Work Text:
Haneul doesn’t quite have the dexterity to bake yet: small, stodgy fingers wriggling haplessly in the flour. He makes a mess more than he helps, but Jongin still thinks this is the best kitchen-assistant he’s ever had, their cookies were lovingly and patchily coated with icing and sprinkles. The smell of vanilla and cooked sugar fill the kitchen, heady and sweet and perfect for winter. Jongin sets the cookies on the cooling rack and scoops up Haneul from the counter.
He’s in dire need of a wash, chubby cheeks powdered with flour and fingers sticky with jam filling. There’s a brand new baby-sized apron wrapped around his little torso, and Haneul is very attached to it, shrieking with betrayal the entire time Jongin unties it to place him in the tub.
But it’s eventually forgotten amidst little babbles of “da-da, da-da” little rubber toys crowding around him as Jongin rinses his hair and rubs the stickiness from his fingers and cheeks. The baby shampoo smells mild, like melon and powder, and Jongin is going to miss the scent terribly when Haneul outgrows it.
Halfway through bath time, just when Jongin’s knees have started their daily ache from kneeling on the tiled floor, Haneul looks behind him and screams in delight, shrill and happy and broken up by giggles. Jongin doesn’t even need to turn to see who it is, not when seconds later, there’s a firm kiss being pressed against his lips, and another against the top of Haneul’s soapy head.
“Hi babies,” Sehun’s voice is deep and soft and brimming with affection. He leans over to massage the shampoo into Haneul’s hair, cuffs pushed up and work-shirt crumpling against Jongin’s back.
It’s been busy for Sehun, lunar new year issues to be printed and March issues to be formatted, and a whole host of other year-end technicalities. But he’s done now, and the idea of a long weekend at home has never sounded quite so blissful to Jongin. Even with an excitable baby on the loose.
As if in reminder, Haneul let’s out another happy giggle, fists smashing against the bubbly water with small chants of “appa, appa, appa.” Except he hasn’t quite figured out the double-consonants yet, so it sounds like ‘ap-PAH.’
Fifteen minutes of wrestling in the tub culminate in Sehun taking Haneul away, bundled up in the little dinosaur towel he got from ‘Jondeh-samchon.’ Jongin stays behind, wiping up the soapy water that’s spilt over the lip off the tub before stripping and climbing in for a quick shower.
Halfway through soaping himself, Sehun climbs in behind him, skin warm and dry against the wetness of Jongin’s back.
“What about Haneulie?” Jongin sighs, leaning his head back onto Sehun’s shoulder.
“He’s in his crib, we’ll be quick,” Sehun answers, pressing a kiss to Jongin’s nape and beaming when Jongin presses an answering kiss against his cheek.
“Yesterday I caught him trying to figure out how to undo the safety-latch.”
Sehun gasps dramatically, “we haven’t even gotten to the terrible twos, and he’s already making a break for it.”
Jongin laughs, turning around to help Sehun with the shampoo. “All I’m saying is that we need to be more careful.”
Sehun kisses his dimple, eyes sweet, “next thing you know, he’ll be trying to walk!”
Jongin giggles, “I know, it’s atrocious!”
They get out quickly, passing the lotion back and forth and wiping up the water.
Sehun turns to him, vigorously dragging the towel through his hair, “I’m gonna go pop these clothes in the washing machine, you grab Haneulie?”
Jongin nods, making his way out of the steam into the evening cool of their apartment. Haneul’s right where Sehun left him, clad in a salmon-colored fleece onesie that Jongin knows is Sehun’s favorite. His feet kick up happily when he spots Jongin by the door, drool bubbling along the edges of his nearly toothless smile.
“D-ah!”
“Time for dinner baby,” Jongin picks him up easily. He really is perfect for holding now, chubby and calm and always warm. They’re lucky Haneul likes to be held, it works out perfectly because he’s always in either of their arms.
The pediatrician is convinced Haneul hasn’t started walking only because they refuse to put him down for long enough so he can try. Jongin smiles into Haneul’s hair at the thought, and wishes—not for the first time—that he could freeze time and keep Haneul this small. Warm and safely tucked in his arms.
Sehun has already started on spaghetti in the kitchen, water bubbling away in the pot as he dices garlic and green onions. Jongin drops Haneul into the baby chair, pressing a little sippy cup of warm milk into his hands before propping his chin on Sehun’s shoulder.
“We could’ve ordered in, aren’t you tired?”
Sehun hums, “I was, but it isn’t as bad anymore? I think it’s gonna hit me again in an hour.”
“Alright. I’ll grab the ground meat and kimchi, do you need anything else?”
They’ll have to go grocery shopping this weekend, the vegetable drawer is on its last couple of bell peppers and loose garlic cloves. Jongin pulls out the kimchi jar that Sehun’s mother had given them when they visited last month.
“This one?” He calls over to Sehun.
Before Sehun can answer, a small, shrill voice from the table repeats:
“THIZ WUH?”
Sehun cackles in delight, lowering the heat under his saucepan so he can walk over and plant smooches all over Haneul’s pleased face. Haneul’s starting to understand now that his fathers like it when he repeats after them. They’ve really had to crackdown on the swear words at Oh-Kim residence.
“Yes baby, that one,” Sehun answers with a final kiss to Haneul’s bite-sized nose. Then he looks at Jongin mischievously, “we’re out of mushrooms, aren’t we?”
Jongin catches on the glint in his eyes, face twisting into an exaggeratedly sad expression. “All out--what are we going to do?”
Sehun turns to Haneul, who seems to have realized something’s amiss. “We’ll just have to eat this one won’t we?” He finishes by grabbing Haneul’s nose gently between his thumb and forefinger.
Haneul’s eyes widen slightly, tiny fingers rushing up to cup his nose. “Nuh. Ap-pah, nuh.”
“But we’re out of mushrooms Haneulie, what will we eat?”
Haneul shakes his head, fingers still clapped urgently over his face. “KICHI.”
Jongin can’t help the laugh that escapes him, “kimchi?”
Haneul nods solemnly, “kichi.”
Sehun boils a small portion of the noodles for slightly longer, so it’s soft enough for Haneul to chew through with ease. Dinner is happy; Haneul insists on eating with his fists, and even though Jongin is reluctant, Sehun is delighted by how violent their son manages to make spaghetti-eating look. The entire thing is something out of a horror movie, the red sauce dripping down Haneul’s chin and knuckles as he demolishes his dinner.
After dinner and clean-up, they settle onto the thick rug in the TV room with the cookies that Haneul and Jongin baked earlier in the evening. They’re still warm and deliciously soft in the middle. When Haneul catches Sehun feeding Jongin a piece, he insists on feeding both of them, pressing sticky fingers to Sehun and Jongin’s chins as he tries to push chunks into their mouths turn-by-turn.
The eventual sugar crash has Sehun and him flat on the carpet, as Haneul plays with his toys between them. Most evenings at home find them like this, and Jongin wants to bottle them all up and never let go.
He turns to look at Sehun over his shoulder, to find him looking his way already, cheeks rosy with warmth and eyes tired.
“It’s the weekend,” Jongin mutters, fingers reaching out to rub at Sehun’s cheeks.
“That’s fucking right it is,” Sehun groans in relief, kissing the Jongin’s palm before yawning. Jongin is about to admonish him but Sehun pauses mid-yawn, eyes widening in Haneul’s direction. “Oh my god-!”
Jongin tilts his head downwards, and the angle is hell for his neck, but he forgets all the discomfort when he catches sight of Haneul pushing up from the floor and struggling on to his two feet. He’s still slightly wobbly, but Jongin watches on in awe as he lifts one teeny-tiny onesie-clad foot off the ground, and brings it forward.
“Oh my god- oh my god Nini it’s his first step-” Sehun whispers breathlessly, as if the sound itself will startle Haneul back into a crawl.
Jongin can’t get his mouth to move, and when he reaches up to touch his lips, he finds them spread into a wide, unfettered grin. His cheeks ache to numbness, and his eyes are teary, but they watch on as Haneul takes one, then two, and then three steps before falling right back onto his bum.
Sehun reaches him first, scooping him up into his arms before tossing him into the air. “Baby you walked! Your first steps!” He informs a clueless Haneul, who giggles as his father swings him up again and again.
Jongin moves over to them on the rug, and Sehun smiles at him, the same breathtaking grin that Jongin is sure resides on his own face. “We didn’t record any of it, everyone’s going to be so mad,” but even as he says it, he’s laughing, hand reaching out to cup Haneul’s back where he rests against Sehun’s chest.
Sehun kisses him, square on the mouth, lips pressed tenderly over his own. “It’s okay, this time can be just for us.”
Later, when Haneul is asleep and Jongin’s waiting for Sehun to climb into bed, he has a moment to himself. He catalogues all the ways in which he’s exhausted from work, the ache in his wrists from drawing, in his back and shoulders from hunching over his desk. He has a small pimple erupting by his temple, and two projects to complete next week. They’ll have to grocery shop and meal-prep this weekend, and unclog the tub drain and scrub the rug.
But he’s still the happiest he’s ever been, so full with it that he couldn’t deflate to the aching emptiness of sadness if he tried. As the thought completes itself in his head, he feels Sehun climb into bed, an arm wrapping around Jongin’s waist as Sehun’s knees tuck behind his own.
“Big day tomorrow,” Sehun mumbles into his shoulder.
Jongin’s brow furrows, “what? Why?”
“I don’t know. Haneul might walk again,” Sehun’s fingers creep under his shirt to trace gently over his stomach. “We’ve entered the ‘milestones’ era baby, there’s no escaping his inevitable ascent to the teens anymore.”
Jongin laughs, “shut up. He just took his first steps, it’s not like you have to drop him off to college tomorrow.”
It’s quiet for a moment and Jongin can feel Sehun’s smile against his nape.
“I love you,” Sehun says, minutes after anyone’s last spoken, and minutes closer to sleep.
Jongin grins, “I love you too.”