Work Text:
The whole family gathers in the middle of the grandparents' living room, some of them are crossing arms and the ambience is so intense. Chan is in the centre of both; the room and attention, where people look at him moving his loose lower front tooth with his tongue. Yongbok sits to him the closest, observing the moving tooth as close as possible that it invades Chan's personal space. It's not like Chan cares about it anyway. He knows the little girl is so fascinated about the situation.
"Aigoo, our Channie is a big boy now" Grandma Jeongin cheers with a huge grin on her face that makes her eyes disappear into lines.
"Channie is always a big boy" he answers bravely.
"So how? You guys have any idea how to remove the tooth?" Jisung asks, looking at the rest of the adults with excitement on his face. Because for sure, everyone will tease Chan for it since they already did it to Changbin when he was a little kid. And that everyone includes Changbin as he gets so excited now that he is a part of the plan.
"What did you do when Binnie hyung got one?" The little boy asks, setting an expectation for himself. Sadly, he is still too innocent to live among these pranksters and still too fragile for the world.
"We punch him in the face" Minho answers solemnly, causing the little boy to widen his eyes in surprise, his face turning pale at once. Changbin wants to laugh so badly but he just nods.
"Every kid loses 20 teeth, so back then, I got punched 20 times until they all fell off" the brother adds the fright. Their parents laugh at Changbin's wit while Chan is so close to tears. He immediately looks at his mother for reassurance but before he can do that, Seungmin speaks up first.
"It's okay, Channie. We won't punch you, don't worry" he says so fondly, it calms the little boy right away. The latter looks at his uncle for confirmation and it seems like he meant it when he said that. Minho already glares at him for being the party pooper while Hyunjin just rolls her eyes.
"Then, how do we take it off?" Chan asks, still so innocent to trust these adults but this time, he just asks directly to his uncle.
Seungmin adores Chan a lot, so he almost answers with honesty at that time but unfortunately, his eyes fall on his wife first. Minho is literally looking at him with her big boba eyes that he understands very very well. She is asking him to join the fun. He doesn't react to the pleading expression and just looks at his nephew again.
"We don't have to take it off if you're not ready" he said calmly, which makes Chan feel so much better. At first Minho thinks her big eyes didn't work, but shortly after, Seungmin continues.
"It will rot in your mouth and attracts maggots, though. But maggots can't live in the tooth because the tooth is hard, they will just eat the flesh of your tongue and gums, make holes and lay eggs in them. So, it's fine if you don't wanna take it off. Your tooth is fine"
Seungmin adores Chan a lot, but Minho always comes first.
"Pfft-!" Hyunjin almost chokes her water when she hears it and she has to leave the area to save herself from the mess. Grandpa Felix laughs, and says things like 'wow, you are such a demon' with an amusing tone. Changbin and Jisung gasp sharply, horrified with the explanation because they actually didn't expect it to be that extreme. Minho wants to celebrate her win but she just ends up nodding to match the freak. Grandma Jeongin facepalms and shakes her head.
The thing is, the description is so scary that it makes both Chan and Yongbok freeze in place. They look at Seungmin and Minho one after another, trying to look for the joking expressions on their faces but the couple look really calm as if it is not a big deal. Yongbok looks at Chan to see his reaction, and it seems like he is too scared to even move. His eyes are covered with tears but he is too terrified to cry out loud. The expression is not what anyone expects so here comes the team to do the damage control.
"No! What maggots? Don't be ridiculous, uncle!" Changbin quickly speaks up as he feels bad for his little brother. Seungmin is so confused now that everyone is turning back on him. Only when there are more reactions from the others does Chan burst into tears and cries. Minho quickly comes forward and lifts the boy up.
"Don't cry, Channie. Are you okay? Did Uncle Seungmin scare you? He's really a bad person, that's why auntie want to divorce him. Don't cry, don't cry" Minho reassures the little boy shamelessly as if she is not the one who asked Seungmin to do it. The rest laugh out loud right away when now they frame Seungmin as the only bad one although they plan the tease together. The husband looks at the wife in disbelief, but she completely ignores that look when she walks closer to him.
"Channie, look. I hit Uncle Seungmin because he scares you. Bad uncle! Okay now, he got punished, you don't cry anymore, okay?" Minho literally kicks Seungmin's leg and the latter makes a dramatic groan in pain, playing along right away. It entertains Grandpa Felix and Hyunjin so much, they laugh the loudest compared to the others. Chan stops crying, watching the chaotic situation as everyone starts to seize the chance and attack Seungmin for scaring the little boy.
Yongbok watches everything and stays silent. Not because she is scared. Her froze along with Chan a few minutes ago was not out of fright at all, but because she is absolutely confused.
What is maggot?
- The End -
Bonus :
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"
That night, at Chan's house, the little boy runs excitedly to the living room where his father is on the couch, watching tv. Jisung watches as Chan approaches him, and the son proudly shows the tooth on his hand.
"It fell off! I just played with it using my tongue and it fell off!" He cheers, lisping for some words because he is still not familiar to speak without a gap between his teeth. Jisung looks at the tooth, then he looks at Chan grinning widely, showing off the empty spot in his mouth.
"Woah. You look different now. Who are you? Are you my son?" He asks solemnly.
The grin on Chan's face fades so fast, it replaces with an upset expression. The father is so surprised by the change but he doesn't manage to fix it when Chan instantly bursts out crying.
"MOMMY!!" he cries out loud, making Hyunjin rush out of her painting room so fast to check what is going on. When she sees her youngest son in front of her husband, she knows instantly what happened.
"Love!" She scolds while opening her arms for the little boy.
"I'm sorry! I didn't know he still got upset when I said he's not my son!" He defends himself with his whole body, a little comically too. By that time, Changbin is already walking downstairs.
"What's wrong?" The oldest son asks innocently. Jisung looks at him, trying to put on a test again out of nowhere.
"What are you doing here? You're not my son. You're my nephew. Go back to your parents' house" Jisung says, even his intonation doesn't sound serious at all so he is pretty sure Changbin won't take it seriously. But to his surprise, his son looks genuinely startled by the statement. It follows with a hint of upset too.
"No. I'm your kid, dad" Changbin fixes it right away as if he hates that wrong fact so much.
Jisung is speechless. He doesn't know his sons are so happy and proud to be his sons that a simple joke like that will make them uncomfortable. A big part of him feels so proud, but a small other feels genuinely confused. He looks at his wife, hopefully he gets an answer from her, but she looks back at him and mouths the word 'what?'.
Well, maybe some jokes are funny to some, but the same jokes might not be funny to the others. But one thing for sure now, Chan is still too soft and fragile to take the jokes from this family.
The End <3