Work Text:
The Lee-Na household was not a place of peace.
It was a battleground, a circus, and a social experiment all rolled into one. This was primarily due to the existence of two specific individuals: Ryo and Sakuya.
It was a Tuesday evening. Jaemin had just returned from a long, grueling shift, his social battery utterly depleted. All he wanted was a hot shower, a perfectly brewed cup of Americano (eight shots, no water, just as God intended), and perhaps to cuddle with his infuriatingly handsome husband.
Instead, he opened the front door to a localized apocalyptic event.
There was flour on the ceiling.
The ceiling.
Sakuya was standing on the kitchen island, wielding a spatula like a samurai sword and wearing a colander as a helmet. Ryo was army-crawling across the living room floor, clutching a wildly vibrating blender that wasn't even plugged in.
"The perimeter is breached!" Sakuya yelled, pointing the spatula at Ryo. "Deploy the sprinkles!"
"I can't!" Ryo shrieked back, scrambling behind the sofa. "The dog ate them! We have to use the gochugaru!"
Jaemin closed his eyes.
He took a deep, centering breath.
He counted to three.
He opened his eyes, hoping it was a hallucination induced by caffeine withdrawal. It was not. The flour was still settling, creating a fine white mist over the formerly pristine mahogany dining table.
And there, sitting in the very center of the living room recliner, completely unbothered, was Lee Jeno.
Jeno was wearing his reading glasses, calmly scrolling through his phone, and holding a cup of tea. He hadn't even flinched when Ryo crashed into the coffee table. He was the eye of the hurricane—a serene, muscular statue of absolute uselessness in the face of domestic terrorism.
"Lee Jeno," Jaemin said. His voice was dangerously low, the kind of quiet that precedes a devastating earthquake.
Jeno looked up, his eyes immediately curling into those crescent moons that usually made Jaemin’s heart do stupid things. Right now, though, it just made him want to commit a felony.
"Hey, babe. How was work?"
"How was work?" Jaemin echoed, his voice pitching up an octave. He gestured wildly to the kitchen, where Sakuya had just slipped on a rogue puddle of dish soap and taken down a stool with him. "Why is there a winter wonderland in my kitchen? Why is our youngest child trying to weaponize Korean chili flakes?"
Jeno took a casual sip of his tea. "They wanted to bake a cake for our anniversary."
"Our anniversary isn't for another three months!"
"Sakuya said time is an illusion," Jeno reasoned, giving a small, helpless shrug. "I didn't want to stifle his philosophical growth."
Jaemin stared at him.
He stared at the flour.
He stared at Ryo, who was now trying to plug the blender into a smart speaker.
The exhaustion of the day, combined with the sheer audacity of his husband's calm demeanor, broke something deep inside Jaemin. The dramatics took the wheel. He threw his bag onto the floor with a theatrical thud and crossed his arms, glaring holes into Jeno’s perfectly sculpted face.
"Okay. That's it. I can't do this anymore," Jaemin announced, his tone dripping with soap-opera gravity. "We're done. We are separating."
The room froze.
Sakuya paused mid-scramble, the colander slipping slightly over his left eye. Ryo dropped the blender cord, gasping dramatically.
Jeno, however, didn't even blink. He slowly lowered his phone, setting it neatly on the side table. He looked at Jaemin, leaning forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees.
"Fine," Jeno said, his voice smooth, deep, and entirely too calm. "You take the kids, I’ll take the husband."
Silence descended upon the living room. The sheer mechanical failure of logic in that sentence hung in the flour-filled air.
Jaemin blinked. Once. Twice. His brain struggled to process the mathematics of the custody arrangement.
"Wait," Jaemin frowned, dropping his arms. "What?"
"You heard me," Jeno said, a small, knowing smirk playing on his lips. He stood up, walking slowly across the disaster zone toward his husband. "You get Ryo and Sakuya. I get the husband."
"Jeno, you idiot," Jaemin sputtered, feeling a traitorous flush creeping up his neck. "I am the husband. If we divorce, you don't get to keep me!"
"Who said anything about divorce?" Jeno murmured.
He stopped just inches away from Jaemin, reaching out to gently brush a stray dusting of flour off Jaemin's cheek. His gaze softened, the teasing glint melting into something incredibly warm and irritatingly fond.
"You said we're separating. So, we're separating from the kids. I'm keeping you. Ryo and Sakuya can have the house. I think Sakuya is technically the landlord now anyway since he claimed the kitchen island."
Over by the sofa, Ryo let out a squawk of pure outrage. "Wait, you're abandoning us?! Because of the flour?!"
"We don't even know how to pay taxes!" Sakuya yelled, suddenly looking panicked, gripping his spatula for dear life. "I don't want the house! It's dirty!"
"You made it dirty!" Ryo yelled back.
Jaemin tried to maintain his glare, he really did. But Jeno’s hands had moved to his waist, pulling him in closer. Jeno smelled like Earl Grey and that expensive cedarwood cologne Jaemin had bought him for Christmas, cutting right through the smell of raw flour and impending doom.
"You're ridiculous," Jaemin whispered, though the fight had completely left his body. He rested his forehead against Jeno's chest, letting out a long, exhausted sigh. "You're supposed to parent them, Jeno. Not let them build a flour-based militia."
"I know," Jeno chuckled, his chest vibrating against Jaemin. He pressed a soft kiss to the top of Jaemin’s hair. "But you look really cute when you're bossy and stressed. Besides, I knew you'd come home and fix it."
"I'm not fixing this," Jaemin grumbled, though his arms were now wrapped tightly around Jeno's torso. "I'm calling a cleaning service. And deducting it from their allowance."
"That's illegal!" Sakuya gasped from the kitchen.
"Child labor laws!" Ryo agreed, having absolutely no idea what that meant.
Jeno laughed, a rich, full sound that made Jaemin's heart do that stupid, familiar flip.
"Tell you what," Jeno murmured, leaning down to press a lingering kiss against Jaemin's temple. "You go take your boiling hot shower. I will wrangle the gremlins, clean the kitchen, and order takeout. Whatever you want."
Jaemin peered up at him through his eyelashes, fighting a smile. "Even the insanely spicy tteokbokki that makes you cry?"
Jeno swallowed hard, but nodded bravely. "Even the tteokbokki."
Jaemin finally smiled, reaching up to squish Jeno's cheeks. "Fine. The divorce is canceled. But you're on thin ice, Lee Jeno."
"I'll take it," Jeno grinned.
He kissed Jaemin softly on the lips before turning to face the children, his demeanor instantly shifting from doting husband to drill sergeant.
"Alright, you two! Spatula down! Grab the mops. If this kitchen isn't spotless in twenty minutes, I'm selling your gaming consoles."
As Jaemin walked toward the bathroom, listening to the frantic scrambling and terrified shrieks of his children, he couldn't help but laugh. It was chaotic, loud, and constantly messy—but he wouldn't trade his custody of the husband for anything in the world.