Jongin spends the rest of the day alternating between berating himself for being an emotional idiot and wondering what the squeeze of Lord Do’s hand meant. It is not until Old Man Lee comes over at the end of the day to chat, and mentions that Lord Do spent a good amount of time at the woodworker’s tent, that it even occurs to Jongin that someone else might have seen what happened. But his fears are assuaged when the old man only good-naturedly grumbles his envy of the lord’s attention. Jongin laughs stiffly along but packs his things up much faster after that.  

He is welcomed home that night by the shrieks of his niece, Rahee, which can be heard even from two houses away. 

“It must be bath day,” comments one of his neighbors gleefully as Jongin rolls the cart carrying the tarp he sets up for his stall and the few wares that had not been sold that day. The young woodworker cannot help but smile genuinely at the remark. Rahee was the only child of his eldest sister, Jin Hee, and her husband, Lee Taemin. The child was barely three years old and usually had a docile and charming temperament that caused anyone who met her to dote on her. However, Rahee had a vehement and irreparable hatred for baths. Though she loved to splash in puddles of water and had a rather inexplicable, and somewhat concerning, habit of chewing on soap, something about the combination of the two things caused her little body to quake in revulsion and her high little voice to reach insufferable pitches. Jongin wheels the cart to the small shed behind their home before going in through the back sliding doors, leaving his dirtied shoes on the porch there. The screeches are only worse inside and the young man grimaces at the sound but bravely moves towards it. Sure enough, Taemin is sitting on the floor of the bathroom with a miserable look on his soaking wet face as he resolutely holds on to his squirming and daughter, an upturned basin of water rolling towards the doorway.

“Jongin!” Taemin calls to his brother-in-law, face brightening considerably, “Thank the gods. Please save me, brother.”

Jongin laughs at his friend who only invokes their family connection when he’s in need like this. Jongin and Taemin are childhood friends and the tan male had been shocked and slightly disturbed when he had discovered the romance that existed between the then-apprentice black smith and his own sister, older than both of them.   

“Hyung-nim,” says the younger mockingly, “I would not want to interfere in this bonding time with your only child!”

“Why, you little,” begins Taemin but is interrupted by the appearance of Jin Hee whose face also melts in relief at the sight of her brother.

“Oh, Jongin! Wonderful, please help with Rahee’s bath time. You know how she loves you,” and she pouts at her brother miserably until he can’t help but shrug in defeat. Taemin goes to stand with a smug grin but Jin Hee waves him down.

“You stay and help! Fill the basin back up while Jongin distracts her.” And then she slips off again down the hallway with a satisfied look at her excellent instruction giving. Jongin and Taemin sneer at each other for a moment before Rahee gets her second wind and starts wailing again, refusing to be ignored. Her father scrambles to his feet behind her, grabbing the spilled basin on his way up, and hustles quickly out of the room to refill the water from the well outside. Rahee takes the opportunity to try and escape but Jongin predicts her movements and snatches her around her little waist.

“Not so fast, you rascal. Pew! Don’t you get tired of smelling so bad, Little Bug? You won’t make friends if you’re stinky!”

“NO! All Rahee’s friends are stinky too! They like stinky Rahee!”

“Hmm, I doubt it somehow. Come on, Little Bug. I’ll make you a bath friend. Who should join stinky Rahee?”

This gives the little girl pause, her tiny features sobering into a thoughtful expression. Jongin tries to hold in his laughter lest he further exacerbate her fussy behavior. 

“Fish!” She finally squeals. “Stinky fish,” she adds with venom, “like Rahee.”

“Petulant little thing, aren’t you?” Says Jongin, but his tone is fond as he keeps a firm grip on his niece. The squirming little girl finally calms enough to settle in his lap as he pulls out his ever handy whittling knife and reaches for a discarded bar of soap with a few marks that look suspiciously like nibbles from little teeth. Jongin shaves a few layers away from the cake of soap until it takes roughly on the shape of a fish, albeit with clumsy scales and a rather robust figure, but the fins are identifiable enough. Rahee, at least, is impressed by her uncle’s quick skill and is clapping gleefully enough that she barely notices when her father returns with a full basin of lukewarm water. 

“Move! Swim, fishy!”

“Well he can’t swim if he’s not in water right?”

The little girl gives her uncle a rather miffed look but the man is practically immune to all her coercions by now and only points resolutely at the tub. She shuffles into the water with a resigned sigh and the help of her father, then splashes expectantly at Jongin. 

“Swim, fishy,” she says assertively. 

Jongin and Taemin share an indulgent smile over the child’s head before Jongin lowers the crude soap fish into the water. The little creature immediately wiggles to life on contact with the liquid surface and begins to dart around the tub, seeming to evade Rahee’s little hands with a mind of its own. The little girl laughs and squeals with glee, heedless of the bubbles that permeate the water the more the fish moves. Her father and uncle take advantage of her distraction to scrub at the grub that has gathered on her soft baby skin, even scrubbing at her hair as her vigorous chase of the soap fish causes them all to be splashed and soaked in the soapy water. 

Eventually the water and Rahee’s gripping hands wear at the fish enough that it loses its shape and its ability to move around the tub on its own, but Rahee is already clean enough and her father pulls her out of the water before she can start fussing again.

“My, my,” says Gwiboon, rounding the corner with a towel in her hand. “I was coming to see how my sweet little Rahee was doing after her bath, but who is this clean little girl? Have you seen my Little Bug?”

The child giggles as she runs into the towel and allows her grandmother to dry her without a fuss.

“Me Rahee! Clean Rahee! Was good in the bath, very good.”

“You were good during bath time?! Well, now I know you can’t be my Rahee. Did daddy and uncle Jonginnie sing you a bath song?”

“No! Innie made Rahee a bath friend. Stinky fishy for stinky Rahee!” 

The little girl dissolved into another bout of giggles as she wriggled into the sleep shirt her grandmother was holding, oblivious to the sudden tension that settled over the adults in the room. Jongin and Taemin glance at each other nervously, pulling at their wet clothes and trying to shuffle towards the door to the bathroom but are blocked by Gwiboon who was staring them down menacingly.

“Is that so. How fun.” Her flat tone implies that she doesn’t really think it’s fun. “Rahee, go outside with grandpa to count the fireflies. Soon, they will be all gone for the season so you won’t be able to play with them for much longer.”

The little girl gasps and is gone without further encouragement. Gwiboon rises from her kneeling position and, for so slight a woman, her form seems to fill the doorway. Her narrowed eyes sweep from Jongin to Taemin as she considers what angle to attack them from. Finally she takes a heavy and tired sigh, her shoulders dropping slightly. Damnit. The guilt angle.

“Taemin,” She begins, “ You cannot keep letting Rahee walk all over you. If you let her have everything her way now, she will be spoiled and unmanageable when she gets older. I know she is your first child, and only a girl, but you and Jin Hee have to start handling her with a firmer hand. Bath time is not a favor she does you, don’t let her get away with thinking she has any grounds to bargain. I know-“ she holds up a hand to stop Taemin when it looks like the blacksmith is going to protest, “I know you are not alone in this. I will say something to my daughter as well. But you are a father and a mother now. We are a family who will help each other, but you can not keep depending on Jongin to help control your own child.”

The young man bows his head in understanding and Jongin shifts uncomfortably next to him. Gwiboon lets them stew silently for a moment before she waves at Taemin, clearly dismissing him. 

“Go and change your clothes before you get sick,” she says. 

Jongin is left alone with his mother and he glances up at her, waiting for his turn of rebuke now, but Gwiboon only watches him with an unreadable expression. Not for the first time recently, Jongin notices how the lines on his mothers face have deepened, her fox-like features softened slightly with age. But she is still, to him, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.

“You are so like your grandfather,” She whispers finally. It takes Jongin off guard, his mother often avoiding the subject of her father who, Jongin knows, he inherited his Magic from. “Even after being run out of his own town, he couldn’t give up using his Magic. After mother died… He always used it for others, you know? He stopped for a long time but I caught him a few times after the girls were born. Fluttering a butterfly hair pin or making a paper crane fly across the room. Never when he thought I was watching, though.”

She pauses for a moment, a far off look on her face. 

“Jonginnie,” she finally says, voice burdened with sadness, “Do you understand they could take you away from me?”

As a child, it seemed inconceivable to Jongin that he might one day be able to hold his mother in the cradle of his arms the way she had done for all his life. Yet now he is struck by how small she is that she doesn’t even fill the space between his arms. He pulls her tighter to compensate.

“Mother, Rahee will not say anything.”

“Rahee is only a child! You cannot know what she will say innocently to her friends, and what they then might say to their parents.”

Jongin hesitates. “Our neighbors are all good people; They have known us since we were children and we grew up with most of them! They would not suspect us.”

“Oh my sweet Jongin, you have a good heart and it makes you ignorant. Even a loyal dog will turn to bite its owner if it is afraid. We cannot trust other people, you don’t know how quickly they would turn you in.”

“But I am not a threat to anyone! Dancing wooden figures could hardly be weaponized.”

“They won’t care, Jongin! They will only care that you are different, that you have a power they do not. They could turn you in for the money, too! Do you know how much a person of power would pay for a Magic entertainer? “

Jongin cannot help but think for a moment of Lord Do’s glimmering eyes and penetrating gaze. Of the omnipresent silk mask that keeps him from using his voice freely.

“What about father? What about Taemin? They accepted my gift easily, they were not afraid nor did they turn me in for gold.”

Gwiboon pulls away from her son and wipes at her eyes that have become suspiciously damp.

“Oh Jongin, you are still so young. You can’tnot expect that everyone will love you the way your family does. Please, I don’t want to always be fighting about this. Just be more careful around Rahee; No more bedtime shows or bath time friends. She is too young to watch her words and there are too many ears this close to the palace.”

Jongin hesitates, remembering the shocked looks of Lord Do and his attendant. How he’d moved the bird without even thinking about it, the wooden figure reacting only to the careless burst of emotion from the woodworker.

“Jongin.”

“I’ll be more careful, mother. Please, do not worry like this anymore, it’s not good for your looks.”

“So rude, this little boy,” huffs the older woman as she swipes at her son. 

The lines of worry have slightly eased on her forehead but not totally disappeared as she shoos Jongin away to change his clothes and then join his family outside to say goodbye to the final fireflies of the season.