What We Used To Be and Will Be

Chapter 22

The Chosen one... (Part 1/3)

"Yah, yah, yah. Get back here." This was the third time that Jin had tried to keep the baby from crawling away but apparently, the baby seemed to be amused by the eldest's reactions. Baby Jungkook giggled each time Jin tried to grab him by his hips to pull him back closer. He was definitely entertained by the idea of sliding back and forth on the bed.

"Silly baby. Come on, let hyungie change you so we can play the whole day, yeah?" Jin tried to coax the baby into keeping still. Oh boy, what a naughty baby. In an attempt to distract the baby, Jin spoke in an exaggerated manner, "Oh wow! What is this?! It's so colourful!" The eldest was pointing to the rainbow socks that the baby is currently sporting.

As expected, baby Jungkook's big doe eyes sparkled, staring at his socked feet as though it was his first time seeing it. Out of curiosity, he lifted both legs and tried to grab his feet with his grabby hands. Great, here's the chance now! Using the baby's current position as a leverage, Jin made a quick move to slip the soiled diaper out from underneath Jungkook's bottom. With practised skill, Jin quickly cleaned the baby's bottom with a baby wipe and padded baby powder over the sensitive area. By the time baby Jungkook managed to catch his feet and tried to pull out the socks, Jin was done with strapping the baby with a new clean diaper.

Just for the fun of it, Jin bend down, broke free of the baby's legs from the tiny grabby hands, not without a slight protesting whine from the baby, and placed his lips onto the baby's belly to blow a raspberry. Baby Jungkook immediately shrieked with laughter, hiccupping a little as he tried to catch his breath.

"What's going on?"

Both Jin and baby Jungkook stopped their actions abruptly and turned their heads towards the voice.

"Sounds like someone is having fun." Yoongi smirked as he made his way towards the Mat-Mak pair.

Baby Jungkook muttered some incoherent words behind his pacifier and stretched his hands towards Yoongi for the elder rapper to carry him. Who could resist hugging the baby?

"Shall we go catch some of your favourite cartoon, baby?"

The baby nodded enthusiastically and started squirming around in a way to nudge the rapper to quickly proceed to the living room.

Jin smiled fondly and urged his dongsaeng, "I think the baby is too eager now. You go ahead and bring him out while I tidy up the things here."

Moments later, the screen in front of them was playing Paw Patrol, Jungkook's favourite anime. The baby was holding his soft bunny stuffie close to his chest, keeping it nestled with the soft baby blue blanket wrapped around his body, his tiny toes peeking out of the fabric.

While the members could not understand how a bunch of dogs could get so intriguing that always trigger off soft giggles from their baby, Jungkook watched attentively at what was happening on the screen. As and when throughout the show, the baby would point towards the screen and babbled words that the members could not decipher and squealed. Seeing as how their baby is so happy, they could only mirror the baby's gleefulness and responded with a series of 'Yes, baby' and 'Wow, that was amazing'. Being deep in his headspace, the baby was only delightful to see his hyungs responded so positively and enthusiastically to him.

Seeing that the baby has resumed giving full concentration to the cartoon show, Hoseok decided to strike a casual conversation with his other members.

"Do you think if he will ever choose any of us as his main caregiver?"

"What do you mean by main caregiver? We are all his caregivers."

"No, that is not what Hobi-hyung is saying. You see, where there are littles, there are caregivers. Sometimes a little can have multiple caregivers, just like how Jungkookie has the 6 of us. But there are some littles that will choose certain caregivers to be the main person that they will always look out for. And for these special people, littles usually give them names like 'Appa'."

"Appa?"

All heads turned towards the soft little voice that they heard.

Baby Jungkook was looking at them with his head tilt, pacifier bobbing up and down slowly. It was such a cute sight and the members were trying their best not to coo out loud.

"Appa?" The baby repeated, as his eyes scanned across the caregivers.

Oh god, is it happening? Is Jungkookie going to pick any of us as his main caregiver? The members thought silently.

As the members held their breath with unhidden expectations, their hopes were crushed when the baby slapped his chubby hand across the eldest hyung's cheek clumsily and chirped loudly, "Appa!"

Jin's eyes grew so wide that one would think his eyes were gonna popped out of its socket any time. To say that Jin was dumbfounded was an understatement. While he might appear to be frozen on the outside, party poppers and fireworks were setting off in his mind. Slowly, a wide grin started to form on his face, so much so that his cheek bones got so high that caused his eyes to wrinkle up into crescent shaped.

"Aigoo~! My baby! Yes, I am your Appa! Call me again, call Appa!" Jin hugged the baby so tightly that the baby was starting to whine loudly, presumably getting out of breath soon.

Meanwhile, the members felt salty about the situation as they were not the chosen one, yet they also knew that Jin definitely deserved the title since he had been the one taking care of the baby wholeheartedly with no complaints and expecting nothing in return.

Yes, they were jealous, until later that day......

"Appa!" The baby had apparently wet himself again.

"Appa!" The baby had dropped his pacifier somewhere again.

"Appa!" The baby wanted someone to play with him again.

"Appa!" The baby wanted someone to give him a piggyback ride again.

"Appa!" The baby wanted his milk again.

"Appa!" The baby wanted someone to cradle and rock him to sleep.

"Wow, Jimin-ah. Just yesterday you are Jungkookie's favourite and look now. You are totally out of Jungkookie's league now. He is totally obsessed with Jin-hyung. You've got no jam, bro." Taehyung mocked his same-age friend.

"Hmph! That is just because I allowed it to happen. I am still Jungkookie's favourite hyung." Jimin crossed his arms before turning around and mumbled under his breath. "But why in the world Jungkookie kept calling out to Jin-hyung?"

Hoseok heard his dongsaeng and replied, "I guess only Jungkookie would know about it."

"But, isn't it a good thing? At least we could rest for a while."

Everyone shifted their attention to their second eldest hyung and then something struck Namjoon.

"Oh! So, this was what you had planned?"

Everyone raised their eyebrows at their leader as they expected him to elaborate further since they could not make out the expression that is on the elder rapper now.

"I was wondering why you had kept mum about Jungkookie acknowledging Jin-hyung as his main caregiver since you were equally invested in taking care of him. You purposely allowed it to happen just so that if there is anything that Jungkookie needs, his first instinct would be to call out for the person that he could think of? What a genius you are!"

"Haha. Of course!"

The members rolled their eyes as they took in the smug look on Yoongi. What a lazy bone through and through.