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jisung has never been a “kid person”. other people his age, they just seemed to love kids and, well, he didn’t.
it’s not like he hated kids, don’t get him wrong. they can be pretty chill, he supposes, so long as he’s not left alone with them while they stare at him expecting him to-
well.
that’s just the thing jisung has with kids.
he doesn’t know what they want from him. they talk at him, they just stare, they watch peppa pig and generally just kinda make a mess everywhere they go and it just makes jisung feel awkward.
what is he supposed to do? what is he supposed to say ? he’s just not sure and kids just seem to read his mind and know he’s feeling anxious because for some reason they flock to him like little sheep.
so, yeah, jisung’s not really a “kid person”, but somehow he really picked the short end of the stick this time because why the fuck is there a baby sleeping on his fucking doorstep?
–
he takes it in.
of course he does.
he’s not evil.
he gently places the baby basket (is that what you call it? jisung’s not sure.) on his coffee table and just.
stares.
and stares.
and stares.
and the baby just sleeps.
jisung stares harder for a moment, then relaxes. he saw the baby's chest rise and fall.
“okay.” he says to himself out loud. “okay you have a fucking baby in a basket.” he gestures to it as if he were talking to someone who couldn’t see it, “fuck knows why, but you’ve got it!”
he blinks, takes a deep breath and then sighs it out painfully slow and shaky. “fuck, should i be saying fuck in front of a baby?” he wonders aloud once again.
once the initial shock wears off, jisung begins to pace. and as he begins to pace his mind clears enough to realise he definitely needs help. and when he realises that, he pulls out his phone and dials the first person that comes to mind.
“ hello ?” his brother’s voice comes through the phone speaker and jisung never thought he would be relieved to hear his voice.
jisung sighs, “mark hyung,” he breathes out in relief.
“ yeah? jisung, are you good ?”
“no, actually hyung, i’m decidedly not okay in the slightest.”
the shocked tone of mark’s response would be enough to make jisung laugh if he weren't on the verge of tears, “ oh damn, what’s up ?”
“oh, you know,” jisung starts casually, “just opened my front door this morning to a fucking baby on my doorstep. i mean, freaking, fuck, i need to stop swearing at this god damn baby.”
“ that’s a lot to unpack …”
“ hyung ”
“ well, whose baby is it ?”
jisung exhales sharply, impatiently, keeping his eyes on the offending baby, which simply continues to sleep soundly. “if i knew that, hyung, i wouldn't have called you!”
“ dude, no need to be mean. didn't it come with a note or something? if i abandoned a baby i’d leave a note or something, i guess ?”
jisung stays silent a beat too long.
“ you didn't check for a note, huh ?”
“no, no i didn't,” jisung admits sheepishly, rolling his eyes at how smug mark sounded.
“ check for a tag or something .” he says, like he’s talking about a dog collar, “ maybe the mom got the wrong door or something? ”
“god, i hope you’re right.” jisung says, “wait there.”
he puts down the phone and with shaking hands he reaches out to the basket (seriously, is that what its called?) but he stops short, worried to wake the baby.
instead, he surveys it carefully, finally identifying a corner of paper just tucked into the baby’s left side.
mindful not to wake the sleeping baby, he delicately pulls the note from where it lay partially under the baby’s body and his heart drops when he sees it is addressed to himself.
this baby definitely doesn’t have the wrong apartment.
“ jisung ,” he reads aloud, knowing mark can hear him. “i tried, but i couldn’t do it. i can’t be a mother . i can’t give my daughter the life she deserves. i know this isn’t fair, you didn’t even know she existed. but i know in my heart you will love her more than i ever could. her name is dasom, and she’s your daughter. i’m sorry i never told you in person and i’m sorry to leave her to you like this. take care, yeojin.”
“ yeojin? ” mark’s voice rings in his ear, “ as in yeojin your -”
“ex girlfriend that suddenly broke up with me eleven months ago, yeah.”
“ at least that makes sense now, eh ?”
jisung sighs, not willing to grace mark with an answer. “what am i supposed to do, hyung?” he asks, voice thick with worry, “i’m a freelance writer, i haven’t exactly got the job of the year! i can barely provide for myself, i can barely take care of myself, let alone another human being!”
“ hey hey hey ,” mark quiets him softly, “ it’s gonna be okay, we can figure this out. i’m still in china with chenle right now but we’ll take the next flight back and we’ll put some research into the legalities of this, i’m pretty sure this is child abandonment, jisungie. ”
jisung stares at the baby’s - at his daughter’s - face. she looks so peaceful, she doesn’t know what happened, doesn’t know she’s been left like this.
jisung somehow connects with that.
he, too, was abandoned by his family at an early age and if it weren’t for mark and their late uncle, jisung was sure his life wouldn’t be where it is today.
this is his opportunity to be that pillar for somebody else.
“i don’t want to press charges…”
“ that’s fine. ” mark soothes, “ but it’s still good to know if, you know, legally it’s okay for you to just keep her. i’ll keep you posted, dude, okay? we’ll figure it out.”
“we always do,” jisung parrots the catchphrase mark always said when they were young.
mark hangs up, needing to discuss with chenle leaving his parents house early, and jisung is left with his thoughts.
he’s a father.
–
being a father is not fucking easy.
jisung soon discovers as much when the baby wakes up with earthquake inducing wails. she cries out while jisung’s scrolling through tiktoks and he almost jumps out of his skin because - to be honest - he had forgotten she existed.
it is, of course, at this moment that he realises that he has no idea what to do. don’t get him wrong, he knows what a baby needs to live in theory . however he, firstly, doesn’t know how to actually apply that knowledge, and he also simply - has no supplies.
yeojin had supplied him with nothing. no bottles of milk - he couldn’t use the stuff in the fridge, right? there were no nappies, no toys, did this girl even have anything?
he resigns himself to his fate, noting to himself that he needs to go shopping for supplies… as soon as he stops it - her - dasom - from crying.
he picks her up, both his large hands gripping her under her tiny little arms and holding her upright. he stares at her with wide, curious eyes for a moment before he cradles her in what he thinks is a soothing position.
“hi dasom,” he murmurs quietly as he tries to rock her, soothe her, anything at all to stop the crying that’s ringing in his ears. “i’m your daddy, and daddy really needs you to stop crying so he can figure out what milk he needs to give you, okay?”
dasom keeps crying.
he tries bouncing, something he saw work on tv once. “dasom, please,” he almost starts crying himself as the baby begins to cry harder.
the baby cries and cries and cries, no matter what jisung tries. he supposes shes not used to jisung, or she's just hungry. either way he’s not sure how to help and he feels more hopeless as the minutes pass by.
and just when things can’t get any worse, jisung just about hears a knock on the door echo through the apartment.
“one moment!” he shouts, then curses when dasom lets out a cry of complaint. he cradles her close to his chest as he rushes to the door and swings it open without much regard for how he must look.
he almost immediately regrets that decision because standing in front of him is na jaemin, his sweetheart of a neighbour and simply the prettiest man jisung had ever met. and jisung’s hair in sticking up every which way and he’s still wearing the cosy pyjamas he had put on last night.
“are you okay, jisungie? it sounds like you- is that a baby?!”
jisung looks down at his still crying daughter, “yes, it is.” he answers shortly, “now can i help you? because as you can see i’m struggling here.”
“i just-” jaemin frowns, staring at the baby in his arms. “you’re holding her wrong.”
“what?”
“your baby?” jaemin reaches forward and carefully corrects jisung’s hands on his daughter so she’s better supported by his hands, “there.” he sounds proud and somehow it makes jisung feel like he accomplished something, although he did nothing but simply allow jaemin to move his hands.
“thanks,” he murmurs, trying to bounce his daughter again, but her cries still persist.
jaemin smiles, “how long has she been crying?”
“excuse me?”
“the baby?” jaemin gestures to dasom, “i assume she’s… yours?”
“i- yeah she’s mine but…” jisung sighs as dasom cries again, “i kinda just found out about her this morning and… i kinda have no idea what i’m doing?”
“oh, poor baby,” jaemin pouts and jisung feels his brain falter because is he talking about jisung or the actual baby ? “do you need any help? i mean, i came over to see if you wanted to have dinner together later anyway but i can hang out today, if you need me?”
“you would do that for me?”
jaemin smiles, one of those charming grins he does that always manages to make jisung’s stomach do backflips. “of course, jisung, i’d love to help you.”
he takes dasom from jisung carefully as he invites himself into the apartment and promptly sways the baby in his arms like a pro.
dasom’s quick to quiet down in the new, more experienced, care of jaemin and jisung feels himself deflate a little in the recognition that he doesn’t even know how to soothe his own daughter.
–
“so she just left her on the doorstep?” jaemin asks.
when dasom calms, jaemin makes a mental list, going through everything jisung will need in his apartment to raise a baby. after that, jaemin hustles a flustered jisung, (now correctly) holding dasom, out of the door to walk to the corner shop for basic supplies.
as they do this, jisung explains his relationship with dasom’s mother.
he explains how he met yeojin in college, fell madly, deeply in love with her within weeks and entered quickly into a whirlwind relationship with her.
they dated for three months and, as he said, jisung was unfathomably infatuated with her. he was caught once telling mark he thought he would marry her one day. obviously not that fast, but jisung pictured himself, after a couple of years together, taking her on a trip and proposing to her on a scenic balcony.
and then she left.
no explanation, just a half-hearted apology in a text message a week later.
her apartment was empty the next time jisung tried to visit and that was that.
and that led them to, well, jaemin’s question.
“yeah,” jisung answers as he watches jaemin pick up three jumbo packs of nappies. “haven’t heard from her since we broke up and then…”
jaemin chuckles darkly, moving along the aisle to baby formula, “and then she drops a baby on you with that bullshit note.”
“i don't know if i’d call that note bullshit…”
“yes, jisung, you would. because it was.”
jisung hesitates, physically freezing in the middle of the aisle as if he’s finally processing just how fucked the situation actually is.
he stares at jaemin for a moment, only until someone bumps into his back, jolting the baby in his arms, does he answer jaemin, “i guess i never really thought of her like that.”
“it’s okay, jisung,” jaemin says gently, face softening as he realises jisung’s getting upset, “nobody knew this was going to happen, okay?”
and jisung nods, because somehow jaemin always makes him feel more comfortable.
—
they come home with more supplies than they probably need, courtesy of jaemin, who refuses to even entertain letting jisung pay. jisung tries to argue that it’s his child so he should pay, but jaemin tells him to consider it a gift as he swipes his card across the reader.
“see you’re not so bad at this,” jaemin says, much later, empty dinner plates in the sink and dasom sound asleep in her carrier. jaemin had helped jisung pick out a crib, set for delivery the next day along with a bunch of other baby furniture jaemin insisted on jisung buying for the baby.
jisung stares at the baby - at his daughter - for a long moment. it’s almost like he’s weighing his options. he’s still unsure he can handle parenthood, for one major reason.
he shrugs, “you did most of the work, hyung.”
“did not,” jaemin insists. “you’re going to be a great dad, if that’s what you choose.”
“choose?”
“you can always put her up for adoption, or take yeojin to court for child abandonment or something, i don’t really know how that works, to be honest.” jaemin smiles sheepishly, scratching the back of his head at the admission.
jisung considers it quietly. despite everything mark had told him that morning, any option other than raising dasom himself hadn’t even been a possibility in his mind. Aas nervous as he was, as much as he thought he could mess something up, dasom was his daughter. and he wanted to raise her with love.
as though he senses jisung’s worries, jaemin reaches out and clasps jisung’s hand in his own, grazing the back oh it with his thumb. “for what it’s worth… i think you’re going to be a wonderful father, jisung. and i’ll be here to help whenever you need it.”
“like you always are.” jisung breathes, suddenly very aware of the lack of space between him and his neighbour.
“like always,” jaemin agrees, and for a moment jisung feels something invisible on his chest, tugging him closer to jaemin.
it almost feels like jaemin’s leaning in too.
and then dasom fusses in her sleep and snaps them both back to reality.
jaemin stands suddenly, brushing down his legs as he does so, “i should-” he sighs heavily, “i should go home, it’s late.”
“okay,” jisung murmurs, about to stand to show him out but jaemin stops him.
“no no, please don’t get up, it’s been a long day for you. i can show myself out, okay?”
jisung blinks before relaxing back on his couch cushions, he is pretty tired. “okay, goodnight hyung…”
jaemin chuckles, “goodnight, jisung, call me tomorrow if you need anything okay?”
jaemin’s out of the apartment before jisung can respond.
jisung stares at his daughter and smiles.
maybe he could do this. if jaemin thought he could, why not?