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***
It was a little house that Minho was led to on the night of their mating. Four walls, a sturdy roof, and sweet-smelling bed. Sweeter, somehow, than the crown of flowers that had been laid on his head before they’d feasted. Chan’s laughter had been free as they’d fled from the celebration, his hand almost hot with their fingers tangled. It was their bodies that joined, later, after Chan had lit candles for them, traced gentle fingers over Minho’s face like he was trying to learn the features of him. In some kind of awe that sent heat into Minho’s ears and cheeks.
They had never met before that night. Chan, an alpha, sending out a letter signed by those who knew him to find someone to be his match. It found Minho. Minho, by turn, had found Chan. He stood, still, in the scent of salt spray as they’d stared at each other. It had always been in their power to say no. He hadn’t known Chan’s scent, or his features. But he had before he’d spoken vows. He’d seen the gleam of Chan’s eyes, and the humor of his mouth, and strong cut of his profile. Chan had walked with him in the dimming light, shown him the land he worked, and the house he’d built, and proved himself as the alpha Minho wanted. So they had pledged, and they had mated. And though not guaranteed, they had loved. That awe had only grown, and the fingers always soft. Chan flirted, and Minho huffed. Minho flirted, and Chan melted. Mornings were the sweeter for waking to see Chan’s face lit by the sun as Minho teased him awake with kisses.
And not a full year later, they were joined. Shieun was born to a storm, to the rending of Minho’s body as Chan held him, helped him. As they, together, watched their baby girl take her first breaths.
“She looks like you,” Minho told him, to which Chan denied, and implied the reverse. And yet, it didn’t matter. The pain had been worth it, though the healing was slow. Chan made a cushioned chair for him, so he could sit in the shade, and coo at his baby, and watch his mate. He saw the tension in Chan, when he watched Minho ease into bed, still in pain.
“I realize I could have lost you,” Chan said. “It sounds stupid. I know some don’t survive, but I never thought—”
Minho put his fingers against Chan’s mouth, and did not help himself as he whimpered slightly, hissing between his teeth as he found a comfortable position and let Chan cradle him close.
“You barely knew what I looked like when you agreed to me as your mate. You’ll have to wait until you’re rickety with age before you’re rid of me.”
“I knew what you looked like!” Chan protested, aggrieved. “Do you think that I chose you with my eyes closed?”
Well, no, he knew very well that Chan hadn’t. Still, it pleased him to hear Chan say it.
“You must have liked what you saw in me,” Chan prompted, which sometimes made Minho tease back until Chan was flushed from it.
“I did,” Minho said with a sigh, and he felt Chan freeze at the simple acknowledgement. Yes, he had. And yes, it had led them there to that quiet moment, Chan’s lips soft against the edge of his hair. Every day he grew stronger. Every day, he could help Chan a little more. To watch Shieun marvel at their faces, and grow.
A storm brought Shieun to his arms. And a storm took her from him. The ships that came for them were nearly too late. It was a sleepless night they passed, Shieun close to them as the walls rattled and Chan rested with his head cautiously against Minho’s chest as though staying vigilant would keep them safe. The storm had been to sea, and had turned, and many homes had fallen to the winds. They crowded to the ship, to head across the channel where the storm could not surge so high. The ship was small, and not built for passengers, and so the rain lashed them as dozens huddled together near the back of the ship. Minho held Shieun close to him, nearly seven months old and wailing for the wet and cold he and Chan were trying to shelter her from. It was so different from the world she knew of safety, and comfort. And he knew his own pounding heart and heaving stomach as the ship pitched and rolled toward the shore.
“Maybe we should have stayed,” Chan said, fretting the choice as he steadied Minho among the swaying bodies. He did not look over the rail, as the water seemed to rise toward them.
“We’ll be to land soon,” Minho said, through chilled lips. “The storm might have gone right over us. This is best.”
Chan nodded, hugging Minho closer.
“Someone stop that screaming!”
Minho’s head swung at the shouted words, saw the passengers part as a sailor charged toward them.
“It’s bad enough to hear the storm wailing. Shut the whelp up, or I’ll shut it up for you.”
“She’s cold and frightened,” Minho shot back. “Everyone is frightened.”
Another child down the railing rising sobs seemed to trigger Shieun into another tremulous cry. Minho shifted her, tried to soothe her.
“Shut it up—”
Before Minho could snarl back at the petulant man, he looked up from his soothing to see the sailor’s fingers catch hard in the tight swaddle of Shieun’s blankets. He plucked her up from Minho’s arms as his hands opened, reached. From the sailor’s arced arm, the bundle flew. Up.
Over the rail.
Over the water.
“Shieun!”
The scream tore at his throat as Chan was too late, by moments, to reach, and grab with him.
“Chan!”
He did not know what he shouted for. For Chan to know, though he already knew. For Chan to do something. Chan had leapt onto the railing in one strong motion, and dove like a knife in to the roiling sea. Minho pressed there, nails digging into the wood as people behind him battered the sailor with bags and fists. He saw Chan’s head rise, watched him swim. Minho swung around, saw the captain approaching.
“We have to turn the ship! He— He threw my baby over. My mate is in the water.”
“We can’t turn the ship, not in these conditions. There’s another ship behind us, maybe they’ll see them.”
No. No, it wasn’t possible— Minho turned, searching the waves before he saw Chan’s head come up again. Had he found her? She could not swim. The blankets would have been heavy, and the water rough, and cold. He pushed along the rail and people let him by as he tried to keep his eyes on that faint spot already fading in the rain and waves. Chan had— He had something. Shieun?
“Chan!” he screamed. If Chan could hear him— He was a strong swimmer. Could he swim like that, though? Holding a baby’s face above the water? They all stumbled as the waves rose, and the ship pitched, and Chan disappeared into a trough of water.
“No, no—”
It wasn’t through any thought of his own that he began to climb over the rail. He could not swim, knew he had no chance. It was pure instinct that if he could touch the water, he could pull Chan free, even though the distance between them had grown too far.
Too far. Hands grabbed at him, pulled at him, as he fought. As he pleaded with sailors, with strangers. As he tried to run back to the rail to see anything, but was pulled, nearly carried, and locked in a closet of ropes, and brooms.
“No, no,” he moaned, wet hands slipping on the wood of the door. “No, he can swim— We can find him, we can—”
He dizzied by his frantic breaths, and could barely whisper, much less scream, or shout. He shivered as his knees met the floor, cheeks hot with the bloom of tears as he cried, and choked, and sobbed. His hands gripped at empty air, trying to grab his baby from the sailor’s grasp, trying to pull his mate from the sea. Trying to undo what had been done. Hiccuping, rattling the door, shouting again.
His hands were raw, by the time they docked. And he was numb. They truly carried him that time, wrapped up in a blanket like a corpse, and he did not fight it. Hours might have passed. Hours Chan could not have survived in the water. Hours Shieun, her body so tiny and fragile, could not have survived. Many were taken to the old mill, to warm up with soup provided by the villagers, and to change into dry clothes. He was undressed and dressed like a small child by people whose faces he would never remember. And he lay as though dead, unable to sleep the whole of that night, until sense returned to his mind, and feeling to his limbs, and he ran out into the rain in his borrowed clothes. Ran to the docks to shout at any poor souls still working.
No other ship had found port before the storm had hit. Minho’s ship had been the last. They had either found another port, or had been lost to the storm.
It made him stagger back, nearly falling before he caught himself on a fence rail. He’d thought— If Chan had been able to stay afloat, to swim in the cold water, he could have been found by the ship that followed, the ship not far behind. But if that ship— If it sank? All aboard were lost. Chan, then, twice over. Someone who had seen him flee found him at the dock, wrapped him in an oiled jacket, and pulled him from his stare into the angry water. Again, he was helped to change, helped to eat. No one could pull the tightness from his lungs, or his throat, or his heart. Every day he went to the dock, as the rain lightened. Other ships arrived, but not with anyone from the island. No one had heard anything. Hope slipped from feeble grasp as others boarded ships to return, leaving Minho alone, waiting.
The mill’s owners took some pity, knowing he could not leave while he waited, and letting him begin to train to help in the mill, to grind flour, to bag, or sweep, or sort.
He slept in a small dormitory for those who had no homes, or who were too feeble to work but that had been allowed to stay on. He dreamed, many nights, of the sea. Of peering over the rail of a ship, and seeing Chan’s face there below the water. Reaching. Reaching for him, and sinking as Minho strained to catch him up, until Minho, too, fell, plunging into the cold, into the dark, into the alone.
He woke, gagging, sickness spewing from him like the seawater from his dreams.
“Chan,” he rasped through a raw throat, as he curled, and drew ragged breaths. He had no more tears. They’d been wrung from him, almost like his own sense of life.
***
Minho preferred the days everyone worked together, so there was lively chatter around him. He was quiet, but he preferred it to the quiet of his own thoughts. He could think on their problems, burnt soup, or too-tight clothes, instead of the thoughts in his own mind. His empty arms, empty bed. They all knew, of course. He hadn’t had to tell many of them. There was compassion there, sympathy. Most of it quiet support that he appreciated for its own action. When he’d been unable to do anything, they’d brought him food. They’d made sure he learned all he needed, when he was able to work at all, and cheered for him when some of the fog began to lift. It was like learning to breathe again, and the movement of broom, or the sound of the wheel turning, was all that kept him connected to what was there in front of him.
And still, he thought of Chan. He thought of Shieun.
He would have taught her to walk in the scent of the orange blossoms, tiny hand in his. He should have had Chan until his hair silvered, and his features blurred with age. There should have been other babies for them to love, and adore. He should have rested every night with Chan’s heartbeat in his ear, safe, and wanted. And yet, he had nothing. Himself, his own limbs. Sunshine, rain, it mattered little. He ate, because he felt sicker without it than if he did. He’d heard grief could steal that from people, the taste, or pleasure. He worked purely on panic, for those weeks. At the mill, he toiled long hours, numbing his mind. Before and after, he was at the docks, searching for any news. At first, hoping for good news. Then, hoping for any news at all.
It was confusion, joy, grief itself, when he found he carried a child. When, how, had been his first question. It had been the night before the ship arrived, watching to be sure that their baby was safe, and clinging together for the relief of being together. The heat of Chan’s breath against his face, the taste of him. The memory of it curled him into himself, arm over his belly as he breathed harsh into his elbow. Eyes dry, all of the tears already burned out of him. He carried all that was left of Chan and their daughter. And he birthed that child as the wind howled and the rain lashed outside, his friends at the mill doing what they could as he screamed with the wind, until the baby, a boy, joined with a wail of his own. He gathered the wet, yowling infant close, his heart a rapid thud in his chest, ears hollow as he cooed wordless things at the baby in his arms.
“Jeongin. He is Jeongin,” Minho said, his voice breaking on the name, but he gathered himself to see the baby wrapped and fed. It almost felt like relief, the ache in his own body. Instead of some feeling, like his soul was scored deep and raw, but invisible to the world, it was all of him that ached, and bled, and rested. For many days, all he knew was Jeongin. Sleeping when he slept, eating when food was brought. Seeing his features in firelight, and then after the sun crept out, as the puffiness of birth left him. Minho walked with him to the docks, unwilling to go even within throwing distance of the water with the child in his arms. But it was close enough that he could see the calm water, the shine of the sun from it. Once he’d walked there, daily, speaking to the dockworkers, the sailors. Once he’d hoped that maybe Chan had been picked up by a ship that was going somewhere distant. But how long could he hope that, when he had grown and birthed a child in that time.
“It is possible that your father and your sister lie sleeping in those waters,” he said to Jeongin, who dozed unaware against Minho’s chest. “It is the closest I can bring you to them. I’m sorry.”
Jeongin, like he heard, snuggled closer, cooed softly in his sleep.
He would never leave the shore, he knew. All those who worked there would know his face, and his name, so that if Chan came— He would know. Somehow he would know.
He spent so many nights in the dark, coming alert, wide-eyed with sharp memory. If only the sailors hadn’t pressed them so close to the boat’s edge. If only he’d been clutching her tiny blanket tighter. If he’d somehow been able to divine the purpose of the sailor. If only he’d thrown himself after Chan.
No. Jeongin, softly asleep beside him - Minho felt for him with trembling fingers - would not have existed. If Chan might have made it to another ship, Minho would have sank like a stone. And yet, still, he breathed wordless apologies to them, as his grief raged in him. Whether he bore fault or not, it didn’t matter. He had not thrown his child over the rail. He had not pushed Chan to jump after her. Chan had done so out of love, purely. And had Chan been there, he would have looked Minho in the eye and told him he wasn’t to blame. Not the pretend seriousness, either, but Chan looking at him, almost imbuing him with it. He understood. He did. It made it no easier to bear it.
***
Returning to work was in some ways relief. There were some jobs that could be done with Jeongin carefully tied to his chest. Others, not wanting the fragile baby lungs to be exposed to the flour, where Jeongin was left in the capable hands of other workers who’d helped Minho greatly. It didn’t make it easy. They knew his worries, though, knew his mate and child were lost. Knew that Jeongin was all he had left. They brought Jeongin outside where Minho could see, and were not offended when Minho went to him and sighed in relief at the scent of him when it was time for Jeongin to be fed. He was growing strong, no longer lankiness of newly born, but soft, and round, and sweet. He could see the happiness in those eyes, anticipated the smiles, and the laughs.
Feared how he would feel when Jeongin reached Shieun’s age, and surpassed it. He would not teach Jeongin to walk among the orange blossoms. It would be to the grind of the mill, and the rush of water. It would probably not be in view of the sea, where Minho still took Jeongin at least once per week. To show him. To feel… To feel anything, maybe, when it was not connected to Jeongin. That time apart, working, sometimes steadied him to where he could look at Jeongin and draw steady breaths, and enjoy those moments, and stretches, and seeing the mark of Chan’s features in the little face. He cleaned in the mill, and carried bags when he was able again. He began to sell again in the market, looking over so many faces that were unfamiliar to him. Walking back one night, he saw a little girl high on a man’s shoulders, curls in a little gathered tail on her head. He pushed forward, like he could— Like he could see them, somehow. But they turned down another street, and by the time he got there, there was no more child, or even man. Like he had conjured them out of his dreams. Shieun would be big enough to ride Chan’s shoulders by then. She would be walking, and talking.
Jeongin kicked his feet in joy when Minho picked him up not long after, and even though they’d gone days before, Minho walked back to the water, and sat there until it began to go dark, Jeongin slack and sated against him. He spoke to Jeongin quietly, of Shieun, of her birth. Of Chan, bright red and teary like he’d been the one in labor, as she’d wailed, and whimpered. Chan was so tender with her, his baby girl. So tender to Minho, too, who had been injured in the birth, and so sore. Chan had a way of being there, of knowing that he would take care of things. But Minho had healed, and Shieun had grown. And until the storms, he’d had all he wanted from that first night of looking on Chan’s face. A loving mate, a beautiful child.
“You have the best big sister. She would kiss your face and want to play,” Minho said. And when no more words would come, he pressed his cheek to Jeongin’s hair, and rose, walking back to the mill where he would find a cold supper. Not seeing the man walking with a small child in his arms along the dock.
***
The air in the market felt close as afternoon turned toward evening. Minho didn’t like the feeling, and knew that rain was coming. It was relief that had him taking off his apron, and moving into the street to return to Jeongin. Barely a gust of wind, but the horizon boiled with dark clouds. The wind would come. He hurried, arms aching for Jeongin, throat somehow tight with it. A cart passed, and Minho paused, panic catching tight. He wanted to walk, to run, and his eyes were fixed on those clouds.
“Appa!”
His head swung at the sound, a child’s sweet, clear voice. A child, darting in the lane of the carts, and no one there to grab her. Minho moved without thinking, moving past an ox and grabbing the child up who ran toward him before she could be stepped on or brushed aside. There was commotion on the other side, her parents no doubt.
“You’re okay. We’ll find your—”
“Appa,” she said.
“Oh, I’m not—”
The soft, dark waves of curls. The dimple in one, round cheek as she giggled and leaned in toward his face like she was sharing with him a secret known only to her bright and dancing eyes. She was barely an armful. Still an infant, really. Maybe two years? Maybe. Appa. The tightness in his throat was different, then. Not hope, longing. He hardly dared to breathe, did not want to take in a scent that would tell him so clearly that what he wanted was not his, and never could be.
“Pretty,” she cooed at him, and pain exploded in his chest. Heat melting over his skin as he inhaled, and gasped.
There were curses from another driver as a man raced across the path, and it was only that motion that tore Minho’s focus from the little girl’s face. Tears already in his eyes, and gripping tight his throat before he saw the man’s face.
Chan. Chan, those beautiful lips parting as he saw the child, and then Minho. Chan, who made a sound that resonated in Minho’s bones as he leapt forward and in two bounds had his arms around them.
“Minho!”
“Chan. Chan— Chan. Is this—”
He needed to hear it. Needed to know it in every way that wasn’t his instinct, or the girl’s.
“Shieun. She— She ran from me, but was yelling for. For you,” Chan said raggedly.
“I feared you dead,” Minho said.
“I thought you were dead,” Chan countered. And then groaned, cupping at Minho’s face. Worlds of feeling passed between them in those looks, things that could not be said as they yearned together. “We’ll tell each other everything. Come with me,” Chan fussed at him. “I need to be out of here, look at you…”
“I can’t go, not alone,” Minho said, and the laugh of it, the confusion in Chan’s face, bubbled up in his throat in what felt like his first true laugh in a year. “I have to go back to the mill first. You have a son.”
Chan didn’t seem to understand the words at first, and when he did, his eyes widened. He looked over Minho’s face, like he might be hiding some other secret and surprise.
“Then— Then yes, let’s go!”
Minho grinned, and Shieun, truly his Shieun, looked curiously at Chan’s enthusiasm.
“We’re going to meet your baby brother,” Minho said. And saw that wonder and joy dawn over her face.
“Brother?”
She almost bounced in his arms, as Chan first began to walk, and then paused, realizing he was unsure of where to go.
“Hold my arm,” Minho said, unwilling as yet to take either arm from holding Shieun close. He led them the back way, to the mill, and to the worker’s quarters. She was heavier than Jeongin, but content to be carried, looking around them as Minho fought to watch where he was going as well as he looked between her and Chan like they might disappear.
The frail old woman who looked after Jeongin saw Minho cradling Shieun close, saw Chan.
“My mate!” he called to her. And she nearly danced, too, in her cushioned chair, and drew off the blanket shading the baby dozing in the cradle beside her.
“This is your Shieun?” she asked, looking at the little girl. “She’s beautiful like you.”
Shieun, shy of a stranger, ducked her head into Minho’s neck.
“I found them,” was all Minho could say. Because there was Chan, kneeling by the cradle, and then lifting the sleeping baby. He was still so small, in Chan’s hands. Barely two months from his birth, he nearly looked like a newborn again, against the length of Chan’s arm. He knelt with Shieun, too, so she could see.
“His name is Jeongin,” Minho said softly. “He’s your brother. See, he has dimples like you.”
“Jeongin,” Shieun repeated, or tried. “Brother.”
“We didn’t even know you were pregnant,” Chan marveled, stroking Jeongin’s downy cheek in something quite similar to the awe with which Minho was stroking Shieun’s hair. He lowered his head, drew in Jeongin’s scent. A peace on his face, even if he’d never known of Jeongin’s existence. But like he’d found something he’d lost anyway. Minho got Shieun to trade a few words with the woman, and it took little time to pack his own things. A pair of clothes, Jeongin’s clothes, and diapers, and the few little toys he’d bought for him. The cradle, a loving gift from those at the mill. Chan carried it strapped to his back, and Jeongin in his arms, as Shieun was unmoved, unwilling to unwind herself from Minho. Seeing Jeongin in Chan’s arms felt like he was fevered almost. Fearing he hallucinated something he’d wanted so badly for so long. But Chan let them into a little cabin at the far edge of the city. They settled in, as the first fat raindrops began to fall outside. It was warm inside, the fire burning low, and it smelled of food.
Shieun let him go only then, when they were inside. She went to a little bag, and dragged it to him, showed him her toys. A little knitted cat, a soft leather horse. Several little carved animals. He couldn’t stop touching her. Her hair, her arms. She smiled up at him every time.
“Can I help?” Minho asked, as Chan began to stir something in a pot.
“No, you’re fine. I think he’s hungry, though.”
Chan was right. Though, there was a damp diaper to be contended with, Shieun’s nose wrinkling, though she watched with open fascination as Jeongin was fed, before settling into Minho’s side with her little leather horse, singing softly to herself and using his leg as a pathway. When he looked up, Chan was staring at them, hand on the mantle, hand rubbing against his chest.
“We’ll talk,” Minho told him, and Chan nodded. And then first a smile, then grin broke out over his face as Minho stared at him in curiosity.
“I feel like I’m seeing you for the first time all over again, amazed by how beautiful you are.”
Minho choked slightly, scoffed, looking down at the nursing baby and the playing toddler before looking back up at Chan, whose smile had softened.
“There would have been no other for me,” Minho said. And Chan nodded at that, agreeing.
They ate, with Shieun settled beside them and Jeongin again tucked against Chan’s chest. There was a savory stew, and dumplings that Chan must have purchased earlier. Minho helped to tear one up so that Shieun could pick at them, placing them delicately in her mouth as she gripped the broad handle of her spoon and refused all manner of help in spooning the stew to her mouth.
“No, no,” she said, when Minho tried helping, and shoveled in the stew, warm but not hot. And Minho saw well why Chan had her wear a little smock as some of the stew went awry.
Minho, himself, ate mechanically, acknowledging the food was good, but better because of who he ate with. He could have had gruel, and might not have known it. Jeongin, dry and sated, was unaware, and blissful in his father’s hold. There was little chatter, other than trying to keep Shieun focused on her food and not on wanting to go get a doll, or look at Jeongin. Or even to stand, grinning against Minho’s shoulder until he kissed against her cheek and had her sit again. As for Chan, they looked at each other. Smiling over bites of food, searching each other’s faces as Chan lit a candle. He wanted to say so many things and the order of those things made no sense. He wanted to shout, and dance, and felt both home, and outside of it, as Chan helped Shieun to use the little pot when he saw her begin to squirm. There were so many little things that Chan knew, and that Minho did not. And that Minho knew, and that Chan did not. Pieces and puzzles that had to be fit back together. Time for things to be mended. He got to wipe the stew from Shieun’s face, and wipe her little hands. And setting aside the smock, she crawled right into his lap, snuggling into him with a happy croon.
“I missed you, baby,” he murmured, and felt her little toes dig into his legs as she bounced slightly and then let him hold her. She smelled of home, that home he’d thought lost to him forever. He did to her as well, that was clear, as she sighed against him. A bond that could not have been broken.
“Tell her the story of the cat and the oranges,” Chan said, settling down close. “I could never remember it quite right.”
So Minho did, as rain pelted against the walls, and the fire shone its warmth at them. He told every story he ever remembered telling her, until her eyes were drooping, and her cheeks pink. Tiny bowed mouth, and splayed lashes, and features the same and different from a year before. He saw his chubby baby there in her, with that wispy dark hair having grown in so fine. He had not seen the days between, but his heart felt as though it had as he cradled her as she slept.
“I think she sensed you somehow,” Chan said. “I couldn’t get her to settle last night. I thought she was calling for me, but she kept patting at the door. Normally she’s not fretful like that. I thought maybe she was teething again.”
“I saw you,” Minho marveled, realizing that yes, it likely had been them but not even thinking of it until Chan spoke. “I wasn’t close enough to see your faces. You bore her up on your shoulders. I lost you in the town, and thought… Thought it was just my wishful thinking.”
“She must have caught your scent,” Chan said, brightening. “I’ve heard of the instinct of a baby to their parents, but that’s incredible.”
“I would have known her, too, had I been aware. I would never lose her again, now,” Minho said, and stroked gentle fingers over her arm. She slept so peacefully, so trusting, like they had not been apart even a moment. Even that single breath against the top of her head took him to nights spent rocking her in gentle moonlight, as he bloomed with love for her. Love that had never left him, but that budded again, full of promise. He might have held her all night, except that Jeongin began to whimper, nuzzling against Chan’s chest. It made Minho smile.
“We might have to trade.”
“She has a little cot, here,” Chan said. Chan laid Jeongin briefly in his cradle before taking Shieun from Minho and tucking her into her little bed. Chan soothed her as she stirred slightly, but she fell back asleep soon enough. Minho watched, hungry for all of it, hungrier than Jeongin, though he didn’t let them forget what it was he wanted. Chan caught Jeongin up so carefully, and let Minho take him.
“He kept me from falling away from the world,” Minho said, and felt the relief of Jeongin beginning to feed again. “Before, and after his birth.”
“And Shieun for me,” Chan said, when he’d sat back down beside Minho, very close. “Sometimes it hurt to look at her, because I can see so much of you in her. But it was like you were, through her, telling me I had to get up, and eat, and… Live.”
Minho swallowed hard, and nodded, understanding that far too well.
“You’ve been here, at the mill, all this time?” Chan asked, and Minho nodded.
“I couldn’t leave the sea. After Jeongin was born, I took him near the docks so you could…see him. I’d gone to the docks every day, asked every sailor, every dockworker. I made sure they knew who I was, where I was, in case. I hoped for so long.”
“I had no hope. I thought you were dead,” Chan began. And when Minho nodded, found the strength to continue. “I didn’t want to believe it. I— It’s only Shieun’s might that there are two of us here for you to find. She very nearly didn’t make it. She’d gotten water in her lungs, and the water was so cold. I’d started losing feeling myself by the time we were fished free. The ship, it took us several days up the coast from here to get free of the storm, and by the time she was well enough to travel…” Chan pursed his lips, leaning his cheek into Minho’s shoulder for a moment while he centered himself again. “When we got here, all there was was a bag of your belongings, and I was told they’d buried a man washed up from the sea who’d jumped in to save his infant daughter.”
“But I can’t swim,” Minho said.
“I know. I know! And at first I refused to believe you would have followed me. Sometimes when I was falling asleep I’d be back on the ship, hearing you scream for us from the railing. When we were picked up, I never thought to look to see if you had followed.”
“If I had, I would have been playing with the crabs before you could have looked,” Minho said. “I…I might have. People held me back from trying. When I lost sight of you in the waves, I— I tried to go to you. And the crew refused to turn back for you, they locked me inside.”
He took a ragged breath, and then a calmer one, when Jeongin began to fuss. And felt him relax again, when Minho did.
“They couldn’t have, not in those seas. The ship would have capsized, I’m sure of it, and it might have been too late before they got to me anyway,” Chan said. “Passengers of the ship saw me treading water. The ship nearly came over top of us.”
The chuckle was less mirth, and more the pain of remembering.
“I went south with Shieun a while, because her lungs were still so fragile. I…I thought of returning to our home, but couldn’t, somehow. This is the second time I’ve been back here, putting flowers on the grave I thought was yours. I didn’t ask again at the dock. If I had…?”
“There’s no guarantee,” Minho said. “Sailors come and go. Maybe no one had remembered.. I hadn’t been there so often, after Jeongin was born.”
“The birth, it was…?”
Minho smiled at Chan. “It was not easy, but not so hard as Shieun’s. I wasn’t alone for it.”
“I’m glad,” Chan said softly.
Loose fingers curled together, and they spoke, voices quiet, as one baby slept, and the other fed. Not long after, a dry, and snoozing Jeongin was laid into his cradle, and neither of them with arms full of child then, turned to each other. Chan felt as he had always felt, warm, and solid. He smelled of salt, and man, and living earth.
“Chan—“
“My love,” Chan murmured to him as Minho groaned into his shoulder, and they were caught up so tight, so rightly, together. Muscles in his stomach quivered, tight muscles in his shoulders letting free as Chan kissed against his neck and breathed in ragged time with him. And Chan cupped his face, touching him so tenderly like trying to write his features deep and close.
“Minho,” Chan said, as though testing it for truth. His mate. His mate, kissing him, mouth so soft and querying, so warm, and full of promise. His mate. They were the first tears he’d shed since Jeongin’s birth, there in the dark, with Chan pressed tight to him in the narrow bed. They were both quiet, breathing each other in, listening to the rain outside. Not sleeping, at first, in fear of waking to find it wasn’t true after all. That they were going to be, as they had been, both not alone, and so painfully alone. Minho rose once in the night to clean Jeongin, and feed him again. And Shieun nestled in with them sometime before the dawn. But when Minho woke, it was to Chan draped against his back, and Shieun playing softly with her knitted cat against his chest, and Jeongin beyond her, little feet punching into the air in his cradle. And he gasped to alertness. But not to wakefulness out of dreams. He was awake. What he saw was truth. Shieun saw his eyes open and she grinned toothily at him, holding out her little cat.
“Appa, kiss,” she said, and Minho obliged, giving the cat a good-morning kiss, and then her, as she giggled and let herself be cuddled close.
“Do I get one, too?” Chan asked.
And he looked tired, but radiant as he raised up and loomed over Minho. Minho pouted slightly but raised his face to kiss Chan. Yes, Chan could have as many kisses as he wanted for all time. They had many to make up for.
***
Taking a ship was the last thing that Minho truly wanted to do. As his mind settled that they had truly found each other, as he and Chan spent many hours talking, he longed for their home, wanted to see what had become of it, and knew in his mind that nothing else would befall them on the journey. And yet, the fear remained. On finding Minho again, it was like Chan had been reborn with the need to take them home. To take them from the dirtiness of the mill, to the place that had been theirs.
“I’ll make it safer. If there is a storm that comes over the island again, we won’t have to leave,” Chan said.
Minho did not doubt him. So maybe he trembled, but he boarded the ship. He half wanted Chan to hold Shieun, like maybe Chan, that time, could keep her safe. But Shieun reunited with him was like a little burr also trying to refill herself with the time that was lost. Chan wasn’t offended, and knew it would wane. They took many supplies, cloth, and cradle, and Chan humored him by letting him sit in an interior cabin, both his babies in sight. It wasn’t so crowded, the sea not so rough. And the sun was sparkling hot when they, to Minho’s relief, found their feet on the dock. They stayed in the town the first few days, as Chan and local men made repairs and prepared the house, and prepared to expand it. The orange trees were lush, and green, and he cradled Jeongin close as Shieun held his fingers and walked beside him as they played among the trees to the sound of hammers. But then it was theirs, facing the water, cradle in its place, and cot for Shieun. Their bed, newly stuffed, and sweet smelling. Food. Oranges in a bowl on the low table.
Chan had led him there, once. His mate. Minho laughed, then, sitting on their small porch, and watching Chan with Shieun on his shoulders, Shieun pretending he was a horse as they trotted among the trees. Jeongin belched against Minho’s shoulder, and scared himself into crying as Minho cooed at him and rose to join Chan and Shieun. Shieun leaned down, bestowing Minho with a kiss, and patting Jeongin’s head.
“We’re home,” Chan said, and Minho nodded, holding out a hand for Chan to take, as they walked with all that was precious to them in the scent of orange blossoms.
***