Chapter Text
~
The weather does not decide the change in seasons like the moons do.
Jisu had been a young pup when she was taught that– there was a stifling heat in the middle of winter as there was a heart-stopping chill in the dead of summer.
But she never could get used to the sight of a late snow making corpses of flowers.
Hm? You alright? A playful snout butted her in the side, and she shook the damp off her fur with a noncommittal whine.
That never satisfied Seungmin before, even less so since their mating, so he ducks his head beneath hers and huffs.
As he does, the snow shifts, dusting off the top, catching up into the wind, sparkling as it flies.
You’re quiet, Seungmin barks, ears flopping curiously, Why?
She stares at him for a moment– this floppy eared, bright eyed wolf she calls her own– and is struck so dumb with how charming he is, it slips out without a thought–
Can you believe it’s spring?
As soon as she says it, she sees a different meaning catch in Seungmin’s mind, playful and fond, and somehow infinitely wise as his nose comes to the side of her face again.
Only spring? Feels like several lifetimes with you.
Suddenly the cold is nothing to Jisu, a blushing heat from her paws to her ears as Seungmin’s tail wags in her face, snout over his shoulder, panting once before bounding into the forest, the snow melting in his paw prints.
She flushes all over, shaking her fur all over once more to try and rid herself of the feeling, but it’s sticky and coated to her, so she calls after him and follows in his paw prints.
~
“Oh. They’re dead.”
Changbin stands with his hands in his pockets, robbed of words as Sullyoon makes a rather blunt observation of the little flower patch that had been growing beneath the old oak in front of their cabin. Yesterday, despite the snow, the color had still been bright and vibrant, like a half-remembered dream come to life.
But the snow had stuck around a moment too long, and everything had turned to brown.
Sullyoon’s basket for collection remains empty in her hands. Leaning forward, Changbin tries to figure out how disappointed by this she is, when she suddenly turns on her heel, hair flying into his face, and skips around the cabin.
“Ah, uh, where are you off to?”
“Collecting acorns!”
From the porch where Chaeryeong had been watching, a warm tea in her hands, she nods very sensibly, and looks at Changbin like he’s a fool for not figuring it out sooner. Beside her, Jiwoo sits all scrunched up, staring at her expression and then imitating it.
Changbin isn't sure which is worse.
“Ryeong-ah, don’t look at me like that,” he grumbles, kicking off the mud caking his boots against the porch steps.
“Like what?” She blinks owlishly.
With a huff, he stares her down, like she knows and is playing coy with him. She probably is and Changbin is likely falling for her tricks when he sighs and enters the cabin.
Once his footsteps are out of earshot, Chaeryeong scrunches her nose in delight and looks down at Jiwoo, who erupts into rolling giggles.
From inside, Changbin places his hands on the wood, frosted from the chill, and feels their joy.
Through his reddened fingertips, he feels the warmth of it seep into his bones, up his neck to his cheeks. It's the very fire of this home they've built, the breathing of a living animal between them, and the sound of it waking up from beneath the snow.
“Huh.”
Changbin whirls around, and sees Gunil looking up at him from next to the fire with a lopsided smile.
“What?”
Gunil shrugs, a sparkle in his eye, “Oh nothing.”
It's the look between them that they feel it.
And it's alive between them.
~
Sana is tired as she stares at the burning embers in the center of their home, Hyunjin patiently stoking them to a fire, smoke curling up towards the vent and disappearing into the cloudy sky.
Her eyes drift from the ceiling to the loft, where several of the boys have dogpiled themselves, feet and hands hanging over the side, soft snores between them. Her heart aches, thinking of how Haewon can’t even look up there, much less even fathom sleeping there, despite her brave face and even braver sentiments about it to Lily.
Despite herself, Sana’s lips stiffen at the thought of her girls out in another packhouse, training and living for something greater, to return to her as young women who’d shed puphood for something greater.
“Eomma?”
She blinks, and Jisung is smiling in front of her, pointing down to the tangled bodies of Yuna, Sullyoon, and Bae, all their arms wrapped around her. Wordlessly, he pulls the girl on top– Yuna, who pouts in her sleep– offering his neck in exchange, and whispering quietly and gently as he pulls her away to sleep in her own fur mat. Felix sneaks behind and does the same, taking Bae, who sleep grumbles and huffs and nearly smacks Felix in the face, before letting him manhandle her next to her sister. The two boys laugh to themselves and shake their heads, Sullyoon half-awake as she stumbles to follow the body heat onto the map and lands between them.
She watches Jisung stare at them fondly, rubbing Yuna’s back until her restlessness quietens, before helping Hyunjin with the fire.
She realizes he won’t tuck into her arms like the girls did. He’d gone and gotten big, and hadn’t even gone away to do it.
“Sana?”
She doesn’t realize she’s been overcome with sentimentality till Chan’s fingers feel wet against her cheek. It makes her laugh, falling into him.
It’s just the familiar ache of it all in her bones as the floors creak with a taste of warmer weather. Chan knows it– he doesn’t push her, he only rocks against her gently, humming into her hair as they watch their cabin fold each other into sleep.
She wonders if this is what her mother felt– no, what her grandmother felt, and what Nayeon had been so knowing about when she looked into her eyes the last time they met.
It’s a haze, a blur, a thin silk gauze over her face like her wedding veil slowly being dropped over her.
It doesn’t scare her, but it makes her teary when she realizes it’s there.
“Chan?” she whispers.
“Hm?”
“They’ll be alright without us.”
His breath catches at the words, but she knows from the sound of his heartbeat against her head that he knows what she means. The same way she says it for herself more than him, and he knows that as well.
“Of course they will,” he whispers back, “Why wouldn’t they be?”
So she smiles against him, and closes her eyes.
~
“I can’t wait for the autumn crisp.”
Chaeryeong walks a little slower on purpose, so that Yeji doesn’t feel like she was walking slower than usual.
“What an odd thing to say. It’ll be warmer than this, but it’ll feel colder, and we’ll hate it.”
Yeji knows that Chaeryeong did this for her, but doesn’t say anything about it.
“I won’t hate it,” Yeji says firmly, “It gives me energy somehow. Even if it makes my back ache, it makes me want to finish things quickly. Right now I’m just too lazy to even start everything we have to do. There’s so much cleaning to be done.”
Kyujin was heavier on her hip than she cared to admit, but she was scared of the last time she’d put her little girl down and be unable to pick her up again.
It was one of those things Sana had taught her, without ever saying it.
“I suppose you’re right,” Chaeryeong sighs, “But I hate you put it like that. I like the summer, and the summer breeze, and the tall grass, and lying under the clouds watching them pass me by, and making pies, and… and I can’t do any of that when it’s cold.”
Yeji pouts, Kyujin kicking and reaching and giggling out of her grasp to get on the ground and play, “I suppose you’re right.”
Chaeryeong watches as Kyujin follows a squirrel into the mud, bouncing on rocks and scurrying up a tree, the little girl with her hands to climb up just the same, quickly finding her boots unequal to the task as she turns to her mother with a pout. Chaeryeong carries her up on her shoulders before Yeji has the chance to think about the ache in her back or formulate how to bend up and stand again without groaning.
“But you’re not wrong on the autumn,” Chaeryeong quickly corrects, before slowly trying to think about it, “Actually, every season makes me excited when it comes, just a little. Something new and beautiful, the world keeping itself exciting, I guess. That’s what oppa said our parents would say.”
The squirrel in the trees stops on a branch, tail twitching as it looks down and regards them, Kyujin’s little fingers waving back. Yeji comes up behind her, hands on her back in case her little girl leans too far back and topples off Chaeryeong’s shoulders.
“They sound very wise,” Yeji whispers, “Each thing in their season. And every beauty to be found in it.”
The squirrel’s nose twitches funnily, and it makes Kyujin screech into a peal of giggles.
“Look, eomma, look!”
Her excitement scares the poor creature off, waving branches in it’s wake as it flees, Kyujin frowning in disappointment at it leaving her.
“That’s alright, baby, I saw,” Yeji hauls her off Chaeryeong’s shoulders and sets her on the ground, before putting her hand out for her to take, “Now, come, we were looking for baby ivy plants weren’t we? We mustn’t get distracted from our job.”
Kyujin stares at the branches a moment longer, before reaching up to take her mother’s hand and carefully following her, eyes on her feet as she avoids the muddy pits.
Chaeryeong waits until they’re several steps off, before turning back to look up in the trees, echoing far off birdsong, and a little squirrel that had paused several trees away to look at them curiously.
If she were in her wolf form, her ear would have flickered in silent greeting, but in this form, all she can do is smile.
And then she turns and follows little footprints back down the forest hillside, to where the green pushes through the earth for them to welcome and taste, and wait for the ground to crack into warmth again.