#77 – Phone Call

Kibum cooed at the giggling Jinae who smiled up at her Appa from her carrier.

The couple had just arrived home from a doctor’s appointment, a simple check-up, for their now one-year-old daughter.

Taemin smiled, and thought that she looked more and more like Kibum’s side of the family every day. 

A light tinkling from his cell phone caught his attention as he pulled the ringing phone from his back pocket. 

‘Dino’ came up as the name and Taemin laughed.  Kibum had been at his phone again.

He answered the call, “Hey hyung!”

Kibum was bouncing a happy Jinae on his hip, and totally ignoring his fiancé in the process.

“I’m getting married!” Jonghyun practically screeched into the phone.

Taemin held the phone away from his ears and blinked, trying to bring his senses back into order.

“You’re what?!” Taemin asked, sure that he hadn’t heard right, because this was Jonghyun – serial monogamist. 

Jonghyun laughed, maybe a little hysterically into the phone, “I asked Hwayoung to marry me – and she said YES!”

Taemin was surprised, but after a moment he realized that he shouldn’t have been.  This pairing had seemed more substantial than the others that he remembered his hyung being in.

“That’s great hyung, let me give the phone to Kibum and you can tell him.”

Taemin walked over to Kibum, happily presenting the phone and grabbing up his daughter at the same time. 

“Jonghyun has something to tell you,” Taemin said with a little smirk as he swung his daughter around the living room, glad to steal a little time (Kibum could hog their little bundle of joy sometimes). 

“I was playing with Jinae, so someone better be dying or dead.”  Kibum deadpanned without preamble, eyes boring into Taemin as the former dancer laughed at that lead in.

“Um…no…no one’s dying or dead…” Jonghyun sounded confused.

Kibum heaved an overly dramatic sigh, “Then what is so important that I am dragged away from my daughter?”

It was a bit over the top…but it was Kibum…

Jonghyun cleared his throat.  “I’m getting married.”  He said simply, with far less fuss than when he told Taemin just a minute before.

Kibum let that thought process for a moment.  

“You’re getting married…to Hwayoung…?” he clarified.

Taemin could picture Jonghyun scrunching up his face on the other end of the call as he listened to Key’s half of the conversation. 

“Of course to Hwayoung!” Jonghyun countered, yelling into the phone.  “Who else would I be asking to marry me?”

“Oh!” Kibum intoned, getting riled up to tease the singer good, “So you asked, Hwayoung didn’t have to guilt or goad you into it?”  Kibum glanced up at Taemin with a knowing smile and the writer laughed before putting a fidgeting Jinae down in her play pen to play with some toys.

Taemin mouthed the word ‘speaker,’ and Kibum quickly complied, putting the ranting Jonghyun onto speaker phone so both men could hear. 

“Well, it’s about time!” Taemin said loudly, cutting off the temperamental tirade.

“Wait…what?  Am I on speaker?”  Jonghyun’s voice floated through the relative quiet of their apartment.

“Yup.” Taemin grinned, “But I still say that it’s about damn time!.”

“Yeah,” Kibum added with a growing smile, seeing where Taemin was heading.  “We all have kids already and you’re only just settling down?  You’re 34 man!”

“Took you awhile, that’s all we’re saying…” Taemin teased.

“Yeah, well some of us weren’t lucky enough to find our soul mates while we were still in high school Taemin!”

Taemin grabbed Kibum’s hand and laced their fingers, “Okay, admittedly I was lucky there.  But Jinki and Minho didn’t find them young either – just younger than you.”

But behind the teasing, Taemin had felt a little glow in his chest as Jonghyun called them soul mates.  Taemin had never really believed in all of that hype, the concept seeming a little far fetched to him, but he knew others believed in it and the power that it had for other people.  Taemin could honestly say that it did seem like Kibum completed him, as corny as it sounds, and maybe if he were to believe in something like soul mates, he was sure that Kibum was his.

The couple continued to tease their former band mate good naturedly and even got to give a word of congratulations to Hwayoung when she arrived midway through the call.

“How come she gets congratulations and all I get is ribbing?”

“Because your brothers are supposed to mock you, but they have to be nice to the new sister-in-law.” Hwayoung explained gently without missing a beat, smiling at her husband-to-be.

“Exactly!” Kibum exclaimed, loud enough to wake up the peacefully slumbering Jinae who had dozed off while they talked with their friend. 

Kibum jumped to calm the child and Taemin smiled, finally turning the phone off of speaker and putting it to his ear once more.  “Hwayoung – you’re going to fit right in.”