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Months had passed and Jongdae was now a permanent item in the Kim apartment. Kyungsoo was with Chanyeol, now living in Chanyeol’s apartment a few streets down, and frequently visiting their favorite kid and Minseok. It seemed less of a concern for Minseok now that his best friend was no longer burdened by taking care of Jongin whenever he was at work.
Jongdae became a full time music producer-slash-personal assistant to Kyungsoo, quitting his bartender job at Boomerang. With that being his only job it meant spending more time with his boyfriend and his son. The days he wasn’t needed in the studio, those were the days he would play with Jongin or take him to the park while Minseok was at work.
Friday’s were typically Jongdae’s free days, which also happened to be the days Jongin wasn’t in preschool. Jongdae would wake up with feet in his gut and hair in his mouth along with the soft snores coming from the five year old. His bear would be tucked into his chest as Jongin himself was curled into Jongdae’s chest with his toes digging into Jongdae’s stomach. The elder would smile at the boy before quietly leaving the bed to make them breakfast.
Minseok was always out of the apartment by five in the morning, a little sticky note always plastered on their whiteboard in the kitchen that held their daily schedule. The note was always written in Korean rather than English as the couple were still speaking their mother language around Jongin to make him more familiar with it. Jongdae would grin when he read the note that was written informally to appear cute added with little doodles or hearts on the corners. It was like the elder was trying to melt Jongdae’s heart by the cuteness.
Breakfast was never full of conversation between Jongdae and Jongin. It was mainly full of stuffed mouths and Jongin close to falling back asleep in whatever food was in front of him.
“Jonginnie, what do you want to do today?” Was always Jongdae’s question of the morning after breakfast as the two lounged on the couch, Jongin once again cuddled into Jongdae’s side with sleepy eyes.
“Can we stay home and sleep? Papa sometimes has a sleepy day where all we do is sleep until our tummies say it’s time to eat.” Jongin looked up at Jongdae with wide eyes that still had a bit of tiredness to them.
“We can do that, but we can’t sleep all day. We can sleep for maybe a few more hours since it’s still early.” Jongdae smiled and ruffled Jongin’s hair. Jongin nodded and grabbed Jongdae’s hand as he got off the couch, pulling him to Minseok and Jongdae’s room.
“We can sleep in yours and papa’s room. You have a bigger bed than I do. Monggu likes it more.” Jongin spoke as he crawled into the bed, hand already stretched out for his teddy bear. Jongdae laughed and laid down next to Jongin, pulling the comforter over their bodies.
“Only for a few hours, Nini. I’ll set an alarm for when we should wake up, okay?” Jongin nodded, “How does 11 sound?” Jongdae glanced at the clock as he set an alarm on his phone. It was already eight in the morning, eleven being a decent amount of more rest for them.
“Okay. Sleep good, papa Dae.” Jongin has patted Jongdae’s head before pressing his face into Minseok’s pillow with Monggu squished against his chest. Jongin’s words didn’t fully register until he heard the boys breathing even out.
Jongdae had quietly reached out for his phone to tell Minseok, but pulled his arm back into the blanket with a thought of waiting to see Minseok later in the day. With Jongin’s words floating in his head and an imagination of Minseok’s reaction, Jongdae fell back to sleep.
It was a colder day, November being the month that inched closer to a snowfall as the temperature dropped. Minseok always feared for Jongin going outside to the park to play and not being bundled up from the cold. Jongdae was careful to keep the boy warm during the colder months, knowing Minseok would kick him if his son got sick.
“But I want to go to the park today.” Jongin pouted after Jongdae suggested they stay inside from the freezing wind.
“I’m sorry, Jongin, it’s too cold out and papa doesn’t want you sick.” Jongdae frowned as the boy was close to throwing a fit, “We can do something fun inside.”
“Inside is boring.”
“We can make a big blanket fort and not let papa in when he comes home?” Jongdae suggested. Instantly, Jongdae had Jongin’s full attention when mentioning a blanket fort. When Kyungsoo still lived with Minseok and Jongin, the three would build a big fort in the living room during the winter to cheer Jongin up whenever he couldn’t go to the park.
“Okay,” Jongin nodded, “But can we keep it up? Papa and Uncle Soo would always take it down before we had to sleep.”
“I’ll make sure it stays up. It’ll be so big we can sleep in it.” Jongdae smiled, the smile growing as he saw a sparkle in Jongin’s eyes.
Jongdae had given Jongin the task of gathering all the blankets and pillows in the apartment while he moved the furniture in the living room. The coffee table was pushed against the entertainment center, Minseok’s chair was scooted closer to the window, making sure not to break anything in the process. A few house plants were moved out of the way as well as side tables.
Jongin would waddle in every few minutes with arms full of pillows and the occasional blanket trailing behind him. He would drop the pillows and blankets into a pile on the floor in the middle of the walkway to the bedrooms. It wasn’t long before every bed was stripped of their blankets and pillows, even the bed that was in what once was Kyungsoo’s room and now Jongdae’s studio office had been stripped of its bedding.
“Does papa keep his Christmas decorations in his room?” Jongdae asked after looking at the pile of bedding.
“I think so.” Jongin ran off to Minseok’s room, Jongdae following soon after. They looked through the closet, thankfully finding a box labeled ‘X-MAS’ on the top shelf next to few other boxes. Jongdae set the box on the floor and sat down next to it, Jongin doing the same.
“Do you want the colorful lights or plain white ones?”
“Hmm,” Jongin tapped his chin as if it were a hard decision, “The white ones.” He pointed to the neatly wound up cord of lights. Only Minseok would keep his christmas lights neat and not just a jumble of cords like every sane person does. Jongdae grabbed the lights and put the box back in its spot, the two going back to the living room to begin setting up.
It was hard for Jongdae to get the blankets to stay up, throwing ends over couches and taping the other ends to the bookcases by the entertainment center, making sure to keep an open entrance.
“We can use the dining chairs!” Jongin yelled from inside the fort as he strategically placed pillows and blankets around the floor.
While Jongdae was trying to get a blanket to be settled on the ceiling to keep it high enough, he could hear Jongin stomping to the dining room before the sound of chairs bumping into the table. Jongdae stopped what he was doing to look over at the toddler.
“Nini,” Jongdae laughed as he saw the toddler pushing a chair across the hardwood, “Do you need help?”
“I got it, Papa Dae!” Jongin shouted with a concentrated look, tongue poking out as he kept his eyes on the chair. Jongdae let his laughter fade as he continued constructing the fort with Jongin, the two silently working to get it all set up.
Everything was finally put together and objects were placed inside the fort to keep them busy, including Jongin’s coloring table along with the bins of coloring utensils. There were pillows thrown everywhere in the fort to keep them comfortable along with the spare blankets that weren’t used in the structure. The two were laying on the floor with Jongdae’s laptop sitting on the coloring table playing a movie off Netflix, Jongin laying in Jongdae’s arms with his eyes trained on the swirls up the elder’s arm.
“Papa Dae?” Jongin spoke up.
“Yes, Jongin.” Jongdae hummed, looking down at the toddler.
“Can I color this?” Jongin pokes at Jongdae’s arm where his tattoos were. Jongdae let out a little laugh before sitting up and pausing the movie. Jongin took it as a yes and jumped up to swipe his markers off the table and begin coloring in.
When Jongdae occasionally looked over, he could see Jongin concentrating hard on coloring inside the lines of his tattoo. Jongin was only coloring in the dragon that swirled around his upper arm, not bothering with the rest that disappeared behind his shirt. The feeling of the marker tips made Jongdae want to laugh, them tickling his arm.
“Papa Dae! Don’t laugh or I’ll mess up!” Jongin screeched as he could feel Jongdae silently laughing, shoulders shaking.
“I’m sorry, Jonginnie,” Jongdae grinned and sat still. Jongin crawled into his lap a few minutes later to start coloring the permanent ink that was on the inside of Jongdae’s forearm. It wasn’t much, geometric shapes like hexagons and triangles and cubes all tumbling down his arm to look almost like an optical illusion as Minseok had said when the musician came home from the tattoo shop in town. His arm was full of black ink that almost seemed like too much, but Jongdae didn’t care.
Once Jongin finished coloring on Jongdae, he looked up with wide, puppy like eyes. His bottom lip poked out in a pout like he wanted to ask Jongdae a question but didn’t want to be told no.
“Papa?” Jongin shyly started, “Can I draw on your other arm?”
“How about we do that later? Right now we should eat some lunch, hm?”
“Okay! I wanna help! Uncle Soo would always let me help him make lunch!” Jongin’s eyes sparkled as he bounced up from Jongdae’s lap, just barely grazing his chin. With the energetic kid racing to the kitchen, Jongdae laughed and followed.
Minseok was exhausted from work, too many accidents had occurred after the sudden snowfall and black ice glazing over the roads. He was careful to drive home, most of the little snow melting and becoming puddles of water. Minseok wanted nothing but to be home with his boyfriend and son.
He was greeted with silence when he entered the apartment, not even sound coming from the television. Their shoes and coats were still in the entrance room yet it was like nobody was home. Minseok crept into the living room to see the massive blanket fort set up, and the two dead asleep inside the comfortable space.
“I can’t believe,” Minseok whispered with a smile as he looked at the two. He could see Jongin was bundled up in his favorite blanket and was even in his pajamas from the previous night and Jongdae was right next to him with an arm wrapped around the toddler. Minseok decided not to bother the sleeping bears and rushed to the bathroom to shower to get the hospital stink off his body.
By the time Minseok was out of the shower and making his way to the kitchen, Jongdae was stepping out of the fort with a yawn. Minseok smiled and walked into the kitchen, ready to cook some dinner when he felt arms wrap around his waist.
“Oh,” Minseok squeaked when he looked down at the colors all over Jongdae’s arms, “I see you got colored in.”
“Jongin wanted to color in my tattoos. It washes off.” Jongdae sighed and rested his chin on Minseok’s shoulder, “Hopefully.”
Minseok let out a laugh, patting Jongdae’s arms to release him so they could face each other.
“You know you’re cleaning this up before bed time, right?”
“Nope. We’re camping out in the living room. Prince Jongin commands it.”
“But a prince has no say over the king.” Minseok winked.
“Who said you were king?” Jongdae smiled teasingly at his boyfriend, poking at his sides to make him squirm and wiggle around.
“I said,” Minseok laughed, trying to escape Jongdae who was still tickling his sides. The laughter became loud enough to wake Jongin. Soon, the sleepy child was stomping into the kitchen where the laughter seemed to be coming from.
“Papa Dae! Why are you hurting papa!” Jongin squealed, running over to latch onto Jongdae to make him stop. Jongdae finally stopped to lift Jongin into his arms, making the toddler giggle.
“Nini, honey, when did you start calling Jongdae that?” Minseok asked, stepping closer to his boys to gently brush Jongin’s hair out of his face. The kid really needed a haircut, he was starting to look like Chanyeol back in college when he had to pull his hair back into a bun or ponytail.
Jongin just shrugged and wrapped his arms around Jongdae, letting his head rest in the junction between Jongdae’s neck and shoulder. Minseok inwardly cooed at the sight and just wanted to take a picture of the sight to rub it in Byun’s smug little face.
“He just recently started today before we went back to sleep after breakfast.” Jongdae rubbed Jongin’s back as the toddler began falling back asleep in his arms.
“Well, I think it’s cute,” Minseok smiled, “What about you, Papa Dae?”
“My heart melted the first time he said it.”