Chapter Text
the good thing about working from home is that yoongi never has to worry about being late or written up or generally inconvenienced. the bad thing about working from home is that his bed is only a few steps away and his son is a hyperactive fire breather. yoongi hears the young boy bouncing around in his bedroom and he seethes because he was absolutely certain that he put the kid to sleep a mere half hour ago.
expense reports were going to have to wait.
when he gets to the bedroom, he leans against the doorframe and watches the five year old fleet from one side of the room to the other. “taehyung-ah, what are you doing?”
taehyung stops in his tracks, snapping his head toward his father like a deer in the headlights. yoongi wouldn’t admit but he finds himself having to chant “don’t smile” repeatedly in his head because his kid is just too adorable. and those spider-man pajamas? it’s infectiously cute.
“daddy, where’s my hulk?”
his hulk is a small action figure that he’s never played with before. taehyung has a bulk of them because hoseok, yoongi’s colleague and old college buddy, showers him with things he doesn’t need. whenever taehyung sees hoseok, he gets excited under the presumption that he’ll be receiving some new plush or a dessert that’ll leave him up all night.
“your hulk?” yoongi steps forward, crouching down so that he’s at eye level with the five year old. “i thought you didn’t even like that thing.”
“i don’t. jimin likes hulk.”
yoongi sighs. taehyung started kindergarten on september 3rd and that’s where he met jimin, his new best friend. it’s now october which means yoongi has had to listen to every single detail about jimin for a little over a month. once on the car ride home, taehyung talked the entire way home about how jimin doesn’t like apples so yoongi should pack pears instead. when yoongi asked him how jimin’s distaste for apples affected his lunch packing abilities, taehyung just said “how else am i supposed to share with him?”
yoongi pulls taehyung up in his arms. “it’s nine o’clock, kiddo. you need to go to sleep.”
“i can’t!” taehyung kicks and struggles which, if not for yoongi having dealt the kid’s resistance to sleep for four years, would have been annoying. “it’s jiminnie’s birthday tomorrow, i have to get him a present.”
yoongi tosses him onto the bed. “i will find hulk, okay? and i will give him to you and you can take him to jimin tomorrow but right now it’s way past your bedtime.”
“why do you get to stay up all night?”
“because i already went to kindergarten, okay?” yoongi tucks the child in tightly. “now i can go to bed whenever i want.”
“it’s not fair.”
“i know,” yoongi runs his hands through taehyung’s hair, gently caressing his scalp because that has always been the best way to put him to sleep. “i promise one day you’ll be able to go to bed any time you want to. but if you don’t go to sleep now, you’re gonna be too tired to play with jimin tomorrow. and you don’t want him to have a bad birthday, do you?”
taehyung scours, looking shameful. “no.”
“good night, little man.”
taehyung pulls him forward, his tiny arms wrapped tightly around yoongi’s neck, their foreheads pressed together. “i love you, daddy.”
“i love you more. don’t you forget it.”
when taehyung is settled down at last, yoongi can technically go back to writing his expense reports but he can’t because if he doesn’t find the hulk, taehyung will hate him. of course he’ll only hate him for like ten minutes but still he’s not the type of father who gets a kick out of pissing off their children.
he overturns the couch, empties drawers, and searches every single nook of taehyung’s bedroom as quietly as possible. he finally finds it in the couch cushions and he frowns when he does because the hulk, the infamous incredibly strong and heroic hulk, is headless.
“sorry jimin.”
the doorbell rings and yoongi jumps up to answer it. “about time.”
“excuse you,” hoseok scoffs, letting himself into the apartment and toeing off his shoes. “i didn’t have to go to the closest toy store a mere ten minutes before they closed to find a toy that taehyung already has. but i did it and you should be nicer.”
after yoongi shuts the door, he narrows his eyes at the shopping bag in hoseok’s hand. it’s much too big to be holding a single action figure. “i can already tell this one is better than the one he had. what else did you get and how much was it?”
“don’t sweat it,” hoseok smiles. “i love that kid, he can have whatever he wants.”
“that’s easy for you to say, you’re not the one who has to teach him the value of a dollar or deal with a tantrum when he doesn’t get what he wants.”
“that’s why i do it.”
yoongi shakes his head, a fond smile on his face. he steps into the kitchen and starts to make coffee for the two of them while hoseok sits in the living room. “well, the joke’s on you, it’s not for him.”
“jimin?”
“yep.”
neither of them have had the pleasure of meeting jimin or his parents. there had only been one parent/teacher meet and greet at the beginning of the school year and yoongi didn’t go. instead, he went to the movies with taehyung instead, celebrating his last week as a free pre-kindergartener.
but even without having met jimin, they know a lot about him. they know his favorite ice cream flavor, his favorite superhero, his favorite nursery rhyme, all courtesy of taehyung talking about him endlessly.
“what’s the occasion?”
“it’s his birthday and taehyung wants to wants to have a present for him.”
hoseok chuckles into his mug. “such a sweet kid.”
“i’m sorry, what did you say?”
yoongi can only blink, his mouth hanging wide open as he puts his glasses on. he was doing so well, working so hard on the expense reports that he actually finished them in record time. he was rewarding himself with a rare, well deserved nap when his phone rang. he heard what he heard, for sure, but he can’t quite believe it.
“your son hit another student,” the principal repeats slowly.
yoongi is standing up now, rushing to put on something decent and go to the school. because his son couldn’t have done that, he cried for an hour after accidentally killing a ladybug. “are you sure you’ve got the right kid? min taehyung?”
“yes, sir. we’d like you to come down to the school so we can settle this amongst the parents and the students involved.”
“wait, was he fighting more than one person?”
“we haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet, if you could make it here within the hour, that’d be fantastic.”
taehyung has never physically fought anyone. even when he kicks when yoongi picks him up to put him to sleep, it isn’t to hurt yoongi only to make it harder for him to hold on to. even when he has tantrums, he throws himself on the ground and refuses to get up. he has never put his hands on anyone.
he hopes they have the wrong kid but when he walks into the waiting area to the principal’s office, it’s his son sitting there. his face is in his hands and there’s a smaller boy sitting next with a noticeable red mark on his face.
yoongi calls his son’s name and the boy looks up with teary eyes. taehyung runs into his arms and cries.
“it’s not my fault!”
maybe he should be like other parents, more like his parents who believed the teachers when they told them he caused trouble. but he just can’t swing it because he knows, whatever happened, isn’t taehyung’s fault. “come on, i’ll take care of it. first you have to tell me—“
“what happened?” another voice chimes in, someone breezing into the waiting area and kneeling in front of the child that had been whispering to taehyung. “jimin, are you okay?”
yoongi raises an eyebrow. “you’re the infamous jimin? you okay, kid?”
both jimin and his dad turn to yoongi. “i take it you’re taehyung’s father? good to meet you. i’m seokjin.”
“you too. is he okay?”
then the door opens and the principal stands in the entryway with his arms folded. he smiles gently, knowingly like he understands this is a perplexing situation. “mr. min, mr. kim, please come inside.”
“i know this is confusing,” the principal leans forward. “we don’t even know the specifics of it quite yet. we didn’t want the boys to feel pressured having to explain it over and over again so we just wanted to go through it once together.”
he smiles at taehyung and jimin. “can either one of you explain what happened? taehyung?”
yoongi massages circles onto taehyung’s back before wrapping his arms around him. “it’s okay, tell us what happened.”
taehyung sniffles. “today’s jimin’s birthday.”
“okay?”
“and mr. kim was nice and gave him a cupcake to share with me. and we were going to eat it but jiyoung wanted it. we told him we were sorry and that we’d make sure to give him a snack tomorrow but he said he wanted that one so he took it. i didn’t mean to hit him, i was just trying to get the cupcake back because mr. kim didn’t make it for jiyoung and he shouldn’t have taken it.”
“it’s not taehyung’s fault, it’s mine!” jimin suddenly speaks up, sitting up straighter on his father’s lap.
“no, it’s not!” taehyung snaps.
“yes, it is!”
“no, it’s not! you’re not telling the truth!”
“taehyung,” yoongi rests a hand on his son’s shoulder.
seokjin clears his throat. “mr. lee, i really respect you, i do. you are so great with these children and with this school but from the sound of it, there is no reason either of these boys needs to be in the principal’s office.”
yoongi nods. “i’m with him. if anything this jiyoung kid should be in here, why single out the ones that were being bullied?”
“the thing is,” the principal swallows thickly. “jiyoung is the one who ended up with bruises.”
yoongi scoffs and tilts his head toward jimin. “you can’t be blind to that shiner on his face, right?”
for the first time, yoongi gets a good look at mr. kim’s face when he turns to him. he smiles slightly, like he’s appreciative of yoongi noticing. “
“jimin, sweetie, what happened to your face?”
“jiyoung hit him!” taehyung exclaims. “i hit jiyoung by mistake and he hit jimin on purpose. i didn’t mean to hit him, daddy, i promise.”
“i know, i know.” yoongi’s face softens.
a long time ago, yoongi had a talk with taehyung shortly after taehyung said he wanted to punch hoseok’s “stupid face”. he’d explained how when he was a kid in high school, he hit a lot of people and it wasn’t a nice thing. how he didn’t want taehyung to do the same thing and that it was very important to him that he wouldn’t hurt anyone. taehyung took that very seriously.
when taehyung tears up, yoongi takes that as his cue.
“with all due respect,” he starts as he stands up. “i think i should go. there’s no reason my son should be here, no reason either of them should be here actually. call that kid in here, have him suspended or something — whatever it is you do with kids their age. really splendid job you’re doing by the way, punishing the kids trying to defend themselves.”
pulling up taehyung into his arms, he turns to seokjin and smiles. “it was nice to meet you two. jimin, thank you for being such a good friend to my son. i hope to see you again…under better circumstances.”
taehyung burrows into yoongi’s neck, his tears cold against his skin. “are you mad at me?”
“of course not, i’m proud of you.”
“really?”
yoongi nods. “you stood up for your friend, for the right thing. no matter the conditions, i’ll always be proud of you for doing that.”
taehyung is squealing with delight as hoseok runs around the living room giving him what has to be the wildest piggyback ride ever.
hoseok may be frustrating at times with how good of a job he does at spoiling his son but yoongi is eternally grateful for him. it’s because of hoseok’s undying adoration for taehyung that yoongi is able to do things like get overdue work done and wash the dishes. he’s trying to figure out how he can possibly work in an hour of sales calls before before bedtime whilst managing to give taehyung his bath and bedtime story when his phone rings.
“hello?”
“this is min yoongi, right? taehyung’s dad?”
yoongi bites his lip. “yep, who is this?”
“seokjin,” he laughs nervously. “jimin’s—“
“yeah, i remember you. what’s, um…why are you calling?”
“you like to get straight to the point, huh?” another nervous laugh crackles through the speaker. “i just wanted to say thank you. it’s not the first time they’ve disregarded jimin like that. i mean, it’s not like he fights a lot — you don’t have to worry about him being a bad influence. but he gets picked on and they never do anything about it. so, again, thank you.”
“no problem,” yoongi replies absently. his mind is stuck on the idea of a kid as small and kind looking as being bullied. “did you try transferring—“
“he doesn’t want that, i’ve asked. each time i do, he always says he wants to stay with his best friend. that’s why i wanted to ask you if you wanted to come over for dinner. they absolutely love each other and i haven’t properly gotten to know either of you yet.”
“hold on, i’ll ask.” yoongi holds his phone out in the direction of the living room. “taehyung, wanna have dinner with jimin?”
taehyung screams so loudly that even hoseok, the king of shrill, has to cover his ears and yoongi can faintly make out seokjin’s quiet laughter on the other end.