Chapter Text
I clung to your hands so that something human might exist in the chaos.
— Hélène Cixous, Love Itself: In the Letter Box
“Eat the damn sandwich, or else it becomes Hwannie’s,” Jihoon grumbles, sinking down in the chair next to a currently sulking Doyoung, the little boy’s cheeks puffed out as he glared down at the shitty ham and cheese sandwich Jihoon had thrown together after finding out that the kid hadn’t eaten all day.
“I would, but it’s whole wheat bread—I hate whole wheat bread.” Doyoung’s nose wrinkling as he pokes and prods at the honestly pathetic looking sandwich, annoyed that Hyunsuk wasn’t around to throw in a DiGiorno’s pepperoni pizza like he usually did when Doyoung got into one of his ‘moods.’
(“Pizza? Again?” Jihoon says as he pops open a bottle of red wine, tossing the cork somewhere behind him, something that had always pissed off his clean freak of a husband. “Jesus, ‘Suk, he’s gonna end up a spoiled brat if you keep this shit up.”)
“Well, that’s too fucking bad,” Jihoon snatching the (paper, because when you have four young children shit is bound to break) plate away from Doyoung quicker than he can blink, his small protest of ‘Hey! I was going to eat that!’ coming seconds too late. “It’s Hwannie’s now-”
“I’ll tell Daddy that you still piss in the shower if you don’t-”
“God, you are such a pain in the ass,” Jihoon mutters as he’s forced to slide the plate back over to his son, who simply giggles like the little gremlin that he is. “You know that, right?”
“Yep! I know!” Doyoung happily chirps before he takes a big bite out of his sandwich, and Jihoon’s suddenly very, very thankful that Hyunsuk isn’t here as he would have probably had a heart attack by now.
(“You have to cut their food into bite-sized pieces!” Hyunsuk had scolded Jihoon after Jeongwoo had nearly choked to death on a hot dog, “Especially with Woo!”)
“My mommy used to tell me that all the time!” The seven-year-old oh so casually remarks, reaching for his glass of milk with a gap-toothed smile. Doyoung’s curls falling into his eyes as he does so, and it takes everything in Jihoon not to reach out to brush them away, as the last time that he did that didn’t go over so well. “But it’s okay because I know she didn’t mean it!”
And Jihoon feels his blood run cold at those words, the innocence behind them tugging at his heartstrings in a way that he’d only felt a handful of times, as thinking of a time where the mischievous sparkle in his son’s eyes wasn’t there hurts more than Jihoon would care to admit.
(“Taeyong-ssi called today,” Hyunsuk pauses, drawing in a shaky breath as he wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “He said that he found a kid for us to foster.”
“For real?” Jihoon nearly stumbles over his feet as he rushes to embrace his husband, “Hyunsuk, that’s wonder-”
“The child’s mother,” Hyunsuk sniffles, choking up, “she...she used to-” the sob that rips itself from the smaller man’s throat saying enough for Jihoon, holding Hyunsuk close as he shushes him, tears of his own welling up in his eyes as he plants a kiss on Hyunsuk’s forehead.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Jihoon whispers, wincing when his voice cracks with poorly disguised uncertainty. “Our kid’s gonna be a-okay. I mean, they’re already a fighter, yeah? And you can bet on my questionable parenting skills that we’re gonna continue to fight for them.”)
“Y-Yeah,” Jihoon swallowing down the lump in his throat as he forces himself to smile back, you know, for the kid’s sake, “she sure did, kiddo, she sure did.”
“Perhaps I’m a bit biased, but I swear you were the cutest baby that I ever laid my eyes on,” Hyunsuk’s mother cooed over the phone, completely unaware of how her (favorite) son’s stomach was currently busy twisting itself into a tight, tight knot.
“Ah, really?” Hyunsuk nervously laughed, Jihoon mumbling something underneath his breath as a rather beaten down honda civic pulled into their driveway, the abrupt screech of tire on gravel making both men wince. Hyunsuk muttering a small ‘love you, Mom. I promise to call you tonight.’ before hanging up, his palms sweaty. The brunet takes in a few deep breaths as he attempts to get his nerves under control, the sound of a car door slamming shut snapping him back to reality, wiping his palms on his jeans as he readies himself for that life-changing knock on their door.
“You okay?” Jihoon asks, gently nudging Hyunsuk’s shoulder with a lopsided grin, “Like, no offense, but you kinda look like shit,” Hyunsuk elbowing Jihoon in the ribs as he slips the younger’s hand in his, dragging him over towards the door.
“Thanks, I love you too,” the faintest of smiles tugging at the corners of Hyunsuk’s lips, “I’m just-”
The sudden knock at the door cuts Hyunsuk off mid-sentence, Jihoon giving his hand a reassuring squeeze before he moves to open the door, his heart hammering against his chest.
“Hello-”
“Hello! My name is Kim Doyoung! I’m five years old, my favorite color is yellow, and I love to play the piano!”
Misery won’t touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.
— Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones
“Woo-yah?” Hyunsuk calls out as he turns the bathtub’s tap off, skimming a hand through the bubbly water for good measure, as accidentally burning his second youngest was not an incident that he wanted a repeat of. “C’mon, bud, it’s bath time!” grinning when Jeongwoo shyly peeks his head around the door, his eyes lighting up when he spots his polka-dotted rubber ducky, quickly stripping himself of his clothes where he stood - much to Hyunsuk’s chagrin.
(“Care to tell me why our darling Woo bear was standing butt naked in the doorway when I came home, hm?” Hyunsuk shifts Junghwan higher on his hip as he glares up at his husband, little Haruto clinging tightly to his pant leg.
“Because the brat ran away from me after bath time was over,” Jihoon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he feels the stirrings of a headache begin to set in. “Slippery lil’ fucker,”
“Jihoon!”)
Jeongwoo happily hopped into the tub with a (rare) giggle, splashing water over the side of the tub and onto the fuzzy bath mat below. Hyunsuk too busy squirting a dollop of shampoo into his hand to notice this, humming quietly to himself as Jeongwoo played with the bubbles, his rubber ducky - his ever so faithful companion - bobbing in the warm water beside him.
(“Really?!” Jeongwoo exclaims, his tiny frame practically vibrating with excitement as he scans the variety of bath toys with stars in his eyes, “I can choose one?”
Jihoon laughed, ruffling the four-year-old’s hair lovingly, “Of course, kid, choose whichever one you like.”)
“So,” Hyunsuk starts, being sure to keep his voice soft, as Jeongwoo typically didn’t take too kindly to raised voices, “I heard that you and Haru-chan finger-painted with Papa today,” and Jeongwoo nods, the little boy letting out a high-pitched whine as his Daddy rubbed the strawberry smelling suds into his hair. Hyunsuk determined not to let any get into his angel’s eyes, remembering all too well of that one time when Doyoung squirted a solid handful of the pink goop into his eyes and almost went fucking blind. (“But it said that it was tear-free!”)
“Uh-huh!” Jeongwoo replies, turning his cheek away as Hyunsuk sets to scrubbing behind his ears, “Papa even hung up our pictures on the fridge!”
“Did he?” Hyunsuk asks with over-exaggerated curiosity, just barely biting back a laugh when Jeongwoo rolls his eyes at his Daddy’s silliness, “What did you and Haru-chan draw? Hm?” Gently tipping Jeongwoo’s head back as he rinses out the shampoo, telling his son to ‘look up at the sky’ as he does so.
“I drew Pororo!” Jeongwoo excitedly exclaims, Hyunsuk wincing at Jeongwoo’s lack of an inside voice, though he supposes that makes perfect sense given how Jeongwoo had spent the first four years of his life in a household where nobody seemed to listen to you unless you yelled. “And Haru-chan drew lots and lots of butterflies!” Jeongwoo squirms as Hyunsuk lovingly pinches his chubby cheeks, too busy fussing to notice how his Daddy’s smile falters upon seeing the silvery scar on Jeongwoo’s chin — a physical reminder of a fate that a four-year-old Jeongwoo just narrowly managed to escape.
(“You have one too?” Hyunsuk’s eyebrows furrow in confusion as Jeongwoo simply stares up at him, the four-year-old dwarfed by the hand-me-down jumper Jihoon had tossed at him after Jeongwoo had spilled grape juice all over the front of his t-shirt.
“Have what?” But Jeongwoo doesn’t reply, instead making grabby hands at his new(est) foster parent, to which Hyunsuk obliges, scooping Jeongwoo up and holding him close in a way that he quietly suspects is oh so foreign to the little boy.
“One of these,” Jeongwoo says, tapping the scar on his chin before gently tapping the scar on Hyunsuk’s own chin, “You have one too...just like me.”)
“You did?” Jeongwoo giggles when Hyunsuk boops his nose, “Goodness, my Woo bear’s quite the little artist, isn’t he?” Hyunsuk’s heart doubles in size when Jeongwoo blushes, shyly averting his eyes, his cheeks rosy.
“Y-Yeah,” he mumbles, still not used to such praise even after two years of living with Jihoon and Hyunsuk, “I guess I am.”
“Another one?” And Hyunsuk nods, casting a glance over to where Doyoung was sitting in front of the tv watching Pingu, happily munching away on some Doritos in the true epitome of ‘no thoughts, head empty.’
“Mhm,” he replies, “I’ve been talking to Taeyong-ssi about taking on another one for a while now,” Hyunsuk rolls his eyes as he reaches over and flicks his husband square in the forehead when he scowls, “oh, would you quit that. You know just as well as I do that I was going to bring this up with you eventually,”
“Whatever,” Jihoon mumbles, though he soon perks up when Hyunsuk presses a chaste kiss to his lips, the faint taste of his husband’s cherry chapstick lingering long after he’s pulled away. “Now, are you going to tell me why you’re just now bringing this up, or am I going to be left to guess?”
“Well,” Hyunsuk hesitates, looking away as he nervously rubs at the back of his neck, and Jihoon feels his eye start to twitch, “I got a call from Taeyong-ssi last night,”
“Okay? And? Why should I care-”
“He has a kid who desperately needs a place to stay,” Hyunsuk interrupts Jihoon with a glare, elbowing him for being, well, so Jihoon-ish. “And he was thinking that maybe we’d be up for the job,”
“But what about Doyoungie? We’ve only had him for a year—what if he thinks that we’re replacing him? Then what?”
“Are you saying that we don’t have enough love to go around for two little boys?” Hyunsuk frowns, and Jihoon immediately feels a pang of regret, as it was no secret that Hyunsuk had little to no confidence in his parenting skills. “I honestly thought that we’d be able to, but-”
“But nothing,” Jihoon says, cutting Hyunsuk off with a kiss, which has the older’s cheeks flushing tomato red, “it’s decided - the Park-Choi family is soon to be a family of four.”
Long silences. Words weigh more, become palpable. I feel my physical presence in a given space when I talk less.
— Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
“Whatcha up to, kiddo?” Jihoon asks, plopping down beside Haruto with a grunt. The six-year-old crouched in front of their koi pond in an awkward sort of squat, peering down at the fish with those unreadable eyes of his.
‘Nothing, Papa,’ he signs, his gaze never once leaving the pond, ‘did Youngie-hyung finally eat?’
And Jihoon laughs, reaching out to ruffle Haruto’s hair, much to the little boy’s annoyance. “Yep, he sure did! He caused quite the fuss, eh?” His grin only widens when Haruto swats his hand away, his little nose scrunching up.
‘Youngie-hyung’s a drama queen,’ Haruto signing so quickly that it takes Jihoon a few seconds to decipher his son’s words, though he wastes no time in barking out a laugh when he does, his eyes curved into crescents. ‘He’s eaten way worse things than one of your ham and cheese sandwiches.’
“Doyoungie? A drama queen?” Jihoon can’t help but snort at Haruto’s spot-on observation of his older brother, as Doyoung was for sure the most dramatic kid of the bunch. “Nah, Daddy just spoils him a bit too much, don’t cha think?” Though that could be said for how Hyunsuk treated all four of his babies, not just Doyoung.
‘Maybe,’ Haruto signs, pursing his lips as he finally tears his eyes away from the multicolored fishes, ‘but Youngie-hyung’s a good big brother, so I think it’s okay that Daddy likes to spoil him.’
“Careful not to let your Youngie-hyung hear that,” Jihoon teases in a singsong voice, biting back a laugh at the way Haruto flushes, a light shade of pink dusting the tips of his ears. “We don’t want your big brother getting a big head~”
‘A big head?’ Haruto repeats, head tilted to the side in confusion, ‘but Youngie-hyung’s already got a pretty big head.’ His almost comical bluntness had Jihoon choking on his saliva, little Haruto watching on as his Papa pounded on his chest a few times as he hacked, vision blurring.
(“He’s,” Hyunsuk pauses, nervously chewing on his lower lip as he does everything in his power to avoid meeting Jihoon’s eyes, “he’s different from your average four-year-old child,”
“Different?” Jihoon echoes, arms folded across his chest as he frowned, “What do you mean he’s ‘different?’”
“He’s, well, he’s special,” Hyunsuk whispers, as if afraid to admit that the newest addition to their family was anything less than perfect, “you know, like the ‘special needs’ kind of special.”
“Okay? And why should that matter to me-”
“Because Haruto’s autism is precisely why he was thrown into this fucked up system in the first place!”)
“It’s a saying, Haru-chan,” Jihoon explains, and Haruto just nods, a serious expression on his face. “It doesn’t mean that Doyoungie really has a big head - although now that you mention it, he kinda does have a pretty big head, doesn’t he?” Jihoon grins as he nudges his son, his heart swelling with love when Haruto cracks the smallest of smiles at his Papa’s words.
(“He smiled at me! Hyunsuk, Haruto smiled at me!” Hyunsuk looked up from cutting the crust off of Junghwan’s grilled cheese with wide eyes, as this was the first time that Haruto had ever smiled at either of his foster parents. “He smiled at me!”)
‘Yeah, he does,’ Haruto agrees, and yeah, Jihoon knows that it’s wrong to have a favorite child, but his love for his second eldest was a special kind of love, a sort of love that came from a much deeper, personal understanding. But that wasn’t important - it hadn’t been for a while now.
“Just don’t let Daddy see you calling your brother that,” and Haruto hums, giving his Papa a thumbs up, “Okay, kiddo?”
‘Okay, Papa, I will.’
“Sign language isn’t that complicated,” Jihoon remarks as he flips a blueberry pancake, the taller man making a disgusted face when Hyunsuk licks the pad of his thumb with the intention of wiping away the smear of pancake batter on his husband’s cheek. “I mean, at least for me it isn’t-”
“Shut up, Jihoon. No one cares that you took a semester of sign language back in college,” Hyunsuk mutters, vigorously scrubbing at Jihoon’s cheek, not giving a shit if their pancakes were burning. “In fact, I’m willing to bet you don’t even remember how to sign your own name!”
“Not true!” Jihoon retorts as he slaps Hyunsuk’s hand away with his spatula, “I passed that class with a solid 97! Of course I know how to spell my own name!”
“Oh yeah?!” Neither Hyunsuk nor Jihoon noticed how their once golden pancakes were beginning to take on a more charred appearance, “Then prove it!”
“Fine!” Jihoon’s pride gets the better of him as he sets his spatula down on the stove, glaring Hyunsuk down as little Doyoung and Jeongwoo sleepily toddle into the kitchen, their chubby cheeks rosy, Jeongwoo’s apple hair bouncing with every step that he took. “But don’t say that I didn’t tell you when I-”
“Papa,” Doyoung pipes up, pausing to take a second to yawn, “the pancakes are burning,”
“Shit!”
Just because you didn’t speak the facts out loud didn’t erase their existence. Silence was just a quieter way to lie.
— Jodi Picoult, The Tenth Circle
“Junghwannie,” the youngest member of the Park-Choi family drops his spoon onto his plate with a loud clang as he feels his face begin to heat up upon being called out by his Daddy. “We don’t play with our food,” Doyoung and Jeongwoo giggling amongst themselves before Jihoon quickly shuts them up with one of his infamous death glares.
“Sorry, Daddy,” he instinctively apologizes, picking up his spoon and taking a bite of his yachae jook, his sensitive tummy much preferring western dishes over the more traditional ones that his Papa would prepare every once in a blue moon. “I won’t do it again,”
“It’s okay, lovebug,” Hyunsuk reassures, reaching over to wipe at Haruto’s mouth with a napkin, the little boy’s chin sticky with rice. “But are you feeling okay? You’ve barely touched your food,”
“I’m okay!” Junghwan smiles, the five-year-old’s stomach flip-flopping as he forces himself to lie to his Daddy and Papa. “I’m just, uh...sleepy,” which isn’t necessarily a complete lie per se, as Junghwan was a tiny bit tired, though certainly not enough to warrant an early bedtime. But it wasn’t like Daddy and Papa needed to know that.
(“D-daddy?” Junghwan whispers, his teddy bear clutched tightly to his chest, “I-I had a bad dream...c-can I m-maybe sleep in your b-bed?” Half-expecting for Hyunsuk to tell him to fuck off (aka the grown-up version of telling somebody to go away) and go back to sleep.
“Wha? Hwannie?” Hyunsuk slurs, rubbing at his eyes as he sits up in bed, Jihoon still sound asleep beside him, “Everything okay, lovebug?” And Junghwan lets out a frustrated whine, not wanting to have to repeat himself all over again, “Lovebug?”
“I h-had a bad d-dream,” Junghwan stammers, “c-can I m-maybe sleep in your b-bed?” Nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot as he awaits an answer, the sound of his Papa’s soft snores oddly comforting.
“Oh, oh of course,” Hyunsuk scooting over to make room for Junghwan, the little boy wasting no time in sliding into his parents’ king-sized bed, cuddling his teddy bear close as he willed himself not to flinch as his Daddy’s arms wrapped around him, his heart in his throat.
It’s okay. He’s okay. This is okay-
“Goodnight, lovebug,” Hyunsuk murmurs, “I love you.”)
“Sleepy?” And Hyunsuk and Jihoon share a look that has Junghwan fidgeting in his seat, jerkily nodding his head as he takes another bite of his porridge, taking his time in chewing and swallowing as to hopefully not have to answer his Daddy.
“Mhm-hm, just a little,” Junghwan replies, his Mommy’s motto of ‘grin and bear it’ playing on a loop as he smiles up at his Daddy, “but uh, I’m actually not really all that sleepy anymore, so um, don’t worry, Daddy! Hwannie’s a-okay!”
“One more couldn’t hurt, right?” Hyunsuk whispers after he and Jihoon have put all three of the boys to bed, tinker toys and LEGO blocks scattered about the living room floor, “I think we could handle one more,”
“You know what, maybe we could,” Jihoon sighs, knowing there was no real use in trying to change his husband’s mind once he’d decided on something, “maybe we could.”