Chapter Text
The dorm had not been quiet since all seven of them moved in together.
Footsteps crossed the hallway at all hours.
Someone was always talking in the kitchen while somebody else half-dozed on the couch, and the children moved naturally through the dorm, even if they belonged to different rooms, different schedules, even different parents.
The new arrangement was fuller, noisier, and less private than before.
The children were never treated like visitors.
It was still an idol dorm, but not only that anymore.
Baby bottles stood beside sweet drinks.
Schedules lay near children’s blankets.
Someone’s in-ears charged beside a pack of wipes left on the counter.
Somehow, between Yushi and Michiko’s routine with Rumiko, Sion and Joo-hyun taking turns with Min-hyung, and the rest of the members adjusting around them, the place had become a home built in rotation.
Yushi was sitting sideways on the couch with his phone already in hand when Sion came into the living room carrying two drinks.
He had coffee in one hand and milk tea in the other, and he slowed the moment he saw Yushi’s expression.
“Hyung,” Yushi said, glancing up at him. “Come here.”
Sion had to hear that tone once.
He crossed the room without asking questions, set the coffee down on the table, and passed the milk tea to Yushi before leaning close enough to see the screen.
“Michiko sent me this earlier,” Yushi said.
The video was short: Rumiko sat propped against a cushion on the floor of Michiko’s apartment, round-cheeked and bright-eyed, reaching out in soft, clumsy grabs toward a tiny kitten nosing curiously near the blanket.
Every time the kitten moved, her whole face changed.
Wonder came first, then delight, then that wide-open baby fascination that made the world seem miraculous.
“Rumichan made a new friend today,” Yushi said, already smiling.
“You need to see what Michiko brought home.”
Sion’s expression softened immediately, the way it always did when it came to the children.
“Look at her,” he murmured, leaning in a little closer. “She’s completely gone.”
“She loved it right away,” Yushi said. “She kept reaching for it like this the whole time.”
Yushi imitated Rumiko’s tiny grabby motion with one hand, and Sion laughed under his breath before kissing his temple.
For a second, Sion just watched the screen.
Then his attention drifted to Yushi back.
Yushi was still smiling, but not only at Rumiko, there was more than that.
“You like the idea that much?” Sion asked.
Yushi blinked and finally lifted his eyes from the phone.
“Hm?”
Sion sat down beside him properly this time, one shoulder brushing his.
“You look happier than the baby does.”
“That’s impossible.”
Sion brushed a loose strand of hair back from Yushi’s forehead with absent fingers.
“You watched the same video four times.”
Yushi huffed, more fond than defensive, and lowered his gaze to the phone again.
“I’m just saying it’s cute.”
“Mm.” Sion’s knee nudged against his. “That look means you want something.”
“I don’t want anything,” Yushi said, too quickly to be convincing.
Sion did not argue.
He leaned in enough to watch the video replay, then said, calm and matter-of-fact,
“That’s not all.”
On the screen, Rumiko let out a delighted little noise as the kitten came closer, one tiny hand opening and closing in the air.
The apartment around her was bright and warmly lit, the kind of warmth that lived in details more than design.
Michiko’s laugh floated somewhere behind the camera.
Yushi’s thumb hovered at the edge of his phone.
“I am happy for her. For them.”
Sion said nothing.
Yushi exhaled through a small smile.
“It’s cute because akachan looked so happy.”
“She did.”
“Their place felt warm. Cozy.”
That got Sion’s attention in a different way and he studied Yushi’s face properly.
After a moment, Sion said, “Then maybe we get something too.”
Yushi nearly dropped his phone.
“What?”
“Maybe this place needs one more small thing in it.”
For a second, Yushi stared at him in disbelief.
“What, now? Are we copycats?”
Sion’s lips twitched.
“I didn’t say cat.”
Yushi let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a protest.
“You’re saying this like we can just go and acquire a pet before lunch.”
Sion lifted one shoulder. “I said maybe.”
“You said it in your leader voice.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
Sion smiled then, small and entirely unbothered.
Yushi held his gaze a moment longer, the argument already slipping somewhere softer before it had the chance to become real.
His gaze dropped, then rose again.
Then, like he was hearing the thought for the first time himself, Yushi said,
“What if it’s a bunny?”
Sion went still.
The moment the word left Yushi’s mouth, it fit so neatly that Sion could already see the shape of it settling into place.
“A bunny,” he repeated.
Yushi nodded, studying his face carefully.
“Not too loud. Small. Gentle.”
He glanced at the paused video of Rumiko reaching for the kitten.
“Rumi would like watching it.
Sion hummed.
“And Min-hyung would lose his mind,” Yushi added, a smile returning.
“That part is definitely true.”
Yushi brightened.
“And... I don’t know.” He dropped his gaze, his thumb tapping lightly against the edge of his phone. “It feels right.”
Sion let him think.
Then, softer, Yushi added, “And it would remind me of you.”
Sion’s eyes lifted to his face again.
“Should I ask why?”
Yushi’s ears immediately turned pink.
“No.”
“That bad?”
“That obvious.”
Sion smiled.
Yushi did not say more and the fondness in it was plain enough.
“We’d need a proper setup,” Sion said. “Not just bring one home and improvise.”
Yushi blinked.
“You’re taking me seriously.”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“No, I mean...” Yushi let out a small breath of disbelief. “You’re already planning.”
Sion was unimpressed by the accusation.
“If we’re doing it, we do it properly. We check shelters first.
We see what they have. We ask what kind of space it needs, what food, and what not to do around the kids.”
His gaze shifted briefly toward the hallway, where voices rose and fell from somewhere near the kitchen.
“And we make sure nobody lets it disappear into somebody’s room in the first hour.”
Yushi laughed then, full and unguarded.
“That was very specific.”
“Ryo,” Sion said.
“Mm. Fair.”
“And Sakuya.”
Yushi’s smile widened.
“No. Sakuya would act normal for at least ten minutes.”
“He would try,” Sion allowed. “But even if he kept it off his face, he’d still feel it underneath.”
Yushi leaned a little into Sion’s side, one hand coming up to rest lightly near the back of Sion's neck.
Between them, the paused frame of Rumiko and the kitten still glowed faintly on the screen.
Then Sion said, “You already picked it in your head.”
“Maybe,” Yushi admitted.
“I can tell.”
Yushi had that inward glow again, the one Sion knew too well, softer than excitement and harder to miss.
“So let’s get one.”
That made Yushi go still.
“Today?”
“If we can.”
“But we have schedules.”
“We can still look.”
Yushi searched his face and Sion was already there, in that quiet, decisive part of himself where things stopped being hypothetical and started becoming real.
Yushi’s mouth curved before he could stop it.
Then, with no warning at all, he leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Sion’s mouth.
It was soft and brief.
When he pulled back, he didn't explain himself, and Sion didn't ask him to.
For a moment they simply held each other's gaze, fondness passing between them with the ease of something old and well-practiced.
Then Yushi lowered his gaze to his phone again, shifted closer, and said,
“If we’re checking shelters, we should do it before the others get involved and turn it into a committee.”
Sion reached over and tapped the screen to wake it again.
“Too late.”
The dorm around them carried on in all its usual morning fullness.
Yushi smiled at the sound, then at the screen, then at nothing Sion could name.
Beside him, Sion was already leaning over the phone with him, searching.
And just like that, it became real.
They did not, in fact, get a bunny before lunch.
Once the idea stopped being a joke and started becoming possible, Sion refused to do it halfway.
By the time the dorm settled around the table for rice, tomato-egg stir-fry, and soup, he had already checked three nearby shelters, their hours, and enough rabbit-care basics to make Yushi stare at him with growing delight.
“You’re really doing this,” Yushi had said at one point, somewhere between amused and disbelieving.
Sion, without looking up from his phone.
“I told you, if we do it, we do it properly, my love.”
That should have been enough to make Yushi leave him alone for at least thirty seconds.
It did not.
By early afternoon, between schedules, calls, and the general impossibility of coordinating anything in a dorm full of idols, they found a narrow pocket of time that somehow held.
Long enough to go, to look, and apparently long enough to make a life decision.
***
The shelter was warmer than Yushi expected, full of careful movement, gentle voices, and the faint smell of hay and clean wood shavings.
Sion glanced at him. “Still sure?”
Yushi arched a brow. “You say that like I’m the impulsive one.”
“You are.”
“That’s rude.”
“It’s accurate, baby.”
Yushi rolled his eyes and stepped closer to the enclosure in front of them.
There were several rabbits there.
One was stretched long in the corner, entirely uninterested in being perceived.
A second nose twitched from inside before disappearing the moment Yushi leaned in.
The volunteer came over, smiling in the way people did when they had already guessed correctly which visitors were about to fall for something small and furry.
They asked about care, space, feeding, temperament, and how slowly rabbits should be introduced to noise and people.
Sion asked most of the practical questions.
Yushi listened closely to all of it, then got distracted halfway through by a very small cream-and-brown rabbit sitting near the edge, ears half-lowered, its nose moving in tiny thoughtful pulses.
It didn't rush forward, and it didn't hide either.
It simply stayed there, round and watchful, as if considering them from a safe distance.
Yushi crouched down.
“Oh, you're a pretty one,” he murmured.
Sion's attention moved from him to the rabbit and back again.
“That one?”
Yushi did not answer right away. The rabbit had shifted closer by less than an inch.
“It looks like it’s thinking,” Yushi murmured.
“That’s because it is.”
Yushi smiled without taking his eyes off it.
“Hyung.”
There was a whole language in that one word as Sion had learned most of its dialects years ago.
He came to stand beside him, studying the rabbit with the same measured calm he gave almost everything before he let himself feel too much about it.
The rabbit twitched its nose and then, to Yushi’s visible devastation, edged one small step closer.
Sion exhaled, almost laughing.
“We’re not buying the first one you make eyes at.”
“We’re not buying anything,” Yushi said automatically. “We’re adopting.”
Sion tipped his head. “That too.”
The volunteer, standing just near enough to hear that, smiled into her sleeve.
They looked at the others too, because Sion insisted and because Yushi, beneath all his softness, was not careless with living things.
But every time they circled back, it was the same rabbit again.
Still observant and unhurried, seeming neither frightened nor overly bold.
Waiting in its own small way.
By the time they signed the papers, it was hard to remember they had ever considered leaving without him.
The full setup would be delivered by evening.
They left with pellets, hay, a list of instructions and one soft-sided carrier.
On the way back, Yushi kept checking the carrier window as if the rabbit might vanish between blinks.
“This is insane,” he said, smiling helplessly.
“You suggested a bunny,” Sion replied.
Yushi got in carefully, still peering down.
“Don’t make me the only culprit. You’re the one who said yes.”
“That was your first mistake,” Sion said.
Yushi finally lifted his head, scandalized. “Mine?”
“Yes,” Sion said.
“Now we have to explain this to five other men and at least one extremely strong-willed four-year-old.”
Yushi laughed then, bright and already too attached.
By the time they reached the dorm, the rabbit had settled into the carrier with a quiet dignity Yushi already found suspiciously endearing.
“It’s calm,” he said, peering through the mesh again as Sion keyed in the code.
“It’s probably overwhelmed,” Sion said, pushing the door open with his shoulder. “That’s different.”
Yushi glanced up at him.
“Hyung, you really don’t have to ruin every cute moment with accuracy.”
“I do, actually,” Sion said smiling dryly.
The dorm wasn't quiet.
Someone laughed in the kitchen. A cabinet shut.
The whole place carried the familiar noises of too many people knowing each other too well.
Sion stepped in first with the supplies, and Yushi followed with one hand beneath the carrier.
He had barely made it two steps inside when a voice came from the couch.
“What is that?”
Min-hyung.
Sion turned at immediately.
His son was half-kneeling on the sofa in a little grey sweatshirt, already staring with the kind of bright, total attention only small children could give when something new entered a room.
Yushi ducked his head.
“Good afternoon to you too.”
Min-hyung ignored that completely and pointed again.
“What is that?”
Sion set the bag of pellets down by the wall.
“What do we say first?”
Min-hyung considered that for half a second, then said quickly,
“Good afternoon,” before turning straight back to the carrier.
“Now what is that?”
Behind him, from the kitchen, came a bark of laughter that sounded suspiciously like Ryo.
Yushi crouched a little so Min-hyung could see better, though he kept the carrier close.
“It’s a rabbit,” he said. “A baby one.”
Min-hyung’s mouth opened slightly. His whole face changed all at once.
“A real one?”
“No,” Sion said dryly. “We thought we’d bring home an imaginary one.”
“Appa.”
Yushi laughed. “A real one, yes.”
That was enough to draw the others.
Ryo appeared first and Sakuya came half a step behind him.
They both stopped the second they saw the carrier.
“No way,” Ryo said.
Sakuya’s eyes widened. “You actually did it?”
“Actually did what?” Daeyoung called from further in, though he didn't come out yet.
“Brought home a whole animal,” Ryo called back, sounding halfway between scandalized and delighted.
“That is still not nearly specific enough for this dorm,” Daeyoung said.
Yushi regarded them like he had already accepted that this was no longer private family business.
“We went to a shelter.”
Ryo took two steps closer immediately. “Can I see?”
“You’re all seeing,” Sion said, stepping between the cluster of bodies and the carrier before the room could close in too fast.
“But nobody crowds it.”
That stopped them just enough.
Min-hyung moved close to Yushi’s knee but he stayed obediently there.
Sakuya crouched with his hands tucked behind his back like he was trying very hard not to look too interested.
Ryo made no such effort.
"It's tiny," he repeated, sounding almost reverent, bending to peer through the mesh.
“It’s not that tiny,” Sion said.
Ryo pointed at the carrier.
“Hyung, that is a pocket-sized animal.”
“That is not a real unit of measurement.”
“But it should be.”
Sakuya huffed a laugh. “What does it look like?”
Yushi turned the carrier carefully so they could all see better.
The rabbit, cream and soft brown under the living room light, stayed still with its ears half-lowered, its nose twitching.
Then it shifted and pressed itself a little further into the corner of the blanket inside.
"Oh," Sakuya murmured.
Ryo actually made a wounded noise.
“Help! It’s so cute.”
From the hallway, another pair of footsteps approached, slower this time slower this time.
Riku came into view with Rumiko balanced against his shoulder, one small hand tangled loosely in the fabric of his shirt.
She looked drowsy in that deep baby way that made everything about her seem softer, her cheek warm and slightly pink, her lashes heavy.
The moment she spotted Yushi, her whole face shifted.
“There’s the other father of the hour,” Riku said mildly, following everybody else’s attention a second later.
Yushi stood immediately.
“My baby.”
He set the carrier carefully on the floor by Sion’s feet before reaching for his daughter.
Rumiko came into his arms with the easy familiarity of habit, settling against his chest while he kissed her cheek, then again near the corner of her mouth just because he clearly could not help himself.
“Did you wake up, akachan?” he murmured, brushing one hand over the back of her little head. “Otōsan just came home.”
Rumiko blinked slowly, then turned her head.
The sleepy heaviness didn't disappear, but fascination ran through it all at once.
She went still in his arms, her round eyes fixed on the rabbit with complete baby-serious concentration.
Riku smiled faintly. “That answers that. No child in this house is sleeping.”
Min-hyung, who had been trying and failing to be patient for almost a full minute now, pointed again.
“Can it come out?”
“No,” Sion said at the exact same time Yushi said,
“Not yet.”
Min-hyung looked betrayed by both of them equally.
“It just got here,” Sion added.
“It needs time first. No grabbing, no crowding, and nobody puts their face right in front of it.”
At that, his gaze landed squarely on Ryo.
Ryo put a hand to his chest.
“Why are you looking at me?”
“It’s a feeling, Ryo. Probably experience too.”
“Yeah, with what?”
“With you.”
Sakuya laughed properly then, quick and bright.
“That’s not reassuring enough, hyung. It’s better to say we still need to know the bunny first.”
Min-hyung tugged lightly at the hem of Sion’s shirt. “Appa.”
Sion glanced down. “What?”
“Does it know us?”
Even Ryo stopped talking.
Sion’s expression gentled.
“Not yet,” he said. “So we have to be kind and let it get used to us slowly.”
Min-hyung absorbed that with visible effort.
Beside him, Yushi adjusted Rumiko higher against his shoulder and kissed her hair, keeping an eye on the carrier over the top of her head.
“See, akachan?” he whispered to her. “We have to be gentle.”
Rumiko made a tiny sound, then kept staring.
The rabbit moved again.
It was the smallest movement.
A shift of its front paws, a quick twitch of its nose and it made Min-hyung take one sharp step forward and Ryo lean in so fast, Sion put a hand out on instinct like a barrier.
“Distance,” Sion said.
“I wasn’t even that close,” Ryo protested.
“You were about to be.”
Daeyoung finally emerged from the kitchen, took in the whole scene with one look and shook his head.
“You left for one afternoon and now we have this.”
“We were productive,” Sion said, smiling.
“That is one word for it.”
Riku tilted his head toward the carrier.
“Did the shelter come with instructions, or are we all freelancing?”
Sion lifted the folded papers in one hand. “Instructions.”
“Good,” Daeyoung said.
“Because none of you should be allowed to freelance around prey animals.”
That made Ryo laugh again, though his eyes had gone straight back to the rabbit.
It had started to shift more now, turning so the side of its face came into clearer view.
“Oh, no,” Ryo said very quietly.
Sakuya glanced over.
“What happened?”
Ryo seemed genuinely distressed.
“I already know I'd take a bullet for this rabbit.”
Sion closed his eyes for half a second like this was exactly the outcome he had predicted.
Yushi, on the other hand, brightened.
“You barely even saw it.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Ryo said.
“I know things, and what I already saw is lovable.”
Sakuya snorted. “Then add something useful. Like an actual name, maybe?”
On Yushi’s shoulder, Rumiko let out a new little baby sound and opened one hand in the direction of the carrier, her fingers spreading and curling again in that reaching way Yushi knew too well by now.
He shifted her gently so she could see better while keeping a secure arm under her.
“There,” he murmured, pressing one quick kiss to her cheek, “you’re watching, hm?”
Sion saw it then.
Yushi with Rumiko in his arms, Min-hyung kneeling close by in fierce concentration, the others gathered around in various states of fond disbelief.
For one strange moment, the noisy dorm was peaceful.
Almost complete.
Then Min-hyung asked, “What’s its name?”
Everyone broke apart again immediately.
“We don’t know yet,” Yushi said.
“We should pick one now,” Ryo said immediately.
“No,” Sion said.
“Yes,” Min-hyung said at the exact same time.
Sakuya laughed so hard he had to duck his head.
And on the floor between them, tucked safe inside the carrier while the dorm began arguing lovingly over its future, the rabbit twitched its nose like it was already getting used to the noise.
Sion lasted exactly forty seconds before turning the living room into a briefing.
“Okay,” he said, folded instruction sheet in one hand and the authority of a man who had accepted that no one else here was going to approach this with enough structure.
“Nobody touches anything until I finish talking.”
“That’s never a good opening,” Ryo muttered.
“It is if you want to keep your rights.”
“I have rights?”
“Conditional ones.”
Min-hyung, who had moved so close to Sion’s leg that he was practically attached to it now, tipped his head back.
“Appa, what does conditional mean?”
Sion glanced down.
“It means that if you listen well, you keep them.”
Min-hyung absorbed that with immediate seriousness.
Ryo seemed faintly insulted on principle.
Sakuya had settled cross-legged a little further back, which for him counted as impressive restraint.
Daeyoung already looked like he was expecting preventable mistakes, while Riku drifted closer with the calm face of someone enjoying this far too much.
Yushi sat at the edge of the couch with Rumiko on his lap, one arm wrapped around her middle while she leaned against his chest and stared at the carrier.
Every so often he dipped his head to press a kiss into her hair without looking away for long either.
Sion surveyed the room and continued.
“It needs time to settle. That means no loud noises, no sudden movements, no grabbing, no lifting it just because you think it looks lonely, and absolutely no feeding it random things from this kitchen.”
At that, he turned his attention straight back to Ryo.
Ryo put a hand to his chest.
“Why am I the face of bad decisions today?”
“Because you volunteered spiritually.”
Sakuya laughed under his breath.
Min-hyung raised one hand before asking, “Can I say hello?”
“Yes,” Sion said. “Quietly. And not yet. I’m not finished.”
Min-hyung nodded, serious enough to make Yushi smile.
“And rabbits can get stressed easily,” Sion added, scanning the instruction sheet again.
“So we let it come to us. We do not all lean over it like it owes us an introduction.”
“That feels personal,” Daeyoung said.
“It should.”
“Hyung,” Yushi said softly from the couch, laughter tucked into his voice,
“you’re enjoying this too much.”
Sion glanced over.
Yushi was smiling at him in that helpless, fond way.
Rumiko, balanced in his lap, had one chubby hand resting against Yushi’s shirt while the other flexed slowly in the direction of the carrier every time the rabbit moved.
“No,” Sion said. “I’m preventing disaster.”
“You’re giving a workplace seminar to a bunny.”
“That’s because no one else here respects procedure.”
Daeyoung, from the doorway, said, “I respect procedure, hyung.”
Riku answered mildly, “No. You respect being right.”
Daeyoung huffed a laugh. “Aah, you know me too well.”
Ryo dropped down to the floor, careful this time, and folded himself beside Sakuya with far more obedience than anyone would have predicted five minutes earlier.
“Fine,” he said. “We are calm. We are respectful. We are normal.”
“No one here is normal,” Sakuya said.
“That’s harsh.”
“But true.”
The rabbit shifted again inside the carrier.
This time, instead of pressing back, it turned in a slow, cautious circle and paused facing the mesh.
Its nose twitched. One ear tilted. Then the other.
Min-hyung gasped.
Ryo made the same wounded little noise as before.
Rumiko let out a breathy sound against Yushi’s chest and lifted her hand again, fingers opening and closing around nothing.
“There, akachan,” Yushi murmured, kissing the top of her head.
“You see it?”
Sion crouched down at last and carefully unlatched the carrier door.
No one moved and the room settled.
Sion opened the little door just enough, then sat back on his heels.
“We wait,” he said.
“How long?” Min-hyung whispered.
“As long as it needs.”
“That could be forever.”
“It won’t be forever.”
“How do you know?”
Sion fixed him with a dry stare.
“Because I read the paper, and it’s interested in its new surroundings too.”
Min-hyung looked back at the carrier and nodded.
For a little while, nothing happened.
The rabbit stayed half in shadow, considering the opening and the too many people beyond it.
Sion kept still and beside him, Yushi made a tiny sound.
"Don't."
"I wasn't doing anything."
"You were thinking about it."
Ryo clasped both hands between his knees to stop himself from leaning in.
Then the rabbit edged forward.
One front paw appeared past the blanket, and then the second.
Min-hyung inhaled so sharply that Sion reached back blindly and pressed a hand to his chest without looking.
“Breathe,” he said.
“I am breathing, appa.”
“Less dramatically.”
That earned a muffled laugh from Riku.
After long beat, the bunny stepped fully to the threshold of the carrier opening.
Under the warm living room light, its fur looked even softer, pale cream through the body and deeper brown along the face and ears.
Its nose twitched, its whiskers moved, and one dark eye caught the light.
“Oh,” Yushi whispered.
He hadn't meant to say it out loud. No one teased him for it anyway.
Rumiko made that little reaching motion again.
Sion looked over his shoulder. “Not yet.”
“I know,” Yushi said. “She’s just watching.”
The rabbit leaned forward another inch, sniffing at the air just beyond the door. Then it stepped out onto the floor.
Ryo covered his mouth with one hand.
Sakuya stared at him in open disbelief.
“You’re taking this worse than I thought.”
“I’m taking it exactly as badly as I should. Look at it. It’s so freakin’ cute.”
“We still need to know the bunny first,” Sakuya said, glancing back toward it with a seriousness that almost made Daeyoung smile.
“And learn what kind of little being it is.”
Riku said mildly, “That is the most Scorpio thing you’ve said all week.”
Sakuya frowned without looking away. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you sound like you’re interviewing it for emotional compatibility.”
“Good,” Sakuya said. “Then it’s responsible.”
Ryo turned to him suspiciously.
“We have Sion hyung for that.”
“And yet I’m not the one visibly falling in love on the floor.”
That shut Ryo up for almost three full seconds.
The rabbit stayed near the carrier, its body low, testing the space one pause at a time.
Sion slowly moved the folded paper out of the way with one hand and kept the other palm flat against his own knee, open and visible but not intrusive.
Min-hyung leaned toward him. “Why are you doing that?”
“So it can decide I’m not a threat.”
Min-hyung considered this. Then, very carefully, he copied him.
He placed one little hand flat against the floor beside Sion’s, fingers spread with immense concentration.
Sion glanced at him with unmistakable pride, but said nothing.
Yushi’s whole expression softened. “That’s good, Min-hyung.”
At that, Min-hyung somehow became even more serious.
Rumiko, who had been twisting in Yushi’s lap trying to keep the rabbit in sight, made one determined little sound of protest until Yushi helped her upright against his knee.
She stood there for a few seconds, both hands planted on his leg, staring at the bunny with unwavering focus before her balance wobbled and Yushi gathered her back down immediately with a fond laugh.
“Okay, okay,” he murmured. “You’re helping too.”
Then he settled her back in his lap, one arm firm around her middle while he pressed one more kiss to her round cheek just under her eye.
“It’s so interesting, isn’t it, akachan,” he murmured.
The rabbit took one more step.
This time it brought it closer to Sion’s outstretched hand.
No one breathed normally.
Min-hyung’s mouth had fallen open.
Daeyoung pushed off from the doorway without seeming to realize he had done it.
The rabbit lowered its nose, sniffed once at the floor, then twice at the air near Sion’s knuckles.
Sion did not move at all. Neither did Min-hyung.
The rabbit shifted sideways in a small cautious curve, bringing itself closer to the line of Sion’s hand and Min-hyung’s smaller one beside it.
Min-hyung whispered, aghast, “It’s choosing us.”
Riku made a strangled sound that was unmistakably one of his rarer laughs.
Sion, still very composed on the outside, said,
“That’s not how this works.”
“It came here.”
“It came near here.”
“So it likes us.”
“It doesn’t know us yet,” Sion said.
"It likes me," Ryo whispered.
"No," Sakuya said immediately.
Sion laughed under his breath and added,
“But like I told you earlier, it’s curious about its new surroundings too.”
Min-hyung thought about that, then asked in a smaller voice,
“Can it know us soon?”
Min-hyung's eyes never left the rabbit.
All the bright, eager curiosity was still there, softened now into something hopeful.
“Yes,” Sion said, just as softly. “If we’re patient.”
Even Ryo held his tongue.
The rabbit did not perform any miracle of immediate trust.
It stayed there a few seconds longer before circling half a step back toward the carrier.
Still, the shift in the room had already happened.
They were making space for it.
Yushi's attention drifted from Rumiko to Min-hyung and then back to the rabbit.
“You’re all being so good,” he said murmured, though whether he meant the children, the bunny, or the room itself was difficult to tell.
Ryo immediately broke the reverent mood by whispering,
“I think it likes me too, by the way.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Sakuya said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough to know this.”
“You just said we have to learn its nature.”
“Yes,” Sakuya said. “And its nature is that you’re too loud.”
Riku laughed outright this time. Even Sion smiled, brief and unguarded.
On the couch, Rumiko made one last soft sound and finally tucked herself more fully into Yushi’s chest, her heavy-lidded gaze still fixed on the bunny like she was fighting sleep on principle now.
Yushi smoothed one hand down her back slowly.
The rabbit, after one more pause near the threshold of the carrier, settled just beside it instead of retreating all the way inside.
A tiny choice. A small one. But enough.
Sion saw Yushi notice it at the same moment he did.
Their eyes met across the room. Neither of them said anything.
They didn't need to.
The first attempt had worked exactly as well as it needed to.
For a while after that, nobody pushed their luck.
In a dorm like this, that counted as a small miracle.
Everyone had gotten the message in the last few minutes.
Voices stayed low. Movements got gentler.
Even Ryo, despite visible suffering, had managed not to launch himself toward anything.
Min-hyung stayed on the floor beside Sion, checking his hand placement every few seconds as if getting it right mattered more than anything.
Yushi watched from the couch with Rumiko tucked against him, open softness all over his face that Sakuya had started smiling about it without even pretending not to.
“Rumichan is really watching,” Sakuya observed.
Yushi looked down at his daughter, then back toward the bunny.
“Mm. It’s fascinating for her. Okay, to be fair, for all of us.”
Rumiko had one fist curled loosely in the fabric of his shirt.
Her other chubby hand rested against his wrist.
Every time the bunny moved, her eyes followed.
Riku, still near the wall, tilted his head a little.
“She’s calmer than the rest of you.”
“That’s because she knows what’s lovely,” Yushi said.
Ryo looked up from the floor as if Yushi had obviously meant him too.
“I have taste as well.”
“No,” Sakuya said, amused. “You get attached too fast.”
Ryo sounded offended.
“That sounds a little unfair.”
“It’s still true,” Sakuya said.
Before Ryo could answer, the bunny shifted again.
Not back toward the carrier this time, but sideways.
One careful step, then another, bringing it in a slow line across the rug.
Min-hyung went perfectly still.
Sion noticed first.
“Stay where you are,” he murmured, low enough that it barely disturbed the room.
“I know,” Min-hyung whispered back, trying very hard not to breathe too loudly.
The bunny paused, its nose twitching.
Then it moved closer, not to Sion now, but to Min-hyung.
It was a small change in direction, but Min-hyung noticed it immediately.
From where he sat, even Riku’s expression sharpened with interest.
Min-hyung’s eyes got so wide they almost stopped looking like Sion’s.
“Appa,” he whispered.
Sion didn't take his eyes off the bunny.
“I know.”
“Appa.”
“I know.”
“It’s coming here.”
“Yes, son.”
The last bit of distance disappeared in tiny, careful steps.
The bunny did not climb into his lap or nuzzle dramatically against him.
It stopped within easy sniffing range of Min-hyung’s hand, considered him for a second, then lowered its nose toward the tips of his fingers.
Min-hyung froze so hard he looked sculpted.
Rumiko made a tiny questioning sound and shifted in Yushi’s arms, trying to see better. Yushi adjusted her against his chest and bent to kiss her cheek, breathing in her milky scent at the same time.
“There,” he whispered to her. “You can see Min-hyungie better now, hm?”
The bunny sniffed once at the floor, then twice.
Min-hyung’s whole face changed.
His face did not brighten so much as settle, delight sinking too deep to become loud.
“Oh,” he breathed.
Sion turned his head then, just enough to take his son in properly.
All wonder, all care.
All the sharp little edges of his usual energy gone gentle in an instant.
Right now, he looked less like a child trying to impress the room and more like exactly what he was, a small boy being trusted by something smaller.
Something eased in Sion's expression and Yushi saw that too.
His gaze moved from Min-hyung to Sion and something inside him pulled warm and close.
Sion being careful. Him being patient.
Him trying to sound practical while handling every living thing like it mattered.
Yushi loved him with embarrassing consistency.
So he shifted Rumiko to one arm, leaned forward just a little, and reached across the back of the couch until his fingers brushed over the nape of Sion’s neck and scratched him a little.
Sion glanced back and Yushi smiled at him warmly.
Sion held his gaze for half a second longer than necessary.
When he turned back, there was the faintest trace of color higher on his cheekbones.
On the floor, Min-hyung whispered,
“Can it smell me?”
“Sure. Every breathing creature can,” Sion said.
“Do I smell okay?”
That nearly ended Ryo.
He made a strangled sound into both hands and bent forward like he had been physically struck.
Sakuya smacked his shoulder instantly.
“Be quiet.”
“I’m trying,” Ryo whispered back. “That was so cute, though.”
Sion, to his credit, answered Min-hyung like this was still a normal conversation. “You smell fine.”
“Like what?”
Sion blinked. “Like a child.”
Min-hyung frowned at first and considered that while sniffing at himself.
“Is that good?”
“It is for this situation.”
“That’s not what I mean, appa.”
Riku laughed into his hand.
The bunny, completely indifferent to any crisis of wording, sniffed at Min-hyung’s fingers one last time and then made the smallest, neatest hop forward.
Straight onto the edge of Sion’s pant leg.
The room broke emotionally, if not loudly.
Ryo made a crushed little sound that came out almost like a prayer.
Sakuya shut both eyes for a second and pressed his mouth into a line like he was trying to preserve dignity under extreme conditions.
Even Daeyoung, who had been the steadiest presence in the room until now, leaned forward slightly.
Min-hyung seemed seconds away from levitating.
“It likes us,” he said with complete conviction.
Sion exhaled through his nose. “It is standing near us.”
“It picked us.”
“It stepped.”
“It stepped onto you.”
“That is still stepping.”
“But onto you.”
Sion opened his mouth and closed it again.
Yushi's grin widened helplessly.
“He has a point, my love.”
That drew Sion's attention back to him.
The words settled between them, half-hidden under the warmth of the room.
Yushi rarely called him that first in front of everyone, and almost never this naturally.
On Yushi’s lap, Rumiko had started to droop with sleep, though she was still fighting it in brave little blinks every time the bunny moved.
Yushi smoothed one hand down her back slowly.
“You’re getting sleepy, akachan,” he murmured.
The bunny stepped back down, then paused again on the rug as if reconsidering the whole room. But it didn't retreat to the carrier.
It stayed out. Present and listening.
Sakuya leaned forward a fraction.
“It’s brave.”
Ryo turned to him, bright-eyed.
“See? You’re already attached too.”
Sakuya deadpanned.
“I’m only describing what it does.”
Riku shook his head to himself.
From where he sat, Yushi let his gaze travel around the room.
Min-hyung glowing on the floor, Sion pretending not to be affected, Ryo one emotional step from adopting the bunny spiritually, Sakuya trying and failing to stay detached.
Rumiko warm and heavy in his arms.
The bunny on the rug.
When Yushi finally lifted his eyes, Sion's attention was already on him.
Both of them smiled.
There was too much in it for a room this full.
Then Min-hyung, still staring at the bunny like it had personally rewritten his future, asked in a hushed voice,
“Can I tell Eomma?”
Sion blinked. “You want to call Joo-hyun right now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Min-hyung blinked at him as though the answer were obvious.
“Because she has to know.”
Daeyoung laughed, warm and short, and turned away toward the kitchen like it had cost him something.
Yushi buried his face briefly in Rumiko’s hair so nobody could fully see his grin.
The bunny twitched its nose again, calm now in the center of all of them.
And for the first time since they had brought it home, the house no longer felt like it was waiting.
Something had already begun.