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Jeongin scrambled up the stairs, trembling hands pushing off of the hardwood as he used all four limbs to propel himself upstairs. His step-father was close behind, bellowing at him to come back and throwing empty beer bottles that shattered around Jeongin’s feet. He got to the top of the stairs and ran into his room, slamming the door shut and pressing his thumb into the lock button on the doorknob before dragging the wooden chair over to it and jamming it under the handle.
He staggered back from the door with wide eyes as his step-dad reached the other side of his door and tried the handle. His roar of fury kickstarted Jeongin back into action and he dropped down onto his belly, sliding into the tight space underneath his bed without ever looking away from the door that was now rattling on its hinges.
He remembered a time when he used to be petrified of the monsters under his bed. His daddy had always been there to keep him safe from them in the past but since his momma brought home his new step-father, Jeongin had learned what real monsters were like and suddenly the monsters under his bed weren’t nearly as scary as the one he had to eat dinner with.
This was the first time that Jeongin had dared to enter the terrifying darkness underneath his bed though. This was also the first time his step-dad had wrapped his arms around his neck with the intent to kill him too, so it was a day of firsts all around.
Jeongin had just barely gotten away with an unintentional well-placed kick to his step-dad’s groin that had made the man drop him just long enough to scramble out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He knew he was going to pay for it now though. His step-father was very good at making his punishments hurt.
“Monsters,” Jeongin pleaded quietly as he heard the wood of the door splintering. “Protect me or eat me. Just— just don’t let him get me.”
He pushed himself further under the bed just as the door gave away and snapped in half, falling to the floor with a loud thud as his step-dad made entry to his bedroom. Jeongin kept crawling back, sliding inch by painstaking inch, on his belly as his watched his step-father’s feet stomp around in search of him, upending his laundry basket and throwing his dresser drawers across the room.
The more he crawled back, the smaller and smaller his step-father’s feet became so Jeongin kept going until suddenly he could hear birds. There was a gentle breeze tickling his feet that made Jeongin look behind himself. He expected to have hit his bedroom wall by now but instead he realized that he was wiggling out from a rather thick bush in a forest.
Clumsily, Jeongin staggered to his feet, wincing when he put too much pressure on his ankle. Now that his step-father wasn’t actively chasing him anymore, Jeongin’s body had time to acknowledge the pain wracking his body. His ankle was on fire, probably from when he stepped on it funny running up the stairs, and his whole body felt like it had gone black and blue— his step-dad really hadn’t pulled his punches this time. The worst was his neck; it still felt like there were still fingers squeezing off his airways and it hurt to turn his head in either direction.
Very slowly, Jeongin started to wander around the forest, unsure what to do next now that he was no longer in his bedroom. Eventually, he spotted a break in the trees and limped towards it, gasping when the opening revealed a pretty garden with a sparkling creek running through it.
Kneeling down next to some of the plants was a man. Jeongin couldn’t see much from where he was but he could see the wide woven basket that sat next to the man that he was steadily filling with vegetables from the garden. He didn’t look mean, from what Jeongin could see. Mean men wore stained t-shirts with the arms ripped off like his step-dad, not flowy pink shirts that ruffled in the breeze.
He glanced behind himself, biting his lip when he noticed that the trees had closed off the path he had taken out of the forest. With a deep breath, Jeongin turned to face the pretty man once more and approached him slowly. If he was lucky, the man might even have some band-aids.
As he got closer, Jeongin realized that the man’s hair was a pretty shade of lavender that sparkled in the sunshine.
“Um... excuse me?” he called softly once he was at the edge of the garden.
The man startled, swearing softly as his eyes shot up to meet Jeongin’s, widening in confusion when he took in the little boy in front of him. “What are you?” he asked, aghast.
He stood up in alarm, large, iridescent wings that matched his hair fanning out behind him. Jeongin took an unconscious step back, unable to look away from the wings the man had. It took him a few moments to remember that the man had asked him a question and he frowned, scrunching his nose in confusion and amazement. “I’m Jeongin?” he introduced himself hesitantly, hoping that that was what the man was looking for.
If anything, his answer seemed to confuse the man more, who took a tentative step towards Jeongin before pausing when the little boy took two of his own away from him. “What’s a Jeongin?” he asked, crouching down so that they were on the same level, cocking his head in a way that made him look caring.
Jeongin didn’t even realize he was moving towards the man until he stepped on his bad foot again and winced in pain, quickly shifting his feet to put pressure on the ankle that was not twisted. “No,” he corrected, giving up on standing when even his good leg protested at being upright for so long, flopping down on his butt in the soft grass carefully and watching as the man did the same thing a few feet away from him. “I’m Jeongin— that’s my name.”
The man nodded, the confusion never leaving his eyes. “Alright Jeongin,” he said cautiously. “Where did you come from?”
He twisted his body as much as he could to point towards the forest and the path that had vanished, only to spin back around when the man gasped.
“The Black Forest?” he breathed, eyes flitting between Jeongin and the forest behind him in terror. “No one has ever come out of there alive.”
Jeongin shrugged helplessly because he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to say. He had told the man the truth and... the Black Forest hadn’t seemed that scary if he was honest. “Are you here to protect me from the monsters?” he asked, looking up at the man curiously.
The man looked unsettled by his question. “Monster?” he asked, eyes now trained on the treeline.
Jeongin nodded, happy that he and the man seemed to be on the same page about something. “Yeah!” he exclaimed. “He’s my dad— well... my new dad. But he’s not nice like my real dad was. But daddy is an angel now... are you an angel too?”
“No?” The man replied in confusion. “I’m Minho. What’s an angel?” He shook his head as though he were trying to dislodge something from his hair, though Jeongin didn’t see anything out of place. “Am I hallucinating you?” he asked himself softly, eyeing Jeongin with trepidation. “I have been out in the sun for a while... it’s possible that you’re a hallucination.”
“Angels are people that go to heaven,” Jeongin explained dutifully once Minho seemed to take a breather from his conversation with himself— Jeongin didn’t want to interrupt after all. “They have wings and protect people— like you!”
Minho shook his head, the confusion never leaving his face. “I’m a fairy— not an angel,” he replied, glancing up at the forest again. Jeongin followed his lead, checking to make sure his monster hadn’t found a way out of the trees yet.
Once he saw that the coast was clear, he allowed Minho’s response to register in his brain and he whipped his head back over to the man in excitement, only to wince when the motion hurt his stiff neck. “A fairy?” he asked, reaching up to rub at his neck in an attempt to soothe the sting. “Like from the stories? Are you really?”
Minho nodded, scooting forwards on his butt a few inches as he eyes Jeongin wearily. “Really,” he said, sliding up another few inches. “What are you called in these stories?”
Jeongin pouted, grabbing a fistfull of the soft grass and pulling it out. “I’m just a human,” he replied sadly. “I’m not magic like you.”
The fairy gasped in shock, scooting forwards until their knees were almost brushing. “A human?” he breathed, staring transfixed at Jeongin. “There’s no— humans only exist in stories, don’t they? But... but you’re here— no wings, red blood— that’s... that’s a human... I— wait, you’re bleeding,” he said, sitting up straight as he examined Jeongin more closely. “How did you get hurt?”
Minho gently took one of Jeongin’s hands in his, examining his scraped palms intently. “I was running from the monster,” Jeongin explained as Minho carefully scooped up his other hand to examine that one as well. “He gets mad a lot because he says I’m disrespectful and a— a nuisance and that I deserve to be punished but— but it hurt a lot so I— I ran. And I hid under my bed and then I was in the forest and then I found you! You won’t... you won’t send me back, right?”
Minho shook his head without even realizing it, standing up and gently offering a hand to help Jeongin up as well. The little boy took it, grunting as he got to his feet before bravely trying to stand on his own despite the pain that was quickly overtaking his every movement. “I won’t send you back to the monsters, Jeongin,” Minho murmured. He slipped their hands together, careful not to agitate the open wounds on the little boy’s palms as he slowly led Jeongin towards the house that was sitting up the hill a little ways away from the garden.
He paused after a few steps, crouching down in front of the human again. “Can I carry you, Jeongin?” he asked, opening his arms in offering.
Jeongin practically fell into Minho’s arms, sinking into his hold gratefully as the fairy scooped him up and cradled him to his chest. “Where are we going, Minho?” he asked tiredly, the events of the day catching up to him now that he was being held so gently.
“Home,” Minho replied softly, one hand cradling Jeongin under his butt while the other hand carded through his hair. The boy was so warm against his chest and Minho couldn’t stop the little voice in the back of his head telling him that this was his bud, finally, after all these years, and he didn’t care how different his bud was— just that Jeongin was his and his mates’— he had to be. “We’re gonna take care of your injuries, is that alright?”
“Will you keep holding me, Minho?” he asked, feeling his words slurring slightly as the rhythmic sway of Minho walking up the hill lulled Jeongin further into a sleepy haze.
Minho dropped a soft kiss to Jeongin’s hair just as he reached the front door to his home. “I’ll hold you for as long as you want me to, Jeonginnie,” he murmured, reluctantly taking his hand from the boy’s hair to open the door and let himself in.
“Minho?” Seungmin exclaimed softly, fluttering over to the older fairy. “I thought you were collecting vegetables for tonight. Is that— did you find a bud?”
“Sort of,” he replied, bringing his hand back up to Jeongin’s head.
Seungmin rocketed forward, excited eyes examining the little bundle in Minho’s arms until they widened in horror. “Oh god— is the little thing’s wings clipped?”
Minho shook his head, gently nudging Jeongin enough to get the boy to turn his head enough to look at Seungmin. “This is Jeongin,” he introduced softly, dropping another kiss to the top of the boy’s head. “He’s a human that stumbled out of the black forest. He was running from a monster he calls dad.”
“‘Dad?’” Seungmin hissed, frowning as he stepped closer to the pair, though the second Jeongin met his eyes, his frown melted into a warm smile. “Hello, Jeongin,” he murmured, voice taking a one-eighty. “My name is Seungmin.”
Jeongin frowned, eyes glancing at the area around Seungmin. “Are you a fairy too?” he asked curiously.
Seungmin nodded, letting his translucent pink wings unfold from his back. “I am,” he replied softly, letting them flutter slightly in their living room before pulling them back in. “It looks like you’ve got some pretty bad ouchies. Do you think you could let Minho and I help you make them better?”
“Yes, please,” he said hesitantly, gripping onto Minho’s shirt tightly. “You won’t leave me, right, Minho?”
“I will never leave you, my sweet little bud,” the fairy murmured, pressing another kiss to Jeongin’s hair as he and Seungmin ventured further into the house. They stopped in the dining room, Minho settling in one of the chairs with Jeongin in his lap while Seungmin went on into the kitchen to grab their medicine basket.
“Can I see your hands, Jeonginnie?” Seungmin asked once the basket was on the table and he was sitting in another chair opposite them. He had grabbed a pretty lavender cream and had slathered his hands in it and was now patiently waiting for Jeongin to give him his hands.
He did so after a quick glance up at Minho to make sure it was okay. Seungmin carefully rubbed the cream into the cuts on his hands before moving upwards to get the cuts on his exposed arms.
“Can we get these clothes off of you, sweetie?” Minho asked softly. “So we can make sure we get all of your ouchies.” Jeongin nodded and tried his best to help Minho and Seungmin get his shirt and pants off until he was just sitting on the fairy’s lap in his underwear. He shivered, triggering Minho into tucking him closer to his chest. “We’ll be done soon, little bud,” he murmured. “And then we’ll get you cleaned up and in some pajamas, how does that sound?”
“Yes please,” Jeongin replied, watching as Seungmin rubbed the lavender cream into all of his cuts and bruises. He pulled out a strange bluish-green ointment next and gently cradled Jeongin’s ankle in his lap before rubbing it into the joint. He murmured soft apologies when Jeongin couldn’t hold back the whimper from leaving his lips. His neck was also painful when Seungmin moved on to that, the younger fairy leaning forward to press an apologetic kiss to Jeongin’s forehead.
It was over quickly though and Jeongin giggled when the cream started to tickle on his skin. He gasped when he looked down at his hands only to find that his scrapes were knitting themselves back together.
“Look, Minho,” he exclaimed, raising his hand up so that the fairy could see his hands clearly. “It’s magic!”
Minho chuckled, bringing Jeongin’s palm up to his lips and pressing a skin into the newly healed skin. “It’s our medicine,” he explained. “Your other ouchies will be gone soon too.”
“Your ankle and your neck might take a few days, though,” Seungmin added, offering Minho a hand as he stood up with Jeongin still in his arms. They navigated through their house until they reached their large bathroom, Seungmin immediately moving to the bathtub and drawing a bath for the little boy. “I’ll go get some clothes for our bud,” he said once the bath was ready.
Minho nodded his head in thanks and brought Jeongin over. “Can I put you in the bath, Jeongin?” he asked, carefully lowering him into the warm water once the little boy had given him confirmation.
“You’re not gonna leave, right, Minho?” Jeongin asked wearily when the fairy let him go.
“No, I’m not,” he reassured softly. “I’m just going to wash your hair, alright?”
Jeongin nodded, closing his eyes when Minho told him to and opening them when he was given the all clear. He washed the little boy quickly, noticing the way he was struggling to keep his eyes open and wanted to get him dressed as soon as possible. He plucked him from the water and he and Seungmin dried him off before slipping one of Chan’s long-sleeved shirts over his head. Jeongin giggled at the sleeves as they fell over his fingers, flapping the fabric happily before reaching out to Minho in a silent request to be picked up again.
Minho did without question, nuzzling his cheek in order to pull another giggle from the little boy. “Jeonginnie,” he started, bouncing the little boy gently in his arms. “Can we introduce you to the rest of our cluster?”
“Your cluster?” he asked, cocking his head in confusion.
“Our... loves,” Seungmin explained awkwardly, unsure of how to explain to a bud what a cluster of mates were.
“You love them?” Jeongin asked. “Are you married?”
Minho frowned. “What is married?”
“It’s what you do when you love someone a lot and promise to love them forever,” he explained proudly.
Seungmin released a soft “ahhh” as he nodded his head. “Yes, then our married.”
Jeongin shook his head, giggling at the fairy’s misuse of the word. “No, silly,” he corrected. “You are married.”
The two fairies nodded their heads in understanding, repeating the phrase back to Jeongin. “Would you like to meet our... marrieds?” Minho asked.
Jeongin giggled as he nodded his head, not bothering to correct Minho again. The fairies made their way out of the bathroom with Jeongin tucked securely to his chest. Seungmin must have collected their mates while he had gone to get the human something to wear because everyone was in the living room, waiting for them.
“What’s the surprise?” Jisung asked the second they stepped into the room. “Did you get me a present?”
Seungmin snorted before stepping to the side and revealing Minho and Jeongin. “In a sense,” he said. “Everyone, this is Jeongin.”
Their five other mates gasped in surprise, standing up in near unison as they scrambled over to the little boy. Jeongin whined, hiding his face in Minho’s chest at the sudden influx of attention. “A bud,” Chan whispered in amazement, reaching out to gently cup the back of Jeongin’s head. “We have a bud?”
Minho nodded, gently bouncing Jeongin in his arms. “Sort of,” he said. “He came out of the Black Forest. He’s human.”
Changbin snorted, rolling his eyes. “Humans aren’t real, Min,” he chided.
Jeongin’s head shot up, turning to glare at him. “Yes, I am,” he argued, sticking out his bottom lip in a pout so severe Chan and Felix both immediately crowded around to coo at him.
“Are you sure, Minho?” Chan asked once he had gotten everything out of his system. By that point they had all re-taken their seats and Minho once again had a sleepy baby bud on his lap. “He looks like his wings have been clipped.”
“I’m sure,” Minho murmured. “Minnie and I gave him a bath, there were no wings at all. And his blood was red.”
Hyunjin sat up, eyes wide in alarm. “Blood?” he asked. “There was blood? Why would there have been blood?”
“Because of the monster,” Jeongin croaked, rubbing his cheek against the soft fabric of Minho’s shirt.
“A monster he called dad,” Seungmin added pointedly.
Jeongin sniffled, looking around the room through teary eyes. “Please don’t send me back,” he begged weakly. “I like it here more. Minho and Seungmin are really nice.”
Chan dropped to his knees in front of Minho and Jeongin, gently taking the little boy’s hands in his. “We will never send you back to a monster, Jeongin,” he promised. “You can stay here— with us. We’ll take care of you, yeah? I promise, no monster will ever even touch you again.”
The little boy rocketed forwards into Chan’s chest, wrapping his tiny arms around the fairy’s neck in a tight hug. Chan froze at the sudden contact before quickly returning the hug, petting Jeongin’s hair reverently. It wasn’t long after that Jeongin fell asleep, his head nuzzled into Chan’s neck. Minho carefully helped Chan get the little boy situated more comfortably in his lap before explaining to his cluster exactly how he had found Jeongin.
“We’re keeping him,” Jisung insisted, eyes never leaving Jeongin’s sleeping form.
“Of course we are,” Hyunjin said. “That’s our bud— he literally came straight to Minho.”
Felix hummed in worry, unable to resist reaching out to drag a finger lightly over Jeongin’s cheek. “But what are we going to tell our friends?” he asked. “It’s not like we can just go around telling people that he’s a human that wandered out of the Black Forest. They’ll think we’re nut jobs and take our bud away from us.”
They all fell silent as they thought about it. “He bloomed in that patch of daffodils on the edge of the Black Forest,” Minho proposed softly. “His wings were clipped upon his blooming. It’ll explain most of his differences to us and it’ll keep him safe from becoming a spectacle.”
“You think a bud with clipped wings won’t be a spectacle?” Changbin asked dubiously.
“Of course he’ll be different,” Minho huffed. “But it’s the best way to keep him from being some freak show.”
Chan hummed, pressing his nose to Jeongin’s hair. “I think a daffodil is the perfect flower for our Innie,” he murmured. “... He’s perfect.”
Minho smiled down at Chan. “He feels right, doesn’t he?” he asked. “Like he was always meant to be in our arms.”
Jeongin hummed, snuffling against Chan’s chest as he slowly pulled himself from the grips of sleep. “Minho?” he called, scrubbing at his eyes in exhaustion as he tried to find the purple fairy.
“I’m right here, my little bud,” he cooed, dropping down onto the floor next to Chan and the boy. “I haven’t left.” He accepted the sleepy limbs into his arms, cradling Jeongin against his chest as he rocked him gently back to sleep. “I’ll never leave you.”
Jeongin adjusted to being a fairy like a fish to water. He loved spending time with his new family though it had taken him a while to warm up to them. He had spent the first week glued to Minho’s side, unwilling to let the fairy out of his sight for anything. After a while though, he cautiously branched out to get to know the other men in Minho’s cluster.
He also loved pretending to be a fairy. They had given him some yellow highlights to go in his hair to match his birth flower and the wings he didn’t actually have and he adored the change.
Once they were sure Jeongin would be able to keep his humanity a secret, they invited their neighboring cluster over to their house to introduce Jeongin to them. Their little bud clammed up in the face of more strangers, clinging to Changbin tightly as the fairy introduced him to his best friend, Yeonjun.
“He’s adorable,” Yeonjun cooed, reaching out to poke at Jeongin’s nose and pulling a giggle from the little boy. “Can’t believe you finally got a bud, Binnie. I thought for sure we were going to have our second bud bloom before you got your first,” he teased.
“Jeonginnie was worth the wait,” Changbin cooed, pressing a kiss to the top of his bud’s head. “And he bloomed exactly when we needed him to.”
A little boy ran up to them, wrapping his arms around Yeonjun’s legs until the fairy picked him up and settled him on his hip. “Hi,” he greeted, waving to Jeongin. “I’m Kai— I’m a sunflower.”
Changbin nudged Jeongin gently. “Do you want to introduce yourself, little flower?”
“‘m Jeongin,” he replied wearily, keeping his cheek pressed firmly to Changbin’s chest as he eyed the wriggling little boy in front of him. “‘m a... a daffodil.” Changbin pressed a proud kiss to Jeongin’s hair.
Kai and Jeongin became fast friends and it became commonplace to see the two boys practically joined at the hip.
On one such day, the kids were playing in the garden while Changbin and Yeonjun were watching them from the porch. “You know,” Yeonjun started as he kept his eyes on the buds. “Kai has all of these strange stories that he claims he’s heard from your Innie.”
Changbin swallowed nervously, taking a sip of his iced tea to calm himself. “Oh?” he asked, trying to sound disinterested. “You know how buds are, they have such active imaginations.”
Yeonjun smirked. “Mhmm,” he hummed. “Yeah, big metal birds in the sky and boxes that travel on roads so fast they turn to blurs are pretty imaginative.” Changbin glanced over to look at his best friend in apprehension. “He’s a human, isn’t he?” he asked softly, all teasing gone from his voice. “Like in those stories we would always hear about when we were buds.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, turning his eyes back to his own bud, still blissfully unaware as he played with his best friend.
“How?” Yeonjun asked, mystified. “I thought they were just made up.”
Changbin chuckled, smiling fondly at his child. “I did too,” he admitted. “Until I saw my Innie with my own eyes. He just came to us, you know? Just like your Kai blossomed from the giant sunflower in your backyard. Our Innie stumbled out of the Black Forest and into our arms. We don’t fully understand how— not sure we ever will — but we wouldn’t trade him for the whole world. He’s perfect.”