Not only did Jin approve of it, he approved vociferously. It all got arranged somehow, and Jimin had a little blessing-pouch around his neck as all of them wandered back into the forest. This time of the year the forest was choked with snow-fog, and piles of the cold wet stuff lay thickly on the ground. A howling wind drove them through the gate to Bukhansan, which was not only higher but felt ten times colder. Namjoon met them at the gate this time, along with a small group of servants bearing warm clothing.

 

Namjoon stepped forward and wrapped Jin in the softest of furs. Tae didn’t explain anything, just looked at Jimin with a wiggle of eyebrows. The haetae also had an ironically mundane stash of handwarmers there, from which he activated two for the baksu before he set off at his side for the palace. The servants got to the two boys afterwards, burying Jimin in a pile of fur as well. It took a whole half an hour until they were in Tae’s elegant suite of rooms, seated around what looked like some sort of electronic heater. He still didn’t understand why electricity worked in such a magical zone. Namjoon had tried to explain, but once he got to imaginary dimensions Jimin had lost him at the first fast curve.

 

“Explain,” he demanded as they settled in with a tray of snacks and hot chocolate, and Tae stretched out to check his phone. It was more mysterious as an appliance than the laptop Jin had gotten him, but tiny, so tiny in his friend’s large hands. “From the way your ears practically twitched out there, there’s something about Namjoon-hyung taking care of Jin-hyung?”

 

Tae tossed his phone into a pillow after starting one of his infamous playlists. “If you really don’t know what to think about boys being with boys, I’m not going to tell you,” he said airily.

 

Jimin reached out to kick his knee. “Tae,” he groused. “Just tell me, okay? I’m trying to understand.”

 

“Fiiiine. Namjoon-hyung is courting Jin-hyung,” Tae explained, batting his foot away. “He’s liked Jin-hyung ever since he saved my mom and sister. You know how haetae are, they love law and order and justice and all that stuff. That coat he wrapped him in is Kirin fur from Japan. They’re not killed for it, you can’t kill for it. It’s only the freely-given fur that carries a kirin’s protection and blessing.”

 

Jimin gawked at the notion. “Do you think Jin-hyung even knows what’s happening?”

 

Tae shrugged dolefully. “I don’t know. But it’s a way for Namjoon-hyung to take care of him, and show how highly he thinks of him to the court. They’re roughly the same rank, so it’s not like it’s some kind of scandalous love story, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not really drama-worthy, like Hwarang and stuff.”

 

Thinking back to the k-drama about the Joseon era Tae had made him watch, Jimin frowned. “I guess… is he…I mean….”

 

“He called him Joonie outside,” Tae said distantly as he crunched into a chip. “That’s, like, super-intimate. And it’s even stranger because he’s so much older than Jin-hyung. But then again, Jin-hyung is a whole mom, I’m sure that’s why.”

 

Jimin was forced to agree. In the time that Tae had stayed with them, Jin had mothered them both impartially and with great attention to detail. “It’s so romantic,” he said with a hesitant smile. “That he would take care of him like that. It almost is like a k-drama. Was that Empress of Silla anything like your mom?”

 

Tae blinked at him, did it again and burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he nearly spilled their drinks as he writhed on the pillows. “Nev… Never let my mom hear you say that!” he crowed. “She’d be so sour because she couldn’t skin you for a rug. Nah, she’s nothing like my mother. I mean, they’re both strong women, but nothing like her.”

 

Jimin pouted before he sank back in the pillows too, starting to feel toasty-warm. “I can’t even look at your mom. She scares me.”

 

“She’s very powerful,” Tae said quietly. “She should scare you. She’s almost three thousand years old, and my grandmother is even older.”

 

“Your grandmother is still alive? Wow… how old is she? For that matter, how old are you, and Namjoon-hyung?”

 

Tae considered the matter, eventually frowning and employing his fingers. “I reckon my grandmother is over seven thousand years old. No one is really sure. My mom’s three thousand and fifty-two, I’m one thousand, nine hundred and seven, and my sister’s like… four. She’s still a fetus, practically. Namjoon-hyung is a little older than me, I’m not sure precisely how much.”

 

Jimin choked on clean air. “What?” he strangled out. “You look like you’re the same age as me! How powerful must your grandmother be then?”

 

“Not human,” Tae reminded him. “My grandmother is epic. You won’t meet her, she’s in seclusion on Okinawa. She’s… I can’t describe it.” He sounded almost meditative. “I’m supposed to be vastly stronger than I am, but I’m stunted.”

 

This time it was Jimin that crawled around the table to hug him. “Don’t say that,” he said sternly. “We’ll get your fox-stone back, okay? We’re best friends. We can do anything.” He wrapped his arms around his friend, quietly contemplating. The world he was in now was so much more intricate than he had thought initially, more complex.

 

They never spoke of the topic again. The next day, the twenty-fourth, they spent listening to Jin trot out all his best Christmas-related dad jokes as the elder oversaw Jimin’s slow and careful attempts to scribe dozens of small blessings. Namjoon-hyung was in the back of his office, ostensibly dealing with last-minute matters, but this time Jimin understood what the looks he cast Jin meant. It made him wonder what he had done to deserve learning about love from the two of them, especially when Namjoon kept on ordering little mince pies and bowls of jjigae for the baksu. It had to be a whole lot of love, in any case, to balance out the truly ginormous amount Jin-hyung put away, with oodles of the civet coffee.

 

When Namjoon finally explained, Jimin felt like a little again. “Jin-hyung’s metabolism is fast because the curse keeps eating away at him,” the haetae explained quietly. “The more food he has the more energy his body has to fight it, you know? It’s not just because he loves food so much. You’re lucky to get his cooking so often.”

 

From the way the haetae looked at his mentor, Jimin felt that Namjoon envied him for living with Jin, like he was lucky to be alive to even be in his company.

 

The next day, as Tae led him around and he passed out the little blessings to everyone, he saw respect for him climb a little in everyone’s eyes. Even the queen deigned to mute her radiance a little for him as he finally met Soomi, Taehyung’s baby sister, especially when he hauled out the large sheet of blessings to be put in the lining of her cot. She was as tiny as Muji still, with nine tails almost as long as his arm.

 

He hadn’t been able to do the same for Tae. Instead, begging a little piece of wood from the local woodworker, he had simply carved him a round, polished ball of wood, and wrapped it in a promise to quest together to get his fox-stone one day. His friend had cried long and hard on his shoulder at that.

 

It was the first Christmas he had ever spent, and future ones would have to really work to get as good as this one.

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1. As a reminder for readers not in the northern hemisphere (like myself), Seoul is in the grip of bad winters around Christmas. That means snow, fogs, temperatures that frequently dip below freezing, and all the discomfort going along with that. For curious people like myself, here’s the RL data of that week for Seoul courtesy of TimeandDate.com.
2. I’ve only ever seen snow three times in my life, and never very thick. Please forgive any inaccuracies!
3. One of the early glimpses of Jin’s famous love affair with eating. Namjoon, poor confused haetae, might only rank second on the list one day.
4. Hwarang is a real k-drama series, as any fan of BTS will know. It has beautiful guys, politics, fighting, comedy and also a lot of romance. I cried.