Recalling what she had read in the book, Yukino Yukinoshita gently tugged the nipple out a little, letting it fill with milk again before allowing Dong Yunxi to keep drinking.
Dong Yunxi had been focused on feeding. When the nipple was pulled away, she froze for a moment and stared blankly at Yukino Yukinoshita with her big eyes.
The instant she got it back, the baby broke into an adorable smile, her happiness blossoming in her curved brows and eyes.
"Good girl..." Yukino Yukinoshita's gaze softened. "Slow down. There's no hurry."
Without her realizing it, her lips curved into a lovely smile.
"By the way," Dong Yunshan said, emerging from the kitchen, "do you like fitness meals?"
The smile on Yukino Yukinoshita's face faded. "What did you say?"
"I'm better at making fitness meals..."
Yukino Yukinoshita easily saw through what he meant. "You can just say they're the only things you know how to cook."
"I can cook other things too..." Dong Yunshan admitted. "I just rarely make them, so they tend to go wrong."
"Take off the apron." Yukino Yukinoshita let out a long breath. "You feed the baby."
Dong Yunshan looked a little embarrassed. "I only just remembered."
"Shut up." Yukino Yukinoshita deftly tied on the apron and put her hair in a ponytail. "You'll eat whatever I make."
"Got it." Dong Yunshan held Dong Yunxi. "I'll feed the baby, and you'll feed me."
"I told you to shut up." Not wanting to frighten Dong Yunxi, Yukino Yukinoshita couldn't glare at Dong Yunshan. She settled for kicking him to vent her frustration, then turned toward the fridge.
After checking the ingredients in the fridge, Yukino Yukinoshita picked out a few and took them to the kitchen. She quickly checked the seasonings, then began preparing the food.
She put on a pot of rice first, then cut the chicken breast into bite-sized pieces and marinated them in salted cooking sake and sesame oil. Next, she heated some sesame oil, lightly stir-fried shredded kelp, added sliced tubular fish cakes, and simmered them in bonito stock and seasonings...
P.S. Thanks to [Everyday Fiction] for the tip!
Volume Three: Finals and Spring Break — Feeding and Burping the Baby
Chicken breast fried with salted cooking sake, Japanese parsley dressed with ponzu, clams simmered in ginger and soy sauce, thick rolled omelet, meat and potato stew, cabbage salad, miso soup...
Yukino Yukinoshita brought the dishes to the table. She was about to call Dong Yunshan when she saw him concentrating on feeding the baby, so she walked over and poked him twice. "Time to eat."
"Shh." Dong Yunshan lowered his voice. "She's almost asleep."
Baby Yunxi had the nipple in her mouth, her big eyes half closed as she dozed.
Remembering something important, Yukino Yukinoshita picked up the nearby book and quickly flipped through it. "Did you pat her?"
"I haven't had time for that." Dong Yunshan tipped his chin toward his phone. "My phone's over there. Take a picture for me."
"I meant burp her." When Baby Yunxi opened her mouth, Yukino Yukinoshita took Dong Yunshan's hand and pulled the nipple away. "Rest her against your shoulder."
Sitting on the sofa, Dong Yunshan supported Baby Yunxi's bottom with his arm, holding her upright against his shoulder. Then he looked at Yukino Yukinoshita, waiting for further instructions.
"Gently pat her back," Yukino Yukinoshita instructed. "Be gentle."
Dong Yunshan raised his hand and barely brushed Dong Yunxi's back.
Yukino Yukinoshita couldn't even tell whether he had touched the baby.
"That's too gentle." Her slender brows drew together as she moved closer. Holding the fingers of her fair hand together and cupping her palm, she patted lightly up the baby's back. "This helps prevent vomiting, spit-up, and gas, and aids digestion."
Dong Yunshan looked puzzled. "Can't we wait until she finishes?"
"She's already dozing. She'll probably fall asleep before she finishes." Yukino Yukinoshita shot him a sideways look. "Then what, you'll pat her awake?"
"Fair point..." Dong Yunshan smiled. When he looked up, he found Yukino Yukinoshita's face right in front of him.
Normally, they only stood this close when arguing, but now Yukino Yukinoshita's expression lacked its usual severity, and her eyes weren't frighteningly cold.
Their warm breaths drifted freely, mingling together.
Yukino Yukinoshita's pats grew slower until they became gentle strokes.
She wanted to avoid Dong Yunshan's gaze, but refused to show such weakness. Instead, she stared at him warningly, though somehow it didn't feel nearly as intimidating as before.
If anything... it was rather like a child's petulant pouting.
"Burp..." Dong Yunxi made a faint sound, drawing both their gazes.
"Th-that should do it..." Yukino Yukinoshita straightened up. "Burp her roughly every sixty to ninety milliliters. Of course, gently stroking downward like I just did works too."
"Okay." Dong Yunshan resumed feeding her. This time, Dong Yunxi drank noticeably more slowly. "Go ahead and eat. The food will get cold."
"She's almost finished anyway." Yukino Yukinoshita sat beside him and sighed softly. "Your parents certainly have a lot of faith in you..."
They had actually left a six-month-old baby in a high school student's care.
"With the first child, you follow the book. With the second... you wing it." Dong Yunshan smiled. "I was probably so easy to raise as a kid that, combined with how reliable I am, they felt they had nothing to worry about."
As he spoke, he kept an eye on the amount of milk in the bottle.
Before Yukino Yukinoshita could remind him, Dong Yunshan slipped the nipple out when Baby Yunxi loosened her mouth and gently burped her.
Watching how gentle and careful he was now, Yukino Yukinoshita found it genuinely hard to reconcile him with the person who had hit someone at the restaurant.
Right.
"Don't spin the baby around!" Yukino Yukinoshita narrowed her eyes and warned him coldly. "A baby's brain hasn't fully developed yet. Violent shaking can cause shaken baby syndro—" "Surely even I wouldn't do that," Dong Yunshan said helplessly. "What exactly do you think of me?"
"What I think of you..." Yukino Yukinoshita gave a soft huff. "I don't."
"Your imagination's almost on par with Komachi's." Seeing that Dong Yunxi had stopped drinking, Dong Yunshan carefully set her down, tucked in a cushion, supported her back, and covered her with a burp cloth in one smooth sequence. "The baby's finished. Let's eat too."
"Wash your hands first." Yukino Yukinoshita could now glare at him freely, but she still gave him a habitual pat instead.
"Okay, okay, okay," Dong Yunshan readily agreed.
"One answer is enough." Yukino Yukinoshita returned to the table and served herself a bowl of rice.
Looking at Dong Yunshan's empty bowl, she pressed her lips together, then filled his as well.
"That smells amazing." Returning after washing his hands, Dong Yunshan pulled out a chair and sat down. "You made all this?"
"I just threw together a few things." Yukino Yukinoshita began eating, her gaze drifting toward him now and then.
This was her first time cooking for anyone outside her family, and she wasn't sure whether Dong Yunshan would like it... Who cares whether he likes it?
As long as I like it, that's enough.
Dong Yunshan picked up a piece of chicken breast and ate it in one bite, following it with two mouthfuls of rice. "Chicken breast can actually taste this good?"
"You just need to marinate it beforehand." Yukino Yukinoshita realized how unnecessary her earlier worries had been. "How do you usually eat it?"
"Boiled." Dong Yunshan emptied half his bowl in a few bites, spooned in half a bowl of meat and potato stew, then ate that in another two or three mouthfuls. "I boil it while I work out. After two sets, I take it out and let it cool. Once I'm done stretching, I eat. Anything tastes good then."
Watching him swallow a piece of rolled omelet in one bite and immediately reach for another, Yukino Yukinoshita tapped his hand with the ends of her chopsticks. "How many times have I told you to chew slowly?"
In the past, Yukino Yukinoshita would never have touched him.
But she had already told him several times at the family restaurant, and Dong Yunshan had shown no intention of changing.
With all the physical contact they had had today, combined with her irritation over his earlier mistakes, Yukino Yukinoshita had tapped him without thinking.
Even she froze for a moment afterward.
"..." The tap left Dong Yunshan stunned too. "For a second, I thought my mom was here."
"Your mother..." Yukino Yukinoshita recalled the elegant handwriting in the notebook. "Has lovely handwriting."
"Handwriting? Oh, that notebook. Brother Yan wrote that. Sister Jin probably dictated the contents."
If Brother Yan was his father, Sister Jin must have been his mother.
Yukino Yukinoshita was gradually getting a handle on the way Dong Yunshan's family addressed one another. Then she froze. "Huh?"
"Sister Jin's handwriting... how should I put it? Only her colleagues can read it." Dong Yunshan slowed down his eating. "She drew the picture at the end."
Yukino Yukinoshita remembered.
Dong Yunshan's mother was a doctor, and doctors had their own way of writing.
Volume Three: Finals and Spring Break — The Key Factor
Yukino Yukinoshita nodded. "So you're planning to go to medical school?"
"Medical school?" Dong Yunshan caught on. "Because my mom's a doctor?"
"If you became a doctor too, you'd have better access to all sorts of resources." A possibility occurred to Yukino Yukinoshita. "You don't like the profession?"
"I'd say I'm not suited to it." Dong Yunshan elaborated. "Doctors should use established methods to solve problems that have occurred before. I prefer solving new problems in my own way—you wouldn't want a doctor like me either, would you?"
Yukino Yukinoshita said, "...True."
"As for those resources you mentioned..." Dong Yunshan paused to gather his thoughts. "If I chose the course of my future just to get access to those resources, then I wouldn't be using them to make my life easier. They'd be using me to perpetuate themselves."
Yukino Yukinoshita's gaze sharpened slightly as she watched Dong Yunshan devour his food, lost in thought.
Dong Yunshan looked up. "What is it?"
"Nothing." Yukino Yukinoshita lowered her head and continued eating.
Once she had eaten enough, Yukino Yukinoshita looked at the remaining dishes and reminded him, "You can reheat this for another meal, but don't heat this one again..."
Dong Yunshan interrupted her. "Are you done?"
Yukino Yukinoshita had a vague inkling of what was coming. "Yes."
"Then don't mind if I do." Dong Yunshan swept through the remaining food, leaving every dish completely clean. "That hit the spot... It's been ages since I had a cheat meal at home."
He actually ate everything... Yukino Yukinoshita had deliberately made extra, too.
With that, there was no need whatsoever to ask whether he liked it.
Not that Yukino Yukinoshita had intended to ask in the first place.
Dong Yunshan carried the plates and bowls into the kitchen. Only then did he discover that Yukino Yukinoshita had already cleaned up after making all those dishes, leaving it looking as though it had never been used.
"Well, I'll head home now." Yukino Yukinoshita glanced at the sleeping Dong Yunxi. "I'll organize some more information and send it to you later."
"Thanks for all your effort. You were a huge help today." Dong Yunshan looked a little embarrassed. "I'll practice properly for a couple of days. Come over when you have time, and I'll make you a full spread."
"Your main job right now is taking care of her." Yukino Yukinoshita took one last look at Dong Yunxi, who was still fast asleep. "Everything else can wait."
Leaving Dong Yunshan's home, she took a ride back toward her own.
She got out, entered the building, stepped into the elevator, and pressed the button for the fifteenth floor.
After leaving the elevator, she came to a door with no nameplate.
A series of cold clicks sounded as she unlocked it, then opened the door fully.
Compared with Dong Yunshan's home, this apartment was more spacious.
At a glance, she could see the doors to three rooms. The bathroom and toilet doors stood on either side of the hall, which led into a combined living and dining room.
The projecting balcony was visible from the living room, and the windows offered a relaxing view of the scenery outside.
The living room was simply furnished, with only the bare essentials, basic furniture, and a pale yellow fabric sofa that gave off a sense of warmth. A small storage cabinet stood in front of the sofa.
The large television stood out, with a whole row of panda plush toys in the cabinet beneath it.
Yukino Yukinoshita changed into her slippers, suddenly feeling a little disoriented.
She had only left that morning, yet coming back now, the place felt unfamiliar.
After changing into more comfortable clothes, Yukino Yukinoshita set her laptop on the living room's glass table and began searching for information on childcare.
She spent quite a while organizing it. Only when she absentmindedly reached toward the edge of the table did she realize she had forgotten to make tea.
She got up and went into the kitchen. While waiting for the water to boil, Yukino Yukinoshita folded her arms and gazed out the window.
Was home always this quiet?
Dong Yunxi should be awake by now.
I wonder if Dong Yunshan's playing with her.
At this stage, a baby's body was undergoing important changes. Beyond having the basic needs of food and sleep met, she would begin seeking attention from family members and actively exploring the world outside.
As her body grew, the baby would absorb more information from her surroundings, and the world in her eyes would gradually become richer and more colorful.
It was important to keep interacting with the baby, helping develop her various abilities while letting her experience more enjoyment.
Playing was the best way to do that. Not only did it strengthen the bond with the baby, it also helped her development.
Hiss...
Hearing the kettle, Yukino Yukinoshita came back to herself and got up to walk over to it.
Before you continue