Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Minho remembered it well. 

It was all grief and pain in his heart.

“It is most excellent that you’ve come and visit us, Mr Lee. We have awaited your visit most eagerly!”

Minho sunk into his coat a little more, expression hidden in a curt nod and the fringes of his bangs. He didn’t want to be here. His every step pulled away. 

But he needed to be.

The gated brick building was well-kept, refined in every way. Like Minho’s father. The man giving Minho the tour was a little over-eager for Minho’s taste, giddy and twitchy in his fingers, and it reminded him of the assistants that were always at his father’s elbows. 

“This is your father’s legacy after all,” the man had an odd, stuttering laugh as he showed him inside, “All to your hands, sir!”

Minho ground his teeth and kept his words down. 

Three baby cots in the room, little Minho peering into them–

“Look at them, aren’t they so darling!” His mother clapped excitedly, because it wasn’t her belly that had swollen to carry them, and it wasn’t her arms that would be swaddling them tight when they cried, “Oh, Minhyuk, they’re so darling~!”

“Perfect little things,” His father leaned over, and a sharp shiver had run up his back at how clinical his look had been, like when Minho looked at broken off butterfly wings and the stamens of flowers, “Really. Quite perfect.”’

“Your father was so invested in the medical advancement and care for our community, may he rest in peace,” Minho stopped himself from rolling his eyes into his head as the man did the sign of the cross, Minho’s own respect of the man’s passing having included a swift departure from the country. His mother screamed at him for some time, till she found someone just as miserable to marry and forget that she’d ever had a life before altogether.

The man walked him through a hospital hall, where gowned and weary patients looked up from their beds to smile at him, pristine looking nurses straightening their bedsheets and handing out little pills of medicine. 

It was a really lovely looking hospital. Light poured through the windows above the beds, the floors were shining, and between the stark bleached white were the blue tiles, the blue bed sheets, and the blue doors of the doctor’s offices. 

“Matching sets, look at that,” his mother smoothed the little suit over Minho as she put one of the babies into his hands, propping the other two on each arm, all four of them in the same color. One of the babies yawned and fell a little, his mother clicking her tongue as she came back to adjust him again, and while she did, Minho looked to the baby on the other side, whose lips were puckered and expression was far too serious. It made Minho giggle.

“Look here, Minho,” his father clicked his fingers, towards the big tripod and the strange man that had brought it, “To think, we’ll be some of the first people with a photograph– isn’t that novel?”

Minho did not think it was novel. He felt like he was one of his father’s patients, propped up for examination. The funny man operating the tripod, flashed a loud and bright light in their eyes, and it made the babies cry, which made his mother tutt and the nanny they hired suddenly rush from the side. 

She was sweet and kind, with a beautiful smile and gentle voice that hushed the babies. She took Minho’s hands and showed him how to hold all three of them, “Just like this, darling. There, they feel safe like this, see?”

Minho liked her a lot.

“This is where we keep the children, you see,” he pointed down one hall, where there were dolls scattered on the floor that made Minho wonder why they were lying there and not being played with, “Their parents can stay in the rooms here in the beginning of the hall, but most of them don’t. They just trust us so well– like your father did, he truly handpicked a lot of the staff, sir.”

Minho winced as he paused at the beginning of the hall, wondering why he could hear the echoes of children crying, hollowed and old, shadowing the whole wing. But the man giving him the tour couldn’t see to hear it, so Minho didn’t say anything. 

“And the cancer wing, sir, if you would come right this way–”

The nanny's daughter, Jisu, and Minho would lean over their bassinets in complete puzzlement. Jisu would pout, "But your mummy's belly didn't swell like Ms Taeyeon's?"

It hadn't. And Minho thought he knew where babies came from.

"Huh," Minho said, and "Huh," Jisu replied.

Each little baby was sweet in their own way– Jisung would gurgle to himself and Seungmin would lay for hours staring at everything quietly and Felix would cry until someone held him.

Nanny would let Minho hold Felix. She would make him sit properly and lay a blanket over his clothes, and when Jisu would pout that she wanted to hold the little baby too, she would click her tongue.

“This is Minho’s baby brother, darling,” she would say quietly, to not startle the little one as he fit between Minho’s arms, mouth puckered into a sleeping kiss suckling from a dream, “His to hold and protect.”

Everytime Minho held him, his arms felt a little stronger, and wrapped around Felix a little better. He was careful, he wouldn’t let his head loll to the side, wouldn’t let it be anywhere but cradled safely. His hand felt big at the base of his head, but Felix would tilt his head back, eyes blinking, unfocused at the brightest thing. 

“Hello,” Minho would say quietly. Felix’s little lips would quirk, and sometimes he’d let out a little curious sound, and Minho’s quivering heart would skip a beat.

“Babies are cute,” Jisu would always be next to him, in high hopes that Minho would let her have a turn. But he was rather selfish with his little brother. 

Minho smiled at Felix as he slept in his lap, fingers on the wispy hair on top of his head.  

He knew it was his job to protect them.

“Some of the best doctors are employed here, researching cures and treatments, sir, your father was adamant on the best science at his hospital,” the man looked excited as he said it, “This hospital leads the country in it’s research, we’re an example to many.”

Minho nodded slowly. That was who his father was, after all, a man of science. 

Minho would not say he was ever really a man of medicine.

“Just last week we had the Scientific Society come visit us and fund our newest research,” the man’s shoulders straightened with pride, “But of course, you probably knew that already sir. You never have to worry about your father’s legacy dying out!”

Minho grit his teeth and didn’t meet the man’s excited eyes.

When Jisung started crawling, Minho’s mother became excited with the babies again. She would hold out toys with bells and rattles and call them like puppies, and for some time, Jisung would laugh and crawl to her with all his might, looking up at her hopefully, only for her to clap and take the toy further, calling, “Oh, look Minhyuk, look isn’t he darling!”

By the time Seungmin and Felix caught up, Jisung was pulling himself into an unsteady, wobbling stand on the edge of the couch, and crying because their mother was back to hosting teas and calling Nanny to shush them when they called for her too loudly. 

Jisu would be lying on the floor with them when Minho finished his lessons and came to see what they were fussing about, and sometimes she would be talking quietly to them and Minho wouldn’t want to interrupt. 

“You’re the biggest brother, Jisung, hm? You’re bigger, you have to look out for your little brothers, like Minho looks out for you. Mhm, just like– oh? You want my necklace? This one’s mine though, my mom gave it to me, and it has a picture of her and my grandma… no dad, I don’t have one like you do. It’s very nice to have a dad, Jisung.”

Minho scoffed when he dropped down next to Jisu, kissing Jisung on his chubby cheek and propping himself up on his elbows, “It’s not always that nice, Jisu.”

Jisung crawled to Minho till he was tucked under his chin, and then laid his head near Minho’s chest until Minho laid his head on top of him, and then started giggling, all roly-poly and silly. Babies were so soft and sweet, and Minho forgot that his lesson went badly when Jisung tugged his hair and it hurt but made Jisu laugh at how stuck he was.

“Have you ever visited before, sir?”

Minho blinked away his memory, and gently cleared his throat, “My father brought me when I was little. I haven’t visited since…”

His every thought was to finish the thought with “since I lost all respect for my father,” but the man leading him nodded far too solemnly. 

“It must be very hard, sir, to visit this place and not think of your father, I understand, I lost my mother last winter.”

“I’m… sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. And you as well sir.”

Minho couldn’t say anything to that.

Minho was playing piano when it happened. Because that was the only thing he was good at seeming perfect at, and it made his mother so happy she wouldn’t scold for some time while she listened. 

It started with yelling, on the far side of the house, and little pattering footsteps that Minho only realized were Seungmin’s when his little face buried itself into Minho’s back, little hands gripping his shirt tightly. 

“Seungmo?” Minho asked quietly, stopping to reach behind him, “Are we playing? What are we playing?”

But then that little face took big gasping breaths, too big for his body, and Minho’s shirt was wet.

“Seungminnie? What’s wrong?

Minho had barely bent down to wipe his tears, Seungmin’s eyes full of panic, when his father burst in–

“Where is that boy? Come here!”

It was instinct that put Minho in front of his brother, Seungmin wailing and gripping Minho’s leg with enough fear that Minho didn’t care it was his own father he was protecting the little boy from, but that instinct stuttered at the burn of his cheek. Seungmin was ripped away. Minho’s heart chilled at his screaming, muffled as it was taken further away. 

He stormed away to find his mother– “What did Seungmin do to upset father?”

She didn’t look like she cared, reading a book lazily, with her feet draped over the edge of the couch, “He’s a stubborn child, Minho, not a perfect little boy.”

Minho ran to their room, where Nanny was, and– “What happened? Why is he punishing Seungmin?”

Nanny gripped his arm tightly and pulled him out. Only after she shut the door did he realize Jisung and Felix had been sleeping and his demanding had woken them up. 

But he was persistent, “Nanny–”

“Hush, boy!”

Nanny’s face was pale, her hands shook a little. “You go around talking like this, you know what will happen?”

Minho never learned what Seungmin did wrong. When he came back his face was bright red with his sadness, and Minho held him tightly and slept in his bed with him. 

The breakfast table was solemnly quiet every day after.

Minho’s father had never looked so pleased. 

“And this is the facility sir!” the man flourished his arms at the back gardens, where the more stable patients walked and sat on the fine benches, “As you can see, we maintain your father’s high standards–”

“The laboratories.”

The man paled. 

“Sir?”

“Downstairs, the laboratories,” Minho finally met his eyes and dared to smile coldly, “You haven’t shown me those before. And those were my father’s favorite .”

The man nervously picked his fingers, looking out into the gardens as though to consider it, before nodding, “Of course, sir, right this way!”

The boys became quieter and quieter, like little mice and caged birds. 

When they outgrew Nanny, they sat next to Minho during their lessons, and Minho’s father himself would come to test them. 

They would hold their hands out when they spelled something wrong, or did an arithmetic the wrong way, and Minho would have to watch as their hands became swollen from the strikes he’d give them. 

Minho was never struck like that. But Minho was never a perfect child. 

His mouth twisted into a scowl, and he’d turn his back to the boys to dare and tell his father, “They won’t learn if you–”

“Quiet!” his father’s eyes would burn, and Minho could have spit fire if he stayed in the room to listen and watch, so he started leaving whenever his father came to evaluate. 

Until he came to tuck his brothers into bed himself and Felix was still crying, holding Minho’s sleeve and asking through his tears, “Don’t leave us alone, please! Please, don’t! He hurt Jisungie so bad!”

Jisung’s lip was split and he couldn’t look Minho in the eye. He had no tears. Minho held his face gently and kissed his head. 

Minho started taking them outside for lessons. His father hated the dirt near the woods, it was gravely and scuffed his shoes, and that was where Minho showed his brothers the ants, and the worms, and the ivy that climbed up and choked trees.

That was where Jisu would meet them, when she finished her work for another home across the field, a maid in the kitchen of another lady who liked pastries, but always left plenty leftover for Jisu to bring for the boys and tell them stories about the sort of guests she served.

That was how they lived for years. Minho’s father spent more time at his hospital, and Minho’s brothers were his own. 

“My mother sent these,” Jisu brought hats she’d made, “She doesn’t want you to get cold out here!”

“We can stay outside still?” Seungmin’s eyes went wide as he looked over to Minho, “Even when it’s cold? Father said–”

“Of course we can,” Minho said, far too certain as he fit the hat over Felix’s head and reached to help Jisung, “Why not? It’ll be pretty.”

Seungmin’s face melted into a smile, and he looked at Jisu eagerly to try his hat on. 

“The labs are… not quite as refined as the hospital wings, understandably,” the man cleared his throat nervously as they descended the creaking elevator that Minho wish his father had just left the old staircase instead of being so insistent on new technology, “There are far less to be cared for, and more to tested and observed, you see.”

Minho hummed. His jaw tightened. 

The lights were dim in the halls beneath the hospital. The doctors were less friendly in their face as they walked from here to there, many of them not even acknowledging Minho’s presence. Minho recognized many of them. 

“But of course, this is still your father’s work,” the man pointed to the bedrooms that looked more like prison cells, with locked doors and glass that was hard to see through, “Fighting diseases we haven’t even the names for yet!”

There was definite crying here. It wasn’t just in Minho’s head.

The man pulled ahead, and Minho let his voice fade as he focused on the crying.

It echoed.

By winter, all three boys were gone. 

“Sir?”

Minho’s feet carried him where they willed, and Minho could not have stopped them if he tried.

Minho had blinked and they disappeared. 

He peered through one of the windows, heart in his throat. 

“No, sir, you don’t want to–”

Minho’s father had never said a word, and Minho was sent off to boarding school. 

There was a boy, skin and bones, curled up and rocking back and forth. His mouth was hung open as he wailed, eyes looking between the corners of his room and flinching away from the window.

“Stubborn little boys. They are not good.”

“Ah, this one,” the man sighed deeply, “I’m afraid he is deaf, so he has a hard time understanding…”

“Seungmin screams…”

“Do you write it out for him?” Minho asked quietly.

The man glanced sideways, “The disease makes it very hard for him, you must understand.”

“Mm.”

The next window had a little boy who sat on the floor, rather than the bed, eyes wide as he stared off into space. Minho frowned as he watched, and then flinched as the boy hit the back of his head against the bedframe. He waited… and the boy did it again… and again–

“Oh dear– nurse, would you–?”

The nurse came in and stopped him, carrying him and laying him down in bed. The boy’s eyes remained vacant.

“This one is blind,” the man said sadly, “He lost his vision rather suddenly in an accident.”

“...Felix never pays attention, he’s too clumsy…”

The last of the three windows had a boy scratching his hands, deep red scars that were bleeding up his wrists. He was shivering violently, eyes never staying fixed on one place very long. 

“Ah, this one is a very hard case, sir. He doesn’t speak anymore.”

“Why?”

As they watched, the boy suddenly grasped his head, and then pulled his arm into his mouth, sinking his teeth into the flesh. Minho gasped. It was bloody and messy, and as the nurses rushed in, the man pulled him away. 

“...and Jisung is full of mischief.”

“They are troubled boys, with no family, you must understand,” the man said sadly, “We do all we can for them.”

“They are not good boys, Minho,” his father’s eyes were full of ice, and Minho wanted to gouge them out, “They are not good for this family.”

“Do you…” Minho said breathily, his vision swimming.

He had found them.

“They will be receiving treatment, hopefully curative, but until then we do all we can to ease their pain and–”

“What do you do for them?” Minho whirled on the man, urgency and fire in his chest, desperation in his voice, “Show me. Tell me. Let me oversee their care.”

The man stammered for a second, stunned, but altogether perhaps pleased that Minho had finally taken an interest, “But, of course, sir!”

“That’s not what it means to be family,” Minho seethed, “You don’t get to pick, you love no matter what!”

Minho’s father had clicked his tongue, altogether disinterested in his outburst, “You only think this because you have too much time to think. This and that business with the Choi girl– you aren’t being challenged enough in your mind. I do believe it’s time I found higher education to truly train your mind for greater things, my boy.”

It had taken all of Minho’s self control to not tear his father’s office apart. He took his anger out to the forest, where the frost had touched all things and Jisu was waiting with little Christmas gift baskets. 

“They’re gone, he sent them away, Jisu, they’re gone.”

“Here are their files, and the doctors attending to them, sir.”

“Excellent, thank you.”

Minho spent hours pouring over the sheets. He talked to every doctor, every nurse.

“Please, can I speak to them?”

Everywhere he went, they lingered. Seungmin’s grip around his legs, Felix’s laughter, Jisung climbing up the trees when he was too little to even try. 

“You must understand, emotionally, they are severely–”

“Please. I– I believe they’ll be able to recover from such procedures if they have someone who will care for them, please?”

Minho barely slept. Even after his father died, he nearly went mad, running away halfway around the globe to escape his demons. His father had not left any breadcrumbs, no stones to overturn and trace where he’d hidden them. 

The doctors barely let him in. He was allowed five minutes with each, and five minutes were all he needed. 

Seungmin’s arms were long enough to wrap around him, and he buried his face in his shoulder.

“Seungminnie, did you miss me?” Minho’s voice reverberated through his chest, into Seungmin’s hair, dirty and knotted, “I missed you, Seungmo, I missed you so much.

Felix’s voice was still stitched in all his wonder and joy, hands still feeling little as they traced over Minho’s face, into his hair, before holding him close, “Oh, Minho! Minho, are you real? Are you real, is it you?”

“It’s me, Lix, it’s really me,” Minho promised, practically carrying him, “It’s really me, I’m here, I’m here.”

Jisung screamed. They all did when he left, but Jisung screamed even when he realized. 

He shook his head and tried to hide himself away and it made Minho sob–

The doctors stared, stunned. Like they never knew that Jisung had a voice at all. It wasn’t a voice, not truly, it was mangled and nearly inhuman, but Minho couldn’t know if it was from disuse or some facade of a disease.

“Jisung, Sungie it’s Minho, what’s wrong? Tell me, what’s–”

Then he opened his mouth. Bloody, horrid sores, all inside his mouth and down his throat. Minho’s eyes shot open wide and he held Jisung’s face, finally understanding. 

Minho had to be dragged from the room, and his eyes were still burned with the image of the pain Jisung was in. 

“You must understand,” the doctors’ voice were muffled, “He has quite a painful, serious disease.”

Minho nodded, wordlessly. The man who had guided him sat before him, with a more empathetic expression. 

“They are very troubled, I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

Minho stared.

He stared coldly at his father’s grave. Three little smiles, three little pairs of hands and feet, three little voices that called out to him–

Minho was a brother. 

Minho had a promise to keep, a promise to protect.

Minho was responsible.

“I’m taking them into my care and custody.”

“But–! But sir!”

“And sirs,” he glared at them all, “We will speak of the standard of care in this facility, and the improvement necessary, or you can consider my funding withdrawn.”

“Sir!”

“Good evening, sirs.”

Guilt brought Minho back.

It took a week. Minho had to find a doctor he trusted– Chan was a good man, they studied together– and then he had to set up the manor to best accommodate them. While he waited, he found the wing of research that took babies from their mothers– poor mothers, more often than not– for experiments, and shut the wing down. 

He gave them separate bedrooms, but anticipated they would sleep together. He cleaned the gardens, kept flowers in the house– did everything he could to keep the house as free as possible. 

When Minho came back to the country, the only thing he was sure to keep was the piano. He had it tuned, nearly immediately. And the first night, he didn’t sleep, but played it all night. 

And then he looked to hire staff.

“This will be lovely, Minho,” Chan said, when he finally had the chance to visit, and looked to see how he could help the boys move after he got the chance to visit them in their sorry excuse for rooms, “Wow… it’s amazing you even found them? Imagine, if you hadn’t gone looking…”

He’d hired Jisu first. He’d gone looking for her, inquired in town and through everyone he knew. 

She didn’t speak to him for quite some time. 

“Did you even look for them? Did you even care? They’ve been here this whole time, and you ran away.”

Minho winced, “It wasn’t on my own.”

Jisu refused to work for him. Refused to come back to the house. 

Minho found her mother’s grave and laid flowers at her stone. He cried over her. He didn’t need Jisu to know.

The boys had clung to Minho as he brought them out. Seungmin held the back of his shirt and tried to hide his face from the staff, and Felix gripped one hand out of fear of tripping over something, while Jisung held the other out of fear that someone would tear him away. Chan followed them quietly.

He had dirty looks for all the staff.

Minho finally found the papers for his father’s hospital. His fathers little experiment of “perfect.” It made Minho gag to think about, but Jisu’s words echoed in his head and perhaps…

“They’ll need proper surgeries,” Chan had done their examinations quietly in the house, smiling at each boy and letting Minho hold them when he needed to assess what had been damaged, only telling Minho when they were outside their door and far from their ears, “It seems chemical, the damage, but I cannot tell. It’s not genetic, that much is certain, but I cannot save what they’ve lost. It is certainly degenerative… their pain will only increase if it is not treated.”

Minho took a sharp breath, “Then… what surgery?”

Chan glanced at him nervously, “Your father’s hospital… for all its evil in research and experimentation, the doctors have discovered a way to transplant working organs from the dead into the living. New hearts, new livers– they’ve done it all.”

The pages of Minhyuk’s research overflowed with ego. Minho wanted to burn them all, but he needed to read them first, to know all the sins he would spend a lifetime trying to atone for. 

Part of him wanted to burn the hospital to the ground.

But another part wondered at the newspaper clippings of little girls who’d been run over on the streets, cursed to be cripple, yet somehow learned to walk again.

Swallowing harshly, Minho leveled Chan with a harsh look, “I am overturning the staff, you understand this? I have begun evaluating and started to release them from my service based on whether they worked for the disease or the patient, and I will not hire them again.”

“I understand,” Chan shook his head, “It was not in research that these doctors practiced.”

“I trust you, I do not trust them.”

“I will oversee it personally, I won’t leave them alone.”

Minho decided to visit the hospital. He wrote a letter inquiring and waited.

He did not expect them to eagerly await his presence.

They began waiting and looking for someone– new cochlea for Seungmin, new eyeballs for Felix, new throat for Jisung.

While they waited, Minho carried their pain. Whenever Felix would sit in the sun, and start to cry from the strain of trying to see what he couldn’t, whenever Seungmin screamed because he was trying to make his ears work again, whenever Jisung coughed so fiercely he stained the sheets bloody red.

Chan was there. He would give them cold compresses and pain medication, and would hold them gently in a way that made Minho wonder what training he had that all those people in his father’s facility never received. 

Minho stood, terrified, across the street from the facility. He stared at how perfect it looked, and wondered if he was wrong. There was an anxious man waiting in front, waiting for him, and Minho wanted to shake him by the collar and ask him if he knew. 

When the donor finally came, Chan was hesitant.

“She’s a young girl, altogether healthy…” Chan squirmed, “But she’s willing to donate whatever we need.”

Minho frowned, “Why?”

“She’s got cancer.”

“Ah…”

“Only in her bones. She doesn’t walk very well, she can’t do much. She’s been at the hospital for quite some time now, and she heard about the transplant program and… she said, except for taking her very life away, she’ll give whatever is needed.”

“We can’t… we can’t take everything from her.”

Chan swallowed, hesitant, and nodded, even more hesitant.

Minho knew what that meant. Chan had explained. What they needed was rare to stumble upon.

“Can I meet her?”

“I asked, she said she would rather meet whoever she donates to only after the surgery.”

“What? How odd– why?”

“She doesn’t want pity, and she refuses to let pity change how badly someone needs what she can give,” Chan sighed, “She’s a darling girl, very sweet, with a heart of gold. It feels wrong to take advantage of her kindness, no matter how freely she gives it.”

A quiet voice called from the room, “Minho?”

He turned around to where unfocused eyes looked somewhere passed his head, a soft smile on his face.

“Yes, Felix?”

“Can you play the piano for us?”

Minho smiled back, “Of course, I’ll be right there.”

“Minnie is sitting beneath the piano, waiting. Jisung said you wouldn’t come.”

“Well, you tell Jisung he’s wrong, and that Seungmo better be ready, okay?”

“Okay!”

Chan watched as Felix slipped back into the room, a kind but sad look on his face as he looked back at Minho. 

“Okay,” Minho nodded slowly, hesitantly, “If she is willing… but I want to meet her afterwards.”

“Of course.”

“And I want her to know that she doesn’t need to. If she only wants to do one… tell her she is very generous and I would feel selfish–... tell her she can say no, you’ll tell her won’t you? Anytime she thinks she’d rather not, or that–... please tell her?”

Chan placed a heavy hand on Minho’s shoulder, and then embraced him tight. There were really no words to be said. 

Minho wouldn’t have stepped in. His own fears and disgust and the burden of his father’s sins would have sent him wallowing back to the manor, back to pack his bags, back to the other side of the world to escape, but by whatever fate that had laid his steps–

“Minho?”

He actually looked at Jisu this time. It was easier to see her when her anger was clouding her features. She smiled at him–

“Visiting your father’s legacy?”

He winced. That made her consider him more seriously. 

“They’re in there, you know. I know it.”

Minho’s heart stopped, “You know it? Truly?”

“I do.” she stared at him, so fiercely it put fire in Minho’s veins, “Are you still their brother?”

“Of course.”

They stared at one another for several moments, like Jisu was waiting to weigh Minho, and he hoped she weighed him favorably by the smile she gave him. 

Minho was nervous on the days of their surgeries. They did one a week, so that Chan could dedicate himself to their recovery, and so that the donor could evaluate whether she truly wanted to give so much of herself up. 

Seungmin was given new ears first. 

“Seungmo? Seungminnie?”

The little boy had stared, disbelieving. He flinched at everything, turned towards every new sound. 

“Minho,” he said, quietly, for the first time in a while, “I…” he put a hand to his throat, not believing his own voice.

Minho kissed his cheek, and took him home, and played him so much piano his fingers went numb to keep the smile on Seungmin’s face. 

Then Felix was given new eyes. 

Somehow, there were more stars in them, as they became impossibly wider at all the beauty around him. After surgery, he held Minho’s face and stared at every one of the features on his face like they were the most beautiful things in the world. 

“Minho,” Felix stared at him, “Minho, can you smile again? Please?”

Minho didn’t think he could stop smiling. 

Then Jisung was given a new voice. 

Even Jisung seemed surprised. He pointed to his throat, looking between Minho and Chan.

Minho tried to ask, “Is she… sure?”

Chan smiled at him, “The donor said she wanted to do this one last, so she could tell us most insistantly that she wanted us to have it, and we could know beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

Minho’s heart ached. He wondered if his father’s experiments were all like this, good-hearted people who gave up their freedoms so willingly. It made him feel dirty.

“Can I meet her? Now? Please?”

Chan hesitated, glancing at the room beside, and that was all Minho needed. He leapt out of his chair to go see, throwing open the door to see–

“I have nothing to worry about for them,” she reached up and kissed his cheek, “Take care of them, Minho Lee. My mother is watching you. God is watching you.”

Her eyes were bright and they gave Minho hope.

“Jisu.”

His voice strangled, seeing her so weak, knowing she couldn’t hear him, but she smiled all the same. He came quietly to her side, took her hand, and she only flinched for a moment, before frowning. 

“You’re not Chan.”

He raised her hand to his lips, and she felt his face. It only took her a moment.

“Minho.”

“ Jisu .”

She smiled, “You can’t make me change my mind, so don’t try. I was going to do this for the crooked doctors anyway. If I was going to die it was going to be meaningful.”

He started crying.

“You know, I was going to do this before you came back? I said, that if they had no brother, then at least I could be their sister, because someone needed to protect them,” her face crumpled, “I felt so alone, Minho. I learned I was dying, and I needed to protect them, and I felt so alone. How could I die when I found a reason that I need to live. I was so scared. And then… and then you came.”

Minho bent down to kiss her face, and he couldn’t stop crying. Chan had come, but was quiet at the door, and Jisu let out a small laugh as she lifted a hand to the back of Minho’s head, her hand weak but certain. 

“I'm not scared anymore, Minho Lee. Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Minho asked, but he turned and she was gone, and she left him the courage to go inside.

“Mr Minho Lee, sir! A true honor to have you here!”

While Jisung and Jisu were in surgery, Minho was numb waiting outside. Chan wouldn't have left him if he hadn't made the promise to always be by the boys’ side, because Minho's face was truly pitiful.

Sunken and hollow.

“Sir?”

Minho glanced up at the man who'd been so eager for his visit, who'd given the tour.  He sat quietly next to him.

“Amazing work, that they're able to give those boys another chance,” he frowned as he said it, “Pity they didn't do it earlier…”

“My father made those boys that way,” Minho said bitterly, “He was punishing them.”

The man blanched, “What? Why? To his own children!”

Minho shook his head, “The road to hell is paved with that path to perfection. My father was no idol to worship, you need a new hero.”

The man looked over to him, and had a small, quirking smile, shadowed in his features, “I think I do, sir.”

Jisung came out of surgery with a full voice. He tried yelling. He scared himself. So he tried yelling louder. Minho laughed at him. So Jisung laughed and trilled and spoke so quickly they couldn't keep track of his words, and he held his brothers and told them all the things he wanted to say.

“Minho, Minho, Minho– you've got a pretty name, do you know that? It's the only name I told them, and I said it over and over and they hated it, but I loved it, and I tried to sing your piano melodies and when I couldn't I sang them in my mind, and I don't know how you found us, but you're my hero– do you know that? Do you know how much we love you? Do you know how much I thought of you? I missed you, I missed you so bad, Minho–”

Minho could never get tired of his voice.

His brothers couldn't either, Seungmin staring and smiling and hanging onto every word with his new ears, Felix sometimes standing a ways off to see them both fully and to cry at how happy he was to see them.

When it was time to leave, Minho stopped at the room next to theirs.

Jisu was terrifyingly small, the surgeries having taken more out of her than she would admit. Her bones protruded and her skin was pale. 

But she was still smiling.

Touching her hand, Minho waited until she held it to bend down and kiss her head again. She seemed to relax, breathing out in relief.

Minho carried her out of the hospital. She laid in the couch opposite the piano during the day, where the boys would lay with her and read her books and braid her hair and hold her tight.

Chan took care of her till she died. Minho was holding her when she stopped breathing.

She was laid in their back gardens, near the forest, where they had met in secret for all those months, with a beautiful stone marking her place. The boys planted flowers by her and would take their most precious secrets to share with her.

On warm and beautiful days, when Chan was at the hospital and the boys laughed with all their hearts as they flew kites and played in the yard, Minho would sit by her stone and watch them.

Minho remembered it all too well.

He closed his eyes and Jisu was hooking her chin on his shoulder to watch with him.

It was grief, but it was so mingled in love, it was unforgettable, in a pain so burdened with beauty it set his heart on fire.

And Jisu smiled with him.