“Baekhoooo, seriously, you don’t need to constantly bounce her. She’s asleep. We can have you and me time. Despite common misconception, children do sleep, and sleep for long periods of time…just put her in the play pen,” Ren tried to convince Baekho, who was having none of it. He knew as soon as he moved from his frozen position on the couch (where he had been for the past half hour) Mira would wake and start crying all over again.

The little girl just didn’t seem to like him. Only after he’d fed her the (disgusting) carrot puree baby food had she settled down. She had been all smiley and giggly for her father, but the instant he left she hadn’t Shut. Up. Ren acted like it was all fine and normal – but surely the child was going to be dehydrated what with all the  tears and wailing and – and whatever else it was children do.

Speaking of Ren, he seemed perfectly content to leave most of the work to Baekho, like rocking, and carrying, and feeding. He claimed it was educational. Baekho was more inclined to say Ren, being his typical diva self, may love children, but only when they were clean. Ren had looked fairly scandalized when the baby spit up all over Baekho, some of it landing on his perfectly white couch. Ren had spent all his time cleaning his couch, and Baekho had to go shirtless since Ren still lacked clothes in his size.

“Baekho, babe, come on, give her to me,” wanting to grumble in protest he allowed Mira to be taken gently from his arms and placed in her playpen. A foldable play pen that had come with her, was, according to Minhyun, perfectly easy to assemble. It had taken Baekho two hours, all with a snorting Ren feeding Mira with a bottle. Because she was, of course, perfectly well behaved in his arms. Had he mentioned that enough yet? It just wasn’t fair.

“You’re doing a really good job you know,” Ren murmured, coming up behind him to lean his head against his back, “I can tell you’ve never done this before. I think it was a really nice idea – have you had fun?” Well, the honest answer was no, but he could see some merits to this. Having Mira fall asleep in his arms was something he had never before experienced. If the child were their own, he thought he might be able to picture happy times.

“It’s tiring…but it is nice. And she’s  sweet when she wants to be, clearly,” he sighed a little, hands closing over Ren’s, enjoying the feeling of the other pressed against him. It was so surreal. Just a couple days ago they had nearly broken off their relationship. A few days before that he was stopping Ren from killing himself. Before that had been trying to convince Ren to date him. Part of him felt like things were going too easily, too smoothly. He felt like he hadn’t worked everything out yet. And besides, he could see it in Ren’s eyes when he thought no one was looking. Ren hid too much under his pretty, sweet persona.

Like this diva personality, this doting parent personality – so many different puzzle pieces that made him up that he never showed to anyone. It made him wonder what else there was to Ren. But he would just do his best to be Ren’s boyfriend, and try to forgive and forget whatever issues they might have between themselves. He hoped Ren would be able to do the same.

He brought Ren forward, suddenly feeling sentimental, kissing him lightly on top of his head, “This had been really nice, Ren babe. Maybe we can do it again…” Ren nodded as the doorbell rang and both jumped, Mira’s cue to awake with a wail of distress. Ren was quick to comfort her as Baekho went for the door,

“That was one short date…he was only gone for about three hours. He seemed so hopeful..,” he opened the door to a flushed Minhyun, “Oh…what’s wrong?” he couldn’t help but ask, and Minhyun looked fully prepared to rant.