Chapter Text
Koo Junhoe’s been a parent for ten years, and he still has no idea what he’s doing.
“What?” he says, glancing in the rearview mirror in the backseat, where Jinhwan’s buckled securely into his car seat.
“Bobby’s joining the kids’ soccer team, and I wanna join too.”
“Who’s Bobby?” Junhoe asks, pulling out of the elementary school parking lot. Jinhwan seems to have new friends every other day, which is great and all, but Junhoe’s never been good at remembering people and he’s even worse with children.
“He moved here last week,” Jinhwan says, bouncing in his seat, “and he’s got bunny teeth and he’s in fourth grade not fifth like me but he’s cool and—”
“Breathe, Jinhwan,” Junhoe mumbles as he merges onto the street and starts driving home. “I didn’t even know you liked soccer.”
“I don’t!”
Junhoe nearly slams the car into a stoplight.
“Daddy, don’t do that,” Jinhwan whines, tugging at his seatbelt, “it makes the seatbelt get all tight and stuff.”
“Sorry, Jin, but you can’t just spring that stuff on your dear old dad.”
“Daddy, aren’t you only thirty-something? That’s not that old, that’s three times ten! Which is three of me, and I’m not old.”
Bless child logic. “Well, I’m older than you. But what’s this about you and soccer?”
“Well, today we learned that you should get at least an hour of physical activity a day,” Jinhwan enunciates the words clearly, obviously reciting something the teacher’d said, “and Bobby likes soccer, and soccer is a physical activity, right?”
Junhoe supposes Jinhwan’s got a point. Kids are supposed to run around and stuff, right? Plus, this would give Junhoe some time for himself, run errands or whatever. He loves Jinhwan, he really does, but there are some days where he lives for the time Jinhwan’s at school.
“Sure, why the hell not?”
“Language, daddy!”
This is how Junhoe ends up sitting in his neighbor’s borrowed minivan two weeks later, fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he waits for Jinhwan and a handful of other kids. Somehow, when he was signing all the forms, he’d neglected to read the part that specified that all families took carpooling shifts to and/or from practice.
“Where’s Hanbin?” Jinhwan asks from the back. Junhoe shifts his gaze up to the rearview mirror, and furrows his eyebrows.
“Who?” Junhoe really doesn’t mean to forget everyone, Jinhwan’s just far too social.
“Your second son!”
Junhoe narrows his eyes at Bobby, who’s sitting next to Jinhwan. He’d only met the kid a handful of times, but he’s already certain that this kid is definitely one of Jinhwan’s friends that he likes the least. He’s loud, ridiculously active even after an hour of running around, and seems to have no boundaries when it comes to personal space.
“Why did I remember to pick you up?”
“You’re not today. My dad’s car is over there.”
“Then what are you doing in my car?”
“I wanted to talk to Jinhwan!”
Junhoe sighs. He really just wants to go home. “Get out of my minivan.”
“See you tomorrow, Bobby!” Jinhwan yells after him as Bobby jumps out of the car (and Junhoe cringes, his neighbor is not going to like the dirt now smeared into the minivan’s carpet) and runs to his own parents.
Hanbin jumps into the backseat a minute later (oh, right, it’s the kid who wears a bandanna all the time), followed by a couple of other kids.
“Whose house are we going to first?” Junhoe asks, mostly to himself, as he scans the list. “Jung Chanwoo’s” seems the closest, so he shrugs to himself, pulling out of the spot and driving away.
“Mr. Koo?” Hanbin asks, once they’re stopped at a light, “can we stop somewhere?”
“Why?” Junhoe asks, looking over his shoulder.
“I kinda need to pee.”
“We’re not even that far away from Chanwoo’s house,” Junhoe sighs, pressing on the gas as the light turns green. “Just hold it ‘til we get there.”
“But Mr. Koo—”
Junhoe may or may not have pushed the speed limit the rest of the way to Chanwoo’s house, Hanbin throwing the car door open the second Junhoe unlocked it and sprinting up the steps, Chanwoo trailing behind him.
If there’s one thing Junhoe definitely didn’t sign up for, it was taking kids to the bathroom.