Chapter Text
You were four when you asked your father the question that has been burning in your mind since forever.
“Appa, where is amma?”
Your appa stops stirring the tall (it looks taller than you!) pot of soup that he was making for everyone abruptly, and he looks like he was doing his best impression of a statue. He’s silent for a long time, enough for the boiling pot to overflow in volume.
You yelp a warning to him at the scary sight, fearing that the hot soup will splash and burn his hand because you don’t want your appa to hurt his already scarred hand further.
You watch with wide eyes how he hurries to kill the flame of the stove. This was not like your appa. Your appa wouldn’t let himself make an amateur mistake in something he prides himself on like cooking. Did your question rattle him so much? Were you not supposed to ask anything about it?
You see him take a deep breath, most likely to chide you, and you panic.
“Taeyang’s sorry, appa!” You wail, tears already forming on your eyes. Through your blurred vision, you see appa’s hand quickly covering the pot close and he opens his mouth to speak to you, but a sob from you cuts him off. “‘It’s okay if amma isn't here, Taeyang already have you and Sooyoung-ahjumma and Sangah-noona and everyone else….!”
You suffer through choking from repressed sobs before you couldn’t contain it anymore.
You frantically try to wipe your tears away. You’re so uncool. Han Dareum said that boys who cry aren’t cool, and you want to be cooler than anyone else in the whole world. Your sleeves become gross and wet from the amount of tears and snot you let it soak up, and you angrily berate yourself as you ruin your favorite shirt.
A soft fabric cleans the rest of your mess up, and you blow into the napkin. Appa carefully cleans you up, making sure that every mess that you made disappeared.
After he throws the dirty paper towel to the trash can, a firm hand picks you up from your position on the floor and carries you out of the kitchen.
You bury your now relatively dry and clean face in appa’s neck, embarrassed at your own outburst. Appa hadn’t said anything, but you went ahead and burst into tears.
You feel appa’s hand on your waist instead of being across your back like how he usually carries you, but you then realize that your wings had unfurled in your panic, preventing your appa from carrying you comfortably. You will it away like you had learned from your Noona. When your wings fades away, appa adjusts his hold on you, and you relaxed completely in his arms.
“What’s wrong with Taeyang?” You hear Sangah-noona’s voice call out in worry. You remember that she was watching TV, so that means you’re in the living room.
“...He finally asked.”
There was silence after appa said those words, and you furrow your eyebrows as you try to digest it. Sangah-noona’s voice comes back again, softer this time. “...I see. I’ll take over dinner, then. Take your time.”
You sense appa inclining his head towards where Sangah-noona is. He resumes walking somewhere carrying you, and when he stops and you the hand supporting your back reach down, you peek from the comfort of his neck.
You realize that he had carried you up to your shared room. But it wasn’t bedtime yet.
Appa walks to the bed before carefully sitting himself down. You are still in his arms.
“Taeyang-ya,” Appa calls out to you, stroking your hair. You unlatch yourself and peer up at him with attention. Appa exhales through his nose, and you see his left eyebrow twitch before he looks into your eyes in resolution.“You wondered where your… Amma is, right?”
You curl in to yourself, and shake your head in response. “It’s okay,” You reach up and wrap your arms around appa’s neck. “Taeyang is fine not knowing where amma is. Taeyang doesn’t want appa to force himself to say anything.”
“Taeyang-ya,” Appa gently unhooks your hands from his neck, and adjusts your position so you’re comfortably leaning on his chest. You see him taking hold of your right hand, so tiny compared to his own, and you feel him deposit something into your palm before closing your hand around it. When you look up, a silent question in your eyes, he smiles, a tiny quirk to his lips. “Open your hand and see.”
You open your hands, and you find a fragment of something like a trinket held on by a strong silver chain. It’s the size of appa’s thumb, the surface a smooth and shiny sheen of black. You recognize it as the thing that appa wears around his neck at all times, and he never allows himself to take it off. This, and the fancy golden pocket watch that he carries around in his person.
You curiously hold it up to the light, and you look on with wonder as light catches on its surface and the trinket begins to reflect colors like a rainbow. It’s unbelievably pretty, but you know that this wasn’t just a trinket that looks beautiful, because appa doesn’t care about jewelry.
So, you ask, “Appa, what is this? It’s super pretty!”
“A piece of a shell.”
“A shell?” You furrow your eyebrows and peer at the black trinket in your hand again, confused. “Taeyang doesn’t know any bird that lays eggs with shells this pretty.”
Appa chuckles. “Well. That’s because this isn’t from a bird, Taeyang-ya. But sort of.”
“Then what is it from?” Then, your eyes lights up. “A dragon?! Is it from a dragon’s egg?!”
Appa seems to grimace at the mention of dragons. “No, not a dragon either.”
You hesitate, before shooting your guess again. “... a dokkaebi egg? Like Noona’s?”
“No,” Appa closes your hand around the shell again and grips it tight, but not strong enough to make the shell dig into your hand. “It’s yours, Taeyang-ya.”
You try to make sense of appa’s words. So, does that mean… “I’m actually a bird? Is that why I have wings?”
Appa laughs heartily this time, and you feel the vibration from his unrestrained laughter.
That night, you learnt of constellations, demon kings, and how you came to be.
Oh, you knew about <scenarios> and the end of the <Star Stream>. Everyone had told you small bits and pieces of it when you asked for story time before bed, but you know deep down that it was a ‘Taeyang-friendly’ version of the events, replacing many things with bits you know they took from the storybooks you have on your already full bookcase.
Appa tells a story of stars, dreams, and fate. A lonely train carriage with no destination. Of an eternity that was morphed into an epilogue.
You listen to everything, watching appa’s normally neutral face change to many kinds of expressions every time he describes his companion. He looks angry, sad, and wistful. But it is clear that that man could invoke so many reactions in appa.
“Can I meet him?” You ask.
Appa hesitates. Mulls your question in his head and squeezes your hands in his own.
“It’s been a long time since I visited him,” appa admits. “But I will see him with you.”
The date set, you both sit in comfortable silence.
Your stomach cues itself to voice out its displeasure from not being filled during dinner, and appa lets loose one of his breathy huffs of laughter before picking you up and getting you both dinner downstairs.
That night, as you sleep, safe in your appa’s arms, you dream of black wings tens of times larger than your own, and the flutter of long eyelashes as you soar in the sky alongside a figure clothed in white.