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the air is cold and metallic when kun steps through the terminal. he pulls his scarf around his neck and sends a quick text to sicheng to let him know his plane has landed, then makes his way to baggage claim. he manages to haul his suitcase off the conveyor belt, and even though it’s on wheels, kun barely has the energy to drag it through the rest of the airport.
kun figures he should buy a map to find the closest train, so he stops by a travel information desk and asks for a map. the woman behind the desk is out of maps, though, so she tries to direct kun with her words.
“where are you trying to go?” she asks. she smooths her hair behind her ears and drums her fingers on the desks.
“just a couple miles away. i don’t know which trains run at this hour—” kun folds and unfolds his fingers nervously. “i forgot the name of my neighborhood. i just moved into a new apartment a while ago.”
“is there anyone you can ask?”
“yeah, hold on. i’ll call my—” he pauses for a moment and purses his lips. “—my roommate.”
kun pulls his phone from his pocket and calls sicheng. while the line rings, he fiddles with the ring around his finger.
“we’re sorry, but the number you have called is currently unavailable. your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system. at the tone, please record your message. when you are finished recording, you may—”
kun huffs and stuffs his phone into his pocket. “i’m sorry to bother you,” he says, offering an apologetic smile to the woman. he turns and quickly walks away, not bothering to listen to the woman’s response.
kun raises a hand to clutch at the thin chain around his neck. faintly, he can hear sicheng’s voice ringing loud in his imagination, but he sighs and shakes his head to keep the thought away. he’s about to step onto an escalator when a hand grabs his wrist and pulls.
he stumbles backwards and trips over his own feet. a solid second of kun’s favorite people flash before his mind’s eye in a rapid sequence of sicheng yangyang chenle renjun chenle renjun yangyang sicheng as he falls. he doesn’t have the wits about him to shield his head from the floor, and in a few seconds, he realizes he doesn’t have to as strong arms hold kun snugly to a body and eventually pull him up onto his feet.
kun turns to thank the stranger who’s helped him. he doesn’t expect to see sicheng staring back at him.
“i was calling your name for five minutes,” sicheng says, a grin so wide on his face that kun can’t bring himself to look at anything else.
“how are you here?” he asks incredulously. “why are you here? where are the—”
“ten’s babysitting the kids. i’ve been waiting for a little under an hour to pick you up. c’mon—if we hurry, we can catch the train back.”
kun makes no haste in moving, so sicheng grabs his hand and pulls him along. they make light conversation on the way, and kun barely notices that sicheng now has an arm around him and is holding him close as they speed through the airport. he notices the bracelet on sicheng’s wrist, though, and he furrows his eyebrows as he tries to comprehend why it’s there.
“your bracelet’s yellow,” kun points out as sicheng picks up the pace of their walking. “are you sure you’re okay?”
sicheng manages a shrug. “i couldn’t let the kids touch me earlier, and it carried over a little with time, but i missed you too much to care about it.”
“sicheng,” kun groans. he tries to pull his arm away from sicheng’s death grip, but the younger only tightens his hold.
sicheng flashes him a grin, to which kun rolls his eyes and asks, “were the kids good? i told them to call me if anything went majorly wrong, but it’s been radio silence for two weeks, so i guess everything was fine.”
“you underestimate me as a parent. need i remind you i was on my own for, like, four years?” sicheng fakes a pout. “yeah, the babies were fine. yangyang had a small meltdown when he realized you weren’t home, and chenle demanded takeout for a solid week, but renjun was an angel and i’m grateful for that.”
“sure, diss my kids but praise your own,” kun says as they emerge from the airport and make their way down the busy street. sicheng drives the heel of his shoe into far too many rain puddles as they walk, but kun can’t find it in himself to complain.
“it’s because you raised them,” sicheng says, pulling kun’s scarf down to give him a quick kiss as they walk. “and anyways, they’re our kids.”
kun feels his face grow hot. he doesn’t say anything to dispute this, but he does grip sicheng’s sleeve a little tighter as the younger pulls him inside a nearly empty train station. they quickly buy tickets and cram themselves into a small booth on the train that’s boarding for their neighborhood. kun gets the window seat, probably because sicheng’s sensitivity makes him claustrophobic at random intervals. whatever the reason, he doesn’t complain.
sicheng pulls kun’s scarf from around his neck. once it’s in his hands, he folds it into a little pillow and sets it on top of his shoulder, then looks at kun expectantly. the older laughs.
“i’m not tired,” he reasons.
“of course you are. nap while you can. the kids won’t let you sleep tomorrow.”
kun hums and rests his head on sicheng’s shoulder, and then the younger’s hand lifts to curl over his eyes and slowly card through his hair. the fabric of his sleeve blocks out the light, and kun lets himself smile and kiss sicheng’s wrist before he shuts his eyes and tries to fall asleep. sicheng’s hand freezes for a moment, but then his thumb pushes a lock of kun’s hair behind his ear, and sicheng secures his hand on the back of kun’s neck to let it shield kun’s eyes.
he’s not sure when he falls asleep, but when he wakes, sicheng is gently shaking his shoulders and pulling his messy hair out of his eyes. “we’re home,” he says, pressing a kiss to the corner of kun’s mouth. groggily, kun chases him, but sicheng is already standing and stepping into the aisle to leave.
on their way off the train, though, kun plants a kiss on sicheng’s cheek and revels in the way the younger’s face turns pink. it’s reassuring to know they have the same effect on each other.
the walk to their apartment complex is short, but kun enjoys it nonetheless. there’s not much time in the day for him to be alone with sicheng, and it’s even rarer for that time to be anything but chaotic.
they manage to get kun’s suitcase up two flights of stairs without getting hurt. (“an incredible feat for someone as old as you,” sicheng teases. kun threatens to push his suitcase back down the staircase.) kun’s key doesn’t work when they try unlocking the door, so ten ends up making them beg outside of their apartment to be let in before he unlatches the door and swings it open. he pats kun on the back and disappears down the staircase without another word.
“do you want dinner?” sicheng whispers. ten has left the tv on, so the kids shouldn’t be able to hear much, but talking at any volume past eight in the evening is a dangerous game.
kun shakes his head and rolls his suitcase into the corner. he shuffles forward to drape himself around sicheng and rest his chin on the younger’s shoulder, his arms wrapping around sicheng’s frame and crossing over his chest.
“this is domestic,” sicheng murmurs.
kun’s about to say something when a loud screech of, “he’s home! dad’s home! i told you guys!” sounds from the hallway. yangyang sprints away from the potted plant he had been hiding behind and makes a mad dash towards kun, who untangles himself from sicheng just in time to lift yangyang up into the air and over his head.
“you’re supposed to be asleep,” kun says in the most disapproving tone he can manage, biting back a smile as he speaks.
“renjun didn’t believe me when i told him you’d be home tonight,” yangyang blinks at him. “but you told me you’d be home in two weeks, and two weeks is fourteen days, so i counted them down! and i was right!”
“uncle ten gave yangyang popcorn before bed,” renjun whines, emerging from his bedroom with a pout. he doesn’t spare kun a glance; instead, he attaches himself to sicheng’s leg and starts to complain. “he wouldn’t even let me have any!”
“nobody was supposed to have popcorn before bed,” sicheng huffs. he slides his leg towards kun and nudges renjun’s back. “go say hi to your dad.”
“he’s busy with yangyang,” renjun says, shaking his head. “and yangyang told me that if i messed with his dad then he’d cut my hair while i was asleep.”
“you did what,” kun grounds out, glaring at yangyang, who tries to wriggle out of his grip nervously. he sets him down and crouches onto the ground. “now, i’m renjun’s dad, too. you’ve gotta remember that.”
“i had you first,” yangyang says, crossing his arms.
kun fixes him with a blank stare. “you have no problem sharing with chenle.”
“because chenle is my brother!” yangyang complains, but sicheng is quick to respond.
“renjun is your brother, too,” sicheng says sharply. “if you call me dad, then doesn’t that make renjun your brother?”
“...i guess?” yangyang says, kicking the ground beneath his feet. “i dunno. i just missed you.” he blinks up hopefully at kun, who ruffles his hair and opens his arms for renjun, who happily slings his arms around kun’s neck and hangs there.
“where’s chenle?” kun asks. “there’s no way you didn’t wake him up.”
“he’s watching tv. we stole uncle ten’s laptop, so we’re watching a show renjun told us about!” yangyang beams.
sicheng’s face twists. “what’s it called?”
“the… the walking…?” yangyang furrows his eyebrows. “i don’t remember.”
“oh, god,” sicheng says, and then he rushes into the boys’ bedroom. when he comes back, chenle is curled into his arms, and kun feels a little part of him melt at the sight. he lets chenle sit on the floor and kneels down so he’s at renjun’s height. “i told you we’re not watching the walking dead anymore.”
“but it’s cool,” renjun protests. sicheng shakes his head, and that’s the end of the conversation.
chenle seems to notice that kun is in front of him, hidden by yangyang and renjun’s faces. he waddles forward and pushes yangyang aside so that he can fit comfortably in kun’s arms. yangyang promptly falls over, but before he can start to cry, sicheng scoops him up and places him on his knee. he seems content enough with this that he doesn’t protest when chenle buries his head in kun’s chest and says, “hi, dad! you’re back!”
“hi, baby,” kun grins, dropping his head to leave a kiss on the top of chenle’s head. he stands, taking chenle up into the air with him as renjun attaches himself to kun’s leg. it’s hard to walk forward, but he manages.
kun glances back to see sicheng holding yangyang’s hand and leading him to bed. for a second time that night, he melts.
“i don’t wanna go to bed,” renjun complains when kun steps inside his room. “i wanna stay up.”
“you have school tomorrow,” kun reminds him, earning a groan from the boy as he grumpily flops down onto his bed.
kun and sicheng spend a solid ten minutes tucking the three in. sicheng confiscates ten’s laptop, earning him three simultaneous whines of disapproval, and then they shut the bedroom door to a chorus of goodnight.
kun feels dead when his body hits the bed. exhaustion that he hadn’t known existed spreads through him in the course of a few seconds, and he rolls over with a loud groan to wait for sicheng to climb into bed. when he does, kun pulls him close and slips his hand into sicheng’s. the younger says something to him, but kun’s eyes are already heavy, and the words barely reach his ears before he’s fast asleep.
kun wakes in the middle of the night to three harsh tugs on the back of his shirt. he rolls over and sits up, rubbing his eyes. his bedroom door is cracked open, and light from the hallway spills into the room. three small shadows cut through the sliver of light, and kun sighs.
“dad, can we sleep in your room tonight? that show scared us.”
kun can’t recognize the voice that asks, but he can recognize the three bodies that clamber overtop of him when he nods his head yes. sicheng squawks in protest, but moves to accommodate the kids who now lie sandwiched in between them.
kun moves to wrap his arm around whoever’s nearest. it’s renjun, who snuggles into kun as soon as an arm is draped around him. kun smiles, and for a while, he lies awake and thinks about how much love he has in his heart. he feels like he’s going to burst.
he’s home, he thinks. a few years ago, he had thought that the only home he had was yangyang and chenle. but here, in his bed, with his fiancé and his boys, he knows that this is home. this is love. this is contentment.
kun falls asleep with a smile on his face, and he’s delighted to find that when he wakes, it’s still there.