Single Father • Namjoon + BTS!Kids

cxl.

"Can we?" Jimin asked anxiously, fiddling with his fingers although his eyes were trained upwards. "P-Please? She'll be good, I p-promise."

Their mom looked at him with hesitance. "I don't know if that's such a good idea..."

"But she doesn't h-have a family," Jimin said with conviction, his hands outspread. "She's all alone."

Their mom immediately felt guilty, wondering what Jimin must have felt like for years in the Songs' house, alone, and she wondered if he was thinking about it too. She couldn't tell. "I don't think your step-dad will let the cat stay though, Jimin."

He exhaled slowly before nodding, his hands stilling. "Yeah, I know. I thought s-so."

She felt horrible, but she also knew that her husband held no more fondness for animals than he did for children. "I'm sorry, Jimin. But...but I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask him, right? I'll do it tonight."

She smiled, and Jimin smiled, but she felt her hands shaking. She put them behind her back.

"Have you guys thought about going to the dance?" she asked instead, and Hobi grinned.

"I've got a date," Hobi said, wiggling his eyebrows. "Yoongi is all grumpy about it because he and Jimin bet that I wouldn't get one and he lost."

Yoongi crossed his arms. "Ten dollars, Hobi. You cost me ten bucks."

Jimin smiled uneasily because he knew that there'd been no bet and that Yoongi hadn't lost anything except hope for his relationship with Jeongyeon, but he knew better than to say anything. He didn't want to wound Yoongi's pride.

"Are you going, Yoongi?"

Yoongi paused for a moment, and Jimin expected him to say no, but his answer surprised him. "I guess. I have nothing else to do, so..."

"And what about you, Jimin?"

Jimin's eyes widened slightly. "Oh, I'm n-not sure yet...I don't know who to g-go with." Which wasn't necessarily true. It was more than Jimin didn't want to go with anyone. Jimin had been harassed and lightly bullied since he'd returned to school, and while the girls weren't the main proponents of his treatment, they'd been there to laugh at him. He didn't want to go to the dance with someone who had made him feel like he didn't belong.

"Well, I think it would be great if you all went. You could all have some fun for a night. And it wouldn't be another boring business dinner," she said, smiling confidentially, although her stomach felt uneasy on the inside. She hadn't been married for her opinions; she'd been married because there'd been an empty spot and he'd needed to fill it. He needed an outline, a silhouette, a shadow, not a person. She still wasn't sure why she'd agreed. It hadn't been out of love, not like when she'd married Namjoon based solely on the fluttery feeling inside her heart and not on her brain's rationality about their stability for the future.

"Well, those aren't too bad," Hobi said, grinning. "There's another family with kids our age, and they usually get dragged along too."

"Oh? Which family is that?" she asked, surprised. She'd vaguely recalled seeing her sons talking to some other younger kids, but she wasn't aware as to which family they'd come from.

"I think the Choi's?" Hobi said, making it come out like a question as her tilted his head. "I think they said their dad's name was Seongcheol."

She blinked, opening her mouth slightly. "Choi Seongcheol..." He was an up-and-coming businessman from their rival company. He'd been extremely successful in the past couple of years, and many of the late nights that had resulted in her husband coming home pissed and slightly intoxicated involved him yelling (and cursing) at the infamous Choi Seongcheol. "Don't tell your step-father that, okay?"