Day 182. 20:00 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
The Atrium.
The household was resting for the first time in eleven days, and the resting had a particular quality to it — not the exhausted collapse of people who had been pushed past their limits, but the quiet, deliberate stillness of a family that had been fighting for eleven days and was now, finally, not fighting.
The narra table had been cleared, and the plates had been washed, and Carmen and Esperanza and Sofia had cleaned the kitchen with the same wordless rhythm they used for cooking — the glances and the gestures and the way Carmen tilted her chin and Esperanza was already reaching — and then they had gone to find Paolo.
Hua was still on her stool in the kitchen doorway, but the kitchen behind her was dark, and her violet-blue eyes were soft in the dim light, and her hand was resting on her stomach, and Jae-min was standing in the doorway watching her.
"Come to bed," Jae-min murmured, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.
"Not yet — they are telling him tonight, and I want to see his face." Hua countered, her violet-blue eyes glinting with the warmth of a woman who was three and a half months pregnant and was not going to miss this for anything.
"Paolo's face." Jae-min clarified, understanding immediately, a faint pull at the corner of his mouth.
"He is going to cry first, then he is going to laugh, then he is going to pick someone up — probably Lina because she is the smallest — and then he is going to hug the Sailor Moon doll because that is what Paolo does," Hua predicted, her lips curving into a smile that was equal parts affection and anticipation.
Jae-min knew Paolo.
Jae-min knew exactly what Paolo would do.
"I will check on Ji-yoo and Yue first, then I will come back." Jae-min offered, pushing off the doorframe.
"Take your time — I am not leaving this stool until I see that boy's face." Hua declared, settling deeper into the wood with the stubbornness of a pregnant chef who had been supervising from that stool for eleven days.
Jae-min nodded and turned and walked into the corridor.
— • • • —
Day 182. 20:15 hours.
The infirmary. L2.
Ji-yoo was sitting up on her cot, and Yue was sitting up on hers, the two of them side by side with the particular energy of two fighters who had been broken together and were healing together and were now, on the second night, bored together in a way that was bordering on dangerous.
"Oppa, I am going to lose my mind in here," Ji-yoo announced the moment Jae-min walked through the door, her dark eyes sharp — too sharp for a woman who was supposed to be resting.
"Three days total, two more to go." Jae-min reminded her, pulling a chair beside the cots.
"Two more days of this — I have counted the ceiling tiles, there are forty-seven, I have counted the stitches in my arm, there are twelve, I have counted the bubbles in the IV bag, I lost count at three hundred." Ji-yoo vented, her hand resting on her ribs with the frustration of a woman whose kidneys were healing but whose patience was not.
"The bubbles are the worst," Yue muttered from the next cot, her marble eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"Exactly," Ji-yoo confirmed, nodding solemnly.
Jae-min looked at them — at the two women who had fought beside him for eleven days and were now counting bubbles and ceiling tiles and stitches because they could not fight and could not train and could not do anything except sit on cots and heal.
"Alessia says two more days minimum, could be three." Jae-min relayed, keeping his voice steady.
"Do not say three," Ji-yoo warned, pointing at him.
"Three," Yue stated flatly, just to watch Ji-yoo's face.
"I will kill you where you lie." Ji-yoo threatened, turning to Yue.
"You cannot kill me — you cannot reach me, and your kidneys will not allow the crossing," Yue observed without changing expression.
Jae-min almost smiled.
Almost.
The particular almost-smile of a captain who had been worried about his sister and was now watching her threaten to murder Yue over the word three and was, for one moment, not worried at all.
"Rest, both of you — two more days," Jae-min instructed, standing.
"Two more days and then I am hitting something." Ji-yoo pledged, jabbing her good hand at the air.
"With what arm?" Yue inquired mildly.
"With the arm that is not stitched — the right arm is fine, the right arm can hit things." Ji-yoo declared, flexing her right fist.
"The right arm can hit things, the left arm cannot hit things, the left arm is busy healing —," Yue confirmed with the air of a woman documenting important medical information.
"Rest," Jae-min repeated, heading for the door.
"— Something," Yue called after him.
Jae-min left the infirmary to the sound of the two women arguing about what Ji-yoo would hit first, and the arguing told him everything he needed to know.
They were going to be fine.
— • • • —
Day 182. 20:30 hours.
The rooftop.
The Third Floor terrace overlooked the compound, the frozen city, and the charcoal-gray sky.
The terrace was where Ji-yoo trained with Soulcleaver and where Yue meditated with her jian and where Jae-min went when he needed to see something bigger than himself.
Tonight, the terrace was where Jae-min brought Lena.
Lena was sitting on the bench — the built-in railing bench where Rico used to sit when he smoked the cigars he did not smoke anymore.
Her mechanical fingers were in her lap, the nacreous sheen catching what little light bled up from the compound below.
Her golden-white eyes were on the sky.
Lena was second-generation Enhanced — group three, the cross-match group that included Rico, Alessia, Jennifer, and the woman in white.
Jae-min did not know what Lena's power was.
He knew her fingers and her eyes and the mechanical rhythm of her jaw when she spoke.
He knew she had been at the Pasig facility and that she was part of the household.
"I have not seen the sky in eleven days — not since the war started," Lena said, her voice hoarse with the mechanical rhythm of her jaw. "I was in the monitoring station the whole time, watching the screens, watching the readouts, watching your signatures on the display. The strike team, the ridge group, everyone. I was watching everyone, and I was not watching the sky."
Jae-min sat beside her.
Not close, not far — the distance of a man sitting with a woman he did not know well and giving her space while also being there.
"The sky is not watching you — the sky is just the sky." Jae-min offered, his dark eyes following her gaze upward.
"The sky is just the sky." Lena echoed, her golden-white eyes softening. "I used to watch it before the freeze, from the roof of my apartment. I would go up at night and watch the stars — Manila had too much light pollution for stars, but I would watch anyway. I would think that the sky was the one thing that was bigger than me, the one thing I could not control, the one thing that was just there."
She paused.
Her mechanical fingers tightened and loosened and tightened in her lap.
"And now the sky is charcoal-gray, and there are no stars because the freeze took them, but it is still the sky — it is still the one thing that is bigger than me, the one thing I cannot control." Lena continued, her voice cracking, her golden-white eyes going wet. "I needed to see it. Thank you again for bringing me up here."
"You needed to see the sky." Jae-min acknowledged, his voice low and steady.
"Mm," Lena confirmed, barely above a whisper.
They sat on the bench in the minus-seventy, the sky charcoal-gray above them, the city frozen below them, the compound behind them.
Lena's mechanical fingers found Jae-min's hand — not a grab, not a clutch, but a placement, the particular placement of a woman whose fingers were nacreous and mechanical and were, for one moment, resting on a man's hand because the hand was there and the sky was there and she needed something to hold onto while she cried.
Jae-min did not pull away.
After a while, Lena wiped her eyes with her other hand — the non-mechanical hand, the hand that was still flesh — and stood.
"Thank you for the sky," Lena murmured, her golden-white eyes still wet but steadier.
"Anytime," Jae-min answered, and meant it.
Lena went downstairs, her mechanical footsteps fading.
Jae-min stayed for one moment — one moment of sky and city and the particular one-moment of a man who was, for one moment, not the head of anything.
Then he went downstairs.
There was more to do.
— • • • —
Day 182. 21:00 hours.
The Second Floor.
The Resident Wing.
Jae-min walked the corridor with his spatial awareness sweeping each room as he passed.
Room 1 — Ji-yoo's room, empty, guitars and Marshall stacks behind the closed door.
Room 2 — Rico and Marie's room, empty.
Room 3 — Mei, Aiko, and Elena Cortez. Mei at her console, Aiko in the workshop. Elena Cortez was not there.
Room 5 — Daniela and Lena, both asleep.
Room 6 — Belle, alone, asleep.
Room 7 — the Orgy Five. Paolo, Carmen, Esperanza, Sofia, and Lina. Not asleep.
Jae-min's spatial awareness swept the room — not intentionally, but the awareness swept everything within three kilometers.
Five signatures, elevated, heartbeats fast, breathing fast — four Baseline, one Enhanced, the Enhanced signature Paolo's, the Ice and Snow Manipulation that was, in Room 7, not manipulating ice.
He pulled his awareness back.
Some things were not for the captain to know in detail.
Room 8 — Ana, Lourdes and Mira, asleep.
Room 9 — Gabby and Rosa, asleep.
Room 4 was at the end of the corridor.
The door was closed.
The light was off.
But the warmth coming through the door was not the warmth of an empty room — it was the warmth of a woman whose body ran at thirty-seven degrees and whose thermal aura was humming on the other side of the wood.
Elena Cortez was waiting.
Seventy-three days of waiting, of secret meetings, of the particular affair that had started in the car gallery inside his GT-R and had continued in the command deck, and other places and in the spaces between the household's knowledge and the household's suspicion.
Elena Cortez was Enhanced — Thermal Manipulation, her body holding at thirty-seven degrees, her skin at thirty-four.
She was twenty-four, with waist-length black hair and black eyes, the particular black eyes of a woman who had graduated from UP Diliman at nineteen and had walked eleven days barefoot through a frozen city because she had felt Jae-min's void from three kilometers away and had followed it to him.
She had found him.
And she had kept finding him — in stairwells and rooms and the particular spaces where the household was not.
Room 4 was one of those spaces — a bedroom that had been Carmen and Esperanza's before they moved to Room 7, now empty, now used on certain nights for something else.
Elena was sitting on the edge of the bed with her black hair loose and her black eyes on the door, her thermal aura humming low and steady, the only warmth in the cold room.
Jae-min opened the door, stepped in, and closed it.
"Hi." Elena Cortez breathed, her voice low and warm, the particular warmth of a woman who had been waiting and was now not waiting.
"Elena," Jae-min answered, saying her name the way he said it in private — not the way he said it in the Atrium or the Command Deck, but the way that belonged to Room 4 and to the seventy-three days.
Elena stood and crossed the room, her black eyes on his, her warmth preceding her like a wave.
She kissed him — not the kiss of a wife but the kiss of a woman who was not his wife and who had been kissing him anyway for seventy-three days and was not going to stop.
Her mouth opened against his, her tongue finding his, the particular warmth of a woman whose body ran at thirty-seven degrees and whose tongue was thirty-seven degrees and whose warmth was in everything.
His hands found her waist through the fabric, and the warmth of her body was the particular warmth he had been touching for seventy-three days, the warmth that was Elena Cortez and was not any other woman.
She pulled his shirt up and over his head, her fingers fast and practiced — the practiced of a woman who had unbuttoned this shirt seventy-three times.
His chest was scarred and pale, and her thermal eyes saw the paleness differently than a Baseline's eyes would — she saw temperature, she saw the cold-pale of a man who had less blood than he should, and her thermal aura flared in response.
"You are cold — not the usual cold, the blood-loss cold," Elena whispered against his mouth, her palms going flat on his chest, her heat flowing through her hands into him. "Your core temperature is lower than normal."
"I am always cold in minus-seventy." Jae-min deflected, his hands in her hair.
"Not this cold — I can feel the difference; you gave too much yesterday." Elena pressed, her thermal aura flaring, the room warming around them. "You need to eat more, rest more, and give blood less."
"I need you to stop diagnosing me and kiss me again." Jae-min countered, pulling her closer.
She kissed him again, and her hands found his belt, and the diagnosis became the warmth, and the warmth became the bed, and she pushed him down on his back with the particular push of a woman whose thermal aura was flaring and whose flaring was making the room warm enough to not need blankets.
She straddled him, her warmth pressed against him through fabric, and her fingers unbuckled his belt with the practiced speed of seventy-three days.
His pants off, his boxers off, and her hand found him — warm, thirty-seven degrees, the particular warm that was Elena Cortez.
She stroked him slowly, knowing this stroke, having used this stroke for seventy-three days, and the practiced precision was the thing that Elena brought to everything.
She moved down.
Her mouth replacing her hand, the particular replacing of a woman whose mouth was thirty-seven degrees and whose thirty-seven-degree mouth was on him and whose tongue knew where to go and how to move because seventy-three days of practice had made her expert.
She took him deep, and Jae-min's hand found her hair — the waist-length black hair — and gripped, not gently, the particular not-gently that Elena had asked for on day three and that Jae-min had been giving her ever since.
She moaned around him, her thermal aura flaring, her mouth warming from thirty-seven to thirty-eight, and the thirty-eight was almost too much and exactly enough.
"Enough," Jae-min said, his voice rough, the particular roughness of a man who was close and was not going to finish in her mouth because the finishing was going to be inside her.
She came up, wiping her lip with the back of her hand, not embarrassed — the particular not-embarrassed of a woman who had been doing this for seventy-three days and was not going to start being embarrassed now.
She stood and pushed her pants down and off, her underwear off, her body naked and brown and warm, the particular warmth of a body whose power was heat and whose heat was radiating from every inch of skin.
The room was forty degrees now.
Her aura.
She climbed back on the bed and straddled him, positioning him at her entrance, the particular positioning of a woman who knew this angle and had been using this angle for seventy-three days.
She sank in one smooth motion — no hesitation, no pain, just the particular smooth of a body that had been doing this for seventy-three days and whose doing was practiced.
He filled her, and the particular feeling of being inside a woman whose internal temperature was thirty-eight degrees was the particular warmth that Jae-min came to Room 4 for.
She rode him with the particular ride of a woman who liked to control the pace and the depth and the angle — her hips moving, the rhythm practiced, the rhythm theirs.
His hands on her hips, guiding, gripping, the particular gripping that bruised and that Elena had asked for on day seven.
His hips thrust up to meet hers, and the meeting was synchronized, practiced, the particular synchronized of two bodies that had been doing this for seventy-three days.
She leaned down and kissed him, her tongue in his mouth, his tongue in hers, the particular tongue-to-tongue of two people who were fucking and kissing.
Her thermal aura flared again — the room hit forty-two, the particular forty-two of a woman whose arousal was peaking and whose peaking made her hotter.
She was close.
Elena came fast, always came fast, the particular fast that was one of the things Jae-min liked about her.
She came — the particular came of a woman whose body clenched at thirty-eight degrees and whose clench was, on him, the particular clench that was Elena and not anyone else.
Her back arched, her black hair fell back, her black eyes closed, her mouth opened, and the sound she made was the particular sound of Elena Cortez coming — the sound Jae-min had heard seventy-three times and was not tired of.
Her clench pushed him over.
He came inside her and did not pull out.
He filled her, and the clenching-releasing milked him dry, and the warmth was Elena, and everything was Elena.
She collapsed on his chest, her black hair on his skin, her thermal aura settling, the room cooling from forty-two back to thirty-seven.
The particular cooling of a woman whose arousal had spent.
After.
Lying on the bed.
Her warmth beside him.
Her black hair on his chest.
Her black eyes closed.
His release inside her.
"You gave blood yesterday, and you are paler than you should be," Elena observed, her voice low, the concern of a woman who had noticed and was not going to not-notice.
"I am always pale." Jae-min deflected.
"Paler than always — I can feel it through your skin; your core temperature is lower than normal." Elena pressed, her thermal aura humming as she pressed closer, applying warmth like medicine. "You need to eat more and rest more, and give blood less."
"I need to go," Jae-min said, after a while, the particular after-a-while of a man who had more stops on his night.
"I know." Elena accepted, and did not ask where he was going — the particular not-needing-to of a woman who knew she was not his wife and knew he had wives and was not going to ask about things she already knew the answers to.
She kissed him once — the particular once of a goodbye that was not a goodbye because there would be another night and another Room 4 and another waiting.
Jae-min dressed, left Room 4, and walked down the corridor.
— • • • —
Day 182. 21:45 hours.
The kitchen.
Hua was still on her stool.
The kitchen was dark behind her.
Her violet-blue eyes soft.
Her hand on her stomach.
"You saw Paolo's face." Jae-min guessed, stopping in the doorway.
"I saw Paolo's face — he cried, he laughed, he picked up Lina, he put her down, he picked up Carmen, he put her down, he picked up the Sailor Moon doll and hugged it and cried again." Hua recounted, her violet-blue eyes glinting. "Then they all went to Room 7."
"Room 7," Jae-min repeated.
"Room 7 — that kid just found out he is going to be a father four times, and those four women are celebrating." Hua clarified, her lips curving. "A particular celebration that I am not going to describe because you are my husband and I have some modesty."
"I am not asking you to describe it," Jae-min assured her.
"Good, because I was not going to," Hua confirmed, tilting her chin up. "Now carry me to bed because my feet are swollen and the stool is low and I cannot stand up without help and I am not going to admit that in front of the three girls."
"The three girls are in Room 7 celebrating." Jae-min pointed out.
"Which means you can carry me to bed without the three girls seeing and without my pride being damaged," Hua concluded, reaching her arms up.
Jae-min crossed the kitchen and scooped her off the stool.
Hua's arms went around his neck, her crimson hair against his jaw, her violet-blue eyes on his.
"My hero," Hua murmured, not being serious and being serious at the same time.
"Always," Jae-min promised, carrying her down the corridor and up the stairs to the Third Floor, to the Master Attic Sanctuary, to the Command Bed.
He set her on the bed with gentleness, who was clingy and handsy and possessive and who was, with the pregnant ones, gentle.
Hua curled into him, her crimson hair on the pillow, her hand on her stomach, her violet-blue eyes closing.
He held her with his hand on her stomach — the particular stomach that was three and a half months along and that was, under his hand, warm.
She fell asleep in his arms, the particular sleep of a woman who had been supervising a kitchen for eleven days and was now not supervising.
He held her for a while, then moved carefully, extracting himself without waking her.
He left the Third Floor.
There was one more stop.
— • • • —
Day 182. 22:30 hours.
The infirmary. L2.
Alessia was at her station with the tablet open and the cross-match results on the screen and the four groups on the screen — the four groups that she could see and could not name.
Jae-min walked in, and she looked up, and her blue eyes were tired with the particular tiredness of a scientist who had been staring at a microscope for hours.
"You should sleep," Jae-min said, crossing the infirmary and standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
"I should." Alessia agreed and did not move.
Jae-min's thumbs pressed into the knots at the base of her neck, and she let her head fall forward with a sound that was half-sigh and half-groan.
"The data will be there in the morning." Jae-min tried.
"The data will be there in the morning, but I will be smarter in the morning if I sleep and stupider in the morning if I do not, and the data requires a smart Alessia and not a stupid Alessia." Alessia reasoned, her hands still on the tablet.
"Then sleep." Jae-min pressed, his thumbs working deeper.
"I cannot sleep — my brain will not stop running, the four groups and the pattern and the connection I cannot see, it is all just spinning and I cannot make it stop," Alessia confessed, her voice tightening. "I lie down, and I close my eyes, and I see the cross-match results on the inside of my eyelids."
"She is exhausted, and her eyes are bloodshot, and her shoulders are knots, and she has been at this station since this morning, and the data is eating her alive, and she does not know how to stop because stopping means not knowing and not knowing is worse than not sleeping." Jae-min realized, his dark eyes moving over his wife's face and reading the exhaustion and the frustration and the obsession of a scientist who had caught a scent and could not let it go.
Jae-min turned her chair so she faced him.
Her blue eyes — tired, burning, full of data.
His dark eyes — steady, warm.
"Come to bed," Jae-min said, and his voice was not asking.
"I cannot —" Alessia started.
"Come to bed," Jae-min repeated, and the repetition was not a request — it was the particular telling of a Del Rosario who was clingy and whose wife was going to come to bed because the Del Rosario said so.
Alessia looked at him — at his dark eyes, warm and steady, the eyes of a man who had given blood yesterday and had carried Hua to bed and had checked on Ji-yoo and Yue and had done everything a Del Rosario did and was now standing in the infirmary telling her to come to bed.
She closed the tablet.
"Bed." Alessia surrendered, her shoulders dropping.
"Bed," Jae-min confirmed, taking her hand.
They walked out of the infirmary and up the stairs to the Third Floor, to the Master Attic Sanctuary, where Hua was asleep on her side with her crimson hair on the pillow and her hand on her stomach.
They did not wake her — the particular not-waking of a man and a woman getting into bed with a sleeping pregnant woman.
They got into bed, Alessia on the other side of Hua, Jae-min in the middle.
But Alessia was not Hua, and Alessia was not asleep, and Alessia was looking at him with her blue eyes on his and her brain still running behind those eyes.
"The four groups and the pattern and the connection and the data and the slides and the microscope and the seven pieces and no picture — it is all still there, spinning, and I cannot make it stop, I cannot just turn it off because I am a scientist and scientists do not turn off." Alessia spiraled, her blue eyes searching Jae-min's face for something she could not find in the data.
Jae-min kissed her.
Not the kiss of a husband saying goodnight, but the kiss of a Del Rosario who was going to make his wife stop thinking about data and start thinking about him.
His mouth on hers, his tongue finding hers, the particular deliberate kiss that made the brain slow.
She kissed him back, and her brain was — under the kissing — starting to slow.
His hands found her clothes and removed them with the unhurried efficiency of a man who knew his wife's body and had known it since Day 24.
Her shirt off, her pants off, her body warm under his hands — not Elena's thermal warmth but Alessia's warmth, the warmth of Life, the warmth of a healer whose body hummed with the power that healed and whose hum was, under his palms, a vibration he could feel.
She undressed him with clinical fingers that were not clinical at all — the particular paradox of a doctor undressing a man whose body she knew as a healer and as a wife and as something that was both and neither.
Her hands on his chest, on his scars, tracing the history of a man who had been fighting for eleven days and whose fighting was written on his body.
"No data," Jae-min whispered against her mouth, his hand finding her breast.
"No data." Alessia breathed back, and her brain was slowing, and the slowing was the goal.
His mouth replaced his hand, and she gasped — the particular gasp of a woman whose brain was losing the fight against the body.
His tongue, circling, practiced, knowing this nipple since Day 24, and the knowing was the thing that made the brain stop.
His hand went lower — her stomach, her muscles tightening under his palm, lower, her warmth, the particular warmth of a woman who was wet and whose wet was the response that was overriding the data.
His fingers found her, and she arched — the particular arch of a woman whose brain had stopped.
"Jae-min," she breathed, and the breathing was the sound of a woman whose brain was empty and whose emptiness was, for the first time in days, not full of data.
He positioned himself between her legs — Hua sleeping on the other side, deep enough asleep that the particular everything happening six inches from her was not waking her.
He entered her slowly, the particular slow that Alessia needed because her body was tight from days of stress and the tight needed the slow.
He filled her, and the Life-hum of her body was around him, the particular vibration that was Alessia and was not any other woman.
She made a sound — not a gasp, not a moan, but a sound, the particular sound of a scientist whose brain was shutting down.
He moved, slow, building, and she whispered faster, and he gave her faster, and the bed moved with the particular creak that the Command Bed made.
Her nails dug into his back — the clinical hands that were not clinical at all, the nails of a doctor whose hands were steady in the infirmary and whose nails, in bed, were not steady at all.
"Faster," she whispered, and he gave her faster.
She came — the particular came of a woman whose brain stopped completely, the data gone, the four groups gone, the impossible blood gone, the compatibility numbers gone, the everything gone.
Her body clenched around him, her nails dug in, her blue eyes closed, her mouth opened, and the sound was the particular sound of Alessia coming, the sound Jae-min had heard since Day 24 and was not tired of.
Her clench pushed him over, and he came inside her — the particular inside of a Del Rosario who did not pull out.
He filled her, and the clenching-releasing was Alessia, and the warmth was Alessia, and everything was Alessia.
After.
Alessia's head on his chest, her blue eyes closed, her brain finally quiet — the particular quiet of a scientist whose brain had been made to stop and was going to stay stopped until morning.
"Sleep," Jae-min murmured into her hair.
"Sleep." Alessia sighed, already half-gone.
She slept.
Hua slept.
Jae-min lay between them and waited until both were breathing the particular breathing of deep sleep, then moved carefully — extracting himself from two sleeping wives without waking either.
He left the Third Floor.
One more stop.
— • • • —
Day 183. 00:30 hours.
The Third Floor.
The Master Attic Sanctuary.
The Onsen.
A Japanese Hinoki wood hot-spring bath, heated by the mansion's geothermal induction core to forty-two degrees even in minus-seventy.
The steam rose from the water, and the Hinoki wood smelled of cedar and citrus — the particular smell of a wood that had been used for hot-spring baths in Japan for a thousand years and was now, in a mansion in Forbes Park, being used for the same thing.
Gabriel was in the water.
The particular Gabriel who had flown from Clark Air Base to Forbes Park on wind and devotion and had arrived with golden eyes and a flirty smile and the particular smile of a woman who had spent eighteen years wanting Jae-min and had not stopped wanting since.
She was naked in the water with her knee-length black hair floating around her, her golden eyes on the door, and had asked Jae-min to meet her here, and was not surprised when the door opened.
"You came." Gabriel greeted, her voice carrying through the steam with the flirty warmth that was Gabriel's default and that was also, underneath, something more sincere.
"You asked," Jae-min answered, stepping through the door into the steam and the Hinoki and the warmth.
"I asked because the war is over and you gave blood and you are pale and you need to soak in hot water, and the Onsen is hot water, and I am here," Gabriel explained, gesturing at herself and the water. Then her golden eyes softened, and the flirty dropped away. "I missed you. Eleven days on the walls, you in the field, I did not see you. I missed you."
"I missed you too," Jae-min admitted, and the admission was the particular admission of a man who had a cousin who had flown to him on wind and had fought beside him and whom he had not seen for eleven days.
"She is here, and the water is warm, and she is looking at me the way she has always looked at me, and I am tired — tired of being the captain and the head and the regressor and the void, tired of carrying everyone, and she is not asking me to be any of those things, she is just asking me to be here." Jae-min realized, his dark eyes on Gabriel's golden ones through the steam.
He undressed and stepped into the water, and the heat was forty-two degrees, and after the minus-seventy, it made the body remember what warm was.
His muscles loosened — the particular loosening of a body that had been tight for eleven days and was now, in the water, not tight.
Gabriel was beside him, her golden eyes on his, her black hair floating, her body warm from the water and from the warmth of a woman who had wanted him for thirty-four years and whose wanting was, in the Onsen, not wanting anymore but having.
She kissed him — not the flirty kiss but the real kiss, the kiss of a woman who had missed someone and whose missing was expressed as kissing because kissing was what Gabriel did when the flirty was gone, and the real was there.
He kissed her back, and his hands found her waist under the water, and her skin was warm and wet and the particular warm-wet that was Gabriel and the Onsen and the steam and the midnight.
"Eighteen years — I have wanted him for eighteen years, and his hands are on my waist, and this is real, this is actually happening, the imagining is over, and the real thing is here, and his hands are warm and I am not going to cry, I am not going to cry," Gabriel swore to herself, her golden eyes going wet anyway, the tears mixing with the steam and the Onsen water, silent, the particular silent crying of a woman whose feeling was too big for sound.
"Big bro," Gabriel whispered against his mouth, who had called him that since they were children and whose calling was not sibling, but something else, that Gabriel had always been.
"Abby," Jae-min whispered back, and his hands tightened on her waist, and her breath caught, and told him she was ready and he was ready and the waiting — her waiting, the eighteen-year waiting — was over.
She climbed into his lap, her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, her golden eyes on his, close, whose faces were inches apart, and whose inches were not inches but nothing.
"I saved this for you — eighteen years, since I was fifteen, only for you, always for you." Gabriel breathed, her golden eyes steady on his, not afraid, not hesitant.
"It will hurt," Jae-min warned, his voice low and steady, checking because checking was what a Del Rosario did.
"I know, and I do not care because I have waited eighteen years and the hurt is nothing compared to the waiting," Gabriel answered, her voice tight and her golden eyes wet and her body trembling against his. "Please. Now. Inside me. Please."
"She is trembling — she has waited eighteen years, and she is trembling, and I need to be careful, I need to be steady, I need to be the man she has wanted for eighteen years and not the man who is falling apart because she is crying and looking at me with golden eyes full of thirty-four years of wanting." Jae-min steadied himself, his hands firm on her hips, his dark eyes holding hers.
His hands on her hips, he lowered her, slow, the particular slow of a man who was taking a virgin and whose taking was going to be careful because the virgin was Gabriel and Gabriel was his.
The tip pressed against her, and her body resisted because the body had not done this before, and then he pushed, slow and steady, and the hurt came — the full hurt, the hymen tearing, and Gabriel gasped, and her nails dug into his shoulders, and her golden eyes widened.
"Abby — are you —" Jae-min checked, holding still.
"Do not stop — I have waited eighteen years, do not stop," Gabriel commanded through the pain, her voice tight and her body tight and her golden eyes on his with the particular intensity of a woman who was not going to let pain take this from her.
He did not stop.
The blood clouded in the warm water — a wisp of red in the clear, the particular red that was eighteen years ending and something else beginning.
Gabriel looked down at the water, at the cloud, at the particular cloud that was her blood in the Onsen.
"That was mine — eighteen years, and now it is yours," Gabriel whispered, her golden eyes wet, not from the water, looking up at him. "It is yours."
"Abby," Jae-min murmured, his voice low, the particular low of a man who was inside a woman and whose woman was crying and whose crying was not sad but was real.
He was fully inside her, and the pain was shifting into something else — the something-else that the pain had been hiding and that was now, as her body adjusted, surfacing.
"Move, please, move," Gabriel whispered, her hips shifting against his.
He moved — pulling back, pushing in, the first thrust — and Gabriel gasped, not the gasp of pain but the gasp of a woman whose body had found something beneath the pain that the imagining had not prepared her for.
"Oh — big bro, that is — I did not think it would be — the imagining did not — oh." Gabriel stammered, her golden eyes wide with surprise, the particular surprise of a woman whose imagination had been insufficient.
"The imagining did not," Jae-min confirmed, his voice rough, the particular rough of a man who was moving inside a woman and whose moving was building something.
He thrust, steady, and she met him, her hips finding his rhythm, their bodies finding each other in the water and the steam.
Her mouth found his, and they kissed while he moved inside her, the particular synchronicity that was not planned but was happening — their bodies cresting together, their mouths on each other.
She came — the particular came of a woman whose body had been building for eighteen years and whose building crested and broke in a way the imagination had not imagined.
Her body arched, her back bowed, her golden eyes went wide and then shut, and the sound she made against his mouth was not a word but was the particular sound of a woman coming with a man inside her for the first time.
Her insides clenched around him, and the clenching pushed him over.
He came inside her — the particular inside of a Del Rosario who did not pull out.
He filled her, and the warmth and the pulsing were him inside her, and her golden eyes opened on his.
"Big bro — I can feel you, inside me, you are —" Gabriel whispered, her voice breaking.
"I am," Jae-min confirmed, and the two words were enough.
They did not separate.
The night was not over, and the Onsen was warm, and Gabriel had waited eighteen years, and one time was not enough.
He hardened again inside her, and she whispered again, please, again, and he gave her again, and then again after that, and the third time was slower and deeper and built like a wave, and she came with him, synchronized, the particular together that the imagining had not imagined.
"Stay in the Onsen with me tonight," Gabriel whispered, her head on his chest, her black hair spread across the water.
"Okay," Jae-min breathed.
The Onsen.
The steam.
The two of them were in hot water in minus-seventy after a war that was over and before a war that was coming.
His release inside her, three times.
Her blood in the water.
The mouths.
The eighteen years.
The compound held.
The household rested.
The investigation continued.
The Orgy Five celebrated.
The wives slept.
The affairs continued.
The Onsen was warm.
And Jae-min, for one night, was not the captain, was not the head of the household, was not the strike team leader, was not the regressor, was not the void.
Was just a man.
In an Onsen.
With a woman who had wanted him for eighteen years and whose wanting was, in the steam, finally answered.
The night continued.