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“Honey?” Sangyeon whispers, carefully pushing the front door open, mindful that one wrong step could be enough to wake up the kids, who are soundly asleep in their room. He looks for the light switch on the wall to his left with his sort of free hand, sighing in relief when he finds it. It takes him a quiet groan to drag his painfully heavy suitcase inside, task that would have been infinitely times easier if the airline staff hadn’t broken two out of the four wheels in the process of throwing his suitcase on the luggage belt. He looks around, attentive not to step on any forgotten toys on the floor. Sangyeon waddles his way through the corridor, avoiding the pile of tiny shoes next to door and under the kitchen sink. His husband Jaehyun is asleep on the couch, curled up under the bright bubblegum pink duckling blanket they got for Youngjae’s birthday. Sangyeon smiles fondly, sitting next to him on the couch and nudging his leg, “Honey. You fell asleep on the couch.”
“I know,” Jaehyun says back quietly, pressing a kiss to Sangyeon’s mouth, “I was just… watching you struggle with your suitcase. You’re so stupid, honey. I can’t believe you got the beauty and I got the brains.”
“I’ve been away for two weeks and this is how you greet me?” Sangyeon sighs in fake offense, drowning in the familiarity of Jaehyun’s hold and pressing a kiss to his neck, “You’re awful. I’m going to return the tub of My mom is an alien I got for you and get my money back.”
“You got me Baskin-Robbins?” Jaehyun swoons, nosing Sangyeon’s cheek, “You’re the best. Missed you so much. Love you, honey.”
“Love you too, honey,” Sangyeon rests his head on Jaehyun’s shoulder and sighs, letting his body relax against the soft cushion of the couch. It’s weirdly quiet, so Sangyeon ponders, “Are the kids asleep?”
“They should be. I put them to sleep a few hours ago.”
“Did you tell them what time I’d be arriving home?”
“They can’t read the time yet,” A kiss, then another one, “Come on, honey. Let’s go to bed.”
“Shhh, honey. They’re awake. I can hear them running.”
There’s a brief moment of silence before three distinguishable footsteps can be heard from the living room. Hyunjun peeks from behind the wall, followed by Sunwoo and Youngjae, peeking from behind Hyunjun’s shoulders, eyes lighting up the second he sees Sangyeon.
“Dad!” He screams excitedly, running to the couch, with Sunwoo and Youngjae right after him. Hyunjun throws himself on Sangyeon’s lap, hugging Sangyeon’s neck, smiling brightly, “Dad! You’re home!”
“Dad! Dad! Dad!” The kids chant excitedly, climbing on Sangyeon’s lap, and they’re so loud and energetic and full of love it’s overwhelming, “Dad! Dad!”
“Hey, babies, you’re going to kill your dad like this,” Jaehyun says, cradling Sunwoo and Youngjae in his arms, “Give your dad some space. You can tell him all about what you did these days he wasn’t here once we get you goblins back to bed.”
Youngjae pouts and protests, arms crossed, “I don’t want to go to bed! I’m not tired! I want to be with dad!”
“Youngjae-yah,” Sangyeon calls, pinching his cheek, with Hyunjun nuzzled in his arms, “It’s late. You need to get a lot of sleep if you want to end up as tall and strong as Juyeon! You do want to grow tall and strong, right?”
He slowly puts his arms down, rubbing his eye, and says quietly, “Okay.”
“Did you bring us any gifts?” Sunwoo asks, big round eyes blinking in curiosity. Jaehyun shoots him a look. “What?”
“You shouldn’t ask, baby. That’s not nice. Dad will give you your gifts when he finds best.”
“So you did bring us gifts!” Sunwoo says excitedly, “Can we see them? Pleaseeee, dad, can we see them? We’ll be good, we promise!”
Sangyeon and Jaehyun exchange glares. It’s way past their bedtime now and giving them the gifts Sangyeon bought while waiting for his flight is way too much excitement for this time of the night, but knowing them, and knowing they will keep asking and pouting until they get what they want, it’s an inevitable defeat for them.
So Sangyeon goes to their bedroom unpack his suitcase while Jaehyun looks over the kids. He opens it as carefully as humanly possible, though a few of the gifts he got for his husband eventually spill out of the suitcase and end up on the floor, but he’ll get to those later. Sangyeon picks out the matching t-shirts, the singing kangaroo plushies and the stuffed toys he got, one for each of the babies, and runs to their bedroom. They’re supposed to be tucked in bed by this hour, but Jaehyun is weak and too much of a softie when it comes to their kids to say no to another bedtime story, so the three of them are excitedly waiting for him to continue the story of how brother and sister became the sun and moon.
But the second Sangyeon pushes the door open, they’re running toward him, jumping to try and reach his arms full of presents, and they follow him like little ducklings to sit on Youngjae’s bed.
“Okay, babies! Daddy’s got each of you a t-shirt and a singing kangaroo. I’ll let you pick the t-shirt you like the most, but I think I may have gotten everyone’s favorite color right,” He says, watching the kids open the gifts so happily. They’re never going to sleep after this, Sangyeon thinks to himself, and when he looks over at Jaehyun standing behind him, his husband is too busy staring fondly at the mess they quickly manage to make out of plastic wrap, “And last thing, I also got each of you a plushie. For Sunwoo, Roary, a cute but brave lion! Youngjae gets baby deer Whisper. And for Hyunjunie, daddy got you a monkey plushie. Its name is Bongo.”
The kids all get their gifts in hands, but somehow, Sunwoo and Youngjae don’t look all that happy about the new toys, which is definitely weird. Sangyeon is quick the notice the way the younger two are staring at the monkey plushie in Hyunjun’s tiny hands, then realizes his mistake.
Of course.
They’re jealous.
Because of course they would all want a monkey plushie when they have never shown any sign of remote interest in monkeys before. Of course they’d be upset Sangyeon got Hyunjun the best gift. Because Sangyeon obviously doesn’t like them and only likes Hyunjun. How didn’t he see this one coming?
“Honey, I thought we agreed on not playing favorites,” Jaehyun whispers against his neck, anticipating the chaos that is about to ensue, “Say something before they start crying, please.”
“Just kidding!” Sangyeon says, taking the rejected plushies into his hands and shoving them behind his back, “I only got these plushies because they ran out of the monkey ones, so I ordered two more monkey plushies online, but until they get here, you need to promise me you’ll be good boys and you’ll share Bongo with each other. Can I count on you to share Bongo like good boys?”
The three of them look at Sangyeon with sparkly eyes, and rush to hug him.
“Babies, what do you say to daddy now?” Jaehyun asks.
“Thank you, dad!” They say in unison, still refusing to let go from Sangyeon, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Okay, okay, babies, enough daddy for today, it’s time for you to go to sleep,” Jaehyun intervenes, breaking them apart, and Sangyeon knows he has a lot of heart to ignore their little pouts, “It’s late, babies, you ducklings need to sleep, and daddy is tired. Daddy needs to sleep too so we can play a lot tomorrow. Alright?”
And the babies are fooled, just like that. They climb on top of Sangyeon’s lap, begging for hugs and good night kisses, clingy as ever, and Jaehyun has to break apart the pile of babies laying on Sangyeon’s chest once again. Sangyeon coughs, then sighs in relief. He looks up to Jaehyun, who’s trying to balance Hyunjun and Youngjae in his arms while they’re both asking for Sangyeon to tuck them in bed, asking Jaehyun to put them down because they’ll be good boys. Sunwoo nuzzles against Sangyeon’s chest happily, and Sangyeon is careful to get up as slowly as possible not to disturb him.
Sangyeon tucks Sunwoo into bed first, pressing a kiss to his forehead, and whispering a quick ‘love you’ before proceeding to do the same with Hyunjun and Youngjae. They’re still whining about wanting to spend more time with Sangyeon, but their sleepy eyes say otherwise, and it doesn’t take long for them to fall into sound slumber.
Jaehyun and Sangyeon stand by the door in silence, staring at their little angels. Jaehyun whispers, “We need to stop doing this. We look like creeps, honey, watching our babies sleep.”
“We should go to bed.”
Jaehyun nods in agreement, burying his face on the crook of Sangyeon’s shoulder, hand resting on Sangyeon’s waist like second nature, “Let’s go to bed, honey.”