Supermarket Paradise
Title: Supermarket Paradise
Pairing: YunJae
Length: One-shot
Genre: Fluff, Domestic Life
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It only takes Yunho a month at home with the kids to understand his husband better.
Jaejoong is all smiles when he opens the front door; to Yunho it looks a little bit something like relief. However, the smile disappears in a split second, and Jaejoong’s eyes narrow the moment the door is open wide enough to reveal all of Yunho behind it.
“You did the grocery shopping?!” he exclaims incredulously.
There’s a toddler on both of his legs, hanging off them like little koalas, both giggling as their little butts drag over the floor when their Papa steps backwards to let their Daddy in.
“Hi love,” Yunho smiles at Jaejoong before settling the grocery bags on the floor and crouching down to give both his angels smacking kisses wherever on their faces he can reach.
“How are my baby monkeys today? Have you been giving headaches to your Papa?”
The younger one giggles more and hides her face behind Jaejoong’s leg, not letting go of the tight hold both her legs and arms have around the man’s leg. The older one, on the other hand, lets go immediately-she had always been more of a Daddy’s girl, Yunho thinks and braces himself for the usual force the little girl uses to throw herself into his arms.
“Yunho, are you even listening?! I asked you if you did the groceries!”
When he straightens himself up, perching Hyerin on his hip, Jaejoong looks close to exploding. Yunho can only wonder what it is that he has done wrong this time.
“Yeah,” he answers after drowning Hyerin’s head in his hat. “We had a meeting in the conference centre next to that big supermarket, so I thought, you know…”
Jaejoong huffs and puffs and turns around to storm into the kitchen, as if the added 10 kilograms hanging off his right leg made no difference. Well, it does make his walking style a bit funny, since he cannot lift the foot off the floor but has to drag the stiff leg after him.
“Ef you!” he yells as he enters the kitchen. “I thought I made it pretty clear it’s me who’s doing the grocery shopping this week!”
“Jaejoong!” Yunho calls out disapprovingly. Jaejoong’s head peeks back out of the kitchen door and he rolls his eyes.
“For goodness’ sake, I didn’t even swear,” he says but Yunho still shakes his head at him.
“Did Papa swear?” Hyerin asks.
“No he didn’t, he’s nice and nice people don’t swear,” Yunho answers her as he picks up the grocery bags and carries the whole load into the kitchen where Jaejoong is just taking a pot off the stove.
“I don’t see why you are so adamant about this,” Yunho deposits his daughter on the closest chair and turns away to start putting the groceries in the fridge. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”
“I am so done with paternity leave!” Jaejoong’s outcry makes Yunho jump on his spot. “Thank God it’s your turn from next week on! I can’t wait to leave this house!”
When Yunho turns around Jaejoong has already got the food on the table and he’s trying to settle Hyemi on her seat. Despite his words, he looks entirely content to shovel rice into their small bowls.
“The groceries…” Yunho tries to continue, but Jaejoong turns around and walks over to the rice cooker to fill the adults’ bowls.
“What have I told you about eating only rice?” he asks Hyerin when he sits down on the chair next to Hyemi, placing Yunho’s bowl down on the seat opposite of himself.
“But Hyemi too, Hyemi can eat just rice!” Hyerin counters loudly, frowning dramatically when Jaejoong deposits a bit of kimchi on top of the rice pyramid in her bowl.
“She’s still a baby. Now, stop complaining, it’s not spicy. It’s grandma’s special one that she makes just for you.”
Yunho sits down next to Hyerin and chuckles at the exaggerated faces and hisses the little girl makes while she eats her kimchi. He has just managed to pick up his chopsticks when Jaejoong turns his sharp eyes to him.
“And you,” he says. “I am doing the groceries on Friday no matter what. You can do them all you want after next week!”
Yunho stares at him helplessly.
“You can do them for the rest of our lives for all I care,” he says, and digs in.
~0~0~0~
Yunho and Jaejoong had always been the stormy kind of lovers, and Yunho knows it; he thinks it’s mostly due to Jaejoong’s temperament though he would never say it aloud. However, ever since the kids came along, they have been agreeing on everything a lot more. It had been easy to agree that they would raise their children at home for the first few years of their lives. That Jaejoong would be the one staying at home had also been a natural decision; realistically thinking, Yunho’s job just earned them that much more. Besides, it had been a critical time at work for him, with new opportunities arising almost daily.
But when Yunho said an absolute no to day care before the age of three, that was where Jaejoong had drawn the line. He had wanted to get back to work after two years, and even tried convincing Yunho that at least one of his sisters would surely be staying at home at that time so they could always dump their kid at one of their places for the remaining one year. Yunho had refused and told Jaejoong he should finally leave his sisters be; he had inconvenienced them enough during his tumultuous teenage years. Jaejoong had argued back that his sisters would surely only love to look after their favourite baby brother’s firstborn, but Yunho had refused to back down. He was sure they would love to look after their child every now and then, but to dump her into their care for a whole year? That was plain inconsiderate.
They had argued quite a bit, but eventually Jaejoong had given in and agreed. What’s the different between two and three years anyway, he had said. Maybe he would take up a part-time job at the local music school and just bring her along.
Then Hyemi had popped up when Hyerin was two, and they had had the same argument all over again. Some days Jaejoong had been so mad he had refused to talk about the subject at all, and to be quite honest, Yunho could understand. He did know how much Jaejoong loved his job; but he wasn’t about to back down on his principles on how to raise their children either, no matter what.
In the end they had settled for a compromise; Jaejoong would do two more years, but the last year of the paternity leave would be left to Yunho. He would stay at home until Hyemi turned three, after which they would enrol both children in kindergarten.
The compromise had sat well with Yunho; in the previous years, he had sometimes felt a little envious of the relationship Jaejoong had with the children. Yunho’s job wasn’t the most time-consuming, but it wasn’t the easiest either, and he spent a good while at work every day. When he came home he was always excited to see his children, and somehow, he had ended up as the parent whose role was to spoil the kids, cuddle them and console them when they got hurt. He did love being the one who his little girls would run to when they had tears in their eyes, but even so, he had always been convinced that Jaejoong had gotten a bit more of something in the deal; he just had no idea what.
So when the day comes when Yunho finally stays home and Jaejoong is the one who walks out of the door in the morning, Yunho is feeling confident and anticipatory. Jaejoong’s smile is so wide when Yunho accompanies him to the front door that Yunho cannot help but to grab his neck and kiss him straight on the mouth. It’s not that Jaejoong hasn’t been smiling widely for the past four years, but this is a different kind of smile. Yunho knows very well that Jaejoong would do anything for their children, and anything, well, almost anything for him too; but Yunho also knows that Jaejoong would wither away without music.
Hyerin and Hyemi had both eaten their breakfasts without so much as a complain, and then they had had some time to all play together for a while. When Jaejoong puts on his shoes at 10 a.m. and smothers both the kids with a torrent of happy kisses, the girls just laugh. When Jaejoong walks through the door, they wave their hands at him like Yunho tells them to.
Well, he thinks. That went well. Better than he had expected, to be honest. The girls had stayed with Jaejoong virtually every day for the past four years, and Yunho had prepared himself for at least some tears and screaming, but it seems like the girls are all taking it all in a stride.
And in fact, it’s a little thrilling, just the idea itself that he is spending the whole day with them alone, and the day after that too, and all the days after that for a whole year. He knows there will mostly be a lot of all the same stuff he has dealt with before, but there might be something new and strange too.
“All right, girls,” he says. “Who wants to go to the playgrounds?”
His answer is two armfuls of little girls and when he stands up with them, feeling the weight of both of his children as he carries them back to the kitchen, he feels grateful he gets to do this before they are too heavy for him to carry both at the same time.
~0~0~0~
Yunho has spent the last two years planning this day, and the day flies past faster than ever. He takes the girls to the playgrounds in the nearby park, and for lunch they defreeze some fish stew. (Jaejoong had spent half of his Sunday preparing them a week’s worth of lunches. Yunho is ready for his stay-at-home fatherhood, ready to take it all on-except for the cooking. Jaejoong declares it a battle lost before it even started, kisses Yunho’s nose and makes them only Yunho’s favourite foods for the first week.)
The kids take a nap after lunch, wake up at some point and make Yunho play with them for a while. When Jaejoong finally bursts back in at 6 p.m., they are watching their favourite animation on TV.
Jaejoong looks like he’s glowing and his laughter is breathless, and the first thing he does when Yunho opens the door for him is hug him like they were seeing each other for the first time in months.
“Wow, okay, hi there love,” Yunho laughs and feels Jaejoong’s body quiver against his. Yunho doesn’t know whether it’s the eager nervousness that has finally gone off or the laughter or if Jaejoong is actually close to tears, but he has missed seeing his husband like this.
“Oh Yunho, it was wonderful!” Jaejoong declares into his ear. “So many new dancers, each better than the previous one and I swear, I have never gotten so many hugs in one day-can you believe that even those who had been just accepted when I left remembered me! And you know what, even that old crone Pavlova hugged me-Yunho I hadn’t even realised how much I missed ballet-”
Jaejoong can hardly stop babbling about his day, but he remembers his little angels soon enough. As soon as he has kicked his shoes off, he’s already on the sofa with the girls, tickling their round bellies and demanding to know what atrocities they have committed now that they got a full day free of him.
The evening is perfect. The girls go to sleep obediently, and then Yunho has got a few hours with Jaejoong all to himself before they need to get to bed. Jaejoong’s workdays begin quite late, but the children will wake up early regardless of their parents’ schedule.
When they are finally in bed, snuggled up against each other, Jaejoong continues to recount his first workday in four years to Yunho.
“I thought I might be rusty, but I guess the work I put into it during the last half a year was really worth it,” he says into Yunho’s shoulder. “They are going to have me play for Pavlova’s classes again; the head of the company said the students can benefit from our chemistry.”
Yunho snorts. He knows all too well the chemistry Jaejoong and the renown Russian ballet teacher have; after all, Jaejoong had provided live piano accompaniment for her classes ever since the very first day he had been hired as an accompanist in the ballet company.
“Just try to remember she’s the ballet teacher and not you, alright?” he mocks his husband, squeezing him closer to himself.
Jaejoong huffs.
“Dance is all about expressing music through movement! It’s them who should dance to my rhythm and not me who should play to their rhythm!”
It makes Yunho laugh even more; Jaejoong hasn’t changed at all in the four years he has spent at home. He remembers Miss Pavlova telling him how the ballet teacher sometimes had to pull his then boyfriend’s, now husband’s hair to make him slow down his tempo. He wonders if Jaejoong is still as unyielding.
“I’m sure they are so glad to have you back that they will dance on their hands instead of their feet if you ask them.”
Jaejoong brightens up immediately.
“Yes! Can you believe they were practising to CDs all this time?”
“Aren’t you happy they wouldn’t replace you?” Yunho says, kissing the top of Jaejoong’s head. The man almost purrs, that’s how content he is. Yunho feels a pang of guilt; he can see how much Jaejoong has missed playing at the ballet company, and he had done it all so that Yunho could continue with his job.
“They could’ve hired a few students to do it as a part-time job or something,” Jaejoong continues, pursing his lips. “I know most musicians would consider my job quite a bore, but I’m sure they could have found someone. There are always unemployed pianists around, they’re an infinite natural resource, really.”
He shakes his head disapprovingly and then turns his face upwards, fishing for a kiss. When Yunho kisses him it feels like they’re 20 again, a mismatched couple consisting of one of those jobless young pianists and a poor-as-a-church-mouse college student majoring in economic and social history. The smile Jaejoong gives him when they finally part is a sign clear enough that he is feeling the same flutters.
“How could I forget!” Jaejoong declares then, mock-horrified. “How was my favourite boy’s day with my favourite girls?”
Yunho squeezes him again.
“Wonderful,” he exhales. “They didn’t even fight. I cannot believe I have been missing out on this for the past four years!”
Jaejoong manages to laugh without making a single sound but Yunho can still feel it against his body.
“Yah!” he whines. “What’s wrong with you? Am I not allowed to enjoy staying at home with my children?”
“Oh Yunho,” Jaejoong laughs, “you are so naïve.”
He turns around until he is lying halfway on top of Yunho, pinning him down to the bed with his weight.
“But that’s why I fell in love with you,” he whispers as he kisses a trail up Yunho’s jaw. “Could there ever be anything better than corrupting a tall, dark, handsome stranger two days my junior?”
He makes a beeline for Yunho’s mouth, and for a second Yunho truly feels confused if he has been suddenly relocated in the body of his 20-year-old self. It’s been a while since he has felt such eager passion, such electricity between them.
Letting Jaejoong get back to his work seems to be proving to have been a great decision.
~0~0~0~
“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” Yunho says as he tries to shake off the baby girl who’s hanging onto his sweatpants, almost pulling them down with her weight.
“Dadee! Hyemi can, Hyemi too!” the girl demands and pulls him a bit more insistently. Yunho sighs and sets his morning paper on the table, having barely gotten to the third page.
“What is it that you can do now, little monkey,” he says as he scoops the girl up, making her shriek with joy. Her big sister comes running in, too curious to miss what all the racket is about. She has put one of her shoes on, Velcro fasteners open as she jumps in the doorway.
“Rini!” Yunho scolds her immediately. “How can you walk inside with your shoes on?”
“Papa says I got it from youuuu,” the girl singsongs before dashing back to the front door.
“And why are you wearing shoes anyway!” Yunho yells after her. “We are not going out today before Papa is home, Daddy has to clean the house!”
“Hyemi too!” the toddler in his arms perks up, wiggling her body.
“Yes, you can clean with Daddy if you want to,” Yunho assures her, putting her down. The girl looks torn between running after her sister and staying with her Daddy, so she ends up taking hold of his sweatpants again to drag him after her.
Yunho smiles. Hyerin had always been very attached to him, but Hyemi, the quieter one of the two, had somewhat seemed to be content in Jaejoong’s arms. But now, after staying at home for just one week, the girl would hardly let him out of her sight; whatever he does, she needs to do as well.
“Alright, let’s clean!” he says as he pretends to follow the girl when it’s actually him dragging her towards the broom cupboard. “Or wait, Daddy’ll just go to the toilet first.”
“Toilet!” Hyemi echoes him, and suddenly Hyerin is there too, face cracked into a smile as she runs a circle around them.
“Daddy is going to pee now!” she shouts. When Yunho arrives at the toilet door, Hyemi tries to squeeze in with him, but he blocks her way gently with his leg.
“No, it’s Daddy’s turn to use the toilet now. Remember Hyemi, you already went potty?”
“No!” she proclaims loudly and tries again.
Her need to be with Yunho at all times is very adorable-but sometimes it can be a little tiresome too.
“Hyerin, grab your sister,” he instructs and closes the toilet door behind him quickly.
It takes the girls only a few seconds to start knocking on the door, asking him if he has peed already. In a few more moments, Hyerin has managed to excite her little sister into a screaming match, and Yunho can only shake his head at them. High-pitched childish voices screaming at him, asking him whether he has peed already amidst a string of giggles isn’t exactly his preferred background music for doing his business.
“Cupcakes,” he raises his voice a little in order to try to have the girls hear him over their own voices, “would it be possible to not stand there screaming behind the toilet door? Go to the living room.”
“Noooo!” both of the girls yell, laughing even more excitedly. “Daddyyy? Did you pee yet?!”
~0~0~0~
The same goes on for the next few days; when Yunho tries to change clothes before they are going out, somehow a pair of magnetic little girls appears and attaches themselves to him. When he wants to read the paper after Jaejoong has left for work, the pair climbs on his lap and wants him to make a paper plane out of the news.
No matter how much he asks them to just give him a minute, the answer is always a burst of giggles and a loud no.
And God help him when he takes out his smart phone to check the baseball scores; he thinks there must be some kind of a curse preventing him from checking the scores. Every time a little girl appears from nowhere to ask him a million questions or to drag him to a Very Important Place.
Yunho thinks he’s now gone for a whole week without checking the outcome of a game even once. It must be a record. Even in the evening, after the girls have gone to bed, he never gets around to doing it. As soon as Jaejoong walks in through the door, he forgets all about baseball.
Damn, the sex is great.
It’s as if Jaejoong has found a brand new source of energy somewhere. Yunho almost wants to come with him to take a good look at his workplace; just in case this newfound passion has something to do with all the young, fit men in tights that Jaejoong spends all day staring at from behind his piano.
Yunho even says it aloud, but the raucous laughter he receives as an answer is not quite worth the next 20 minutes that Jaejoong spends describing the extraordinary physique of their new male principal dancer in atrocious detail.
Yunho gets jealous as hell, and only realises that it might have been Jaejoong’s intention all along after he has finished demonstrating his own prowess and capability to his husband.
Which is a good thing, because with the two little witches that seem to be permanently glued to his body, it’s hopeless to think he would get the opportunity to start working out anytime soon.
The problem of the over-attached little girls doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and Yunho is going crazy with the lack of baseball in his life; until one day he finally figures it all out.
The key is tricking, and may hell freeze over if Yunho feels any shame conning his own two and four-year-old daughters.
“Dadee!” Of course it’s Hyemi running to the kitchen first. “Dadee play!”
“Oh baby doll, Daddy’s busy right now,” Yunho answers her with fake confidence, nervous about whether his plan is going to work or not.
“Huh?” she cocks her head so adorably that Yunho cannot help but to ruffle her already untamed hair. (Besides cooking, tying their daughters’ hair is something he’d rather leave to Jaejoong.)
“It’s our lunch,” he answers as seriously as he can manage. “I have to make sure it simmers properly.”
Hyemi stares at him for a short moment, shifts her eyes to the pot sitting on the stove, and after a moment’s pondering, she finally nods.
“Okay Dadee!” she agrees before waddling back out of the kitchen door.
Yunho cannot believe his luck. He turns slowly around, staring at the pot of their lunch stew that he had just placed on the cooker. It will take a good five minutes before the stove has warmed up, and another five for sure before the liquid will even start steaming; but apparently he had managed to convince his daughter that it already requires his close supervision in any case.
It’s the first time in nearly two weeks that he gets to check the baseball scores. (Mind you, perhaps he would have been better off without checking them after all, because his favourite team has been losing big time.)
When Yunho tries out his new theory continuously throughout the day, it proves to be working only with household chores. When he tries to convince the children of any others things that might need to be done, they dismiss his words totally, and play with, around, over, and under him as they wish. It’s not that he minds; he loves playing with his daughters, but he is now back to trying to steal moments to himself whenever he can.
The next day, he scores a whole half an hour to himself when he convinces Hyerin and Hyemi that he absolutely needs to oversee the current load of laundry spinning in the dryer. He sits the girls on the couch and slips a favourite DVD into the DVD player before retiring to the bathroom where their washing machine and dryer stand side by side.
To his great surprise, Hyemi does not peek her little head in after ten minutes like she normally does; she has always been more curious about what her Daddy is doing than about what is going on on the TV screen.
He makes his first phone call to Changmin in two weeks, and the bastard has the guts to laugh his head off at Yunho’s complaints. Think of Jaejoong, he says. He spent four years at home with those babies, and when they were even smaller and more attention-demanding than now; and you are having problems after two weeks?
The call only lasts about fifteen minutes, and Yunho spends the remaining 15 minutes sulking. They are the quietest 15 minutes he has experienced in a while, even with the dryer spinning and clattering next to him.
~0~0~0~
Now that he has figured out one means, it doesn’t take Yunho a lot of effort to come up with others. A week after, he is a professional at Reading the News While Hiding. Hide and seek is Hyerin’s favourite game, and while she is rather inventive when it comes to hiding places, Hyemi is not very good at it. When she hides, she tends to giggle so loudly Yunho can hear her to the next room and shout “Here!” as soon as she hears Yunho stop counting.
Her seeking skills are around the same level as her hiding skills; meaning the hardships she encounters trying to find Yunho are great.
Yunho spends many a moment in the entryway closet, standing between the winter coats of the whole family. His understanding of the current big trends in politics increases remarkably as he finally has the time to actually read through newspaper articles, instead of just skimming over the biggest and most important-looking headlines.
It’s usually Hyerin who finds him, even on Hyemi’s turn to seek, but even with everything he gets read, Yunho finds himself wishing he had just a little bit more time in the dark quietness of the closet.
If hide and seek is Hyerin’s favourite, Hyemi really seems to love playing house. Most of the time, Hyerin plays Daddy-she’s taller after all-whereas Hyemi is designated as Papa. Yunho is of course the baby of the family, and his name is usually determined to be something that starts with “Hye” and ends with an irregularly changing syllable.
The part of the baby is definitely all good with Yunho. He agrees very much because he’s frequently put to bed for a nap or a whole night’s sleep; the key is keeping the right to determine when morning comes to himself.
“Our baby, wake up,” Hyerin exclaims joyfully, patting Yunho’s knees as he lies in the middle of their living room floor. Yunho makes a big show of opening only his other eye, immediately earning a fit of giggles from both of his little princesses.
“Psst,” he whispers secretively. “Rini, Hyemi, come here.”
The girls inch closer, huge smiles on their faces. They know this game well.
“Closer yet,” he murmurs, pretending to be almost sleeping. The girls inch closer again, though so little it can hardly be called advancement.
“Closer!” he demands quietly, and the circle goes on until the girls are finally perked over his shoulders, faces looming close to his.
He waits for a split second before grabbing both little girls and drawing their bodies over his chest. The shrieks he gets as an answer are so ecstatic he cannot help showering both little faces with a dozen of butterfly kisses before actually making his point.
“The baby wants to sleep still!” he exclaims loudly. “Daddy! Let baby sleep until morning! It’s still way too early!”
Hyerin just squeals and soon she is back to pretending to be vacuuming while Hyemi stacks blocks all over in order to create messes for her to clean.
Yunho gets another short moment of peace, and he almost falls asleep for real.
~0~0~0~
There are horrible days as well, of course. Days that start with tears and screaming, continue with sulking, and make a full circle to end in tears again. There are days when the girls run to Jaejoong the moment the front door opens and virtually ignore Yunho for the rest of the day. The disappointment he feels can only be surpassed by the great understanding he has acquired towards Jaejoong now. Even though he had always been with the girls every evening and weekend, he had never known how it was to be with them every single moment of the day.
It can be wonderful and rewarding, but it can also be regretful and tiring.
One Thursday Jaejoong brings Hyerin to his work. They had once brought the girl to watch a children’s ballet production, and the girl had been ecstatic when after the performance her parents had taken her backstage and all the pretty ballerinas in their cute dresses had cooed at her and told her she would make a great ballerina one day herself. Now that she gets to spend a whole day with those princesses, she’s so elated she can hardly contain herself. Yunho wonders for a brief moment if he should give Jaejoong a nappy to take with him in case the girl pees herself in all her excitement. Jaejoong kisses his cheek and says that a normal change of clothes will do. They dress the girl up in her favourite “ballet outfit”-a pair of white tights and a pink fairy outfit the girl’s grandmother had sewn together for playing dressing up-and so, Jaejoong is out of the door with an overexcited, bouncing girl hanging off his hand.
It’s wonderful to be alone with one of the girls for a while. Yunho reads to Hyemi, sorts the laundry with Hyemi, goes outside and plays football with Hyemi; he warms up their lunch with Hyemi and feeds the girl while the toddler tries to feed him though most of the food ends up on his lap.
And afterwards Yunho allows Hyemi take an extra long nap, in hopes of a few quiet hours for the first time in a long while.
His plan backfires horribly. Hyerin arrives back home exhausted, allowing herself to be led to the bathroom to brush her teeth and then to the bedroom so nicely that Yunho promises to read her an extra long bedtime story. She falls asleep halfway, but her cheeks are still flushed from the excitement of the day and Yunho’s heart feels so full he decides he’ll just fulfil his promise the next night.
Hyemi, on the other hand, confused of the time and overactive after her long nap, runs around the house until she falls on her face and starts crying. Jaejoong has barely managed to appease her when they try to take her to bed only to witness her throw a textbook example of a tantrum. Jaejoong gets a little upset and consequently irritated as well, tired after having watched over his other daughter for the whole day while trying to do his work flawlessly at the same time.
In the end, the girl cries herself to sleep, and her distressed, red face makes Yunho feel extremely guilty. It’s all about him and his need to steal every moment he can to himself; if he only had woken the little girl up after she had failed to wake up by herself at the usual time, none of this wouldn’t have happened.
When he finally gets to bed himself, way later than he normally would, Jaejoong is lounging there in his pyjamas. Yunho rubs his palms over his face tiredly, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Yunho-yah, are you alright?” Jaejoong asks him carefully, inching closer on the bed to lay a soft hand on his thigh.
“Yeah,” Yunho sighs. “Poor Hyemi though.”
“Oh, the little devil brought it upon herself. She should’ve gone to bed after that second warning, she knew very well what was coming up if she didn’t.”
“I guess so,” Yunho says simply, not convinced. It’s Jaejoong’s turn to sigh as he grabs his husband’s shoulder to pull him back on the bed.
“Come on, tell me,” he urges Yunho, cuddling up against his side. “I have known you for ten years now, and don’t even think I wouldn’t notice that you are wallowing in guilt.”
“Ah, it’s nothing really,” Yunho swallows. “It’s just, I let Hyemi sleep too long after lunch and her normal schedule got all disorganised.”
“And next you are going to explain me why this is such a bad thing that you have to guilt yourself because of it,” Jaejoong stated, drawing lazy patterns against the thin fabric of Yunho’s t-shirt on his stomach.
“I was just being a bit selfish,” Yunho admits. “You know, I never knew how hard it is to keep track of normal, everyday stuff when you’re looking after the kids… I mean, they are always there, and no matter how much you want to read the newspaper they won’t listen to your pleas. I never knew how it’s actually like to do it all alone since I was always home with you… I just wanted a bit of time for myself but I ended up causing all that.”
Jaejoong draws closer, pressing a kiss to his husband’s neck.
“Ah my Yunho,” he sighs, half-amused. “Always too nice for your own good. Too nice even to your own kids, it seems!”
Yunho looks down at him, flabbergasted.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that,” Jaejoong chuckles, “who told you that you have to ask your own kids to leave you alone for a moment? You’re supposed to tell them how to behave, not to follow their every whiff, silly.”
“Huh,” Yunho answers him, dumbfounded.
“No need to negotiate! Just tell them no if you are busy. Or do you want to send them to kindergarten next year, spoiled rotten, crying for the teachers’ attention every second?”
“Well…”
“Thought so! God, I don’t mean that any of that crap like children should be seen and not heard is right, but… Come on Yunho, they do need some boundaries. No one says that making your children do something else when you want to read the morning paper is wrong in any way.”
“I guess so…”
“Hell, I spent at least two hours every day for the last half a year playing the piano! Maybe I didn’t do it with the whole two hours at a time like before, but it was two hours a day all the same… And did I ever hear you scolding me for that? To be honest, the girls left me alone pretty easily after I made sure they understood it was my special, important time. I think they enjoyed the music.”
“They wouldn’t be your daughters if they didn’t,” Yunho smiles.
Jaejoong stretches his arm over Yunho’s middle and slides it down his side suggestively.
“Just be a little assertive. You have it inside you… I should know,” his voice tips a bit lower and turns husky compared to the normal breathy.
Yunho chuckles as the small weight that had been bothering him the whole evening is lifted from his chest.
“Not tonight though,” he says, turning on his side to face Jaejoong. The man, his husband, smiles at him so beautifully it almost makes him want to bawl like his two-year-old daughter had just done an hour earlier.
“Not tonight,” Jaejoong agrees and hugs Yunho closer. “Tonight is for the snuggles.”
~0~0~0~
Yunho wakes up refreshed after a seemingly random dream where he had been strolling down the aisles of a well-equipped supermarket in sublime solitude, stopping to check out random foodstuff in peace, without any interruption.
He starts the day with a mission. He wants to be a good father; a kind, strict father.
It goes well, but even if he manages to get a moment to himself without tricking his children, it doesn’t change the fact that the house is filled with shrieking and running and laughter and so many other noises that Yunho hadn’t gotten accustomed to in his clean office job.
It has been exactly one month since he had become a stay-at-home dad, and he’s loving every second of it.
But when Jaejoong calls him during his lunch break to ask whether he would rather eat pork or beef for dinner, Yunho swallows his pride and asks Jaejoong whether he would mind if Yunho did the groceries from now on.
Jaejoong chuckles.
“Seeing the attractiveness of it now?” he teases his husband over the phone. “It’s all good, go ahead, get rid of the girls for a moment.”
Yunho can feel the protest rising in his throat but he swallows it down. It’s exactly what he wants to do, after all.
“Just take my word for it; you might want to go in the morning before I leave for work. If you go in the evening after I come back from work, it’ll just be hopping from one chaos to another… Only everyone in the new chaos is as tall as you, and also you can’t tell them what to do.”
Yunho is silent for a second, still thinking of a good retort.
“I love you,” is what he settles for.
“I love you too, my naïve, too kind Yunho.”
The smile in Jaejoong’s voice is all too easy to hear.
A/N: My first YunJae with kids fic!!! :'D So fluffy /barfs/ I left it open how they ended up with the kids... You are free to imagine what you want to. L O L
Probably has a lot of typos and pronoun mistakes ;-; I will re-read later again...
Pairing: YunJae
Length: One-shot
Genre: Fluff, Domestic Life
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It only takes Yunho a month at home with the kids to understand his husband better.
Jaejoong is all smiles when he opens the front door; to Yunho it looks a little bit something like relief. However, the smile disappears in a split second, and Jaejoong’s eyes narrow the moment the door is open wide enough to reveal all of Yunho behind it.
“You did the grocery shopping?!” he exclaims incredulously.
There’s a toddler on both of his legs, hanging off them like little koalas, both giggling as their little butts drag over the floor when their Papa steps backwards to let their Daddy in.
“Hi love,” Yunho smiles at Jaejoong before settling the grocery bags on the floor and crouching down to give both his angels smacking kisses wherever on their faces he can reach.
“How are my baby monkeys today? Have you been giving headaches to your Papa?”
The younger one giggles more and hides her face behind Jaejoong’s leg, not letting go of the tight hold both her legs and arms have around the man’s leg. The older one, on the other hand, lets go immediately-she had always been more of a Daddy’s girl, Yunho thinks and braces himself for the usual force the little girl uses to throw herself into his arms.
“Yunho, are you even listening?! I asked you if you did the groceries!”
When he straightens himself up, perching Hyerin on his hip, Jaejoong looks close to exploding. Yunho can only wonder what it is that he has done wrong this time.
“Yeah,” he answers after drowning Hyerin’s head in his hat. “We had a meeting in the conference centre next to that big supermarket, so I thought, you know…”
Jaejoong huffs and puffs and turns around to storm into the kitchen, as if the added 10 kilograms hanging off his right leg made no difference. Well, it does make his walking style a bit funny, since he cannot lift the foot off the floor but has to drag the stiff leg after him.
“Ef you!” he yells as he enters the kitchen. “I thought I made it pretty clear it’s me who’s doing the grocery shopping this week!”
“Jaejoong!” Yunho calls out disapprovingly. Jaejoong’s head peeks back out of the kitchen door and he rolls his eyes.
“For goodness’ sake, I didn’t even swear,” he says but Yunho still shakes his head at him.
“Did Papa swear?” Hyerin asks.
“No he didn’t, he’s nice and nice people don’t swear,” Yunho answers her as he picks up the grocery bags and carries the whole load into the kitchen where Jaejoong is just taking a pot off the stove.
“I don’t see why you are so adamant about this,” Yunho deposits his daughter on the closest chair and turns away to start putting the groceries in the fridge. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”
“I am so done with paternity leave!” Jaejoong’s outcry makes Yunho jump on his spot. “Thank God it’s your turn from next week on! I can’t wait to leave this house!”
When Yunho turns around Jaejoong has already got the food on the table and he’s trying to settle Hyemi on her seat. Despite his words, he looks entirely content to shovel rice into their small bowls.
“The groceries…” Yunho tries to continue, but Jaejoong turns around and walks over to the rice cooker to fill the adults’ bowls.
“What have I told you about eating only rice?” he asks Hyerin when he sits down on the chair next to Hyemi, placing Yunho’s bowl down on the seat opposite of himself.
“But Hyemi too, Hyemi can eat just rice!” Hyerin counters loudly, frowning dramatically when Jaejoong deposits a bit of kimchi on top of the rice pyramid in her bowl.
“She’s still a baby. Now, stop complaining, it’s not spicy. It’s grandma’s special one that she makes just for you.”
Yunho sits down next to Hyerin and chuckles at the exaggerated faces and hisses the little girl makes while she eats her kimchi. He has just managed to pick up his chopsticks when Jaejoong turns his sharp eyes to him.
“And you,” he says. “I am doing the groceries on Friday no matter what. You can do them all you want after next week!”
Yunho stares at him helplessly.
“You can do them for the rest of our lives for all I care,” he says, and digs in.
~0~0~0~
Yunho and Jaejoong had always been the stormy kind of lovers, and Yunho knows it; he thinks it’s mostly due to Jaejoong’s temperament though he would never say it aloud. However, ever since the kids came along, they have been agreeing on everything a lot more. It had been easy to agree that they would raise their children at home for the first few years of their lives. That Jaejoong would be the one staying at home had also been a natural decision; realistically thinking, Yunho’s job just earned them that much more. Besides, it had been a critical time at work for him, with new opportunities arising almost daily.
But when Yunho said an absolute no to day care before the age of three, that was where Jaejoong had drawn the line. He had wanted to get back to work after two years, and even tried convincing Yunho that at least one of his sisters would surely be staying at home at that time so they could always dump their kid at one of their places for the remaining one year. Yunho had refused and told Jaejoong he should finally leave his sisters be; he had inconvenienced them enough during his tumultuous teenage years. Jaejoong had argued back that his sisters would surely only love to look after their favourite baby brother’s firstborn, but Yunho had refused to back down. He was sure they would love to look after their child every now and then, but to dump her into their care for a whole year? That was plain inconsiderate.
They had argued quite a bit, but eventually Jaejoong had given in and agreed. What’s the different between two and three years anyway, he had said. Maybe he would take up a part-time job at the local music school and just bring her along.
Then Hyemi had popped up when Hyerin was two, and they had had the same argument all over again. Some days Jaejoong had been so mad he had refused to talk about the subject at all, and to be quite honest, Yunho could understand. He did know how much Jaejoong loved his job; but he wasn’t about to back down on his principles on how to raise their children either, no matter what.
In the end they had settled for a compromise; Jaejoong would do two more years, but the last year of the paternity leave would be left to Yunho. He would stay at home until Hyemi turned three, after which they would enrol both children in kindergarten.
The compromise had sat well with Yunho; in the previous years, he had sometimes felt a little envious of the relationship Jaejoong had with the children. Yunho’s job wasn’t the most time-consuming, but it wasn’t the easiest either, and he spent a good while at work every day. When he came home he was always excited to see his children, and somehow, he had ended up as the parent whose role was to spoil the kids, cuddle them and console them when they got hurt. He did love being the one who his little girls would run to when they had tears in their eyes, but even so, he had always been convinced that Jaejoong had gotten a bit more of something in the deal; he just had no idea what.
So when the day comes when Yunho finally stays home and Jaejoong is the one who walks out of the door in the morning, Yunho is feeling confident and anticipatory. Jaejoong’s smile is so wide when Yunho accompanies him to the front door that Yunho cannot help but to grab his neck and kiss him straight on the mouth. It’s not that Jaejoong hasn’t been smiling widely for the past four years, but this is a different kind of smile. Yunho knows very well that Jaejoong would do anything for their children, and anything, well, almost anything for him too; but Yunho also knows that Jaejoong would wither away without music.
Hyerin and Hyemi had both eaten their breakfasts without so much as a complain, and then they had had some time to all play together for a while. When Jaejoong puts on his shoes at 10 a.m. and smothers both the kids with a torrent of happy kisses, the girls just laugh. When Jaejoong walks through the door, they wave their hands at him like Yunho tells them to.
Well, he thinks. That went well. Better than he had expected, to be honest. The girls had stayed with Jaejoong virtually every day for the past four years, and Yunho had prepared himself for at least some tears and screaming, but it seems like the girls are all taking it all in a stride.
And in fact, it’s a little thrilling, just the idea itself that he is spending the whole day with them alone, and the day after that too, and all the days after that for a whole year. He knows there will mostly be a lot of all the same stuff he has dealt with before, but there might be something new and strange too.
“All right, girls,” he says. “Who wants to go to the playgrounds?”
His answer is two armfuls of little girls and when he stands up with them, feeling the weight of both of his children as he carries them back to the kitchen, he feels grateful he gets to do this before they are too heavy for him to carry both at the same time.
~0~0~0~
Yunho has spent the last two years planning this day, and the day flies past faster than ever. He takes the girls to the playgrounds in the nearby park, and for lunch they defreeze some fish stew. (Jaejoong had spent half of his Sunday preparing them a week’s worth of lunches. Yunho is ready for his stay-at-home fatherhood, ready to take it all on-except for the cooking. Jaejoong declares it a battle lost before it even started, kisses Yunho’s nose and makes them only Yunho’s favourite foods for the first week.)
The kids take a nap after lunch, wake up at some point and make Yunho play with them for a while. When Jaejoong finally bursts back in at 6 p.m., they are watching their favourite animation on TV.
Jaejoong looks like he’s glowing and his laughter is breathless, and the first thing he does when Yunho opens the door for him is hug him like they were seeing each other for the first time in months.
“Wow, okay, hi there love,” Yunho laughs and feels Jaejoong’s body quiver against his. Yunho doesn’t know whether it’s the eager nervousness that has finally gone off or the laughter or if Jaejoong is actually close to tears, but he has missed seeing his husband like this.
“Oh Yunho, it was wonderful!” Jaejoong declares into his ear. “So many new dancers, each better than the previous one and I swear, I have never gotten so many hugs in one day-can you believe that even those who had been just accepted when I left remembered me! And you know what, even that old crone Pavlova hugged me-Yunho I hadn’t even realised how much I missed ballet-”
Jaejoong can hardly stop babbling about his day, but he remembers his little angels soon enough. As soon as he has kicked his shoes off, he’s already on the sofa with the girls, tickling their round bellies and demanding to know what atrocities they have committed now that they got a full day free of him.
The evening is perfect. The girls go to sleep obediently, and then Yunho has got a few hours with Jaejoong all to himself before they need to get to bed. Jaejoong’s workdays begin quite late, but the children will wake up early regardless of their parents’ schedule.
When they are finally in bed, snuggled up against each other, Jaejoong continues to recount his first workday in four years to Yunho.
“I thought I might be rusty, but I guess the work I put into it during the last half a year was really worth it,” he says into Yunho’s shoulder. “They are going to have me play for Pavlova’s classes again; the head of the company said the students can benefit from our chemistry.”
Yunho snorts. He knows all too well the chemistry Jaejoong and the renown Russian ballet teacher have; after all, Jaejoong had provided live piano accompaniment for her classes ever since the very first day he had been hired as an accompanist in the ballet company.
“Just try to remember she’s the ballet teacher and not you, alright?” he mocks his husband, squeezing him closer to himself.
Jaejoong huffs.
“Dance is all about expressing music through movement! It’s them who should dance to my rhythm and not me who should play to their rhythm!”
It makes Yunho laugh even more; Jaejoong hasn’t changed at all in the four years he has spent at home. He remembers Miss Pavlova telling him how the ballet teacher sometimes had to pull his then boyfriend’s, now husband’s hair to make him slow down his tempo. He wonders if Jaejoong is still as unyielding.
“I’m sure they are so glad to have you back that they will dance on their hands instead of their feet if you ask them.”
Jaejoong brightens up immediately.
“Yes! Can you believe they were practising to CDs all this time?”
“Aren’t you happy they wouldn’t replace you?” Yunho says, kissing the top of Jaejoong’s head. The man almost purrs, that’s how content he is. Yunho feels a pang of guilt; he can see how much Jaejoong has missed playing at the ballet company, and he had done it all so that Yunho could continue with his job.
“They could’ve hired a few students to do it as a part-time job or something,” Jaejoong continues, pursing his lips. “I know most musicians would consider my job quite a bore, but I’m sure they could have found someone. There are always unemployed pianists around, they’re an infinite natural resource, really.”
He shakes his head disapprovingly and then turns his face upwards, fishing for a kiss. When Yunho kisses him it feels like they’re 20 again, a mismatched couple consisting of one of those jobless young pianists and a poor-as-a-church-mouse college student majoring in economic and social history. The smile Jaejoong gives him when they finally part is a sign clear enough that he is feeling the same flutters.
“How could I forget!” Jaejoong declares then, mock-horrified. “How was my favourite boy’s day with my favourite girls?”
Yunho squeezes him again.
“Wonderful,” he exhales. “They didn’t even fight. I cannot believe I have been missing out on this for the past four years!”
Jaejoong manages to laugh without making a single sound but Yunho can still feel it against his body.
“Yah!” he whines. “What’s wrong with you? Am I not allowed to enjoy staying at home with my children?”
“Oh Yunho,” Jaejoong laughs, “you are so naïve.”
He turns around until he is lying halfway on top of Yunho, pinning him down to the bed with his weight.
“But that’s why I fell in love with you,” he whispers as he kisses a trail up Yunho’s jaw. “Could there ever be anything better than corrupting a tall, dark, handsome stranger two days my junior?”
He makes a beeline for Yunho’s mouth, and for a second Yunho truly feels confused if he has been suddenly relocated in the body of his 20-year-old self. It’s been a while since he has felt such eager passion, such electricity between them.
Letting Jaejoong get back to his work seems to be proving to have been a great decision.
~0~0~0~
“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” Yunho says as he tries to shake off the baby girl who’s hanging onto his sweatpants, almost pulling them down with her weight.
“Dadee! Hyemi can, Hyemi too!” the girl demands and pulls him a bit more insistently. Yunho sighs and sets his morning paper on the table, having barely gotten to the third page.
“What is it that you can do now, little monkey,” he says as he scoops the girl up, making her shriek with joy. Her big sister comes running in, too curious to miss what all the racket is about. She has put one of her shoes on, Velcro fasteners open as she jumps in the doorway.
“Rini!” Yunho scolds her immediately. “How can you walk inside with your shoes on?”
“Papa says I got it from youuuu,” the girl singsongs before dashing back to the front door.
“And why are you wearing shoes anyway!” Yunho yells after her. “We are not going out today before Papa is home, Daddy has to clean the house!”
“Hyemi too!” the toddler in his arms perks up, wiggling her body.
“Yes, you can clean with Daddy if you want to,” Yunho assures her, putting her down. The girl looks torn between running after her sister and staying with her Daddy, so she ends up taking hold of his sweatpants again to drag him after her.
Yunho smiles. Hyerin had always been very attached to him, but Hyemi, the quieter one of the two, had somewhat seemed to be content in Jaejoong’s arms. But now, after staying at home for just one week, the girl would hardly let him out of her sight; whatever he does, she needs to do as well.
“Alright, let’s clean!” he says as he pretends to follow the girl when it’s actually him dragging her towards the broom cupboard. “Or wait, Daddy’ll just go to the toilet first.”
“Toilet!” Hyemi echoes him, and suddenly Hyerin is there too, face cracked into a smile as she runs a circle around them.
“Daddy is going to pee now!” she shouts. When Yunho arrives at the toilet door, Hyemi tries to squeeze in with him, but he blocks her way gently with his leg.
“No, it’s Daddy’s turn to use the toilet now. Remember Hyemi, you already went potty?”
“No!” she proclaims loudly and tries again.
Her need to be with Yunho at all times is very adorable-but sometimes it can be a little tiresome too.
“Hyerin, grab your sister,” he instructs and closes the toilet door behind him quickly.
It takes the girls only a few seconds to start knocking on the door, asking him if he has peed already. In a few more moments, Hyerin has managed to excite her little sister into a screaming match, and Yunho can only shake his head at them. High-pitched childish voices screaming at him, asking him whether he has peed already amidst a string of giggles isn’t exactly his preferred background music for doing his business.
“Cupcakes,” he raises his voice a little in order to try to have the girls hear him over their own voices, “would it be possible to not stand there screaming behind the toilet door? Go to the living room.”
“Noooo!” both of the girls yell, laughing even more excitedly. “Daddyyy? Did you pee yet?!”
~0~0~0~
The same goes on for the next few days; when Yunho tries to change clothes before they are going out, somehow a pair of magnetic little girls appears and attaches themselves to him. When he wants to read the paper after Jaejoong has left for work, the pair climbs on his lap and wants him to make a paper plane out of the news.
No matter how much he asks them to just give him a minute, the answer is always a burst of giggles and a loud no.
And God help him when he takes out his smart phone to check the baseball scores; he thinks there must be some kind of a curse preventing him from checking the scores. Every time a little girl appears from nowhere to ask him a million questions or to drag him to a Very Important Place.
Yunho thinks he’s now gone for a whole week without checking the outcome of a game even once. It must be a record. Even in the evening, after the girls have gone to bed, he never gets around to doing it. As soon as Jaejoong walks in through the door, he forgets all about baseball.
Damn, the sex is great.
It’s as if Jaejoong has found a brand new source of energy somewhere. Yunho almost wants to come with him to take a good look at his workplace; just in case this newfound passion has something to do with all the young, fit men in tights that Jaejoong spends all day staring at from behind his piano.
Yunho even says it aloud, but the raucous laughter he receives as an answer is not quite worth the next 20 minutes that Jaejoong spends describing the extraordinary physique of their new male principal dancer in atrocious detail.
Yunho gets jealous as hell, and only realises that it might have been Jaejoong’s intention all along after he has finished demonstrating his own prowess and capability to his husband.
Which is a good thing, because with the two little witches that seem to be permanently glued to his body, it’s hopeless to think he would get the opportunity to start working out anytime soon.
The problem of the over-attached little girls doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and Yunho is going crazy with the lack of baseball in his life; until one day he finally figures it all out.
The key is tricking, and may hell freeze over if Yunho feels any shame conning his own two and four-year-old daughters.
“Dadee!” Of course it’s Hyemi running to the kitchen first. “Dadee play!”
“Oh baby doll, Daddy’s busy right now,” Yunho answers her with fake confidence, nervous about whether his plan is going to work or not.
“Huh?” she cocks her head so adorably that Yunho cannot help but to ruffle her already untamed hair. (Besides cooking, tying their daughters’ hair is something he’d rather leave to Jaejoong.)
“It’s our lunch,” he answers as seriously as he can manage. “I have to make sure it simmers properly.”
Hyemi stares at him for a short moment, shifts her eyes to the pot sitting on the stove, and after a moment’s pondering, she finally nods.
“Okay Dadee!” she agrees before waddling back out of the kitchen door.
Yunho cannot believe his luck. He turns slowly around, staring at the pot of their lunch stew that he had just placed on the cooker. It will take a good five minutes before the stove has warmed up, and another five for sure before the liquid will even start steaming; but apparently he had managed to convince his daughter that it already requires his close supervision in any case.
It’s the first time in nearly two weeks that he gets to check the baseball scores. (Mind you, perhaps he would have been better off without checking them after all, because his favourite team has been losing big time.)
When Yunho tries out his new theory continuously throughout the day, it proves to be working only with household chores. When he tries to convince the children of any others things that might need to be done, they dismiss his words totally, and play with, around, over, and under him as they wish. It’s not that he minds; he loves playing with his daughters, but he is now back to trying to steal moments to himself whenever he can.
The next day, he scores a whole half an hour to himself when he convinces Hyerin and Hyemi that he absolutely needs to oversee the current load of laundry spinning in the dryer. He sits the girls on the couch and slips a favourite DVD into the DVD player before retiring to the bathroom where their washing machine and dryer stand side by side.
To his great surprise, Hyemi does not peek her little head in after ten minutes like she normally does; she has always been more curious about what her Daddy is doing than about what is going on on the TV screen.
He makes his first phone call to Changmin in two weeks, and the bastard has the guts to laugh his head off at Yunho’s complaints. Think of Jaejoong, he says. He spent four years at home with those babies, and when they were even smaller and more attention-demanding than now; and you are having problems after two weeks?
The call only lasts about fifteen minutes, and Yunho spends the remaining 15 minutes sulking. They are the quietest 15 minutes he has experienced in a while, even with the dryer spinning and clattering next to him.
~0~0~0~
Now that he has figured out one means, it doesn’t take Yunho a lot of effort to come up with others. A week after, he is a professional at Reading the News While Hiding. Hide and seek is Hyerin’s favourite game, and while she is rather inventive when it comes to hiding places, Hyemi is not very good at it. When she hides, she tends to giggle so loudly Yunho can hear her to the next room and shout “Here!” as soon as she hears Yunho stop counting.
Her seeking skills are around the same level as her hiding skills; meaning the hardships she encounters trying to find Yunho are great.
Yunho spends many a moment in the entryway closet, standing between the winter coats of the whole family. His understanding of the current big trends in politics increases remarkably as he finally has the time to actually read through newspaper articles, instead of just skimming over the biggest and most important-looking headlines.
It’s usually Hyerin who finds him, even on Hyemi’s turn to seek, but even with everything he gets read, Yunho finds himself wishing he had just a little bit more time in the dark quietness of the closet.
If hide and seek is Hyerin’s favourite, Hyemi really seems to love playing house. Most of the time, Hyerin plays Daddy-she’s taller after all-whereas Hyemi is designated as Papa. Yunho is of course the baby of the family, and his name is usually determined to be something that starts with “Hye” and ends with an irregularly changing syllable.
The part of the baby is definitely all good with Yunho. He agrees very much because he’s frequently put to bed for a nap or a whole night’s sleep; the key is keeping the right to determine when morning comes to himself.
“Our baby, wake up,” Hyerin exclaims joyfully, patting Yunho’s knees as he lies in the middle of their living room floor. Yunho makes a big show of opening only his other eye, immediately earning a fit of giggles from both of his little princesses.
“Psst,” he whispers secretively. “Rini, Hyemi, come here.”
The girls inch closer, huge smiles on their faces. They know this game well.
“Closer yet,” he murmurs, pretending to be almost sleeping. The girls inch closer again, though so little it can hardly be called advancement.
“Closer!” he demands quietly, and the circle goes on until the girls are finally perked over his shoulders, faces looming close to his.
He waits for a split second before grabbing both little girls and drawing their bodies over his chest. The shrieks he gets as an answer are so ecstatic he cannot help showering both little faces with a dozen of butterfly kisses before actually making his point.
“The baby wants to sleep still!” he exclaims loudly. “Daddy! Let baby sleep until morning! It’s still way too early!”
Hyerin just squeals and soon she is back to pretending to be vacuuming while Hyemi stacks blocks all over in order to create messes for her to clean.
Yunho gets another short moment of peace, and he almost falls asleep for real.
~0~0~0~
There are horrible days as well, of course. Days that start with tears and screaming, continue with sulking, and make a full circle to end in tears again. There are days when the girls run to Jaejoong the moment the front door opens and virtually ignore Yunho for the rest of the day. The disappointment he feels can only be surpassed by the great understanding he has acquired towards Jaejoong now. Even though he had always been with the girls every evening and weekend, he had never known how it was to be with them every single moment of the day.
It can be wonderful and rewarding, but it can also be regretful and tiring.
One Thursday Jaejoong brings Hyerin to his work. They had once brought the girl to watch a children’s ballet production, and the girl had been ecstatic when after the performance her parents had taken her backstage and all the pretty ballerinas in their cute dresses had cooed at her and told her she would make a great ballerina one day herself. Now that she gets to spend a whole day with those princesses, she’s so elated she can hardly contain herself. Yunho wonders for a brief moment if he should give Jaejoong a nappy to take with him in case the girl pees herself in all her excitement. Jaejoong kisses his cheek and says that a normal change of clothes will do. They dress the girl up in her favourite “ballet outfit”-a pair of white tights and a pink fairy outfit the girl’s grandmother had sewn together for playing dressing up-and so, Jaejoong is out of the door with an overexcited, bouncing girl hanging off his hand.
It’s wonderful to be alone with one of the girls for a while. Yunho reads to Hyemi, sorts the laundry with Hyemi, goes outside and plays football with Hyemi; he warms up their lunch with Hyemi and feeds the girl while the toddler tries to feed him though most of the food ends up on his lap.
And afterwards Yunho allows Hyemi take an extra long nap, in hopes of a few quiet hours for the first time in a long while.
His plan backfires horribly. Hyerin arrives back home exhausted, allowing herself to be led to the bathroom to brush her teeth and then to the bedroom so nicely that Yunho promises to read her an extra long bedtime story. She falls asleep halfway, but her cheeks are still flushed from the excitement of the day and Yunho’s heart feels so full he decides he’ll just fulfil his promise the next night.
Hyemi, on the other hand, confused of the time and overactive after her long nap, runs around the house until she falls on her face and starts crying. Jaejoong has barely managed to appease her when they try to take her to bed only to witness her throw a textbook example of a tantrum. Jaejoong gets a little upset and consequently irritated as well, tired after having watched over his other daughter for the whole day while trying to do his work flawlessly at the same time.
In the end, the girl cries herself to sleep, and her distressed, red face makes Yunho feel extremely guilty. It’s all about him and his need to steal every moment he can to himself; if he only had woken the little girl up after she had failed to wake up by herself at the usual time, none of this wouldn’t have happened.
When he finally gets to bed himself, way later than he normally would, Jaejoong is lounging there in his pyjamas. Yunho rubs his palms over his face tiredly, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Yunho-yah, are you alright?” Jaejoong asks him carefully, inching closer on the bed to lay a soft hand on his thigh.
“Yeah,” Yunho sighs. “Poor Hyemi though.”
“Oh, the little devil brought it upon herself. She should’ve gone to bed after that second warning, she knew very well what was coming up if she didn’t.”
“I guess so,” Yunho says simply, not convinced. It’s Jaejoong’s turn to sigh as he grabs his husband’s shoulder to pull him back on the bed.
“Come on, tell me,” he urges Yunho, cuddling up against his side. “I have known you for ten years now, and don’t even think I wouldn’t notice that you are wallowing in guilt.”
“Ah, it’s nothing really,” Yunho swallows. “It’s just, I let Hyemi sleep too long after lunch and her normal schedule got all disorganised.”
“And next you are going to explain me why this is such a bad thing that you have to guilt yourself because of it,” Jaejoong stated, drawing lazy patterns against the thin fabric of Yunho’s t-shirt on his stomach.
“I was just being a bit selfish,” Yunho admits. “You know, I never knew how hard it is to keep track of normal, everyday stuff when you’re looking after the kids… I mean, they are always there, and no matter how much you want to read the newspaper they won’t listen to your pleas. I never knew how it’s actually like to do it all alone since I was always home with you… I just wanted a bit of time for myself but I ended up causing all that.”
Jaejoong draws closer, pressing a kiss to his husband’s neck.
“Ah my Yunho,” he sighs, half-amused. “Always too nice for your own good. Too nice even to your own kids, it seems!”
Yunho looks down at him, flabbergasted.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that,” Jaejoong chuckles, “who told you that you have to ask your own kids to leave you alone for a moment? You’re supposed to tell them how to behave, not to follow their every whiff, silly.”
“Huh,” Yunho answers him, dumbfounded.
“No need to negotiate! Just tell them no if you are busy. Or do you want to send them to kindergarten next year, spoiled rotten, crying for the teachers’ attention every second?”
“Well…”
“Thought so! God, I don’t mean that any of that crap like children should be seen and not heard is right, but… Come on Yunho, they do need some boundaries. No one says that making your children do something else when you want to read the morning paper is wrong in any way.”
“I guess so…”
“Hell, I spent at least two hours every day for the last half a year playing the piano! Maybe I didn’t do it with the whole two hours at a time like before, but it was two hours a day all the same… And did I ever hear you scolding me for that? To be honest, the girls left me alone pretty easily after I made sure they understood it was my special, important time. I think they enjoyed the music.”
“They wouldn’t be your daughters if they didn’t,” Yunho smiles.
Jaejoong stretches his arm over Yunho’s middle and slides it down his side suggestively.
“Just be a little assertive. You have it inside you… I should know,” his voice tips a bit lower and turns husky compared to the normal breathy.
Yunho chuckles as the small weight that had been bothering him the whole evening is lifted from his chest.
“Not tonight though,” he says, turning on his side to face Jaejoong. The man, his husband, smiles at him so beautifully it almost makes him want to bawl like his two-year-old daughter had just done an hour earlier.
“Not tonight,” Jaejoong agrees and hugs Yunho closer. “Tonight is for the snuggles.”
~0~0~0~
Yunho wakes up refreshed after a seemingly random dream where he had been strolling down the aisles of a well-equipped supermarket in sublime solitude, stopping to check out random foodstuff in peace, without any interruption.
He starts the day with a mission. He wants to be a good father; a kind, strict father.
It goes well, but even if he manages to get a moment to himself without tricking his children, it doesn’t change the fact that the house is filled with shrieking and running and laughter and so many other noises that Yunho hadn’t gotten accustomed to in his clean office job.
It has been exactly one month since he had become a stay-at-home dad, and he’s loving every second of it.
But when Jaejoong calls him during his lunch break to ask whether he would rather eat pork or beef for dinner, Yunho swallows his pride and asks Jaejoong whether he would mind if Yunho did the groceries from now on.
Jaejoong chuckles.
“Seeing the attractiveness of it now?” he teases his husband over the phone. “It’s all good, go ahead, get rid of the girls for a moment.”
Yunho can feel the protest rising in his throat but he swallows it down. It’s exactly what he wants to do, after all.
“Just take my word for it; you might want to go in the morning before I leave for work. If you go in the evening after I come back from work, it’ll just be hopping from one chaos to another… Only everyone in the new chaos is as tall as you, and also you can’t tell them what to do.”
Yunho is silent for a second, still thinking of a good retort.
“I love you,” is what he settles for.
“I love you too, my naïve, too kind Yunho.”
The smile in Jaejoong’s voice is all too easy to hear.
A/N: My first YunJae with kids fic!!! :'D So fluffy /barfs/ I left it open how they ended up with the kids... You are free to imagine what you want to. L O L
Probably has a lot of typos and pronoun mistakes ;-; I will re-read later again...