Work Text:
There is a reason why Kwon Jungwon is called a wonder boy.
It’s not because he’s extraordinary in the traditional sense—though he’s smart, talented, and impossibly mature for his age.
No, Jungwon earned the nickname because he is full of wonder.
The kind of kid who always asks questions, who sees the world in bright, curious pieces, who never accepts an answer without poking at it from three different angles.
And sometimes, that curiosity is harmless.
Other times—like today—it’s powerful enough to throw his two dads into the biggest emotional panic of their lives.
“Appa, Dad, what's your love story?”
The morning was bright and energizing. The faint sound of cars passing by could be heard from the window, sunlight lighting up the living room and the small kitchen where Jungwon and his dads, Soonyoung and Jihoon, ate breakfast. It was a perfect morning for Soonyoung and Jungwon, although Jihoon begs to differ. “Too bright,” he says.
But the sudden question seemed to crack the peaceful home atmosphere they were used to. Soonyoung choked on his coffee, while Jihoon’s eyes widened.
“What?” Jihoon furrowed his brows, while Soonyoung coughed.
“Nice question, bud. Nice.”
“Your love story with Appa, Dad.” Jungwon turned to Jihoon.
Jihoon and Soonyoung looked at each other — a silent eye conversation filled with pure panic and absolutely zero substance.
Because how were they supposed to answer a question like that… when there was literally no love story to begin with?
---
Back then, they were just college flatmates — Jihoon, the introverted music nerd, and Soonyoung, who had the energy of an entire dance department.
Then one rainy night, Soonyoung burst through the door, the hoodie he wore that morning already a bundle in his arms…
And the bundle was crying.
“Jihoon… there’s a baby.”
“Where did that baby come from?!” Jihoon shrieked. “I swear Soonyoung, if that child is a result of one of your foolishness–”
“I found him in the park. Alone.” Soonyoung cut him off, opening the hoodie, revealing a tiny baby boy asleep inside. “No one was around. I couldn’t leave him there.”
“Why did you… why did you bring him here?!”
“Well, where else was I supposed to go?”
“Soon—!”
But even in his panic and frustration — Jihoon still reached out and held the baby.
And the moment he touched him… Jihoon froze.
Everything froze.
“He looks like a Jungwon,” Soonyoung whispered.
“We don’t even have a list of names—”
“But he really looks like a Jungwon.”
And that’s how it began.
Jihoon’s first suggestion was logical: “We should bring him to the orphanage. So he can find a proper home.”
But day by day… everything changed.
Every night that Jungwon cried, Soonyoung would panic like a balloon losing air. “Jihoon! He doesn’t want the milk! He doesn’t want me! He chose you!”
Jihoon would roll his eyes but take the baby — and somehow, like magic, Jungwon would calm instantly. “He didn’t choose me. I’m just good at this.”
But secretly, deep inside, Jihoon felt it.
Something softening. Something shifting.
He was falling for this little abandoned baby boy.
And weeks later, Soonyoung said something Jihoon never expected to hear.
“Jihoon… I don’t want to take him to the orphanage.”
“Me neither.”
And that was it.
They became a team. Two best friends raising a child.
For years, that was their setup: co-parents, roommates, friends.
And Jungwon?
He grew up surrounded by love — just not the romantic kind between his parents.
---
“So?” Jungwon broke the silence that settled in the kitchen. His eyes stared at his parents, waiting for a response from either of them. “I’m waiting.”
“Jungwon, son,” Jihoon slowly began, trying to formulate words. “What exactly is this sudden question for?”
“Essay requirement. ‘My Parents’ Love Story.’ It’s due next week. I need to interview both of you.”
Jihoon paused. “Next week?”
“Yup,” Jungwon replied with an innocent grin. “So… what’s your story?”
Soonyoung immediately stood. “Oh! I suddenly remembered something important—”
“Nope,” Jungwon said, crossing his arms. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Soonyoung couldn’t tell if he wanted to laugh or cry. He and Jihoon looked at each other again.
They had no love story.
They were just best friends sharing an apartment.
So Jihoon spoke first — because strategy was the only thing he had left. “Won… let’s make a deal.”
“What deal?”
“If you pass your math test, we promise, we’ll tell you our full love story.”
“And for now,” Soonyoung added, “it’s confidential. For motivation.”
“Why does that sound like an excuse—”
“Jungwon,” Jihoon said with a straight face, “trust the process.”
Jungwon squinted suspiciously, but he sighed anyway. “Fine. I’ll pass the damn math test.”
The moment Jungwon left for school, Soonyoung collapsed onto the sofa.
“Jihoon, what the fuck are we going to do?!”
“I don’t know. You’re the one who—”
“Me?! Who panicked so hard he used all the brain cells he had left to think of that?!”
“I was buying us time.”
“And what exactly are we supposed to do with that time?!”
“We’re gonna use our brains and think instead of you screaming at me like I’ve lost my ears for good.”
And their thinking made them think of the same terrifying thought.
“What if…” Soonyoung began, scratching his head. “we make up a love story?”
“Make one? As in lie?”
“Aren’t we already lying right now?”
“Touche.”
For the next few days, their “love story brainstorming” stretched far beyond breakfast. Every spare moment became a battlefield of creativity and panic.
Soonyoung hummed at his desk at work, bouncing ideas in his head, tapping a pen against his notebook. Jihoon’s music files sat open on his laptop, but he was only half-listening to the tracks—his mind spinning with ideas that might convince Jungwon.
“So,” Soonyoung muttered under his breath one night while Jungwon was already asleep, “we need a ‘fateful moment’… maybe the storm… yes, definitely the storm…”
Jihoon, in the middle of rubbing his now aching temple, scribbled furiously on a now messy sheet of paper: “Laughter brings connection… shared vulnerability…”
He doesn’t even know how that connects to their current dilemma.
During their lunch breaks at work, they were messaging each other from their respective workplaces.
“What about the baby's arrival as a turning point?” Soonyoung texted.
“Perfect. But maybe don’t call it ‘romantic.’ Just… emotional bonding?” Jihoon replied.
The funny thing was, amidst all the chaos of creating a story that didn’t exist, they began noticing things about each other they’d somehow ignored before.
Even while their hands typed and their minds strategized, their hearts were paying attention in ways they hadn’t allowed themselves before.
Soonyoung sat back for a moment, staring at the chaos of papers, pens, and half-finished notes sprawled across the coffee table, but his eyes weren’t really seeing the clutter.
They were on Jihoon.
He noticed the way Jihoon’s fingers drummed lightly against his laptop when he was thinking, the slight crease between his brows when he was concentrating too hard on a plot hole, the soft, almost imperceptible hum he made when he was lost in thought. It was a rhythm Soonyoung had seen a thousand times but had never truly listened to—until now.
A sudden awareness hit him, sharp and electrifying: he had been hiding something all this time. Not just from Jungwon, not just from anyone else, but from himself. Beneath the laughter, beneath the endless chaos of parenting and work and their so-called brainstorming sessions, there had been something growing quietly, steadily, insistent and impossible to ignore.
He loved Jihoon.
Not in the casual, “we’re roommates so we care” kind of way, the type of affection that made life tolerable and easy. No, this was something far deeper. Something quiet and patient, like a slow-burning ember that had been smoldering since the night they cradled a tiny, abandoned baby together. That night had been chaos: the rain lashing against the windows, the baby crying in his arms, Jihoon’s shocked and panicked expression mirrored under the dim lights of their apartment. And yet, amidst the fear and panic, something miraculous had happened—they had worked together, seamlessly, intuitively, and in that moment, something had rooted itself in Soonyoung’s chest. A feeling he had dismissed as friendship, camaraderie, or responsibility now revealed itself for what it truly was: love.
Jihoon, lying sprawled on the couch at the other end, was unaware of how intently Soonyoung was watching him. Yet he was feeling the same revelation, in pieces, in quiet, almost embarrassing increments. Every late-night feed, when Jungwon had screamed until his voice was hoarse, had forced Jihoon into patience and tenderness he had never consciously known he possessed. Every exhausted morning, stumbling through breakfast and bickering with Soonyoung over who would change diapers or spoon-feed the baby, had eroded the walls around his heart. And every triumphant laugh that erupted from Jungwon—the first giggle, the first belly laugh, the first sleepy “Dada”—had a way of softening Jihoon in ways that logic, schedules, and routines had never touched.
He realized, almost with a jolt, that the way his chest tightened when Soonyoung leaned over to help him with the baby's food, or when he made a silly comment and the baby actually laughed, was not exhaustion. It was something else entirely. Something warm, insistent, impossible to ignore.
He cared about Soonyoung—not just as a friend or a co-parent, but as someone he wanted close, always. Someone whose happiness mattered more than his own. The chaos, the noise, the endless mess of life they had thrown themselves into—it had all brought him here, to a truth he could no longer sidestep: he loved him. Quietly, stubbornly, completely.
For a moment, they both sat like that, lost in their separate thoughts, hearts thrumming with realization, and yet tethered together by the invisible thread of shared life. They hadn’t spoken a word, but the weight of their unacknowledged feelings hummed between them, electric and urgent, demanding attention. It was terrifying, yes—but also exhilarating. A revelation not born from grand gestures, confessions, or romance novels, but from the daily, ordinary acts of care, laughter, and patience that had slowly become the core of their lives.
And in that quiet, chaotic, ordinary night, Soonyoung and Jihoon understood something profound: love didn’t always arrive in dramatic declarations or poetic timing. Sometimes it crept in on sleepless nights, on shared panic, on laughter and spilled coffee and tiny hands gripping your finger for reassurance. Sometimes, it simply existed in the way you could no longer imagine your life without the other person in it.
One night, amidst the chaos unknown to their son– the unleasher of the said chaos, they collapsed onto the couch, exhausted and silent, the hum of the city outside matching the quiet thrum in their hearts.
Jihoon broke the silence first, voice small. “So… Soonyoung… maybe we don’t need a fake love story.”
Soonyoung turned, tired but curious. “What do you mean?”
Jihoon took a deep breath. “I mean, we already have a love story. Just not the romantic kind we were trying to write. Our love story began the day we found Jungwon. That tiny baby brought us together in a way nothing else could. And somewhere along the way… I think I realized I love you too. Not in some abstract roommate sense. I mean it—truly.”
Soonyoung blinked, heart hammering. “I… yeah. I forgot I felt it. I think I was too busy pretending it didn’t matter. But it does, Jihoon. It’s always mattered.”
They sat there, the apartment quiet except for the occasional car passing outside. A nervous, happy energy filled the space between them.
“So,” Jihoon whispered, reaching for Soonyoung’s hand, “maybe we… give it a chance? See what this… us thing could be?”
Soonyoung nodded, a small laugh escaping him. “Yeah. We’ll figure it out together. And we tell Jungwon the truth. No made-up story. Just… us. And how much we love him.”
Jihoon squeezed his hand. “Exactly. Our real love story started with him. And that’s enough.”
That night, as they got ready for bed, there was a lightness in the air—a quiet, unspoken joy that didn’t need words. They weren’t just two roommates or co-parents anymore. They were something new, something uncharted, something that had started long before they even realized it: a family bound not by convention, but by love.
The next day, the dinner atmosphere was heavy, but not in a way that made it tense and awkward, but rather with anticipation and nervousness for what's about to happen.
Earlier that afternoon, Jungwon had sent a single message in their group chat that made Soonyoung gasp so loud his other workmates had to stop their work just to glare at him.
“I passed my math test.”
Now they all sat in the kitchen once again, enjoying a meal Jihoon had prepared for the family of three. He had his eyes locked on his plate, never daring to look up at the other people with him, while Soonyoung fidgeted with his spoon as he chewed.
And Jungwon? He had a proud, somehow cocky grin on his face as he waited for someone to speak up.
“I passed the math test.” Jungwon started. “You both owe me a story.”
After a moment of silence, Jihoon cleared his throat. “Well, technically, it all started when we were just flatmates.”
Soonyoung shifted in his seat, heart racing, knowing this was the moment. He took a deep breath. “Yeah. And then one night, you showed up. Jungwon, that little bundle of chaos changed everything.”
Jungwon’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what do you mean ‘showed up’?”
Jihoon looked at Soonyoung, nodded, and continued, voice steady but gentle. “Soonyoung found you alone in the park, and he couldn’t leave you there and brought you home, and we decided to raise you together. That’s when our story really began. Not in a romantic way, but in the way that matters most. We became a family that day. And in raising you, taking care of you, loving you… we realized things about each other too.”
“So you’re saying,” Jungwon said slowly, still processing, “your love story… started with me?”
Jihoon smiled softly, reaching across the table to ruffle his son’s hair. “Exactly, son. You brought us together in ways nothing else could. And, well, we also realized we care about each other in ways we hadn’t admitted before.”
Soonyoung added, voice warm, eyes slightly misty: “Yeah. We didn’t have a romantic love story, but we did have a story of love. One that starts with you, Jungwon. You’re our heart, our little wonder boy.”
Jungwon grinned, eyes sparkling with understanding. “So, you’re telling me the truth? No fake romance, no made-up storm or library thing?”
Jihoon chuckled. “Nope. Just the truth. And it’s better than any story we could’ve invented.”
“So, that means I can write about how I made my dads realize they loved each other by taking care of me?” Jungwon said with a mischievous grin.
“Maybe,” Soonyoung said, leaning back, laughing, “but don’t forget to mention all the chaos and coffee stains.”
Jungwon laughed too. “Deal.”
Jihoon reached for Soonyoung’s hand under the table, giving it a gentle squeeze. Soonyoung smiled back. They didn’t need a story full of romantic clichés. Their love story—messy, imperfect, chaotic, and full of wonder—was exactly right.
And for the first time in a long time, the three of them sat together at the table, smiling, laughing, and fully aware that their story—real, messy, and beautiful—was only just beginning.
BONUS:
Rays of sunlight peeked through the window, a silent wake up call to the couple that lay together on their shared bed. Legs tangled with the sheets, arms draped over each other, and light snores coming from Soonyoung was what woke Jihoon up earlier than he had hoped.
Jihoon blinked slowly, eyes adjusting to the morning light. Soonyoung’s hair was a disaster, sticking up in ridiculous angles. His mouth was slightly open, breathing softly.
He felt something inside him tighten and loosen all at once—tenderness, affection, something he had finally learned to accept: love.
Without waking him, Jihoon gently brushed a strand of hair from Soonyoung’s forehead.
Soonyoung stirred, eyes fluttering open. “Morning,” he mumbled, voice rough with sleep.
Jihoon’s chest warmed. “Morning.”
Soonyoung blinked a few times, confused. “How long were you looking at me?”
“Not so long. I just woke up.”
Soonyoung smiled—slow, soft, full of something new.
“I could get used to this,” he whispered.
Jihoon felt his heart trip over itself. “Me too,” he admitted, leaning down and pressing a soft kiss on his lover’s forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you more.”
Jihoon rolled his eyes, though a fond smile tugged at his lips — a smile he now wore more often than he realized. “We should get up before our wonder boy comes looking for us.”
“True.” Soonyoung sat up slowly, hair somehow becoming even more chaotic as he stretched his arms high above his head. “Come on,” he said with a sleepy grin, nudging Jihoon’s leg with his foot. “Let’s go wake up our son.”
Jihoon slipped out of bed, grabbing a hoodie to throw over his shoulders. Soonyoung padded over and laced their fingers together as naturally as breathing.
Side by side, still warm from sleep and wrapped in early morning light, they stepped out of their room and walked down the hallway toward Jungwon’s door.
Before knocking, Soonyoung squeezed Jihoon’s hand. Jihoon squeezed back.
Their family — messy, improvised, unexpected — felt perfect.
Jihoon pressed a soft knock against the door. “Wonder boy,” he called gently, a smile in his voice, “time to wake up.”
Inside, a muffled groan responded, followed by the rustling of blankets.
Soonyoung laughed quietly. “He gets that from you.”
Jihoon nudged him with his shoulder. “And the chaos comes from you.”
“Fair.”
The door finally opened, revealing Jungwon with his hair sticking up even worse than Soonyoung’s. He blinked at them sleepily.
“Morning,” he mumbled.
Jihoon ruffled his hair. “Morning.”
And as the three of them stood together in the soft glow of a new day, Jihoon felt it again — the quiet certainty that their story, born from chaos and shaped by love, was only just beginning.