[M] Chapter 23 (1/1)

The letter-writer himself was sat on his and Dongwoon’s bed, gently flicking through Doojoon’s file. He had meant to call Haneul up to go through it with her, but had accidentally lost himself in the pages, his eyes sticking to each picture and piece of information. Dongwoon saw his lover looking so distracted and had gone to get Haneul, knowing Gikwang had forgotten.“Hannie?” he called his daughter, who was reading a rather thick novel at the kitchen table accompanied by a glass of milk. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and smiled up at her daddy. “Princess, da has something he wants to show you. He’d forgotten all about it until now.” Dongwoon said softly, beckoning for her to come and follow him. She hopped down from her chair and abandoned her book and milk, following her dad up the stairs.Gikwang looked at the doorway upon hearing his daughter enter the room and mouthed ‘thank you’ to his lover, blowing him a kiss before patting the bed next to him so that Haneul could join. Dongwoon blew a kiss back and left the room, giving his daughter and boyfriend some space.“What did you want to show me, da?” Haneul asked, eyeing up the paper on the bed.“Well, Han, you said you wanted to see a picture of Doojoonieappa, which is actually why I went back to the orphanage with daddy in the first place. I managed to find his file. So, here it is.” Gikwang picked up the file and pressed it onto the sheets in front of them. His daughter gasped and tentatively touched the edge of the paper, nervous about seeing what her appa looked like. She stroked the printed letters that read ‘Yoon Doo Joon’ and turned the page, her eyes filling with tears as they landed on the first picture she had ever seen of her appa. It was an unclear, bad quality picture of Doojoon as a four-year-old, but it pulled on Haneul’s heart just the same. She smiled at the picture through her tears.“He was so cute..” she giggled in-between sobs, frantically wiping her eyes. Gikwang nodded and blinked back his own tears, putting his arm around his daughter. They turned the page together, both met with two new pictures of Doojoon, taken when he was five and six. Haneul noticed that on the picture where he was six, Doojoon’s eyes were bright and it looked as if he was desperately trying to hold back from laughing. Gikwang chuckled at the photograph, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt.“I-I remember when this one was being taken. I was next in line for a photo and I kept pulling stupid faces at him to make him laugh, even though we weren’t supposed to smile at all.” Haneul laughed, imagining Gikwang as a little boy, puffing up his cheeks  and sticking his tongue out.They carefully studied each picture, Haneul pointing out things that she recognised in herself and Gikwang telling her the story behind each one. They turned the page again, stopping on the pictures of eleven and twelve-year old Doojoon. Gikwang pointed to the picture on the left.“This one was from the year we confessed for the first time. Our relationship had just been known as best-friendship before this one- though everyone knew it was more than that. We were basically inseparable; like me and daddy are now. Of course, it was young love with Doojoonie and we didn’t really know what we were feeling, though we sure thought we did- heck, we thought we knew it all back then. But you can see here on his cheeks,” he pointed to the right place on the picture, Haneul leaning in to get a better look. “he’s blushing because I kissed him for the first time just before we started queuing up.”“You kissed at eleven?” Haneul said, shocked. Gikwang flushed, thinking about the other things he and Doojoon had got up to just a few years after that. “But that’s like Taecyeon kissing!” she protested. Gikwang chuckled.“Well, if he likes someone enough at this age, he probably will.” He reasoned. Haneul scrunched up her nose in disgust, still too young to understand why anyone would want to kiss anybody but family. She softened her face again as she looked at the picture for a second time.“Appa looks so happy there, too. He really loves you a lot.” She pointed out. Gikwang hummed in agreement, ruffling his daughter’s hair.After a few minutes, they turned the last page, faced with the most recent picture of Doojoon and an empty space on the next page where the following photo should’ve been placed. Haneul stroked the photograph, crying again at the thought that there had never been another picture of her appa after this one. The blank page next to the recent picture scared her, because although she had always been used to the idea that her appa was dead, having this bond with him through Gikwang made dealing with the loss so much harder. It was like he had died all over again. The fifteen-year-old Doojoon in the last picture smiled at her, as if trying to comfort her so she wouldn’t be upset.  He had a wide grin on his face; totally against the rules, but Gikwang had explained that the institution gave up on making the pair of them pull serious faces, as they would just crack each other up instantly no matter what.“He’s really handsome.” She said after a while. Gikwang nodded but laughed, nudging her.“Aren’t you too young to be finding men handsome?” he scolded playfully. Haneul nudged him back.“Da, don’t be so embarrassing, he’s my appa! I’m allowed to think appa is handsome. I think you and daddy are handsome too.” She paused for a second. “It’s just so sad that he’ll never get bigger than fifteen.. Will he be fifteen in heaven, da?”“I don’t know, sweetie. I just know that he’ll be there and that eventually me, you and daddy can go and meet him. This white page here next to appa just shows that he’s finished this story of his life early, and he’s begun a new one elsewhere. It doesn’t mean it’s over or any less real. The fact that we’re still talking about him and missing him now just means that he never really left, right?” Gikwang soothed, resting his chin on his daughter’s head. Haneul let out a sigh.“I guess that’s true. And I love you and daddy just as much. It will always just feel like there’s a little something missing..”“Only if you think of it like that, princess. Just think of it as something even more helpful. Not many people can say they have an angel for an appa and you can either take that in a negative way because they’ve died, or in a positive way because you have someone in heaven that’s always looking out for you. It took me a while to see it positively too, but daddy was there for me, just like we are both here for you.” He gave her a cuddle, letting her cry it all out into his shirt while he held her. Dongwoon heard his daughter crying as he was coming up the stairs and walked into his bedroom, frowning at the sight of his lover rocking their daughter back and forth while she cried. It broke his heart to see her like that.He immediately rushed into the room and joined the family hug, wrapping his two favourite people up into his arms so that nothing could get to them or hurt them. Haneul snuggled up to her parents, breathing in their homely scent and calming down, wiping the rest of her tears on her own dress. She glanced at the file and sighed a little before smiling at Gikwang and nuzzling up to him.“Thank-you.. for getting the file. I loved getting to know him better today, even though we’ve cried a lot. I love you both more than anything.” She whispered, feeling warm and safe in the arms of her parents. Dongwoon and Gikwang smiled at each other and gave her a kiss on the head. Seungho and Doctor Yang made their way down the path to the Sons’ house half an hour after a successful meeting with Mr. Yang. The man had been extremely kind and welcoming towards the teenager and had been excited to hear the plan for him to move in with them. It turned out that, just like his wife, he had always longed for a child and he explained to Seungho that they had been wanting to adopt for some time now, but had never been confident enough to take the leap. Mr. Yang thought him a fine boy and immediately understood why his wife had taken such a liking to him. Now it was just a matter of consulting the Sons’ and figuring out how to go about it properly.Mr. Son opened the door to find Doctor Yang and Seungho standing there, smiling nervously.He gestured for them to come inside, closing the door behind them when they entered.“It’s nice to see you again! Though Seungho isn’t sick again, is he?” He asked, suddenly looking worried as he led them to the living room and sat down. The doctor shook her head.“No, no, nothing like that. I was actually wondering if I could talk to both you and your wife. Me and Seungho have been talking for a while and have also spoken with my husband about something we would like to propose. It’s a rather important decision though, so I don’t want to start without both of you present.” With nerves, the woman’s speech had become uncomfortably formal and she tapped her foot on the floor as she said it. Seungho smiled reassuringly at her. Mr. Son nodded, also smiling.“Of course, I’ll just go and find her. I’ll be back in a minute or so.” He said kindly, getting up to find his wife. Doctor Yang gulped and nodded back.When Mr. Son had left the room, Seungho gave her hand a squeeze. “You shouldn’t be so nervous, eomma. Mr and Mrs Son are really lovely people- they only want what’s best for me. I promise this won’t be a problem.” He said softly, not even realising that he had called her ‘eomma’.“I know and so do I, sweetheart. That’s why I’m so nervous.. I just want everything to go smoothly. Today has been like a dream come true; I’m scared my luck is running out.” She explained, sighing.“Nothing’s going to go smoothly if you’re nervous. You’re an amazing person and I know you’ll be an excellent mother to me and maybe even other children in the future. Just be confident and show them how much it means to both of us and then they’ll see just how right this is. You can do it.”Mr. Son returned to the living room a few minutes later with a very anxious looking Mrs. Son, who automatically rushed to the sofa next to her friend and frowned.“What’s happened? What’s so urgent? Is everyone ok? Is your husband ok-?”“He’s fine- we’re all fine. I mainly wanted to ask your permission for something... You know that me and my husband can’t have children of our own and we’ve been thinking of adoption for a very long time, but were never really sure where to start to go about it.” Doctor Yang took a deep breath.  “Well, I’ve been getting closer to Seungho over this past month while he has been sick, and we’ve discussed this today, but what I wanted to ask was.. Would you help me and my husband to adopt Seungho? I promise we would take care of him to the best of  our abilities..” She finished, holding her hands in her lap and looking at Mrs. Son directly.“It’s what I really want, too. You have your family right here and you’re so unbelievably close.. I admire how brilliantly you’ve taken to Kiki hyung ,Taecyeon, Narsha and Haneul and I’m so grateful that you look after me, too, but your family is big and strong enough without me. I don’t quite feel that I fit in here- which isn’t your fault at all. I think that I would be happier living with Mrs. Yang and her husband.” Seungho added pleadingly, looking desperately at the Sons. Mrs. Son nibbled her lip slightly, looking uneasy.“ If it’s what you both want then I don’t see how we could stand in your way, even though we love having you here. You’re sixteen, Seungho, a young man! Of course we’ll help you, won’t we honey?” she nudged her husband, who smiled too.“If anyone was going to be great parents to you, it would be the Yangs.” He agreed happily. Doctor Yang grinned and put her arm around Seungho. “I have been doing some planning over the last years, too, and I have a few ideas as to how we can do this officially. For now, Seungho can move in with you, but in a few weeks time I should have everything sorted.. plus a few extra things. But that’s a surprise.” The man added mysteriously, beaming at the plans in his head. Seungho looked intrigued, but was too happy to hear that he could move in with the Yangs to pay much attention.The four of them talked and sorted out the situation for a few hours, drinking tea and eating the few snacks that Mrs. Son had prepared earlier in the weak. It was decided that Seungho would start to move his things into the doctor’s house the next morning and take things one day at a time until he would fully move in with them. The rest was to be all down to Mr. Son..  A/N: again, sorry it's a little late! I hope you enjoy the feels trip~ <3