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With the size of the dorm, Minhyun takes a while to clean the whole place up. No one asks him to clean the whole dorm but, really, Minhyun does it because it keeps him sane in this crazy household. Under this roof are unruly children (Jihoon and Woojin), children who don’t clean up after themselves but do so if asked (Guanlin), and the children who neither enjoy cleaning nor understand its importance and stay messy to piss him off (Kim fucking Jaehwan).
But Minhyun stays resilient. His cleaning supplies are his weapons. His apron is his motherfucking cape. No amount of dirt and grime can deter him from cleaning this whole dorm without a fight. Today is one of their vacation days, a perfect opportunity. While the rest of the members went out to enjoy this day with friends or family, Minhyun opted to stay behind and clean the dorm before his scheduled dinner with Jinyoung.
Speaking of, the one member who hasn’t left yet is Jinyoung, who is fast asleep in his room. Poor boy worked his ass off dancing and practicing for their concert by himself the day before. Minhyun is glad he’s sleeping in, he knows he more than deserves the rest. In fact, it was Minhyun himself who went and dragged him back to the dorm before he passed out from exhaustion. It pains him to see Jinyoung working so hard almost without a wink of sleep on most days. It doesn’t help that he also refuses to slip into little space when he has the time.
He goes to check up on him before he proceeds with his mission of cleaning the whole dorm. He has a tumbler of hot chocolate and a zip lock bag of granola and dried fruit for when Jinyoung decides to wake up. Heaven knows when his baby boy wakes up, he’s almost impossible to feed. That is, only, if little Jinyoung is the one who wakes up. Minhyun furrows his eyebrows at the thought and sighs.
Ever since Jinyoung revealed his little side to him, Minhyun has really taken the role of caretaker seriously. Believe it or not, his hyung Aron once slipped into little space a lot during their pre-debut days. So, it really didn’t come as much of a surprise when Jinyoung turned out to be a little. Minhyun already had a hunch as Jinyoung’s constant need for cuddles and attention on the down low was something Aron used to do.
But once all the preparations for the next comeback came rolling in, Jinyoung hasn’t slipped in since their first dance practice. At the end of that day, Jinyoung came into his room after everyone was fast asleep, crying because he couldn’t get some of the dance moves. Sure enough, Jinyoung regressed into his 3-year-old little self after sobbing for so long. Minhyun’s heart ached so much for his baby and he didn’t know what else he could have done except hold him close.
Not counting that day, it has been almost 2 months since Jinyoung has slipped into little space. It’s an understatement if Minhyun were to say he was just concerned. With his last experience with Aron, not going into little space at least once a month became borderline detrimental to Aron’s mental health as he used little space to detoxify himself from the real world’s problems. It’s still early in the game to see if Jinyoung works the same way but with the way he’s been pushing himself to work harder, to the point of almost no sleep on most days? Minhyun is legally allowed to worry.
He doesn’t bother knocking when he enters Jinyoung’s room carefully. As expected, Jinyoung is sleeping soundly, clinging to a giant white snow bear stuffy as big as him, his thumb also on the edge of his lips. Minhyun could coo at the sight if he didn’t just remember that this is probably the first time in a long time that Jinyoung has slept this peacefully. He sets down the goodies on the floor beside the bed and sits down next to his sleeping form, stroking his hair lightly.
Jinyoung doesn’t even flinch at the contact. Instead, he subconsciously nuzzles into Minhyun’s hand, pushing his thumb that was by his lips to slip into his mouth. Minhyun’s heart cries out because this is literally the cutest thing he has ever seen, and he wishes he brought his phone with him to capture this moment. He watches Jinyoung sleep for a bit longer before he leans in closer to place a soft kiss on the younger boy’s forehead.
“Sleep well, baby boy. I’ll come and wake you up later,” Minhyun whispers against his forehead, standing up eventually and closing the door behind him. When he reaches the living room, he’s got his game face on. He’s going to make this dorm spotless before everyone gets home and that’s a challenge he is not willing to fail. He dons his apron, tying it securely around his waist, and grabs the broom next to the couch.
Of course, Minhyun can’t forget his cleaning playlist.
He unplugs his phone that was charging behind the couch and connects it to the speakers by the window. He sets it on a medium volume, loud enough for him to jam to it but soft enough to not wake up Jinyoung. Most of his songs are mellow tracks, hailing from the Deep Focus playlist from Spotify, but occasionally, an upbeat song would play. For now, it’s playing one of the mellow songs (his one duet with Jonghyun on their previous album), and he finally gets to work.
He sets his sights on his bedroom, the one he shared with all the unruly children and one Kim fucking Jaehwan. Minhyun’s gaze sparkles with determination and, with his trusty broomstick in his hands, he charges into the room for battle.
At around 3pm, Minhyun has migrated to the kitchen.
While wiping down the table, and simultaneously throwing away the waste from the fridge, his playlist shuffled to one of Wanna One’s songs. It just so happened to be Energetic and he smiled to himself. A few seconds into the first chorus, Minhyun started imitating the background music rather than singing the lyrics in his own odd acapella version. He laughed, knowing how he sounded but at this moment he was too high on the fumes of his cleaning products to care.
Then his playlist shuffled to Face and all hell broke loose.
In a few seconds time, Minhyun was dancing in the middle of the living room with the cleaning shoes on, wiping the floor while he imitated Jonghyun’s rapping voice. He’s been so absorbed in his solo home concert that he didn’t notice soft footsteps approaching the living room. Jinyoung woke up about a few minutes ago to the soft piano intro sound of Energetic entering his room. To say he was confused was an understatement so he went out to investigate.
Jinyoung’s eyes immediately lit up at the sight of Minhyun doing an impression of Jonghyun in the middle of the living room floor. His long limbs were flailing everywhere in what Jinyoung could only assume were typical rapper gestures and he was also using a dirty rag as a microphone. His tired brain took in the sight with a strange sense of calm, the domesticity of the situation catching up to him until his mind completely shut down.
Then it rebooted to look at Minhyun again with only one thing on his mind: I’m home.
“Minnie?”
Jinyoung’s soft voice broke Minhyun out of his dancing craze and he immediately stopped to look for the source of the familiar voice. Jinyoung stepped out of the shadows of the corridor to smile shyly at his caretaker before looking down at the floor when he made slight eye contact. Minhyun froze in place, his heart beating a million times a minute, and tried to process the first thing he heard Jinyoung say.
“Baby boy?” He called out for him gently, hoping to whatever entity watching over them that this was true. Jinyoung looked up again, his eyes were glazed over slightly but otherwise Minhyun knew. Minhyun could see how Jinyoung looked at him, with unconcealed adoration, overflowing love, and the sense of security he knew only he provided for him. “Is that my baby boy? Is he back to come play with Minnie?”
Jinyoung’s eyes sparkled instantly. Minhyun cooed and held his arms out wide. His baby boy didn’t hesitate to run straight into his caretaker’s arms and giggle, making it the most melodious sound Minhyun ever had the privilege to listen to. “Minnie!” Jinyoung exclaimed, his giggle increasing in volume the longer he held on to Minhyun. “Jinyoungie missed Minnie,” He mumbled against Minhyun’s chest, which made the older boy’s heart soar.
“Minnie missed you too, baby boy.” Minhyun then held him at arm’s length, scanning Jinyoung carefully. Still being too shy to look straight into his caretaker’s eyes, Jinyoung covered his face with his hands and whined out a soft “nooo.” Minhyun could only laugh at how adorable Jinyoung was and he proceeded to kiss the top of his head, overwhelmed that Jinyoung finally allowed himself to slip into little space again.
Jinyoung uncovered his face slowly, looking up at Minhyun through his fingers. He reached up carefully, his pointer finger up, and Minhyun immediately followed the movement so that Jinyoung could touch the tip of his nose. Jinyoung muttered the softest utterance of “Boopsies” and Minhyun almost fainted again with the sheer cuteness of it all. “Minnie has cute nose. Jinyoungie wants to boop nose.”
“And my little Jinyoungie can boop Minnie’s nose as much as he wants on one condition,” Minhyun held up one finger in front of Jinyoung’s face, who tried to bite it and giggled when Minhyun tucked his hand away quickly. “I want a kiss from my baby boy. Right here,” Minhyun gestured to his now puckered lips. Jinyoung tilted his head to one side thoughtfully, a habit he seemed to have adopted from Minhyun, before he giggled again and squished Minhyun’s face in his hands.
“Minnie will get many kisses!” Jinyoung said before he leaned down and pressed a soft, chaste kiss on Minhyun’s lips. With his cheeks still squished together by Jinyoung’s hands, Minhyun smiled widely and Jinyoung squealed. Jinyoung rewarded him with many kisses, just as he promised, and Minhyun basked in all the attention. After the kiss fest, Jinyoung exclaimed that he was hungry and darted towards the kitchen with Minhyun in tow.
“Jinyoungie wants waffles!”
“Yah, at 3 in the afternoon?”
“Yes!” Jinyoung was so bouncy, his eyes still sparkling against the fluorescent kitchen light, and Minhyun couldn’t bring himself to say no to him. Even though this isn’t how little Jinyoung behaved before, it’s been a while since he’s slipped in. He’s not going to make Jinyoung feel like this wasn’t a good idea. “Can we get waffles, Minnie?” Jinyoung asked, his lips coming out in a pout and his eyes blinking with a silent plea. Minhyun was too weak for that look. Minhyun was too weak for Jinyoung.
“My baby boy can get whatever he wants,” Minhyun replied, his fingers tickling Jinyoung’s sides, so he could hear him giggle again. “Let’s go get you dressed up so we can buy waffles. I’ll text the managers where we’re going before we leave, is that okay?” Jinyoung nodded enthusiastically, making a beeline for his bedroom before Minhyun could even finish the last sentence. Minhyun shook his head, amused by the baby’s antics.
After a few minutes, Jinyoung was all dressed up in a pastel blue sweater, khaki shorts, matching pastel blue high-cut sneakers, and a dark blue beret that Minhyun added for a finishing touch. Minhyun cooed again and peppered Jinyoung’s face with kisses before he left to get his own coat, Jinyoung running past him to the living room to wait for him. Once Minhyun donned on his beige coat, mask, and cap, he held his hand out for Jinyoung to take.
As he unlocked the door of their dorm, he looked at Jinyoung one more time. He was bouncing slightly in place, the mask he also had Jinyoung wear doing nothing to hide the obviously bright smile beneath it. His baby was looking around him, obviously excited to go get his waffles, and he was holding on to Minhyun’s hand tightly, secure and safe. Minhyun smiled at the sight of Jinyoung happy and carefree. It’s more than Minhyun could have wanted for him.
And he’s determined to keep Jinyoung happy as long as he can.
“You ready, baby?”
Jinyoung nodded enthusiastically, eyes turning into half-moons. “Ready!”
Minhyun smiled back, eyes twinkling just as bright. “Then let’s march on to the waffle house!”
With his beloved little Jinyoung by his side, it was easy for Minhyun to forget that he wasn’t finished cleaning the dorm.