#the Hodong version 😌

[onewfantaesy]

Foster Kid AU

Taemin’s whole brain short circuits. He can’t believe it, because sitting across the table from him is Kang Hodong and his wife. And every time he’s interacted with the man, he’s been goofy and funny and just a comedian. But now he’s serious, and even though he’s smiling it’s not the same, and Taemin just doesn’t understand what’s going on.

They talk for hours though. About all sorts of things. About how they want to be parents, how they’ve been trying to adopt for over a year now, how they heard Taemin’s story about wanting to be adopted and tried so hard to get in touch with Taemin’s case worker.

And Taemin talks too. About how he gets good grades in school. How he’s never gotten in trouble. How he’s a good kid who does exactly as he’s told. How he stays at the SHINee dorm all the time so he won’t even get in their way.

Taemin regrets talking though, because it seems to upset them, to throw them off, and he’s terrified of scaring them away.

“Please, I’m really really good, I promise!” he says quickly. “You can even look at my file, I’ve never been in trouble ever! See look!”

And he leans over the table and pushes the file his case worker brought towards them, even opens it for them, his picture on display right at the front. He thinks it’s a decent picture. It’s no SHINee photoshoot, but his hair is combed neatly.

“Can you tell us,” Hodong asks softly, “why you want to be adopted?”

He feels like his brain is buffering. He doesn’t really understand, doesn’t know how to answer, doesn’t know what the right answer is.

“I just,” he stammers, his heart pounding, “I just want someone to want me.”

Turns out that was right enough of an answer, because a date is scheduled for Taemin to have a sleepover at their house. A whole weekend. Just two days from then. Taemin is nervous and a little shaky as his case worker guides him out to take him back to the dorm, after saying goodbye, after getting hugs from both of them. As soon as he gets back to the dorm, he’s packing a bag and spilling word after word to the other members about everything that happened. They all seem just as confused and excited as Taemin.

Except that Friday, SHINee are guests for a Star King recording. Taemin’s never felt so nervous in his entire life, because he can’t fuck this up, there’s no room for error, he needs to do everything right and be the perfect guest or else Hodong won’t want him anymore, won’t even let him sleepover that, it will ruin everything.

But Hodong is as silly and goofy as ever, even carries Taemin around stage like he always does when SHINee comes to Star King, treats Taemin just exactly the same as always even though Taemin stutters more than he usually does and blinks more than he usually does.

Then after recording runs late and all the members are exhausted after a long day of school and practice and schedules, Taemin is slumped over on the dressing room couch, waiting for the other members to finish changing so they can go home. He’s tired and blinking slowly falling over Jinki’s lap when Hodong comes inside, speaks quietly to the senior manager, and then comes over to the couch to kneel in front of Taemin.

“Are you ready to come to our house?” he asks, smiling again in the same soft way he had in his case worker’s office.

Taemin didn’t realize he’d be leaving the shooting with Hodong, didn’t realize his manager had even brought the bag he’d packed two days. Taemin just nods, trying to stay quiet and calm and put together. And Hodong just slings Taemin’s bag over his shoulder and guides Taemin out of the room, out of the building, into the parking garage with a comforting arm held around Taemin’s shoulders.

“You must be tired,” Hodong says as he drives. “Your manager said you’ve had a long day.”

“Yeah,” Taemin says. “Kind of.”

“How was school today?”

“It was okay,” Taemin says, clasping and unclasping his hands in his lap. “Had a chemistry test.”

“How do you think you did?”

“I think I did okay,” Taemin says. “It was a little harder than the last test.”

It’s a little awkward and forced, but Taemin appreciates the school questions. They’re easy to answer. He talks about what he learned in math that day, what book he’s reading for his literature class, what war they’re learning about in history.

Then when they get home, dinner is prepared and waiting on the table, the three of them sit down together, and Taemin repeats the same answers for the same questions when Hodong’s wife asks them, even though Hodong has tried telling her that he’d already asked him all these questions.

“Do you like this type of dinner?” she asks instead.

“Yes, it’s delicious!” he answers immediately.

Taemin spends the entire weekend trying his absolute best to please them. To be nice and polite and follow every single tiny detail of the house rules they outlined. He helps wash dishes and takes out the trash and makes the bed they’re letting him sleep in every morning. He keeps everything in order in the room he’s staying in, no clothes on the floor, no mess in the bathroom, no clutter, nothing. On all accounts, he’s done everything right, done everything perfectly.

Taemin thinks it’s a good weekend. Even though he had to go to SHINee practice on Saturday morning and Hodong drove him and picked him up even though Taemin insisted he could get there on his own.

“It’s no trouble to take you to practice,” he insists.

He meets with his case worker that Tuesday after school.

“It was good, right?” he asks quickly, as soon as he enters her office, before he even sits down. “They liked me, right?”

“Did you like them?” she asks instead. She seems concerned, and Taemin has seen her get concerned like that before, and now he’s convinced he fucked it up, he fucked it all up.

He doesn’t sit down, his hand lingering on the back of the chair instead.

“They don’t want me anymore,” he says, his voice shaking. It’s not a question. He’s been through this enough times. But now he doesn’t know how he’ll ever go on Star King again if Hodong hates him.

“They adored you,” she says, and it throws Taemin off enough to make him fall in the chair. “But they were worried you didn’t like them.”

“But I did like them,” he says quietly.

“I explained that you’re just shy,” she tells him. “That it sometimes takes you a little while to open up more.”

“Do they still want me?”

“Very much so.”

It’s several more weekend sleepovers, then a couple week-long sleepovers, and then Taemin is officially moving into their house, into his new bedroom, with his new foster parents. But he doesn’t want another foster home, he doesn’t want more foster parents, he wants to be adopted.

“It’s just the next step to being adopted,” his case worker tells him for the millionth time. “It’s just a couple more months now.”

He’s on edge all the time now, even when he’s staying at the dorm instead. Because everything has to go right. Everything has to be perfect. He has to be perfect. Or else everything will be ruined and he’ll go right back to being alone and he can’t go through that again.

But Hodong and his wife always just tell him how amazing he is. How he’s just a delight of a boy. How happy he’s made their house, how it feels so much warmer, so much more like a home now that a child is living in it with them.

It’s too good to be true. He knows it’s too good to be true. It’s all got to be a prank, there’s a secret camera somewhere, they’re going to punk him. That’s the only explanation. It’s going to be the night before the set adoption at the courthouse and they’re going to tell him how it was all for tv, how stupid he is for thinking anyone could ever want to adopt him.

So just a couple weeks before it’s all supposed to be official, Taemin snaps. He acts out and he yells at them and breaks their rules and does presses every possible button. He stops making his bed. Stops keeping his room clean. Stops doing his homework. Starts staying late at the company building and not letting them know like they asked, starts staying at the dorm even on nights they specifically ask him not to, starts talking back anytime they try to discipline him.

And when Hodong finally snaps back and forces Taemin to sit on the couch and asks in what might be a louder voice than necessary what Taemin’s attitude is all about, his hands gripping Taemin’s arms, keeping him held down in front of him, Taemin just breaks down.

He’s crying, trying so hard to hold it back, but that only makes him shake more, heaving and gulping in air, his eyes squeezed shut but tears still pushing past and falling down his cheeks, pooling in the corners of his nose and lips until they’re spilling down his neck and wetting the collar of his shirt.

“What’s wrong?” Hodong asks, almost sounding like he’s begging, his voice soft and desperate and his hands moving from the way they were gripping Taemin’s arms to instead rub them up and down, trying to comfort him in anyway he can. “Please just tell us what’s going on with you. We can’t help if we don’t know what’s wrong.”

It takes a few minutes before Taemin stammers our a desperate, “Please.”

“Please what?” Hodong asks, moving instead to cup Taemin’s cheeks, to use a blanket from the couch to wipe the tears still falling from Taemin’s eyes.

Taemin sucks in a few breaths before whispering, “Please don’t let it be a prank.”

“What’s a prank?” he asks. “I don’t know what would be a prank, Taemin, honest.”

“Everything,” Taemin cries, fresh tears welling in his eyes. That’s when Hodong pulls him close, hugs him tight, and Taemin hides his face in his shoulder as he begs, “Please, please I just - please want me, please.”

His wife comes and sits down with them too, rubbing circles into Taemin’s back, agreeing with Hodong as they both insist, “We want you so much, we want to adopt you so much, we want you to be our son so much. Nothing’s going to change that. You not always being perfect isn’t going to change that.”

It takes a lot of reassurance. A lot of fierce insistence that they’ll love him no matter what. A lot of hugs and a lot of tears and a lot of comfort. But then just a couple weeks later, they’re at the courthouse and the judge has approved the adoption and everything is official, Taemin’s family name is officially changed, because he officially has a family.

He officially had parents. And he doesn’t really know how to react to it. He just knows he’s happy and ecstatic and overwhelmed.

And the only time airing it on tv is brought it up is when Hodong tells him it’s because he wants the whole world to know that Taemin is his son now, that he wants everyone to know that he’s the lucky one because he’s the one who gets the privilege of being Taemin’s father. That so many people have missed out on having such a wonderful son.

And the next time Taemin is on Star King, Hodong is the same as he always is when SHINee are guests. He carries Taemin around and teases him silly and makes a big show of how much he adores all the SHINee members. Except this time, Taemin is calling him Dad and Hodong’s face lights up more than ever and it’s so clear they both adore each other, it’s clear Taemin is thriving under the attention, and that Hodong is thriving giving the attention.

It’s not always easy, and it’s not always cute, but they’re a family now. And they love it, even when it’s difficult.