I know pretty much nothing about taking care of children, and I’m really bad with children, so... junhoe is basically me pmsl.

in which junhoe is the single father of jinhwan.

#1:  jinhwan joins the elementary school soccer team.

Koo Junhoe’s been a parent for ten years, and he still has no idea what he’s doing.

“What?” he says, glancing in the rearview mirror in the backseat, where Jinhwan’s buckled securely into his car seat.

“Bobby’s joining the kids’ soccer team, and I wanna join too.”

“Who’s Bobby?” Junhoe asks, pulling out of the elementary school parking lot. Jinhwan seems to have new friends every other day, which is great and all, but Junhoe’s never been good at remembering people and he’s even worse with children.

“He moved here last week,” Jinhwan says, bouncing in his seat, “and he’s got bunny teeth and he’s in fourth grade not fifth like me but he’s cool and—”

“Breathe, Jinhwan,” Junhoe mumbles as he merges onto the street and starts driving home. “I didn’t even know you liked soccer.”

“I don’t!”

Junhoe nearly slams the car into a stoplight.

“Daddy, don’t do that,” Jinhwan whines, tugging at his seatbelt, “it makes the seatbelt get all tight and stuff.”

“Sorry, Jin, but you can’t just spring that stuff on your dear old dad.”

“Daddy, aren’t you only thirty-something? That’s not that old, that’s three times ten! Which is three of me, and I’m not old.”

Bless child logic. “Well, I’m older than you. But what’s this about you and soccer?”

“Well, today we learned that you should get at least an hour of physical activity a day,” Jinhwan enunciates the words clearly, obviously reciting something the teacher’d said, “and Bobby likes soccer, and soccer is a physical activity, right?”

Junhoe supposes Jinhwan’s got a point. Kids are supposed to run around and stuff, right? Plus, this would give Junhoe some time for himself, run errands or whatever. He loves Jinhwan, he really does, but there are some days where he lives for the time Jinhwan’s at school.

“Sure, why the hell not?”

“Language, daddy!”

This is how Junhoe ends up sitting in his neighbor’s borrowed minivan two weeks later, fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he waits for Jinhwan and a handful of other kids. Somehow, when he was signing all the forms, he’d neglected to read the part that specified that all families took carpooling shifts to and/or from practice.

“Where’s Hanbin?” Jinhwan asks from the back. Junhoe shifts his gaze up to the rearview mirror, and furrows his eyebrows.

“Who?” Junhoe really doesn’t mean to forget everyone, Jinhwan’s just far too social.

“Your second son!”

Junhoe narrows his eyes at Bobby, who’s sitting next to Jinhwan. He’d only met the kid a handful of times, but he’s already certain that this kid is definitely one of Jinhwan’s friends that he likes the least. He’s loud, ridiculously active even after an hour of running around, and seems to have no boundaries when it comes to personal space.

“Why did I remember to pick you up?”

“You’re not today. My dad’s car is over there.”

“Then what are you doing in my car?”

“I wanted to talk to Jinhwan!”

Junhoe sighs. He really just wants to go home. “Get out of my minivan.”

“See you tomorrow, Bobby!” Jinhwan yells after him as Bobby jumps out of the car (and Junhoe cringes, his neighbor is not going to like the dirt now smeared into the minivan’s carpet) and runs to his own parents.

Hanbin jumps into the backseat a minute later (oh, right, it’s the kid who wears a bandanna all the time), followed by a couple of other kids.

“Whose house are we going to first?” Junhoe asks, mostly to himself, as he scans the list. “Jung Chanwoo’s” seems the closest, so he shrugs to himself, pulling out of the spot and driving away.

“Mr. Koo?” Hanbin asks, once they’re stopped at a light, “can we stop somewhere?”

“Why?” Junhoe asks, looking over his shoulder.

“I kinda need to pee.”

“We’re not even that far away from Chanwoo’s house,” Junhoe sighs, pressing on the gas as the light turns green. “Just hold it ‘til we get there.”

“But Mr. Koo—”

Junhoe may or may not have pushed the speed limit the rest of the way to Chanwoo’s house, Hanbin throwing the door open the second Junhoe unlocked the door and sprinting up the steps, Chanwoo trailing behind him.

If there’s one thing Junhoe definitely didn’t sign up for, it was taking kids to the bathroom.

#2:  junhoe attends a soccer practice. it does not end well.

Despite being the father of one of the best kids in the world (in Junhoe’s opinion, and probably everyone else’s, too, but whatever), Junhoe doesn’t really like children.

It is for this reason that he tries to sit as far away from the other parents as he can during Jinhwan’s soccer practices and games, because he knows the minute he opens his mouth, they’re going to lambaste him to high hell.

Unfortunately, he has no choice today – for some reason, the sidelines of the makeshift field are packed with more camping chairs than usual. Junhoe sighs as he scans the side with the parents of kids that go to Jinhwan’s school, planting his chair down to a couple that he thinks seem the least offensive. Knowing his luck with people, he’ll probably end up offending them at some point, but whatever. He’ll take his chances.

“Hi!” the wife says, as Junhoe unfolds his chair, “who’s your kid?”

“Jinhwan. Number 7,” Junhoe says, motioning to his son, who’d caught sight of his father and started waving.

“You didn’t bring him here?” she asks, and Junhoe mentally rolls his eyes, already regretting his decision to sit here. He hates inane conversation.

“I had to come here from work,” he replies, revealing more about himself than he usually likes to, “so he rode with Bobby.”

“What about your wife?” she presses, and Junhoe’s just about to give up and move away when Jinhwan yells from across the field, providing a perfectly-timed and welcome escape.

“Daddy! We’re gonna start soon! Watch me, okay?”

“Kick some balls, Hwan!” Junhoe yells back, and gets a strange sort of satisfaction from the lady’s shocked facial expression after he’s said that. “That’s what you kids are here for, god damn it,” he mutters under his breath.

Smirking, he pulls his sunglasses out from his jacket pocket and slips them on, crossing his legs. He reaches down into his small cooler and pulls out a beer, cracking it open and reveling in the dirty looks he gets as he takes a long drink. Practice is an hour and a half today – plenty of time for the alcohol to finish running through his system, and god knows he needs something before he has to endure any more stupid questions.

The coach motions, and the kids start lining up in groups in front of rows of cones. Junhoe remembers this from his own school P.E. days, with less than fond memories. Once he’d hit his growth spurt, his legs always managed to get tangled up with the cones (and other players).

Luckily, it seems Jinhwan hadn’t inherited that from him – the kid zips through easily, and Junhoe’s amazed that the ball never gets too far off course.

After the lines have gone through a couple of times, the coach sends half of the kids to the goal. Junhoe recognizes the first kid in the goal as Jinhwan’s hyper friend Bobby, and as luck would have it, Jinhwan’s the first to kick. Junhoe’s torn between wanting the ball to hit the kid (gently, of course – he isn’t horrible enough to actually want bodily harm on children, no matter what his friends say) and wanting Jinhwan to make the goal.

“Isn’t that your kid?” the lady next to him asks, and Junhoe nods minutely, eyes locked on his son. Jinhwan walks back a couple of steps from the center of the field, then runs up to kick the ball.

It flies forward, grazing Bobby’s side (the darn kid jumped in the wrong direction to block it), landing in the back of the goal.

“Daddy!” Jinhwan yells, forgetting all sense of decorum and running towards the sidelines, “I made a goal!”

Junhoe gets up from his chair and picks up the boy, using the momentum to spin him around. “You did really well, Hwannie.”

The other parents are gaping at him again, and he raises one eyebrow over his aviators. “What?”

“How did—that—even—” one of the other moms seems lost for words. Junhoe sighs, patting Jinhwan on the and nudging him back in the direction of the field.

“I am an awesome parent, thank you very much.” Junhoe sits back down, crossing his legs, and sighs, turning his attention back to the field just in time to watch #26 kick a ball straight into #22’s face.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

Junhoe doesn’t even have to look to know that the parent squad probably all want to burn him alive.

#3:  junhoe gives jinhwan The Talk.

There is never a good time to have this conversation, in Junhoe’s humble opinion, but all the parenting books said around this age was a good time, so here went absolutely nothing.

Honestly, Junhoe’s been pushing this off for weeks, because he really Does Not Want to have this conversation, but he figures that now, as they’re eating breakfast in a relatively non-threatening context, is as good of a time as any.

“So, uh, sit down.”

“I am sitting down.” Jinhwan gestures to his bowl of cereal and continues eating.

“Oh, great. So. Um. You’re thirteen now, and well, you know about puberty already.”

Jinhwan nods, eyes still fixed firmly on the cornflakes swimming in milk.

“So, with puberty comes certain, uh, urges. And you might want to act on them.”

Jinhwan finishes his cereal and folds his hands together, resting his chin on top of them. Junhoe takes this as a sign to continue.

“You’re gonna get stuff called s, but no one ever calls them that besides your doctors, probably. And commercials. But anyways. Always use a , or else you’re gonna get a kid tomorrow, and I am not going to be a grandfather yet.”

Junhoe spends the next half an hour red-faced and blustering through everything he knows, or sort-of-knows, about and whatever, most of which is just awkwardly reiterating the same thing with different wording.

“Oh god, what if you’re gay, actually? I don’t know anything about gay —”

(This is a lie. Junhoe knows a decent amount about gay , or more specifically, girl-on-girl, but his son does not need to know what he did during his own teenage years. That’s a secret between him and Jinhyeong.)

Jinhwan sighs. “Oh, god, dad.”

“What?”

“Are you seriously trying to give me the talk? You know they started ed in like, fifth grade?”

Junhoe’s pretty glad he’s not eating that cereal because he probably would have choked and died. “WHAT?”

“Yeah, it’s standard, or whatever. I know all about how I was created, and safe , and all that. Honestly, dad, I probably know more than you do.”

Junhoe coughs as unobtrusively as he can. He’s feeling slightly insulted, actually, but he’s not like he’s going to tell that to Jinhwan. “Well, I mean, you should always be prepared, and all that.”

“Can I leave now?” Jinhwan asks, “I’m supposed to go see a movie with Bobby and Hanbin in half an hour.”

“Wha—n—yes.” Junhoe clears his throat, and Jinhwan looks far too amused as he pats his father on the shoulder and puts his bowl in the sink.

“ my life,” Junhoe whispers.

He didn’t even give Jinhwan the condoms.

(If Junhoe puts them in his sock drawer with a post-it note, that’s probably good enough, right?)