll try to get along with Luhan.”

“Thank you… I love you.” Yifan kisses the back of his neck, which makes Yixing shiver. “You know, the doctor told me that around this time, I’ll have an increased drive.”

Yifan smirks. “Are you propositioning me or just spewing out pregnancy facts again?”

“Mmm, the first one.” He turns around in Yifan’s arms and kisses him deeply and languidly.

“Bed?” Yifan asks.

“Right here’s fine,” Yixing replies, pushing Yifan into a rack of clothes.

//

Even though he loves to spend all his time with his boyfriend, Yixing enjoys those few hours when his boyfriend’s working and he has some private time to himself. It’s extremely rare for Yifan to work on Sunday, but he picked up a few more modeling jobs to make up for time he’ll lose after the baby is born.

He’s just eaten a big lunch (complete with fancy French cheese) when there’s a weak knock at the door that he recognizes as Luhan’s.

"This is Minseokkie!" Luhan exclaims, beaming at the boy his hand is attached to. "He lives on the other side of me, and he's Korean like my step-mommy, and I'm gonna marry him when I grow up."

"But I don't wanna marry you," Minseok whines, and tugs at Luhan's hand.

The Chinese boy lets go of Minseok's hand long enough to pull out a folded sheet of robot stickers from his pocket. Carefully, he considers each sticker before choosing a red robot to stick on his friend's cheek.

"There. I marked you, and that means you're mine, so you have to marry me." Luhan smiles brightly again at Minseok, who pouts and takes Luhan's hand again.

Yixing laughs and steps aside. “Does Minseokkie’s parents know that he’s over here?”

“Uh huh. His mommy and daddy said it’s okay if we play over here.” He affectionately hugs Yixing’s legs without letting go of his friend’s hand. “Can we have cookies?”

“Ahh, so that’s why you came over.” He closes the door behind them and walks into the kitchen to give them each a chocolate chip cookie. “So, Minseok, have you always lived here, or did your family move here from Korea?”

“You have to talk through me if you wanna talk to Minseokkie,” Luhan states through a mouthful.

“Why is that?”

“His Chinese isn’t that good, so he needs me talk for him.”

“I speak Chinese fine,” Minseok interjects. Luhan silences him by stuffing his cookie into his mouth.

//

Yixing and Luhan spend most of their morning coloring in the living room while Yifan sits at the kitchen table looking over his schedule for the month.

They’ve drawn several pictures each as evidenced by the papers surround them on the floor, but Luhan has spent a long amount of time on his current picture, not even letting Yixing see what he’s doing.

After spending 15 minutes on his picture, Luhan suddenly stands up and walks into the kitchen. Curious, Yixing follows him and stands in the doorway to watch him.

“Uhm, Mr. Wu?” Luhan speaks nervously. “I drew you a picture to say I’m sorry for making you mad before.”

The picture he hands Yifan is mostly a mess of color, but scrawled across the top he can make out ‘sorry’ spelled out in clumsy pinyin and a green heart.

“I made a green heart because Xing ge says it’s your favorite color.” His hand grips into Yifan’s shirt. “Do you like it?” he asks shyly.

Yifan awkwardly pats Luhan on the head, but Yixing can tell that he’s trying his best. “It’s the best picture I’ve ever gotten, Luhan.” Luhan smiles. “And you can call me ‘ge’ too, if you’d like.”

Luhan ponders over this for a few seconds. “No.” And with that he walks out of the kitchen, leaving Yifan very confused.