Ocean's Descent ||| Woosan (Ateez)

Epilogue

"Sannie, hurry up! We need to leave soon!" Wooyoung called with a whine before poking his head through the seaweed curtain separating their bedroom from the living space of their modest home.

As he expected, San was curled around a pillow of green moss, nuzzling into it with a sleepy smile.

"Sannniiiieeeeeee."

"Mmmmmive mmmmore minnnummmph." The older mumbled, curling tighter around his pillow.

Wooyoung huffed and crossed his arms over his extended stomach. "Fine, then I'll just go by myself." He waited for a second. "All alone." Another pause, during which he started rubbing circles on his stomach. "Through a sea of dangerous creatures... all of whom would love to eat a plump, healthy merman as a snack..."

San's tail flopped uselessly in response. It made Wooyoung scowl at him and let out a huff of bubbles.

"Really? Is this what I'm going to have to deal with from now on?"

Another flop answered him.

So Wooyoung resorted to more drastic measures to wake his mate up.

He inhaled deeply, then yelled as loud as he could, "THE BABY IS COMING!"

San shot up with a yelp of surprise, straight into the ceiling with a hard thud. But that didn't seem to phase him. He looked around, eyes wide in panic. "Huh? What? I'm ready! Let's go to Mer Kim! It's ok! Don't panic!" It took him several seconds to finally locate Wooyoung, and once he did, and saw that his mate was not going into labor, he stopped all movement and said, "What's going on?"

"You were ignoring me." Wooyoung huffed, arching an eyebrow in disapproval. "And we are going to be late, so I needed to get you up somehow."

"That..." San's lower lip pushed out into a huge pout, "is so unfair!"

"Sangie would have done the same thing." Wooyoung didn't give him a chance to respond before twirling around and swimming outside.

It didn't take long for San to catch up, darting in front of him to stop him and pull him into a hug. That was followed by a long kiss on his stomach before they made their way to the edge of the city.

The simple action was enough for Wooyoung to instantly forgive his mate and swim next to him so they could hold hands.

Seeing San be so accepting of their baby made Wooyoung so incredibly happy, especially because he'd been so hesitant to bring it up before.

Learning that both mermaids and mermen could bare children was just another thing in the long list of items that made up the training San had to go through. And it hadn't been right away. Wooyoung had waited almost a year before bringing the subject of a family up to his mate.

"You want to start a family?" San asked, not looking up from the pool of water he'd been using to practice with.

They were taking some time for themselves while visiting Yeosang and Jongho. Their friends had needed to run to the store, and while San missed being human sometimes, he had no desire to go grocery shopping ever again.

So now they were relaxing underneath the raised deck, cut off from the surrounding area by sand colored fabric to their left and right, and the perfect view of the ocean in front of them.

San turned his head to look at Wooyoung, curiosity sparkling in his eyes. "What does the adoption process look like for merfolk?"

Wooyoung bit his lip and shook his head. "We wouldn't need to worry about that," he hesitated, feeling his nerves rising, "I'd... like to carry the baby."