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Zitao cries. A lot.

The first month he’s home, if he wasn’t sleeping or eating, he was crying. Both of his parents try as hard as they can to find the cause of his tears, but no matter what they do, Zitao continues. They reach a breaking point on a day where Zitao cries for a solid two hours before he falls asleep, and by that time both Yifan and Yixing are crying, worrying that they’re awful parents.

They finally take him to the doctor after 4 miserable weeks, and after finding nothing obviously wrong with him, he tells them that Zitao is colicky. Basically, he tells them that Zitao will simply cry most of the day, but he should calm down within a couple more months.

Luckily, and before they’re driven absolutely crazy, Zitao doesn’t cry as much as the months go by, but he still cries more than the average baby.

Since he was around 5 months, he would cry if he were alone at all. Yifan and Yixing worried that his constant need for contact might cause him to not explore his environment, but he was fine as long as he could look around and see one of his parents.

Though Yixing’s back to playing with his band, he’s still alternating gigs with his replacement guitarist in order to spend more time with Zitao. Because of all the time spent together, Zitao adores Yixing and doesn’t cry too much when Yixing leaves his sight because he knows he’ll return within a few seconds.

He’s not that patient with Yifan though.

Yifan had the hardest time leaving Zitao after his month of leave was over. During the first month when Zitao had been at the height of his bout with colic, Yifan had been the one to hold Zitao the most, attempting to calm him down.

He still calls during breaks to check on Zitao and speak to him, but usually Zitao will only babble into the phone for a minute before he loses interest and attempts to put the phone in his mouth.

When he’s left alone with Zitao those few nights when Yixing has a gig, the infant starts to cry if Yifan puts him down at any point. Yixing has told him over and over that Zitao only cries that much with Yifan because he’s figured out that he’s the one who will cater to his every desire.

It’s not uncommon for Yixing to come home late at night and find a sleeping Yifan sprawled across the bed with Zitao sleeping on his chest. Fatherhood has definitely softened him up.

“Zitao!” He turns his head at the sound of his name and blinks up at Yixing, who squats down to kiss his cheek. “Zitao, say bà ba.”

Zitao lets out a long string of babbled words, none of which sound like bà ba and turns back to his music toy. Yixing sighs and pokes the side of Zitao’s tummy. The infant looks personally offended that Yixing would poke him there and scoots away on his bottom, as he hasn’t learned to crawl yet.

“Zitao~” he whines.

Yifan pokes his head into the nursery. “I announced that I was home 5 times, but no one answered.”

Yixing turns around and smiles at his fiancé. “Sorry, I was busy trying to get him to talk, but he keeps ignoring me.”

“He’ll talk when he’s ready.” Zitao looks up at Yifan and completely forgets about his toy as he holds his arms up to be held. Yifan hasn’t learned yet to deny Zitao of anything and immediately gathers him in his arms.

Yixing scoffs and stands up to give Yifan a kiss. “Don’t think I haven’t heard you whispering ‘pa pa’ into the baby monitor at night.”

Yifan looks surprised that he was caught. “Well, I’m his favorite.”

“Well, since you’re his favorite, then you’ll feed him, bathe him, and put him to bed, right?”

“But I just got in!” He shifts Zitao to his other arm to keep him from tugging on his ear piercings.

Yixing shrugs. “And I had him all day. I promised to get one song done for the band to listen to by next weekend so I need to work it for a few hours. And…” He steps closer to Yifan and lowers his voice. “After you put him to bed, we can have some private time.”

This is all the incentive Yifan needs, as the couple hasn’t had any real alone time since before Zitao was born. And really, even though he may argue, he’d always do anything Yixing asked of him.

Although private time doesn’t seem like much of a reward anymore when Zitao spits up most of the mashed squash Yifan attempts to feed him. They’ve been trying to introduce new foods as Zitao grew, and if they were lucky enough to find something he liked he would eat every drop. But most of the time, half his meal would end up on his face and clothes. Yifan’s convinced that Zitao purposely dribbles food everywhere BUT on his bib.

“Come on, Zitao, it’s not that bad,” he whines. Zitao pushes the spoon away and sticks his fingers in his mouth. “Say ah~” Zitao takes the opportunity to pull his fingers from his own mouth and stick them into Yifan mouth. Yifan quickly pulls the hand out and retches at the taste of the processed baby food. Okay, maybe he could understand why Zitao didn’t want to eat it. But they were only hallway through the jar, so Yifan scoops up more squash and tries again.

Surprisingly, Zitao eats most of the remaining squash. Not-surprisingly, he spits it all up on Yifan’s shirt.

After a quick shirt change, Yifan fills the kitchen sink with water and undresses Zitao for his bath. If there’s one thing Zitao absolutely loves, it’s baths. Just being in the water makes him squeal incessantly, and he splashes water everywhere the whole time making it very difficult to actually clean him.

Another shirt change later, Yifan fits a diaper onto Zitao and puts him in blue footie pajamas. He knows that Yixing will scold him later for not putting him in those ridiculous panda pajamas he insisted on buying after realizing the dark circles around his eyes were permanent. The panda footie pajamas even came with a black and white beanie with ears, but Zitao had a habit of pulling the hat off.

Yifan yawns as he puts Zitao into his crib on his back and sits in the chair next to him. Zitao lifts his foot high enough for him to get a hold of it to play with, and unfortunately he doesn’t look tired at all.

“You know the least you can do for me is say ‘pa pa’ first,” Yifan comments. He leans his head against the bars and stares down at the energetic baby. Zitao rolls back and forth across the crib, squeaking when he reaches the bars.

“Sleeeeep.” He yawns again and pokes Zitao’s cheek through the bars. Yifan sighs and stands up. He picks out a random book from the bookshelf and sits down to read it. Every word he attempts to read, Zitao starts making loud noises to overpower Yifan. “Zitao~ be quiet and let pa pa read you the story, okay?”

Zitao seems to understand, and he puts his fingers in his mouth and stares up at Yifan. So he sits back in his chair to continue reading the book, and by the middle of the book, both he and Zitao are fast asleep.

Yifan wakes up half an hour later, confused as to his surroundings but pleased that Zitao is finally asleep. He seriously considers buying an armchair to put in the nursery as the wooden chair has his back aching. He drags his feet to his and Yixing’s bedroom and is surprised to see that the bed is still made and empty.

After changing into pajama pants and a t-shirt, he decides to peek into the office to check on Yixing’s progress. A small smiles graces his features when he finds Yixing asleep in front of the computer, headphones still looping music into his ear.

“Xing… Xing, let’s go to bed.”

Yixing stirs at the gentle shaking and blinks up at Yifan. “What time is it?”

Yifan removes the headphones and helps Yixing to his feet. He’s still very much half-asleep and leans heavily against Yifan. “It’s late. We’re going to bed.”

“But I haven’t finished the song? And-“ he yawns. “And I promised we could finally have some kind of intimacy.”

“It’s alright. This may be the one full night of sleep we can get until Zitao goes to college, so we need to take advantage of it." Yixing lies back on their bed and watches lazily as Yifan changes his pants for him.

“For the record, you’re a million percent easier to change than Zitao.”

Yixing hums and gets under the sheets as soon as Yifan’s done. “Remember when I said I wanted 3 kids?”

“Mmhmm.”

“One is enough.”

//

“Will I ever feel fully awake again?” Yixing collapses on Baekhyun’s couch as soon as he hands over Zitao.

“Mmm, probably.” Baekhyun adjusts the baby on his hip and lets him play with his necklace. “I raised Kyungsoo by myself for about a year, so I was the only one there to wake up in the middle of the night every time he cried. But you have Yifan to tag team with, so you should be fine.”

“But after that year you had Chanyeol to watch him every weekend. So both of you have at least a few nights to get good, uninterrupted sleep.”

“True. You might be sleepy for the rest of your life.”

Yixing groans and turns on his side. “Oh! What did Junmyeon get you for your anniversary?”

“Plane tickets to go visit our parents for a couple of weeks.” Baekhyun smiles slightly. “He feels bad that his work doesn’t really allow us to spend much time together, so he’s taking a week off for us to fly back home.” He sets Zitao down on the ground and goes in search of a box of Kyungsoo’s old baby toys he promised Yixing. “Does he crawl yet?” he questions, coming back in with the box.

“Not yet, he scoots.”

Baekhyun sits beside Zitao and starts handing him toys to see which one he likes better. “I admit it took Kyungsoo a long time to start moving anywhere on his own because I held him all the time.”

“How’s Chanyeol?”

The topic makes Baekhyun suddenly nervous and he almost drops the toy in his hand. “Um, fine? I guess.”

Yixing sits up and raises an eyebrow at his friend. “Don’t you know?”

“I don’t know. I mean, we message each other sometimes, but nothing too personal. And I haven’t seen him in person since we had lunch together Thursday.”

“You had… lunch together…?”

“As friends!” Baekhyun’s voice is snappy and defensive.

“Didn’t you tell me that things between you and him can only be hot or cold?”

“Well, it’s lukewarm. I’m married; he’s sort of dating. We’re just friends.”

“Okay…” Yixing lies back on the couch and closes his eyes to take a brief nap.

//

It’s 3 in the morning when Yifan wakes up to Yixing lightly punching his arm and telling him to be quiet.

He’s confused as to why Yixing would wake him just to tell him to be quiet; he’s never been told he snores. “What are you talking about?”

“I woke up because you kept saying Zitao’s name in your sleep.”

“I did? Oh.”

“Mmhmm.” Yixing rolls back over. And Yifan’s almost back to sleep when Yixing prods him again. “Stop.”

“I’m not even asleep!”

Yixing sighs and sits up. “Well, I keep hearing his name, and you’re the only other person here.”

“Maybe you’re imagining it.”

“I’m not! I clearly heard-“ he suddenly cuts off. “It’s coming from the baby monitor.” Yixing’s completely awake at this point as he pulls off the bed covers and gets out of bed. Quietly, he makes his way to the nursery and peeks through the open door, attempting to keep Zitao from seeing him. He almost screams when Yifan presses against his back with no warning.

“What are y-“ Yixing shushes him and points at the crib.

Yifan’s surprised to see that Zitao is awake and hasn’t cried for one of them yet. But he’s even more surprised when Tao’s quiet babbling morphs into a very clear ‘Tao’.

The awestruck parents stand in the doorway for almost 10 minutes, listening to Zitao repeat his name a few times before he dozes off again.

Back in their bedroom, Yixing bursts into tears. While he’s proud that Zitao has said his first word, he laments that he’s growing up to fast and that they should have another baby.

But Zitao quickly puts that thought of his mind the next day when Zitao spits up in Yixing face while lying on his chest.

First chapter!

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