Minho opened his eyes first. It took him a moment to focus on his Master’s face, but when he did the sight of tears jarred any fuzziness from his mind. “Master?”

           Jinki’s perfect posture shattered as a sob slipped past his lips and Minho watched, afraid, as Jonghyun was quick to kneel beside them and bring his partner’s head tight against his chest. Time ticked by slowly, but soon Jonghyun was pulling away slightly, wiping Jinki’s cheeks with a warm smile, “Are you alright, love? Are you in pain?”

           “Not anymore, I-” His breathing shuddered, hands shaking a little. “I never knew you held in so much pain Minho.”

           “You.. channeled my emotions through my reading?”

           “Not your current ones.” Jinki reached over, squeezing his hands firmly. “I can see parts of your life that you wouldn’t, can’t, remember Young One. It’s best, I believe, for you not to know.”

           “Why not?”

           Jinki sighed, hands slipping away to intertwine on his lap. “The pain in your past has much to do with your parents giving you up. I saw them. I know where they are, but.” As his voice softened until silence he looked at Jonghyun, the familiar understanding passing through them like so many times before Minho still wondered if they had lied when he asked them if they could read each other’s thoughts.

           “You’re precious to us Minho. Incredibly so.” Jonghyun cupped his cheek with a hand well worn with years working with enchantments. “You’re much more than an apprentice to us. We love you much like a son. Maybe it’s selfish of us to want to keep that information from you, but in the forefront it is about your safety. We don’t want you getting hurt.”

           “If you wish to know, I will tell you.” There was a smile on Jinki’s face, but Minho could tell it was more for his benefit than the man’s. “The good news is, it isn’t you the dark sorcerers are after. Your future is bright and beautiful, Young One. Full of the Love you deserve.”

           “Masters?” He looked between the two men, both gazing at him with a fondness he always received but could never put a name to describe. “Do you really see me as a son?”

           “Can we tell you a story?” Jonghyun carefully sat back, crisscrossing his legs, but his right knee was pressed against Jinki’s thigh. When Minho softly nodded, Jonghyun continued. “We opened this shop almost eleven years ago. We had talked about adopting a child because both of us had the desire to have children, but anatomy obviously limits our choices.”  

           “The problem was even with the acceptance of our relationship the orphanage wouldn’t allow us to have meetings with the children to try and make some sort of connection. Our attempts at adopting were denied.” Jinki was gently running his thumb over the back of Jonghyun’s hand as he continued, “We were giving up on having any sort of family greater than just us two when I began to have visions of you. Small things, flashes. It wasn’t often I had visions of people and events not associated with myself or Jonghyun without touching something or someone. Then you came into the shop.”

           “We accepted you as our apprentice, not as a way to take the place of a child we weren’t able to have, Minho. You were talented and we believed fate had brought you to us. The care we have for you formed over the years. It shifted from the fondness of a Master to that of a Father. We don’t expect you to look at us like anything more than your Masters.”

           Jinki laughed then, a soft chuckle breaking the almost tense silence. “Leave me trying to decipher my visions lead us to scare our apprentice away.”

           “I’ll admit that for some time I thought about trying to find my birth parents. Being left at the orphanage is very blurry in my memory. I remember a woman with long dark hair. A man wearing a large hat. An older boy hiding behind their legs. Their shadows cast over me as my wrist was held by the old woman of the orphanage and then nothing else. I don’t wish to learn anything about the people who gave me up.. Who didn’t want me.” He fidgeted with the amulet still in his lap. “Searching for you Master Jinki was primarily to find someone to take me as an apprentice, to help me master these gifts I was using without knowledge of and getting in trouble for, but a smaller part I never really thought about, was searching for a family. I’d like to think of us as a family. I think I have for some time Masters.”

           “Minho,” Jinki’s voice was just as warm and soft as the hand caressing his cheek. The man had always been so confident and sure in himself. The way he carried himself, the way his shoulders were always high, and the almost cockiness in the use of his magic. None of it was present when Jinki spoke again. “I quite think you can stop calling us that if you wish. A son...Doesn’t call his father Master.”

           Minho bit his bottom lip, tears welling up in his eyes as he looked between the two men. “You really… want me to call you Father?”

           “Only if you want to.” Jonghyun, bless his always emotional soul, already looked like he lost the battle with his tears.

           “I would.” He scowled slightly, before sneezing. Then he was smiling so bright, beaming from ear to ear it seemed. “Though, both of you being Father would be just as confusing as you both being Masters.”

           Jinki laughed at the innocence of such a comment as Jonghyun lifted, pressing a kiss to Minho’s forehead. “We’ll figure it out.”