Chapter Text
Hoseok knocked on the door to the apartment, double-checking the address he had written down on his phone.
After a minute of triple-checking the address and awkwardly fixing his green jacket, the door swung open to reveal a man not much younger than him, with tousled blond hair and a smile that caused deep dimples to run through his cheeks.
“Hoseok-ssi, hi,” he greeted him, smile growing. “Sua’s just getting her jacket.”
“Thanks for looking after her,” Hoseok thanked him politely, a slight bow accentuating his words. “I know she can be a handful.”
The other man just waved him off, shaking his head. “She's lovely. Thanks for letting her spend the day here with Minyoung.”
“Of course,” Hoseok replied. He was going to say something else when his daughter popped out from behind Jooheon’s legs, rushing out to him.
“Daddy!”
“Hi baby, did you have fun?” he asked her as he crouched down to catch her as she ran to him.
She nodded eagerly before breaking out of Hoseok’s arms to go hug her friend, who had just appeared in the doorway to see her off. “Bye Minyoung! I’ll see you tomorrow!”
“Bye!” the other little girl waved, even though Sua was still right in front of her.
“Say thank you to Jooheon-ssi,” he told his daughter, who then turned to the other man and waved to him too.
“Thank you!” she exclaimed before turning back to her dad, taking his hand.
“No problem, Sua! Come back soon,” Jooheon smiled at her, then turned his attention back to Hoseok. “Get home safely, I’ll see you two tomorrow.”
“Bye Jooheon-ssi, thank you again, and bye Minyoung!” Hoseok said before the two of them headed out of the apartment building.
Jooheon and Minyoung didn’t live too far from Hoseok’s place, so the two of them walked home hand in hand, Sua’s little purple bag hanging off of Hoseok’s shoulders.
“Did you have a good time?” Hoseok asked his daughter despite knowing what the answer would be. He just liked to hear when she was happy.
“Yes!” She nodded enthusiastically, swinging their hands as she walked. “Can Minyoung come over to my house next time? I want to show her the dollhouse you made for me, so we can play together.”
Hoseok smiled down at his daughter. “That sounds great! Of course she can come over. She lives so close, too!”
Later that night, when Sua was tucked in bed and Hoseok was getting ready to read to her, she turned to him with an excited look on her face. “Daddy, I forgot to tell you! Sua also lives with only her daddy!”
Hoseok raised his eyebrows as he settled down next to her. “Is that so?”
“Yes, just like me and you!” she smiled widely, before her expression quickly changed to a pensive one. “Well, she told me sometimes she sees her mommy. But only sometimes. She goes to her house.”
Hoseok hummed in response, nodding a bit. “I see.”
“It’s not just me anymore, Daddy!” she exclaimed, and she seemed so overjoyed by it that it broke Hoseok’s heart. He never wanted her to feel like she was different from the rest of her friends because of things that she had no control over.
But he didn’t let his sadness show. Instead, he ruffled her hair with a smile that only ever appeared when he was around her, and said, “I told you you weren’t the only one.”
“I know, I know,” she assured him, getting comfortable under her sheets and gripping her stuffed dog tightly. “Can we read the book about the fish tonight?”
“Of course we can.”
The next day, when Hoseok came to pick his daughter up from school, he noticed Jooheon standing by the school gates, looking at something on his phone as he waited for them to be allowed in.
Hoseok walked up to him, and he must’ve noticed because he looked up from his phone when he got close enough and gave him a friendly smile.
“Good afternoon,” Hoseok greeted, coming to a stop beside him. “How are you?”
“Hey Hoseok-ssi. I’m doing alright, how about you?”
He nodded. “I’m good, thanks. Um, this might- I don’t know how accurate this is, but,” Hoseok paused, collecting his thoughts as he tried to formulate a question. “Sua told me that it’s just you and Minyoung…”
“Oh.” Jooheon’s eyes widened a little and Hoseok noticed as one of his hands wrapped around the overhanging sleeve of his jacket, fiddling with the material, instantly reminding him that, despite their daughters being the same age, Jooheon was still considerably younger than him. “Yeah. Um. I mean, she still sees her mum, she’s not completely out of the picture, but it’s not- we’re not together, but Minyoung gets to see her a lot, as much as possible, so she’s not, y’know, not…” Jooheon sighed as he trailed off.
Hoseok smiled reassuringly - he understood Jooheon’s need to explain himself all too well. After a brief moment of hesitation, he placed a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, squeezing ever so slightly. “It’s okay. It’s just me and Sua, too.”
Under his hand, Hoseok felt the way Jooheon’s shoulders dropped with relief. He knew that feeling as well. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be.” Hoseok withdrew his hand as the school doors opened, allowing the parents in. The two of them entered side by side. “It’s probably better this way. It’s basically always been just the two of us.”
“Must’ve been hard on you, though,” Jooheon commented, eyes soft as he looked at Hoseok, who simply shrugged, not wanting to get into it.
“The reason I brought it up was just to say that if you ever need a hand, you have my number, I’ll be around.”
Jooheon smiled at him, really smiled, his deep dimples appearing on either cheek. “Thank you, Hoseok-ssi. I’ll let you know.”
“Don’t hesitate.”
It was on a Saturday, a week or so later, that Hoseok invited both Minyoung and Jooheon over for lunch. Despite Hoseok’s insistence that he didn’t need anything more, Jooheon brought a container of kimchi, explaining that his mother had come to see them over the week and had brought a huge batch with her, so there was enough to go around.
The four of them ate around Hoseok’s round table, tucked in the corner of the kitchen where the most light streamed in from the window, laughing and joking around easily. Sua and Minyoung would kick each other under the table, giggling when they tried to dodge the other’s hits, and Hoseok found himself smiling fondly at the scene.
Later, when the two girls were playing in the bedroom, Hoseok and Jooheon found themselves on the balcony, the door open so they could hear their daughters if they needed to. It was the middle of autumn, so the breeze was still pleasant without biting at their cheeks and the warm sun made up for it. Their hands were wrapped around steaming cups of tea, and Jooheon had brought up the subject of Minyoung’s mum.
“We’re on good terms, I’d say. She sees Minyoung as often as she can, but she’s busy.” Jooheon shrugged. “I understand. Her job is more demanding than mine.”
“How young were you guys when you had Minyoung?” Hoseok asked, unsure of how to approach their conversation.
“Nineteen,” Jooheon answered, a chuckle of disbelief wrapped around his words. “It wasn’t… We didn’t plan for things to happen this way, but… I love Minyoung, obviously. I wouldn’t trade her in for the world.”
“I understand.” Hoseok nodded. “It’s not an easy situation to be in.”
“It’s okay. It’s getting better.” Jooheon turned the cup around in his hands, looking down at it as though it would help him find his words. But after a minute of contemplation, he just shook his head and gave Hoseok a smile. “I’m not gonna tell you my whole life story, don’t worry.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Hoseok answered honestly as he returned the smile. “If you do want to talk about it, I’ll be here to listen.”
As the weeks went by and the trees started to lose their colour, Sua and Minyoung became better friends, resulting in Hoseok and Jooheon spending more and more time together. Hoseok would sometimes pick the two of them up from school when Jooheon was working a little later than usual, but he would always join them later for dinner. It slowly became a regular occurrence and Hoseok began to look forward to it eagerly.
“Hoseok hyung,” his coworker Hyungwon sighed one day as he watched Hoseok pack up briefcase. “I think you might be in love with him.”
Rolling his eyes, Hoseok shook his head. “No, I’m not.”
“I think you are ,” Hyungwon repeated, insisting on it. He rolled his chair over to his cubicle, extending his long legs out in front of him in an attempt to stop Hoseok in his tracks. “Listen, don’t brush me off. I know I’m right. I haven’t ever seen you as happy as you are on the days you guys have dinner together, and I’ve been seeing your face for way too many years now.”
“I’m just happy that Sua has a friend,” Hoseok explained, easily stepping over Hyungwon’s legs and laughing when he whined. “It makes me feel less bad about the situation.”
Hyungwon sighed, shrugged, then rolled his chair backwards towards his own cubicle. “I’m not convinced, but okay. Go have a good dinner.”
Much to Hoseok’s dismay, Hyungwon’s words never stopped running through his head. They were there, lingering in the back of his mind, when he let Jooheon in and the smile on his face was as effortless as breathing. They were there when he watched him hug Minyoung and then Sua, and they were there when he sat down beside him at the dining table. They were loud, pounding against his skull when Jooheon reached over to serve him some food and shot him a smile in the process.
By the end of the night, he was convinced that Hyungwon was some sort of sorcerer. Washing the dishes alongside Jooheon was nothing new, but the whole night he kept flinching whenever Jooheon’s hands would touch his. He actually felt his stomach tie itself in knots every time Jooheon’s dimples appeared, and he definitely felt a pang of sadness when Jooheon - and Minyoung - left.
He lay awake that night, staring up at the city lights dancing across the ceiling through the curtains, willing his brain - and its version of Hyungwon - to shut up. “I think you might be in love with him,” it kept repeating, with the same obnoxious smirk the real Hyungwon had. Hoseok was determined to strangle him the next time he saw him, rolling around on his stupid desk chair.
Stupid Hyungwon. It was his fault that Hoseok couldn’t stop thinking about Jooheon’s smile, and his laugh, and his blond hair.
He fought against himself (and fictional Hyungwon) all night, getting so close to convincing himself that he was not in love with Jooheon, thank you very much.
But when he saw Hyungwon’s very real face as he walked to his cubicle the next morning, his will to fight came crashing down.
“Ah, fuck,” he whispered, and as soon as he put his briefcase down on his desk, he rested his forehead against it, taking a deep breath.
Obviously, by some stroke of luck (read: misfortune), Hoseok heard the telltale noise of Hyungwon’s chair rolling into his cubicle. He didn’t need to look over to know that he was sporting his know-it-all grin.
“I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Shut up, Hyungwon.”
He heard the cackling in his mind before he heard it with his ears and he groaned, lifting his head up to glare at Hyungwon. “This is your fault, you know.”
“I’ll take full responsibility.” He was grinning like the Cheshire cat, and Hoseok considered himself to be a good person, but in that moment he wanted nothing more but to deck Hyungwon in the face.
“Go away. You have a job to do,” he grumbled, turning around to turn on his computer.
Thankfully, the sound of Hyungwon’s wheels and his obnoxious giggling faded a moment later as he rolled himself back into his own cubicle.
Now that Hoseok had accepted his feelings, there was no going back. He felt like it was wrong, though. He felt like it was hopeless, and that’s exactly what he told his friend Kihyun as he was lying face-down on his couch. He had gone to Kihyun’s apartment straight from work on a day that Jooheon was going to pick the two girls up and hadn’t moved from the couch since he had reached, half an hour ago.
“Hyung, you’re so dramatic,” Kihyun sighed, swatting at his leg with a rolled up magazine that he had been reading seconds before.
“I’m serious!” Hoseok whined so loudly, Kihyun’s dog sitting at the bottom of the couch jumped in surprise.
“You woke up Cho,” Kihyun commented, watching in amusement as Hoseok rolled onto his side to make room for the dog to jump up onto the couch beside him.
“Sorry Cho,” he sighed, playing with his floppy brown ears. “Kihyun, I’m serious. I feel like if I try, and he rejects me, then Sua and Minyoung won’t get to spend time together anymore. And I would have ruined it for them.”
“That’s so extra and you know it,” Kihyun pointed out, opening up his magazine again. He pushed his thin round glasses back up his nose. “He seems like a cool guy. Like, don’t outright try to kiss him or anything, but try to… I don’t know, try to flirt. If you start small and see he’s not interested, then you stop before you make a fool out of yourself and consequently get him to stop talking to you ever again.”
“Kihyun, I can’t flirt,” Hoseok whined again, giving his friend the most exaggerated pouting expression he possibly could.
“Well, I can’t help you there, my friend.” Kihyun shrugged, not bothering to look up from his magazine. He knew Hoseok well enough to know exactly what expression he was making. “I’ve said what I had to.”
And so began Hoseok’s plan of trying - and probably failing - to woo Jooheon. He started small: he brought him coffee or iced tea on mornings he knew he’d run into him at the school, he complimented his hair or his clothes regularly, but he still felt like he was making no leeway. Jooheon would always smile and thank him politely, never giving an indication of any deeper feelings. Hoseok constantly felt hopeless, and Kihyun was getting all the details, much to his chagrin.
Until one day, he finally gave in and presented Hoseok with a plan. The man suggested Hoseok host a little get-together, a casual dinner party, and invite Jooheon and Minyoung, as well as anyone Jooheon might want to bring, and Hoseok’s own friends. It would give them a good window of time to interact without having to worry about their girls, Kihyun explained with a shrug.
After giving it some thought, Hoseok agreed, but left the planning to Kihyun because he knew the organising would make his little heart sing and, honestly, Hoseok wasn’t the best at those kinds of things.
And so the date was set, the invites texted out to their friends. The last thing Hoseok had to do was ask Jooheon.
He decided to breach the topic when Jooheon came to pick up Minyoung from his apartment one night. While the two girls were putting away all the toys, Hoseok offered Jooheon a glass of water and they sat on the couch side by side.
“So, I’m having a get-together on Saturday,” Hoseok started, turning to look at the man next to him. No matter how old he was, Hoseok was still rendered to a nervous mess. He was just glad he had passed the point of blushing till his ears were red. “I was wondering if you and Minyoung would like to come. You can bring a friend if you’d like, too.”
Jooheon thought about it for a second then nodded and smiled, Hoseok’s stomach flipping. “Yeah, that sounds great! What time?”
“In the evening, probably. I told my friends to come around 6pm, but they’re not the most cordial of people,” Hoseok chuckled, rolling his eyes fondly. “You can also bring someone, if you’d like. I know it’s awkward to be surrounded by unfamiliar people.”
“Don’t worry, hyung. I’ll be there,” Jooheon confirmed, the smile on his face making Hoseok believe that he must’ve done something truly wonderful in his past life.