ꜱᴀɴᴛᴀ'ꜱ ꜱᴏɴ ♔ ɴᴏᴍɪɴ

♔18

"Is there anything wrong with anyone else?" Jaemin asked.

"If you're talking about your eyes, then no, no one else," Taeyong answered patiently. "I'm sure you both have a lot of questions, so let's move to my room."

Jaemin and Jeno shared uncertain looks, Taeyong didn't allow anyone into his room except Jaehyun - given that they shared it. Was it really that serious? If it was just a headache, Jaemin could totally just take medicine by himself for it.  

Taeyong grabbed both of their hands as he let them land smoothly on the carpeted floor of his room. If Jaemin and Jeno could find words to describe it, it would definitely be grand. That would be the first word to come to mind.

"A little much isn't it?" Taeyong laughed, shaking his head and looked towards Jeno, "Your father has a thing for being extra."

Jeno raised an eyebrow as if to say: yeah, tell me about it.

"Make yourselves comfortable," Taeyong said as he sat down on a large brass chair. Jaemin looked to see a small two-seater couch in front of a table and he sat down readily, his headache really made his head pound now. 

Jeno cleared his throat, "Uh, do I like, sit on the floor or something?" 

Jaemin looked to see him standing there, looking very out of place in his checkered pajamas - both Jaemin and Taeyong hadn't even changed into something else since dinner.

Taeyong blinked as he glanced at the couch Jaemin was sitting on briefly, "Well, that is a couch for two people to sit on."

He whistled and looked away from the two, tapping his fingers on the table that separated them.

Jaemin's face burned, and Jeno plopped down onto the floor, "I can just sit here."

His mother finally made eye-contact with him, and although Jaemin was a little to dizzy to really notice, he was decently sure that he saw Taeyong's eyes harden into somewhat of a glare - and Jeno shot up to sit beside Jaemin.

Jaemin was going to be honest: the couch was small.

Very, very, small.

So small that the shoulder of the two brushed against each other whenever they moved, so they had both resorted to staying as still as stones.

"Can I be blunt?" Taeyong asked the both of them, but they knew that he was really speaking to Jaemin. His eyes were gentle and kind, and Jaemin trusted him.

They both nodded, and the little action caused their bodies to shift, and they brushed against each other again.

"Soooo," Taeyong drawled out the word, leaning back again and looking out the window into the darkness.

"You're going through changes."

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For heaven's sake why couldn't Taeyong just have told Jaemin that him and Jeno were soulmates?

Instead, he had chickened out and told them that they were going through bodily changes that caused their eye colour to change along with them - since all magical beings develop differently from humans.

The older didn't miss the way both of them tried to hide their real emotions when Taeyong directed the conversation to something that sounded like puberty when they were already past that age.

"Goddammit, Taeyong, why couldn't you just say: oh yeah, you two were made for each other," he chided himself that night whilst Jaehyun snored beside him - the noise resembling that of a running chainsaw.

He sighed and sat up, putting on his slippers to check on Jeno - he was probably asleep by then, but Taeyong didn't really have anything better to do, given that he was wide awake and unable to fall asleep or find a comfortable position in the bed.

It was already 3 in the morning, and Taeyong was usually right.

So he did a double take when he opened the door of his son's room to find Jeno sitting at the edge of his bed, staring off into blank space, still in his checkered pajamas.

"Jen? What are you doing awake this early?" Taeyong demanded, though his tone of voice was softer as he wanted to be considerate.

Jeno shrugged, then eyed the man who was standing at his doorway, "What are you doing here, might I ask?"

Taeyong didn't reply him, and the both of them stared at each other long enough to fill the room with disturbing silence. Then Taeyong shut the door and Jeno spoke up, "It's about Jaemin, isn't it?"

Taeyong exhaled sharply and settled down beside Jeno, who although watched his every move with a new intensity with his eyes, did not object when he rubbed his thigh comfortingly.

"Why didn't you tell him? He was very embarrassed - his thoughts told me so."

"Mm," Taeyong replied, "I'm not sure if he's ready."

He looked to meet Jeno's eyes, and whispered - as if saying it softer might help lessen the damage, "I'm not sure if he feels the same, you know, way. And even if he does, I don't know how he might react."

"But-"

"He hasn't even been here for a month, Jen, I just want to give him ample time to get comfortable; with this place, and you."

Jeno thought about this.

Was he really forcing his affections on Jaemin when he might not feel the same way? Jeno couldn't hear Jaemin's thoughts all the time, after all, as he had discovered, and he had not heard of Jaemin thinking about how much he liked Jeno or anything of that sort.

Maybe he should've given him more space.

Taeyong must have noticed the remorseful look on his face because he whistled to get Jeno's attention, and then said, "I'm not saying you're a bad person, and you've been pushing him to like you back - because you're not a bad person. It's that Jaemin goes at his own pace, and for him to catch up with you, you have to slow down and match the rate that he's going."

"Get to know him as a person, not just a pretty boy you met at his house," Taeyong advised at Jeno's conflicted expression, "and show him you're not just a pretty boy that flirts with him."

"I'm not just a pretty boy that flirts with him," Jeno said indignantly.

Taeyong laughed.

"I'm not saying that you are, but that you have to be patient - Jaehyun didn't win me over with just that fetching smile of his, you know," Taeyong spoke airily, and Jeno believed him.