"No, just because your mom isn't coming back doesn't mean that you don't have to wear matching socks," Namjoon called out, exasperated as he tried to catch Tae, who slipped around him and kept running, one of his feed clad in blue and the other in neon yellow.

Tae just laughed, ignoring his frustrated father. "I don't have to match, and you can't make me unless you catch me, but you can't catch me because I'm the fastest-" Tae smacked into something - or someone - and fell back, landing on his butt. "Ow-"

Yoongi calmly grabbed Tae's wrist. "Caught you. Now go change or I will snap every single crayon in half."

"You wouldn't," Tae said, but his voice was weak with doubt.

Yoongi just calmly tilted his head. "Not the black one."

Tae's eyes widened and he jumped up, running back to his room to find a match for either one of his socks.

Namjoon sighed. "Thank you, Yoong-"

"I want an extra cookie in my lunch."

Namjoon just stared at his first-grader. "Excuse me?"

"That's my price, one cookie for an obedient Taehyung. It's a fair price, Daddy. So the cookie?"

"What do you say, Yoongi?"

"Now?"

"..."

"Please? Now please?"

Namjoon sighed before going into the kitchen and pulling a cookie out of the box, holding it up to Yoongi for proof before dropping it in his lunch bag. "Have all your demands been met?" he asked dryly, and Yoongi put on a thinking face.

"Well, there was-"

"Good. Go brush your teeth and get ready for school." Namjoon looked towards the bedrooms. "WE'RE LEAVING IN TEN MINUTES WITH OR WITHOUT YOU."

Yoongi still looked unperturbed. "Well if those are my options-"

Namjoon gave him a look, and Yoongi scurried off, knowing better than to cross too many lines.

They'd all woken up in a big pile that morning, Namjoon more or less on the bottom with everyone else sleeping on some limb or otherwise appendage of his, which meant that near every muscle in his entire body was sore and numb. Yoongi had been responsible for his right leg.

Then when Namjoon had tried to get out of bed, he'd stumbled, falling but just barely catching himself, and they'd all laughed. Following that, they'd seemed to believe that they were able to get away with anything.

Hence the morning of wardrobe rebellion and bribery.

"Daddy! I'm ready!" Jin yelled, coming out of his room in a pink sweater and jeans.

Namjoon smiled gently at him. He was still struggling on how to help Jin now that Jin had told him about struggling in school. Jin had mentioned his pink backpack as the reason why the kids didn't like him, and for some reason, Namjoon felt proud of Jin for wearing a pink sweater and refusing to back down from what made Jin Jin.

Namjoon tousled Jin's hair, and Jin just ducked slightly, looking up at him from under his long, dark eyelashes with a dubious expression.

"Yes, Daddy? What is it?" he asked, and Namjoon smiled, recognizing the second phrase as one of his own when his kids were bugging him about something.

"Nothing, sweetie. You just looked cute."

Jin's lip jutted out to one side. "Daddy, I always look cute, so that's a silly thing to say. If you're going to pat my head when I'm cute, then you'd have to do it every second, okay?"

Namjoon just laughed, rolling his eyes. "I see how it is."

"Mommy says I got my looks from..." Jin trailed off awkwardly, looking up to see how Namjoon would react to a mention of Jin's mother.

Namjoon just smiled, but his eyes were sad. "It's okay, Jin. You don't have to forget about her or ignore her or dislike her. You can still talk about her. It's all right."

"Well..." Jin looked down, playing with his fingers behind his back. "Mommy always said I got my looks from her."

Namjoon smiled, crouching down next to him. "That's true, your mother is a very beautiful woman. But you got something else from me that you'll thank me for when you're older, okay?"

"What's that, Daddy?"

Namjoon smiled. "Dimples, of course. Dimples."

Jin looked skeptical but Namjoon stood up quickly, grabbing his keys. "ALL ASTRONAUTS TO THE SPACE SHUTTLE!" he yelled, and the door to the triplets' room slammed open as three preschoolers ran out, Tae trying to sneak past in the socks that he hadn't changed, but Namjoon saw him and scooped him up.

"Oh no, it looks like one of the astronauts didn't put on the right space boots," Namjoon said, carrying a squirming Tae back to his room and digging through Tae's dresser to find a matching pair of socks while holding Tae over his shoulder in one hand.

"Shit," Namjoon muttered. "Where are all the others?"

"I don't know!" Tae yelled, still struggling in his grip. "Let me go!"

Namjoon sighed before quickly stealing a pair from Jungkook's drawer.

"No! I don't want bunny socks!"

"Well, too bad, that's what you're getting," Namjoon said, quickly sitting Tae down and slipping off the mismatched socks before slipping on blue ones with bunny print. "There, all better."

As soon as Namjoon put Tae's shoes on, Tae attempted to take the shoes off, to which Namjoon threatened to glue to velcro shut so Tae could never take the bunny socks off.

Then Tae stopped struggling.

"Now go get in the space shuttle and buckle up," Namjoon said, but Tae glared at him, not in the mood to play games anymore.

"It's not a space shuttle, Daddy. It's a normal car."

"Funny," Namjoon said, rubbing his chin in great thought. "That's what I thought until the aliens got out and handed you over to us to raise."

Tae's eyes widened before he started walking then running to the car.

Just one more, he thought to himself, having already seen Jin and Yoongi heading outside.

"Hobi?" Namjoon called, gently pushing open the door to the older siblings' bedroom.

The room was empty.

Namjoon's heart stopped before he heard a sound from the kitchen.

He quickly jogged over to find Hobi with the box of cookies, adding a handful to his lunch bag. "Hobi, just what do you think you're doing?" Namjoon asked, frowning. Never had any of his kids ever stolen anything, to the best of his knowledge. And now this. "You know you can't do that."

Hobi gave new meaning to the phrase like a deer caught in headlights. His eyes were impossibly wide, his entire expression frozen from shock and guilt, the cookie still in his hand, his teeth biting down on his lips. "I'm s-sorry, Daddy," he whispered.

Namjoon couldn't just let this go. "Have you done this before, Hobi? Stolen extra snacks for yourself?"

Hobi swallowed. "No, Daddy, I promise! I just..."

"You just what?"

Hobi hung his head. "I just get hungry, Daddy."

"Well, Hobi, that's why I get up early to pack your lunch every morning," Namjoon said, sighing as he took away the stolen cookies and put them back in the box, putting the box back in the highest cabinet. "How did you even get up there?"

"I c-climbed onto the counter..."

"Hobi! You could have fallen! Do you know how dangerous that is?" Namjoon said, only it came out sharper than he expected, and Hobi's eyes watered. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell...I was just worried about you. Okay? Don't scare Daddy like that..."

Hobi nodded. "I w-won't, Daddy."

"And don't steal extra snacks, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy. I won't."

"Good boy." Namjoon hesitated before ruffling Hobi's hair.

One of my kids is a liar, and the other is a thief. What about the rest?

Maybe I shouldn't have been joking around when I told Mark that a few of my kids might end up at the police station...

"Now, let's get in the space shuttle, okay?" Namjoon asked, trying to lighten the air, but his words seemed to make Hobi sink even a little further.

"It's just a car, Daddy."

Namjoon paused before nodding. "Yes, Hobi. It's just a car."

Hobi nodded to himself before carefully taking his lunch bag and walking slowly out of the house, no doubt ashamed at having been caught.

Namjoon just didn't understand. Hobi was a ray of sunshine. Why was he being tempted to steal? Who had taught him to steal? Normally, if the boys wanted something, they just asked for it.

So why had Hobi stolen?

It's probably just a normal boyhood thing. Having Jin and Yoongi as older brothers didn't really prepare me much at all for what a normal boy would do. So maybe it's just some sort of phase.

Namjoon hoped so.

But still.

He was worried.