Family

It had been a week since Sae-byeok got adopted, and she was slowly getting used to her new life.

On her second day, she had been woken up by a loud meowing. There was a cat on the other side of the door, and instead of finding it annoying, she thought it was cute. Gi-hun had warned her they had several cats, and she had been completely neutral towards it. She let the cat in and stroked him; it was a black and white cat who started purring as soon as she let him in. She decided at that moment that this cat would be her new best friend. When the cat bit her, she just giggled.

When Gi-hun came to her room to wake her up and found her already awake with a cat on top of her, his heart melted. He wasn’t expecting Sae-byeok to be a cat person, but according to him, she did give off cat vibes.

“His name is Roc,” Gi-hun said, grinning. “He’s 5 years old, and he’s the third cat I adopted of the seven I have. He’s very affectionate.”

Sae-byeok nodded and continued stroking the cat.

Gi-hun was as sweet as usual, extremely patient and adjusting to every necessity she needed. Sae-byeok found herself enjoying his company and slowly chatting every time more.

On the other hand, In-ho still didn’t talk to her much. He only gave her small chats, and she would always try to expand the conversation, but he never really made an effort to continue talking to her.

Sae-byeok didn’t really know if that made her sad or not. She had always had trouble expressing and figuring out her emotions, and no one had really tried to understand her; the only time someone did, she ended up leaving her without even trying to convince her new family to adopt her too.

She always wondered what her life would be like if she had gotten adopted with her best friend Ji-yeong. What was her family like? Were they as kind as Gi-hun, or as dry as In-ho? Did they also have wonderful cats that woke her up every day? Did she also miss her, like she would miss breathing? Did she also think about her until she ended up crying herself to sleep?

Probably not. Ji-yeong had meant everything to her, and the other girl hadn’t even doubted accepting leaving her behind.

The love she had for her reminded her of the love Gi-hun and In-ho had for each other, and she didn’t really understand why. She had once thought, if she ever got adopted, she’d feel disgusted by the idea of her new parents showing affection to each other, but instead, she found it comforting. It made her believe in love.

She remembered the third night she spent at her new home, she had woken up in the middle of the night and found the two men laying on the sofa, cuddling while watching a movie. When they saw her, they didn’t separate; they weren’t ashamed of their love, even though it wasn’t easy being a same-sex couple.

That was the second time she felt admiration towards her new parents. They weren’t scared, they loved each other too much to care about what other people would say. What she didn’t know was that both men had questioned if their daughter actually felt comfortable with them being together.

Sae-byeok thought the couple had very different personalities, but they complimented each other so well.

Sae-byeok would definitely be surprised if she found out how In-ho felt Gi-hun would stop loving him any second, because she didn’t think it was possible. The way Gi-hun looked at In-ho (and the way In-ho looked at Gi-hun) just confirmed her thoughts: they would spend the rest of their lives together.

And she didn’t find it disgusting, as how she would feel if it were any other couple. She found it beautiful.

A week later, when the three of them were having dinner, they asked her about it.

“Sae-byeok,” Gi-hun said, with an obvious nervousness in his tone. He looked at his husband, asking for his approval; they had both decided they would ask her about their recent thought tonight. “We need to ask you something.”

Sae-byeok stared at them both, a bit scared of what they could possibly ask her.

“What is it?” she said, eating her food, trying to pretend she wasn’t nervous. Were they going to bring her back to the orphanage? She had already gotten used to her new house, and if they brought her back there, she would feel destroyed.

“Are you… uncomfortable with us?” Gi-hun asked.

“What do you mean?”

Gi-hun and In-ho shared a quick look. Gi-hun was too anxious to say something, so In-ho decided he’d be the one asking.

“Are you uncomfortable with us being a couple?” In-ho asked and noticed how Sae-byeok was still confused. “We’re asking if you’re uncomfortable with us being a gay couple.”

Oh. So that’s what they meant. They weren’t going to bring her back to the orphanage. She felt relieved, and could feel how her heart had gone back to normal, even though she hadn’t even noticed it wasn’t beating as usual.

“No,” she said. “I’m not uncomfortable, why would I be?” Gi-hun sighed relieved, and to Sae-byeok’s surprise, In-ho did too. “I’m confused. You weren’t scared of people finding it awkward when you decided to adopt me, you didn’t even mention it. Why do you care now?”

Gi-hun smiled softly.

“We don’t care what people say, Sae-byeok,” he said. “We care about what you feel. We care about what you think. It doesn’t matter if people think we’re weird or disgusting, but if you did, that’d break our hearts,” Gi-hun continued, even though Sae-byeok was doubting if In-ho felt that way too or if Gi-hun was just being polite. “We care about you. You’re our daughter now.”

That day, Sae-byeok finally felt like her new family could work. She didn’t feel like they were going to abandon her like everyone else had done.

She knew it would take her a while to start trusting them. But she also knew they would wait, or at least one of them would.