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Names were important to Yoongi. If you were to ask his grandmother about it, she would tell you childhood stories of Yoongi spending weeks on finding names to give his teddy bears. When story writing was a strong hobby of his, Yoongi would not make a plot outline or begin writing the first chapter until each characters’ name was just right and true to them. Even usernames took a good chunk of Yoongi’s time to the point where he just defaulted to a standard one on all platforms--- minsuga93 . Song titles were everything to Yoongi and were just as important as the actual song lyrics and beat.
But the thing with naming stuffed toys, songs, stories, was that none of them were as stressful as coming up with the perfect name for a child .
Yoongi could feel a gray hair growing on his scalp from the trouble. When Hoseok finally came home, he found Yoongi sitting on the floor, laptop, notepad, and various baby name books opened around him. Ink stained Yoongi’s hands from scribbling down names, and his eyes heavy from nonstop web browsing. Yoongi glanced up at him, ignoring the way his stomach at the bag of food Hoseok carried. “My hair's turning gray,” Yoongi mumbled.
Hoseok, bless him, replied, “Nah, that must be leftover from when your hair was dyed silver. Now, please tell me you haven’t been sitting in that same spot since I left 4 hours ago.”
“I think we both know the answer to that,” Yoongi said, crossing out several names on his notepad. His brain was drowning in letters and his eyes were beginning to spin at all the text he was reading. There were so many languages and words in the world, yet Yoongi could find nothing that was worthy of naming his and Hoseok’s child with.
Hoseok, taking care not to trip over any books, walked over to Yoongi and sat down. His hand tangled itself in Yoongi’s hair before trailing down to rest on his back. “Let’s take a break?” he suggested, and began pulling out food containers from the bag. “Something tells me you haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“She’s gonna be born soon,” Yoongi said as Hoseok passed him his chopsticks. A small smile formed on Hoseok’s face, and he tapped the side of Yoongi’s cheeks with the utensils.
“April is still some months away,” Hoseok explained. He picked up one of Yoongi’s notebooks, eyeing the scratched out names. “Ah, you don’t like Jisoo?”
“Too common.”
“Yomi? Sohee? Those were Namjoon’s suggestions.”
“No way is Namjoon naming our kid,” Yoongi said, and without meaning to, went into a long rant about how their friends’ and families’ name suggestions had to be scrutinized carefully. Yoongi loved his mom and both his grandmothers, but he wasn’t looking to naming his daughter after them. She wasn’t a 2.0 of anyone; she was her own person.
Yoongi didn’t stop talking until Hoseok had taken his chopsticks and began probing his mouth with a piece of yellow daikon. Yoongi reluctantly paused to eat. “I know you want to find the best name for her,” Hoseok said, scooping up a mandu for Yoongi, “but we have time. You don’t have to do everything in one day.”
Yoongi waited after three more bites of food before speaking again. Of course he knew he didn’t have to do everything in one day. But each new day was closer to his daughter’s birth, closer to the time where he, Hoseok, and Wheein would be in the delivery room, closer to the moment when Yoongi and Hoseok would fill out the birth certificate.
He looked over at his laptop, every single tab filled with random sites like Uncommon Korean Names, Indie Female Names, Star Constellation Names for Babies.
The food felt like a heavy rock in his stomach. “I just, I don’t wanna be one of those parents who still haven’t figured out a name by the time their kid’s born. I don’t wanna pick a name that she’ll end up legally changing when she’s older because she hates it or it’s too embarrassing,” Yoongi said. He couldn’t completely stop the latter from happening if it was what she desired. It wouldn’t stop Yoongi from feeling like he failed to find the right name for her.
Hoseok never said it outloud, but Yooni was positive he wanted to tell him how there were other things to be stressed about. The last remnants of legal paperwork, making sure the nursery room was ready, making sure Hoseok or Yoongi were always present at Wheein’s doctor visits, that Wheein was okay, that no one’s mind would explode.
Three years ago was when Yoongi and Hoseok officially decided on surrogacy to have a child. It took two years of searching and interviewing (and constant stress and maybe one of them cried along the way) before they met Wheein. Yoongi didn’t believe in human perfection beyond Hoseok, but he felt Wheein was almost ideal to it, and that the baby that would be born from all this would encompass every perfection imagined.
“...You’re thinking too hard again.” Hoseok said gently, rubbing the back of Yoongi’s neck until the man caved in and buried his head on Hoseok’s chest. Yoongi’s ears focused in on Hoseok’s heartbeat, the rhythm easing some of the anxiety off his body. He wondered if the baby felt comforted by Wheein’s heartbeat. He hoped once he got to hold his child close to his chest, she would find the same comfort in his heartbeat too.
Yoongi was so close to falling asleep, he hadn’t realized that Hoseok was holding his hand and kissing his knuckles. “Yoongi...I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh no,” he mumbled sleepily. Hoseok pinched his side, frowning at Yoongi’s chuckle.
“Aye, hush. I’ve been thinking a lot about her name too. And, uh,” he paused, pressing Yoongi’s hand to his cheek as he thought over his words, “this is something I really want to do. I’m not sure how you’ll feel about it, but, I’ve given it a lot of thought.” Yoongi rubbed his face against Hoseok’s shirt before leaning back up.
“What is it?”
Hoseok gripped his hand tighter. “I know how you said you didn’t want to name her after your mom or anything like that. But for me, you’re the most important person to me. And I love you, I really love you. She might have part of my DNA, but I want her to have something of yours, so...I want to name her after you.”
The pause between them wasn’t as heavy as it could’ve been, but it still knocked Hoseok over until Yoongi spoke. “Wha, you want to give her my name?” he asked.
“Kind of. I was thinking ‘Yoonji.”
Yoonji. He hadn’t come across that name yet. It sounded wonderful in Hoseok’s voice. Uncertainty still clouded Yoongi’s opinion. “I...don’t think I’m qualified, I don’t know. That’s only one letter off from mine, what if we get confused?”
Hoseok tilted his head, peering at Yoongi as if his concern was somewhat ridiculous. “Uh, no. You’re dad, and she’s Yoonji. What’s there to be confused about? And what do you mean you’re not ‘qualified,’ Yoongi.” Both of Hoseok’s hands now cupped Yoongi’s face, and the way he smiled made Yoongi feel like he crash-landed onto a planet where the sun shined everyday and there was never a shortage of love and happiness.
It’s calmed down after all this time, but Yoongi still got the random bouts of being lovestruck around Hoseok.
“I think it would be the perfect name, and a great honor, for our daughter to be named after you,” said Hoseok. “Because you’re wonderful, and I’m pretty sure she’s gonna turn out wonderful, too.”
“You’re gonna make me cry.” Yoongi’s heart already was and he was embarrassed about it.
“Ah, I’m sorry.” And because Hoseok couldn’t go a day without kissing Yoongi, he pressed a thousand to his face and lips until Yoongi couldn’t stop laughing.
“Okay, okay--I’ll think about it,” Yoongi said, the tip of his ears and nose bright pink, and he hid himself back in Hoseok’s chest. “I’ll think about it.”
The name stuck in Yoongi’s mind to the point everything he came up with afterwards felt dull in comparison. Several times he found himself sitting in the nursery room, holding a few of the baby’s sonograms, and saying, “ Yoonji. ” It didn’t sound like they were trying to make her an extension of Yoongi. She would still be herself with a part of Yoongi’s name.
Everytime Hoseok asked him about the name, Yoongi’s answer was still, “I’ll think about it.”
(When April finally arrived and put a baby in their arms, Hoseok kissed her and Yoongi, and asked, “Are you still thinking about it?”
“Mm, I think Yoonji fits her well, right?”)