Chapter Text
“Do you want pizza or something else?”
Seungcheol has his phone in his hand, already dealing the number for their local pizzeria.
“Seungcheol, please. Something else. We have pizza every week, I’m sick of it.” Joshua sighs. He slumps down onto the couch with an audible thump, grabbing the remote and turning on the TV.
Seungcheol’s cheeks turn red as he furiously presses delete. “Chicken it is.” He says.
“Full House?” Seungcheol suggests, taking his rightful seat beside Joshua.
Delivery and Netflix is their Friday night tradition, one that has yet to be broken in the two years that they’ve been living together. Sometimes, Joshua’s boyfriend joins them, but tonight Mingyu is out of town and the two of them have been left to their own devices.
His suggestion is ignored. “We watched three episodes of Full House yesterday. You don’t even understand half of the jokes, I have to explain them to you. We’re watching Descendants of the Sun.”
Joshua doesn’t even hesitate to listen to Seungcheol’s protesting before he’s selecting his own favourite show. Seungcheol lets it happen, though. He can’t remember the last time they’d watched anything that Joshua didn’t have to half-translate or explain for him, and he’d be an asshole if he didn’t give Joshua a break every once in a while.
They’re interrupted halfway through the opening scene by their buzzer going off, the high-pitched whine echoing through their apartment.
“That was fast,” Joshua says as he pauses the show. He surges forward to grab his wallet from the coffee table, but Seungcheol pushes him back down.
“No, I haven’t even ordered the food yet.” Seungcheol says.
Apparently, the fact that there is an unknown person buzzing their door isn’t concerning in the slightest. The presence of an unknown being doesn’t take Joshua’s mind off of what’s really important. “What the– Seungcheol, I’m hungry.” He whines.
“Yeah, calm down. Let me go see who it is.”
Seungcheol is so glad that technology has brought them this far when all he has to do to investigate this mystery is stare at a little screen beside their front door instead of walking all the way downstairs. And stare at that little screen he does, until he makes out a baby carrier and a duffle bag and he panics.
“Joshua, come here for a second.” He calls out, without once taking his eyes off of the screen.
“What? Why? Are you ordering food yet?” Joshua asks.
“Can you forget about food for, like, 30 seconds? There’s a baby outside.” Seungcheol says.
“What?”
“There’s a fucking baby on the front steps of our fucking building, Joshua! What do we do?” Seungcheol yells.
His heart is hammering in his chest, thoughts running through his head of how scared that poor baby must be. He’s always had a soft spot for kids, even if he’s never had kids of his own. It’s why he enjoys taking care of his baby cousins so much, even if he isn’t the most qualified for the job.
“I don’t know? Maybe it’s one of our neighbours’? Go check.” Joshua suggests.
“What do you mean ‘go check?’ It’s not a fucking dog, Joshua, it’s not gonna have a fucking collar with it’s owner’s number engraved into it.”
Joshua rolls his eyes. “Call the landlord and ask if anyone in the building has a kid. And bring the baby inside, it’s probably terrified.” He says, nudging Seungcheol towards the door.
“Who just forgets their baby outside?”
Joshua forgets how quick Seungcheol is to panic. He opens the door and shoves Seungcheol outside without a second thought.
“Just go get the damn baby, Cheol.”
He runs down the hallway, forgoing the elevator completely in favour of a quicker way to the bottom floor. And if he almost trips down an entire flight of stairs because he isn’t watching his footing, no one else has to know. When he gets to the front of their building and sees the carrier still there, he feels the heaviest weight being lifted off of his shoulders.
He hears it’s cries as soon as he opens the door. It’s the middle of the winter and the baby must be freezing, so he takes it inside before he does anything else.
“Okay, it’s okay, you’re okay.” He mumbles, crouching down and unstrapping the baby from it’s carrier.
He takes it into his arms, and it’s then that he catches a flash of white in the corner of his eye. Whatever it was, it fell off of the baby and into it’s—her (he assumes, because of the plethora of pink accessories and the way that she smells like literal flowers)—carrier.
“What,” He mumbles to himself, trailing off as curiosity takes over his mind. He reaches down to pick it up, but his stomach drops with guilt at the idea of seeing something that isn’t meant for him, and he grabs the handle of the carrier instead. The baby cries again when Seungcheol jostles her to allow himself to stand up.
“Alright, alright. Let’s get you upstairs.” He huffs, and he turns and presses the up button on the elevator.
-----
“So,” Joshua starts as soon as he hears Seungcheol shucking off his shoes. “I called the landlord.”
Seungcheol sighs. He places the carrier and the duffle bag on their coffee table, but he holds on to the baby who had managed to fall asleep during their walk up three flights of stairs. “Yeah, and?”
“And, there is no one in this apartment who has a child under the age of four.” Joshua says.
Seungcheol almost drops the baby. “Then whose fucking kid did I just take?” He yells, but immediately regrets it when said kid wakes up and starts crying again. “No, no, please don’t cry.”
“I don’t—Oh, what’s that?”
Joshua is unashamed and unabashed; he’ll do the weirdest things without the slightest hint of regret or embarrassment. He plucks the white envelope from the carrier without a care in the world, not noticing the way that Seungcheol flinches.
“Huh,”
Seungcheol’s curiosity gets the better of him. “What? What does it say?” He asks.
“It’s addressed to you, Cheol.”
The room is filled with dense silence for a solid minute before Seungcheol speaks again. He shifts the baby to his hip and reaches for the envelope.
“You’re fucking with me.” Seungcheol states.
Joshua shakes his head at the same time that the baby coos and dribbles down the front of her own onesie.
“Shit,” Seungcheol says upon seeing the clearly written ‘Seungcheol Choi’ written on the front of the envelope. “Maybe it’s a different Seungcheol.”
Joshua stares at him with a completely blank face. “Seungcheol, we live in LA. How many Seungcheol Choi’s do you think there are in America, let alone in our building?” He says. Seungcheol winces.
“Okay, well, hold the baby or open the letter for me.” Seungcheol demands. Joshua chooses to open the letter.
“Dear Mr. Seungcheol Choi,” Joshua starts, giving Seungcheol a pointed look.
We are contacting you on the behalf of our daughter, Jiyeon Son. In the event of a tragic accident that took the life of our beloved Jiyeon, you have been given full custody of her daughter, Yoonah. In the few months that it took us to find you, we have fallen deeply in love with her and we want her to have the full experience of having parents that any other child would. Please take care of our angel granddaughter. In this envelope, you will find Yoonah’s birth certificate and any other records that may be necessary to prove your relation to her, as well as our contact information. Regards, Hyomin and Jinyoung Son.
Seungcheol’s heart stops half way through Joshua’s recitation of the letter, probably at the same time that Yoonah falls asleep and turns to deadweight in his arms.
“What the hell does that mean, ’your relation to her?’” Seungcheol asks, in more of a whisper-yell than an actual yell this time.
“I think that means you’re her father, Seungcheol.” Joshua replies. “You hooked up with Jiyeon, I remember you telling me about her.”
Seungcheol shakes his head. “No, that can’t be. Of all the drunken one night stands that I’ve had, I remember Jiyeon with one hundred percent clarity. I was safe with her.” He says.
“Seungcheol,” Joshua starts, but Seungcheol cuts him off.
“I was safe.” Seungcheol insists, tears starting to well in his eyes.
Joshua sighs. “I understand that, Cheol, but sometimes even being safe doesn’t stop these things. Condoms only have a 98 percent success rate.” He says.
Seungcheol starts crying at that. He’s a graduate student, he doesn’t have the time to be a father. Jiyeon was supposed to be a one time thing, a quick hookup after a night of getting drunk at a karaoke bar with friends. He was safe with her, he remembers being safe with her, it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Joshua says, being quick to rush to Seungcheol’s side and wipe away his tears. “You can put her up for adoption or give her back to her grandparents.”
Seungcheol cries harder. “I can’t believe you’d say something like that. God, this isn’t happening right now, I think I’m having a panic attack. I’m gonna throw up. This isn’t real.” He says.
Joshua takes Yoonah from Seungcheol’s arms and places her back in her carrier.
“Cheol,” Joshua says, taking Seungcheol by the hands. “Calm down, okay? We’ll check her birth certificate and get a DNA test done. You don’t have to go through this alone. I’ll help. Mingyu will help. Your parents will probably take a plane to America just to spoil their granddaughter. Everything will be fine, okay?”
Seungcheol nods and Joshua guides him to the couch.
It takes a while for Seungcheol to calm down. Joshua sits beside him the whole time, rubbing his back and wiping away his tears. Yoonah stays asleep in her carrier. Seungcheol stares at her the whole time, tracing the face that looks so much like his. He lets the idea of her invade his mind, the idea of laughing with her when she’s happy and comforting her when she’s upset, and all of a sudden he understands that feeling of love at first sight that his father had once tried to explain to him in reference to his own birth. He understands the instant constricting feeling in his chest that makes him want to protect this baby from everything that’s wrong in the world.
He falls in love with his daughter in an instant, and he doesn’t even need to see her birth certificate to know that she’s his.
“Cheol,” Joshua starts once Seungcheol has regained a proper breathing pattern. “She has your sad cow eyes.”
“You’re an asshole.” Seungcheol scoffs, but he can’t stop himself from smiling because it’s true; she really does have his eyes.