ROUND 01: THREE'S A FAMILY (PROMPT #17) PT. 1
Title: Three’s a Family
Pairing: Kris/Chanyeol
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 15,284 w.
Warnings: None
Summary: It started, as all things do, with one little mishap. Chanyeol goes into a supermarket run as single as can be, and comes out of the supermarket run with a husband and a kid. (Fake marriage AU!)
Prompt #: 17
A/N: almost the second after I read this prompt, I started writing it; by the time the mods had confirmed i’d claimed this prompt, I was already 5k into the fic haha. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this prompt, so thank you, dear prompter! The story grew and grew as I wrote and I’m afraid that it got a little out of control, but I hope I did it some justice.
Part 2. This is Part 1.
Jongdae, too, stares back at Kris. And then back and forth between Kris and Chanyeol standing next to each other. And then at Lanfen sitting in Chanyeol’s arms, to Chanyeol, and then back to Kris again. Slowly. "Oh my god, Jongdae says.”
Honestly Chanyeol wasn’t that much of a kid kind of person.
He was very much a kid kind of person.
Which is why he always readily agrees to go with Kris whenever Kris asks him to run some errands with him because how am I supposed to carry Lanfen and handle all the groceries, do I look like I have eight hands?Kris can be a bit more snappish than usual because of the inevitable stress that comes with being a new parent, but Chanyeol doesn’t mind if that means he can spend a few hours holding Lanfen and playing airplane with her while her dad debates over whether Lanfen likes soft or extra soft tofu better, and should he get the organic kind for the added health benefits?
“Where the hell is he, anyway,” Chanyeol mutters under his breath. This, he says in Korean so that he knows Lanfen can’t understand him, otherwise Kris would have his head for teaching Lanfen dirty language. With Lanfen in tow, he has to bend over slightly for Lanfen to walk and hold Chanyeol’s hand at the same time, and Chanyeol’s back is starting to hurt a little from the awkward posture. But, feeling Lanfen’s adorably tiny fingers in his hand, he doesn’t want to break his hold. “Don’t tell your dad about the candy, alright?” He says cheerfully.
Lanfen nods vigorously, teeth and free hand sticky with rainbow colored gummy candy. “I won’t!” She pipes up and Chanyeol feels his heart positively melting. He knows he’s going to get an earful from Kris later about child dentistry and cavities (to which Chanyeol will be sure to rebut by recounting all the instances Kris has indulged his little girl with sweets and snacks), but this makes it worth it.
“Let’s go find your dad,” Chanyeol tells her in accented mandarin (eight years living in Hong Kong has improved his fluency, but the same couldn’t be said for his Korean accent, unfortunately - and Hong Kong’s native canto? Forget it). They wander up and down the aisles of the supermarket, making sure to draw Lanfen closer to him whenever somebody whizzed by with a shopping cart particularly fast. Where could Kris be? They’d only left Kris in the veggie section, sure that by the time they came back from the candy aisle that Kris would still be there picking out baby carrots for Lanfen’s afternoon snacks at the preschool.
Chanyeol gives up, returning to the tofu aisle so that they can catch Kris when he comes back to switch out the normal tofu for the organic brand, like he always does; Chanyeol has been on enough supermarket trips with Kris and Lanfen to know this.
“Did Daddy get lost?” Lanfen wonders aloud, in her tiny, high-pitched voice.
“Sure seems like it. Your dad is such a bumbling baboon yet we can’t find him. How is this even possible, Lanfen?” Chanyeol says, making the little girl laugh with his baboon Kris imitations. And he’s good at it too; baboon Kris is his favorite to reenact. He’s so thrilled with making Lanfen laugh her innocent, pretty laughs, scooping her up into her arms pretending to be a grumpy baboon who’s snatching her away, that he doesn’t see the person walking up to them until he hears somebody calling his name.
“Chanyeol? Park Chanyeol?”
The fact that somebody who wasn’t Kris is using his Korean name here is enough to make Chanyeol pause for thought. Chanyeol spins on his heels, Lanfen sitting in his arms. The person he sees nearly makes him drop Lanfen.
“Jongdae?”
“It is you!” The young man’s face breaks into a megawatt smile, eyes curving cheerfully. “I wasn’t sure, but I swear, I could recognize your bow legs anywhere, and I was right!”
Chanyeol’s laugh is loud, startling some nearby ladies who had been otherwise peacefully doing their weekend grocery shopping. “Hey, you wish your legs were as long as mine. I haven’t seen you in forever! What are you doing in Hong Kong, you didn’t tell me you were here! And I thought I was your favorite cousin?”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t quit my medical studies in the states. I’m here for a medical research conference, just for a week,” Jongdae says. “I’ve been so busy I didn’t think of telling you I’d be in the same city, but I’m surprised my mom didn’t tell your mom already.”
“Hmmm, well, she never mentioned it to me,” Chanyeol frowns. “So, haven’t graduated yet but already attending conferences like a big shot. Should I be calling you Doctor Kim now rather than later?”
Jongdae playfully punches him in the shoulder. “Don’t you dare call me anything else but Jongdae or else I won’t give you the family discount on your hospital bills,” he says.
Ouch. “Don’t joke about things like that,” Chanyeol says. “I depend on you for my health and the happiness of my penny pinching self.”
Laughing, Jongdae says, “but enough of you.” Jongdae coos at Lanfen, who stares back with wide eyes. “What’s your name, little girl?”
“Her name is Lanfen and she’s my-”
“Lanfen!” Jongdae takes one of her hands into his own. “What a pretty name for a pretty girl!”
Chanyeol resists rolling his eyes; Jongdae’s charms knew no boundaries, and worked like magic on girls of any age - and not nefariously, of course. That was just part of his charm, too. “Baobei,” Chanyeol coaxes. “This is uncle Jongdae, can you greet him?”
“Uncle?” Lanfen stares curiously at the bright young man.
“Well, he’s not actually your-”
“Whose is she?” Jongdae interrupts, playing with Lanfen’s tiny fingers. “Of course, she’s too adorable to be yours-”
Chanyeol scoffs. “As I have been trying to say, she’s my-”
“Chanyeol?”
Once more, Chanyeol turns and this time he finds himself face to face with none other than Kris. “Kris! Finally,” Chanyeol says, exaggerating his impatience. “We were looking all over for you, where have you been? Lost in the cookie aisle?”
“No,” Kris says indignantly, sounding very much like a child who would be enamored with the cookie aisle. “There was this lady at the tasting station, trying to sell me this new kid’s snack I thought Lanfen might like... ” His voice trails off, now registering that there was a fourth person to their usual group of three. He stares at Jongdae, his facial expression of curiosity so similar to Lanfen’s that Chanyeol could instantly see how they were father and daughter, if he didn’t already know.
Jongdae, too, stares back at Kris. And then back and forth between Kris and Chanyeol standing next to each other. And then at Lanfen sitting in Chanyeol’s arms, to Chanyeol, and then back to Kris again. Slowly.
“Oh my god,” Jongdae says.
Chanyeol’s slightly on edge now. “Oh my god what,” Chanyeol asks. “Jongdae, what?”
For the second time in the space of five minutes, Jongdae punches Chanyeol again in the shoulder, harder this time. “Oh my god, I can’t believe she really is yours! You never told me you settled down and had a kid!”
Chanyeol nearly chokes on air.
“I mean, I know I’ve been extremely busy with medical school the past several years and we kind of lost touch but that is no excuse! You could have given me a phone call! How long does a phone call take, like, two minutes? Oh my god! Chanyeol, you’re a father!”
“Um, I’m-?” The situation is so bizarre that Chanyeol is at lost for words, especially under Jongdae’s barrage of words - and Chanyeol is not often at lost for words. He grabs onto Kris’ elbow and tugs on it, wordlessly telling him to say something, say anything! But Kris seems like a statue, doing nothing.
“I’m being so rude,” Jongdae addresses Kris, his face flushed with excitement from his revelation. “I never introduced myself. I’m Kim Jongdae, Chanyeol’s cousin. And you’re Kris Wu, right?”
“Kim Jongdae?” Chanyeol watches Kris’ face closely; if Kris understood Jongdae’s (very, very wrong) insinuation of Lanfen not just being Chanyeol’s daughter, but their daughter - the two of them being an item, Chanyeol almost wants to burst out laughing at the absurdity of the idea - Kris’ face isn’t giving it away. “Ah, the one who studies in America-?”
Jongdae beams even more, if that were possible. “Yes, that’s right!” Jongdae says. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Chanyeol’s best friend.”
“And you too,” Kris replies, “Chanyeol talks about you a lot. He likes to remind me that his favorite cousin is always ten times cooler than I am.”
“At least ten times,” Chanyeol corrects. He doesn’t want to admit it but he’s kinda preening at the fact that Kris remembers what he says, even though he complains that Chanyeol talks too much.
“His favorite cousin whom he apparently tells nothing to,” Jongdae looks reproachfully at Chanyeol. “I haven’t missed the wedding, have I? I didn’t see an invitation in my mail.” It’s part jest, part serious inquiry.
Kris frowns, asking Chanyeol under his breath what wedding? (Ah, so Kris remains clueless) at exactly the same time Jongdae’s phone starts ringing. While Jongdae is distracted with his phone, Chanyeol just shakes his head in response to Kris, hoping the whole thing will blow over quietly; and it apparently satisfies Kris because he doesn’t press any further, opting instead to take Lanfen out of Chanyeol’s arms. Chanyeol lets go with a small whine.
“-Oh, I’m with Chanyeol right now, mom, I ran into him at the supermarket!” Jongdae’s talking into his phone. Chanyeol holds his breath, hoping that his aunt’s timely phone call would distract Jongdae from pressing any further about this nonexistent wedding. So many times he’s gone supermarket shopping with Kris and Lanfen, he’s never had such a big misunderstanding - and from his own relative, no less.
He’ll just talk to Jongdae separately later, maybe on another day, to explain to him that he’s got it all wrong. Simple.
“And guess what?” Jongdae gleefully yells into the phone. “Did you know that Chanyeol and Kris have a kid?”
Next to him, Kris very slowly turns and stares at Chanyeol.
Not so simple.
-
It’s not only Jongdae who got it all wrong; it turns out, Chanyeol did, too.
News (gossip) spreads faster on the family grapevine than fire burns wood. By the time Chanyeol unsuccessfully reasons with his cousin (he barely gets a word in over Jongdae’s excited blabbering that they’ll get lunch together some time that week to catch up on everything and “don’t forget to bring your daughter!” While Kris merely looks amused in the background) and gets back to his apartment, he has one voicemail from his sister and (Chanyeol sighs at the red number of missed calls in his call log) four more from his mother on his cell phone.
The voicemail from his sister, Yoora, is short and sweet. “Why didn’t you tell me, dumbass? Call me.” (A pause.) “But call mom first.”
So that’s what Chanyeol does, not even bothering to listen to the voicemails left by his mother before calling since he knows that his mother will repeat everything on the phone again anyway. Chanyeol readies himself, listening intently to the phone ringing on the other end, determined to get in the first word before his mother can even so much as squeeze in a sentence when she picks up.
“Hello?”
“Mom, I need to tell you something-”
His mom cuts him off. Clearly he has (not for the first time in his life) underestimated the power of a Korean mother over her children. “Park Chanyeol, why didn’t you tell me you have a kid? With Kris? You always told me he was just your best friend-”
“He is my best friend, mo-”
“-Good god, what am I going to tell your father? I keep calling his phone, but he won’t pick up, he is going to be so upset-”
“-There’s no reason for him to be-”
“-And the entire family? Chanyeol, son, they’re going to be so offended they weren’t invited to the wedding- I mean, has there been a wedding? Please tell me there hasn’t been-”
“-There won’t be a-”
“-And if you had told me sooner, then I wouldn’t have been denied the joys of being a grandparent for even a second too late!”
“-And this is all just a big misunder- what?” Chanyeol stops. Surely he’d misheard.
“Well, you know,” his mother says, “your sister is focused on her career, and I wouldn’t want her to do anything that she doesn’t want to. But she’s not even interested in dating, so I’ve known that I wouldn’t be getting any grandchildren from her, any time soon. So I’ve been hoping - you know - that, maybe not your sister, but you might find someone you love and settle down and-”
If there is one thing Park Chanyeol is, it’s that he’s his mom’s boy.
“-I am just so glad that it’s Kris, you know I’ve always thought he was a nice boy, but I am so hurt that you kept my granddaughter away from me for such a long time. Don’t you care about your poor mother? Don’t you want to make your mother happy?”
Yes, Chanyeol thinks miserably.
“All I know about my own granddaughter is that her name is Lanfen and that she’s very cute, but Jongdae! Oh Jongdae couldn’t even get me a picture! So you must send me one and tell me everything or, better yet, I’ll come visit, I’ve been wanting to take a trip to Hong Kong to see you-”
“Mom,” Chanyeol finally interrupts. “She’s Kris’ daughter.”
“Oh!” Three seconds of silence. “What do you mean? But she’s still yours, too, right?”
Chanyeol’s shoulders fall. He’d hoped his mother would get the hint, but he doesn’t have the heart to correct her. “He had Lanfen via a surrogate mother? So biologically Lanfen is Kris’ daughter.”
“Oh that’s what you meant,” his mother laughs. “Well of course I thought something like that happened, I’m not unclear about that. But where is she now? You’re at Kris’ place aren’t you? Are you two going to move in together? Lanfen deserves to have both of her parents with her, of course. And should we start planning the wedding? A proper one! Have you talked to Kris or his parents about the location yet? If they don’t mind, I’d love it have it in Seoul. You haven’t been home in so long, and I know Kris loves Seoul like a second home.”
Mentally, Chanyeol groans.
-
“What do you mean you just let her assume we’re together?” Kris asks, his thick eyebrows set dangerously. It makes him look even more like the angry bird plushie that Chanyeol knows he has somewhere in his bedroom.
“Kris,” Chanyeol whines. “You know I can’t say no to my mom. She was so happy, I couldn’t break it to her. Imagine if it were you and your mom!”
“I don’t need to,” Kris sighs. Lanfen’s away at preschool so it’s just the two of them, in the living room of Kris’ apartment, sitting on the sofa as Kris folds the laundry. Chanyeol kind of wants to laugh at how extra small Lanfen’s cute dresses and blouses look in Kris’ abnormally large hands. He stifles it by grabbing some of the clothing in the laundry basket on the floor between them and starts folding them, though not nearly as carefully as Kris is. “My mom had already told my whole family to save the date even before she called me up.”
Chanyeol whistles low.
“She told me she’s so excited that Lanfen is getting a second parent, finally. I don’t know what I’m going to say to her,” Kris says miserably. “She’s already planning for the wedding.”
“About that. What do you think of Seoul?” Chanyeol jokes, “too bad we aren’t really marrying. Your mother sounds like she would be best friends with my mother, and we’d have the best in-law relationship ever.”
“Not if my mom’s insisting on the wedding to be in Guangzhou and your mom’s championing Seoul,” Kris says. “Maybe they’ll fight over it so bad that we’ll have to miraculously call of the wedding?”
Kris’ eyes are so full of hope, Chanyeol feels kinda cruel snuffing it out. “No chance,” he says. “My mother’s completely ecstatic that it’s you I’m marrying.”
“Who’d want to marry you?” Kris throws Chanyeol a look, but then his face changes to an expression like he’s on the verge of breakdown again. “How could this happen?”
“It’s not my fault!” Chanyeol immediately says. “I tried correcting Jongdae but then he-!!” Chanyeol throws both hands in the air and gestures wildly, as if that would get his meaning across. “And I’ll have you know, I’m a great catch, too good for you.”
“Yeah? Then why are you single?” Kris scoffs.
“I’m too good for anybody,” Chanyeol amends. “But, anyway, debating over my hotness - which is no debate - isn’t going to solve our problem here. What are we going to do?”
Kris’ hands still, putting folding the laundry on hold as he sits there, thinking. “Well,” he begins quietly, “we could always pretend we are a couple.”
Chanyeol gapes at him. He should’ve known; Kris thinking is a dangerous thing. “What?”
“I mean,” Kris says, slowly, resuming folding one of his own shirts but fumbling through it like he just needs something to do with his hands to cover his embarrassment, “it wouldn’t be so bad to just pretend to be a couple for, like, a month or two? Just to get our moms off our backs? And then pretend we broke up and decide to still remain as good friends and- well, yeah.”
Chanyeol grabs a shirt from the laundry basket and chucks it at Kris. It hits Kris satisfyingly square on the side of his face. “This is, like, the stupidest idea you’ve ever come up with. And I’ve been your best friend since university, the stupidest years of our lives, so that’s really saying something.”
Kris scowls. He picks the shirt off of him and starts folding that, too. “Well, do you have a genius idea to get out of this mess, then? Would you rather greet our moms at the airport and say, oh hey by the way we’re not really together and Lanfen’s not really your granddaughter?”
Chanyeol chews his lips. He vividly recalls that one time in high school when he lied to his mother about blowing all of his allowance on American CDs, and the punishment afterwards… Kris has a point.
“I already call your mom ‘mom,’” Kris argues. “It’s actually wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary.”
“Sometimes I really regret having invited you over to stay at my house that one time,” Chanyeol replies. It was their freshman year of university, when Kris, then an international student, couldn’t go home for the chuseok holidays. Chanyeol had invited him to stay with his family out of pity, and Mrs. Park had insisted Kris call her the Korean term for mom for the entire stay. The title had stuck ever since. “This being one of those times, in case that wasn’t obvious enough.”
“Anyway, we’ve been best friends for so many years. We know each other inside and out. It’ll be easy to pretend we’re a couple and do… whatever couples do,” Kris says, and Chanyeol could swear that he’s blushing. If Chanyeol were not embarrassed too, he’d be teasing Kris mercilessly right now.
“But isn’t that the problem,” Chanyeol says. “The fact that we’ve been best friends for so many years? How do we suddenly not be just friends?”
Kris grunts. “As if I know,” he says. “It’s just an idea.”
Chanyeol is relentless, though. “As your best friend, I know every single disgusting habit of yours. I know that you sometimes take a piss without closing the bathroom door-”
“-And I know that you drink milk straight out of the bottle, so what?”
“I do not,” Chanyeol snaps.
“You so do,” Kris retorts. “Are you forgetting the time I caught you drinking straight out of my bottle of milk from my fridge?”
“The point is!” Chanyeol says loudly over Kris. “How can anybody fall in love with you, or pretend to, knowing everything about you?” Chanyeol says. “It kills all the mystery. Couples only find out each other’s bad habits after they get married and are past the honeymoon stage.”
Snorting, Kris says, “Kills all the mystery? Let’s not make this more complicated than it is, alright, Chanyeol. We’re just pretending. It’s not for real. Our parents won’t be thinking about how we suddenly fell in love even though I know you drink milk from the bottle. It’ll be easy. You just have to be you, and pretend I’m one of your exes. Before they were your exes.”
Chanyeol wrinkles his nose at the unsavory memories. “Bad comparison.”
“No, good comparison. Because in the end, I will become one of your exes. To our parents, anyway. Look,” says Kris, putting the folded clothes into the half filled laundry basket. “I think this will be for the best for both of us. You know. Considering how our moms can be.”
Chewing his bottom lip, Chanyeol considers. “Only for a month?”
“Only for a month,” Kris promises.
-
The first step is to move in together. If they were going to act like a couple, they had to at least look like they live like one. Kris drives by Chanyeol’s apartment with his car the next day after he gets off work, and together they stuff the car to maximum capacity with Chanyeol’s suitcases and boxes, and then drive the fifteen minutes over to Kris’ apartment - much to Lanfen’s delight, who attempts to climb Chanyeol whenever and wherever possible as Chanyeol unpacks his things.
Chanyeol doesn’t know how many times he’s been in Kris’ bedroom before, but it definitely feels strange to be in Kris’ bedroom and unpacking his stuff and placing them in drawers next to Kris’ things. He opens one of the drawers to the dresser and finds Kris’ old t-shirts that he wore back when they were in college; Kris always wore things until they were threadbare, and his college t-shirts are no exception. Chanyeol smiles when he spots a familiar t-shirt that he remembers borrowing and wearing a couple times before.
Everything is so… compartmentalized in Kris’ bedroom (t-shirts in one drawer, long pants in the next, shorts in their own drawer) that Chanyeol feels subconscious about how he’d thrown all his clothes in his suitcases and how now he’s messing up Kris’ system. All that hesitation is thrown out the window, though, when Chanyeol recalls that all of this is Kris’ idea anyway, so to heck with it. Chanyeol removes the contents of a couple of drawers and stuffs them somewhere else to make room for his hoodies and jeans.
They’re sitting at dinner (Kris cooked; it’s mapo tofu night) when they begin step two: convincing Lanfen.
“It’ll be like a game,” Kris says to her. “Every time you see Grandma or Mrs. Park, you have to call Chanyeol ‘Daddy.’ it’ll be fun. What do you think?”
Lanfen swirls her spoon around in the rice and tofu doubtfully. “Like a game?”
“Don’t play with your food, Lanfen,” Kris says. “You like Chanyeol, right? He’s your Chanchan?”
Dropping her spoon into the bowl, Lanfen looks up at them, eyes bright. “Yes!”
Chanyeol smiles fondly at the nickname. “How about I have a giant sleepover at your house for a few weeks, Lanfen?”
“Daddy says I’m too young to have sleepovers,” Lanfen says.
“Oh, but your dad always makes exceptions for Chanchan,” Chanyeol says, ignoring Kris’ loud snort; hey, if it’s true, it’s true. For the most part, anyway. “And you’ll never have a sleepover like a sleepover with Chanchan.”
“Should we practice? Calling Chanyeol your dad?” Chanyeol glances to his side; Kris looks anxious.
Lanfen frowns, concentrating. “Are you getting married, Daddy?”
“No,” Kris says quickly. “No no no. Never. It’s just a game!”
“Never ever,” Chanyeol emphasizes.
“But you’ve always wanted a second parent, right, Lanfen? Chanchan could be that for you. For a few weeks.”
“I’ll be the cool dad. Would you like that?” Chanyeol asks.
“Yes,” Lanfen smiles, “can we have ice cream at our sleepover?”
Chanyeol leans across the table and drops his voice to a stage whisper. “Your dad wouldn’t let you, but this dad would. We’ll just keep it a secret between us, okay?” He leans back into his chair and winks. “But only if you finish your rice first.”
Lanfen hoots in excitement. “Daddy Chanchan is my favorite!”
Beside Chanyeol, Kris slowly shakes his head.
-
“I’m about to crap my pants,” Chanyeol whispers.
Kris looks over at him. They’re at the arrivals gate at Hong Kong International Airport, Lanfen between them, holding one hand of each parent. “You’re fine,” he whispers back.
Chanyeol’s not convinced, not when Kris himself looks like he’s about to puke. “My mom is going to see through this in, like, one second flat. Whose bright idea was this?” He hisses. “Oh yeah, that’s right. Yours!”
“Shut up,” Kris says. “Shut up shut up shut up.”
“When my mom discovers the truth and castrates me as punishment, I just want you to know that I’ll be charging you with taking care of me for the rest of your life. I mean, the rest of my life. Because you’re not gonna die without me, and leave me to take care of my castrated lonesome self.”
“That was almost romantic,” Kris comments. “And didn’t I tell you to shut up?”
“Are daddies fighting?” Lanfen interrupts innocently.
Kris gives her a strained smile. “No, of course not, sweetheart. Your daddies never fight.”
Chanyeol has a biting response on the tip of his tongue but he doesn’t get to say it because he’s spotted a familiar silhouette appear at the gate. “Oh god, here goes nothing. Wish me luck?”
Before Chanyeol leaves his side to go greet his mother, Kris suddenly grabs his wrist. “I,” he begins, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “I love you?”
Chanyeol’s heart skips a beat (out of confusion, of course) and for a second he forgets that this is just pretend. He knows Kris is just saying the three words like some people say instead of thank you in the blindness of a wild moment, but Kris is so naturally awkward that it turns out… wrong. “My mom’s never gonna believe that. Work on that in the next few minutes, will you?” Chanyeol says, before he walks into the storm.
-
“It all happened really fast,” Chanyeol smiles at his mom. The kind of smile where it’s like he has two clothespins pinching his cheeks to hold the smile up, one on each side of his face. “Like, one day we were just best friends. The next day, boom. You know. Love and all that stuff.”
“It’s funny,” his mother begins. They’re seated across from each other, his mom with Lanfen in her lap on one side of the table and Kris and Chanyeol on the other. They decided to stop for lunch before heading back to their apartment. “You’ve told me before about Kris deciding to have a child, but you didn’t really tell me that you were involved in the process.”
Chanyeol laughs. Where the heck is their waiter? Shouldn’t the appetizers have come already? “Well, you know, originally that was not the plan. Love is funny that way. And I did tell you, don’t you remember? Me calling you every week telling you about Kris? He wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without me helping him along with his decision.”
There’s a little frown playing on his mother’s lips. “Yes, but, Chanyeol-”
“-And I was so involved in the process, it seemed like I was Lanfen’s second parent already and- didn’t it, honey?” Chanyeol kicks Kris under the table.
Kris nearly chokes on the water he was so busy gulping down. “Y-yes,” he says, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “After Lanfen was born- it was only natural- to make it official.”
Chanyeol grabs Kris’ hands, threads (forces) their fingers together. Kris reflexively resists but, god dammit, if Chanyeol was going to do this and go along with Kris’ idea, he was going to have some fun with it. He places their hands on the table in plain sight, discreetly smiling with smug satisfaction when his mom notices and looks pleased, and even more so when he senses Kris growing smaller and smaller beside him.
“Well, whatever the case, I’m glad,” Mrs. Park is saying now, adjusting Lanfen’s pigtails. “I have always thought what a great son-in-law you’d make any mother, Kris. And you’re practically family already!”
It’s Kris’ turn to look smug; Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Mom, please don’t inflate Kris’ head, it’s big enough already.”
“It’s such a nice feeling, I’m sure your mother would agree,” Mrs. Park ignores him, talking to Kris instead. “It’s good knowing that my son will have somebody to depend on for the rest of his life. Especially somebody who is his best friend. You two have already been through thick and thin together, so I know you’ll last. I almost didn’t let him go to Seoul for university, did you know? To think you two might have never met!”
“Yes, he knows, Mom,” Chanyeol says, a little exasperated. “You tell him that every time you see him.”
“How long has it been, already? Ten years since you met in your first year of university?” His mom muses.
“Yup, ten years,” Kris nods. “And now,” - he gives Chanyeol’s hand a hard squeeze, so hard Chanyeol almost yelps - “many more to come!”
Chanyeol gags. Why is Kris always so goddamn cheesy. Mrs. Park beams at Kris approvingly.
To Chanyeol’s relief, his mom doesn’t have time to turn to him and expect him to say something equally lovey dovey back at his husband because the appetizers finally arrive at their table. The conversation for the rest of their lunch flows comfortably, everything back to normal like he and Chanyeol were best friends and nothing more, just like previous times Chanyeol’s invited Kris to a meal with his mom. Even when the conversation turns to Lanfen, it all feels normal, the only point of tension being when his mom mentions, casually, that Lanfen should get a proper Korean name too, in addition to her Chinese one, “since one half of her parents is a Korean, Kris, my dear, you wouldn’t mind, would you?” she says.
But besides that, Chanyeol could easily forget that he and Kris were playing a big game of pretend.
“Chanyeol, sweetie, I was thinking,” Mrs. Park says when they’ve finished the meal and Kris has paid the check (“the breadwinner of the family,” Chanyeol’s voice drips with honey as he hands the check to Kris), “I should probably stay at your place to help take care of Lanfen while you two are at work. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
“Good idea?” Chanyeol sputters, as Kris shakes his head enthusiastically next to him. “Oh, no no no. We’re fine, mom, really, you don’t have to do that.”
Mrs. Park frowns at him. “Why ever not? I won’t get in your way. I’m sure Lanfen won’t mind having her grandma around.”
“I’m sure Lanfen would love to have grandma park around,” Chanyeol says, nudging Kris with his elbow, “but, you know, our apartment is getting a little short on room, you won’t be comfortable there.”
“I agree, Mom,” Kris pipes up, finally getting Chanyeol’s hints, “we want you to enjoy your stay here at Hong Kong, so we’ve booked a hotel for you, it’s very nearby-”
“A hotel? No, no, that won’t do.”
“Really,” Kris presses. “We don’t want to trouble you with babysitting Lanfen. She goes to preschool during the day.”
“Oh my goodness! Already old enough to go to preschool, I see,” Mrs. Park says. “They grow up so fast. All the more reason to stay with Lanfen and you two so I can spend as much time as possible together. I thought Chanyeol mentioned once that you had a spare bedroom?”
“I did?” Chanyeol asks. “I mean, yes, he does, but it’s currently taken up by his collection of stuffed animals, so-”
“Storage,” Kris hurriedly corrects.
“-Yeah, so we can’t have you stay there. It’s too full of stuff. We didn’t get a chance to clear the room out before you came!” Chanyeol laughs nervously, praying his mom would take the hint. That’s where he’s going to sleep, dammit.
Suddenly, his mother’s smile turns sly and all knowing. “Oh, I get it,” she says. “Fine, I’ll stay at the hotel instead of at your apartment. Don’t worry, you two will have your privacy.” She winks at Chanyeol at the word privacy.
“What?” Kris and Chanyeol blurts out in unison.
Mrs. Park stares at them. “You two do sleep together, right? I may be old fashioned sometimes and I may always think of Chanyeol as my child, but I’m not oblivious to-”
“Yes,” Kris says quickly. “Yes, we do. In, um, our bedroom.”
Chanyeol’s laugh is shaky. “Yes. Ha. Sleeping together. Our bedroom.”
“Don’t think I won’t be coming over frequently, though,” Mrs. Park warns. “Nothing is going to keep me away from my grandchild! Maybe you two could even go on a date night while I babysit, I’m sure you two have been lacking time to do that.”
“Date night sounds great,” Kris says. “Right, honey?”
“Huh? Oh yes, great. Sounds great,” Chanyeol repeats mindlessly, too preoccupied with the phrase our bedroom.
-
“So,” Chanyeol says. “Um.” He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, back and forth.
“What are you doing there,” Kris says. His eyes are closed and his voice is muffled from half of his face being buried into his pillow. “I’m dead tired. Turn off the light and get in bed.”
“Get in bed?” Chanyeol squeaks. “We’re actually doing this, huh.”
Kris cracks one eye open to stare at Chanyeol still hovering at the door to the bathroom off the bedroom. He does look exhausted. Chanyeol wonders if it’s from playing pretend all day with his mom or whether it’s from the trials of putting Lanfen to bed. Probably both. “You heard your mother. She’s going to come over whenever she wants. You want your mother to come here in the morning and catch you sleeping in the guest room while I’m in the master bedroom? No, thanks, I’d like to keep my dick attached to me.”
“I don’t care about your dick, though,” Chanyeol points out.
“Mine won’t be the only one falling off,” Kris counters.
“Well,” Chanyeol says reluctantly. “When you put it that way…”
Chanyeol gingerly climbs into the other half of the bed, picking up the blanket carefully, afraid of messing up Kris’ side of the bed, which seems pristine and wrinkle-free. He lies still, trying not to make any movement, even though he knows in the morning the blankets are going to be all over the place and tangled up in his legs. Kris hates that.
But Chanyeol? Chanyeol hates that it’s dead silent in the pitch black.
Kris’ voice breaks the suffocating silence. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?” Chanyeol frowns. And here he thought he was doing a good job of not disturbing Kris.
“Stop making this weird.”
“I’m not doing anything!” Chanyeol says indignantly.
Kris flips over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah, exactly.”
“Question,” Chanyeol hisses. “But what part of pretending to be married to your best friend could be considered not weird to you?”
“You agreed to this,” Kris hisses back. “Anyway, we’ve slept in the same bed together before. It’s not any different this time.”
It’s true. Chanyeol remembers that, in college, when he was too drunk or too tired to go back to his own dorm, he’d crash at Kris’ and squeeze into Kris’ bed even though they were both too big and too tall for the tiny twin sized bed. It really didn’t bother Chanyeol back then, and in fact, he liked it - enjoyed intruding upon Kris’ space because it annoyed Kris and nothing delighted Chanyeol more than annoying Kris.
Unlike right now.
“Sorry, sorry,” Chanyeol says. He’s on his back now, too, shoulder to shoulder with Kris. It feels nice this way, the sound of Kris’ slow and steady breathing that’s giving away to sleep calming the jumbled thoughts in Chanyeol’s head. “You’re right, I’m just being weird. I blame all the playing pretend stuff. It’s exhausting.”
Kris falls silent, making Chanyeol think he’s finally drifted off to sleep… “Thanks for doing this, by the way.”
“Stop sounding grateful towards me, I’m not used to it,” Chanyeol jokes. “Anyway, I’m not doing this only for you, remember?”
“Yeah, but…” Kris’ words get slower and slower. “I think Lanfen likes it. When I was putting her to bed, she said she was happy with her new family. Can you believe that? She calls you and your mom her new family.”
“Cute.”
“I guess it gets a little lonely… just Lanfen and me,” Kris says.
Chanyeol digests this information. “So do you actually want to get married one day?”
Silence.
“Kris?”
He’s greeted with a snore. Chanyeol snorts to himself, and then lets sleep take over.
-
“It’s been three days since I heard the news, and yet this is the first time you’re calling me since then. This better be damn good,” Yoora is saying over the phone.
“It’s not what you think,” Chanyeol says.
“Please enlighten me what I think, because I don’t even know what I think,” Yoora replies.
“You can’t tell mom.”
Yoora pauses. “Go on.”
Chanyeol takes a deep breath before diving in headfirst. “Kris and I aren’t really engaged.”
“Oh my god,” Yoora says, and nothing else.
“...Yoora?”
“You are so dead,” she finally answers.
“Which is why you can never tell mom,” Chanyeol presses. “I’m only doing this because dumb Jongdae took a leap of wild ass assumption and then proceeded to tell everybody in our family before I could stop him. And I didn’t want to tell the truth to mom.” He chews his bottom lip. “She sounded so happy.”
“You know mom has been wanting grandchildren since forever,” Yoora says. “So you pretend to be engaged with Kris and pretend to raise Kris’ kid together. Then what? You pretend to break up? Mom is going to be heartbroken in the end anyway.”
Chanyeol doesn’t reply, but groans instead. His older sister is right. Yoora has always been the more clearheaded of the two siblings. When Yoora articulates a situation Chanyeol is in, Chanyeol always ends up seeing how stupid he’d been. “It was Kris’ idea,” he says, punting the blame.
“But you agreed to it,” Yoora points out.
“Yeah, I know,” Chanyeol, snaps. “I can’t believe you didn’t question it when you got the news, though. Really? Kris and me? Together?”
“Is it really that hard to believe?” Yoora asks, using that tone of voice that says to Chanyeol, no it really isn’t, dumbass.
In the next room, Chanyeol hears Lanfen wake up. “Oops, gotta run,” Chanyeol says, suddenly not entirely sad that the conversation is over. “Got a kid to take care of, you know.”
“Can’t wait to meet my new pseudo niece,” Yoora says. “I’ll be flying in, in a few weeks. Mom recruited my help to plan for the wedding.”
“She changed her mind to Hong Kong being the location?” He’s surprised. That was fast.
“Yeah, because it’s not as far away as Vancouver, she said,” Yoora laughs. “This is gonna be fun.”
“Well, that makes one of us,” Chanyeol says.
When he hangs up, Kris is dashing out of the bathroom, tie half done. “Can you-”
“-Drop Lanfen off at school?” Chanyeol finishes for him. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry.”
“I have an early meeting at the company I can’t miss and she only just woke up,” Kris says, tugging his tie into a stubborn knot. “I’m sorry-”
“As if I’m not already used to you calling me up once a week to ask me to drop Lanfen off or pick her up from school. Besides, what’s a second parent for?” Chanyeol jokes.
“Alright. I’m going,” Kris gets up, smooths his tie and shirt. “Don’t stop at the bakery on the way and get her egg tarts, okay? Mrs. Chang says Lanfen ends up not eating her lunch if she’s had too much egg tart-”
Chanyeol makes a face, like a child. “Mrs. Chang is a no-fun teacher, then. But, fine, no egg tart.” He follows Kris as he walks out of the bedroom and down the hall to the front entry of the apartment. “Aren’t you going to give your husband a goodbye kiss?”
Kris gives him a strange look when Chanyeol emphasizes his point by pointing at his cheek. “You’re not for real… are you?”
Chanyeol opens the door and shoves Kris out. “No, dumbass,” Chanyeol laughs. “Had you fooled though!”
“You’re not going to let this be easy, are you,” Kris says shaking his head.
“Have a good day at work, honey!”
-
Working at a music production label means that Chanyeol’s work hours are a lot more flexible than Kris’ stuffy global corporate workplace - a fact that Kris often takes advantage of, when he works long hours and can’t pick Lanfen up from school or, like this morning, drop her off at school - but it also means that sometimes his unconventional hours turn into working well past five. That was just the way work was; he worked whenever inspiration hit. But Chanyeol likes working in music; it was the primary reason why he moved to Hong Kong after college anyway - to take advantage of a chance to work in the Chinese music industry, so much bigger and fuller of opportunities than the music industry back at home.
Tonight is one of those nights when work and creativity won’t stop for anyone or for dinner, either. Chanyeol comes back to Kris’ apartment to find that there’s dinner waiting on the stove to be reheated and eaten. Chanyeol lifts the lid of the pot. Kimchi jjigae - smells like home. Ah, so, his mother had been there earlier.
“Daddy Chanchan!” Chanyeol hears Lanfen scream as she runs to him, her footsteps sounding like small rolls of thunder. Laughing, Chanyeol scoops her up in his arms.
“Had a good day at school today, baobei?” Chanyeol asks.
“Yeah!” Lanfen says enthusiastically. “Grandma Park came with Daddy to pick me up.”
“Oh, really?” Chanyeol says. That’s a little worrying to hear, his mother and Kris spending time together.
“I talked to Grandma Park in Korean,” Lanfen boasts proudly. “She understood me!”
Chanyeol is truly impressed with this, and his chest swells with pride. He taught Lanfen some Korean, and Lanfen had actually learned something - he knew this already, because Lanfen could understand some of the things he said if he spoke in Korean, but it was something altogether to know that Lanfen could actually speak it, too. Sometimes Lanfen would name Korean dishes, but that was about it. This was the first time she’d spoken the language. “Really? That’s amazing, Lanfen!”
“She only said a few sentences in greeting.” Kris stands at the doorway to the kitchen, looking at the two of them with a small smile on his face. He’s dressed in sweats like he’s ready to go to bed. “But your mother was beside herself with happiness.”
Chanyeol laughs. “Let me guess - she said talked about preserving the ancient tradition of the Korean language abroad. Or something like that.”
“She was so happy I let her have her moment,” Kris says, smiling at the memory.
“Still, I think this calls for a reward,” Chanyeol says, returning his attention to Lanfen. “What do you say to ice cream?”
Lanfen yells her approval. Kris shakes his head in the background (“ice cream before bed on a school night? Disaster,” he says) but he doesn’t stop Chanyeol from opening up the freezer and digging out the chocolate ice cream.
“You can tell all the kids in school you’re bilingual now,” Chanyeol jokes as Lanfen happily digs ice cream out of the tub and straight into her mouth, “and you learned it from your bilingual parents. Not everybody could say that!”
Lanfen hums happily, her legs swinging under the table.
Later, after they’ve put Lanfen to bed (during which Chanyeol learns the regret of giving a child sugar before bedtime), Kris remarks, “I had no idea Lanfen speaking Korean could make you that happy.” He looks amused.
Chanyeol climbs into bed. It’s so much less awkward than it was the first night - in fact, it isn’t awkward at all, which makes Chanyeol wonder why it was so weird the first night in the first place. “It’s not like I have a kid of my own,” Chanyeol says. “It’s kind of nice to know that you’ve had a positive impact on a tiny human.”
“Uh oh,” Kris says. “You sound like you’re ready to be a parent. Am I going to be an uncle soon?”
“Nah, I leave the hard stuff to you. I’ll just take the credit for Lanfen turning into a bilingual musical genius,” Chanyeol snorts, turning off the light.
“Musical genius?”
“Like her second dad, of course,” comes Chanyeol’s smug reply, with which he is rewarded a pillow smacked on his face.
Pairing: Kris/Chanyeol
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 15,284 w.
Warnings: None
Summary: It started, as all things do, with one little mishap. Chanyeol goes into a supermarket run as single as can be, and comes out of the supermarket run with a husband and a kid. (Fake marriage AU!)
Prompt #: 17
A/N: almost the second after I read this prompt, I started writing it; by the time the mods had confirmed i’d claimed this prompt, I was already 5k into the fic haha. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this prompt, so thank you, dear prompter! The story grew and grew as I wrote and I’m afraid that it got a little out of control, but I hope I did it some justice.
Part 2. This is Part 1.
Jongdae, too, stares back at Kris. And then back and forth between Kris and Chanyeol standing next to each other. And then at Lanfen sitting in Chanyeol’s arms, to Chanyeol, and then back to Kris again. Slowly. "Oh my god, Jongdae says.”
Honestly Chanyeol wasn’t that much of a kid kind of person.
He was very much a kid kind of person.
Which is why he always readily agrees to go with Kris whenever Kris asks him to run some errands with him because how am I supposed to carry Lanfen and handle all the groceries, do I look like I have eight hands?Kris can be a bit more snappish than usual because of the inevitable stress that comes with being a new parent, but Chanyeol doesn’t mind if that means he can spend a few hours holding Lanfen and playing airplane with her while her dad debates over whether Lanfen likes soft or extra soft tofu better, and should he get the organic kind for the added health benefits?
“Where the hell is he, anyway,” Chanyeol mutters under his breath. This, he says in Korean so that he knows Lanfen can’t understand him, otherwise Kris would have his head for teaching Lanfen dirty language. With Lanfen in tow, he has to bend over slightly for Lanfen to walk and hold Chanyeol’s hand at the same time, and Chanyeol’s back is starting to hurt a little from the awkward posture. But, feeling Lanfen’s adorably tiny fingers in his hand, he doesn’t want to break his hold. “Don’t tell your dad about the candy, alright?” He says cheerfully.
Lanfen nods vigorously, teeth and free hand sticky with rainbow colored gummy candy. “I won’t!” She pipes up and Chanyeol feels his heart positively melting. He knows he’s going to get an earful from Kris later about child dentistry and cavities (to which Chanyeol will be sure to rebut by recounting all the instances Kris has indulged his little girl with sweets and snacks), but this makes it worth it.
“Let’s go find your dad,” Chanyeol tells her in accented mandarin (eight years living in Hong Kong has improved his fluency, but the same couldn’t be said for his Korean accent, unfortunately - and Hong Kong’s native canto? Forget it). They wander up and down the aisles of the supermarket, making sure to draw Lanfen closer to him whenever somebody whizzed by with a shopping cart particularly fast. Where could Kris be? They’d only left Kris in the veggie section, sure that by the time they came back from the candy aisle that Kris would still be there picking out baby carrots for Lanfen’s afternoon snacks at the preschool.
Chanyeol gives up, returning to the tofu aisle so that they can catch Kris when he comes back to switch out the normal tofu for the organic brand, like he always does; Chanyeol has been on enough supermarket trips with Kris and Lanfen to know this.
“Did Daddy get lost?” Lanfen wonders aloud, in her tiny, high-pitched voice.
“Sure seems like it. Your dad is such a bumbling baboon yet we can’t find him. How is this even possible, Lanfen?” Chanyeol says, making the little girl laugh with his baboon Kris imitations. And he’s good at it too; baboon Kris is his favorite to reenact. He’s so thrilled with making Lanfen laugh her innocent, pretty laughs, scooping her up into her arms pretending to be a grumpy baboon who’s snatching her away, that he doesn’t see the person walking up to them until he hears somebody calling his name.
“Chanyeol? Park Chanyeol?”
The fact that somebody who wasn’t Kris is using his Korean name here is enough to make Chanyeol pause for thought. Chanyeol spins on his heels, Lanfen sitting in his arms. The person he sees nearly makes him drop Lanfen.
“Jongdae?”
“It is you!” The young man’s face breaks into a megawatt smile, eyes curving cheerfully. “I wasn’t sure, but I swear, I could recognize your bow legs anywhere, and I was right!”
Chanyeol’s laugh is loud, startling some nearby ladies who had been otherwise peacefully doing their weekend grocery shopping. “Hey, you wish your legs were as long as mine. I haven’t seen you in forever! What are you doing in Hong Kong, you didn’t tell me you were here! And I thought I was your favorite cousin?”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t quit my medical studies in the states. I’m here for a medical research conference, just for a week,” Jongdae says. “I’ve been so busy I didn’t think of telling you I’d be in the same city, but I’m surprised my mom didn’t tell your mom already.”
“Hmmm, well, she never mentioned it to me,” Chanyeol frowns. “So, haven’t graduated yet but already attending conferences like a big shot. Should I be calling you Doctor Kim now rather than later?”
Jongdae playfully punches him in the shoulder. “Don’t you dare call me anything else but Jongdae or else I won’t give you the family discount on your hospital bills,” he says.
Ouch. “Don’t joke about things like that,” Chanyeol says. “I depend on you for my health and the happiness of my penny pinching self.”
Laughing, Jongdae says, “but enough of you.” Jongdae coos at Lanfen, who stares back with wide eyes. “What’s your name, little girl?”
“Her name is Lanfen and she’s my-”
“Lanfen!” Jongdae takes one of her hands into his own. “What a pretty name for a pretty girl!”
Chanyeol resists rolling his eyes; Jongdae’s charms knew no boundaries, and worked like magic on girls of any age - and not nefariously, of course. That was just part of his charm, too. “Baobei,” Chanyeol coaxes. “This is uncle Jongdae, can you greet him?”
“Uncle?” Lanfen stares curiously at the bright young man.
“Well, he’s not actually your-”
“Whose is she?” Jongdae interrupts, playing with Lanfen’s tiny fingers. “Of course, she’s too adorable to be yours-”
Chanyeol scoffs. “As I have been trying to say, she’s my-”
“Chanyeol?”
Once more, Chanyeol turns and this time he finds himself face to face with none other than Kris. “Kris! Finally,” Chanyeol says, exaggerating his impatience. “We were looking all over for you, where have you been? Lost in the cookie aisle?”
“No,” Kris says indignantly, sounding very much like a child who would be enamored with the cookie aisle. “There was this lady at the tasting station, trying to sell me this new kid’s snack I thought Lanfen might like... ” His voice trails off, now registering that there was a fourth person to their usual group of three. He stares at Jongdae, his facial expression of curiosity so similar to Lanfen’s that Chanyeol could instantly see how they were father and daughter, if he didn’t already know.
Jongdae, too, stares back at Kris. And then back and forth between Kris and Chanyeol standing next to each other. And then at Lanfen sitting in Chanyeol’s arms, to Chanyeol, and then back to Kris again. Slowly.
“Oh my god,” Jongdae says.
Chanyeol’s slightly on edge now. “Oh my god what,” Chanyeol asks. “Jongdae, what?”
For the second time in the space of five minutes, Jongdae punches Chanyeol again in the shoulder, harder this time. “Oh my god, I can’t believe she really is yours! You never told me you settled down and had a kid!”
Chanyeol nearly chokes on air.
“I mean, I know I’ve been extremely busy with medical school the past several years and we kind of lost touch but that is no excuse! You could have given me a phone call! How long does a phone call take, like, two minutes? Oh my god! Chanyeol, you’re a father!”
“Um, I’m-?” The situation is so bizarre that Chanyeol is at lost for words, especially under Jongdae’s barrage of words - and Chanyeol is not often at lost for words. He grabs onto Kris’ elbow and tugs on it, wordlessly telling him to say something, say anything! But Kris seems like a statue, doing nothing.
“I’m being so rude,” Jongdae addresses Kris, his face flushed with excitement from his revelation. “I never introduced myself. I’m Kim Jongdae, Chanyeol’s cousin. And you’re Kris Wu, right?”
“Kim Jongdae?” Chanyeol watches Kris’ face closely; if Kris understood Jongdae’s (very, very wrong) insinuation of Lanfen not just being Chanyeol’s daughter, but their daughter - the two of them being an item, Chanyeol almost wants to burst out laughing at the absurdity of the idea - Kris’ face isn’t giving it away. “Ah, the one who studies in America-?”
Jongdae beams even more, if that were possible. “Yes, that’s right!” Jongdae says. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Chanyeol’s best friend.”
“And you too,” Kris replies, “Chanyeol talks about you a lot. He likes to remind me that his favorite cousin is always ten times cooler than I am.”
“At least ten times,” Chanyeol corrects. He doesn’t want to admit it but he’s kinda preening at the fact that Kris remembers what he says, even though he complains that Chanyeol talks too much.
“His favorite cousin whom he apparently tells nothing to,” Jongdae looks reproachfully at Chanyeol. “I haven’t missed the wedding, have I? I didn’t see an invitation in my mail.” It’s part jest, part serious inquiry.
Kris frowns, asking Chanyeol under his breath what wedding? (Ah, so Kris remains clueless) at exactly the same time Jongdae’s phone starts ringing. While Jongdae is distracted with his phone, Chanyeol just shakes his head in response to Kris, hoping the whole thing will blow over quietly; and it apparently satisfies Kris because he doesn’t press any further, opting instead to take Lanfen out of Chanyeol’s arms. Chanyeol lets go with a small whine.
“-Oh, I’m with Chanyeol right now, mom, I ran into him at the supermarket!” Jongdae’s talking into his phone. Chanyeol holds his breath, hoping that his aunt’s timely phone call would distract Jongdae from pressing any further about this nonexistent wedding. So many times he’s gone supermarket shopping with Kris and Lanfen, he’s never had such a big misunderstanding - and from his own relative, no less.
He’ll just talk to Jongdae separately later, maybe on another day, to explain to him that he’s got it all wrong. Simple.
“And guess what?” Jongdae gleefully yells into the phone. “Did you know that Chanyeol and Kris have a kid?”
Next to him, Kris very slowly turns and stares at Chanyeol.
Not so simple.
-
It’s not only Jongdae who got it all wrong; it turns out, Chanyeol did, too.
News (gossip) spreads faster on the family grapevine than fire burns wood. By the time Chanyeol unsuccessfully reasons with his cousin (he barely gets a word in over Jongdae’s excited blabbering that they’ll get lunch together some time that week to catch up on everything and “don’t forget to bring your daughter!” While Kris merely looks amused in the background) and gets back to his apartment, he has one voicemail from his sister and (Chanyeol sighs at the red number of missed calls in his call log) four more from his mother on his cell phone.
The voicemail from his sister, Yoora, is short and sweet. “Why didn’t you tell me, dumbass? Call me.” (A pause.) “But call mom first.”
So that’s what Chanyeol does, not even bothering to listen to the voicemails left by his mother before calling since he knows that his mother will repeat everything on the phone again anyway. Chanyeol readies himself, listening intently to the phone ringing on the other end, determined to get in the first word before his mother can even so much as squeeze in a sentence when she picks up.
“Hello?”
“Mom, I need to tell you something-”
His mom cuts him off. Clearly he has (not for the first time in his life) underestimated the power of a Korean mother over her children. “Park Chanyeol, why didn’t you tell me you have a kid? With Kris? You always told me he was just your best friend-”
“He is my best friend, mo-”
“-Good god, what am I going to tell your father? I keep calling his phone, but he won’t pick up, he is going to be so upset-”
“-There’s no reason for him to be-”
“-And the entire family? Chanyeol, son, they’re going to be so offended they weren’t invited to the wedding- I mean, has there been a wedding? Please tell me there hasn’t been-”
“-There won’t be a-”
“-And if you had told me sooner, then I wouldn’t have been denied the joys of being a grandparent for even a second too late!”
“-And this is all just a big misunder- what?” Chanyeol stops. Surely he’d misheard.
“Well, you know,” his mother says, “your sister is focused on her career, and I wouldn’t want her to do anything that she doesn’t want to. But she’s not even interested in dating, so I’ve known that I wouldn’t be getting any grandchildren from her, any time soon. So I’ve been hoping - you know - that, maybe not your sister, but you might find someone you love and settle down and-”
If there is one thing Park Chanyeol is, it’s that he’s his mom’s boy.
“-I am just so glad that it’s Kris, you know I’ve always thought he was a nice boy, but I am so hurt that you kept my granddaughter away from me for such a long time. Don’t you care about your poor mother? Don’t you want to make your mother happy?”
Yes, Chanyeol thinks miserably.
“All I know about my own granddaughter is that her name is Lanfen and that she’s very cute, but Jongdae! Oh Jongdae couldn’t even get me a picture! So you must send me one and tell me everything or, better yet, I’ll come visit, I’ve been wanting to take a trip to Hong Kong to see you-”
“Mom,” Chanyeol finally interrupts. “She’s Kris’ daughter.”
“Oh!” Three seconds of silence. “What do you mean? But she’s still yours, too, right?”
Chanyeol’s shoulders fall. He’d hoped his mother would get the hint, but he doesn’t have the heart to correct her. “He had Lanfen via a surrogate mother? So biologically Lanfen is Kris’ daughter.”
“Oh that’s what you meant,” his mother laughs. “Well of course I thought something like that happened, I’m not unclear about that. But where is she now? You’re at Kris’ place aren’t you? Are you two going to move in together? Lanfen deserves to have both of her parents with her, of course. And should we start planning the wedding? A proper one! Have you talked to Kris or his parents about the location yet? If they don’t mind, I’d love it have it in Seoul. You haven’t been home in so long, and I know Kris loves Seoul like a second home.”
Mentally, Chanyeol groans.
-
“What do you mean you just let her assume we’re together?” Kris asks, his thick eyebrows set dangerously. It makes him look even more like the angry bird plushie that Chanyeol knows he has somewhere in his bedroom.
“Kris,” Chanyeol whines. “You know I can’t say no to my mom. She was so happy, I couldn’t break it to her. Imagine if it were you and your mom!”
“I don’t need to,” Kris sighs. Lanfen’s away at preschool so it’s just the two of them, in the living room of Kris’ apartment, sitting on the sofa as Kris folds the laundry. Chanyeol kind of wants to laugh at how extra small Lanfen’s cute dresses and blouses look in Kris’ abnormally large hands. He stifles it by grabbing some of the clothing in the laundry basket on the floor between them and starts folding them, though not nearly as carefully as Kris is. “My mom had already told my whole family to save the date even before she called me up.”
Chanyeol whistles low.
“She told me she’s so excited that Lanfen is getting a second parent, finally. I don’t know what I’m going to say to her,” Kris says miserably. “She’s already planning for the wedding.”
“About that. What do you think of Seoul?” Chanyeol jokes, “too bad we aren’t really marrying. Your mother sounds like she would be best friends with my mother, and we’d have the best in-law relationship ever.”
“Not if my mom’s insisting on the wedding to be in Guangzhou and your mom’s championing Seoul,” Kris says. “Maybe they’ll fight over it so bad that we’ll have to miraculously call of the wedding?”
Kris’ eyes are so full of hope, Chanyeol feels kinda cruel snuffing it out. “No chance,” he says. “My mother’s completely ecstatic that it’s you I’m marrying.”
“Who’d want to marry you?” Kris throws Chanyeol a look, but then his face changes to an expression like he’s on the verge of breakdown again. “How could this happen?”
“It’s not my fault!” Chanyeol immediately says. “I tried correcting Jongdae but then he-!!” Chanyeol throws both hands in the air and gestures wildly, as if that would get his meaning across. “And I’ll have you know, I’m a great catch, too good for you.”
“Yeah? Then why are you single?” Kris scoffs.
“I’m too good for anybody,” Chanyeol amends. “But, anyway, debating over my hotness - which is no debate - isn’t going to solve our problem here. What are we going to do?”
Kris’ hands still, putting folding the laundry on hold as he sits there, thinking. “Well,” he begins quietly, “we could always pretend we are a couple.”
Chanyeol gapes at him. He should’ve known; Kris thinking is a dangerous thing. “What?”
“I mean,” Kris says, slowly, resuming folding one of his own shirts but fumbling through it like he just needs something to do with his hands to cover his embarrassment, “it wouldn’t be so bad to just pretend to be a couple for, like, a month or two? Just to get our moms off our backs? And then pretend we broke up and decide to still remain as good friends and- well, yeah.”
Chanyeol grabs a shirt from the laundry basket and chucks it at Kris. It hits Kris satisfyingly square on the side of his face. “This is, like, the stupidest idea you’ve ever come up with. And I’ve been your best friend since university, the stupidest years of our lives, so that’s really saying something.”
Kris scowls. He picks the shirt off of him and starts folding that, too. “Well, do you have a genius idea to get out of this mess, then? Would you rather greet our moms at the airport and say, oh hey by the way we’re not really together and Lanfen’s not really your granddaughter?”
Chanyeol chews his lips. He vividly recalls that one time in high school when he lied to his mother about blowing all of his allowance on American CDs, and the punishment afterwards… Kris has a point.
“I already call your mom ‘mom,’” Kris argues. “It’s actually wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary.”
“Sometimes I really regret having invited you over to stay at my house that one time,” Chanyeol replies. It was their freshman year of university, when Kris, then an international student, couldn’t go home for the chuseok holidays. Chanyeol had invited him to stay with his family out of pity, and Mrs. Park had insisted Kris call her the Korean term for mom for the entire stay. The title had stuck ever since. “This being one of those times, in case that wasn’t obvious enough.”
“Anyway, we’ve been best friends for so many years. We know each other inside and out. It’ll be easy to pretend we’re a couple and do… whatever couples do,” Kris says, and Chanyeol could swear that he’s blushing. If Chanyeol were not embarrassed too, he’d be teasing Kris mercilessly right now.
“But isn’t that the problem,” Chanyeol says. “The fact that we’ve been best friends for so many years? How do we suddenly not be just friends?”
Kris grunts. “As if I know,” he says. “It’s just an idea.”
Chanyeol is relentless, though. “As your best friend, I know every single disgusting habit of yours. I know that you sometimes take a piss without closing the bathroom door-”
“-And I know that you drink milk straight out of the bottle, so what?”
“I do not,” Chanyeol snaps.
“You so do,” Kris retorts. “Are you forgetting the time I caught you drinking straight out of my bottle of milk from my fridge?”
“The point is!” Chanyeol says loudly over Kris. “How can anybody fall in love with you, or pretend to, knowing everything about you?” Chanyeol says. “It kills all the mystery. Couples only find out each other’s bad habits after they get married and are past the honeymoon stage.”
Snorting, Kris says, “Kills all the mystery? Let’s not make this more complicated than it is, alright, Chanyeol. We’re just pretending. It’s not for real. Our parents won’t be thinking about how we suddenly fell in love even though I know you drink milk from the bottle. It’ll be easy. You just have to be you, and pretend I’m one of your exes. Before they were your exes.”
Chanyeol wrinkles his nose at the unsavory memories. “Bad comparison.”
“No, good comparison. Because in the end, I will become one of your exes. To our parents, anyway. Look,” says Kris, putting the folded clothes into the half filled laundry basket. “I think this will be for the best for both of us. You know. Considering how our moms can be.”
Chewing his bottom lip, Chanyeol considers. “Only for a month?”
“Only for a month,” Kris promises.
-
The first step is to move in together. If they were going to act like a couple, they had to at least look like they live like one. Kris drives by Chanyeol’s apartment with his car the next day after he gets off work, and together they stuff the car to maximum capacity with Chanyeol’s suitcases and boxes, and then drive the fifteen minutes over to Kris’ apartment - much to Lanfen’s delight, who attempts to climb Chanyeol whenever and wherever possible as Chanyeol unpacks his things.
Chanyeol doesn’t know how many times he’s been in Kris’ bedroom before, but it definitely feels strange to be in Kris’ bedroom and unpacking his stuff and placing them in drawers next to Kris’ things. He opens one of the drawers to the dresser and finds Kris’ old t-shirts that he wore back when they were in college; Kris always wore things until they were threadbare, and his college t-shirts are no exception. Chanyeol smiles when he spots a familiar t-shirt that he remembers borrowing and wearing a couple times before.
Everything is so… compartmentalized in Kris’ bedroom (t-shirts in one drawer, long pants in the next, shorts in their own drawer) that Chanyeol feels subconscious about how he’d thrown all his clothes in his suitcases and how now he’s messing up Kris’ system. All that hesitation is thrown out the window, though, when Chanyeol recalls that all of this is Kris’ idea anyway, so to heck with it. Chanyeol removes the contents of a couple of drawers and stuffs them somewhere else to make room for his hoodies and jeans.
They’re sitting at dinner (Kris cooked; it’s mapo tofu night) when they begin step two: convincing Lanfen.
“It’ll be like a game,” Kris says to her. “Every time you see Grandma or Mrs. Park, you have to call Chanyeol ‘Daddy.’ it’ll be fun. What do you think?”
Lanfen swirls her spoon around in the rice and tofu doubtfully. “Like a game?”
“Don’t play with your food, Lanfen,” Kris says. “You like Chanyeol, right? He’s your Chanchan?”
Dropping her spoon into the bowl, Lanfen looks up at them, eyes bright. “Yes!”
Chanyeol smiles fondly at the nickname. “How about I have a giant sleepover at your house for a few weeks, Lanfen?”
“Daddy says I’m too young to have sleepovers,” Lanfen says.
“Oh, but your dad always makes exceptions for Chanchan,” Chanyeol says, ignoring Kris’ loud snort; hey, if it’s true, it’s true. For the most part, anyway. “And you’ll never have a sleepover like a sleepover with Chanchan.”
“Should we practice? Calling Chanyeol your dad?” Chanyeol glances to his side; Kris looks anxious.
Lanfen frowns, concentrating. “Are you getting married, Daddy?”
“No,” Kris says quickly. “No no no. Never. It’s just a game!”
“Never ever,” Chanyeol emphasizes.
“But you’ve always wanted a second parent, right, Lanfen? Chanchan could be that for you. For a few weeks.”
“I’ll be the cool dad. Would you like that?” Chanyeol asks.
“Yes,” Lanfen smiles, “can we have ice cream at our sleepover?”
Chanyeol leans across the table and drops his voice to a stage whisper. “Your dad wouldn’t let you, but this dad would. We’ll just keep it a secret between us, okay?” He leans back into his chair and winks. “But only if you finish your rice first.”
Lanfen hoots in excitement. “Daddy Chanchan is my favorite!”
Beside Chanyeol, Kris slowly shakes his head.
-
“I’m about to crap my pants,” Chanyeol whispers.
Kris looks over at him. They’re at the arrivals gate at Hong Kong International Airport, Lanfen between them, holding one hand of each parent. “You’re fine,” he whispers back.
Chanyeol’s not convinced, not when Kris himself looks like he’s about to puke. “My mom is going to see through this in, like, one second flat. Whose bright idea was this?” He hisses. “Oh yeah, that’s right. Yours!”
“Shut up,” Kris says. “Shut up shut up shut up.”
“When my mom discovers the truth and castrates me as punishment, I just want you to know that I’ll be charging you with taking care of me for the rest of your life. I mean, the rest of my life. Because you’re not gonna die without me, and leave me to take care of my castrated lonesome self.”
“That was almost romantic,” Kris comments. “And didn’t I tell you to shut up?”
“Are daddies fighting?” Lanfen interrupts innocently.
Kris gives her a strained smile. “No, of course not, sweetheart. Your daddies never fight.”
Chanyeol has a biting response on the tip of his tongue but he doesn’t get to say it because he’s spotted a familiar silhouette appear at the gate. “Oh god, here goes nothing. Wish me luck?”
Before Chanyeol leaves his side to go greet his mother, Kris suddenly grabs his wrist. “I,” he begins, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “I love you?”
Chanyeol’s heart skips a beat (out of confusion, of course) and for a second he forgets that this is just pretend. He knows Kris is just saying the three words like some people say instead of thank you in the blindness of a wild moment, but Kris is so naturally awkward that it turns out… wrong. “My mom’s never gonna believe that. Work on that in the next few minutes, will you?” Chanyeol says, before he walks into the storm.
-
“It all happened really fast,” Chanyeol smiles at his mom. The kind of smile where it’s like he has two clothespins pinching his cheeks to hold the smile up, one on each side of his face. “Like, one day we were just best friends. The next day, boom. You know. Love and all that stuff.”
“It’s funny,” his mother begins. They’re seated across from each other, his mom with Lanfen in her lap on one side of the table and Kris and Chanyeol on the other. They decided to stop for lunch before heading back to their apartment. “You’ve told me before about Kris deciding to have a child, but you didn’t really tell me that you were involved in the process.”
Chanyeol laughs. Where the heck is their waiter? Shouldn’t the appetizers have come already? “Well, you know, originally that was not the plan. Love is funny that way. And I did tell you, don’t you remember? Me calling you every week telling you about Kris? He wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without me helping him along with his decision.”
There’s a little frown playing on his mother’s lips. “Yes, but, Chanyeol-”
“-And I was so involved in the process, it seemed like I was Lanfen’s second parent already and- didn’t it, honey?” Chanyeol kicks Kris under the table.
Kris nearly chokes on the water he was so busy gulping down. “Y-yes,” he says, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “After Lanfen was born- it was only natural- to make it official.”
Chanyeol grabs Kris’ hands, threads (forces) their fingers together. Kris reflexively resists but, god dammit, if Chanyeol was going to do this and go along with Kris’ idea, he was going to have some fun with it. He places their hands on the table in plain sight, discreetly smiling with smug satisfaction when his mom notices and looks pleased, and even more so when he senses Kris growing smaller and smaller beside him.
“Well, whatever the case, I’m glad,” Mrs. Park is saying now, adjusting Lanfen’s pigtails. “I have always thought what a great son-in-law you’d make any mother, Kris. And you’re practically family already!”
It’s Kris’ turn to look smug; Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Mom, please don’t inflate Kris’ head, it’s big enough already.”
“It’s such a nice feeling, I’m sure your mother would agree,” Mrs. Park ignores him, talking to Kris instead. “It’s good knowing that my son will have somebody to depend on for the rest of his life. Especially somebody who is his best friend. You two have already been through thick and thin together, so I know you’ll last. I almost didn’t let him go to Seoul for university, did you know? To think you two might have never met!”
“Yes, he knows, Mom,” Chanyeol says, a little exasperated. “You tell him that every time you see him.”
“How long has it been, already? Ten years since you met in your first year of university?” His mom muses.
“Yup, ten years,” Kris nods. “And now,” - he gives Chanyeol’s hand a hard squeeze, so hard Chanyeol almost yelps - “many more to come!”
Chanyeol gags. Why is Kris always so goddamn cheesy. Mrs. Park beams at Kris approvingly.
To Chanyeol’s relief, his mom doesn’t have time to turn to him and expect him to say something equally lovey dovey back at his husband because the appetizers finally arrive at their table. The conversation for the rest of their lunch flows comfortably, everything back to normal like he and Chanyeol were best friends and nothing more, just like previous times Chanyeol’s invited Kris to a meal with his mom. Even when the conversation turns to Lanfen, it all feels normal, the only point of tension being when his mom mentions, casually, that Lanfen should get a proper Korean name too, in addition to her Chinese one, “since one half of her parents is a Korean, Kris, my dear, you wouldn’t mind, would you?” she says.
But besides that, Chanyeol could easily forget that he and Kris were playing a big game of pretend.
“Chanyeol, sweetie, I was thinking,” Mrs. Park says when they’ve finished the meal and Kris has paid the check (“the breadwinner of the family,” Chanyeol’s voice drips with honey as he hands the check to Kris), “I should probably stay at your place to help take care of Lanfen while you two are at work. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
“Good idea?” Chanyeol sputters, as Kris shakes his head enthusiastically next to him. “Oh, no no no. We’re fine, mom, really, you don’t have to do that.”
Mrs. Park frowns at him. “Why ever not? I won’t get in your way. I’m sure Lanfen won’t mind having her grandma around.”
“I’m sure Lanfen would love to have grandma park around,” Chanyeol says, nudging Kris with his elbow, “but, you know, our apartment is getting a little short on room, you won’t be comfortable there.”
“I agree, Mom,” Kris pipes up, finally getting Chanyeol’s hints, “we want you to enjoy your stay here at Hong Kong, so we’ve booked a hotel for you, it’s very nearby-”
“A hotel? No, no, that won’t do.”
“Really,” Kris presses. “We don’t want to trouble you with babysitting Lanfen. She goes to preschool during the day.”
“Oh my goodness! Already old enough to go to preschool, I see,” Mrs. Park says. “They grow up so fast. All the more reason to stay with Lanfen and you two so I can spend as much time as possible together. I thought Chanyeol mentioned once that you had a spare bedroom?”
“I did?” Chanyeol asks. “I mean, yes, he does, but it’s currently taken up by his collection of stuffed animals, so-”
“Storage,” Kris hurriedly corrects.
“-Yeah, so we can’t have you stay there. It’s too full of stuff. We didn’t get a chance to clear the room out before you came!” Chanyeol laughs nervously, praying his mom would take the hint. That’s where he’s going to sleep, dammit.
Suddenly, his mother’s smile turns sly and all knowing. “Oh, I get it,” she says. “Fine, I’ll stay at the hotel instead of at your apartment. Don’t worry, you two will have your privacy.” She winks at Chanyeol at the word privacy.
“What?” Kris and Chanyeol blurts out in unison.
Mrs. Park stares at them. “You two do sleep together, right? I may be old fashioned sometimes and I may always think of Chanyeol as my child, but I’m not oblivious to-”
“Yes,” Kris says quickly. “Yes, we do. In, um, our bedroom.”
Chanyeol’s laugh is shaky. “Yes. Ha. Sleeping together. Our bedroom.”
“Don’t think I won’t be coming over frequently, though,” Mrs. Park warns. “Nothing is going to keep me away from my grandchild! Maybe you two could even go on a date night while I babysit, I’m sure you two have been lacking time to do that.”
“Date night sounds great,” Kris says. “Right, honey?”
“Huh? Oh yes, great. Sounds great,” Chanyeol repeats mindlessly, too preoccupied with the phrase our bedroom.
-
“So,” Chanyeol says. “Um.” He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, back and forth.
“What are you doing there,” Kris says. His eyes are closed and his voice is muffled from half of his face being buried into his pillow. “I’m dead tired. Turn off the light and get in bed.”
“Get in bed?” Chanyeol squeaks. “We’re actually doing this, huh.”
Kris cracks one eye open to stare at Chanyeol still hovering at the door to the bathroom off the bedroom. He does look exhausted. Chanyeol wonders if it’s from playing pretend all day with his mom or whether it’s from the trials of putting Lanfen to bed. Probably both. “You heard your mother. She’s going to come over whenever she wants. You want your mother to come here in the morning and catch you sleeping in the guest room while I’m in the master bedroom? No, thanks, I’d like to keep my dick attached to me.”
“I don’t care about your dick, though,” Chanyeol points out.
“Mine won’t be the only one falling off,” Kris counters.
“Well,” Chanyeol says reluctantly. “When you put it that way…”
Chanyeol gingerly climbs into the other half of the bed, picking up the blanket carefully, afraid of messing up Kris’ side of the bed, which seems pristine and wrinkle-free. He lies still, trying not to make any movement, even though he knows in the morning the blankets are going to be all over the place and tangled up in his legs. Kris hates that.
But Chanyeol? Chanyeol hates that it’s dead silent in the pitch black.
Kris’ voice breaks the suffocating silence. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?” Chanyeol frowns. And here he thought he was doing a good job of not disturbing Kris.
“Stop making this weird.”
“I’m not doing anything!” Chanyeol says indignantly.
Kris flips over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah, exactly.”
“Question,” Chanyeol hisses. “But what part of pretending to be married to your best friend could be considered not weird to you?”
“You agreed to this,” Kris hisses back. “Anyway, we’ve slept in the same bed together before. It’s not any different this time.”
It’s true. Chanyeol remembers that, in college, when he was too drunk or too tired to go back to his own dorm, he’d crash at Kris’ and squeeze into Kris’ bed even though they were both too big and too tall for the tiny twin sized bed. It really didn’t bother Chanyeol back then, and in fact, he liked it - enjoyed intruding upon Kris’ space because it annoyed Kris and nothing delighted Chanyeol more than annoying Kris.
Unlike right now.
“Sorry, sorry,” Chanyeol says. He’s on his back now, too, shoulder to shoulder with Kris. It feels nice this way, the sound of Kris’ slow and steady breathing that’s giving away to sleep calming the jumbled thoughts in Chanyeol’s head. “You’re right, I’m just being weird. I blame all the playing pretend stuff. It’s exhausting.”
Kris falls silent, making Chanyeol think he’s finally drifted off to sleep… “Thanks for doing this, by the way.”
“Stop sounding grateful towards me, I’m not used to it,” Chanyeol jokes. “Anyway, I’m not doing this only for you, remember?”
“Yeah, but…” Kris’ words get slower and slower. “I think Lanfen likes it. When I was putting her to bed, she said she was happy with her new family. Can you believe that? She calls you and your mom her new family.”
“Cute.”
“I guess it gets a little lonely… just Lanfen and me,” Kris says.
Chanyeol digests this information. “So do you actually want to get married one day?”
Silence.
“Kris?”
He’s greeted with a snore. Chanyeol snorts to himself, and then lets sleep take over.
-
“It’s been three days since I heard the news, and yet this is the first time you’re calling me since then. This better be damn good,” Yoora is saying over the phone.
“It’s not what you think,” Chanyeol says.
“Please enlighten me what I think, because I don’t even know what I think,” Yoora replies.
“You can’t tell mom.”
Yoora pauses. “Go on.”
Chanyeol takes a deep breath before diving in headfirst. “Kris and I aren’t really engaged.”
“Oh my god,” Yoora says, and nothing else.
“...Yoora?”
“You are so dead,” she finally answers.
“Which is why you can never tell mom,” Chanyeol presses. “I’m only doing this because dumb Jongdae took a leap of wild ass assumption and then proceeded to tell everybody in our family before I could stop him. And I didn’t want to tell the truth to mom.” He chews his bottom lip. “She sounded so happy.”
“You know mom has been wanting grandchildren since forever,” Yoora says. “So you pretend to be engaged with Kris and pretend to raise Kris’ kid together. Then what? You pretend to break up? Mom is going to be heartbroken in the end anyway.”
Chanyeol doesn’t reply, but groans instead. His older sister is right. Yoora has always been the more clearheaded of the two siblings. When Yoora articulates a situation Chanyeol is in, Chanyeol always ends up seeing how stupid he’d been. “It was Kris’ idea,” he says, punting the blame.
“But you agreed to it,” Yoora points out.
“Yeah, I know,” Chanyeol, snaps. “I can’t believe you didn’t question it when you got the news, though. Really? Kris and me? Together?”
“Is it really that hard to believe?” Yoora asks, using that tone of voice that says to Chanyeol, no it really isn’t, dumbass.
In the next room, Chanyeol hears Lanfen wake up. “Oops, gotta run,” Chanyeol says, suddenly not entirely sad that the conversation is over. “Got a kid to take care of, you know.”
“Can’t wait to meet my new pseudo niece,” Yoora says. “I’ll be flying in, in a few weeks. Mom recruited my help to plan for the wedding.”
“She changed her mind to Hong Kong being the location?” He’s surprised. That was fast.
“Yeah, because it’s not as far away as Vancouver, she said,” Yoora laughs. “This is gonna be fun.”
“Well, that makes one of us,” Chanyeol says.
When he hangs up, Kris is dashing out of the bathroom, tie half done. “Can you-”
“-Drop Lanfen off at school?” Chanyeol finishes for him. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry.”
“I have an early meeting at the company I can’t miss and she only just woke up,” Kris says, tugging his tie into a stubborn knot. “I’m sorry-”
“As if I’m not already used to you calling me up once a week to ask me to drop Lanfen off or pick her up from school. Besides, what’s a second parent for?” Chanyeol jokes.
“Alright. I’m going,” Kris gets up, smooths his tie and shirt. “Don’t stop at the bakery on the way and get her egg tarts, okay? Mrs. Chang says Lanfen ends up not eating her lunch if she’s had too much egg tart-”
Chanyeol makes a face, like a child. “Mrs. Chang is a no-fun teacher, then. But, fine, no egg tart.” He follows Kris as he walks out of the bedroom and down the hall to the front entry of the apartment. “Aren’t you going to give your husband a goodbye kiss?”
Kris gives him a strange look when Chanyeol emphasizes his point by pointing at his cheek. “You’re not for real… are you?”
Chanyeol opens the door and shoves Kris out. “No, dumbass,” Chanyeol laughs. “Had you fooled though!”
“You’re not going to let this be easy, are you,” Kris says shaking his head.
“Have a good day at work, honey!”
-
Working at a music production label means that Chanyeol’s work hours are a lot more flexible than Kris’ stuffy global corporate workplace - a fact that Kris often takes advantage of, when he works long hours and can’t pick Lanfen up from school or, like this morning, drop her off at school - but it also means that sometimes his unconventional hours turn into working well past five. That was just the way work was; he worked whenever inspiration hit. But Chanyeol likes working in music; it was the primary reason why he moved to Hong Kong after college anyway - to take advantage of a chance to work in the Chinese music industry, so much bigger and fuller of opportunities than the music industry back at home.
Tonight is one of those nights when work and creativity won’t stop for anyone or for dinner, either. Chanyeol comes back to Kris’ apartment to find that there’s dinner waiting on the stove to be reheated and eaten. Chanyeol lifts the lid of the pot. Kimchi jjigae - smells like home. Ah, so, his mother had been there earlier.
“Daddy Chanchan!” Chanyeol hears Lanfen scream as she runs to him, her footsteps sounding like small rolls of thunder. Laughing, Chanyeol scoops her up in his arms.
“Had a good day at school today, baobei?” Chanyeol asks.
“Yeah!” Lanfen says enthusiastically. “Grandma Park came with Daddy to pick me up.”
“Oh, really?” Chanyeol says. That’s a little worrying to hear, his mother and Kris spending time together.
“I talked to Grandma Park in Korean,” Lanfen boasts proudly. “She understood me!”
Chanyeol is truly impressed with this, and his chest swells with pride. He taught Lanfen some Korean, and Lanfen had actually learned something - he knew this already, because Lanfen could understand some of the things he said if he spoke in Korean, but it was something altogether to know that Lanfen could actually speak it, too. Sometimes Lanfen would name Korean dishes, but that was about it. This was the first time she’d spoken the language. “Really? That’s amazing, Lanfen!”
“She only said a few sentences in greeting.” Kris stands at the doorway to the kitchen, looking at the two of them with a small smile on his face. He’s dressed in sweats like he’s ready to go to bed. “But your mother was beside herself with happiness.”
Chanyeol laughs. “Let me guess - she said talked about preserving the ancient tradition of the Korean language abroad. Or something like that.”
“She was so happy I let her have her moment,” Kris says, smiling at the memory.
“Still, I think this calls for a reward,” Chanyeol says, returning his attention to Lanfen. “What do you say to ice cream?”
Lanfen yells her approval. Kris shakes his head in the background (“ice cream before bed on a school night? Disaster,” he says) but he doesn’t stop Chanyeol from opening up the freezer and digging out the chocolate ice cream.
“You can tell all the kids in school you’re bilingual now,” Chanyeol jokes as Lanfen happily digs ice cream out of the tub and straight into her mouth, “and you learned it from your bilingual parents. Not everybody could say that!”
Lanfen hums happily, her legs swinging under the table.
Later, after they’ve put Lanfen to bed (during which Chanyeol learns the regret of giving a child sugar before bedtime), Kris remarks, “I had no idea Lanfen speaking Korean could make you that happy.” He looks amused.
Chanyeol climbs into bed. It’s so much less awkward than it was the first night - in fact, it isn’t awkward at all, which makes Chanyeol wonder why it was so weird the first night in the first place. “It’s not like I have a kid of my own,” Chanyeol says. “It’s kind of nice to know that you’ve had a positive impact on a tiny human.”
“Uh oh,” Kris says. “You sound like you’re ready to be a parent. Am I going to be an uncle soon?”
“Nah, I leave the hard stuff to you. I’ll just take the credit for Lanfen turning into a bilingual musical genius,” Chanyeol snorts, turning off the light.
“Musical genius?”
“Like her second dad, of course,” comes Chanyeol’s smug reply, with which he is rewarded a pillow smacked on his face.