"DADDY!"

Namjoon sighed, opening his eyes. He'd been napping - correction, trying to nap - when Jin's yelled had woken him. Before Jin, it had been Yoongi, demanding that Namjoon inspect his newest crayon masterpiece, which was a compilation of angry black slashes and some strange black swirls that sort of looked like tornadoes but were apparently, according to Yoongi, trees. Before Yoongi had interrupted his nap, it had been Hobi, who had wanted to show his dad the new dance he was learning, only he'd ended up dancing straight into to coffee table and overturning Namjoon's half-full - correction, half-empty - mug of joe. Before Hobi had interrupted him, he'd been interrupted by the triplets, who had been crying and throwing tantrums about something he didn't even understand.

Now, however, he opened his eyes to see a tearful Jin.

"What's the matter, sweetie?" Namjoon asked, hiding a yawn behind his hand. He needed to get more sleep. He was working nights because he couldn't rightly bring his kids to work with him or leave them alone during the day. The only problem with the arrangement was that his only time to sleep was when his kids were bouncing off the walls.

"Lala died," Jin said, crying and rubbing his eyes so they turned red.

"Oh." Namjoon got quiet. He didn't know how to address death, especially not to a five-year-old. Or was Jin six now? He felt horrible for a moment, but he'd lost track with all six of them getting a little bigger every day. He tried to do the math in his head, but then Jin started tugging at his sleeve.

"How do I make Lala come back?" he asked between sobs and hiccups.

"Oh, Jin...sweetie...you can't...they don't..." Namjoon swallowed. "When someones...leaves...they don't come back. You can't make them. They're just gone, okay?"

"Like Mommy?"

Namjoon froze. He knew he was being a horrible father (yet again - he always felt himself screwing something up), but he still hadn't explained to the children that they didn't have a Mommy anymore, that Mommy had found a new Daddy to have a new family with and that she didn't need the old Daddy or the old children anymore. He didn't know how to explain that in the cliché boss sleeps with the secretary story, his wife had been the secretary. He didn't know how to explain that the nights she'd been working late hadn't been spent finishing up an article. He didn't know how to explain why he was so tired all the time because there wasn't another adult to bring in an income to support the expenses of dinosaur chicken nuggets and 24-pack crayons.

He didn't know how to explain that she was gone, and she wasn't coming back. Not for him, not for them.

"Mommy..." Namjoon cut off and exhaled before pulling Jin into his lap and trying again. "Mommy is just very busy, okay? So we won't see her. She's like the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. If you wait up for them and try to catch them, they won't come, okay? So...we just need to keep going, okay? We'll be fine...okay?" Each okay broke his heart a little more, but Jin didn't seem to catch on, and that was okay with Namjoon, if Jin didn't know, if his happiness wasn't ruined, if his childhood could extend just a little bit longer. Namjoon bit his lip. "But Mommy's not like Lala, okay? She's still alive. She's just busy. Really busy."

Jin looked down, processing Namjoon's words. Then he looked back up. "I can't bring Lala back?"

Namjoon shook his head.

"But I can bring Mommy back?"

Namjoon took in a deep breath. "That's not how it works."

Jin looked back down again, confused.

Namjoon rubbed Jin's back in small circles. "Jin? Do you want to talk to me about her?"

"About who?" Jin asked, looking back up.

This kid has the memory of a fly. "Lala. Do you want to tell me about her? Was she in your class?"

Jin gave him a weird look. "No? Why would Lala be in my class?"

Calm down, Namjoon. You have the patience to overcome this. "Can you tell me who Lala is then?" Namjoon asked slowly, enunciating each word.

Jin rolled his eyes, pushing out his lips in a pouty way. "Lala is my flower. My teacher gave it to me. She said, A flower for a flower. Because I'm pretty and a flower is pretty, only I'm prettier. But..." Jin's eyes watered again. "But I gave Lala too much water and now Lala is turning brown and I don't think Lala is happy."

Namjoon massaged his forehead. All of this, for a flower.

He was tired.

He had a killer headache.

He was scheduled to work at 11 and it was already 4 and even if the kids ate what he fed them for dinner without complaining or throwing their food on the floor, and even if they brushed their teeth without throwing a hissy fit, and even if they all went to bed without crying five minutes after he rocked them, he would maybe be able to fit in 2 hours of sleep, max.

The last thing he needed in his life was a dying flower.

Namjoon took a long moment to breathe in and out before forcing a smile on his face and rubbing Jin's head, spreading his fingers through Jin's soft hair and marveling briefly at the fact that the span of his hand was almost as big as Jin's whole head. "Where is Lala now?"

"In the window in the kitchen next to the crayons."

"Let's put her in a sunnier window, okay? And let's let her drink the water she has and not give her any more. I don't think she's going to be thirsty for a few days."

"But what if Lala gets hungry?" Jin asked nervously, twisting his fingers and looking up from under his dark eyelashes with wide, worried eyes tilting his chin up slightly.

Namjoon patted his head. "I'll feed her when I get home from work. Don't worry about it, okay?"

Jin nodded before frowning.

"What's wrong now?" Namjoon asked, trying not to let his sigh come out, but he wasn't sure how much more of this flower business he could take.

"Well, you really shouldn't talk about Lala like that," Jin mumbled.

"Why not?"

"Because Lala is a boy flower."

"..."