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Minhyuk let out a sigh and watched his breath swirl around and dissipate into the morning chill, before his gaze settled on the brown, wooden door. Said door was cracked and looked as worn out as the building they’d spent the last year struggling to be invited to did. Now that they were finally there, the old building felt familiar somehow. It reminded Minhyuk of his grandma’s old country house back in Korea.
“Are you ready?”
The careful tone of Hyunwoo’s voice brought him back to the moment. He blinked once and turned to look at his husband with a billion and one questions pooling his wide eyes. Was he ready?
He figured Hyunwoo must've sensed how anxious he was, when his hand found Minhyuk’s, fingers gently slipping between his. The corners of Hyunwoo’s mouth curved upwards in a warm smile. Minhyuk, though nervous, felt his own smile pull at his lips. He inhaled a slow and deep breath of the late autumn air and exhaled, letting out all of his worry with a breath of “Yes.”
“Let's go, then.” Hyunwoo said and pressed a finger to the doorbell after giving Minhyuk’s hand a reassuring squeeze.
When the door opened and they were invited inside by a lady with a warm smile, there were children of all ages everywhere. Some were playing with various pieces of old toys, limbs splayed on hardwood and gray carpets; some were lounging on worn out couches, reading books or doing their homework. A small group of pre-school children sat around the low coffee table with colouring books in front of each of them, their tiny hands reaching for the crayon jars in the middle of the table.
It wasn’t for longer than only a second, but when the lady who let the two inside closed the door behind them, each tiny pair of eyes turned to Minhyuk and Hyunwoo. Most of them lost interest quickly when they saw the three adults leave the room as soon as they came in and made their way into the hallway. But Minhyuk had managed to crack a smile at some of the kids just before they started climbing the stairs up to the second floor. They followed the lady who led them to the ‘Newborn Room’ as she called it. It was a cosy room, the blinds were shut and the lights were turned off. It smelt strangely sweet in a way that neither of them could put into words. But if they had to, pure would be the closest description.
As they walked after the lady to where the beds were by the wall opposite to the door, she motioned for them to keep quiet with a finger over her pursed lips. They found out soon that only one of the four beds in the room was occupied by a tiny human, lying in a cocoon of white blankets.
“Here's your girl, say hi,” the lady whispered from the other side of the bed and Minhyuk held his breath before he gently placed both hands on the rails of the bed, looking at the baby. After a good while of only watching the baby in silence, their gazes met and the smile gracing Hyunwoo's lips, along with his dark eyes glittering even in the dark room had the most content kind of warmth spread inside Minhyuk’s chest. His own lips twitched into a grateful smile before he whispered to the woman who was patiently waiting for them; “Thank you.”
She offered the both of them a sincere smile, eyes crinkling and said, “Why don't you go and hang out with the other kids on the first floor while I get her ready?”
“Anything we can help with?” Hyunwoo asked immediately, being his considerate self and the woman shook her head, reaching a hand over the bed to push them gently in the direction of the door.
“Let me say my goodbyes,” she whispered back, smiling once again.
Minhyuk and Hyunwoo did as they were told. They went down the stairs, hand-in-hand, matching expressions of awe and pure joy on both of their faces. When they stepped back into the living area, a senior staff member was handing out cookies for the kids around the room; each one thanking the lady kindly in return. After she made sure all the kids got their cookies, she offered the cookie jar to the pair who still awkwardly stood in the hallway, and asked “Good morning, boys, aren't you here to take our youngest baby girl home today?”
Minhyuk’s heart fluttered as he answered the question, “Yes, we are.”
Hyunwoo reached for the jar and grabbed two cookies. One for himself and the other for Minhyuk, but as they made small talk with the lady, Hyunwoo felt a weak pull on the back of his knees and turned around to find a child no older than two-years-old staring up at the cookies in his hand. In a few seconds, as Hyunwoo slowly crouched down and brought the cookies in front of the child’s face, their interaction had Minhyuk and the lady’s attention as well. The kid, a tiny boy, stared at the cookie for quite a while before his eyes flickered to Hyunwoo’s to stare for even longer; the man offering him a wide smile. Then the boy opened his mouth, wide, showing his baby teeth. He was clearly waiting for Hyunwoo to feed him the cookie and Hyunwoo turned his head to look at the old lady, eyes asking for permission, before he took a piece of cookie and pushed it in between the boy’s tiny lips.
“Hey,” Minhyuk crouched down next to Hyunwoo, reaching a hand to run through the boy’s short black hair and push it back off his forehead, “So you like cookies?”
The kid didn’t say a word, he only studied Minhyuk’s face as Hyunwoo kept feeding him the rest of the cookies and Minhyuk kept talking. He asked the boy simple questions like what his name was and how old he was but couldn’t get any verbal response. Instead, the kid quietly pushed the green name tag that was about to fall off the sleeve of his sweater into Minhyuk’s nose. It read Jinho.
“Oh?” Minhyuk gasped, taking in Jinho’s features, smile widening with the realization he came to. He then asked the kid one more time in Korean, “How old are you?”
Jinho’s eyes darted up to Minhyuk’s as his lips parted in what, judging by the expression taking over his face, seemed to be shock. He swallowed the piece of cookie in his mouth before answering in his small voice, in Korean “Two.”
After pretending to be surprised for the shortest while, Minhyuk winked at the kid. He nodded knowingly in his direction and exclaimed “So you do have a voice!”
Jinho, though hesitantly, gave a small nod of his own in response; the kid’s short black hair flopping against his eyebrows. He realised there wasn’t any cookies left after his eyes briefly searched Hyunwoo’s hands for more. He looked alarmed. The dark haired man held up both of his palms to show him that the cookies were, indeed, all gone. Then he turned back to the lady who was still standing behind the three, his wide eyes an evidence of how surprised he is.
“He speaks Korean,” Hyunwoo stated and the lady sighed.
“Yes, he speaks very little English and we’ve been trying to teach him, but apparently that takes a bilingual. He’ll be transferred someplace he can talk in both soon... hopefully.” she explained, eyes trained on the little boy. “No more cookies, honey.” she said, raising her voice a bit; as if that would help the boy understand the language better. Being a foreigner where he lived, Hyunwoo was all too familiar with the concept.
The boy didn’t respond to the woman in any particular way and the couple doubted he understood what she was saying. He then lifted his tiny fist up and brought it in front of Minhyuk’s face; a tiny finger sticking out to point at his nose. “Your name,” he muttered in question, again in Korean, catching both Minhyuk and Hyunwoo off-guard.
“I am Minhyuk,” the blond man started, fascinated beyond belief for some unknown reason and continued introducing both of them in Korean “and this hyung’s name is Hyunwoo.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jinho.” Hyunwoo said, reaching out a hand for the kid to take. Jinho placed one of his tiny fists in the dark haired man’s palm and looked very disinterested as they shook hands, or more accurately, as Hyunwoo shook his hand along with his entire arm for a few seconds in tiny motions.
“How long has he been here?” Hyunwoo asked, turning back to the lady.
“Close to two months now.” she sighed, again.
“How did you explain things to him?” Minhyuk asked, concerned. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for both the kid and the staff.
She was silent for a while as she rested one palm against her cheek in thought. Then she said, “He saw a Korean-speaking psychiatrist, was how.”
“I see,” Minhyuk responded, only out of politeness.
“Is it okay if we keep speaking to him in Korean?” Hyunwoo asked, knowing that was exactly what Minhyuk wanted. The lady nodded and quickly said that yes, they could go ahead.
Shortly after they got their permission and Minhyuk was back to trying to pry words out of Jinho’s mouth, they heard footsteps coming from the stairs. Hyunwoo quickly stood up and turned around to see the other lady approach them. She had both hands clasped in front of her body as she came to a stop next to the other staff member and said, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t wake her up. She must be in deep sleep. Could you wait until she wakes up?”
Hyunwoo looked at Minhyuk in question. It was probably not a good idea trying to wake up a newborn forcefully. Minhyuk seemed to have come to the same conclusion as he answered, nodding “Of course.”
“Thank you for your patience.” the lady said, unclasping her hands and motioning towards the main living area. “You can sit down over there until she wakes up.” she suggested.
Minhyuk stood up and smiled down at Jinho. “We’re going to sit down a bit, do you want to join us?” he asked, and the kid blinked a few times before mumbling a quiet ‘kay. When they settled on one of the couches, Jinho disappeared into another room for a while and some of the other kids greeted the couple, waving their hands or saying ‘hello’ cheerily. The two made a point of waving back to every single one of them and answering all ‘hello’s without making exceptions. A few minutes of greetings later, they spotted Jinho coming back through the wide open doors, bringing what looked like a colouring book in his hand. It was similar to the ones the other kids had.
He placed the book on Hyunwoo’s lap and climbed up to the couch to sit close to Minhyuk. Hyunwoo opened the book and started to shuffle through pages of random, colourful scribbling.
“You like?” Jinho asked, looking at the book. The couple didn’t really know who the question was directed at, but they both started to nod enthusiastically.
“I really like the colours you used in here,” Minhyuk said, “Do you like colouring?”
After thinking the question over in his head for some time, eyes not leaving the pictures the book held, Jinho finally answered; “I like peach.” Then he jumped down and right before he ran in the direction of the coffee table with the crayons, he announced, “We’ll draw peach.”
With the handful of orange crayons Jinho picked up one by one from each jar on the table, the three of them started to colour one of the few untouched pages in the book. The lineart was of a kitten, sitting down and licking the paw lifted in front of its face. As they chatted, the boy got more comfortable and they found out that peach as his favourite colour meant orange for Jinho. And anything that had to do with leaving marks on a piece of paper was obviously drawing. So they drew peaches. Minhyuk coloured the kitten’s head fully and perfectly inside the lines while Hyunwoo dragged the crayon back and forth on the kitten’s body quickly and messily. Jinho, on the other hand, had no concept of anything and was just drawing circles everywhere.
When the two adults were done colouring their parts and Jinho was bored of drawing on a full page, they decided to write their names down on the corner of their masterpiece. Hyunwoo wrote his name first and his placement was a little weird, so Minhyuk wrote his own above Hyunwoo’s. When it was Jinho’s turn, he asked “Do you know how to write your name?”
Jinho shook his head and Minhyuk started to write Jinho’s name below Hyunwoo’s and at the same time explain hangul slowly as he went, paying close attention to his pronunciation.
Jinho listened to him silently. When Minhyuk’s explanation was over, still loooking at his name on the paper, the little boy said, “You speak like daddy.”
Both of the adults were taken aback. They slowly turned their heads to look at Jinho’s direction. They were smiling, but their eyes were clouded by the inavitable sadness that followed close behind.
“Do I,” Minhyuk said but it was not a question.
Jinho answered with a few nods anyway.
Then the moment was interrupted as the staff member that handed them cookies before appeared on the doorway and started to speak directly to them.
“It seems your girl woke up, she’ll be ready soon.” she explained, with a kind smile on her face.
The couple knew there was something different with them now, when they couldn’t return the smile immediately. They realized they didn’t feel exactly complete when they finally did manage to smile, either. But they kept quiet. They knew better.
Hyunwoo removed the book from his lap and left it on Jinho’s lap. “You did great! Maybe you can become an artist one day.” he said, ruffling the kid’s hair before standing up. He still had the orange crayon in one palm.
“Right!” Minhyuk agreed and continued after softly clearing his throat; he kind of looked like he was trying to sort out his thoughts, “And when you do, we can see your drawings on TV and come visit you!” He smiled at him, just like Hyunwo did and stood up a bit more hesitantly than the other man.
Hyunwoo patted his back in a soothing way and with one last look at the kid, Minhyuk turned away from him to walk in the direction of the hallway; his own orange crayon still in hand.
Before they could take more than a few steps, though, Minhyuk felt tiny fingers cluthing at the back of his knee; curling and grabbing hold of his jeans.
He turned back to look at Jinho, to see the boy’s bottom lip quivering and his eyes drowning in a sea of tears. His lips fell open and he cried, “Don’t go!”
The three adults were all frozen.
Minhyuk didn’t know what to do as his knees felt a little weak and his hands far too clammy, because he didn’t want to go either. The woman didn’t know what the boy had said and wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but she looked very concerned as she approached the kid after quickly closing the doors of the living area to make sure the other kids wouldn’t panic. Hyunwoo didn’t know what to say, because he knew what he wanted to say and what Minhyuk was thinking of saying, but it scared him. Eventually, he decided to go with “He said, don’t go.” in English, before they started to look suspicious and were accused of making a little kid cry.
“Oh, sweetie...” the woman said as she crouched down next to the little boy and started to stroke his hair. She obviously wanted to tell him what she was trained to say in this kind of situation, but language barriers prevented her from trying.
The other staff member walked into the room, carefully carrying a little bundle of blankets in her arms. Before she could hand the baby over to either of the men, she noticed the crying boy and the blond man’s tear-filled eyes.
Hyunwoo walked towards her, which made Jinho wail louder, saying “Don’t go!” once more. Hyunwoo felt his heart sinking as he heard the kids’ cries, but his ribcage was feeling unusually full as he took the baby in his hands and hugged her into his chest.
The lady next to Jinho was trying to physically but gently remove the boy’s hand from Minhyuk’s jeans but he wasn’t letting go.
Nobody said anything else until Hyunwoo spoke, “Is it possible... Can we adopt Jinho, too?”
Both of the women’s heads snapped to look at his face. Minhyuk slowly turned to regard Hyunwoo with their baby in his arms, his fingers shaky and ears red, but standing strong nonetheless.
“I’m sorry,” the lady next to Jinho started, “but that’s not how it works-”
“We’ll apply again! Right now, we will.” Minhyuk interrupted her without meaning to be rude and his voice kept pitching higher with every word he spoke. His lips were only slightly trembling.
“We’ve already stated we’d like to have two kids in the previous documents...” Hyunwoo added quickly. And yes, they knew this wasn’t how things worked, yes, they did know better; and if it weren’t for Jinho’s crying and struggling, they probably would have left him there to regret their decision for the rest of their lives. But Jinho was crying and struggling and they were still there, and it wasn’t too late yet. Not at all.
The lady took a deep breath and furrowed her thick, grey brows “It’s still unlikely that-” she started again but was interrupted once again, this time by the other lady in the room; “Yes, it is very unlikely, but we will help you the best we can.” she said.
Minhyuk held back his tears and looked from one of the women to the other slowly.
“Thank you,” he muttered, as he placed a palm on Jinho’s small head and started to pet his soft fluff of hair.
A week later, they would be welcoming the latest member of their family into their home for the very first time; into his own little bedroom, to his own warm home, to his own loving family and a soft, orange blanket.