Desert • Flower | TaeJin || BOOK 3#

IV. Understand that you have a family

As time has passed, Taehyung has stopped giving himself a hard time: he is sure that at some point, he will be able to make flowers, who knows when that will be, but he will be able to at some point. For the time being he has focused on testing more of his dragon's skills. He's learned better how to make the soil fertile on purpose, to open it up and change its composition, make it soft, hard, dry, wet, or try to. Taehyung still doesn't do so well; lifting it, sinking it, opening it; he has dedicated himself to learning how to manipulate it and in the process named his dragon.

Taehyung named it Seok. At school he was told that it means rocky and that is one of the characteristics that he likes the most, with time he has learned and managed to notice how beautiful it is. His scales look like a mountain and the mountains are always full of flowers, plants and so on; from a distance as well as up close they are beautiful and majestic; Taehyung knows that in the future he will be able to become something like that. Everyone will admire him.

On the other hand, Taehyung has even managed to extract soil, make it levitate. It's complicated, it tires him too much. It's manipulating it enough to make it light even though it's a damn block of concrete. The earth and its minerals are easy for Taehyung to manipulate, not so what they bring inside. He can't control the plants, he can make it grow by making all the nutrients in the soil go to them, but he can never control the plants themselves.

Taehyung dreams of the day of getting someone who can make it bloom, meeting someone with a flowering dragon in the village head-on and having them visit the dwelling. There are several air dragons, fire dragons, electric dragons even metal dragons and one gentleman who passed away recently who had a shadow dragon. He could manipulate the shadow his pleasure, but he was very sick, Taehyung could not see much.

There are rumors that in the capital there is a Jade dragon; which is the supreme quality of the rulers of Korea. Taehyung wonders what is the quality of all countries if there is one here, in China if he is not misinformed, it is Gold, but he does not know what there is in Japan. Taehyung is curious about Japan. It is an island in the middle of the sea, can he control the land, or is it all water? If it's mud he can't control it well.

His time to practice and all that has come to that practically no longer works, they give him everything and he does not understand the reason. Taehyung doesn't ask, he is prompted to keep rehearsing, study, learn how to dress, treat people and many more things that none of the workers, even those who have come new, have. Taehyung noticed that the lord of the house give him favoritism. They behave in such a way that they remind him of the lady who took him in when he was younger. Now that he is thirteen he wonders if he can have long hours, really work, or what is the main reason for giving him all this treatment in the first place.

Despite being a bit disrespectful, Taehyung takes the risk of asking for dinner so he can talk to the lord and lady of the house.

"Am I different somehow?" asks Taehyung fearfully moving the food on his plate.

"Of course you are, actually we are all different."

"I know, but it's just that you guys treat me differently lately." says Taehyung shrinking in place. Mr. and Mrs. look at each other for a moment before turning their gaze to Taehyung.

"We wanted to wait to tell you because we wanted to wait until you were totally ready for this." admits the lord who puts his hands in his lap putting down his chopsticks. The woman takes a few minutes to think of how to say it and turns her head towards Taehyung.

"How do you know, we never had children. Even though we tried and we did, it never happened," she says in a sad and disappointed tone, "it was something we always wanted to do, we were looking forward to the idea of having a child to love and to raise."

Taehyung tilts his head. How strange. She looks very excited.

"We asked a lot for him and yet we never managed to have him. Yet" She raises her voice with a big smile. "You came along. You just showed up one day and we understood that maybe you are what we had always asked for."

"But-"

"We've been giving you the clothes, food and education you need because we consider you our son; I don't think it's that complicated to understand." replies the lord with slightly teasing endearment.

Taehyung continues to be confused, after all, nothing so good can happen. It's strange, he doesn't even understand what he did to earn it. He hasn't done anything important.

"I don't understand."

"The only thing you need to understand is that we love you for who you are: for being a cute little boy with a few dirt spots on you, but who loves flowers and wants to take care of everything he can. That's good enough."

There have been plenty of comments at school making fun of him for always having a dirty face or very calloused hands, saying he is a country boy, a low-life, a neglected child to be pitied. Always the same mocking tone when mentioning the dirt on him. They ignore their dragon completely and what it can do unlike them who can do nothing. However, with the lords of the house it is different: they do not mention it as something bad, derogatory or dirty, but quite the opposite; they say it as a trait to be admired, which is very beautiful

"I am completely confident that you are what all this time I was waiting for. You are the child I always wished for" Assures the master of the house calmly. "You are the child I always wanted to take to school, to hear laughing around the house. You are everything I always dreamed of, even better and more beautiful that my attentions and affection don't seem strange to you. Because to me you are my son."

Taehyung's eyes water. When he came here it was not what he expected to happen, it was never his intention. He just came here to pursue what he thought was natural; he never came looking for a family and by pure accident ended up having one. Taehyung wipes his face with his hands, accidentally getting his hands full of food and dirt.

The other workers' treatment of him hasn't changed, they behave the same way despite the fact that he was officially adopted as the son of the master of the house. It's not a noticeable change, Taehyung is still just as playful with everyone, looking to make flowers and smiling square at anything that comes his way. A tender action that becomes surprising: how a couple of strangers love so much a child that is not even theirs. It seems he was sent here to be loved.

Taehyung gives major efforts in classes, his father informed him that he will be heir, that is, he would keep all the territory, the house, the family name; absolutely everything he leaves behind when he passes another plane. Taehyung wants to leave him high and fulfill whatever he asks of him, he has taken a lot of interest in being a good Noble. Taehyung hopes that in the future, he will be able to grow his heritage and perhaps change the perception that many of his kind: they believe they can treat people like trash; perhaps being different will help create a difference that many more will want to emulate.

Taehyung holds out hope that because of this, he may meet someone who has some dragon blossom; be able to see him grow flowers. It is a dream that characterizes him very much. There won't be anyone who won't remember him every time he sees flowers or stop becoming a regular gift on every birthday or New Year's Day.

Taehyung will be able to change everything in his life, the desire to see flowers, to take care of them, to make them grow will remain eternally in him and very soon his life would finally come.