Jinkook Ao3 / You Came For Me (You Stayed For Us) by kuragecharms

Chapter 5

Seokjin was stressed. No, he was super fuckingstressed. But he and Yoongi had decided to hold off on swearing until they could explain to Jimin when it was or wasn’t appropriate to use such language, and life had been torture for two such sailor-tongued roommates, making them resort to using random words to substitute for the words that really, at the end of the day, had a better bite to them.

“Son of a butterscotch in frolicking butternut squash on a... God where is it?” He was missing his main textbook for the LSATs, the one that had cost an arm and a leg to buy and that weighed more than his three-year-old, and which he’d gone without a week’s worth of lunches to squeeze into the budget just to ensure he had the most up-to-date one. He needed it. He had to study for the mock test the school offered in two weeks, and then he had his regular homework to work on, and then he had work early in the morning.

“Daddy!” came a little voice, bright, petulant and demanding. “ Daddy !”

“ What , Jimin?” Seokjin said, his entire countenance oozing with exasperation as he dug through the teetering stack of books next to the couch, a precarious tower that they used as a side table half the time. No luck. Fuck my life.

“Daddy, look !” Jimin cried out, and the little pattering sound of him slamming his tiny bare foot against the cheap linoleum made Seokjin look up. He found his son dressed only in his Pull-ups (the night-time diaper, which was the final mountain to conquer in potty-training the toddler) and a pair of his father’s sunglasses. They were far too big for his head, the ear pieces jutting out to either side as the chubby child tilted his head back, a feeble attempt at making them balance on the end of his little nose.

“Am I cool, daddy?”

At the sight of his son, the reminder of what the stress, the sweetness, the responsibilities all accumulated to, what it came from , struck him like a slap of cold water to the face. Jin’s expression relaxed, his wide shoulders drooping forward, his voice rounding out at the edges as he smiled. Oh, that’s right. This is the whole point of it all.

“Wo-o-ow!” he called out, “Who is this mega-cool guy?!”

At that, Jimin’s face lit up into a broad, toothy smile, a slight wetness around his lips and a bit of something sticky smeared across his cheek. He giggled, wondering if his daddy was serious about forgetting who he was. Jin knelt on the ground, lowering himself to Jimin’s eye level.

“Where on earth did you come from, if I may ask?” Seokjin asked, “I like your style, it’s very cool.”

“ Daddy it’s me!” Jimin giggled, and Jin gasped.

“Oh my god! I should have known! This could only be my Jimin’s cute little belly!” And with that, he reached in, tickling the slightly rotund exposed stomach, and making Jimin collapse forward, trying to wriggle free of the broad and warm imprisonment of his father’s embrace. The sunglasses fell to the floor with a little clatter and were instantly forgotten. “I’ve got you!”