Chapter Text
Despite having spent weeks and weeks barely sleeping, nothing compared to the exhaustion Taehyung felt when Jimin had convinced him to go home for a shower when morning came, promptly falling asleep as soon as they were in the car.
The night had been a long one, waking every two hours to hold Sungmin, or to cuddle up beside Jimin and talk to the little boy while he ate his food. It felt so surreal to have him in the little plastic cot beside him as he lay in bed. He was right there, and even though he knew he should be sleeping, Taehyung could barely take his eyes off Sungmin, part of him terrified that if he closed his eyes, Sungmin might stop breathing and he wouldn't know until it was too late. The thought was perhaps a little silly as the monitor attached to his son beeped over and over, and nurses passed in and out of the room often, but he couldn't chase away the fear until the sun rose and Hajoon returned to check on them all, joining Jimin in encouraging them to go home and take a break.
“Do you think he misses me?” he asked, raking a brush through his hair, eager to get back to the hospital. He was committed to the idea of giving it all he had for the three days he had assigned himself and didn’t want to lose any more time, even if his body was screaming at him to lie down and close his eyes.
“I’m sure he does,” Jimin told him, encouraged by Taehyung’s change of attitude toward Sungmin. “But you should sleep a bit longer, you won’t be any good to him if you can’t keep your eyes open.”
“If he comes home with us, then this is what it will be like. I can’t just go to bed and ignore him because I didn’t sleep well,” Taehyung argued, picking up his jacket, but Jimin caught his arm.
“Yes, it will be difficult if he comes back here, but there’s two of us. It wouldn’t be the same because we could take turns and get more rest. There’s nothing to stop us letting the doctors cover a few feeds and starting afresh later, because that’s more like how it would be. One of us would do a few while the other slept, and then we could switch.”
Taehyung frowned at the explanation. It was perfectly reasonable, and rational, and he knew that he should just accept it and curl up for a few hours, but he couldn’t. His breathing started to pick up, and his limbs felt heavy, tears filling his eyes out of nowhere, briefly registering Jimin’s hands on his face before he started walking backward until his body hit the wall, looking for something solid.
He was panicking; he knew he was. This wasn’t the first time it had happened to him, but this one had taken him by surprise. All he could think about was Sungmin, lying alone in that little plastic box, being handled by other people, those big, beautiful eyes filled with tears. He needed to be there. He needed to be with Sungmin. He didn’t want his son to feel abandoned.
His breath caught in his throat, and he blinked a few times, becoming conscious of Jimin’s hold on his hands, the soft, calming tone of his voice. “Are you with me, Tae?”
“He’s mine…” Taehyung murmured, the thoughts and feelings hitting him like a sledgehammer. “He’s my baby.”
“He is,” Jimin agreed, forcing himself not to make a big deal of the words. “Nobody is debating that. But it takes a village to raise a kid, and even though Sungminie had a rough start, he also had a good one. He’s used to being around a lot of different people that want to help him. He’s not going to reject you if you sleep for a couple more hours.”
Taehyung thought about the nurse, Wooyoung. Was he with him now? Was he promising his son that his dad would be back soon to take care of him? He probably was. Wooyoung was kind and calm and the thought of it did make him feel a little better. Being a parent meant making sure his son was safe and happy, and he was sure that Wooyoung had been ensuring that all along. “Okay. One more hour and then I want to go.”
Jimin nodded, pulling Taehyung away. “Hour and a half. I want you to eat too,” he negotiated. He wanted to ask Taehyung to sleep without any kind of alarm so he got all the rest he needed, but knew he wouldn’t agree to it. The best he could hope for was to cover his basic needs. With a bit of luck, Taehyung would commit to bringing Sungmin home, and his anxieties would relax knowing the baby was nearby.
“Fine, but not a second more. I have to be sure about this Jiminie, and I can’t be if I’m not there,” Taehyung pouted as Jimin climbed back onto the bed beside him and they instinctually tangled together. “I know this though… I love him.”
Jimin squeezed Taehyung closer, planting a kiss on his forehead, once again electing not to comment. It could still go either way. If Taehyung didn’t think himself capable, then loving Sungmin could mean that he loved him enough to let him go.
~*~
It was the first time Taehyung had seen Sungmin without any medical equipment attached to his body, and it was a relief like he had never felt. He was laid in his arms, the vision of a perfectly normal baby, freshly dressed in a pale green body suit that Jimin had bought over the internet and was a little too big. “He’ll grow into it,” Jimin giggled as he poked his finger inside the sleeve to find Sungmin’s fingers.
“And grow out of it again just as quickly,” Hajoon pointed out. They didn’t have an appointment, but she had seen them return and Taehyung had been quick to invite her along to visit with them. He knew that he was doing everything he could, but she felt like a tiebreaker. She could offer an outside opinion that himself and Jimin couldn’t always be rational about.
Taehyung’s eyes travelled around the room they were in. Now that Sungmin didn’t need the constant monitoring, they were in a simple recovery room, much like the one he had stayed in after he had given birth. It felt so long ago now, and he supposed that in the grand scheme of things, it was. This was how things should have been in the beginning; a happy, healthy baby in his arms while he sat in a small chair, contemplating all the ways his life would change when… if they left the hospital together.
Hajoon noticed the frown, but didn’t comment on it. She knew as well as anyone that Taehyung was back and forth on what to do when it came to the baby and knew that Taehyung managed his thoughts better when he had time to process them. Asking him what he was thinking right now would just confuse him further as he would focus on the negative thought. “I could have a word at the office and see if this room is free for the night. I can ask the staff to leave you to yourself this time so you have a better idea of what it would feel like if you decide to take him home.”
“And I’m here overnight,” Wooyoung told them as he walked back into the room, handing over a prepared bottle and a cloth. “I’m headed out now, but will be back at eleven, so if you changed your mind about being here or being unassisted, you can step out at any time.”
“I’d like that,” Taehyung murmured a little lost in his son again. So far, he was firmly of the belief that there was no ‘maybe’, he wanted to take his son home. This felt like the final test. He could move his own imaginary deadline. It could be decided, and all this turmoil would be over.
“Can I stay again too?”
“Of course,” Wooyoung reassured Jimin. “Might be a squash and a squeeze for you both to sleep on the bed though, it's not as big as the one in the family room.”
“We’ll manage,” Taehyung smiled, tearing his eyes from Sungmin to look up at Jimin. “Jimin’s good at fitting in small spaces.”
He had intended it to be a joke on Jimin’s height but be belatedly realised how it might be misinterpreted, and his eyes went wide. “Because he’s short!” he blurted out, drawing laughter from the others in the room and he soon fell into the laughter with them. It felt good to laugh. So normal.
He looked again at Sungmin, the boys tiny hand reaching up to try and grip at his bottle, and Taehyung shifted his finger so it made contact. Normal. Everything felt normal.
Tomorrow would be the day he confirmed it, but in that moment, he was almost certain that he knew; he had made his choice.
~*~
Taehyung was exhausted to the point of tears, but that didn’t stop Sungmin crying out in the night.
The idea that he and Jimin would take turns so that they both got plenty of sleep quickly went out the window. As soon as the little whines started up, both would be wide awake and staggering out of bed, half awake and trying to figure out who was making the bottle and who was doing the changing, and who would sit awake while Sungmin was fed and burped and rocked back off to sleep, only for the whole thing to begin again around three hours later.
Over and over, Taehyung questioned his choice, but Hajoon had assured him that it was the most natural thing in the world. All parents doubt themselves, especially when sleep deprived, and at the end of the day, Taehyung knew that despite the doubt, he would die if he said goodbye to Sungmin now.
He had soldiered his way through ten days with Jimin ever present at his side, and it didn’t matter that he was exhausted, or that his clothes were covered in vomit, or that he hadn’t showered for four days. Sungmin was home. They were exactly where they needed to be.
Taehyung settled himself into the sofa, arranging the cushions to prop Sungmin on his arm and Jimin traipsed in and handed him the bottle. “Go back to bed,” Taehyung slurred but Jimin either didn’t hear it or chose to ignore it, settling himself beside Taehyung and flicking the TV on, searching for something to keep them both awake.
“I ordered him a stroller. I know we’re a little way from wanting to go outside but thought it would be good to be on standby.”
Taehyung couldn’t quite figure out where all the money was coming from for the things Jimin kept ordering, but didn’t question it. He would pay him back as soon as he was able to work again and knew that Jimin wasn’t an idiot; he wouldn’t put himself into a debt he couldn’t repay.
Jimin had been lucky, finding an office style job that was happy to let him continue working from home despite the lockdown being lifted, and the manner of the work meant that it didn’t matter what time of the day or night it was completed as long as he met his deadlines. Jimin’s new boss, it seemed, had a child only six months or so older than Sungmin, so she had been understanding of their situation.
Jimin had lied just a little and told her that he had a new baby, never outright calling himself Sungmin's father, but implying the fact. For all intents and purposes, he was enacting the role, so he ran with it, and Taehyung didn’t seem to mind. They were raising Sungmin together, so Jimin deserved the same kind of breaks as any other new parent.
“When it arrives, we should take him out,” Taehyung decided, shifting Sungmin over his shoulder and making a mental note to call the hospital in the morning and ask if Sungmin should be eating more yet. He knew that babies woke often for food, but wondered if Sungmin would sleep a little longer if he was fuller. “It can’t be good for him to be inside all the time.”
And it was true that the poor boy had barely seen sunlight since he was born, most of it coming through the windows of the hospital, car and their apartment. Taehyung opened the window as often as he could to freshen the air and let direct light reach them both, cuddling with him as he slept.
“Have you told your parents yet?”
Taehyung shook his head. He knew it was wrong that so much time had passed, and he hadn’t told them anything, but he wanted to be sure. He knew it would break his mother’s heart if she knew that Taehyung had had a baby and decided not to keep it. “I’ll call at the weekend and maybe see if they want to come over. I don’t think I should do this with them over the phone.”
“Yeah, better to get all the shock out the way in one go,” Jimin agreed, hauling himself up and holding his hands out for Sungmin. “Go to bed and shut the door. I’ll keep him out here and do the next one.”
Taehyung frowned. “What? No.”
“We have to, Tae,” Jimin insisted. “Look at the state of us. We have to look after ourselves as well as him, and before you start arguing with me, I am going first because I want to finish watching this show, so it’s going to keep me up for a few hours.
The reasoning didn’t seem fair, but Taehyung had to admit that Jimin looked far more awake than him, and he couldn’t argue the logic; they couldn’t carry on like this. Their plan from the start had been to split the responsibility so they could both sleep. “Okay, but you have to promise me that if you start falling asleep, you’ll bring him back into the bedroom and put him in his crib.”
“Agreed,” Jimin nodded, and Taehyung knew it was sincere. He would never put Sungmin in danger, so if Jimin believed he was going to fall asleep with the infant in his arms, he would do as Taehyung asked. Taehyung had almost made that mistake once, but Jimin had been right beside him to scoop Sungmin out of his arms as he went under. All the same, that one brief moment had stuck with them both; if Jimin hadn’t been there, Taehyung might have dropped him, and it made his whole body cold just imagining how bad it could have been.
“Everything will be okay, I’ll make sure that he always comes first, but we need to work out a balance. I’ll see you in the morning, Tae.”
Taehyung leaned over Jimin to kiss his son, the boy already half asleep. “Goodnight, sweetie. I love you.”
The words warmed Jimin as he watched Taehyung walk away. In all honesty, he was just as tired as his friend was, but he needed Taehyung to take this step. He couldn’t fault the unending care Taehyung supplied, but he also needed to learn to let go sometimes. If he could get him to gradually let a feed or two go by, it would be good for all of them. “Okay little man, let’s do this.”
~*~
The days passed by fast, far faster than Taehyung realised and before he knew it, his baby was four months old, though he didn’t really look it. It made sense, seeing as how those first two months Sungmin was playing catch up. Despite his literal age, he was just the right size and progression for a two-month-old.
“We should take a walk today,” he declared. They had been on short walks with Sungmin, but they had both managed a full four hours of sleep and he was feeling good enough to push it a little further. “Maybe get a little lunch?”
It had been hard telling his parents about Sungmin, their faces a mixture of shock, sadness and eventual joy that Taehyung was finding a way to keep their grandchild. They were hardly a rich family, but his father had worked hard every day of his life, and wasn’t about to sit back and let his only son struggle to raise his grandson, so an agreement was made that they would send Taehyung a payment every month for a year, whether he was working or not, to get him on his feet.
Taehyung still didn’t feel ready to be away from Sungmin, so he had accepted, promising to repay every penny as soon as he was able.
“No need,” his father had assured. “The money is for you, but it’s mostly for him. I’ll not have you repaying a gift made to our grandson.”
The money largely went on his share of rent and Sungmin’s essentials, but sometimes a little was left over and he wanted to treat Jimin to a day out; his best friend was the unsung hero of the whole tale, and while Taehyung verbally never let him forget it, he wanted Jimin to know just how much his constant effort was appreciated.
The walk into town was largely made in silence before they passed by the small park and Taehyung’s cheeks pinkened at the sight of it and he started to giggle. Jimin cocked his head, amused by Taehyung’s laughter. “What?”
“That bench and the bar down that street have a lot to answer for,” Taehyung explained, his laughter dampening a little though he still smiled. “I wonder if he ever walks by here and thinks about me.”
Jimin quickly understood what Taehyung was saying, considering the thought for a moment. “Maybe you could come by here one night, see if you run into him again. It’s a bit of a long shot, but if he’s local, it could happen. I mean, if you want it to.”
Taehyung nodded slowly. “He should know. Even if he doesn’t want to be involved, it doesn’t feel right, you know?”
He had thought about it hundreds of times. If he had a child out in the world somewhere, he would want to at least know about them, and even if the guy didn’t want to have anything to do with Sungmin, it could offer some sense of closure. Perhaps he would try what Jimin had suggested, sometimes the world offered up second chances readily.
Sometimes, those second chances felt more like serendipity.
Taehyung came to a sudden stop, staring across the street with his heart in his throat, fairly sure he was hallucinating. There was no way that he had just been talking about the man and now he was right there.
“That’s him.”
Jimin’s brow furrowed for a moment, his eyes eventually finding the person Taehyung was now staring at, and it wasn’t hard to see why. He was tall, lean, muscular, sporting an armful of tattoos and piercing in his lip. But that wasn’t what Jimin zeroed in on. It was the shape of his face, the soft slope of his nose, his eyes; every part of that man’s face he had been staring at for weeks. “Taehyungie… this is your chance, you need to tell him.”
“What would I even say?”
“Skip the details of it, that can be a story for later if he wants to hear it. Just tell him that while we were in lockdown, you had his baby, and he can come and meet him if he wants to,” Jimin decided. “Then it’s up to him, and you’ll get your answer. I’ll take him into the café over there so there’s less pressure for both of you.”
“What if he says no?”
Jimin ran a soothing hand up and down Taehyung’s arm. He understood the anxiety, he really did. He wasn’t sure himself how he felt about this stranger possibly coming into their lives. But he also knew that it was the right thing to do. This man deserved the chance to know his son; at the very least, he deserved to know that he existed. “Then Sungminie will still have us. You know I’m not going anywhere.”
Taehyung nodded slowly, leaning over the pram to kiss his son’s forehead before he turned to cross the street, and Jimin headed for the café. “Excuse me, I don’t know if you remember me?”
The man looked up, a beaming smile on his face as he locked eyes on Taehyung. “Hey, yeah, I remember you. Taehyung, right?”
Well, that hadn’t helped with Taehyung’s nerves at all. He had no idea what this man’s name was and yet he was supposed to have this incredibly sensitive conversation with him. “Yeah… Look, I don’t really know how I’m supposed to say this, so I’m just going to come right out with it, and I need you to know that I would have said something sooner if I knew where to find you, but I didn’t even know where to start.”
“Hey, calm down,” the man insisted, his former smile giving way to concern. “Just tell me what’s going on. You couldn’t exactly walk back into the bar and hope to run into me, so it’s not your fault.”
Taehyung felt like he’d heard that phrase enough to last a lifetime; at least this time it was partially true. He took a deep breath. “I had a baby. Your baby.”
The silence that followed seemed to echo, but Taehyung had been expecting it. If someone walked up to him on the street and told him that he was father to a child he knew nothing about, he was fairly certain that he would be paralysed with shock too. “I’m not expecting anything from you. But you deserved the chance to know him, if that’s what you want,” he explained, paraphrasing what Jimin had said.
“Him?”
Taehyung nodded. “Yeah. My friend is watching him right now, just over in the café there,” he said, pointing the place out. “But you don’t have to. I’m not going to hold it against you if you don’t want anything to do with us. I know all of this is messed up and we don’t really know each other but… but I just needed you to know, so you had the choice.”
“I… can I maybe take your number? I need to think, but I don’t want to not see him now and then never get the chance again.”
That was fair. “Sure. Can I maybe get yours too? Just so I know who’s calling?”
The man nodded and they exchanged phones, each typing in their name and number and handing them back in silence. “I’m sorry, Jungkook,” Taehyung murmured, reading his name off the screen. “I know it isn’t much of a consolation, but it was as much of a shock to me as it was to you.”
Jungkook frowned. “You don’t need to be sorry. It must have been terrifying for you, what with everything that was going on. How did you even manage appointments without getting sick?”
Taehyung chewed at the inside of his mouth. “I didn’t go to any.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Jungkook questioned, though the kindness of his tone was now edged with judgement and Taehyung glared at him.
“You don’t know the situation. You don’t get to say things like that.”
Jungkook put his hands up in surrender, but Taehyung wasn’t done. All the fear and anger of the past few months bottlenecking and pouring out of his mouth. How dare this guy assume that he would ignore his son’s health. “I didn’t even know he was in there. I spent months just laying around my apartment eating and getting fat and the next thing I know; I’m giving birth on my bathroom floor and being rushed into hospital with a tiny little baby who can barely breathe on his own because he was so early. Do you know how shitty that makes me feel? I don’t need reminding how badly I failed my own son.”
So much for skipping the details.
“Woah, woah, calm down,” Jungkook attempted, gripping at Taehyung’s arms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like that, I really didn’t. You didn’t fail.”
Taehyung swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. The last thing he wanted was to start crying in the middle of the street. “He could have died. He almost did. I did nothing to take care of him.”
“If you could rewind time, and someone told you that you were pregnant, would you have done things differently?”
“Of course, I would.”
“Exactly. You’re not some neglectful monster, you just didn’t know. You didn’t put him in danger on purpose. Nobody is out there taking perfect care of themselves just in case they have an unexpected pregnancy,” he pointed out, indicating the café. “Come on, let me take you back to your friend. We can talk about this more some other time, but please, try and be kind to yourself. I’m sorry for assuming, I really am.”
Taehyung nodded silently, no longer trusting his voice as he allowed Jungkook to steer him back across the street, fully expecting to be left at the door, but Jungkook followed him inside and all the way to the table, Jimin watching the pair as they approached. “Jimin, this is Jungkook. Jungkook, my best friend, Jimin.”
But the words were lost on Jungkook. From his vantage point, he could only see the hood of the pram, his son hidden on the other side of the fabric. It occurred to him then just how quickly he had accepted that the baby was even his, but Taehyung seemed so sincere.
“Do you want to see him?” Jimin asked carefully, one hand on the pram to turn it around if Jungkook said so. It was clear from the look on his face that he was conflicted, but Jimin quietly hoped he would say yes. He would never step back from loving Sungmin, but it would spare the little boy the potential heartbreak of finding out his biological father didn’t want to know him.
“I… I’m going to get a coffee,” Jungkook rushed out, marching off toward the counter and Jimin immediately leaned over the table, speaking in hushed tones to Taehyung.
“What happened?”
“I blurted out everything, and he said he was going to think about it and then call me, but then he followed me in, and now I have no idea what to think,” he explained, one eye on where Jungkook was stood waiting for his coffee.
“He’s cute,” Jimin grinned, hoping to lighten the mood. Taehyung was clearly freaked out by everything that was happening and he wanted to do whatever he could to relax him. “Ten out of ten for the dilf.”
“Oh my god, Jimin, stop,” Taehyung blushed, but it had the desired effect as he started to giggle, though it was quickly cut off by the soft whine that rose from the pram, and Taehyung moved on autopilot, extracting Sungmin from his blankets and resting him against his arm. “Hey, it’s okay, no tears,” he cooed, realising a little too late just what he had done.
Jungkook was a few steps away from the table, eyes wide as he stared at them, and Taehyung had no idea what to do. He didn’t want to turn his back, worried that it would make Jungkook feel like he couldn’t approach them, but at the same time, he didn’t want Jungkook to continue being quite so directly confronted with his son.
Jimin slipped out of his seat, sliding up next to Jungkook. “You don’t have to do anything. Take your time.”
“He’s so small…”
Jimin sighed. “He was really early. He’s small, but he’s strong.”
Jungkook worried his bottom lip for a long moment, his eyes never once leaving Sungmin, once again very obviously conflicted over what to do. He hadn’t intended to even be here. He was supposed to go home, call his mum, cry and rage and think. He had skipped all those vital steps that were familiar to him, but how could he not? How could he know that he had a child just a few feet away from where he was standing and not come to see him? “Can I sit with you?”
“Of course, you can,” Jimin encouraged. “But seriously, take your time. You don’t need to do this all at once. I can’t imagine what this must be like for you.”
“From the sounds of things, not so very different from how they were for you,” he acknowledged, settling into a chair that was one seat away from where Taehyung sat. “What’s his name?”
“Sungmin,” Taehyung murmured, lightly rocking the infant again to settle him as he started fussing. “Are you okay?”
Jungkook had no idea how to answer that question. That was his son. He had a son. Apparently, he had been silently staring for too long because he felt a hand on his shoulder, looking round to see Jimin watching him with worried eyes. “Sorry, I’m just… I don’t really know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything, if you don’t want to. But you can ask questions, if you want,” Taehyung soothed. He felt awful for Jungkook. Yes, his son had been a rather traumatic surprise, but he’d had almost four months to slowly reach the point he was at, and even now, he wasn’t always in the best head space. Jungkook had found out ten minutes ago when a person who was practically a stranger told him in the street. “I really am so sorry. I shouldn’t have told you the way I did.”
Jungkook’s mouth twitched into a small smile. “Is there a better way to break that kind of news? I’m just glad you told me.”
“You are?”
Jungkook shrugged. “I know I don’t just get to walk in here and be a papa but… I always imagined that if I was a papa, I would be a good one, so it would really suck if I had a kid out there that I didn’t know about and felt abandoned by me.”
A few minutes passed in relative silence before Jungkook abruptly stood. “I promise I’ll call you, I just…”
“Take all the time you need,” Taehyung reiterated. “Take care of yourself, Jungkook.”