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Summer these days meant the sun exhaling hot on the back of everyone’s necks and the wind gone on a vacation to the other side of the world with not even so much as a promise to come back one day. Most people were content to stay inside with the simple service of air conditioning and a television with access to at least one of any of the hundred streaming platforms. But Netflix wasn’t truly king when balloons were still cheap at the discount store and warm water out the garden tap felt like ice against burning skin and not a single cloud in the sky meant pastel art could be lined into the sidewalk with no risk of rainy vandalism.
And that meant Dongyoung got a shower of water as he sat on the steps leading up to his house, bright green plastic popping when it struck the grass. Which wasn’t entirely unwelcome. The sun wasn’t directly overhead anymore, but that didn’t make it any less hellish to be outside. He’d definitely take a few splashes of water here and there.
Still, he narrowed his eyes at the boy on the sidewalk who beamed at him, bright smile and orange braces basically putting the sun right in the front yard.
Riku’s hair was plastered to his flushed face, the droplets hanging off the ends a mixture of sweat and water. The water balloon in his hands was spitting out water through where he had the end pinched instead of tied off, hoping to get maximum damage with his next throw.
“Get out of the way, then!” The boy said with a laugh.
Dongyoung snorted. “You’re in front of my house, kid.” He turned up the intensity of his neck fan. Not that it really meant anything but a heavier push of warm air. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“Nobody told you to sit th—“ A sharp squeal cut off his quip as a quick flash of purple came his way. He dodged at the last second, balloon bursting on the sidewalk behind him. Looking back at the remains of the balloon, Riku then snapped his gaze over to Sion who grinned.
“Don’t start a new fight when you’re already in the middle of one.”
Careful not to waste the balloon in his hands, Riku took off after Sion up the street.
Dongyoung watched them run for a second and felt like he was going to pass out just from looking. Youth truly didn’t last long enough.
Behind him, the door swung open and slammed shut. Flip-flops slapped against stone. Something rattled against itself and the confines of a box.
“Grandpa!”
Humming softly, Dongyoung turned to look at Yuna as she ran up to him, all huge smile, rosy cheeks, bun needing to be redone, and 32-count box of sidewalk chalk too big for her small hands.
“I found it!”
Dongyoung gave her a fond smile. “And where was it?”
Her cheeks flushed as she pouted. “…Under the bed…”
He hummed like he already knew that. Because he did. She had accused him of forgetting where he put the chalk because it wasn’t in her toy box, but Dongyoung knew exactly where it was and how it got there because he had to remind her not to cut corners on cleaning up after herself when she stayed over more than once.
“It’s all wet.” Her embarrassment changed to disappointment as she looked over his shoulder at the sidewalk.
Dongyoung sounded like a firecracker as he pushed up to stand and he was glad no one to comment on it was around. At the very least, nothing cracked when he scooped Yuna into his arms. “We’ll just go down a bit and draw a big forcefield so those two stay away,” he said, taking the chalk so she could wrap her tiny arms around his neck.
“A big big one.”
Dongyoung nodded as he took her down the steps. “With lasers and a scary bodyguard.”
He was good friends with his neighbors and, either way, there was no harm in decorating the walkway outside their house while they were away on a winter beach in Brazil. Dongyoung set up the ‘forcefield’, shading a thick line of red and drawing a stick man with a very angry face, while Yuna started her first masterpiece. And when he was done with their security system, she ordered him to draw ‘Paupipo’ like Dongyoung was just supposed to know who the hell that was but he had a cellphone and the internet and an unshakeable will to make his granddaughter happy.
“Grandpa, that looks like a dog.”
Even if his drawing skills were apparently not up to par to help him do so.
He frowned at her as she drew Hello Kitty — which should have gone to him if he was being honest, literally who was Paupipo — and spread his hands over his drawing. “I’m doing my best, okay,” he said, defensively. “And no, it doesn’t. I’ve never seen a more giraffe-like giraffe.”
Donghyuck often commented that Dongyoung whined worse than the kids when he was around them, but that was because Donghyuck was raising them to be as mouthy as he was growing up.
Yuna giggled. “That’s not Paupipo!”
“Grandpa!”
Dongyoung glanced up at Riku, looking like he went through a car wash, as he came jogging up. From his side, Yuna shouted, “Don’t get it wet! There’s a laser!”
Riku glanced down at the bold red line. A smirk cut into his cheeks and he gave his little sister a salute. “You got it, boss.” He looked at Dongyoung again. “Me and Sion are gonna go grab Yushi. That okay?”
Before Donghyuck and his wife moved house to the next town over after Yuna was born, they lived in an apartment complex around the corner that Sion and Yushi still lived in. The way those three boys hung around each other, Dongyoung had to remember he only had two grandchildren. Hell, he was surprised Yushi wasn’t at Sion’s side when he rang Dongyoung’s doorbell at eleven that morning asking if Riku was ready and ‘also is it cool if I stay for lunch…and maybe dinner.’
“Drink something before you go. It’s too hot and you’ve been running around.”
Tossing his thanks and a ‘nice dog, Grandpa’ over his shoulder, Riku ran over to Sion to tell him and then they ran up the stairs to the house to track water all over his floor to the kitchen.
He nodded them off when they came back out, sitting back on his palms, concrete hot under them. He watched Yuna sing as she finished her Kitty and started drawing a house for her. Sweat trickled down his nose like he got hit with one of the boys’ water balloons, but he’d let her draw a bit before he made them take a break.
“What should I draw next, Picasso?”
Yuna looked up with a furrowed brow. “His name is Paupipo.”
Dongyoung chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sorry,” he said instead of explaining.
Yuna let it go, putting her hand on her chin as she thought. When she took it off to shrug, light blue dotted her skin.
“Anything!”
Dongyoung raised a brow. “Are you saying that because you don’t like my Poopipo?”
“Pau.”
He raised his hands in surrender.
A sweet bark stole their attention and they both looked over as a standard poodle trotted up to them, cute, white doggy sun hat contrasting her black fur. Yuna lit up, chalk left behind as she scrambled up. “Mocha!”
Fingers tangled in a lilac leash, the man lingering behind the poodle made an offended noise in his throat. “Am I a ghost?”
There was no person outside who was dry, but he wore his sweat like he’d been sprayed for a photoshoot, shooting star trails of silver amongst dark hair pushed back off his face and cocoa eyes looking down at them over brown frames and amber lenses. When Dongyoung was younger, he thought attractiveness after fifty was something for monied people. He thought couples who lasted decades always saw their younger selves, their primes, when they looked at each other.
“No, grandpa.”
And he did see John, twenty-one and built like he slept on a weight bench with a boyish smile and gold all along his ears. But John, two years away from sixty-five with the right amount of strength to do the important things (like carry Yuna on his shoulders and keep up with boys when they baited him into roughhousing) and that same boyish smile framed by salt-and-pepper around his full lips, was the most handsome man Dongyoung had ever seen.
At Yuna’s giggle, their granddaughter pressing her cheek into his lower thigh as she hugged his leg, John’s eyes crinkled, smile deepening in their aged corners. “I mean, it just seemed like you didn’t see me. I guess because Mocha is so big and you’re so teeny tiny.”
“Nuh-uh,” Yuna countered expertly. “Daddy said I’m getting so big.”
“He would. He was shorter than you when he was your age,” John mumbled, not really talking to her as he tucked a damp strand of her hair behind her ear. Mocha walked up to Dongyoung and John’s attention followed her sniffing nose. “I’m surprised you could get down there, old man.”
Dongyoung had a reply come quick to his tongue but he held it in. He had a strict no cursing rule in front of the kids. “The real surprise is if I’ll be able to get back up without sounding like a vintage rocking chair. Yuna,” he called, the girl answering with a questioning hum, “let’s take a ice cream break. Can you pick up the chalk?”
“I don’t know why you added ‘vintage’ like you’re not,” John joked. Mocha glanced up at him when he approached, nosing at the hand he extended like it was for her.
Dongyoung gave his husband a dry look as he took his hand and accepted the help up. Thankfully, his bones got all the creaking out when he got up from the steps earlier.
“I saw the boys on my way back. I almost thought it rained over here with the way they looked.” John chuckled. “Going to get the third one?”
Dongyoung took the box of chalk when Yuna offered it to him. “Of course. And Sion asked if he could stay for dinner.”
“Oh, so then I should dig out the air mattress,” he said easily, already knowing the night would end with neither of Riku’s old friends returning to their own homes.
“Let’s race!” Yuna ran up the grass to the house without waiting for acknowledgment from either of them, the heat having zero effect on her spirit. She reached the door before Dongyoung, John, and Mocha’s stroll brought them to the steps, yelling at them to hurry up.
“What are the chances I can distract her with The Incredibles until at least the sun starts to go down?”
John barked out a laugh, letting Mocha lead them up the steps. “I’ll come back out if she wants to. You and Mocha can take it easy.”
“She and Riku get that energy from Donghyuck and he got it from you.” Dongyoung stopped to pick up a bit of balloon off the walkway and groaned as he straightened back up.
Laughter crescendoing, John snorted. “I think you’re just old, love.”
Dongyoung threw the ruined plastic at the back of John’s neck. Fuck it. He’ll just ask the boys to clean up when they get back. “You’re old, too,” he said, just as childish as his actions were.
After letting Yuna and Mocha inside, John turned around and kissed Dongyoung as sweetly as when they were young.
Some things didn’t change with age.
(“I like that little dog.” Johnny tossed his chin at Paupipo as he looked over their work from earlier. “Who is that?”
Dongyoung sighed and adjusted his neck fan. The sun was a little lower in the sky but that didn’t mean he no longer needed it. “It’s a giraffe,” he said for what felt like the millionth time that day. “His name is Paupé.”
“Paupipo.” Yuna frowned at him with her hands on her hips.
“Right, that’s his government name.”
Yuna’s lips curved in the opposite direction. “Grandpa Johnny, you can do Littleforestfellow!”
John blinked at her. “Little forest fellow? Like a squirrel?”
“No! Littleforestfellow is a bunny.”
John’s eyes slowly slid over to Dongyoung. Who?, he mouthed.
Dongyoung could only shrug — he thought it’d be a raccoon — and pass over his phone, John’s left inside.
“Grandpa,” came Yuna’s voice not even five minutes after Johnny got down and started drawing next to Dongyoung’s ‘dog’. “That’s a cat. I said bunny.”)