゛ ⸝⸝.ᐟ⋆ go ahead and cry little girl
fatherfigure!chan x maknae!reader (platonic)
in which… growing up without a father, came with its own challenges. but who cared when chan was there for you just like a father.
warnings: daddy issues, mentions of abuse and the care system, tears, some angst, a lot of fluff, chan is just like amazing as per, tiny arguments, mentions of enhypen ni-ki (i don’t see him the way i described but his age just works out for the story)
authors note: self indulgent fic tbh… this is kinda a oneshot but also multiple drabbles in story form.
meeting an eight year old trainee at the age of fifteen was a strange experience to chan.
you’d come into the JYPE building, anxious and pretty lonely. he’d heard the rumours that were circulating about you. how you’d been scouted on the street, but you were apparently a child from care.
so when he met you chan wasn’t really sure what to expect.
but as you introduce yourself timidly, something just clicked between the two of you. you were rather lonely in the company, never being trialed in a group, just trainee day in and out.
chan took you under his wing. wherever he was, you were. if he’d been invited somewhere, he was dragging you along, not wanting you to feel left out.
over the next four years, you grew closer. you told chan everything about your past. what had happened before the care system. your dad. the abuse you endured before being saved.
chan promised everything but that. he promised you the world and that he’d never leave you behind.
chan held you on those nights where you cried about him. how you wished things were different in your family. how you felt as though you never had family. but chan was there.
as soon as chan turned nineteen, he signed legal guardianship for you. it seemed strange to most people around them, a nineteen year old basically adopting a twelve year old. but it made so much sense to the pair of them.
as each member of stray kids rolled into the JYP trainee programme, they were also confused at first. but as the group slowly formed and came together, they could understand why you’d both chosen to do it. the bond you two had was like no other.
as it came to the stray kids survival show, member after member being eliminated. it was announced there would be one more final elimination. and for the first time you were up for it.
chan’s heart and face had dropped at the words. JYP had explained that he wasn’t sure on this whole ‘co-ed group’ idea, and also the age difference in the group, despite you only being a few years younger than jeongin.
as your name was spoken, you were officially eliminated. chan felt as though he’d been stabbed. the past five years of that parental bond they’d created, it felt as though it had been dragged through the mud.
chan had of course shed tears during felix and lee know’s elimination. but nothing could describe the emotions he felt in that moment.
the other members had come over, shared their love and support towards you, but then backed away. they knew chan deserved this time with you more than anyone.
“you remember what i promised you all those years ago, yeah?” you nodded, hot tears spilling down your cheeks, “i made you a promise that i wouldn’t leave without you. and i won’t do, i’ll get you back i swear,” chan cried, wrapping his arms around you.
as you all debuted chan really took a hold of that father figure role. it seemed that after moving out and into dorms on tour, or somewhere in the city, chan felt the need to become a proper protective father figure.
he’d set curfew for you. being only fifteen at the time of your debut, there were rules implemented for you, jeongin not so much, but because chan was practically in charge of you; what he said went.
chan was there for many of your firsts. when you turned sixteen, you’d met ni-ki from enhypen. the first boy you ever seriously liked. he was a similar age to you and you were sixteen year old girl with a massive heart.
it didn’t end well. you ended up heartbroken. you and ni-ki had been seeing each other on the down low, but at one point he had turned around and refused to see you anymore in that way.
of course to sixteen year old you, you felt as though the world was ending.
and chan was there for you. he did think you were a tiny bit silly being this upset over getting rejected. not in a mean way of course! but all these tears shed on a boy.
he held you though, like he always did. he told you that ni-ki was just some silly boy that didn’t deserve your time. and then he made jokes about how you’re not allowed to date until your eighty. the classic dad jokes, which only continued to get worse.
there were arguments of course. just like any father-daughter relationship. like that one time you snuck out and came back SO drunk.
you were a couple days shy of eighteen, but chan still of course saw you as that little nine year old girl.
chan had noticed that you were missing from your bed as he came to say goodnight. but stupidly enough, because you were so excited, you’d forgotten to shut your window which you’d climbed out of and also turn off your location.
he wasn’t going to come find you, unless you ended up somewhere that dodgy. you weren’t that stupid.
so when you walked into the dorm later that night, shoes in your hand as you quietly tried shutting your door.
but chan was already there. “why?” he asked, looking at you.
you were a mess. extremely drunk. “i have NO clue what your talking about!” you responded.
“y/n come on now. i’m not laughing, okay?” he was serious, his face was deadpan and his voice held no amusement, “why would you do that?”
you walked past him to your room, stumbling a tiny bit, but saying a quick hi to felix who sat on the sofa awkwardly.
chan walked in behind you but shut the door. “why didn’t you just tell me? you can’t be just sneaking out like that y/n! shit, you had me worried, i genuinely-”
you muttered it before you could even think, “why? it’s not like your my real dad,”
chan was slightly struck by your comment, he knew you didn’t mean it, a hundred percent. but you still said it and maybe that’s what hurt.
you quietly said ‘i’m gonna be sick’ before you pushed into your bathroom, crouching over the toilet.
chan sighed. if he didn’t feel the level of responsibility he did, he for sure would have left you there. but he followed you in, holding your hair and soothing your back in comfort.
you pulled away from the toilet as the nausea calmed. you were still drunk. and that’s when you and chan discovered you were an emotional drunk.
as immediately after you were crying about your dad. and chan hadn’t seen you this vulnerable before. but he still held you, despite all the sick. he comforted you and reassured you. chan reminded you he wasn’t going anywhere.
despite you being sixteen, chan still took your phone away from you the next day as if you were a child. and the boys teased you about it so hard.
seungmin mostly dropping comments and remarks such as ‘watch out he’ll put you on the naughty step next’. they did make you and chan both laugh, but you were still annoyed about having your phone confiscated.
one thing you HATED was when chan, and even the other members, became ‘freaky’ as you called them. they fan-serviced so hard sometimes and it made you cringe. especially for chan.
for example when you watched and listened to railway and red lights for the first time, you audibly and physically cringed in reaction.
of course chan sounded great and the song was definitely doing well, for obvious reasons. but you still couldn’t help the grimace on your face as you watched chan out-freak his old self.
the same at concerts. when him, or anyone, fan-serviced, you cringed and grimaced. their abs or biceps, it was just weird and there were so many fan cams of you pulling faces as they flexed, against chan especially.
fans found it hilarious as they knew the relationship between you two was purely father-daughter based. so seeing your reactions to the way chan acted in front of fans was so funny for everyone.
at your eighteenth live celebration, chan cried. he tried to hide it, stood next to you as you spoke to stay. but fans easily caught onto his tears.
when you finally graduated you believed that no one could make it. well, that’s what chan and the rest had told you. something to with scheduling and ‘JYP being a fucking idiot as per usual’ quoted by seungmin.
but as you walked on stage and accepted your degree, a loud cheer erupted from the crowd, followed by other voices.
you turned and saw the eight of them stood up, chan stood on a chair, with a proud look on his face as he hollered and clapped.
you smiled and allowed a few tears to fall. he showed up. time after time.
he never missed appointments at the doctors, or important school milestones, or important meetings with the entertainment.
he showed up all the time. unlike another man who should have done it all. but he didn’t.
and who knows, if your father did his job, you might not have met chan. you might not have found your true family.
