Chapter Text
Epilogue
Once upon a time there was a man and there was a doctor, two halves of a whole.
They had both tried their best and they had both succeeded and failed at once.
Their actions, led by love, had changed this world forever.
After all, they say the craziest things are done in its name.
Even the ones that hurt the most.
Life can be funny.
One moment it’s a sequence of daily activities.
Waking up, washing up, eating, working, enjoying your significant other’s company, going to sleep.
Repeat.
It's predictable and safe. It's happiness disguised in the form of routine. We are often too foolishly engrossed with ourselves to notice. We take things for granted and we realize how much we need them only after we lose them.
Life is funny. One moment it’s a sequence of daily activities and the next one you are being pushed forward towards an unknown destination at an insane speed, no stops entailed. The moment you hop on the ride, it's too late to get down.
Namjoon remembered the moment that had marked his boarding on that insane ride really well, it had come with the words “I'm pregnant,” and the shape of a mother’s womb.
“What am I going to do?” he asked, voice sounding pathetic even to his own ears as he desperately gripped on Seokjin, like a child seeking comfort despite knowing that was his fault.
Seokjin had looked at him then, and it was like he was looking at him from another dimension, that was how distant his voice felt.
“You have to take responsibility. You are a father now.”
Namjoon had ducked his head, as if trying to defend himself from the slap of the truth. He knew it was useless.
It had felt surreal when she had told him the news. She hadn't looked apologetic when she confessed to having traded the samples before Namjoon could destroy them, and neither when she further explained how she had proceeded to inseminate herself. She had looked fearful, nervous, but excited as well. She had sported a dangerous glint in her eyes that screamed of something dark and obsessive, and if Namjoon were to be honest with himself, it wasn't that different from the one he had spotted in his own eyes when he looked at his reflection.
Maybe if he had bothered to look into all the variables like Seokjin always suggested, he would have discovered her past and how she had suffered of a miscarriage before. And maybe he wouldn't have misinterpreted her desperation for ambition.
And maybe, if he had just decided to be a man and not let his childish feelings get the best of him, then this wouldn't have happened to begin with because he would have never processed his DNA with hers.
But as much as he was a brilliant scientist, he also happened to be the poorest in spirit.
“Will you stay by my side?”
Namjoon knew he didn't have any right to ask this. It was going to require for Seokjin to step on everything he had ever believed in. His ethics. His trust in Namjoon. His feelings.
“Until it will be necessary, I'll stay.”
It wasn't what Namjoon had wanted to hear, it wasn't what Seokjin had told her when he had reassured her that he would help, but Namjoon would have taken whatever Seokjin was willing to give him at this point.
What happened afterwards was kind of predictable. The board of their governmental foundation didn't take the news of such a shameful breaking of protocol and ethics particularly well. He was severely reprimanded and threatened of prosecution and they would have probably fired him, had they not seen the ultrasound and the outstanding test result of the fetus.
The pregnancy didn't show any sign of complications and the baby of such a cunning act, looked healthy.
That was the moment when any type of code or moral flew out of the window, substituted by opportunity. And where there’s a chance, there's room for a gain.
They forced them to sign a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for non-prosecution from their part, after that they immediately took things into their hands. His colleague was moved into a safe house under the excuse of monitoring her conditions. It was obvious that was also the best way to bury it all in case things turned bad.
Namjoon was allowed to keep working instead but no longer with his team, it was a secret lab directly under the government’s supervision and well hidden from prying eyes.
Seokjin was relocated together with him, they had no other choice given how he had been let in on the secret.
Long gone were the happy days of the two of them. From that day on, a shadow had descended on Seokjin and Namjoon's relationship and stayed there unmoving. Seokjin still helped of course. He helped set the data in order and give substance to the research, and he still helped even when Namjoon inevitably broke down and lost it for a while. Yet his heart was no longer there, Namjoon could see how Seokjin was in pieces too.
The day the baby was born, it was the most exhilarating and emotional day of his life. He was able to visit his son and the mother only a week after the delivery, and when he had the little creature in his arms, despite everything, Namjoon understood why everyone was so desperate to experience this once again.
And hope of that whole ordeal not being a total disaster bloomed in his heart.
Then, things started to change.
The baby boy was healthy and strong and clearly the proof of his success. The government didn't even wait for Namjoon to finish elaborating the data when they decided to make it public barely a couple of months after.
They faked her identity, she was no longer a doctor of the lab but a volunteer, and Namjoon was not his father but his creator, his paternity forever a secret to everyone. Probably to the baby as well.
He became famous. The saviour, they called him. Kim Namjoon, the great father of the new generation of babies to be born.
The idea of an ethical committee that he had proposed before everything had escalated was buried, and his algorithm, as imperfect as it still was, was unleashed to the world.
It was everything he had always wished to accomplish as a teenager, a young boy trying so hard to gain his mentor’s praise in a desperate attempt, now he knew, to secure his love.
It tasted nothing like he had imagined. Success can come in cruel ways and at unbearable costs.
It didn't take long for the government to turn a scientific discovery into a systematic project. The number of requests to volunteer in it, as the first batch of humans to be tested, was huge, and Namjoon would have liked to scream and howl because they were just heading in blind without even considering the consequences, like he himself had done.
Little did he know that the first batch to be decoded by the machine was going to be the state employees, the staff working at the lab included.
When they had first started to work there, they had been thoroughly examined, their DNA stored, and a consent form signed. Legally it forced the government to treat that information as confidential, but didn't stop them from using it for their own purpose.
It was easier to do the first human experiments within the safe walls of a confidential agreement and with genetic material that belonged to manageable people, than using civilians who could protest.
It started like that. It started with a private notification to each employee that communicated their DNA testing, and after that with a second notification that stated their status of eligibility.
“I never wanted for it to come down to this! How could they? We didn’t work so hard for them to do this to our research!” Namjoon shouted, doubling over as if someone had hit him. He grabbed his hair in despair.
Then kind hands, kind and trembling hands, carefully untangled his fingers to prevent him from causing harm to himself.
“They will separate the ships and mark the ones that aren't suitable for everyone to shun and see,” he had kept blabbering as Seokjin dragged him down, and he was shaking as well but at least they were together, two grown men shaking on the cold floor of a shitty government apartment.
“Yes. But they will also use your algorithm to bring life to this world fated to whither. It was everything we had wished to accomplish. You gave us our best shot of survival Namjoon, I am sorry for having said otherwise. I was wrong.”
“No, you weren't. You weren't and you know it. This will only get worse.” Seokjin held him tighter, tighter than any other time, and Namjoon let himself be hugged as he embedded the feeling of the other man's body pressed against him into his memory, as if he was afraid that he was going to disappear in front of his eyes.
Things did get worse.
The state of eligibility was inevitably extended to the rest of the population and with that the first stone, on which they were going to build the discrimination masked as law that differentiated those who could from the ones who couldn't, was set.
His son had only reached the age of two when a system based not on merit but on privilege, was initiated.
Poor son of mine, brought into a world that will survive just to become dirt.
Yet, even in such an obscure time when he was barely able to see his son and carried a fame towards which he only felt shame, Namjoon was still holding on. Because Seokjin was there with him.
He didn't know that he was living on time that was set on a countdown.
His son was three when they started to ban non-eligible people from the governmental positions.
Seokjin was of one of them.
He was non-eligible.
And Namjoon had never known, never suspected. But why wasn't there a match that could fit? Why when he was kind, smart and the best man Namjoon had ever known? Why when he was perfect?
Why, why, why?
Yet Seokjin was fired, the hard work and the contribution he had given to the world completely dismissed. Namjoon wanted to cry. Namjoon wanted to beg on his knees for forgiveness because it was his fault. His algorithm, his actions that had destroyed a man's purpose. But if Seokjin had allowed him, he would have taken care of him, he would have been there for him like Seokjin had been for Namjoon. He would have loved him and sheltered him from everything that was to come.
He did none of that. He was too late.
“Dear Namjoon,
If you are reading this it means that not only have I failed to tell you this face to face, but also that everything that I have feared has come true. I am non-eligible, I received the notice earlier this year. But the thing is, I have always known that it was never going to be me.
My mom was sterile and not being able to conceive was the biggest pain of her life, and this is why I worked so hard to find a cure. But you already know that, you've been there with me since the beginning.
What you don't know is that my mom wasn't eligible for adoption either. She was too old and too devoid of influences to be able to have a baby in a society where babies were the rarest and most precious thing.
But a baby that nobody wanted, that could do. That she could afford.
She took me in knowing that if I were lucky, I was going to live an average life and if not, well, thirty years was going to be my maximum.
I have ALS, Namjoon. It's in my genes, in the blood I have inherited from my biological family. When I reached the age of thirty without symptoms, I thought I was going to be lucky, that I was among those who become old and die at an average but comfortable age. I was so sure it was going to be my case. I had wanted so much to be there by your side for as long as I had always wished.
So when years later my joints started to ache I still didn't think that could be the cause, because we were working a lot of hours in the lab and it made sense that I was tired. I don't know for how long I managed to ignore the clumsiness of my hands, that clumsiness for which you have always teased me, yet I did.
Until I got the notification that I wasn't eligible. That's how I knew I wasn't the lucky type. Even if they hadn't fired me, I wouldn't have been able to do my job for long. I'm no use for anything Namjoon, I'm set to keep losing pieces of myself.
It has already started and it will only get worse. There's no cure for this and not even your brain or all the money in this world given to research could help me. I don't have to describe the progression of the illness because you have seen the cases in real life, have studied them in the books too. Soon I will be too helpless to even move, I will just become the shell of what I once was. But more than anything else I will be a burden. I won't allow it to become your burden.
You have bigger and more important matters than me. You are a father now, keep on fighting for your son.
You are also a famous researcher. Keep on fighting to defend the honesty of your work.
I tried my best to shelter you and give you all the instruments you need to fend yourself in life, and even though what I gave you was certainly not enough, know that I did it with all my heart. I don't want you to remember me as the empty shell I will become, but as the man that has inspired you. As the man that has loved you with all his soul.
I loved you Namjoon. I loved you when you were my little brother, and god knows if I hadn't loved in all the years I watched you grow and become a man. God only knows if I won't keep on doing it.
Don't look for me, you won't find me. Focus on your life, fight your battles.
Live. Love.
Seokjin.”
Despair.
Astonishment.
Disbelief.
No, this couldn't be.
Namjoon simply couldn't believe this could be real. He ran all the way to Seokjin’s apartment and, when he found it empty, he hopped on a taxi and went to the lab. And when he couldn't find him there he went to their home, just to find it abandoned as if nobody had set foot inside in a while. He didn't stop, he checked every single spot Seokjin and him had visited in the last years like a madman and every single time that he found them empty, a part of him got ripped until there was nothing left of him.
Seokjin had been a mentor, a friend, and a father figure to him. Seokjin had been everything Namjoon liked to remember from his childhood days and everything he had strived to be as he grew up. He was his role model, he was his family, his person.
Seokjin was everything that he had ever wanted to know.
Namjoon had loved him his whole life even when he didn't know that it was love. He was the other part of himself, he was his best part. He was.
He was gone. And Namjoon was never going to be there for him when the other would need him the most because Seokjin had decided so. He hated him with all his heart. He missed him every day.
Of course at first he did the opposite of what Seokjin had demanded of him, after all Seokjin had decided for him without even asking, so why did Namjoon have to listen to his words?
He neglected his research and his son, too engrossed in his mission of finding him.
However as months went by and his efforts turned out to be fruitless, Namjoon had to face the horrible eventuality of never being able to see Seokjin again just like the older had promised. When more time passed without any signs of improvement, Namjoon knew it was the end.
He was on his own. He was going to be on his own for the rest of his life. Going crazy looked like a tempting option, but once again Seokjin saved him.
He stopped antagonising him and decided to follow his words.
Fight for your research. Fight for your son.
Namjoon went back to work, finished his research and wrote his conclusions. But it was hard to make his opinions come across when his creature had a life on its own. A lot of babies were born thanks to the algorithm matches, but it also cast a sombre light on those who were excluded by the common joy. His name was no longer followed by just praises, but also by the curses of the ones that the system had shunned.
Namjoon didn't blame them. And certainly their thirst for vengeance would be appeased if they knew that he had been punished thoroughly and wholly when his first victim had been the only person he had ever loved.
When it came to his son he managed to do slightly better, but not by too much. Mending his relationship with his match turned out to be a hard task, but he tried because he didn't want for his son to grow up without the warmth of a family. However, as compatible as his DNA was with his son's mother, the same couldn’t be said for everything else. The hurt inflicted to each other was too much to make the cohabitation between him and his match possible. She would never forgive him for his heartlessness and he would never forgive her for her selfishness.
Life went on like that and Namjoon lived to fulfil on Seokjin's last request, because those words were after all the only thing he had left of him. But he never loved. He couldn't. Seokjin had overestimated him because love had been him and he had left.
Years went by.
Then one day ten years later, a lawyer knocked on his door.
Why did fate have to be so cruel till the very end?
“Kim Seokjin was rushed to hospital a few weeks ago and slipped into a coma soon after. He did not want, or perhaps his conditions did not allow him, to sign any documents regarding his death, and since it is now too late to do so the hospital activated itself in order to find his closest family member, which is you. I have to be honest with you, Kim Seokjin will not survive this. His disease has reached the last degenerative stage and his lungs will stop working eventually.
However, it might take a long time for this to happen and it's the reason why I came here. Even if he is not conscious, it does not mean that he is unable to feel pain.”
“You are here to ask me to help you kill him,” Namjoon said, and each word felt like a rock on his stomach.
“I am here to ask you to help him find peace.”
“Can I see him?”
Watching Seokjin’s lying form hurt too much for Namjoon to be able to put it into words.
His face had sunken, his skin was translucent and tight on the bones, the cruelty of the illness reflected on his body.
Yet it was still Jin. His Seokjin.
Even if attached to a ventilator, it was still his breathing the one that came out of his pale lips.
He remembered the day of his grandma's funeral then, he remembered standing there by the grave, fresh soil covering the just lowered coffin, as it hit him how alone he was, how alone he was always going to be now that the last family member he had left was gone forever. And he remembered Seokjin's bone crushing hug as Namjoon unceremoniously sobbed on his shoulder and gripped the fabric of his jacket. He remembered Seokjin saying that, “As long as I am here, you will always have a home.”
And look at him now.
His body was a house in ruins.
The day Seokjin died, after Namjoon gave consent to stop the ventilator, was the saddest of his unluckily long life.
He didn't attend the funeral, even though nobody was going to attend except the nurses that had been by Seokjin's side during all those years.
He went to his old lab instead, the one he still had access to but that he hadn't visited for a decade. He went to his lab and as if he were guided by some sort of illumination, he ran his last sequence of DNA. The government was going to have his head once they found out how he messed up the parameters of the algorithm but they could have him, he didn't care. Not when his person was laying six feet under.
What if he had been wrong? What if he once again had failed to look into all the variables? What if he didn't need to cure the barren wombs but people’s feelings of loneliness?
The only set parameter, the only one that had ever mattered, the one that screened the fertility of the samples, he erased it.
The machine processed the DNA sequences and when the machine gave his verdict, printing on simple paper what Namjoon had suspected all along, had known all along in his heart, he asked himself if this was how it was always supposed to be.
“God and evil. Bad and good. I never once believed in those things because you were the man with a faith Seokjin, not me. You kept telling me to not be sad for the people I have lost because I would meet them again one day. I never had the heart to tell you that it was never going to be the case because even if I had believed, there was never going to be a spot for me in the place my family went to. In the place you went to.
And now after all the damage and the pain my creation has brought not only to you but to the world, I know for sure that would be the case, were you to be right also in this too.
So forgive me. Forgive me for wishing, with the heart of a selfish man, for you to be wrong. For wishing for this world to not have a God. Because then, then if we are really just meant to live and become dust like any other living been on this earth, if by the time we are lowered into our graves we are really just particles dissolving into the soil, and this world is really just made of the same matter that has been reassembling itself for millennia, then I can still hold on the hope that one day something of mine and something of yours, in some way or form, may find each other again.”
Kim Seokjin, male, blood type 0+;
Kim Namjoon, male, blood type 0+:
100% compatibility.
Kim Namjoon was a famous geneticist born during the last decade of the century known as century zero. With an IQ above average, he graduated early from medical school and, by the age of twenty four, he was in charge of the research team that was commissioned by the government to find a cure to infertility.
He instead elaborated the algorithm. The matches elaborated by it were determinant to raise the natality index.
As much as his first discovery was important, his second one held even more significance.
His second processing put the base of same sex matching and the bases of our modern society.
His passion and will to fight remained until the government recognised that the second processing’s results remained unscathed till the day of his death by the age of 84.
His battle for the non-eligible people's rights put the basis of the soulmates system and of what is now known as world two.