Archive of Our Own

There is a particular kind of joy that arrives in a family that has, after a long time of holding still, started moving toward each other.

The Jeon house had been moving toward each other for six months.

Minjae had clocked it in small ways — his father coming home from work in the evenings and the first thing he did was find Taehyung, wherever in the house Taehyung was, and put a hand on the back of his neck for a moment before he did anything else. His omega parent's small startled laugh the first time it happened, and the unsurprised acceptance the second time, and by the fourth time it was simply how the house ended its working day. Like a door closing softly.

Junwoo had clocked it in his own way. He did not narrate these things, but Minjae had caught him looking, once, across the kitchen at their parents while Jungkook was — without comment, without ceremony — straightening Taehyung's collar at the back of his neck, fingers lingering for half a beat too long. Junwoo had looked. He had looked away. He had gone back to his book with the particular composed expression that meant he was feeling something and had decided to feel it privately.

The whole household had settled into the shape of a thing that had finally been allowed to grow.

And then, in early January, Taehyung had set down his chopsticks at dinner on a Thursday and told them about the baby.

Minjae had reacted with the dignity of a war correspondent witnessing the fall of a civilization. He had recovered. He had moved on. He had spent two weeks in a heightened emotional state, recovering. The phrase I am responsible for a human being had been retired but not forgotten.

And now it was the middle of March, and his omega parent was approximately eleven weeks pregnant, and they were going to the doctor.

— ✦ —

Prologue: The Waiting Room

Minjae had not been invited to the doctor's appointment.

This was because Minjae was fourteen and his presence at a prenatal visit was, in the words of his mother — sorry, his omega parent, Taehyung had specifically asked them to keep calling him appa, please boys I would like to remain appa forever — "not strictly necessary, sweetheart."

Junwoo had not been invited either. Junwoo had a chemistry exam on Monday and Taehyung had been very firm about not pulling him out of school for "watching me get measured."

So Minjae and Junwoo were at home on a Saturday morning, both of them sprawled in the living room, both of them pretending very hard that they were not waiting for news.

"They've been gone an hour," Minjae said.

"Yes," Junwoo said.

"What if something is wrong."

"Nothing is wrong."

"You don't know that."

"Statistically, nothing is wrong."

"Statistics," Minjae said, "are a coward's tool."

Junwoo, sixteen and rapidly approaching the height where he could look at Minjae over the top of his head — which he did, frequently, in the way of older brothers who had recently acquired this advantage and intended to wring it dry — did not respond. He turned a page of his book.

Minjae picked up his phone.

He had not meant to find the article.

He had meant to scroll through his usual feed — a curated mixture of skateboarding videos, a manhwa update he was waiting on, and the occasional cat — and somewhere between a skateboarding fail and a video of a corgi falling off a couch, the algorithm, in its infinite wisdom, served him a thumbnail.

The thumbnail was pink. There were sparkles on it. There was a cartoon pregnant person with comically large eyes holding their stomach in a way that suggested either profound love or mild gastric distress.

The headline read:

"10 Foolproof Ways to Make Your Omega's Pregnancy the Most Comfortable Experience of Their Life (A Dedicated Family's Guide ✨)"

The byline read: OmegaLuv94.

Minjae went very still.

His mind, in the manner of a slot machine paying out, presented him with a series of images in rapid succession: the candles, the wine sweater, the note in Junwoo's careful handwriting, his omega parent in a black dress in the hallway saying moon goddess willing, his father's hand at the small of Taehyung's back in a ballroom. The garden in October. The late roses. The kiss.

Step nine had ended in a baby.

OmegaLuv94 had come back.

OmegaLuv94 had not abandoned them.

Minjae looked across the living room at his brother. Junwoo was deeply absorbed in his book, which Minjae knew because Junwoo had not turned a page in approximately ninety seconds.

"Junwoo-hyung," Minjae said. His voice was casual. "Do you remember OmegaLuv94."

Junwoo did not look up.

"No," he said. Very quickly.

"Hyung."

"No."

"Look at me."

"I refuse."

"Just—"

"Minjae."

Junwoo set down his book. He closed it carefully. He folded his hands on top of it the way he sometimes folded his hands when he was about to deliver something serious.

"Whatever you are about to say," he said, "I want it on record that I have not consented."

"She wrote another one."

A silence.

Then, in a tone of complete betrayal: "Why."

"Hyung, listen—"

"Why has she written another one. Why would she. We did not need another one. We had the article. We did the article. There was a — an outcome." Junwoo gestured vaguely in the direction of the front door, which represented, presently, the absent biological evidence of OmegaLuv94's first article. "What does she want from us, Minjae."

"It's about pregnancy."

Junwoo closed his eyes.

"It's a guide," Minjae continued, with the breathless evangelism he had brought to the original article fourteen months ago. "Ten ways to make Appa's pregnancy comfortable. We have to read it."

"We do not have to read it."

"Junwoo-hyung."

"I am sixteen years old. I have a chemistry exam on Monday. I am a person with my own dignity and I—"

"It's already screenshotted."

A long pause. Junwoo opened one eye.

"Send it," he said.

Minjae sent it.

Junwoo read it.

Minjae watched Junwoo read it. He watched Junwoo's face, which was the face of a person who had spent fourteen months trying to suppress the muscle memory of being thirteen-and-fifteen and conspiring with his brother to fix their parents' marriage, and was now watching that suppression collapse in real time.

When Junwoo finished, he put down his phone. He looked at the ceiling for a long moment.

"I hate that this is well-written," he said.

"I KNOW—"

"Some of the steps are actually — they're actually good advice—"

"I KNOW—"

"Step four is medically sensible—"

"OPERATION: COMFORT APPA," Minjae said, sitting up so abruptly the cat that had been sleeping on his leg leapt off in offense, "IS A GO."

"Don't name it yet—"

"It is already named."

"Minjae we have to be CAREFUL this time, last time—"

"Last time it WORKED—"

"Last time we engineered a public jealousy incident at a SATURDAY MARKET—"

"And it WORKED—"

The sound of the front door interrupted them. The boys froze. Two sets of footsteps in the entryway — Jungkook's measured, Taehyung's lighter, the two of them speaking in low voices, the particular intonation of a conversation that was warm and ongoing.

"Hide it," Junwoo hissed.

"It's a screenshot, I can't hide a screenshot—"

"Close the app—"

Minjae closed the app. He put his phone face-down on the couch. He composed his face into what he believed was an expression of casual filial interest.

"Hi appa hi dad how was the doctor," he said, in one breath.

Taehyung appeared in the doorway. He was — Minjae registered, with the immediate emotional accuracy that was his omega parent's permanent state — glowing. Not in a metaphorical way. Not in the rhetorical way people described pregnant omegas. In the literal way of a person whose face had warmth in it, whose eyes were bright, whose entire bearing had the small soft lift of someone who had just seen something they loved.

He was holding a small black-and-white photograph.

"Hi, sweetheart," Taehyung said, with the particular tenderness he reserved for the moments when Minjae was clearly performing innocence and Taehyung had decided to let him. "The doctor said everything is perfect. Do you want to see your sibling?"

Minjae forgot the article entirely.

He scrambled off the couch. Junwoo, with considerably more composure but no less speed, stood up. Both of them crowded around Taehyung, who held out the ultrasound photo with the careful reverence of a person holding something that had recently become the most important small object in his world.

Minjae looked at the photo.

The photo was — to be entirely honest — not legible. It was a grayscale field of vague shapes with a small bean-like configuration in the middle that Minjae could only identify as the relevant feature because Taehyung was pointing at it.

"That's the head," Taehyung said.

"That is not a head," Minjae said.

"It's a head."

"Appa it looks like a kidney bean."

"It is a head."

Junwoo, looking over Minjae's shoulder, had gone quiet. Minjae glanced up at him. Junwoo was looking at the photo with an expression Minjae could not immediately read — careful and very still, the way Junwoo got when something landed somewhere unexpected.

"It's very small," Junwoo said.

"It's eleven weeks," Taehyung said softly. "It's exactly the size it's supposed to be."

Jungkook had come into the room behind them. He stood at Taehyung's shoulder and looked at the photo too, even though Minjae could tell from the angle that his father had already seen it, probably many times, probably had been the one who took it from the technician.

His father's hand was on the back of Taehyung's neck.

It was, Minjae noted, his hand's resting state now.

"There's a heartbeat," Jungkook said. His voice was — Minjae looked at him — his voice was different. Quieter than usual. Carrying something. "They let me hear it."

"You heard it?" Minjae said.

"Yes."

"What did it sound like?"

Jungkook looked at his sons. There was a long pause. He did not appear to have a vocabulary for what the heartbeat had sounded like. Minjae watched him try to find one.

"Like a small horse," Jungkook said, finally. "Running."

Taehyung made a sound — a soft amused exhale, leaning back slightly so his shoulder touched his husband's chest. "He's been saying that for an hour."

"Because it sounded like a small horse running."

"It sounded like a heartbeat, Jungkook."

"A fast one. Like a horse."

"Okay, alpha."

Minjae looked at Junwoo. Junwoo looked at Minjae.

Junwoo's expression said: we are doing this article.

Minjae's expression said: I know.

— ✦ —

The Article (Screenshotted and annotated by Jeon Minjae, age 14)

"10 Foolproof Ways to Make Your Omega's Pregnancy the Most Comfortable Experience of Their Life (A Dedicated Family's Guide ✨)"

By OmegaLuv94, Senior Lifestyle Contributor

Hello my loves! It's me, OmegaLuv94, and I am COMING IN HOT with another guide because so many of you wrote to me after my last article (the one about making your alpha fall in love with you, which I am still receiving wedding invites from, you know who you are 💕) and asked: OmegaLuv94, my omega is pregnant, what do I DO. And I heard you. Family, partners, devoted siblings — this one is for ALL of you. Let's make this pregnancy the SOFTEST, most BELOVED experience of their entire life. Here we go!

1. Build the Nest. Omegas in their first trimester are biologically wired to nest. Help them! Soft blankets, the right pillows, gentle lighting in their favourite room. Don't ask — observe what they reach for and provide more of it. [Minjae's note: Appa already nests constantly, we live in a permanent nest, but Junwoo says we can ENHANCE it.]

2. The Snack Drawer. Pregnant omegas get hungry FAST. Strategic snack placement in every room they frequent prevents the dreaded blood sugar crash. Bonus points for including their cravings. [Minjae's note: This is GENIUS, why has no one thought of this before, we need a snack drawer in every room including the BATHROOM.]

3. Foot Rubs (Yes, Really). As the pregnancy progresses, omegas experience foot swelling and tension. A nightly foot rub is one of the most appreciated gestures. Even a five-minute one. [Minjae's note: Dad. This one is dad's responsibility. We cannot do this one. Boundaries.]

4. Hydration Reminders. Pregnant omegas frequently forget to hydrate. Set up gentle reminders, leave water within reach, make their favourite herbal teas. NO caffeine! [Minjae's note: Appa drinks one cup of coffee in the morning and I have been told VERY FIRMLY that one is fine, do not start a fight about this, the doctor approved it.]

5. Take Things Off Their Plate. Identify chores they normally do — laundry, dishes, errands — and quietly take them over. Don't make a production. Just do them. [Minjae's note: This means I have to do MORE LAUNDRY. The price of love is laundry.]

6. The Compliment Campaign. Pregnancy brings body changes that can be hard on omegas. Tell them they're beautiful. Often. Specifically. Mean it. [Minjae's note: Dad's job. We are not telling our appa he looks beautiful in a weird way. We will tell him he looks NORMAL and HEALTHY.]

7. Protect Their Rest. Omegas in the first trimester are EXHAUSTED. Take over the morning so they can sleep in. Keep the house quiet during naps. Defend their sleep like it's a small kingdom. [Minjae's note: I am loud. I will need to develop the skill of being quiet. Junwoo says he is willing to physically restrain me if necessary.]

8. Anticipate Cravings. Learn their patterns. If they always want soup at 3pm, have soup ready at 2:55pm. The goal: they never have to ask. [Minjae's note: This requires INTELLIGENCE GATHERING. We will need a chart.]

9. Emotional Validation. Pregnancy hormones are real. If they cry, do not panic. Listen. Hold them. Do not try to FIX. Just be present. [Minjae's note: I PANIC WHEN APPA CRIES. I am going to fail this one. Pray for me.]

10. Make Them Feel Held — Not Just Physically, But Completely. This is the heart of it. A pregnant omega should know, every single day, that they are not carrying this alone. Surround them with love so total they could not doubt it if they tried. [Minjae's note: This is the one. Everything else is in service of this. Operation: Make Appa Feel Held is a GO.]

— ✦ —

Step One: Build the Nest

The Jeon household was, by Minjae's careful audit, already approximately seventy percent nested.

This was because Taehyung was an omega and Taehyung had been making this house comfortable for sixteen years and the entire architecture of the place was, in some way, an extension of his preferences. The throw blankets in the living room were in his favourite colours. The cushions on the couch had been chosen by him at a small shop in Itaewon four years ago because they "felt right." The lighting was soft because Taehyung disliked harsh overhead light. The kitchen smelled, generally, of whatever Taehyung had last cooked.

The remaining thirty percent — Junwoo pointed out, on Sunday afternoon in the bedroom Minjae had commandeered as their operations centre — was the upgrade opportunity.

"He likes the window seat in the studio," Junwoo said. He was on Minjae's bed with a notebook open. He had — Minjae registered, with mixed pride and despair — already started taking notes.

"Yes."

"He doesn't have enough pillows there. There's one. The blue one. It's flat."

"How do you know this."

Junwoo did not answer. He had simply known. The Junwoo information network was vast and uncommented-on.

"And the lighting in the studio is north-facing, which is good for painting, but it gets cold in the late afternoon. We need a soft light source for when he's not painting but still in there. Something warm. And another blanket. He always uses the throw blanket from the living room which means someone is always carrying it back and forth."

Minjae stared at his brother.

"You have THOUGHT about this," he said.

"Of course I have thought about this."

"You have thought about it BEFORE the article."

"Minjae." Junwoo looked at him with the patient exhaustion that was Junwoo's natural register. "I have lived in this house for sixteen years. I have noticed where the blanket is."

"You're a beautiful person, hyung."

"Shut up."

They went, that afternoon, to the homeware shop three blocks from the house. Minjae had brought all of his current savings — a sum which had recovered, partially, from the catastrophic gala outlay of fourteen months prior — and Junwoo had brought half of his. They selected three pillows in deep warm shades that they had specifically verified Taehyung liked, a knit throw blanket the colour of ripe wheat, and a small floor lamp with a warm-toned bulb. The shop assistant, observing two teenage boys arguing in low voices about the relative merits of "the orange-red" versus "the brick-red," asked if they needed help.

"It's for our omega parent," Minjae said. "He's pregnant. We're upgrading his nest."

The shop assistant, who was a woman in her fifties wearing a name tag that said EUNJI, looked at them both. Her face did a complicated thing. She put down the catalogue she had been holding.

"The brick-red," she said. "Trust me. The orange-red is too bright for an art studio. The brick will work with the existing palette."

"Thank you, Eunji-ssi," Minjae said with deep feeling.

Eunji-ssi gave them ten percent off and a small bouquet of dried lavender from the display by the register. "For your omega parent," she said. "Lavender helps with first-trimester nausea. Tell him."

They walked home with their bags and the dried lavender and Minjae could not look at the lavender for very long because something about it kept doing something to his chest.

— ✦ —

They set up the studio on a Wednesday morning when Taehyung was at his university teaching a seminar. They had timed it carefully. Junwoo placed the new pillows on the window seat — three of them, arranged with the care of a person setting up a small architectural composition — and draped the wheat-coloured blanket over the back of the seat. Minjae positioned the floor lamp in the corner Junwoo had identified as the late-afternoon cold spot. They plugged it in. They turned it on. The studio filled with warm low light.

They stood in the doorway and looked at what they had made.

"It looks good," Minjae said.

"It looks like he already lives here," Junwoo said. "Which is what we want."

"Yes. Subtle nesting upgrade. Not — not a production."

"Right."

They put the dried lavender in a small jar on the worktable.

They closed the studio door.

Taehyung came home at four. He set down his bag in the entryway. He kissed both of their heads — he had started doing this again, openly, ever since the gala, with the easy affection of a person no longer carefully managing his demonstrations of love — and asked them about their day, and went to his studio to drop off the books he'd brought home.

Minjae and Junwoo stood in the kitchen pretending to make tea.

There was a pause.

Then Taehyung's voice, from the studio: "Boys?"

"Yes, appa," Junwoo called, in a voice of complete innocence.

A longer pause.

Taehyung appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was holding the small jar of dried lavender. His expression was — Minjae looked at him — soft. Not surprised. Not in the sharp way of someone caught off guard. Soft in the way of a person being shown something they had already half-understood.

"Did you do something to my studio," Taehyung said.

"We may have," Minjae said.

"Pillows."

"Yes."

"A blanket."

"Yes."

"A lamp."

"For the cold corner," Junwoo said, with the careful precision of a man laying down evidence. "It's north-facing. It gets cold after three pm."

Taehyung looked at his sons.

Minjae was watching his appa's face and so he saw it — the moment when something in Taehyung's expression flickered. A thing crossed it that was warm and slightly bright-eyed and entirely without comment.

Then Taehyung said, "I love it. Thank you."

That was all. He kissed both of their heads again. He took the lavender back to the studio with him.

When he had closed the door, Junwoo turned to Minjae.

"He knew," Junwoo said.

"Knew what."

"He knew we were going to do something. He's not surprised."

"You're being paranoid."

"His face. Did you see his face."

"His face was happy."

"His face was knowing." Junwoo crossed his arms. "He's clocked us already."

"He has not. It's been one step."

"We bought matching brick-red pillows, Minjae."

"That doesn't mean—"

"He has eyes."

Minjae considered this.

"Okay," he said. "Even if he has clocked us. He's not stopping us. So we continue."

Junwoo looked at him for a long moment.

"Yes," he said. "We continue."

— ✦ —

Step Two: The Snack Drawer (Or: The Day Jungkook Walked In)

The snack drawer was Minjae's favourite step on a personal level because Minjae believed in snacks as a love language.

The plan was: identify all the rooms in the house where Taehyung spent significant time, and install — in each of them — a dedicated drawer or basket of snacks that aligned with his current cravings. They had done research. Taehyung had been, in the last two weeks, exhibiting a strong and slightly inexplicable preference for: salted rice crackers, the small Japanese ones; dried mango; a particular brand of barley tea biscuit that you could only get at the slightly inconvenient supermarket twenty minutes away; and oranges. He was eating an unusual quantity of oranges.

"Oranges are a craving?" Minjae had said, when Junwoo presented this data.

"They are at the moment. He ate four yesterday."

"Four."

"Four."

The snack drawer for the studio went in first. Junwoo cleared out a small drawer in Taehyung's worktable that contained nothing but loose pencils and reorganised the pencils into a jar on top. He lined the drawer with a clean dishcloth. He placed in it: two packages of rice crackers, a small container of dried mango, a sealed jar of the barley biscuits, and — wedged in the corner — three small clementines.

The snack drawer for the living room went under the side table next to the couch where Taehyung often sat in the evening. The kitchen did not require its own snack drawer because the kitchen was, definitionally, a snack environment, but they added a basket on the counter specifically devoted to "things that don't need refrigeration that appa likes." The bathroom did not get a snack drawer in the end because Junwoo had vetoed it with such firmness that Minjae had backed down without argument.

The bedroom — the master bedroom — was the problem.

"I cannot just go in there and install a snack drawer," Minjae said.

"Why not."

"Because it's their bedroom. Dad will notice."

"Dad notices when you wear a new sweater. Dad will definitely notice."

"So how do we install a snack drawer in there without Dad noticing."

"We don't. We — okay. Listen." Junwoo had a thinking face on. "We do it during the day when Dad is at work. We make it very small. We put it in the drawer of Appa's bedside table. We don't tell anyone."

"Stealth snack drawer."

"Yes."

"Operational name?"

"No."

"Operation Stealth Snack Drawer."

"Minjae we are not naming everything."

"Already named."

This was how, on Friday afternoon at three-fifteen pm, Jeon Junwoo and Jeon Minjae were on their hands and knees in their parents' bedroom, depositing a small selection of dried mango and rice crackers into the drawer of their omega parent's bedside table, when their father came home from work two hours early.

There was a footstep in the hallway.

Both boys froze.

The footstep stopped.

"Boys," Jungkook said, in the very particular voice he had — quiet, even, not raised, somehow more terrifying than a raised voice would have been — "what are you doing in my bedroom."

Minjae looked at Junwoo. Junwoo was on his knees with a bag of rice crackers in one hand and a clementine in the other and an expression of complete intellectual shutdown.

Minjae stood up.

"Dad," he said. "Hi. Welcome home. Why are you home so early."

"Why are there snacks on the floor of my bedroom."

"They're not on the floor. They're — they were going INTO the drawer. We have been interrupted mid-operation."

"What operation."

"Stealth Snack Drawer."

Jungkook stared at his son.

Minjae watched his father's face go through a series of micro-expressions: confusion, deeper confusion, the dawning realisation that his sons were once again doing Something, the particular cold trickle of memory accessing the gala incident of fourteen months ago, and — finally — a long deep exhale of a man who had hoped, foolishly, that he had raised normal children.

"Stand up," Jungkook said. "Both of you. Come downstairs."

"Dad—"

"Now, Minjae."

They followed him downstairs. Junwoo was carrying the rice crackers. He had not let go of them. Minjae was carrying the clementine. The procession had a certain funereal dignity.

Jungkook sat at the kitchen island. He gestured for them to sit too. They sat. The crackers and clementine were placed on the counter between them like evidence at a trial.

"Explain," Jungkook said.

"It's a snack drawer," Minjae said.

"I gathered that. Why is it in our bedroom."

"Because appa is pregnant."

Jungkook looked at him.

"And pregnant omegas need snacks within reach in every room they frequent," Minjae continued, with the gathering momentum of a person committing to the bit. "It's a strategic intervention. Blood sugar regulation. We have already installed them in the studio and the living room. The bedroom was the last one. We were going to leave the bathroom out because Junwoo said no."

Junwoo closed his eyes briefly.

Jungkook was silent for a long moment.

"How," he said, "did you arrive at this plan."

Minjae considered his options. There were several. He could lie. He could partially lie. He could deflect.

He looked at his father — his father who had built a worktable corner for Taehyung in the third year of their marriage and not told anyone why, his father who had stood in a garden in October and said I have been carrying this in a closed room and I need it to have air — and he made a decision.

"Hyung," he said. "Show him the article."

"Minjae—"

"He's going to find out eventually. He found us mid-mission."

Junwoo looked at him. Junwoo looked at Jungkook. Junwoo looked at the ceiling, briefly, in the manner of a man asking the universe to witness what he was about to do.

Then he took out his phone, opened the screenshotted article, and slid it across the counter.

Jungkook picked up the phone.

He read.

Minjae watched his father read.

It took approximately four minutes. Jungkook read slowly, scrolling with the careful methodical attention he brought to every text he encountered in his professional life. His expression did not change visibly, but Minjae had learned, over the past fourteen months, to read the very small movements that constituted his father's emotional weather. The way the muscle at the corner of his jaw moved when he reached step three. The way his eyebrow lifted, almost imperceptibly, at step six. The small inhale at step ten.

When he finished, he put the phone down on the counter.

He looked at his sons.

"This is the same author," he said.

"Yes."

"OmegaLuv94."

"Yes."

"The one from before."

"Yes."

A pause.

"You realise," Jungkook said, "that the last article ended with—"

"We know how the last article ended."

"And you have decided that this is a reliable source of guidance."

"Dad. She got us a SIBLING. She has a TRACK RECORD."

Jungkook closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he looked at the article again. He scrolled through it slowly. He paused on step four. He paused on step seven. He paused, for a longer moment, on step ten.

He set the phone down.

"The lamp in the studio," he said.

"Step one," Junwoo said. "Build the nest."

"And the lavender."

"The shop assistant said it helps with nausea."

"That was thoughtful."

Junwoo, despite himself, looked pleased.

"And this—" Jungkook gestured at the rice crackers. "Step two. Snack drawer."

"Strategic placement," Minjae said. "Every room he frequents."

"You went to the supermarket for the barley biscuits."

"Yes."

"The one twenty minutes away."

"Yes."

Another long pause. Jungkook was looking at the counter. His hands were resting on it, fingers loosely interlaced, in the way they rested when he was thinking through something complicated.

Then he said, very quietly: "What's step three."

Minjae and Junwoo looked at each other.

"Foot rubs," Junwoo said.

"That's my job," Jungkook said.

"Yes. We agreed."

"What's step four."

"Hydration."

"Reasonable."

"Step five is taking over chores," Minjae said. He was sitting forward now, watching his father with the focused attention of a person sensing an opportunity. "We're going to do more laundry. I already accepted this."

"Step six?"

"Compliments. Telling appa he's beautiful. Specifically. Often."

"That's my job."

"Yes."

"Step seven."

"Protecting his rest. Mornings, naps, defending his sleep."

"Step eight."

"Anticipating cravings."

"Step nine."

"Emotional validation. Hyung says I'm going to fail it."

"Step ten."

Minjae paused.

"Step ten," he said, "is making him feel held. Completely. So he doesn't doubt it. Even if he tried."

Jungkook was very still.

The kitchen was quiet. The afternoon light was coming through the window at the slant that meant four pm. Somewhere upstairs there was the sound of Taehyung moving around — the small soft sounds of an omega parent in his studio, alive and well and entirely unaware that his husband and two sons were in the kitchen plotting a conspiracy of devotion against him.

"Show me the article again," Jungkook said.

Junwoo slid the phone over.

Jungkook read it once more. Slower this time. Then he set the phone down.

"You will need a chart," he said. "For step eight."

"What?"

"Anticipating cravings. You said you needed a chart. We will need to keep track of his patterns. I'll set up a spreadsheet."

Minjae stared at his father.

"Dad," he said.

"What."

"Are you—"

"I am joining," Jungkook said.

"You're—"

"Joining," Jungkook repeated, with the patience of a man who had said the word once and saw no reason to elaborate. "You are clearly going to do this regardless of whether I participate. I would prefer to participate, both for quality control and because—" he paused. "Because I would like to."

Junwoo made a small involuntary sound.

"Dad," Minjae said. His voice was suspiciously thick. "Dad."

"Don't cry, Minjae."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm RECOVERING from a SURPRISE."

"Mm."

"WELCOME TO THE TEAM."

"Don't shout in the kitchen."

"WELCOME TO THE TEAM, DAD—"

"Minjae—"

"OPERATION COMFORT APPA—"

"Minjae if you do not lower your voice your appa is going to come down here."

Minjae lowered his voice. He was grinning. He could feel it. He could not stop it. Junwoo, beside him, was smiling in the small contained way that for Junwoo constituted ecstatic joy.

"There need to be rules," Jungkook said. "First rule: he does not find out."

"Agreed," Junwoo said.

"Second rule: nothing that puts him at risk. No engineered situations. No — no markets."

"Agreed."

"Third rule: anything I disagree with, we do not do."

"Dad you cannot have unilateral veto power."

"I can and I do."

"What if I disagree with something."

"You can express your disagreement. I will consider it."

"That is not how a democracy works—"

"This is not a democracy, Minjae. This is a household."

Junwoo was outright smiling now. He had stopped trying to hide it.

"Fourth rule," Jungkook said. "I am the one who does the foot rubs. And the compliments."

"Obviously."

"Fifth rule. We do not name this."

"It's already named. Operation Comfort Appa."

"Minjae."

"It's named. It happened in the kitchen at three-thirty. I named it. There is a record."

Jungkook looked at the ceiling.

"Sixth rule," he said. "Your appa is not to know."

"Yes, dad."

"Under any circumstances."

"Yes, dad."

"He notices everything, so we will have to be subtle."

Minjae and Junwoo did not look at each other. They had agreed, by silent consensus, that they would not tell their father that they were already approximately seventy-five percent sure their appa had figured it out on day one. Their father needed this. Their father needed to believe this was a covert operation.

"Subtle," Minjae said, gravely. "Yes."

"Good." Jungkook stood. He picked up the rice crackers and the clementine from the counter. "I will reinstall the bedroom snack drawer myself. He goes to that drawer for hand cream in the evenings. We need to move the lotion forward and the snacks behind."

"Strategic concealment," Junwoo said.

"Yes."

Minjae watched his father walk out of the kitchen with their step two materials, going to complete the operation his sons had been interrupted in.

He turned to Junwoo.

"Hyung," he said.

"I know."

"This is the greatest day of my life."

"Don't be dramatic."

"Dad is in the operation."

"I know."

"DAD IS IN THE—"

"Minjae for the love of—"

— ✦ —

Step Three: Foot Rubs (Reserved for Dad)

This step was, by mutual agreement, off-limits to the children. It was, additionally, the step that revealed the extent to which Jeon Jungkook had been waiting — possibly for years — for someone to formally give him a job description for the role of doting husband.

Minjae witnessed step three for the first time on a Thursday evening at nine-fifteen pm.

He had come downstairs for water. He was not, technically, supposed to be downstairs at nine-fifteen pm — he had ostensibly gone to bed at nine — but he was fourteen and his sleep schedule was a creative interpretation of his official one.

The living room was lit by one lamp. The television was off. Taehyung was on the couch in his pyjamas, leaning against the armrest, reading something on his phone with the small focused expression he wore when he was reading a story he was enjoying. His feet were in his husband's lap.

Jungkook was — Minjae stopped dead in the kitchen doorway — Jungkook was rubbing his feet.

This was not, mechanically, a complicated activity. Jungkook had Taehyung's bare foot in both of his hands and was working through it slowly, with the methodical care he brought to every physical task. His thumbs were doing something at the arch. Taehyung's eyes were on his phone but his expression — Minjae could see his expression from this angle — was loose and contented and slightly distant in the way of a person being thoroughly looked after.

Jungkook was looking at Taehyung's foot. Then his face. Then back to the foot. He was not saying anything. He was simply doing the job he had assigned himself, which was: make this person comfortable.

Minjae stood in the doorway.

His father had not seen him.

Taehyung, however, had looked up from his phone with the immediate awareness of an omega parent who had a sixth sense for the location of his children, and his eyes met Minjae's.

Taehyung smiled — a small private smile, just for him — and put a finger to his lips.

Minjae smiled back. He put a finger to his own lips. He backed out of the kitchen without taking his water. He went upstairs.

In his bedroom, he sat on his bed and pressed both hands against his face.

His phone buzzed.

It was Junwoo, from the next room.

Why did you come back upstairs without water

Minjae typed: dad is doing step three

A pause.

and?

and appa is being rubbed feet

was it weird

Minjae thought about this.

no, he typed. it was nice. it was very nice. hyung i think they're going to be okay.

Another pause. Then:

we knew they were going to be okay, minjae

i know but i FEEL it now

go to sleep

Minjae did not go to sleep for another forty minutes. He lay on his back and looked at the ceiling and thought about his father's hands and his appa's face and the small lamp in the living room and step ten of the article, the one about making him feel held completely, and he thought: we're doing it. we're actually doing it.

He fell asleep with his phone on his chest.

— ✦ —

Step Four: Hydration Reminders

This step required engineering.

Taehyung did not, historically, drink enough water. This was a known household issue. Taehyung would get absorbed in his work and forget that he had a body, and Jungkook would, every few hours, appear at his elbow with a glass of water and place it next to him without speaking, and Taehyung would say oh thank you and drink it and forget again. This had been the system for sixteen years.

The article's step four suggested escalation. Reminders. Tea. Water within reach in every workspace.

Jungkook, having taken his sons' operation seriously enough to install a spreadsheet, had escalated.

"Dad," Minjae said, on Saturday morning, looking at the small dashboard their father had set up on the family iPad and left, casually, on the kitchen counter, "this is — this is a lot."

"What is."

"You have set up automated reminders."

"Yes."

"On three different devices."

"Yes."

"And you have charted his water intake."

"For my own reference. Not for him to see."

Minjae looked at the chart. His father had been tracking Taehyung's water intake for six days. There was a column for tea, separated by type. There was a column for fruit-derived hydration. There was a note in the margin that read clementines high water content, count partial.

"Dad," Minjae said, with deep feeling, "you have a problem."

"I have a system, Minjae. There is a difference."

"It's a Saturday."

"Yes."

"Why are you doing data analysis on a Saturday morning."

Jungkook did not answer. He picked up the iPad and made a small note in the spreadsheet — Taehyung had just finished a cup of barley tea, Jungkook had clocked it from across the kitchen — and set the iPad back down.

Junwoo came in. He looked at the iPad. He looked at his father.

"How long have you been doing this," he said.

"Six days."

"Show me."

Jungkook handed over the iPad. Junwoo scrolled through the spreadsheet. His expression became, gradually, the expression of a person witnessing something both admirable and slightly concerning.

"This is — this is comprehensive," Junwoo said.

"Thank you."

"You have separated his herbal tea consumption by — by polyphenol content."

"Some of them are more hydrating than others."

"Dad."

"What."

"This is beautiful."

Jungkook looked at his older son. His mouth twitched, slightly, in the small movement that on Jeon Jungkook constituted a smile.

"It's a small thing," he said.

"It's not."

"It is. It's just—" he paused. "I want to know he's drinking enough."

Junwoo handed back the iPad.

Minjae was watching his father from the other side of the counter. He had — he had to look away for a moment.

The thing about their father was that he had been carrying these gestures his entire marriage. The worktable corner. The plus-one at the gala. The way he came home and put a hand on the back of Taehyung's neck. These were the things he had been doing without comment, without naming, with the silent dedication of a man who did not know how to say I love you but knew how to build a small system that resulted in his husband being slightly more comfortable. The article had given him permission. The article had said: yes, this thing you have been doing for years — there is a name for it. It is called devotion. Make it bigger.

Their father was making it bigger.

Minjae loved their father very much in this moment.

He cleared his throat.

"Dad," he said. "Can I see the spreadsheet."

Jungkook handed over the iPad.

Minjae looked at it. There was a tab he hadn't noticed.

It was labelled: NAPS.

"Dad," he said.

"What."

"You are tracking his naps."

"For step seven."

"Step seven hasn't started yet."

"I am preparing."

— ✦ —

Step Five: Take Things Off His Plate

This was the laundry step.

Minjae had, on the day they had reviewed the article, accepted this as his personal cross to bear. The price of love, he had announced, was laundry. He had said this with some flair. He had not, at that point, fully reckoned with the fact that doing the laundry meant doing the laundry consistently, multiple times a week, including the parts of the laundry he had previously been able to ignore — the towels, the sheets, the strange small specific items that required hand-washing for reasons that had never been adequately explained to him.

He persevered.

Junwoo took over the dishes after dinner, which had previously been Taehyung's task because Taehyung liked the meditative quality of doing the dishes after a meal. Junwoo, on day one, had attempted to take over the dishes mid-meal, which Taehyung had clocked instantly.

"Junwoo-ya," Taehyung had said, "leave them. I'll do them."

"No appa."

"It's fine, I like doing them."

"No appa."

"Junwoo—"

"It's part of the operation," Jungkook had said, from the head of the table.

Minjae had choked on his water.

Junwoo had gone very still.

Taehyung had looked at his husband.

"The operation," Taehyung had said. Slowly. Carefully. With the precise neutrality of a person who had just been handed a piece of information they had been waiting for.

Jungkook had also gone very still.

It had been one of the more remarkable two seconds of the Jeon household.

Then Jungkook had said, with the smooth recovery of a man who had genuinely never said anything incorrectly out loud before but was committed to the bit: "The household chores reorganisation. We discussed it. While you were at your seminar."

Taehyung had looked at him.

Taehyung had looked at his sons.

Then Taehyung had said, in a voice that was just slightly amused: "Oh. The household chores reorganisation. Of course."

And he had let Junwoo take the dishes.

When Taehyung had gone to bed an hour later, Minjae had cornered his father in the kitchen.

"DAD," he had hissed. "YOU NEARLY EXPOSED US."

"I did not."

"YOU SAID OPERATION."

"He recovered. We recovered."

"He KNOWS."

"He does not know. He thinks we had a meeting."

Junwoo, from the doorway, had said, very quietly: "Dad. Appa absolutely knows."

Jungkook had looked at his older son.

"He does not," he had said, but his voice had been less certain.

"Dad," Junwoo had said. "He's been giving us a particular look for three weeks. It's the look he gives Minjae when Minjae is trying to convince him he's already done his homework. He knows."

There had been a long pause in the kitchen.

Jungkook had picked up the dishtowel. He had folded it. He had set it down.

"If he knows," he had said, slowly, "and he is not stopping us—"

"Then he wants us to continue," Junwoo had said.

"Why."

"Because he likes it, dad."

Jungkook had been quiet for a long time.

"Oh," he had said, finally. Very softly.

"Yeah," Minjae had said.

His father had looked at the dishtowel for another long moment.

Then he had said: "Okay. We continue. We just — we don't make it obvious that we know that he knows."

"He probably knows that we know that he knows," Minjae had pointed out.

"Then we don't acknowledge the layers."

"What."

"There are layers, Minjae. We are not acknowledging them."

Junwoo had looked between his father and his brother and had said, with deep weariness: "I am going to bed."

— ✦ —

Step Six: The Compliment Campaign

Jungkook had assigned this step to himself with the gravity of a man accepting a sacred trust.

Minjae had been worried about it, in advance, because Jungkook was not — historically — a man who handed out compliments freely. Jungkook said true things and then stopped speaking. Jungkook had once told Taehyung, in Minjae's hearing, that shirt suits you, and Taehyung had glowed for two days. This was the calibre of his father's verbal economy.

Minjae had assumed that step six would be — at best — Jungkook saying you look nice three times a week.

Minjae had underestimated his father.

The first one happened on a Tuesday morning. Taehyung came down for breakfast in an old soft sweater he had had for years, the sleeves slightly too long, his hair still rumpled from sleep. He went to the coffee machine. He started his single allowed cup. He turned around with the mug in his hand and his husband was looking at him from the kitchen table with an expression Minjae had been seeing more often these last six months — open and unhurried, no longer routed through the careful filters Jungkook had spent fifteen years building — and Jungkook said:

"You look beautiful in the morning."

The kitchen went silent.

Taehyung, halfway through a sip of coffee, paused with the cup at his lips.

"I—" he said. "Thank you?"

"You always have. I should have told you before."

Taehyung set down the cup. His ears, Minjae could see from his place at the counter, had gone slightly red. Taehyung was holding the coffee cup with both hands now. He was looking at the table.

"Jungkook," he said.

"What."

"What are you doing."

"I am telling my husband he is beautiful in the morning."

"At eight-fifteen am."

"Yes."

"With our sons watching."

Jungkook glanced over at Minjae, who was attempting to make himself invisible behind the cereal box. Then back at his husband.

"They can witness it," he said. "It's not a secret."

Taehyung was now actively red, all the way down into the collar of his sweater. He sat down at the table with the focused composure of a person who had been ambushed and was managing it. He did not look at Jungkook. He looked at his coffee.

Jungkook watched him for a moment.

Then he reached across the table and tucked a piece of Taehyung's hair behind his ear.

Taehyung made a soft sound that he tried to suppress.

Minjae, behind the cereal box, was making a series of very small movements that were the kinetic equivalent of internal screaming. He looked over at Junwoo. Junwoo was eating his rice with the slow careful attention of a person who had decided that the only correct response to this situation was to focus on his meal.

Their father had become — over the course of six months — someone who said things like you look beautiful in the morning across the breakfast table. Out loud. In Korean. With witnesses.

This was the legacy of the original article.

This was the legacy of a thirteen-year-old's plan.

Minjae felt slightly faint.

— ✦ —

The compliments continued.

They were not always verbal. Some of them were — Minjae registered, over the next several weeks — gestural. Jungkook would notice that Taehyung had done his hair slightly differently and would, in passing, run his fingers through it once. Taehyung would wear a colour that Jungkook liked and Jungkook would, in the kitchen, in the evening, find a reason to stand close to him with one hand low on his back. These were not — these were not the gestures of a man performing affection. These were the gestures of a man who had been holding the affection for sixteen years and had decided, finally, to set it down where his husband could see it.

The verbal ones, when they happened, were specific.

The new earrings — they suit the shape of your face.

You are exceptional at this. I have always thought so.

Your hands are the most beautiful things in this kitchen.

This last one had happened on a Saturday afternoon when Taehyung had been kneading dough. Minjae had been at the kitchen table doing homework. He had looked up to see his father standing behind his appa with his chin nearly on his shoulder, watching Taehyung's hands work the dough, and Jungkook had said the line about the hands.

Taehyung had, without turning around, said: "Jungkook. You cannot keep doing this."

"Why."

"Because I'm going to cry into the dough."

"It's good for the dough."

"It is not good for the dough."

"It's salted."

Taehyung had laughed — the real one, the deep one — and Jungkook had pressed a kiss into the side of his neck and Minjae had stared at his calculus homework with the burning concentration of a person who had decided not to look up for several minutes.

Step six, he had thought, was unlocked.

— ✦ —

Step Seven: Protect His Rest

This was the step that, Minjae would later realise, transformed Jungkook from a participant in the operation into its chief architect.

Taehyung was in his fourteenth week. The exhaustion had — per the medical literature Jungkook had now, apparently, read — peaked at the eleventh and was beginning to ease, but he was still tired. Taehyung would nap, in the afternoons, in the new pillow corner of his studio, under the wheat-coloured blanket. He would nap, in the evenings, against the side of the couch, with Jungkook's hand in his hair. He would sleep deeply at night and wake up at six anyway because his body had been waking up at six for thirty years.

Jungkook had made it his personal mission to fix the six am problem.

The six am problem was solved, in stages, by the following interventions:

One. Jungkook started getting up at five-thirty. He went downstairs. He made coffee. He started breakfast. He answered work emails. By six am, when Taehyung's body would normally start to surface, Jungkook was downstairs and the bedroom was quiet and the only sound was the faint distant clatter of a kitchen being used by someone who was being deliberately careful not to wake anyone up.

Two. Jungkook installed a small noise machine in their bedroom. It produced what he described, when Minjae asked about it, as "neutral white sound." Minjae had asked if it worked. Jungkook had said: "He slept until seven-fifteen this morning."

Three. Jungkook spoke to the boys. He held a small meeting in the kitchen on a Saturday morning before Taehyung was up. He told them — with the gravity of a coach delivering a pre-game strategy — that the morning was now a quiet zone. Doors were to be closed gently. Voices were to be lowered. Music, of any kind, was not to be played before nine am. The household would, until further notice, operate under what he called "library protocol."

"Library protocol," Minjae had repeated.

"Yes."

"DAD."

"Lower your voice, Minjae."

"WE ARE IN THE OPERATIONAL PHASE OF—"

"MINJAE."

The library protocol had, against all odds, worked.

Taehyung had begun sleeping until seven-thirty. Then eight. On one remarkable Saturday in late April, he had slept until eight-forty-five, which was a Jeon household record. Jungkook, in the kitchen, had been making breakfast at quarter to nine and the front of his shirt had been, Minjae had registered, very slightly dishevelled from where he had been lying on the couch in the living room reading for two hours waiting for his husband to wake up.

Taehyung had come downstairs and seen the kitchen — the breakfast already laid out, the coffee freshly made, the small jug of cream Jungkook had warmed because Taehyung liked his coffee with warm cream now, this was a new pregnancy preference — and stopped in the doorway.

"Jungkook," he had said. His voice had been a little rough from sleep.

"You slept well."

"What time is it."

"Nearly nine."

"Why did you let me—"

"You needed it."

Taehyung had stood in the kitchen doorway in his pyjamas and looked at his husband for a long moment.

Then he had crossed the kitchen and put his arms around his husband's waist from behind and put his face against the back of Jungkook's shoulder and stayed there for approximately forty seconds.

Jungkook had not moved. He had put one hand over Taehyung's, where it was resting against his stomach, and had stood very still, the spatula in his other hand entirely forgotten, the eggs in the pan beginning to, very slowly, brown.

The eggs had burnt.

Neither of them had noticed.

Minjae, watching from the stairs, had registered the burning eggs and had decided, with the discretion of a person who had been getting better at this, not to mention it.

Junwoo had come down at nine-fifteen, smelled the burnt eggs, and silently begun making new ones.

The original eggs had been scraped into the bin without comment.

— ✦ —

Step Eight: Anticipate Cravings

This step required the chart.

The chart was Jungkook's domain. He had upgraded the spreadsheet. There were now seven tabs. Minjae had been given read-only access. Junwoo had been given editing privileges, because Junwoo had — for reasons Minjae would never fully understand — turned out to have a natural aptitude for data structure.

The chart tracked:

• Time of day Taehyung first mentioned hunger
• What he asked for
• Whether he ate it
• How much he ate
• Time elapsed since previous meal
• Any verbal indications of preference ("I've been thinking about—", "would there be—", "do we have—")
• Weather (Jungkook had added this column without explanation; he had a theory)
• Cycle phase (Junwoo had added this column and refused to explain it; Minjae had not pressed)

After three weeks of data, patterns had emerged.

Taehyung wanted hot soup between three and four pm. Always. Without exception. The kind of soup varied — sometimes a clear broth, sometimes a denser doenjang base, sometimes a Western-style cream soup that the household had only learned he liked in pregnancy. The timing was constant.

Taehyung wanted something sweet, but specifically not very sweet, at approximately nine pm. This often manifested as a small piece of fruit, half a tangerine, a single square of dark chocolate, a bite of rice cake. It was not a craving for sweetness so much as a small ritual of closing the day.

Taehyung wanted oranges. Constantly. The orange consumption had increased through April and May to a level that Jungkook, on the spreadsheet, had simply marked with a single note that read we now buy oranges weekly.

These patterns, once identified, were operationalised.

At two fifty-five pm, every day, soup appeared in front of Taehyung. He did not need to ask. He looked up from his work and the soup was there — on the worktable, on the kitchen island, on the small side table in the living room, depending on where he was in the house — and the person who had brought it had already left.

The first time it happened, Taehyung had said, "Oh."

The second time, he had said, "Boys, did you—"

The third time, he had simply taken the soup and drunk it, with the small private smile that Minjae had started to recognise as Taehyung's I know what you're doing and I love you smile.

The smile was happening more often.

The smile was, Minjae realised one afternoon in early May, becoming the dominant facial expression of his omega parent. Taehyung walked around the house with that smile on. Taehyung made dinner with that smile on. Taehyung looked at his husband, in the evenings, with that smile.

The household had become, in some way, an environment that was sustaining him.

Minjae had stood in the kitchen doorway one afternoon and watched his omega parent eat the three pm soup at the kitchen island and Jungkook had been at the other end of the island with his laptop open and the chart open and he had been — covertly, very covertly — updating the chart while his husband ate.

Taehyung had glanced up.

Taehyung had looked at his husband's laptop.

Taehyung had looked at his husband.

Then Taehyung had said, very mildly: "Jungkook."

"Yes."

"What are you doing."

"Work."

"On a Saturday."

"It's never finished."

A pause. Then Taehyung had said, with the slow careful enunciation of a person presenting an alternative theory:

"Are you tracking my soup intake."

Jungkook had not looked up from the laptop.

"No," he had said.

"Jungkook."

"It is a quarterly report."

"Show me the quarterly report."

"It's confidential."

Taehyung had laughed — the real one — and had reached across the island and taken his husband's hand, and Jungkook had finally looked up, and his face had done the entirely undefended thing it did now, and Taehyung had said: "You are so ridiculous. You are so deeply ridiculous and I love you."

And Jungkook had said: "I have a chart for the oranges."

And Taehyung had laughed harder, and Minjae had, from the kitchen doorway, registered that he was witnessing one of the small foundational happinesses of his life, and had quietly backed out of the room and gone upstairs to text Junwoo: appa caught dad with the chart

And Junwoo had replied: did he stop using it

And Minjae had replied: no he is now updating it openly

— ✦ —

Step Nine: Emotional Validation

This step Minjae feared.

He had said, in his original annotation, that he was going to fail this one. He had said it with the breeziness of a person not actually intending to test the prediction. He had assumed, naively, that the relevant emotional moment would occur in his father's presence, or his brother's, and that he would be safely on the sidelines for it.

The relevant emotional moment occurred on a Wednesday afternoon at four-twenty pm, when Minjae was the only other person in the house, and his omega parent was crying on the couch.

It happened like this.

Minjae had come home from school. He had let himself in. He had called appa, I'm home, in the way he always did, and Taehyung had called back from the living room hi sweetheart, in the way he always did, except — Minjae had noticed, his ears tuning to the particular pitch — Taehyung's voice had been a little thick.

Minjae had set down his bag in the entryway and gone to the living room.

Taehyung was on the couch in the new wheat-coloured blanket (it had migrated from the studio; this was, the household had collectively decided, fine). His feet were tucked under him. He was holding a cup of tea. His eyes were wet.

He was watching a television commercial.

The commercial was for car insurance.

Minjae stood in the doorway and assessed the situation with the rapid tactical awareness of a person who had been formally enlisted in Operation Comfort Appa and had received specific training in step nine, which he had said he was going to fail, which he was now being tested on with no warning and no backup.

His father was at work. His brother was at football practice. There was no one to call.

He was going to fail step nine. He was going to fail it alone in front of a car insurance commercial.

He sat down on the couch next to his appa.

"Appa," he said. Carefully. The way one might address a deer.

Taehyung looked at him. His eyes were very full. The tea was, Minjae noted with growing alarm, beginning to shake very slightly in his hand.

"Hi sweetheart," Taehyung said.

"Are you—"

"I'm fine."

"Are you crying about the car insurance commercial."

A small pause.

"Yes," Taehyung said.

Minjae did not know what to do.

The article had said: do not try to fix. The article had said: just be present. Minjae, fourteen and freshly home from school and not equipped for this, took a deep breath and made the executive decision to do what the article said.

He took the tea out of Taehyung's hand and set it on the side table. He shifted on the couch so he was sitting closer. He put his head on his appa's shoulder, the way he used to when he was small.

Taehyung made a small soft sound.

Then he started crying for real.

It was not a dramatic cry. It was the small overwhelmed cry of a person whose hormones had outrun their reasoning and who had been ambushed, in their own living room, by the gentleness of their fourteen-year-old son. Taehyung was crying into the top of Minjae's head and was saying, in fragments — I'm sorry, I'm being so silly, the commercial just — it was a father and a daughter and he was teaching her to drive and I just—

"It's okay," Minjae said, into his appa's shoulder. "It's okay, appa."

"I'm fine, Min, I'm really fine—"

"Yeah."

"It's just the hormones."

"Yeah."

"I love you so much, you know that, right?"

"I know."

"I love you and Junwoo and your dad and this baby and I just—"

"I know, appa."

Taehyung cried a little harder for about thirty seconds and then began, in stages, to settle. Minjae did not move. He let his head stay on his appa's shoulder. He thought, distantly: Junwoo was wrong. I am not going to fail step nine. I am passing it.

Then he thought: I am also crying.

He was crying. He had not noticed. There were tears running down his face in a perfectly steady and unembarrassing way and he was, apparently, having an emotion about his omega parent being held by his own son while his omega parent was crying about a car insurance commercial.

He stayed where he was. He did not wipe his face. Taehyung was looking at the ceiling now, his breath coming more evenly, his hand finding Minjae's hand on the blanket and holding it.

"You are such a good boy," Taehyung said, softly. "Such a good boy, Minjae. I am so lucky."

"Appa."

"What."

"Don't make me cry harder."

"Are you crying."

"A little."

"Oh, sweetheart."

"Don't say oh sweetheart either."

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

They stayed like that for a while.

The commercial on the television had ended. A new one had started. It was for a brand of soju. Minjae, his head still on his appa's shoulder, watched it without watching it.

Then Taehyung said, very quietly: "Minjae."

"Yeah."

"I know what you've all been doing."

Minjae went very still.

"The article," Taehyung said. "I know about the article."

A pause.

"...how long," Minjae said.

"Since the lavender."

"That was the FIRST WEEK."

"I know."

"APPA."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. You were having so much fun. And your father was — he was so happy to be doing it. I didn't have the heart."

Minjae was now sitting up. He had lifted his head from his appa's shoulder. Taehyung was — Minjae could see now — smiling. Slightly red-eyed. Slightly tear-stained. But smiling. With the particular warm amusement of a person who had been watching her family devote itself to him for two months and had been, the entire time, having the best time of his life.

"You let us do it the whole time," Minjae said.

"Yes."

"You let DAD make a SPREADSHEET."

"He's so proud of the spreadsheet."

"Appa."

"What."

"You are SO devious."

"I am pregnant. I am allowed to be devious. I get one devious thing per trimester."

"Does dad know that you know."

"He suspects."

"And you have not told him."

"No."

"Why."

Taehyung's face did the smile. The real one.

"Because, sweetheart," he said, "he has not had this much fun in sixteen years."

Minjae looked at his appa.

Then he started laughing.

He laughed until he was crying again, and Taehyung was laughing, and they were both on the couch crying and laughing simultaneously, and that was how Junwoo found them when he got home from football practice at five-fifteen — his omega parent and his younger brother in a tangle on the couch, the wheat-coloured blanket half off, both of them red-eyed and breathless, the tea on the side table still slowly cooling.

"What," Junwoo said, in the doorway.

"Appa knows," Minjae said.

"I have known for two months," Taehyung said, with dignity.

"We are not telling dad," Minjae said.

"We are not telling dad," Taehyung confirmed.

Junwoo looked at them both.

Then he said: "Of course you have known. It was obvious from the lavender."

Taehyung pointed at him. "Thank you. This is what I have been saying."

"I am going to go shower," Junwoo said.

"Junwoo," Taehyung said.

"Yeah."

"Come here first."

Junwoo came over to the couch. He sat down on the other side of his omega parent. Taehyung put an arm around him. He kissed the top of his head — Junwoo was almost as tall as him sitting down now, so he had to reach up — and Junwoo, after a moment, leaned his head against his appa's shoulder.

"You are both my favourite people in the world," Taehyung said.

"You have to say that," Junwoo said.

"I do not have to say that, Junwoo-ya, I am saying it."

The three of them sat on the couch.

The car insurance commercial came on again. None of them said anything.

— ✦ —

Step Ten: Make Him Feel Held — Not Just Physically, But Completely

Step ten was the heart of it.

Step ten was the thing the article was, ultimately, about.

By the time Taehyung was six months pregnant, the Jeon household had been operating under Operation Comfort Appa for approximately three and a half months, and the boys and their father had — Minjae would later think — slightly lost the plot, in the best possible way.

The operation had become the household. The household had become the operation. They had stopped, at some point, executing discrete steps from the article and had simply started — living that way.

Taehyung was in his second trimester now. He had moved past the first-trimester exhaustion into the energetic middle phase. He was painting again, with focus. His belly had begun to round out under his sweaters in the soft early-second-trimester way that was just visible when he turned to the side. Jungkook had developed the habit of standing behind his husband in the kitchen and resting one hand lightly on the curve of his stomach, no longer self-consciously, the way he had laid the first tentative hand at fourteen weeks. Taehyung had developed the habit of leaning back into it.

It was the doctor's appointment at twenty weeks that produced the moment.

It was the one where they would learn the baby's sex, if Taehyung and Jungkook wanted to know. They had decided, before the appointment, that they did. They had told the boys, on the morning of the appointment, that they would call them as soon as they knew.

Minjae and Junwoo had been at home together. The house was quiet. It was a Saturday. The dog they did not have was, conceptually, asleep. The boys had spent the morning pretending to do homework.

The phone rang at eleven forty-two am.

It was their father.

"Boys," he said, when Minjae picked up.

"Dad. Tell us."

"Put me on speaker."

Minjae put him on speaker. Junwoo, who had been pretending not to be on edge, leaned in.

There was a small pause on the other end of the line.

Then their father said: "It's a girl."

Minjae and Junwoo looked at each other.

"A — a girl," Minjae said.

"A daughter."

"Dad—"

"Your appa is very happy."

Behind their father's voice, Minjae could hear Taehyung. He was — Minjae listened — he was laughing. The real one. Saying something that was probably let me have the phone, Jungkook, and then Taehyung's voice, closer to the receiver: boys, hi, can you hear me?

"Appa," Minjae said. He was — there was something happening in his throat — he was — "Appa, a SISTER."

"A sister, sweetheart."

"Are you—"

"I'm so happy, Min. I'm so happy."

Junwoo had not said anything. Minjae looked at him. Junwoo's eyes were very bright. He was looking at the phone.

"Junwoo-ya?" Taehyung said. He could read his children through a phone speaker. "Are you there?"

"I'm here, appa."

"What do you think?"

Junwoo was quiet for a moment.

Then he said: "I think she is going to be very loved, appa."

There was a small silence on the other end.

Then their father's voice — low, slightly thicker than usual — said: "Yes. She is."

— ✦ —

The third trimester arrived with the heat of summer.

Seoul in July was a particular kind of hot. Taehyung was twenty-eight weeks pregnant and round in the proper second-half-pregnancy way and could not get comfortable in any chair in the house, including the chairs that had been specifically reupholstered, by Jungkook, with extra lumbar support during the eighteenth week.

Jungkook, who had been operating in what Minjae could only describe as Enhanced Protectiveness Mode for the entire pregnancy, escalated.

Junwoo, watching this from the kitchen one evening, said to Minjae very quietly: "I think we need to give him another article."

"What."

"The article ran out of steps. He needs more steps. Look at him."

Minjae looked. Their father was — across the room, in the living room — adjusting the position of a fan so that the airflow reached his husband exactly. He had moved the fan three times in the last ten minutes. He had also brought Taehyung a fresh glass of water with ice, a small dish of cut watermelon, and a damp cloth for the back of his neck. He was now considering whether to move the fan a fourth time.

Taehyung was on the couch in shorts and one of Jungkook's old t-shirts, his feet up, reading a book. His expression was the I know what you're doing and I love you expression at its full intensity.

"He is going to lose his mind without instructions," Junwoo said.

"I don't think OmegaLuv94 has a third trimester article."

"Find one."

"Hyung—"

"Find one, Minjae."

OmegaLuv94 did not, as it turned out, have a third trimester article. She had — Minjae verified — a great many other articles. There was Twelve Ways To Tell If Your Alpha Is Secretly Pining, which Minjae read for personal interest and would have applied retroactively to his father in 2008 if he could have. There was Eight Things Every Omega Wishes Their Family Knew (Tearjerker). There was Six Date Night Ideas for the Bonded Couple Who Has Been Together Forever (Spice Edition), which Minjae did not read.

There was, however, A Companion Piece: The Final Weeks, A Devoted Family's Guide to the Approaching Birth (✨ Tender Edition ✨).

Minjae read it.

He sent it to Junwoo.

Junwoo said: "Print it. Leave it on dad's desk. Pretend you don't know how it got there."

Minjae printed it. He left it on Jungkook's desk on a Tuesday morning. He went to school.

When he came home that afternoon, the article was gone. The bedroom — when he passed it on the way to his own room — contained: a new water bottle next to the bed, an additional small fan positioned to cover the side of the bed where his appa slept, and a fresh stack of cool cotton pillowcases. The hall closet — when he opened it to put away his shoes — contained: a hospital bag, packed, labelled with masking tape that read PRIMARY, and a secondary hospital bag labelled BACKUP IN CASE OF.

Their father was, in some way, fully unhinged. Their father had never been better.

Their appa was, in some way, the most loved person in Korea.

Minjae closed the closet and went to find Junwoo.

— ✦ —

The Birth

The contractions started on a Wednesday at four-fifteen in the morning.

Minjae knew this because his father came into his room and woke him.

"Min."

He sat up immediately. Some part of him had been waiting, the way the whole household had been waiting, for the last three weeks.

"It's happening?"

"Yes. Get dressed. We're going to the hospital. Get your brother."

Minjae was already moving. His father had already gone.

The house, at four-fifteen am, was lit by the small lights that Jungkook had — over the course of the pregnancy — installed in strategic locations, including the upstairs hall, so that no one would have to stumble in the dark. Minjae went to Junwoo's door and opened it. Junwoo was already awake, sitting up, his face the particular focused calm of a sixteen-year-old who had been internally rehearsing this moment for weeks.

"Get dressed," Minjae said.

"I'm getting dressed."

"It's happening."

"I know."

They got dressed. They came downstairs. Their appa was in the entryway with their father. Taehyung was — Minjae registered immediately — extremely composed, the small focused composure of a person who was in the early stages of something significant and was managing it. He had on a comfortable dress and slip-on shoes. The primary hospital bag was on his shoulder.

Jungkook had the backup hospital bag in one hand and his keys in the other.

"Boys," Taehyung said, when he saw them. "Did your father wake you very gently?"

"Yes, appa."

"He has a whole protocol for it. He was very proud."

"I know he did."

Jungkook, in the entryway, said: "We are leaving in two minutes."

"Yes, alpha."

"Taehyung-ah."

"I'm being good. I'm putting on my shoes."

Minjae watched his omega parent put on his shoes with the careful slow movements of a person who was managing a contraction that was, apparently, happening right at that moment without comment. Taehyung straightened. He breathed out. He looked at his husband.

"Okay," he said. "We can go."

— ✦ —

The hospital — the labour — the next many hours.

Minjae and Junwoo were in the waiting room. They had been told to wait there. Jimin had arrived at seven am, summoned by Jungkook with a single text message that had said now, and had sat down between the two boys and had ordered coffees and pastries from the hospital café and had told them, with the practical authority of a person who had himself given birth twice, that everything was going exactly as it should.

"How do you know," Minjae said.

"Because your father is in the room with him."

"That doesn't tell you anything."

"It tells me everything." Jimin handed Minjae a pastry. "Eat."

Minjae ate.

Hours passed. Junwoo, beside him, did not eat. Junwoo read a book he had brought. Junwoo turned the same page seven times. Jimin, observing this, put a hand on Junwoo's arm without comment.

At two-fifteen in the afternoon, their father came through the door of the waiting room.

He was in scrubs. His hair was — Minjae registered — slightly disheveled in a way that Jeon Jungkook's hair never normally was. His face was — Minjae had never seen his father's face like this — Minjae was going to think about his father's face like this for the rest of his life.

He looked at his sons.

"Boys," he said.

The voice was — his father's voice, but lower, slightly hoarse, with something in it that was completely without armour. The voice of a man who had just witnessed something that had reorganised him.

"She's here," Jungkook said. "She's healthy. Your appa is fine. Come and meet her."

Minjae stood up. Junwoo stood up. Jimin made a small sound and pressed both hands to his face.

"Go," Jimin said. "Go go go."

They followed their father down the hospital corridor. Junwoo was walking very steadily. Minjae could feel his own legs slightly buzzing. They stopped outside a door. Jungkook turned and looked at both of them.

"Quiet," he said. "Slowly. Your appa is tired."

"Yes, dad."

He opened the door.

The room was — Minjae took it in in pieces — soft-lit, warm, smelling of something clean and faintly sweet. The bed was raised. His omega parent was — Minjae looked — sitting up against the pillows, his hair damp at the temples, his face tired and entirely lit up, and he was holding something small wrapped in a pale yellow blanket against his chest.

He looked up when the boys came in.

His face did the thing.

"Boys," he said. His voice was thick. "Come meet your sister."

Minjae could not move.

Junwoo, beside him, walked toward the bed. Slowly. Carefully. The way he had carried the brick-red pillows into the studio four months ago. He stopped beside the bed. He looked down.

Then he made a small sound — a sound Minjae had never, ever heard from his brother — a soft involuntary noise that contained everything Junwoo did not, generally, let out into the air.

"Appa," Junwoo said.

"I know," Taehyung said.

"Appa, she's—"

"I know."

Minjae unfroze. He walked to the bed. He stood next to his brother. He looked down.

His sister was — she was very small — she was extremely small — she had a perfect round face and dark hair and her eyes were closed and her mouth was making the small sucking movement of a newborn dreaming and she had — Minjae registered — the smallest hands he had ever seen. She had ten fingers. Each finger had a fingernail.

"Appa," Minjae said. His voice was — he was not going to cry — he was — "Appa, she has fingernails."

"She does, sweetheart."

"Why does she have fingernails."

"Because she is a person."

"She is a — appa she is a PERSON."

"Yes, Minjae."

"Dad."

His father had come to stand beside him. Jungkook was looking at the baby with the same face — the face he had worn coming through the waiting room door, the face of a man who had been reorganised. He put a hand on Minjae's shoulder.

"Yes," Jungkook said.

"Dad she has FINGERNAILS."

"I know, Min."

Junwoo, on the other side of the bed, had crouched slightly so his face was level with the baby's. He was — Minjae looked — he was crying. Very quietly. Tears moving down his face without his apparent participation. Taehyung, with one hand free, reached up and put his palm against Junwoo's cheek.

"Junwoo-ya."

"I'm okay, appa."

"I know you are."

"She's so small."

"She's exactly the right size."

"She's so small, appa."

Taehyung's thumb moved across Junwoo's cheekbone.

"Do you want to hold her," he said.

Junwoo froze.

"I—" he said. "I don't know how—"

"I'll show you. Sit."

There was a chair by the bed. Junwoo sat. Taehyung — slowly, with the small wince of a person who had given birth four hours ago — shifted, and Jungkook moved in to help, and between the two of them the baby was transferred, very carefully, into Junwoo's arms.

Junwoo's arms.

Junwoo's arms which had — Minjae watched — adjusted themselves with no instruction into the exact correct position. The head supported. The body curled close. Junwoo looking down at his sister with an expression Minjae did not have a word for.

"Hi," Junwoo said. Very quietly. To the baby. "Hi. I'm your hyung."

The baby made a small noise.

Junwoo made a small noise back.

Minjae, standing beside the bed, started crying for real.

"Min," Taehyung said.

"I'm fine."

"Come here."

Minjae went. He sat on the edge of the bed. Taehyung put an arm around him. Minjae put his face against his appa's shoulder, the way he had on the couch in May, the way he had at four years old, the way he had at twelve.

"You did it, appa," he said, into the hospital gown.

"We did it."

"No. You did it."

"Mm."

"Appa."

"What."

"Junwoo is holding her like she's his."

"Yes."

"Like he's done it before."

"I think he was made for it."

Minjae lifted his head and looked at his brother. Junwoo was — entirely absorbed. He had not looked up. He was murmuring something to the baby, too quietly for anyone else to hear, and the baby was making the small noises back, and Junwoo's face was a face Minjae had never seen on his brother and would see, he understood, many many times over the course of the rest of their lives.

His father was — Minjae looked — his father was standing at the foot of the bed with one hand on Taehyung's foot through the blanket, looking at all of them, his entire face the open undefended thing it now was.

"My family," Jungkook said. Just that. To the room. To the air.

"Yours," Taehyung said.

"Mine."

— ✦ —

Epilogue: Two Years Later — Junwoo's Graduation

Jeon Junwoo was eighteen years old and he was graduating high school.

The ceremony was being held in the gymnasium of his school, which had been transformed for the occasion with banners and folding chairs and a stage at the front with a podium that was being used by a sequence of teachers and administrators to deliver speeches of varying length and quality. The graduating class — three hundred and forty-two students — sat in the front rows in their gowns. Junwoo was in the second row from the back, because his last name fell in the middle of the alphabet, and he was — by all external appearances — composed.

Internally, he was managing.

His family was in the audience. He could not see them from where he was sitting, because they were behind him, but he could feel them. He could feel his father — which sounded strange, when he tried to articulate it, but was true — Jungkook had a particular quality of attention that Junwoo had always been able to locate in a room. His father was watching him with the kind of focus that did not move.

His appa was beside his father. He could not see his appa either but he knew, without having to check, that Taehyung was holding the baby. Their sister.

Their sister was two and a half years old. Her name was Soomin, which had been chosen — after a multi-month process involving extensive deliberation, the rejection of all of Minjae's suggestions, and one tense family meeting in the kitchen — by Taehyung, on the principle that the name meant bright pearl and felt right when he said it aloud. Soomin had her appa's eyes and her dad's particular focused stillness, which combined into a small person who looked at the world like she was taking notes on it.

Soomin loved Junwoo.

This was, the family had observed, a documented fact. Soomin had — from approximately the age of four months, when she had first started recognising specific people — exhibited a preference for Junwoo that bordered on the unreasonable. She would scan a room when she entered it. She would locate Junwoo. She would, depending on her mobility at the time, either reach for him or — once she could walk — go directly to him.

This had been, Junwoo could now say privately, one of the great honours of his life.

He had not known he was going to be the kind of older brother who carried his little sister everywhere. He had not known he was going to be the kind of person who, while doing his university entrance preparation, did it with a two-year-old wedged against his side because she had — without consultation — decided that was where she was going to be. He had not known he was going to be a person who would, on multiple occasions, fall asleep on the couch with his sister asleep on his chest and wake up two hours later having not moved because his arm had gone numb and he had not wanted to disturb her.

He had not known any of this about himself.

It turned out — Junwoo had concluded, somewhere around the eighteen-month mark — that the article had been right about step ten in ways that the article had not, perhaps, fully anticipated. Make them feel held — not just physically, but completely. It had said that about pregnant omegas, but it turned out it applied to small sisters, too. It turned out it applied to whole families. It turned out it was the only real principle.

Their family had been operating on it for almost three years now.

He had also, in the last year, started getting the look in public.

The look was — Junwoo had finally understood — the look people gave him when he was out with his sister and people did not realise she was his sister. He was tall now, and broad in the way that came from football and from being eighteen, and he had his appa's particular soft eyes, and his sister was small and clung to him and called him oppa very loudly in cafés. People assumed.

People assumed a lot.

There had been the incident at the grocery store six months ago when a kindly older woman had clucked at him and said, Aigoo, so young. Is the mother alpha working? And Junwoo had blinked at her and said, She is my sister, halmeoni, and the woman had looked extremely embarrassed and apologised and Junwoo had, that night at dinner, told the story, and Minjae had laughed so hard he had cried into his rice.

There had been the incident at the playground where another father had nodded at him in solidarity and said, They're a lot at this age, aren't they? and Junwoo had said, Yes, but she is my sister, and the father had looked startled and then apologetic and Junwoo had — with patience that had become a feature of his adult character — explained.

There had been the incident, just last month, at the coffee shop near their house, where the barista had handed Junwoo his coffee and said, very kindly, And what does the little one want? and Soomin, in his arms, had said appa juice — which was Soomin's word for any beverage produced for an adult, because she had been taught it by Taehyung — and the barista had said, Oh, what a clever little girl, daddy must be so proud, and Minjae, behind Junwoo in line, had wheezed audibly into his hoodie.

The "daddy must be so proud" had become, in the household, a phrase of significant comedic weight. Minjae had used it for two weeks straight. Minjae had said it to Junwoo every time Junwoo had done literally anything. Daddy must be so proud, Minjae had said, when Junwoo had brought down the laundry. Daddy must be so proud, he had said, when Junwoo had passed his university entrance exam with the second-highest score in his entire prefecture. Daddy must be so proud, he had said, on the morning Junwoo had been getting ready for the graduation he was now attending, with his sister sitting on his lap helping him button his shirt and managing, with extreme effort, only one of them.

Their father had said, watching this from the doorway of the bathroom: I am extremely proud, actually.

Minjae had wheezed again.

It was an inside joke now. It was part of the household furniture.

Junwoo, in the second-to-last row of the graduating class, listened to the principal deliver the welcome address, and thought about the article. About the original one. About the way Minjae, at thirteen, had screenshotted a Buzzfeed-grade listicle written by a person called OmegaLuv94 and sent it to him at eleven twenty pm with the message read this immediately urgent.

He thought about the candles. About the wine sweater. About the time he had ghostwritten a note for their father and slid it under their omega parent's studio door at six am.

He thought about a small black-and-white photograph of a thing that had looked like a kidney bean.

He thought about Soomin's first laugh, which had happened on a Sunday morning when she was four months old, sitting in their appa's lap at the breakfast table while their father had been making something elaborate at the stove and Minjae had been singing — badly — to her, and she had made a sound that none of them had ever heard before, a sound that had brought their father across the kitchen at speed and stopped him dead in his tracks because the baby had been laughing, the baby had laughed for the first time, and the entire household had stood completely still trying not to break the moment.

He thought about a hand at the small of a back.

He thought about a garden in October.

He thought about: moon goddess willing.

The principal finished. There was applause. The vice principal stood up.

It was Junwoo's row's turn to walk.

He stood up. He smoothed his gown. He walked, with the rest of his row, to the side of the stage, and waited for his name to be called.

His name was called.

He walked across the stage.

He shook the principal's hand. He took his diploma. He turned to the audience.

And he found them.

He could not — he had not expected to be able to — he had thought he would not be able to see them in the lighting, but he could. Right there. Tenth row, on the aisle. Four of them. His appa with his eyes bright and his hand pressed to his mouth, his father with his face entirely open the way it was now, his brother Minjae jumping up and down and making, Junwoo could see even from this distance, embarrassing hand gestures, and his sister Soomin — sitting on Jungkook's shoulders, her small hands gripping their father's hair, her round face entirely lit up — waving at him with her whole arm.

Oppa, she was saying. He could not hear her but he could see her mouth shaping it. Oppa oppa oppa.

Junwoo's eyes filled.

He had not been planning to cry on stage. He had specifically planned not to cry on stage. He had told himself, that morning, that under no circumstances would he cry on stage.

He cried on stage.

He cried in the composed contained way that was his, but he cried. He waved back at his sister. His sister waved both hands at him. His brother whooped — actually whooped, at a graduation, in front of three hundred and forty-two other graduating families — and his appa made the small move of trying to grab Minjae's arm and bring him back down but was clearly laughing too hard to actually do it, and his father — his father was looking at him from the audience with an expression Junwoo had been seeing for two and a half years now, the open one, and his father, at his son's graduation, made the smallest hand gesture, a small acknowledgement directed at Junwoo and only at Junwoo, that said: we see you, well done, you have always been our pride.

Junwoo walked off the stage.

He sat back down in his seat.

The vice principal was already calling the next name. The next student was walking. The ceremony continued. Junwoo sat in his row of graduates, diploma in his lap, with his face wet, and he thought: I have been the most loved person in any room I have ever been in, every day of my entire life.

He thought: I did not always know it.

He thought: I know it now.

— ✦ —

Afterwards, in the gymnasium parking lot, his family found him.

Minjae got there first. Minjae was sixteen now and had — Junwoo had only recently registered this — gotten tall, almost as tall as Junwoo, though Minjae would never look as composed as his older brother, and would never want to. Minjae hit Junwoo at full speed in what was technically a hug but was operationally a tackle, and said into Junwoo's shoulder hyung you DID IT, and Junwoo said yes Minjae I did it, and Minjae said hyung dad is going to cry, watch—

Their father was approaching. Their father was — Minjae had been right — fighting visibly with something. Jungkook stopped in front of his son. He looked at him.

"Junwoo-ya," he said.

"Dad."

"Junwoo-ya."

"Dad."

"My son."

"Yes, dad."

Then his father — his father, Jeon Jungkook, who had not historically embraced anyone in public — pulled his son into a hug. Tight. Both arms. The full thing. And Junwoo — who had grown enough that he could now rest his chin on his father's shoulder, which still surprised him — closed his eyes.

"I am extremely proud," his father said. Into his ear.

"I know."

"I am extremely proud, Junwoo-ya."

"I know, dad. I know."

His father pulled back. His father's eyes were wet. His father did not appear to be concerned about this. The Jeon Jungkook of three years ago would have been concerned about this. The Jeon Jungkook of today was a man who had been having his face on the outside of his body for almost three years now and had — apparently — gotten used to it.

His appa came next. His appa was holding Soomin's hand now — Jungkook had set her down — and Soomin, the moment she saw Junwoo at her eye level, broke loose from Taehyung's hand and ran to him.

"Oppa!"

Junwoo crouched. She crashed into him.

"Hi, Soominnie."

"Oppa, you walk on the stage!"

"I did."

"You take the paper!"

"I did."

"You wave at me!"

"I did, Soominnie. I saw you."

"I wave at YOU."

"You did. I saw."

She put her small hands on his face. She did this often. She did it now. She looked at him very seriously with her round face approximately three inches from his.

"Good job, oppa," she said.

Junwoo's eyes filled again.

"Thanks, Soomin-ah."

"Hyung," Minjae said, from behind them. Solemnly. "Daddy must be so proud."

"Minjae I am going to kill you."

"DADDY MUST BE—"

Their appa had reached them. Taehyung went down on his heels next to Junwoo, mindful of his slightly older joints — he was, Junwoo's appa was thirty-eight now, he refused to acknowledge this — and put his hand on Junwoo's cheek.

"Junwoo-ya."

"Appa."

"You walked across that stage like you were already someone."

"Appa."

"You have always been someone."

"Appa—"

"My boy."

Junwoo — Junwoo who had, twenty minutes ago, controlled his crying on stage with the discipline of an athlete — gave up. He put his forehead against his appa's shoulder. His appa held the back of his head. Soomin, in his arms, patted his back with the small firm pats she had learned from watching her family.

"It's okay, oppa," she said, with confidence. "It's okay."

"Thank you, Soomin-ah."

"You DID it."

"I did."

"Appa is so proud!"

"Yes, sweetheart, I am."

His brother, behind him, said — quietly this time, no joke in it — "Hyung. We're proud of you. All of us."

His father, behind his brother, made a small affirming sound.

Junwoo, his face in his appa's neck and his sister in his arms and his brother's hand on his back and his father standing over all of them, thought — and the thought was so clear and so complete that it felt almost like a sentence he was reading rather than one he was producing — this is the foundational happiness of my life. This. These people. Right here.

He thought: Minjae screenshotted an article when he was thirteen years old.

He thought: None of this would have happened if Minjae had not screenshotted an article.

He thought, with the same warm helpless laughing-crying feeling he had been having for the last forty minutes:

OmegaLuv94 has no idea what she did.

He lifted his head. He wiped his face. He looked at his family.

"Let's go home," he said.

"Yes," his appa said.

"Pizza," Soomin announced, with authority. "We have pizza."

"Pizza," Jungkook agreed.

"Pizza for my graduating son," Taehyung said.

"Pizza for everyone," Minjae said. "I will eat at least three pieces."

"You will eat one piece," their appa said.

"Appa."

"One piece, Minjae."

"APPA."

The Jeon family walked to their car in the parking lot of Junwoo's high school in the bright June sunshine, Soomin on Junwoo's hip and her small hand fisted in his graduation gown, and Minjae walking backwards in front of them gesturing about pizza, and their appa laughing at something their father had said quietly to him, and their father with his hand at the small of his husband's back the way it lived now, and the car was where they had left it and the door opened with a soft beep and they got in.

Junwoo buckled Soomin into her car seat. She looked up at him.

"Oppa," she said.

"Yes, Soominnie."

"I love you the MOST."

Junwoo — who was, technically, a graduated adult now, who had walked across a stage and accepted a diploma and been seen by his entire family being seen — closed his eyes for a moment, and felt the sun coming through the car window, and felt his sister's hand patting his cheek, and felt every person he loved in the seats around him, and said, very quietly, only for her:

"I love you the most too, Soominnie."

His father started the car.

They drove home.

— ✦ —

Hello loves. You made it. You really did.

Some quick things:

The article in this story is fictional but the spirit of OmegaLuv94 lives on in every Buzzfeed-grade listicle that has ever made a teenager think they could fix something. Bless her. She does not know what she does.

Soomin's name (수민, bright pearl) was chosen by Taehyung, like I said in the text, but I will tell you privately that Minjae's rejected suggestions included: Jeon Jungminjae (after himself), Jeon Spaghetti (he was hungry), Jeon Hope (too on the nose), and Jeon Moon (which Taehyung actually considered for about an hour). Junwoo's veto rate on the suggestions ran at approximately ninety-eight percent.

Jungkook's spreadsheet has, in the years since, become a household joke. He still has it. He updates it now for Soomin's nap schedule. Taehyung has, as of last month, formally requested access. Jungkook has granted him view only.

Minjae is sixteen. He is currently engaged in a small ongoing flirtation with a classmate. He has not told anyone. Junwoo knows. Taehyung knows. Jungkook is — bless him — the only person in the household who has not yet figured it out. If you ask nicely there may be another story.

OmegaLuv94 has responded to Minjae's second testimonial comment with: MY HEART. CONGRATULATIONS TO YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY. PLEASE SEND PHOTOS OF THE BABY. Minjae has not sent photos of the baby. Minjae has, however, screenshotted the comment and added it to the folder with the first one. The folder is named MY LEGACY.

Thank you for reading. Sometimes the happy ending is just everyone going home for pizza in the bright June sunshine, with a two-year-old strapped into a car seat saying I love you the most to her oppa, who is eighteen years old and graduated and held by all the people who have ever loved him.

That's it. That's the whole thing.

I hope if you cried at least once after reading, then you laughed at least twice as well.

— NTK