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Donghyuck woke up with the sun, rubbing his eyes with little fists as the sunlight filtered through his baby blue curtains. Papa and Daddy had put him to bed earlier the night before, because he was “hopped up on too much sugar,” his Daddy had grumbled under his breath.
Donghyuck had no idea what that meant, only that he had to go to bed early, and he didn’t like that. Not one bit. However, he did wake up earlier, which he knew from his Papa’s experiences that it was always nice. “It’s quiet, and peaceful,” Donghyuck remembered his Papa telling him with a soft voice a while ago.
However, Donghyuck was neither of those things when he woke up with this amount of energy. He bounded out of bed (as quietly as possible, he knew his Papa and Daddy were still sleeping), still clutching his teddy bear, and opened the curtains a bit more to let the light in. He always preferred natural sunlight to the artificial lights in his room anyways.
Looking outside, he caught sight of the sunflowers in the garden at the front of their house. Donghyuck gasped when he remembered something his Daddy always told him.
“Daddy always says I’m his little sunflower,” Donghyuck whispered to his bear, “maybe I should draw a sunflower on him! It would look so good on him!”
With that in mind, he crept downstairs in search of markers. Because the sun was already up, he didn’t need to turn on any lights to find his way around. He reached the drawer in the kitchen reserved for random things like markers, pencils, and safety pins. Donghyuck never understood the point of it - a “junk drawer”, his Papa always called it - but he was able to find a yellow, brown, and green marker.
Passing by the counter, he opened the little cabinet underneath to take a handful of papers.
“For practice,” Donghyuck told his bear on the way back upstairs.
In his room, Donghyuck practiced several times drawing sunflowers, focusing extremely hard. He wanted the flower to be perfect, he just wanted to make his Daddy happy.
Unknown to Donghyuck and his teddy bear, who Donghyuck was whispering to intently on how he was going to get into his parents’ room without waking them up, he had accidentally grabbed the permanent markers. He hadn’t noticed when he grabbed them, too focused on being quiet so as to not wake his dads up.
Ten minutes and about six papers later, Donghyuck felt confident enough to draw a really, really, really good sunflower on his Daddy’s arm without messing up. He grinned triumphantly, showing his teddy bear the work he was proud of.
Leaving his bear behind, and gripping the markers in his hand, Donghyuck tiptoed down the hallway to his parents’ bedroom. Their door was already a bit open, much to Donghyuck’s relief.
Now the slightly difficult part: getting onto the bed without disturbing his dads sleeping.
It shouldn’t be too hard, Donghyuck reasoned, climbing onto the huge bed at the end, Papa always said Daddy was a heavy sleeper.
Crawling forward, avoiding the tangled legs, Donghyuck plopped down in between them, thankful they weren’t cuddling closely like they usually do. He spotted Daddy’s left arm lying in a way that showed his wrist, which is exactly where he wants to draw it anyways.
Yeah, that wasn’t so hard, Donghyuck nodded triumphantly.
Halfway through drawing the flower slowly, Donghyuck paused. He won’t get in trouble for this…right?
No, Donghyuck thought firmly. Sunflowers are cute, and it looks good on Daddy, he decided with certainty.
~
Eventually, Johnny woke up, with Taeyong wrapped around his body like an octopus.
Which is always nice, but the next thing he noticed, the thing that really woke him up, was the strong smell of permanent marker.
“What the fuck,” he mumbled, slowly sitting up as Taeyong came to. His husband lightly smacked his chest, blinking up at him with sleepy eyes and pouting lips.
“Language,” Taeyong grumbled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“No, but…do you smell that?” Johnny said, looking around the room for the source of the smell.
“Hmm?” Taeyong was still waking up, stretching on the bed like the goddamn cat he is.
“Nevermind, we’ll find it soon I’m sure,” Johnny threw the blanket off him, onto Taeyong, as he often does just to get a rise out of him. He always shrieks like a banshee, every time without fail, but Johnny loves him, so it’s all good.
Taeyong eventually dragged himself out of bed to help Johnny fix the sheets, and all was quiet - until Taeyong started giggling while looking at Johnny’s left arm.
Johnny rolled his eyes fondly, but looked down to see what his husband is laughing about-
Only to see a sunflower, clearly drawn by a child. A certain 5 year old, to be exact.
“This is permanent marker,” Johnny sighed, part in exasperation, part in endearment, “I don’t even know why he did it, but it’s permanent marker.”
“But, babe, it’s cute,” Taeyong’s still giggling while smoothing out the wrinkles on the sheets.
“But it’s not gonna come off for a while,” Johnny whined. And of course, Taeyong simply smiled at Johnny’s predicament while making his way around the bed. He got on his tiptoes to give Johnny a light kiss.
“Sucks to be you I guess,” Taeyong pecked his lips again and damn near skipped out of their bedroom (he’s just that fucking cute, and he’s always 10x more adorable in the morning right after they woke up.)
Johnny was left staring at the sunflower, while distantly hearing Taeyong talking to their son Donghyuck, wondering why in the hell Donghyuck would draw a sunflower of all things on his arm. And then it clicked. Of course Donghyuck would draw a sunflower when Johnny often called him one himself - it’s a nickname at this point. Granted, he still didn’t know exactly what would prompt Donghyuck to draw on his arm when he woke up, but did anyone really know the mind of a child? (No, not really.)
What he was a little mad about, however, was the fact his son used a permanent marker after being explicitly told multiple times by both Taeyong and himself to never use it without his parents’ permission.
Johnny waited for Taeyong to leave Donghyuk’s room, knowing his husband would want to get started on breakfast soon.
“Ok baby, I’m gonna go downstairs and start breakfast, I’ll come get you and Daddy in a bit,” he heard Taeyong tell Donghyuck, and then Taeyong left after Donghyuck said a simple, “ok.”
Johnny shuffled down the hallway, still a bit tired (it’s still early as hell, and he’s not exactly a morning person), finally reaching Donghyuck’s room. His son was playing with his stuffies, surrounded by papers COVERED in a variety of sunflowers and permanent markers. Johnny momentarily forgot what he came into the room for in the first place, because Donghyuck looked absolutely precious playing with his stuffies, lost in his own little world.
He’s reminded of what he was mad about earlier when the smell of permanent markers hit him, and he mentally brought out Strict Dad Mode. He maneuvered around the papers and markers, and sat down beside Donghyuck.
Donghyuck paused the game he’s playing (something about a prince saving another prince from a dragon) when he saw his other dad and squealed, “Morning Daddy!”
“Good morning sweetie, did you sleep well?” Johnny reached out to smooth Donghyuck’s soft hair, smiling gently.
Donghyuck nodded, smiling like the goddamn sun, looking a lot like Taeyong in that moment. Unfortunately, Johnny didn’t have time to think about the genes his son inherited from him and his other dad, and he dropped his smile, looking a bit sterner.
“Baby, I have a question,” Donghyuck sensed his dad’s change in demeanor, and he looked down at his lap, as if he already knew what’s coming. Not wanting to scare the kid, which Johnny knew was very possible considering how much of a giant he is, Johnny lifted Donghyuck up onto his bed so they were at the same eye level.
Crouching down beside him, he asked in a soft but serious voice, “Donghyuck, did you draw a sunflower on Daddy while I was sleeping?”
Donghyuck didn’t say anything for a minute, his big doe-like eyes (again, reminding him of Taeyong) filling with tears and bottom lip quivering.
“But the sunflower looks so cute and I think it will look good on you,” he said finally, some tears falling.
“Oh honey, no, don’t cry, I’m not that mad. It’s just… you used permanent marker, this won’t come off very easily, and for a while.”
Donghyuck raised his head to look at Johnny, eyes wide in realization. It clicked then that Donghyuck clearly didn’t know what he used. Well, that changed everything.
Johnny immediately reached out, wiping some of the tears off Donghyuck’s cheeks, “Sweetie, did you not know?”
Donghyuck’s bottom lip jutted out into a pout, and he nodded, rubbing his nose, “ ‘m sorry Daddy,” and his breath hitched. Johnny instantly pulled Donghyuck into a hug, off the bed, into his lap, sitting fully on the floor.
Johnny tsked, “It’s ok, baby, I forgive you. Just, next time you wanna draw on one of us, ask first, ok? Maybe you can ask Papa if you wanna draw on someone, hm? I’m sure he’d like that.”
And Johnny knew Taeyong would, with his innate ability to draw on anything and everything, which had been passed on to their son. Taeyong would be over the moon if Donghyuck asked to draw on his arms for fun.
Donghyuck knew that too, and instantly lit up at the idea of drawing all over his Papa’s arms, reminding Johnny of the sun once again.
Now that that was all out of the way, Johnny knew the boy must be hungry, having been up and full of so much energy so early in the morning.
Johnny stood up, taking Donghyuck with him and grabbing the teddy bear as instructed by his son, making his way around the mess of papers and markers on the floor towards the door, “Now, how about some breakfast? I think Papa’s making pancakes again!” He grinned, looking forward to his husband’s pancakes (they were to die for, always perfectly fluffy and thick, and topped with fresh fruit.)
Donghyuck nodded eagerly, and started babbling about the different designs he could draw on his Papa’s arms, listing other flowers he wants to try and draw, because, “You can’t just practice drawing only one flower Daddy, you have to perfect them all.”
Throughout the next weeks, there was a drastic growth of drawings and paintings added to the fridge and some walls, all ranging from Donghyuck’s favourite animals to flowers to his favourite people in the world (“Daddy, Papa, Mark, Renjun, Jaemin, and Jeno,” he had firmly stated before starting the drawing, when asked who he liked the most in the entire world.)
Johnny decided that if this was the result of an over-energetic child drawing on their parent's arm with permanent marker, he definitely wasn’t complaining, and would offer his arms as a canvas at anytiime if his son so desired.