Work Text:
Book cover by me on Tumblr.
Today was yet another normal working day at Kiseungu Raising Facility.
Well.
Normal for most people, that is.
Today Noah came to work, much more distracted than usual.
It was hard not to be with everything that had happened yesterday.
With so much information to process and so little time left in the night to think about everything.
It was exhausting.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this mentally drained from thinking… maybe back when he was in high school? He did well in most subjects, but biology was genuinely a nightmare.
Sometimes he still shuddered whenever he heard anything about cell division or anything along those lines.
And then there were viruses, lord, he hated viruses.
He was a little mentally tired, no, scratch that. He was a little exhausted.
And the target of his thoughts wasn't helping much with his already scattered focus. Had too much to think about but too little time for any of them.
Han Yoojin was still the same, working like he always did whenever Noah saw him. That being said, he was busy, very busy.
Even so, Noah felt something rather light about the raven-haired man.
He felt… distant. In a way.
From the space around him, and from everything the older man interacted with or interacted with him.
But at the same time, he also looked like he hadn't changed at all? Does that make sense?
Maybe it was just his imagination.
Or it was… something that he was only realizing now. After getting to know a part of the teenager who had grown up to become the person he knew now.
…
Noah walked into the yard, where Yoojin was playing with Blue.
“Hey bud- uh!”
He didn't even get to finish his sentence before a ball of fur slammed straight into his face.
The S-class had to take a few steps back to keep his balance from how hard the baby monster launched herself at him.
He reached out to catch Blue as the kid threw herself at him, and he thought there was some fur in his mouth.
Aw.
He hadn't even been gone that long.
“Piiiii!”
Blue responded as she planted both of her front paws on the blond's shoulders.
He patted her, but at the same time he needed to get her off his face.
He couldn't see anything.
KKKikkk
He thought he'd just stepped on a toy.
“Blue! Come down, come on baby”
Yoojin ran over to help get the baby down.
Thankfully, after a while, Blue got off Noah's face.
Strange, she usually wasn't this clingy.
And not for this long, either.
Noah picked up the ball beneath his foot and threw it.
A blurry figure shot after it.
It only took a moment for her to come back with the ball.
“Good girl”
Yoojin patted her head, Blue chirped happily and dropped the ball for Noah, “looks like she wants to play with you”
He smiled fondly as the girl kept moving closer to the other.
That was just so cute.
“Ah.. I guess so”
Noah was also a little surprised by how much friendlier than usual she was being.
He threw the ball again.
Blue flew after it at the speed of a standard missile.
Then he turned to look at the black-haired man..
He..
He just had to ask.
A few questions shouldn't hurt, right?
He just had to be careful about it.
“Can I ask something?”
He asked, his voice sounding more careful than he wanted.
It took him a few seconds to adjust it so that it sounded more fidgety than worried.
?
Yoojin watched Noah's expression.
It only lasted for less than a second, and then his expression softened, looking strangely reassuring.
“Go on, I'll answer it best as I can”
The blond almost sighed in relief at being given permission.
The older man rarely said anything about himself, so getting him to accept so easily like this… Noah guessed today was his lucky day.
Maybe his mood was good because it was Blue's playtime.
“About what you did when you were in school, I was wondering… do you miss it?”
He had asked a similar question yesterday.
This time, he approached it from a different direction, wondering what the answer would be.
Yoojin's expression didn't change. Not even a little.
He looked a little nostalgic.
“Well… it's hard to say exactly because there was a lot going on back then”
It took him a little while to find a way to put it.
“I'd still say it was a pretty great time while it lasted, despite everything..”
There was some nostalgia in his eyes, but it didn't reach his face, not that far. He looked like any adult when asked about their school days, nostalgic, and a little wistful about a period that had long since passed.
All the aftertaste of it still burned on his tongue, despite the many years that had passed. It made him feel.. rather complicated.
Noah watched him.
He didn't know what he was looking for, just… his instincts told him that he was supposed to notice something.
Yoojin's answer wasn't much different from yesterday's either.
He guessed he was just thinking too much.
Because the other man's expression was still the same. There was nothing that he thought he hadn't noticed.
Being an S-class came with a certain confidence in his ability to read other people's expressions.
“Do you miss it a lot?”, he wondered out loud.
This Yoojin didn't look like he missed it that much.
But.. that was not the case for the broken boy he'd watched in the videos yesterday.
One person, two different periods of time. There were things he'd noticed in teen Yoojin that could still be seen in this Yoojin, and vice versa, it could also be applied.
The way Jin can be so happy…, “doing things that you do because you like them”
…
“I still do what I like, taking care of the kids after all”
Yoojin laughed at the somewhat silly question as he threw the ball for Blue to catch. She caught it perfectly.
“Good job, Blue!”
Noah smiled too.
He caught the ball when Blue kicked it toward him with all her strength.
This place was built to withstand monsters, so he wasn't too worried about breaking anything. So he could freely play with Blue as their hearts desired.
She was being rather clingy.
With both him and Yoojin, he realized.
Magical beasts were very intelligent and sensitive to emotions.
Sensitive to emotions…
He glanced at Yoojin, who smiled back at him while petting Blue's head.
Oh.
Noah looked at the person in front of him. The one he thought he knew until he was proven wrong yesterday.
And now, once again, he was being proven wrong.
Wrong for assuming that the senses of an S-class were enough…
Ah- Agent J…
So this is J.
Very different from what he'd imagined, but definitely enough to catch him off guard.
Maybe J had always been there.
It was just that he only learned about his existence now. And once he knew about J, he started being able to notice him. At least.. he hoped he could notice when it was J who was speaking, and when it was Yoojin.
Carefully observing the other, he asked.
“Are you happy now?”
That was the most important thing he wanted to know.
For a second, he doubted this place. Himself, everyone, and… everything.
Looking at the man.
He realized he couldn't notice even the slightest change.
It just wasn't there, he saw nothing.
…
Yoojin looked up toward the glass ceiling of the yard.
Then looked back toward Noah.
“I am as happy as I can be”
With a smile.
It felt real, very real.
Because it was Jin's instead of Han Yoojin's.
Noah had watched enough of Jin to recognize that much.
And… he felt relieved.
But..
That sentence had two meanings, right?
And Jin was just as good with words as that one Jupiter Guildmaster if he chose to, there was no reason the adult version couldn't be even better at it. Seven years was a long time.
“Is this what you want, each one…”, against his own wishes.. he felt his voice grow quieter.
Yoojin looked at him.
It only lasted for a second, before he stepped forward and patted the blond's head.
He had to rise onto his toes a little to do it.
He reassured him.
“This is what I chose among all the choices. I will keep making the same choice, every time, if I could do it all over again”
That voice adults used with a sad child.
A child who needed to understand that the world was much more complicated than that and that there was more to it.
Teaching children wasn't what he did best, but he was sure he had enough patience for his kid. No matter what.
He looked into the blue-gray eyes and smiled.
“Noah, when you make a choice, seeing it through to the very end is what people usually want to see you do, you know that, right? But what people don't usually say is how difficult doing that can be..”
The blond nodded.
He could relate to that very well.
“It’s okay to learn how to let go, everyone does it”, he ruffled the blond hair, the soft strands brushing beneath his fingers.
“However, there are some choices that, once made, the only possible path is to keep going..-”
The blue-gray eyes looked into the black ones.
The pair of eyes curved into a smile at him.
“-..for there was no going back once the choice was made”
Is it Noah, or is it Yoojin’s expression, that clashes with what he is saying?
“That's how adulthood works. You'll see it more as you grow older, being an S-class did limit some of your chances to learn”
…
“But you're still young. And it's okay to not know”
Noah stared at him.
Yoojin smiled back. His smile was warm and fond, filled with care.
“Come here Blue!”
He called as he picked up a cat teaser wand.
The blond watched him.
How he… acted like everything had just been in Noah's head.
Wait… it really happened, right?
It had to be.
He blinked as he touched his head.
His neatly combed hair had been messed up.
So it did happen…
Noah looked toward Yoojin but couldn't see his face.
He took one step forward, then two.
Then he hugged the older man.
…
It felt real.
Their talk felt real, at least as real as it could get when it came to a heart-to-heart.
Yoojin looked at the arms wrapped around him.
Noah's build reminded him of Yoohyun, because he also had to bend down when hugging him, but the blond's way of hugging reminded him more of Yerim, the teen had always been very affectionate with her hugs.
He looked at Noah, who was still hugging him.
After a while.
He wrapped his arms around him.
And returned the hug.
“We.. can find a way for you to do the things you like too”
He said.
“No, it's okay”, the black-haired man reassured, “I already have everything I need”
…
The blond continued hugging him, Yoojin expected nothing less.
Patting the late teen's head, he spoke again, “there's another lesson you'll need to learn too”
He didn't get a response, but he knew the other was listening,
“Some dreams will forever remain just dreams”, from the words of someone who had both experienced and witnessed it many times, “and dreams were meant to fade away. All it takes is a blink… and that's okay”
“It'll be okay, so, don't be sad”
He reassured him.
Right between them, Blue was also rubbing herself against Noah.
They had always been very sensitive to emotions after all.