Chapter Text
“And why do you want to be a parent, Park Jimin-ssi?”
Jimin thought he’d been very clear on his resume, cover letter and the past fourteen interviews he’d been subjected to during the pre-placement phase but he guessed beating a dead horse was in these days when it came to matching parents with children. But also, it's not like he could afford not to answer, something he is reminded of quite painfully by the pinch to his thigh coming from the man sitting next to him.
It was like reciting a play at this point: every line memorized, all expressions clear and exaggerated on his face, voice pitched perfectly. The thing, though, was that this was real. Jimin was serious as he teared up speaking about how him and his husband wanted to expand their family after three years of marriage, went into detail about their brand new (“Just for the baby!”) little yellow house with the blush trim that needed a new life breathed into it, clutched his chest as he expressed the absolute longing he’d always had to teach a child what love was and that their dreams were worth something—that they were worth something—in a world and society that became increasingly more worthless as the days passed.
The woman across the desk simply nodded, writing in the margins of the papers in front of her in an ugly purple gel pen. When Jimin was finished, sentence trailing off a little awkwardly when he realized he wouldn’t get a response, the woman looked up at Hoseok over the top of her green wire-rimmed glasses.
“What are your views on vampires, Jung Hoseok-ssi?”
Well, that was... new. The couple had been through these questionnaires enough times at enough agencies to know that this woman had just went rogue. Jimin doubted if that question was even printed on the forms. He stifled the urge to get a peek.
This time it was Hoseok’s turn to give a miniscule jump in his seat but, luckily, he covered it with a shift of his legs. “I— We think that they deserve just enough place in this society as the non-vampires.” Good. That was a safe answer. It didn’t expose the confusion and slight panic at being asked something like that so suddenly, which, honestly, is a feat in itself.
She went back to writing, not even breaking eye contact. Jimin offhandedly wondered how she didn’t swerve off and mark her nice, shiny desk.
“If a vampire claimed they had the right to be in an area that was densely populated with humans—be it a neighborhood or an event—would you agree or disagree? Should the amendment that allows vampires of certain social circles to vote be reinstated in the next election? If yes, should it be expanded to include lower-level vampires, including newly turned ones? If no, what grounds should they be revoked? If a vampire has bitten you and apologized how would you respond? If a vampire has wronged you in a manner that could be lawfully disputed in court how would you proceed? Would you hire a lawyer or handle the matter yourself personally? Should child vampires be persecuted and charged as adults or delinquents?”
The twosome tried as they might to keep up with the rapid-fire questions, answering as thoughtfully as possible while still portraying a united front. Jimin did not know what would happen if Hoseok answered differently than him but he knew it would not be in their favor. He felt sweat bead on his upper lip.
The interrogation suddenly took a sharp turn. Hoseok glanced at Jimin the same time he also looked over through the corner of his eye. This topic was better, but only slightly. At least they were more knowledgeable. “What is a vampire’s main food source and how is it procured? How much shade does your house and yard get in the summer? The winter? Is there a fence in the front yard? Are you aware if any of your neighbors are vampires or related to one? Friends with one? Woods near or around the home? Any registered covens nearby?”
She continued going through a list of seemingly memorized questions ranging from what kind of stores were in their vicinity (butchers, hospital blood donation distributors, twenty-four-hour daycares), to the kinds of animals they would consider getting (small pets, large pets, hairless animals that could be bitten or scratched easily). The most odd and invasive inquiries were about their blood type, their friends’ and family member’s blood types, and the political parties people they socialized with belonged to (as if that was supposed to be common knowledge?).
Forty-five minutes later, Hoseok and Jimin stumbled out of The Warzone, dazed and confused yet feeling slightly hopeful. This was the most intense interview they’d ever had but they’d made it through. One of Jimin’s hands was held tightly by his husband’s and the other gently cradled a cardboard appointment card to his chest.
Three weeks from now they would finally meet their prospective child. As they both looked down at the slip, lips pursed in tentative smiles, Jimin could cry.
//
A week later, the agency they’d interviewed last at called Hoseok while he was at his job, leaving him a lengthy voicemail. He left it unheard until he met up with Jimin after they got off work. Sitting at their dining room table, the phone between them and on speaker, they held their breaths as the woman—a Choi Jinsoo-ssi—gave them the details on the meeting with the child. There was only one up for adoption at the moment and no one else on the waitlist. Since Jimin and Hoseok had very few specifications of what child they were looking to adopt the agency thought they’d make a good match. It was a male, going to turn four months old by the time that Jimin and Hoseok would be introduced to him, and he was Korean. His parents were not in the picture and he had been moved from agency to agency since birth seeking a Forever Home that could accommodate his very specific special needs. He had dark brown eyes, black hair, and weighed six-point-one kilograms. He had no recorded allergies as of yet and had all his vaccinations appropriate for his age. His speech and behaviors were on target for his developmental stage.
Oh, and he was a vampire.
“Message over, please select an option. Press one to repeat the message from the beginning. Press two to delete. Press three to redial the...”
The automatic voice blurred into the background as Jimin stared blankly at the phone.
Reaching over to cut the line, Hoseok could only utter out, “Fuck...”
Jimin felt the sentiment exactly.
//
“The files will be sent over in an encrypted email shortly, Jung Hoseok-ssi. If you do not receive them in one hour feel free to call back and I will see to the issue.”
“Yes, thank you. I’m looking forward to seeing him.”
“You will not be disappointed, sir, trust me.” There was the faintest hint of a smile in her voice.
With that the line went dead and Hoseok turned around to face his husband. He handed his phone to Jimin who took it with shaking hands, opening the email app and hitting the refresh button instantly. Of course, there were no new emails. That didn’t deter him, though.
Hoseok joined him on the couch, arm slung around the younger’s shoulder comfortingly as Jimin obsessed over the little swirling loading circle over and over. The younger felt an apology on the tip of his tongue, feeling a little guilty for being so pushy, for demanding that Hoseok call the agency back right away to ask for baby pictures. He held it down though, the feeling of guilt eclipsed by the selfish want to confirm with his own two eyes that the baby was real, that he was waiting for them somewhere in a nursery, that— that he was—
A vampire.
[Photos attached of JJK for client case number 045JH9L24.]
The title was in bold, showing that it was yet unread. Jimin felt his heart skip a beat, then speed up before skipping two more as he stared at the black lettering. He must’ve frozen for longer than he thought for soon his vision was overtaken by the sight of one of Hoseok’s long fingers tapping on the screen to open it.
Encrypted attachment. That was all that was in the body of the message, along with the agency’s closing signature, an icon of a folder with a bisecting zipper on it along the bottom.
He hesitated again, nervous about what would be seen in the photos, afraid that his dreams of a perfect child would be ripped away, terrified that it would be an empty snapshot, one with a bassinet and blankets and toys but an invisible baby because their baby wasn’t human, their baby was a vampire, because vampires—
“Vampires show up on film, Minnie-yah.”
Oh. That was right. Jimin spluttered out an excuse, trying to convince his husband that of course he wouldn’t be as ridiculous as to believe those old tales, that he knew—
That their baby was beautiful.
He was oh, so very beautiful that tears sprung to Jimin’s eyes before Hoseok even finished letting the photo load in high definition.
It was hard to tell with him swaddled so tightly in the red blanket but the boy seemed tiny. The skin of his face was pale, almost white, and his cheeks were puffy with a healed scar across his left cheek. His thin, pinkened lips were molded around a green pacifier printed with the image of a duck. Large folded ears stuck out from the side of his head, both shiny with a small silver hoop attached. His full head of hair was dark-toned and fuzzy with untamed curls and trimmed to stay out of his eyes. Those eyes. They were open, staring up at the person who was taking the picture, filled with focus and concentration and thoughts—intelligence. They were old eyes but they were filled with the bursting sparkle of newborn galaxies and the magnificence of powdered stardust.
Jimin did not know how one pair of eyes could hold so much complexity but he knew if given the chance he could spend hours—days, years, lifetimes—staring into them and trying to find the map to the depths of their world.
“He’s cute.”
Jimin had to force himself to remember his husband’s presence. “Huh?”
“The baby,” Hoseok emphasized, rubbing a finger down the miniature cheek on the screen, zooming in on dainty, curved eyelashes. “He’s the cutest.”
Heart clenched, Jimin looked up at him, eyes wide. “The cutest?”
Face holding so much more meaning than those few words encompassed, Hoseok nodded. He’d always said Jimin was he cutest—the cutest in the whole world to him. The fact that he took one look at this infant and decided that he was enough competition for Jimin? Unprecedented. Absolutely unprecedented.
But also, Jimin couldn’t help but to think, Same.
This baby was The Cutest (TradeMarked), this baby was A Vampire (also, TradeMarked). And this baby was nothing if not innocent.
//
They held hands as they walked down the boulevard. The day was crisp and frigged in the December air but even without that excuse the two would seek comfort in the twining of their fingers.
They’d decided to park the car a fair distance away. Using the extra time before their arrival at the adoption agency for the appointment to meet the baby, they reflected on the importance of this next step. All the previous night, Jimin couldn’t sleep but unsurprisingly Hoseok didn’t move an inch since the moment he took a shot of wine and crawled under the duvet. Jimin knew Hoseok dealt with anxiety this way so he left the elder to shutting his brain off, instead spending his waking hours musing.
Those thoughts returned just now as they waited for a crossing light to change. He'd had Hoseok forward the email file to him and in the fortnight since he’d studied that photo more thoroughly than the material on his entrance exams growing up.
Setting it as his phone's wallpaper, Jimin would view the baby and make up various stories. He’d picture how his smile would push up the apples of his plump cheeks when he received candy, how his first tooth falling out would be soothed with red bean shaved ice, the slightly visible tremor of his body when it was time for a haircut and the high-five he’d receive once finished. Only when Jimin had gotten his fill of guessing his personality and how it would react to the experiences of life did he have the mind to look deeper into the background. The room in the image was large, conspicuously a nursery with the half-dozen baby beds along the brightly colored walls. The one holding the child (the only child in the room) was lined with purple, a striking color against the red of the swaddling blanket. The crib itself was a woven basket in a dark wood stain and had a sheer gauze curtain and mobile of rainbow airplanes hung overhead.
What he remembered now, what took up the forefront of his brain as he stepped over the curb and saw the agency just three blocks away, was the hard-plastic placard clipped to the front of the bed. It was blurry, camera lens more focused on the star of the show, but Jimin’s sharp eyes made out the handwritten lettering as if it was neon lights blinding into his retinas.
Every single time Park Jimin turned on the screen of his phone he saw him: Jungkook. Jungkook.
He knew he would never be able to quiet his mind when it came to baby Jeon Jungkook. Even more so when it came to a baby Jung Jungkook.
Hoseok’s grin when Jimin suggested the surname? He could never top that gift even if he tried for the rest of his life.
//
Meeting Jungkook wasn’t at all like they’d expected. Instead of a scene filled with dramatic music and a full staff holding tissues to their eyes as they held their breath, watching on the wayside as prospective parents entered the nursery, Hoseok and Jimin got a glass partition, hand sanitizer and a pair of hideously blue mesh booties to cover their outside shoes. They didn’t even get a pamphlet but Jimin supposed that they’d get those with all the exit paperwork (if they even got that far (he prayed they did (he prayed even more for a gift basket of start-up parental materials))).
At least the boundary was so clean that it was invisible, the divide between the prospective parents and the room that held a nurse and social worker—oh, and Jungkook.
Baby Jungkook, of course. The sweet vampire child that was currently being bounced gently awake like any other child would be. Hoseok put his hand up, leaving a tiny smudge as he tried to push against the transparent wall, wanting to reach in and rub down that teeny scrunched nose as Jungkook fought the battle between wakefulness and dreams, losing to the coaxing and murmuring of the nurse as she strode over towards the waiting men.
“Some special people have come to see you, Jungkook-ah!” Jungkook was held up at an angle so they could see. “This is Hoseok-ssi and Jimin-ssi! They’ve come very far to meet you. Let’s wake up and say our greetings.”
Jungkook had finally forced one eye open followed by the other, both glimmered with fine sleep dust, a touch dazed as they roamed around until abruptly latching on to the bright cherry of Jimin’s jumper. Jimin sucked in a breath. Deliberately, he lifted the collar of his shirt until it partially covered his chin, wanting for the child’s gaze to pursue the eye-catching color. As expected, little Jungkook’s eyes flicked up until they fell upon Jimin’s.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Jimin felt swallowed whole. It was like he’d been plunged into the depths of time and space, thrown head-over-foot-over-tailbone into a warmth that encompassed his entire heart and eroded and vanquished any doubts he’d ever subconsciously held against the idea of a child of Vampyre.
Overflowing with curiosity, Jungkook looked over Jimin’s face before jumping to Hoseok’s, similarly examining the two unknown humans that had appeared. Jimin tapped his pointer finger on the window, miming booping the baby’s nose and drawing his attention back to the younger man. Jungkook startled, anticipating the gesture but not realizing that Jimin could not physically touch him. The glass really was too clear, crystalline. Jimin tapped again and again, cooing at Jungkook’s repeated flinch until the small vampire caught on to the game and relaxed his expanded eyes.
As Jimin played around Hoseok joined in, pretending to pinch Jungkook’s cheek and poke his forehead and squish his chin between two fingers before turning it into a finger heart. The two must’ve looked astoundingly silly for soon the child’s expression morphed into a smile full of pink gums, a bit of drool leaking from the corner of his lip as a high-pitched squeal was released. This time it was the possible-parents that were stunned.
When Jimin and Hoseok had first arrived at the building, sanitary protective equipment being doled out by an intern, they’d been given a strict set of rules. The first and foremost one was the nursery room restriction. First meetings were important for seeing if a family would be complementary but also not so important enough to raise hopes in the children. Many families had come to view Jungkook (even more had refused to) but none so far had taken that next step to take him home. His case manager was wary of this and decided to take Jungkook’s feelings into account more than any other person’s.
“We only allow isolated visits. Our policy doesn’t permit the beginning of bonding between foster- and adoptive parents during the ‘still-thinking-about-it' stage.”
She said this but how could the couple not allow the blossoming adoration in their hearts to grow, watered by the most charming, toothless smile and euphoric laugh they’d ever encountered?
While Jungkook couldn’t stop watching the odd humans peering at him, the spouses gingerly reached their hands for each other. Palms clasped, they exhaled a shared breath.
And, without words, Jung Hoseok and Park Jimin had decided: this baby was going to be theirs.
//
It was difficult for Jimin and his husband to leave but the staff were adamant time was up and that the infant needed a change and a nap. Hearing this, it made them even more melancholy that they couldn’t be the ones to assist in the little one’s basic needs. With bittersweet waves they said their goodbyes, only barely stopping from promising to return—vowing to take Jungkook home—by the glare of the social worker.
As the automatic doors shut behind them, Jimin swore he could hear the faint cries of a child. Hoseok gripped Jimin’s hand tighter, seconds from dashing back into the building.
“Seokie-hyung, he isn’t ours…”
Hoseok’s shoulders dropped, dejected, but knowing the younger was right. “I just… I just want to hold him, Minnie.”
Jimin wrapped his arms around Hoseok’s waist, allowing the elder to tuck his face into the puffiness of Jimin’s jacket. He shuffled, purposely steered them away from the building, from prying eyes on the street, and in the direction of their waiting car.
As they took a step then more, pace slow and logged down, Jimin had cast one glance behind him, the echoes of Jungkook’s cries unnerving. “…Soon.”