— Chapter 31 —
"Okay, okay. Now tell me when to stop," Hyunjin says, lifting up the carton of milk and starting to pour the liquid into the glass. He waits for Nabi to say stop, since she is very picky.
"Stop!" She yells.
He stops pouring the milk, and puts it back down. "Okay, all done." He smiles, screwing the lid back on. He reaches his arms out and picks her up off the counter, setting her back down onto the floor. He hands her the glass of milk. "Now go eat your food before it gets cold." He says.
She frowns. "But Felix isn't here yet." She says. "I can't eat without Felix, dad."
Hyunjin tries to ignore the pain in his chest as he got called a plain 'dad'. "That's very nice of you to wait, but your food is going to be frozen by the time Felix gets down here." He says, exaggerating a bit to scare her.
She gives him a weird look. "No.."
"Hyunjin!" A sudden voice echoes through the home.
Hyunjin jumps a bit, turning around to the voice. Nabi flinches as well, and immediately hides behind Hyunjin. Jisung comes walking into the room, holding a bunch of bags. He walks only a few more feet before giving up and dropping everything in the middle of the room.
He turns to look a Hyunjin. "Sorry for yelling." He says with an apologetic smile. "I just had to warn you before I came in. Also, where is Felix?"
Hyunjin has his eyebrows furrowed. "I'm sorry— who exactly... are you?" He asks as nicely as he can, even though he has no clue who this man is. "And how did you get in here?" He asks again, looking at the keys on the counter.
Jisung gasps. "You don't know me? Like at all?"
Hyunjin slowly shakes his head no.
"What?—" Jisung whips around, looking at Minho who just entered the room. "Minho. Can you believe this guy doesn't know me? I literally was here last night."
"Oh I know you." Hyunjin says, but to Minho.
Minho waves, and Jisung looks at him like he's insane. "How do you know him but not me?! You literally sat in the back of my truck! I was here last night! I gave you the keys to this place!"
"Why are you yelling?" Chan comes into the room suddenly.
"I'm not—"
"You're scaring my daughter." Hyunjin suddenly says. He leans down to pick the little girl up, as everyone else in the room watches him. She hides in his sweater, very scared of the three men she hasn't seen more than once in her entire life.
"Oh shit." Minho says, hitting Jisung. "Lower your voice."
"I'm sorry," Jisung whisper yells. "I forgot there was a kid here!"
"She's so cute." Minho whispers back.
The two go on to have a little whispering conversation for a few seconds, talking about the little girl and how much she looks like her dad. And everyone else does something else, or looks at somebody else.
Felix comes walking into the kitchen with his laundry in his arms, finally wearing something other than the date outfit. However, it isn't even his own clothes he has on. He has on a pair of Hyunjin's sweat pants, and his crew neck as well— considering he doesn't have any of his own clothes. Hyunjin smiled at the sight.
"Raided my closet huh?" He teases.
Felix sticks his tongue out. "I don't have any of my clothes, so yeah, I did." He says. "But I'm quite comfortable if I do say so myself, so I don't care." He says.
"Well now you do." Jisung chuckles, motioning to the bags he brought.
Felix looks at him, then down to the bags. He chuckles, "You're a lifesaver, Jisung. But I didn't need my whole entire wardrobe to be brought here with me."
Jisung shrugs. "The more the merrier."
Minho, who snuck out earlier after his conversation with Jisung, comes back into the room carrying even more bags. Felix's mouth drops as he sees the bags. Minho puts them down and chuckles at the reaction.
"Oh my—, how many bags did you bring?" He asks.
"Calm down," Minho says. "Those ones aren't yours. They are mine and Jisung's."
Hyunjin's eyes flicker up. "You guys are staying here?"
"We all are." Chan says.
"Why's that?" Felix asks.
"Safety reasons." Minho says. "If they threatened one of us, Felix, then they might come for another one. And I'd rather nobody be home or even near their homes, you know?"
"Yeah I—"
"Oh my god." Seung exclaims, as he comes tromping into the house. He throws down the biggest load of bags yet, and leaves behind a trail of snow from his big boots. "Did none of you guys here me screaming for help?" He says, out of breath.
"You were screaming?" Minho says as he laughs.
"Oh yeah, that is so funny. What if I was dying?" Seungmin starts, and the two go off on a trail nobody wants to go down.
"Felix." Hyunjin calls.
Felix turns away from the bickering pair, and looks over to Hyunjin at the call. He walks over when he sees the plate of foot waiting for him, as well as a smoothie. Nabi is already eating her plate, and has been silently for the past few minutes now.
Felix smiles at Hyunjin fondly. "Thank you." He says, sitting down on the stool next to Nabi. He looks at his purple smoothie, and then to Nabi's sad glass of milk. "What happened to your smoothie?" He asks.
"We don't have bananas, so Nabi didn't want a smoothie at all." Hyunjin says simply, like it's a routine thing, which causes Felix to laugh a little. Hyunjin looks up at him, smiling. "She is very picky when it comes to smoothies, don't laugh."
"Yeah, don't laugh at me." Nabi says with a pout.
Felix pokes her cheek, which causes her to stop pouting and start to smile. "You're adorable." Felix says. He starts to eat his chocolate chip pancakes, which are bomb.
"Yo." Seungmin yells, catching Hyunjin's attention. "You got any more pancakes?"
Hyunjin nods, motioning him to come over and take some. Seungmin snickers like a little kid as he walks over, taking the plate of fresh, warm pancakes Hyunjin hands to him.
"Does anybody else want some?" Hyunjin asks, looking at the other three guys. The least he can do is make sure everyone is fed.
Minho looks over to the two males, who look back him with clueless expressions.
"They have chocolate chips in them?" Hyunjin says, trying to convince them.
Minho smiles, and shrugs, to which the other two shrug as well and start to make their way over. They secretly race over like children, standing in a line. Jisung frowns, since he came in last. Hyunjin starts to make plates for them one by one, as well as sliding over the whipped cream and syrup for the others. Everyone can agree, he is such a dad.
Minho and Chan walk over to the island, gathering around with everyone else. There are only three stools though, which are occupied by Nabi, Seungmin, and Felix— so they both just stand. They don't complain, however.
Minho reaches for the whipped cream, but Seungmin sees and snatches it first. They bicker like children already, so this little action doesn't even really shock anybody at the counter.
Seungmin sticks his tongue out at Minho, before creating a giant cone of whipped cream on his pancakes. He smiles proudly, and looks over to his side at Nabi's plate. He leans over and makes a smiley face on her pancakes with the whipped cream, causing her to giggle and smile.
She looks up at him, with rosy cheeks and a look in her eye like she is one of those girls seeing Justin Bieber in 2016. "Thank you." She says. He smiles back, feeling like he just won at life.
"I don't know how he does it." Jisung says, plopping down between Hyunjin and Felix. "I'm terrible with kids." Jisung frowns. Hyunjin chuckles at him.
"Speaking of kids," Chan suddenly speaks up. "Hyunjin, I signed Nabi up for online school lessons. I figured since she isn't leaving here anytime soon it would be best for her education. I brought her a computer and a few text books that will help her for the rest of the year." He says.
Hyunjin looks up at him, a shocked expression on his face. "Really?" He says. "That's amazing. I was just worrying about her schooling, so thank you. I would appreciate if you could show me how all that works later."
"Yeah, no problem." Chan says. "But to be honest, I don't really know how it works myself— so we will just figure it out together." He says, shoving a piece of pancake in his mouth.
Hyunjin hums. Felix starts to chuckle, which causes everyone to look at him. He looks at Hyunjin. "You seem so stiff." He smiles. "Loosen up, you're not at work. Plus, you're stuck here with these guys for a long time so you better get comfortable."
Hyunjin smiles at Felix. "I'm sorry." He says, looking back down to his plate. "It's just a bit.. awkward." He now looks back up at Everyone. "I don't really know you guys, so I'm sorry for being awkward."
"It's alright." Jisung says with a mouthful. "Oh my god wait, we should introduce ourselves properly. We can even play a game like they do at school, you know?" He says, but his words come out muffled due to his cheeks being stuffed.
"Chew your food first, god." Seungmin says.
The whole table starts to laugh at Seungmin's bluntness, except Han who blushes and swallows with embarrassment. Minho puts a reassuring hand on his thigh from underneath the table, but still continues to chuckle.
For the first time, everyone is getting along alright.
—
a/n
i feel like my writing always gets worse, as well as cringier, towards the end of the chapter
but that might just be because im tired..
not proofread btw