Desert • Flower | TaeJin || BOOK 3#

XIV. Instincts that remain alive

Jin has repeatedly asked Taehyung to come and sleep with him. Taehyung does not know what drives Jin to do so, what is the real reason for his repulsion to silence and loneliness when sleeping. Although it is true that he is capable of believing his excuse, that he misses that boy called Jimin very much, he doubts that being a grown-up man it is so much; unless there is something here that he is not spinning quite right. Jin arrives in the middle of the night, lies down, turns his back on Taehyung and nothing else happens. Taehyung wishes Jin would talk more. He never seems willing to do so.

On the other hand, Taehyung has taken the trouble to start keeping a better eye on what Jin does using Seok. Not because he doubted or thinks him capable of escaping, that part he doesn't care about. What Taehyung wants to verify is what he does during the day, Taehyung knows that he goes to see the Japanese almost daily, but otherwise he does not know what activities he carries out there. The only rumor he has heard is that he teaches the Japanese to speak fluent Korean. It yields enough fruit, he can already understand several much better without the need for an interpreter on the side.

"They love him?"

"Yes, they love him sir. They think he's their geisha and that's why he's down there helping them" recounts one of the house workers. One of the most loyal Taehyung has at his command. "I understand that he plays a lot with the children, at the same time teaching them how to talk or behave."

"Master Seokjin is charming," adds a maid who feeds the chickens. "He's even taking care of the little girl who arrived hugging her mother's corpse.

Taehyung tilts her head almost curiously. That girl had the bad luck that her mother was injured on the way here, she bled to death during the journey and what she was hugging during the time it took to reach the Korean coast was her corpse; at the same time that allowed her to keep some warmth and a stable support inside the very crowded boat. Thanks to her mother's corpse no one miraculously crushed her. The problem will be that she was very lonely, everyone is already very busy with their own children and although they don't leave her without food and a place to sleep, it is clear that no one really takes care of her.

Taehyung enters his studio and sits with his eyes closed, so he can see the same thing Seok sees. Something he doesn't usually practice. He doesn't like the idea of somehow invading his dragon's life, to Taehyung it is an entity apart from himself. However, this moment is another kind of situation and he already warned him. What they see early on are a bunch of kids running around, some parents doing their work and finally he sees Jin.

Who combs the nine year old girl's hair, she recites some nursery rhyme. Seok sinks into the ground and approaches that way without anyone can see him. Jin gives a laugh at how the infant's tongue gets tangled.

"Baby bear is very cute."

"Baby pear."

"Beeear."

"Beeear... What's bear?"

"Ummm... Kuma?"

"Oh! It's a bear song!" exclaims the little girl with her hands on her cheeks surprised and delighted to know what that song really means. Jin promised to tell her when she learned to sing it well, off the cuff although he didn't plan to fulfill that. If she managed to do it just once, even if he was stumbling, he would tell her, he knew it would make her happy. What he was wearing was a kimono full of little bears.

The only belonging left from her trip was a teddy bear. "What else does Jin-nicchan say!"

"There are three bears in one house. Papa bear, Mama bear, baby bear" Jin sings. Eunji approaches with several children on her back, playing adventurers or something. "Papa bear is chubby, Mama bear is skinny Baby bear is so cute!" He finishes the braid and grabs her shoulders, tickling her. "Shrug your shoulders! Shrug your shoulders! You're doing great!"