Archive of Our Own

As a vampire, Chan knew his life would be stretched far thinner than he would be able to stand. 

It had been that horrid realization that had only truly sunk into his heart when he’d finished his first century, and realized there wasn’t a single face he cared about any longer in the town that had overturned and gone on without him.

That was when he abandoned his manor for a modest cottage, following the river till it brought him somewhere peaceful and quiet. He stayed out of the hunting grounds and limited his own hunts to lost animals that didn’t stand a chance between him and the outskirts of villages.

He assumed he would die peaceably out in the forest. He could see the blue outlines of the mountains, the setting sun lighting the forest in an orange haze, and imagined the blurry pastel colors were contrast enough to the deep blood red he’d lived with all his life to be letting him down gently into the edge of eternity.

But the edge never came. It took two and half centuries for Chan to realize why.

Minho made himself known rather spectacularly.

His screaming was so insistent, that it physically pained Chan to have to listen. He assumed it was a village child, fussy and cholicky, but when it didn’t let up by the time Chan had finished his hunt, he went about trying to find the origin of the wretched sound.

Minho was not from the village. He was pulling himself along the grass when Chan found him, his little body pink, flushed with anger. He was far too little to be atttempting to crawl. 

Chan hadn’t picked up the baby. He’d listened and searched carefully for a parent to come save the miserable little thing, and only when it was clear the baby had been abandoned, did Chan begrudgingly pick him up and pull him against his chest. 

“Fussy little thing, aren’t you,” he grumbled, until Minho found a button on his coat that fit his liking at began suckling on it, “Well, I don’t now what you’d want with that, I promise it isn’t terribly tasty.”

It took the entire walk back to the cottage for Minho to come to that horrid realization himself, and by the time he did, Chan had already fixed a cheesecloth of goat’s milk for him to feed from. 

“There isn’t that better?” He held the baby in the crook of his arm and settled back in the one chair he owned,  “Well, I suppose fussing can do you some good, hm? Finally got what you were whining for.”

Little hands folded and fidgeting like he didn’t realize what to do with them, Minho only graced Chan with an unamused side-eye that sent Chan into an uncharacteristic fit of laughs. “Uncharacteristic” would end up being a trademark of Chan’s.  There wasn’t a thing Minho did that didn’t make Chan feel like a wholly different person. 

He would crawl himself straight into the river, despite Chan’s warning and the consequence of tumbling in several times. He would begin babbling when Chan strapped him to his back, perfectly quiet and content until Chan was trying to sneak up on his next meal, taking the opportune moment to burst into rather serious critiques in his own tongue over Chan’s hunting endeavor. 

And most sweetly, he would learn that he didn’t want to do anything without Chan’s help. Little Minho, vast as the sky but hidden in his sparkling eyes, would make it a habit to bring things to Chan in his chubby hand. Little fruits he’d picked but couldn’t pluck the stems from, little snails who needed to be tossed from their house, wet shoes that made his face scrunch up at the unpleasant feeling. 

“Appa, help,” became Minho’s first words, despite Chan’s every effort to make the little boy keep from growing attached to him. 

“Minho-ah, stop bothering the stray cats,” Chan would scold, as the little toddler would come with long scratches on his arms and a sad pout from the results of his endeavors to befriend them, “Cats don’t like people. They’re cruel. Find another animal to befriend.”

It was curious how long it took Chan to realize why Minho had been abandoned to begin with. Not that he had ever cared to truly find out— he supposed any person that abandoned their baby had no business knowing they were well cared for. 

If the random sleep-deprived moments where he could have sworn he saw Minho float several centimeters above his crib wasn’t clue enough, the snails should have certainly tipped him off.

But no, it was when Minho, on his toddler legs and with his determined little face, had dragged in a cat by it’s scruff, that Chan realized his dilemma. 

“Minho, we can’t keep a cat.”

Minho pouted, “No. We keep.”

“ Minho ,” he’d picked the cat up and given the toddler a stern look, “We can’t. I’ll eat him.”

Minho stomped his foot down, “No. I want it.”

Chan wasn’t about to argue with a being who only came up to his knees and would not be responsible for bathing and feeding said pet, so he had clicked his tongue and turned to toss the animal out.

Only for Minho to clap loudly and send sparks down his arms that made him drop the cat and yelp in surprise.

“Wha— yah!”

The cat hissed at him before stalking back to Minho, rubbing up against him with a contented purr. Minho pet his little mottled head before looking at Chan, far too seriously for a toddler.

“Sorry, Appa.”

Chan blinked at his little boy— his little witch— and then at the cat, and let out a slow, resolved sigh.

“I suppose it’ll be something like your familiar, hm? Well,” he sighed again, rubbing his fingertips, “At least you’re apologetic and not turning into some monster.”

“Appa eats blood. Appa’s the monster.”

“Tch, don’t say silly things,” he swooped down to pick up Minho, giving the cat an unamused eyebrow when it tried to protest at the separation, “Now let’s see if I don’t have a book or two on raising a witch. I suppose you’ll need a cauldron— heaven help me, you’ll probably need a broom, won’t you. And a hat, and a wand, and… where in the blazes am I supposed to buy you a witch's hat from?”

Minho giggled, and in his heart, Chan was comforted as his little boy rested his head on Chan’s shoulder, hand curling into the fabric of his shirt, and for a moment deceived himself into thinking maybe it wouldn’t be too bad being Appa.

❣️

Chan had no business assuming anything about his future.

It was a muggy summer day, and he’d just finished helping Minho organize all the ingredients he could need as he was learning potions, when he felt it.

Minho was twelve, bright and observant, and he froze as he watched Chan’s eyes sharpen.

“Is something happening?” Minho placed his glass vials carefully, “Did Soonie get into the kitchen again? Oh I bet she did, let me—“

Chan raised a finger to his lips, and Minho frowned as Soonie crept out from beneath the lowest shelf, meowing indignantly at having been accused of mischief she hadn’t started yet. They slowly left Minho’s room, magic proofed as a whole separate wing of the cottage, and that’s when they heard it—

Minho frowned, “Thunder?”

Horrid deja vu washed over Chan as he groaned.

“No. Baby.”

Changbin was righteously angrier than Minho had been when Chan found him in the clearing. Right at the edge of wolf territory, Chan leveled with a mother wolf who whined and tried to appease Changbin’s unhappy sound with her nose, pawing him at an attempt of comfort. Her own pups cried for her attention in the den behind her.

Minho bent down and huffed, “Well, that’s just sad.”

“Hm? Why’s that?”

Minho flinched back as the mother wolf snapped at his fingers at his attempt to poke and prod the little thing. Chan hissed, gently coming down to the wolf’s level and leaving his palm out for her to sniff him– from one hunter to another, an exchange of respect.

They left that clearing with Changbin wrapped in one of Minho’s cloaks, both of his fists stuffed into his mouth as he gargled cheekily. 

Raising Changbin was something completely different. 

For one, the mama wolf made it a point to come around the cottage at least once a day, bringing her pups in tow. She would demand to sniff Changbin and give him a gentle lick, before heading back to her den. 

The biggest difference was Changbin’s appetite. 

Swaddled on Chan’s back just like Minho had been, Changbin took a keen interest in Chan’s hunt. And in his raw meat. 

They came home with less and less for Minho to cook properly as Changbin got bigger. 

“You’re not going to bring me anything soon enough,” Minho pouted, arms crossed as Chan meekly laid the carion they’d managed to bring home on the table, with plans to run out to the village and buy some food just for Minho. 

It was around this time that Minho magicked a garden for himself and took on the endeavor of actually cooking. It humbled Chan, to watch Minho float a cookbook in front of his face and somehow manage to make things that smelled ten times as good as whatever he made. 

It almost made Chan want to give up raw meat. (Almost. He was still a vampire after all. If nothing else, he still had a reputation to uphold.)

There was something familial that settled, around the little table in the cottage that was almost filled– Soonie perched on Minho’s shoulder for whenever the witch would grace him with snacks from his place, Changbin strapped into a high-chair Minho had managed to conjure that would sometimes manage to keep him from grabbing from their plates, and Chan–

“Hey!” Chan clicked his tongue, quick hands not quick enough as Changbin stuffed his cheeks with two extra servings of potatoes, giggling wildly when Chan’s annoyed looked fell to something closer to resignation, “You’ll be insufferable when you get bigger.”

“Mm!” Changbin furrowed his eyebrows and pouted loudly, pulling his hands out of his mouth to launch into a defense for himself, “Ah da! Ah da da!”

“Very smart, Changbinnie,” Minho nodded in agreement, serving him another helping of the stew, “You tell appa now only, or he’ll never learn.”

“Ah, da da!”

“Exactly.”

The scheming didn’t stop. And when Changbin was big enough to shift into paws and disappear for days on end with the wolf pack, sometimes Chan was glad for Minho and Changbin’s bond of scheming. 

“Appa, if you keep looking like that, he won’t want to come back,” Minho would poke Chan’s cheek teasingly, before twirling a wand he’d crafted himself from the cherry blossom tree wood, making it suspend the rain above their heads to keep Chan from punishing himself in the cold, “You know he needs to learn to connect with his wolf side.”

“Hmph,” Chan would reply gruffly, stiffly staring at the edge of the forest for his little wolf to return, with his black curly fur and dog-like gait.

He would mope and write it off to being a vampire, and the change of seasons being hard on his bones, and Minho would humor him by laying his head down on his lap and reciting whatever new spell he’d learned by chance and musing about going off to learn his trade properly, the threat of which would snap Chan from his daze so he could insist that he could get whatever Minho needed. 

The conversation would lay to rest when Changbin would stumble through the door, unsteady on two feet and often soaked to the bone, and Chan would wordlessly get up to fetch him clothes. 

“He worries, you know,” he would strain his ears to hear Minho tell gently. 

And Changbin would shuffle, embarrassed and nervous when Chan wasn’t watching, “I know…”

“Your hair is getting curlier,” Chan would note, pulling a sweater over Changbin’s head– a head that now reached up to Chan’s waist– while the wolf would let himself be babied. 

Minho snickered, “Starting to look like Appa’s.”

Chan winced, like he expected Changbin to pull out of Chan’s hands and wear an insulted look, stalking off to his bed with a saucy comment, but instead he smiled, all cheeks and sparkling eyes, just like he had as a baby, pushing Chan lightly with his shoulders.

“Ah, careful, Changbin-ah,” Minho would scold mockingly, “You’ll push the old man’s hip out of it’s socket.”

“Yah, yah! Minho-ah!”

❣️

The twins were entirely a mistake. Chan refused to believe it had anything to do with fate– like, perhaps, he’d come to believe Minho and Changbin were. 

The cottage was busier. Minho had decided to become benevolent in his skills, and went into town to sell potions, investing in a broom to bring him back to the cottage whenever he needed and whiz him out before Chan even realized he had visited. Changbin walked between the wolf pack and the cabin similarly– Chan had ended up feeding more wolf mouths than he even realized over Changbin’s tendency to adopt the runt of each litter and teach them to fend for themselves.

Chan was proud of them, in an odd, distanced way he couldn’t explain. Perhaps it was because he didn’t really understand what they did. 

Or at least, he supposed he didn’t. Until the twins. 

He didn’t even realized they were his, until Minho came home one day, feet planted firmly outside the door, staring at their front porch. 

“...Appa, do you know someone’s left us babies?”

Hyunjin and Yeji were as long as his forearms as babies, and dreadfully pretty. They had sharp eyes and pinched lips, and even though they weren’t any older than a couple months old, Chan felt terribly judged whenever they looked at him. 

“Yah,” he’d look over his shoulder, squirming uncomfortably, before squatting down and poking their noses, “Stop looking at me like that.”

Hyunjin would scrunch his nose in displeasure and Yeji would frown deeply. And Chan would have to leave the room to collect himself and remember– they’re just babies– before coming back to take care of them. He’d clean them, feed them, craft toys for them, and very seriously and cautiously, they would accept it without a single smile. He wondered if all elves were like them, or they were just special like that.

Unlike his first two, Hyunjin and Yeji came with a lovely little scroll filled with instructions. Elves were apparently hard to care for– they needed to be bathed under certain moonlight, they needed to drink nectar from sundrop flowers, they had to bond with a tree. 

“How the hell does one even bond with a tree,” Chan pulled his hair out, reading over the scroll time and time again as the twins would fall sick and he would consult it like some sacred text that would help him. 

“Maybe it’s like pack bonding,” Changbin suggested, rolling on the ground and shaking a rattle to encourage Hyunjin to crawl towards him, “Y’know. You just put them in front of a tree and it just. Happens. ”

“How terribly illogical,” Chan grumbled, wondering why the elves couldn’t have left him more specific instructions, “If they wanted it done, why couldn’t they just do it themselves, you wonder. Hm?” he crossed his arms and frowned down at Yeji, who had somehow managed to wiggle her way to Chan’s feet, sticking his tongue out at her perplexed expression before scooping her up, “What would a vampire know about trees? Huh?”

Yeji lifted her hands up to Chan’s face slowly, little fingers brushing against his weathered skin with a look in her eyes Chan could only describe as fascination, before her head lolled forward with exhaustion, a mild fever on her skin. 

“Maybe it’s as simple as Changbin said,” Minho shrugged, wringing a piece of cheesecloth in sundrop nectar he’d harvested and learned to grow himself, cradling Hyunjin against his chest to feed him, “Maybe it’s letting them touch the trees and feel for themselves, and it’ll just happen.”

Chan sighed, holding Yeji’s head tucked under his chin as he considered it. 

They tried it one morning when the air wasn’t too chill and the trees seemed welcoming enough to two babies. Chan held Hyunjin in one arm and Yeji in the other, each of them curling a hand into his tunic to keep from being dropped. On four paws, Changbin lead the way, sniffing out prospective trees that seemed pleasant enough by his standards, while Minho knocked against the bark to assess the magic within them the best he could. 

Chan would bring them close to each tree, letting them reach out touch the bark, or reach up to the leaves, waiting for the seeds or pinecones to fall into their hands. It would only last a moment or two, before Hyunjin would make a disgusted expression, pushing the tree away to lean against Chan’s shoulder like he might take a nap. Yeji had long given up amusing them, thumb in her mouth and head tucked against Chan’s neck.

Each time, Changbin would pout and dutifully run off to find another candidate.

Minho narrowed his eyes at the babies, before saying decidedly, “Hyunjin might like a birch.”

Chan blinked at him, “...Why?”

“No idea, let’s try it.”

After all this time, Minho’s intuition didn’t surprise Chan anymore, so when Hyunjin screeched and reached out with both arms to throw his arms around the white bark of the birch that seemed to glow a little more gold than silver, he only rolled his eyes at Minho’s smug expression and settled himself on the ground as Hyunjin “bonded” with the tree.

Nobody really knew what they were looking for, but when Hyunjin began humming and babbling at the tree, little fingers flexing to try and hold as much of it as he could, they figured that bonding was not too dissimilar to Changbin barking and nipping at other wolves in his pack to bond with them. 

It was late in the day when Hyunjin rubbed his eyes and crawled back to Chan’s lap, tugging his sister’s pigtails, Yeji fast asleep and entirely disinterested in her brother’s discovery. 

“Well, that’s your tree Hyunjin-ah,” Chan nodded, not really understanding it and doing his best to encourage the little baby, “You take care of each other, hm?”

“Gah!” Hyunjin cried out in agreement, and that was that.

Yeji did not find her tree as simply. In fact, it was many more seasons of her wracked with fevers that could not be broken, Minho pouring over different potions of sundrop nectar and whatever elvish magic he had scoured up. Changbin spent most nights in his wolf form, curled up by her crib, whining whenever he’d feel her fever spike. 

Hyunjin would stand up and cry whenever Chan didn’t come quick enough, and when they got bigger and outgrew the cribs, he would crawl into his sister’s bed and Chan would find him teary eyed. On nights of particular high fevers, Chan would carry Yeji out into the cold moonlight, Hyunjin pattering after him.

They’d sit on the riverbank, and Chan would dip her feet into the rippling water.

“Mm, appa…” she said in a half-groan, “Appa, hurts…”

“I know, Yeji-ah,” he’d say gently, brushing her hair back and holding her limp body against his chest, “Appa’s sorry.”

It brought a permanent sort of rain cloud over their cottage. Minho stopped going into the village except to research about elves. Changbin would only leave to take Hyunjin out, the poor boy becoming pale and languid as he tried watching over his sister as much, if not more so, than any grown-up. 

There was only one night he didn’t return home, and Chan found him right where he expected– with his arms wrapped around his birch tree, crying in staggering breaths. 

“Hyunjin-ah…” he’d try to bring him back, only for the little boy to shove him off weakly, turning to his tree and whispering again and again:

“Please, please… I need her, please…”

Chan would take her out every day she was strong enough to leave the cottage, and he truly tried with all his heart to find her tree. Somewhere in the back of his head, he wondered if her tree had been cut down, before sensibly convincing himself it didn’t work like that. 

It was on a day of sudden rain, Chan caught out in the storm with Yeji tucked into his embrace and he took refuge under an old oak, it’s branches snaking out and providing shelter against the weather. Chan collapsed against his trunk, pained at the idea that Yeji’s sickness would worsen and the next few days would be battling against death itself, when Yeji made a confused sound, lifting her head from Chan’s shoulder to look at the tree with dreary eyes. 

The intoxication of joy and disbelief ran so high, Chan couldn’t quite remember what happened after that– only that Yeji had cried and hugged the tree so fiercely the bark had scratched her more than they even realized. 

“Appa, my tree! Appa, appa this is mine, this is my tree!” she pulled his hand to feel, like there was a heartbeat to prove the bond as she sobbed and collapsed in the roots in relief. 

They didn’t leave even when the weather cleared. The boys came and found them– Hyunjin on Changbin’s back as the wolf sniffed them out, Minho a step behind with cloaks he threw around Yeji and Chan’s shoulders. 

“This one, this–” she pointed to the tree as her brother tried to warm her up, her voice cracking in exhaustion and relief, “Hyunjin, this–”

Hyunjin looked up at the wide eyes, the power and majesty of the tree humbling him as he hugged her tight and let her speak all the words she hadn’t been able to in her weakness all this time. 

“It was this one, appa and I were running from the storm and we came here and–” Minho smiled softly and encouragingly, handing her a leather skin of sundrop nectar as he nodded, and listened to her retell it.

Changbin shifted, his face filled with relief as her face flooded with a smile that pulled her entire face into an unmistakable aura of joy, one that made Hyunjin’s eyes disappear in a similar expression, a joy Chan never wanted to leave their faces again. 

And Chan knew nothing about elves, but he knew about happiness, and pulled them both into his arms in the hopes that it would never be far from them again. 

❣️

Jisu was just funny. 

It was Yeji who found her, cradled in a blanket she found hung from her tree one day. She had screamed in surprise so loud Chan had heard it from the cottage, and met her at the doorstep when she’d run back as fast as she could. 

She was about as big as Chan’s hand, and slept all the time. 

Chan genuinely wondered if something was wrong when she’d slept through most of the first week, not even crying to be fed or cleaned, but Minho had assessed her with magic and confirmed there was nothing wrong with her. At least, in any sort of magical imbalance sort of sense.

She was just content in resting. 

And she didn’t grow out of it. So Chan didn’t grow out of his concern over it. 

As a three year old, she would sleep away the whole day in her bed, and sometimes Chan would sit cross-legged right beside her making sure her chest was rising and falling as it ought to. 

Sometimes the rest of the kids would join him on the floor, Yeji even putting her fingers beneath her nose to feel the warm air leaving her nose with each breath. 

Changbin frowned, head rested on his hand, “Maybe… it’s a human thing. To sleep so much. So we all wouldn’t know anything about it.”

Chan doubted it, especially as Jisu’s head would loll and bob at the table during meals, having fallen into her plate on more than one occasion. But he supposed there were some things he’d forgotten about being a human after all this time as a vampire, so he made it his mission to find a human he could trust enough to assess the little girl. 

Minho, who had the most interactions with humans, brought him into the village one day he went to sell his potions and services, Chan waiting at the corner of his stall while the people came and went. Sometimes he would point out a particular patron he trusted, and Chan would narrow his eyes to try and judge them, before shaking his head. 

It was near the close of the day, that a lovely lady with a bright smile that bled into her eyes came to buy a potion to keep her garden clear of the disease that was plaguing crops and leaving farmers with burnt field. She had a pleasant and clear laugh, and was the only person to turn and greet Chan. 

“Appa, this is Ms Sana,” Minho introduced politely. 

“Appa?” Sana’s eyes sparkled, “You seem quite young to be an Appa.”

Chan only smiled, tipping his head, “Chan is fine. Nice to meet you.”

To Minho’s frustration, Chan did not call her over that first day. Or the second day he accompanied Minho and met Sana. Or the third. On the fourth Minho figured it out. 

“Are you… nervous? Asking her to come?” Minho smiled mischievously, “Do you have a crush?”

Chan stopped accompanying Minho into the village. And as soon as he did, Minho came back with Sana, having explained the whole ordeal to her.

She had quite the amused expression, “A vampire who adopts whatever mythics land in his lap? How curious!”

Chan gave her back an expression between flattered and a grimace, before leading her back to look over little Jisu, who was lightly snoring in her cot. 

“I don’t know if this is normal or not,” he admitted, “I supposed a human looking it over might help.”

“Ah, I see,” Sana brushed back Jisu’s bangs, taking her temperature before feeling for swelling or discomfort, “Jisu-ah? Can you wake up darling?”

Grumbling as she usually did, she stretched her arms over her head and pulling herself up like a puppet on strings. Sana laughed, before taking her hand. 

“Let’s go on a walk, Jisu.”

The little girl grumbled the entire time, rubbing her eyes as she usually did, screaming and punching Changbin as he tried to entertain her to help her wake up for their guest. Hyunjin tried bringing flowers, blowing them into her face so she would sneeze and wake up, but she would angrily push them into his face.

Each little thing made Sana laugh. Chan didn’t know which made him more speechless– her infectious happiness or the clear displeasure Jisu had over the whole endeavor. 

It wasn’t until Sana brought Jisu to the river, that an inkling of what was going on settled into his bones. Sana waded into the water until she was waist deep, Jisu on her hip. 

“Do you like swimming, Jisu?’

She shook her head, clutching Sana’s dress in fear. Chan had taken them all swimming one particular warm day, and he hadn’t even managed to get her to leave the riverbank. 

And then Sana dunked them into the river, water above their head. 

Yeji screamed and nearly ran in, except for Minho holding her back by her arm. 

When they came out, Jisu’s eyes were wide and surprised. She turned and gave Sana an angrily confused expression. 

“Hey!”

Sana giggled, “Good morning Ms Jisu.”

“Hey! No!” she pushed Sana meanly, before reaching out across the river, “Appa! Appa, I’m all done! All done, appa!”

Chan laughed and shook his head, walking into the river until he was standing next to Sana– although he didn’t reach out to her outstretched arms that demanded Chan take her away from this strange woman. 

“Hm, not that sort of magic then,” Sana admitted, truly perplexed, “Odd. I could have sworn–”

“ Hey!”

Jisu screamed, Chan clicking his tongue and frowning at her, “No yelling.”

At this, Jisu’s face turned bright pink, cheeks puffed out in anger, and screaming with all her chest, the river roared and flew up into terribly intimidating waves that threatened to converge, and Chan only had a moment to throw his arms around both of them as the water collapsed on them.

The waves didn’t sweep them away. 

When Chan opened his eyes, the water sloshed back to their normal levels, and Chan was no more wet than he’d been when they’d entered, the waves somehow falling over them without touching a hair on their head. 

The angry expression remained on Jisu’s face, while Sana’s expression was replaced with something smug. 

“Huh. I was right.”

The kids were all staring with wide eyes as Chan took Jisu back into his arms and led Sana back to shore. Jisu let out a huge yawn, settling in Chan’s embrace for another nap. 

“She’s just a water spirit,” Sana said simply, smoothing her hair fondly, “The sleeping is pretty normal for them. You should be alright.”

Minho blinked at her, and then Jisu, and then Chan, and circled through them one more time before landing on, “Do you happen to have a book on that?”

“As fate would have it, I do,” she winked.

Chan frowned as he walked her to the edge of the forest, wondering how they could have missed the deep and ancient magic in her, apologetic as he thanked Sana. 

“You’re funny, Chan,” she laughed, before coming close, bringing a closed fist close to his face, “What made you think I was any more human than you?”

She opened her fist and a flower sprouted from it, a daisy that she tucked behind his ear with a wink. 

Chan couldn’t wash the blush off his face for three days.

❣️

There was another cottage built along the river when Chan found his next three boys. Minho needed a larger space to work his magic– and the addition of Doongie, the cat he’d found during a thunderstorm, sparked the necessity to separate. The kids split themselves between the cottages depending on who they were fighting, but for the most part, they still all managed to fit themselves around Chan’s table for meals. 

That changed one winter when Minho nearly crashed into Chan’s window on his broom, cheeks cold-kissed and eyes wild with concern. 

Jisu screamed as he stumbled in, rousing her from her deep sleep and leaving her with a scowl for the witch. 

“Oh hush you,” Chan pushed her head back down, weaving his finger through her hair that had gotten quite long, long enough to braid, “Minho-ah? New discovery or someone losing a hand? Can’t imagine why you’d feel the need to crash in like a bull in the market squa–”

“Babies.” Minho was breathless, wordless, and altogether shaky, “Babies. Come quick. Babies in my– quick.”

Chan didn’t hesitate running after him, pushing through snow that almost reached his knees in the drifts, until Minho finally hauled him up onto his broom to pull him across the field and crash through his front door. 

Hyunjin and Yeji were already wide-eyed over his cauldron. Chan absently recalled that Minho had been taking them out to place protection wards on their trees, but it was drowned out in the absolute concern that–

“Babies in your cauldron?!” Chan threw himself over the metal rim of it, eyes bulged out at the sight of three little ones bundled in pastel, hand-crocheted blankets, sleeping soundly at the bottom of the black pot. 

Minho pulled his hat over his face, mumbled beneath it, “I don’t know! I don’t know what happened! They just appeared!”

Chan made a shushing sound, carefully reaching for them. The first baby he pulled out had lips pursed into a small heart, fussing slightly as Chan cradled him in the crook of his arm. 

“Minho, tell me how it happened.”

As the pointed hat shamefully recalled every detail, Chan passed the first baby to Yeji, reaching for the second, with his lighter hair and face dotted with little freckles. This little one gurgled in his sleep, rubbing his little button nose against Chan’s arm contentedly. 

“I was experimenting with protection spells last night– all of which failed– and then I emptied my cauldron last night and decided to go with a standard spell instead, that I could reinforce if I needed to and– I didn’t put anything into the pot! I swear it was empty!”

Chan chuckled as he passed the second baby into Hyunjin’s arm, amused at the thought that Minho thought he could just make a baby on accident. Then he reached down for the last baby, who had the most serious resting expression a baby could have, that immediately melted as he woke at Chan’s touch, mouth rounding, arms fighting the blanket to reach for Chan as he reached for him. 

“Ah, come here, littlest,” he said sweetly, holding the third near his chest as he started grabbing whatever was closest to his hands and shoving it into his little mouth. 

“--And I was about to work on a spell for my garden to keep the deep freeze from ruining my hard work and– I didn’t throw anything in, I promise I didn’t, I noticed them before I did anything, and I panicked, and–”

“Minho-ah,” Chan gently stopped him, passing the last baby into his arms, before lifting his chin to give him a fond smile, “You did good. Let’s see how we can take care of them, hm?”

They realized rather quickly that the babies needed to stay in Minho’s cottage after the unswaddled them. The first two babies hid bright and sparkling wings that immediately unfurled and sprinkled them in sparkling dust. The third cried as Chan unswaddled him, the blankets stained with blood, two little divots where his wings would have been, as though they’d been plucked. 

Solemn tears ran down Chan’s cheeks, and he bent down to kiss the little boy’s face. 

Minho got to work on setting up a room for the fairies, with little cribs that would seem more birdcage-like and cruel for anyone who didn’t know that fairy babies had the tendency to float off in their sleep and get themselves in trouble. The last baby got the same crib Minho had used, due to his lack of wings to float off with. 

They all stayed at Minho’s cottage for a week, charmed by the little fairies. The first baby, Jisung, spoke little but laughed with his whole body. He was calm, and quiet, with a wild spark that had him babbling in a tongue Chan had never heard at an inhuman speed. Sometimes they weren’t sure Jisung wasn’t cursing them, when he’d speak and change their hair color, or send chairs to float on the ceiling. More than once, he’d sent Soonie and Doongie waltzing on two feet into Minho’s storage room to fetch him candies. 

The second baby was full of brightness, always seeking to hug whoever was nearest, and doing it with the brightest smile Chan had ever seen. Minho named him Yongbok for the deep and powerful screams he let out that shattered the windows when he was hungry. 

“He’s a little dragon,” Minho explained, shaky as he mixed elixirs for them, “A little lucky dragon, so lucky, if he wasn’t so cute, I swear– ”

The third baby was only happy when he was pulling some mischief, like eating Jisu’s hair, or getting his hands in the fireplace ash. Even if he was stuck in a highchair and left to babble on his own, Chan would catch his serious expression pointed towards someone, little fingers reaching out to grab, until little starry sparks lit around their heads to frighten them, and cause him to laugh deeply from his belly. 

Little Seungmin was a baby Chan held gingerly, hand broad over his little back, pained by every little sound that escaped him when Chan rubbed the place his wings had been. Changbin would take him from Chan’s hands when that pain leaked into tears, kissing Seungmin’s little cheeks, before shifting into a wolf for the little boy to ride and giggle as the wind ruffled his thin hair.

They grew into capable toddlers, cautiously curious, never flying further than they could be seen, and always returning to Chan’s side at his beckoning. Seungmin was perhaps the most trouble, when he convinced himself that “maybe my wings will grow back if I try to fly!”

Minho took to following him on a broomstick, and had caught him more than once trying to jump from a roof or tall branch. When Yeji had nearly dissolved into a panic attack over him jumping from her oak, and nearly killing himself had Minho not caught him, Hyunjin took it upon himself to address his hurt.

“You’re not going to have wings, Seungminnie,” he’d held the little boy close, the two of them lying on their backs under the stars, “But that’s okay. You’re still a fairy. You’re not any less of a fairy because you don’t have wings, okay?”

Seungmin didn’t believe him, but he would eventually. Until then, Changbin would beckon him onto his back, running full speed with the little boy’s hands curled into his fur, following after Felix’s giggling and keeping speed with them as they ran as far as the northern ridge and back. 

Raising fairies was a curious endeavour. It took many years for Chan and Minho to figure out they were celestial fairies, drawn to the sun, moon, and stars, with magic that bent to such forces.

One night a hollow feeling in Chan’s chest sent Chan running to find that two beds were empty, only to find Jisu standing in the middle of the river, holding Jisung, not dissimilar to how she’d once been held by Sana. 

Jisung’s breathing was shallow and scared, and Jisu was calm as she sat in the center of the waters, pointing up to the full moon. 

“Isn’t it peaceful?” she said quietly, her voice growing smoother and more alluring day by day, like honey from the honeycomb, “Look, Jisung.”

Her hand cupped his cheek, and Chan watched from a distance as Jisung’s eyes closed, and with a whimpering breath he let out, his expression smoothed out to something tranquil, his wings glowing a silver-blue to match the moonshine. 

Jisu walked back slowly and handed him back to Chan’s arms, Chan forgetting his cold vampire blood for the warm comfort of the little boy. 

Felix got similarly scared, randomly bursting into tears and shaking, often mid-flight it a way that would make him drop from the sky and cause Jisung to dive after him to keep him from crashing. 

Yeji would take his hand and the two would climb her oak to the very top, where they’d close their eyes and feel the sun smiling warmly on them. Chan would wait patiently at the bottom, calming the worry in his heart as it ribbited. 

“Isn’t the air so free?” Yeji would ask, and Felix would break into a content smile like he could be lulled to sleep up there, his wings glowing gold-yellow as he wrapped himself around Yeji’s back and let himself be carried down. 

Sometime along the way, they figured that Minho’s protection spells hadn’t gone as wrong as he thought, and had brought back the three fairies from whatever trauma that would have swallowed them whole. 

They were content in that thought, and on warm summer nights when all three fairies would lay their heads on Chan’s chest, something protective and warm buzzed in Chan’s chest– the same thing that had accepted being called appa, that grew a little warmer and bigger. 

❣️

Chan had been walking with Sana when they found Jeongin. 

He had, ironically, been telling her that he couldn’t handle any more children. 

“A vampire heart isn’t made for so much,” he’d scowled, as Sana looped her arm through his with a laugh, “Truly. And our cottages aren’t big enough. Jisu needs a whole room to sleep all day, and I don’t have enough beds for another child. I can’t do it. We’d need to move back into my manor.”

“Would that be so terrible?” Sana said gently, for Chan to give her an unimpressed eyebrow raise, “What? I’ve been there, I promise no one’s touched your place. Everyone thinks it’s haunted.”

“It probably is. It’s better off a haunted legend.”

“Mm, whatever you say, Chan-ah.”

"Perhaps," he smiled to himself, holding to her arm tightly, working up the courage as he continued, "I'm just waiting for a certain touch to come and help me."

Sana smiled sadly and rested her head on Chan's shoulder, "You don't need me to complete you, Chan."

"I don't think it's about completing each other… I think it's about complimenting and doing better together," he whispered back, vulnerable and quiet, "Being humble enough to let another person grow you… a little like the kids and little… different .”

Their hands intertwined and they were quiet, walking through the forest with that thought of a word Chan perhaps wasn’t ready to name yet, but was content enough to feel. They both knew the time for it wasn’t now– Sana cared for her aging parents with her sisters, and her magic tied her a little too closely to the village. But there was that shining and beautiful promise of the future, that didn’t need to be rushed towards to be any more real and certain.

“If you have it in you to wait for me,” Sana said quietly, “I’m waiting for you.”

A little flower grew and entwined around the finger that led straight to the heart, and Chan whispered back–

“ I promise. ”

Then they stumbled over the kit. In Chan’s defense, he didn’t see any harm in nursing a baby fox back to health long enough to release it back into the wild. Sana had nearly cried at the sight of the matted fur full of blood. All to say– there was no way he could just not take it in. 

So his surprise was mingled with mild annoyance when they made it to Minho’s cottage, and the kit shifted into a screaming, wailing baby. 

“Oh, would you look at that, Channie,” Sana poked the baby’s dimples, “Seems like fate thinks you aren’t done quite yet!”

Jeongin was too small for a baby. He was too small for a human, too small for a fox, just too small. 

He also had a temperament of bossing around whoever was closest to him. Chan had caught Hyunjin walking the baby outside one night, and when asked why, Hyunjin could only say–

“He wanted it.”

“He’s a baby, Hyunjin. He can’t speak.”

Hyunjin stammered, and then shrugged.

Chan figured he certainly had a powerful magic of influence, when he caught Changbin, eyes red-rimmed hands shaking from running around, arms filled with cranberries he’d fished from a flooded field. 

“Changbin-ah?” Chan raised an eyebrow, and Changbin had thrown the berries down helplessly. 

“I don’t know either, appa!” he’d cried, exasperated and on the verge of pulling his own hair out– up until little Jeongin crawled over and began stuffing his mouth with the berries, red juice immediately dripping and staining the floor. 

“Hey–” Chan snatched him up, trying to scoop the berries out so he wouldn’t choke himself, but Jeongin threw himself back to keep Chan from poking his mouth, chewing quickly before Chan had the chance to help him, “Tch.”

Jeongin with full cheeks became a common theme, and soon Chan could somewhat reason why, especially when the fairy brothers attempted to steal food from his plate whenever they ate faster than him.

“Hey, hey you’ll choke!” Minho’s eyes bugged, hands hovering as Jeongin would stuff whole chicken pieces into his cheeks and try to chew and swallow it all at once, “Yah, you’d think we’re starving you the way you eat.”

“Nothing we haven’t seen,” Chan rolled his eyes, looking pointedly at Changbin, “Better than bad eaters in my opinion.”

Jisu sneered at Hyunjin and Yeji, the two elves poking at any food that wasn’t as sweet as nectar. Chan remembered drizzling the sundrop nectar on everything they served them to convince them to eat, and how Minho had begged them to try the food without it, because “I worked so hard on it! I promise it’s good!”

“Yah!” Jisung yelled in alarm as Jeongin started coughing, choking on his last bite, Chan quickly pulling him out of the chair and tilting him down, harshly patting his back until he gagged and the food came out, clear alarmed crying replacing the retching sound. 

“Easy, it’s alright,” Chan rocked him as he held him close, “Appa’s got you. This is why you don’t eat so fast, hm? Those bites were too big, Jeongin-ah, too big for you.”

When he came back to the table, Felix and Seungmin had pulled apart the remaining food into small shredded pieces that he couldn’t possibly choke on, eyes concerned as Chan fed him in smaller bites, the little boy hesitant at first, before returning back to his food-deprived habit of wanting more in his mouth than he could handle. 

“Tch,” Chan scolded, “You’ll learn eventually.”

He wouldn’t but the choking events became fewer and further between. 

His face became angular as he grew. Changbin had made it a point to scold him when he was older over his power of influence.

“We’d do anything for you, Jeongin-ah,” he said gently, “You don’t have to deceive us with your magic, just ask us.”

Maybe it was the respect for another person who lived on four feet as well as two. Jeongin finally figured it out one cold night when Chan was sitting by the fire, most of the house asleep as he tried to soak in the warmth he couldn’t feel, and Jeongin had pattered in on four paws, looking up at Chan with a questioning expression. 

“Hm, come here, Jeonginnie.”

He hopped up and Chan’s fingers combed through his rusty fur, humming a little tune that lulled Jeongin straight to sleep, a contented sound drifting between them, and sounding like a home more than a manor had ever been. 

❣️

They had finished building the third cottage– further into the woods so that the elves could better master their magic with the trees– when they unofficially met Ryujin.

Ryujin was a menace. 

Chan was sure he was going crazy, when he heard the baby giggling at midnight. It happened for several nights, and Chan was left with dark raccoon eyes that had searched every nook and cranny of where he thought he’d heard it. 

“Appa,” Felix said rather solemnly, “You look scary.”

Jeongin gave Chan one look, and then ran away. 

“Agreed,” Yeji stared with wide eyes, shivering before looking away at Minho, “Is that what it looks like to get old?”

Minho’s face was more concerned, and once all the kids were distracted, he pulled Chan aside, “Are you alright, appa?”

With half a mind to tell Minho he was going crazy, Chan stood there, mouth wide, before frowning and trying to consider the reality of words and explanations and how they failed him in this moment, when that wretched giggling rang through again. 

Minho looked up and around, before looking at Chan, “Did you hear that?”

A manic laugh rose from Chan’s chest despite him trying to keep it buried within him, “Oh why, did you? ”

The next three days were spent in a deranged baby hunting fiasco that exhausted Chan more than his entire lifetime as a vampire. He didn’t eat, mad with trying to find the mysterious child laughing, and it wasn’t until he woke up, staring at the ceiling, did he realize that it might have been a problem. 

Changbin shoved a raw bunny towards his teeth, Seungmin making a disgusted but concerned expression over his shoulder.

“Appa, you have to eat.”

“Hng… yeah, I know, Changbinnie.”

“You can’t live like this.”

It sounded like everything Chan had ever told his kids over their lifetimes, “Yes, appa knows, Changbin-ah.”

After a couple moments of silence, waiting for Chan to finish eating, another chorus of amused giggling, muffled, as though through a blanket, rang out. Changbin sighed deeply. 

“We’ve got to find this kid,” he muttered, shoving his face into his hands, “We’re all going to lose our minds.”

Although Minho didn’t conjure a way to find the kid, he did manage to come up with a way to block out the sound and help them sleep at nights– an odd little set of ear warmers that fit snugly over their heads. Only Jisu didn’t wear them. Her ability to sleep through anything persevered through their trials. Chan slept through two full days straight with the little invention. 

When he woke up, it was full of determination to get to the bottom of wherever this baby was hiding. 

He gathered all his kids outside, trying to formulate a plan, when a loud crash within the house demanded his attention, and he rushed in to find–

“Appa,” Jeongin whispered, peering behind Chan’s legs, “There’s a baby in our fireplace.”

The little girl turned around from where she was waving her hands in the soot sweetly, realizing she was being talked about, and when she noticed them all looking at her, giggled so fiercely she rolled onto her back, clutching her feet and covering herself in more ash. 

“...Yeah, Jeongin-ah,” Chan grimaced, “There is.”

Ryujin was unlike any baby Chan had ever seen. He’d consulted Sana to confirm– "...You're absolutely right. What an odd child."

She would make a habit of disappearing at times and then spontaneously reappearing into Chan’s arms when she required him. She was independent and fiery. 

And had an odd habit of playing in the fireplace whenever she was upset with any of them. 

“Appa,” Jisu marched into Minho’s cottage where Chan was helping the witch sort through ingredients, “I don’t know what I did, but Ryujinnie is eating ash and I can’t get her to stop.”

When they both rushed back to the cottage, Ryujin was near unrecognizable, standing up in the fireplace and marching her feet in the soot, before turning and attempting to run around the house with her dirty feet. 

“Nope, no, not happening,” Chan snatched her up, landing her with a stern expression, “What is this, hm? Why are you giving your unnie a hard time?”

She crossed her arms, “I don’t wanna bathe!”

Jisu groaned, throwing her arms up, “Well you’ve got to! You smell gross!”

“No! I don’t!”

“Stop being contrary!”

“I wanna!” Ryujin shouted in her face, before throwing her arms around Chan’s neck and holding him tightly– her way of signaling she was done with the conversation. 

Chan let out a deep sigh, just holding her tightly, and glad that she was giving him the chance to be held. His hand ran up and down her back, not caring of how dirty she was getting him. 

Jisung and Felix flew in and flew up to her face, giggling as they poked her face and got soot on their fingers– right up until she bared her teeth at them and snapped. 

“Ryujinnie, be nice,” he said softly, “We all just want to take care of you.”

She pouted, nose digging into Chan’s shoulder as she tried to hide her face. 

He walked her outside, avoiding the river for now so he didn’t scare her away, humming a soft tune he remembered from when he was a child himself. 

He didn’t miss the manor. He looked over his shoulder at the three cottages along the river, and all the sounds he could pick out and recognize of the kids he’d raised and cared for all the years. 

In a soft tone, meant for himself in the slow realization that had settled and grown in his heart, he said what he’d known in not so many words. Because when it was finally out in the world, it was real and holdable. 

“It’s because we love you.”

A single tear rolled down his face at the admission. And he turned to kiss her head and hold her close enough that their hearts were the same. 

“I love you, do you know that? I want nothing but the best for you, do you believe me Ryujin?”

Ryujin clutched his shirt, and to his surprise, he felt her tears against his neck, coming out in sobbing little breaths. He wasn’t sure if someone so little could even grasp it but–

“Appa?”

“Yes, Ryujinnie?”

“I love you.”

And for a little bit, they just swung in the wind, holding each other and repeating iit over and over. 

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“ Love you.”

Love you.

It was dark when Ryujin let Jisu take her into the river to bathe. But there was no crying, or screaming, or disappearing when they came back, and Ryujin crawled right into Chan’s bed and was still in his arms in the morning. 

❣️

Sana had been altogether too pleased with herself when she’d brought Chaeryeong. 

Chan had given up, even shaking his head, waiting expectedly from where he’d been stringing up his hunt to skin on the side of the cottage, washing his hands quickly and holding out his arms for the little girl as she came. 

Chaeryeong was older, able to toddle on two feet when she was given to Chan.

“She fell out of the back of a caravan if you can believe it,” Sana shrugged, wrapping her in a quilt she’d made, “I was going to take care of her but… I think she’ll fit in better with you.”

Chan didn’t have the chance to ask what on earth she could have meant quick enough, because Jisung flew in gracelessly and plopped on the ground beside them, and startled, Chaeryeong screamed–

–and everything stood still. 

Chan’s eyes were stuck blown wide, dust frozen mid-air, Sana looking like she was trying to step back out of the influence of the magic, Jisung’s mouth open in shock, his hands in his hair. 

When the magic finally wore off, Chan looked down at Chaeryeong, who then let out a little amused giggle. 

“Ah,” Chan nodded, “I see.”

“Made the neighbors upset,” Sana laughed uncertainly, “Um, have fun?”

“...thanks.”

They couldn’t figure out a name for what Chaeryeong was, other than scared. 

She was always jumping out of her skin, or whirling around her shoulder, or clutching for someone to hide her from something that wasn’t there. 

Minho had only just figured out that Ryujin could possibly be a species of gremlin, although the details of such a thing escaped him– and the possibility of unraveling what Chaeryeong was physically confined him to his bed for several days, until Chan came and physically dragged him out, assuring him it wasn’t as important as being there for the new kid. 

“That girl you’re trying to woo won’t be impressed with a witch half-dead on his feet,” Chan muttered under his breath, half-teasing and altogether too pleased when Minho turned an embarrassing shade of strawberry before deciding it was alright to rest. 

Besides, Chan's personal theory for Ryujin drifted closer to that of a changeling with the purpose of wreaking havoc wherever she went, but that was a point of teasing he kept to himself.

Chan slung Chaeryeoung on his back, like he did most of his kids, and there was not a trace of begrudging attitude in doing so. He’d long given up the idea that his purpose was for anything but what he was doing– if a good life was one that did whatever was the next right thing to do, Chan had a long string of proofs that there was nothing bad from loving fully and with abandon. 

“Appa, what’s that sound?” Chaeryeong hands curled into the back of his shirt, teeth chattering, “Appa, appa, what is it?”

Chan looked up, where even the birds had gone quiet and then at where his own senses had pinpointed a foreign presence, waiting in hiding to strike. He crouched down and then pointed between the brush, at the grey fur and the little animal it stalked. 

“ A wolf, Chaeryoungie, ” he whispered, the little one gasping in a hushed tone as they both waited and watched. 

This wolf was one of Changbin’s brothers, Chan could sense it. There was even a flicker in his eyes as the wolf acknowledged his presence and he acknowledged his hunt, right before the wolf shot out after the little bunny and clamped his jaws down on it. 

In his old age, Chan realized a little too late that the image of the hunt might have been too graphic for the little girl to see, but to his surprise her heartbeat remained steady and calm, a sense of wonder as she looked at the wolf proudly bringing back his kill. 

“Who’s he taking it for?”

“Maybe he has pups, maybe just himself, I don’t know.”

Chaeryeong nodded, and then tilted her head curiously to the side, “I think it’s for his brothers and sisters.”

Chan smiled, thinking of when Chaeryeong had first met Changbin, and the werewolf had brought back strung up bunnies for their stew.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. For his dongsaengs.” She smiled and then nodded with more surety, “I know it.”

Chan chuckled, reaching back to pull her hand and kiss her palm, “Whatever my little girl says.”

Belatedly, he did realize he’d grown softer over the many years. He hadn’t believed it at first, when Changbin sneered and accused his strictness from loosening and softening with every child, bemoaning the time Chan would scold him for the most trivial of things. But he knew it to be true, especially when Ryujin insisted she couldn’t clean her muddy feet yet because “they were just going to get dirty again later” and he found himself unable to argue against such sound logic when she kept the mess confined to near the front door and always managed to clean after herself. 

Changbin was right– Chan would’ve given him a proper scolding if he had ever attempted such a thing. 

They all squished around the dinner table as Minho laid out several dishes he’d cooked in his cabin, the elvish twins laying aside desserts they’d baked with the fairies to fill their own cabin with sweet smells, as Chan turned off the stove and looked through his cabinets for silverware. 

Chaeryeong was the only one waiting patiently with her hands folded at the table, looking around curiously as life unfolded.

Jisu’s head was on the table as she took a short nap, Felix braiding a row of flowers into her hair as Hyunjin tugged out the old braids all the fairies had done on each other to instead try a new hairstyle he’d learned from one of Minho’s books on elvish culture, that wove several different braids into one another into a neat column down the back. Seungmin teased him as he finished Felix’s hair and moved to Jisung’s, claiming it looked like baked bread on their heads, which earned him a laughing kick from Jisung and a pout from Felix. At the mention of bread, Changbin’s stomach growled, and he cracked open one of Minho’s dishes to sneak himself a bite of sourdough, only to be caught by Jeongin, who gave him a devious smile until he got him a piece as well. 

On the ground, Ryujin rolled back and forth, making strange sounds like a wild animal that couldn’t be tamed, and Yeji laughed and laid down on the ground, waiting for her to roll her way before wrapping her in a hug and rolling onto her back, holding the girl captive in her embrace. 

“My little sister,” she kissed Ryujin’s cheek, “Why are you dusting the floor for us!”

“Because it’s fun! ” Ryujin laughed from her belly as Yeji began tickling her sides to coax more of her sweet laughs from her body. 

There was another odd thing that happened as each kid came and molded themselves into their family– all their past hurts laid to rest.

As the older siblings watched out for the younger ones, helping then grasp heavy things to hold, like abandonment and being cast out, they reassured the truth of it for themselves.

Although Hyunjin and Yeji craved the culture they were taken from, they never held it with hands that crushed it into something that crippled them with pain.

Minho and Changbin had long laid to rest that the family that had left them was nothing compared to the family that chose to love them, and that was enough for their hurt, and would become enough for their little siblings' hurt.

It was the inner workings of love that were oddly secret to name and explain.

When Chan turned, he was pleased to see Chaeryeong looking down at Ryujin and Yeji, smiling as though it were her in that hug, being held and tickled, content and relaxed. 

Minho chuckled down at them, before hauling them up and sitting them around the table– a very squished table, but one where they could all join hands to bless the food, and there were more than enough hands to pass around everything until it was all eaten. 

Unlike most of his children, Chan had to coax Chaeryeong to remember she was eating. She got far too distracted at mealtime, staring at them all and trying to listen to jokes and stories as they were told. More often than not, her trying to catch all the stories would end up with her staring dazed somewhere off into space, like her mind was floating between all of them. 

It was in one of those moments that Jeongin looked over, and thinking that Chaeryeong must have simply not been enjoying the food like the rest of them because she couldn’t grab anything for herself from the high chair, stood up and quickly passed the basket of buns. 

He did it so quickly and so suddenly, that Chaeryeong flinched and threw her hands around her head, freezing Jeongin, herself, and Jisu in the seat next to her. 

For a split moment, Chan was proud– they had been working on not freezing as large an area when she became scared, and to control her magic to whatever in specific was scaring her. 

But in the next his heart sunk, because the way her arms wrapped around herself was nothing short of defensive. 

Hyunjin realized it in the same moment Chan did, and as the magic wore off and her position stiffened protectively, he reached over gently to hold her the best he could. 

“Oh darling…”

Minho crossed his hands in front of his mouth, while Changbin tried to get the rest of the kids to return to their meals and not stare at her too long. 

Jeongin held the basket of bread with the most pitiful expression, “What did I do, appa?”

“Nothing, Jeonginnie, nothing, she just got scared,” Chan pulled him back down into his seat, “You keep eating, okay? Appa will make sure she eats, I promise.”

As Chan pulled Chaeryeong up from her seat, her hands still hidden in her hands and now accompanied with short panicked sobs, Minho felt Seungmin press a little closer to him, Jisu glancing between the three fairies as they started to understand what had happened, before distracting Ryujin and picking a fight with Yeji over the proper temperature to drink milk in order to lighten the mood. Minho bent down to kiss Seungmin’s head, a hand ghosting his back at the phantom pain that sometimes plagued him, and Seungmin held Minho’s cloak tightly. 

Chan rocked Chaeryeong gently in one of the bedrooms in the back.

“No one’s going to hurt you, Chaeryeong,” he promised, “Appa will never let anyone hurt. Your brothers and sisters don’t want to hurt you.”

Chaeryeong nodded, like she knew and always knew and never wanted to forget, but her body didn’t quite understand. 

“Jeongin– Jeongin doesn’t– Hyung doesn’t want to– doesn’t want to hurt– doesn’t– won’t hurt– won’t hurt me–”

“No, baby, he won’t.”

She rubbed her eyes, her lips curling into a cry, “Even if he’s really really mad?”

Chan felt a hurt sound crawl out of him, and he gently pulled her hands away, “Even then. And appa would never be mad at his babies, never. I can be scared that you might get hurt, or too tired to understand what you’re doing, or sad you aren’t listening to me, or frustrated that something isn’t going well, but never mad at you. Never .”

Chaeryeong nodded, short stuttered movements that landed her head on his shoulder, followed by a long breath that deflated all the tension from her body and into his hands. When she’d managed to calm herself enough to feel her stomach rumble with hunger, they returned to the table, and she quietly ate her meal and smiled at her siblings, and everything returned to as it was.

Well, perhaps not exactly as it was– Hyunjin leaned over slowly and kissed her head, and after dinner, Jisu insisted on all the girls washing in the river, taking Chaeryeong in her arms with a brimming excitement of sharing her water spirit magic with her. Minho opened his newest books as he always did– this time a history of fairies he’d found with Sana’s help, the fairy brothers gathering close to read their language and story in the woven pages. Changbin helped Hyunjin leave the desserts on the table while Jeongin sat listening to Minho read from afar, fingers in his mouth– an old habit Chan couldn’t get him to shake– slowly dozing off where he sat.

The moon was high and the fireflies were alight when they all split between the three cabins for the night, Chan tucking Chaeryeong into her little cot with a kiss on her forehead as a seal to his promise. 

And it was good and beautiful, and Chan thought it should never change.

❣️

The last child that would belong to Chan, came at the end of a long and hard history. 

A history that started with a heavy wind, dry and angry, that sent little sparks on the ground. The first time Chan saw it, he assumed the fairies were up to their usual mischief, and chuckled as the bronze flickers danced and disappeared on the ground. 

But then he saw it again while he watched the three fairies wash in the river, all of their eyes on the little brown leaf smoking and disappearing in the flames that consumed it. 

They turned to Chan, confused and worried.

Minho found him soon after, taking a bucket of water to enchant and protect their roofs– “There’s a dragon war to the north. There’s fire in the air.”

They tried to be careful when they could. They stuck to magic that didn’t aggravate the air and to the light the sky gave them rather than candles and fireplaces. Chan was careful to watch Ryujin as she tested the limits of her magic, holding Yeji and Felix’s hands, and trying to take them with her when she disappeared. It was mildly successful– sometimes Yeji’s hand would disappear, and then slowly her body would follow with it. Sometimes Ryujin would reappear but without the companions she’d taken with her, and they’d have to go on little treks to find what tree top or cupboard they’d found themselves transported to. 

It was in this weather that Minho found little Dori– a grey kitten crying with burnt paws, who he tucked into his cloaks and nursed back to health. Jeongin took great interest in Minho’s cats, all his familiars not dissimilar to himself when he moved in his fox form. And whenever they’d get into mischief scratching the trees that the twins protected or eating at the hunt Chan and Changbin had carefully gotten, he’d control his magic to scold them and send them elsewhere. 

Chan didn’t worry about the heaviness in the air as much as he should have because they were all here, and safe, and protecting one another.

And then the brush caught fire.

And then the dragons brought their rage along the river.

It was like watching the coming of a great storm or a heavy wave, the event horizon of a terrible doom as it threatened everything in its path. 

Minho flew out on his broom, placing as many wards and protections as he could around the perimeter, before Jisung flew out to grab him and pull him out of the smoky air into his house.

“Everyone gather in Minho’s house, hurry now,” Chan ushered them all quickly, grabbing the few things off his shelves– books, dairies, trinkets that held more heart in their memories– and rushing them towards the opposite cottage.

He stopped at Minho’s doorway, counting the fairies, setting down Chaeryeong in Sana's quilt, seeing Jeongin curled with the cats, Jisu more awake than he’d ever seen her in his life between them.

“Changbin?”

Minho shook his head, “Warning his pack. He might burrow down with them, he didn’t say.”

“The twins? Ryujin?”

Minho shook his head, fingers drumming on his broom, “I… appa, maybe I should go grab them, they won’t be quick enough–”

“They’re probably giving extra strength to the forest through their bonded trees,” Chan shook his head, holding Minho’s arm, “No, stay here. It’s Ryujin I’m worried about. Although… if she sends herself away for protection–”

“It’s coming!” Felix cried, pointing out the window, where the trees were dark shadows against the fire that consumed the land behind it.

As he screamed it, a terrible crackling ripped through the middle of the house, and from the ceiling, Ryujin dropped down holding Hyunjin’s arm in one hand and Yeji’s foot in the other. The elves groaned, tangled in one another as they picked themselves up from the floor, followed immediately by Changbin’s wolf paws barging through the door, bloody and torn, but they were all here, so Chan pushed Minho into the cottage and slammed the heavy door shut, Minho placing a final enchantment on it.

Then they all gathered close together. 

It was Hyunjin who cried out first, clutching his chest as his birch suffered, Minho pulling him close and whispering spells as his forehead broke out into a cold feverish sweat. Yeji held his hand tightly, tilting her head back as she closed her eyes. Jisung stared at the window, where the enchantment blurred the flames, arms locked into Seungmin’s and Felix’s– one brother covering his ears and the other covering his eyes. Jeongin’s ears were pressed flat, cowering with each of the cats, Changbin’s wolf tucking them all beneath him. Jisu clutched her hair and rocked back and forth. Ryujin tucked herself as small as she could in the center of the floor. Chaeryeong held Chan as tight as she could, and Chan returned the strength. 

And then the house felt like it began to crack. 

Minho cried out, shooting his wand out to reinforce the magic, but it cracked nonetheless. The fairies immediately yelled, little sparks of magic flying up to amplify and seal Minho’s charms.

The fire storm was directly above them. 

In a deafening moment, Chaeryeong leapt up from Chan’s arms and threw her arms out, and in a moment of absolute bliss and terror, everything became still. 

Chan could see all of their eyes, as they turned to look at her. For a moment he thought that if it was the last thing he saw, all of their faces, it would have been the most beautiful thing he could see.

There was silence, and a great light.

And then everything dimmed.

The fire passed. 

Chaeryeong’s magic slowly numbed, until it fell completely and cut them all from her strings, the little girl collapsing in Chan’s arms from exhaustion. Minho did much of the same, wand clattering to the floor and hat falling from his head as he passed out, the house groaning and settling back into place as the magic mended itself. 

Yeji pulled Hyunjin up in a panic, “We need to check his tree, we need to– ”

Chan put an arm out, “It’s still deadly hot out there, we don’t know the damage. We need to wait.”

Jisu abruptly stood up, her hands shaking with purpose as she rushed out to the window, holding her palms out and with a great yell, pulling at the river.

Chan gasped to look out– it didn’t seem as though there was much water to it, but the water rushed from everywhere at her command, and, just like the fire, pulled over the land and the house and bathed everything in it’s cool touch, before Jisu pushed it back and fixed it to it’s course.

Weary and slow, she turned to them with lidded eyes, waving at the door, “Go… go check.”

Yeji stared, before nodding, pulling her feverish brother by the arm as Seungmin undid the enchantments to let them out. Changbin quickly got up, sitting down and gruffly motioning for them to climb on him. As he waited for them, Felix hurried over to mend his paws, securing them in extra protection right as he bounded out towards the forest. Jisung fluttered between Chaeryeong and Jisu, slowly mending their strength once he was sure Minho was not magic-drained, simply exhausted. Jeongin trotted over to him as Ryujin ungracefully poked his cheeks.

“Oppa, are you dead.”

Minho groaned as Jeongin’s sandpaper tongue ran over his nose, “Why, should I be?”

Chan chuckled, helping him sit up and holding him tightly, “You just saved our lives.”

With a nonchalant wave, Minho mumbled, “It was a joint effort.”

Chan let his pride take over and wash over Minho and all his kids, before he threw his head back with a contented sigh. 

And then Minho noted in a quiet voice, “I… don’t think the village would have survived.”

Minho had given the village as many enchantments and potions as he could but…

Chan’s heart twisted as he nodded.

But then footsteps ran up to the cottage and threw the door open. Jeongin shifting and exclaiming in a bright voice:

“Ms Sana!”

“Oh thank God! I saw the other cabin, and– Oh thank God!”

Chan quickly sat up, passing Chaeryeong to Minho as Sana fell into his arms in complete and utter relief. Her face was covered in ash, tear stains of relief tracking clear lines down her face as Chan brought his sleeve to her cheeks. 

“Did Minho’s enchantments work?” he asked softly, thoroughly concerned, “Is everyone alright?”

Sana only nodded, still crying with relief as she sunk to the ground, kissing each and every face. When Changbin returned with news that Hyunjin’s tree was damaged but not destroyed, she ran out to go find the two elves and help them in any way she could. 

Changbin leaned against the doorframe, letting Minho wrap his hands and feet in burn ointment, holding Felix close as the fairy looked at the fire devastation in reserved sadness. 

“The cabins are gone,” he said quietly, “Only Minho’s remains. The elvish cottage could be remade over the course of many years but yours…”

Chan nodded, “It was bound to happen.”

Seungmin tugged Chan’s hand, “Appa? Where will we stay then? Minho-hyung doesn’t have space for all of us.”

Minho protested lightly at Seungmin “doubting his abilities,” but he knew it in his heart that the little fairy was right. Chan brushed his hair back and smiled.

“Appa might have another home for us. Appa will take care of you, all of you, don’t worry.”

As it happened, Chan’s old village and the valley he’d come from remained untouched. The dragons had followed a very particular path down the river, and the manor Chan had grown up in remained untouched. 

The village remained as friendly as always, smiling and greeting Chan as he paraded in his troupe of children up to the old manor that everyone had been too scared to touch. 

It required a little dusting, a few renovations to allowed Minho to brew potions and test spells, and some rooms opened up for the fairies to fly and the magic to flow freely from the forest for the elves, but it wasn’t impossible to fix.

His five eldest didn’t promise to stay all the time– they managed to promise seasons, seasons where Minho didn’t need the open space to cultivate his magic, and Changbin didn’t need to train the runts of the pack, and both Hyunjin and Yeji didn’t need to connect with their trees to protect the forest, and Jisu didn’t need the essence of the water to guide as a water spirit.

But they didn’t deny that home was where the heart was, and their heart was where family was.

And home was the sparkling of two fairies flying overhead, Jisung and Felix taunting each other, Seungmin bounding across the roof of the manor and attempting to catch the wind as he jumped, only for Minho to catch him on the front of his broom, Seungmin leaning forward with his arms out to the side like he was flying. Home was Jisu chasing Ryujin for a bath, and Jeongin chasing after the elves in the forest around their home, Hyunjin throwing his head back as he ran while Yeji laughed freely and fully. Home was Changbin carrying Chaeryeong on his back as he explored every room of the manor, to assess that it was perfect for them, and Chan waiting for the dinner table to be filled with all twelve of them.

It was early spring, as the snow just began to melt, when Sana’s parents passed and she traveled up to the manor, bringing a piano and several seeds to throw around the property. She came barefoot, like spring would follow wherever she went.

Chan watched her fondly from the porch steps, and offered her his hand into his home.

She dressed in white while he dressed in his dark suit coat, and they exchanged rings in the village church, but walked a flower path to the manor for the children. 

In a few short days, she went from “Ms Sana” to “eomma.”

It was late summer when Chaeryeong rubbed Sana’s belly and said, decidedly, “Eomma, you’re going to have a very cute baby.”

Sana laughed as Jeongin stared with wide eyes and nodded. The fairies all placed bets on whether they would gain a brother or sister, Changbin whittling gifts for the new baby room while Minho took all of Chan’s lack baby-proofing skills and went to town on every corner of the manor. Ryujin would float above Sana’s head, wondering this and that about the little baby’s eyes and voice and hair, only for Jisu to roll her eyes and say it wouldn’t matter anyway because the baby would be a mix of Chan and Sana and would be nothing short of beautiful. 

“A vampire-nymph baby,” Hyunjin scrunched his nose at the thought, “How peculiar.”

Yeji slapped his arm, “How powerful! Imagine how quickly the little one will have us all wrapped around their little finger!”

As true as it was, the baby frightened Chan just a little. This was a baby he’d hold from the very first day, who’d open their eyes under his care, and learn everything from what he’d show.

“Chan,” Sana tilted his head up and smiled, “It’ll be perfect.”

“Oh yeah?” Chan raised an eyebrow, hands rested around her swollen stomach, “Why’s that?”

“Because she’s coming into a home full of love, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it? It’s really no different than every child before.”

“I suppose,” Chan rested his head against hers, and then smirked, “...You said ‘she.’”

“Mm… I did, didn’t I?” she laughed, “Call it a hunch.”

The end of the pregnancy came quicker than Chan realized. One moment he was walking with Sana in their gardens, the next he was carrying her into the house. It was a rainy day when Sana went into labor. 

When her labor finished, the room was covered in flowers, all across the bed and along the floor and lining the windows, opening to the sun as the storm clouds cleared. Minho hesitantly opened the door and they all rushed around the bed, Sana leaned up against the pillows while Chan sat beside her, holding a very small bundle with a broad and proud smile.

“She’s so little!”

Jeongin perched on Changbin’s shoulders, Minho carrying Chaeryeong while Ryujin clambered onto the bed next to Sana, Yeji and Jisu kneeling on the ground, Hyunjin peering over Chan’s shoulder, Jisung and Felix hovering over the bed and sprinkling fairy dust on them all.

The little baby blinked her eyes open slowly, greeted by the smiles of many adoring faces, and then cooed softly. 

“Welcome to the family, Yuna,” Chan whispered, leaning down to kiss her soft little head. 

And then, in bated breaths and hushed wonder, they passed her around, full of love and adoration for their new sister.

Chan sat back, an arm around Sana, and a peaceful weight in his chest.

Chan felt like a very rich man.The wealth of a string of pearls– twelve children who called him “appa.” There was no measurement of time to ever capture such a thing, and all the time Chan had lived and had left to live, fell short and insignificant to this one moment. 

All of his children, his little family that could no longer fit just between two arms, all pressed into one bed.

Chan could live a lifetime more, if it meant being caught between these hearts.

Because it wasn't a lifetime stretched thin– it was a lifetime sunk deep in the fates of love.