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It was a little past 7 PM on a weekday when Jisung came back home from the hospital with his Dad. His face was red and he was fuming. Changbin immediately knew that something went wrong when he saw his son pass through the kitchen without saying a word to rush to his room. The man could only hear the rushed clicking noises of his son's crutches hitting the wooden floor until he heard a door slam.
Chan sighed as he entered the room following Jisung. It wasn't the first time Jisung came home acting like that. The last time was probably 3 years ago when he was 11 and the doctor had told him about the same exact thing he'd said today.
Changbin looked at his husband, leaned for a kiss and then asked.
"So? What happened?"
"Well the usual, radios, comparisons, a lot of waiting and Jisung being in a hell of a mood … Doctor Song said he wants to see the both of us in 3 weeks, he's planning another surgery, one 'last' lengthening, he said."
"Didn't he say that already?"
The older man hummed, nodding.
"Jisung refused and ran out of the room. I went after him, gave him the keys of the car and told him to wait for me in it."
"Well, I can understand, last time he ended up having the surgery despite not wanting it and he doesn't want it to happen again."
Both men sighed. They were as tired as the kid was, those surgeries had such an impact on Jisung's life and on their family's …
Each new surgery meant months of recovery, metal rods sticking out of Jisung thigh for months, casts on his leg for even longer, physical therapy, pain, scars and complications ... the promise that the doctor had made to Jisung when he was still a little child kept fading away as more and more time passed by.
Jisung was 7 when he had his first thigh bone lengthening surgery, well it was the first that he could remember at least. He went into the surgery room with as much hope he could hold in his little body, believing what the doctor told him. The man promised him that he'd be able to run after this surgery but he woke up with a fixator in his leg, he was sad and in so much pain. On top of that, he discovered that he wouldn't be able to run, the 5.5 centimeters they'd caught up onto after 4 months were far from enough to even up the 16 cm difference it took to even up both his knees.
No matter the number of surgeries, his thighs never came to be the same length and his shin bone continued the slow process of bending over time. It pained both the fathers to consider surgery once again, it wasn’t a life for a kid. Especially Jisung, who had already been through enough.
"So now what? We let him be until he's ready to talk about it?", Changbin asked his husband.
"Well, what else would you like to do?
"I don't know. Honestly, he is 14, I think he is old enough to refuse surgery.”
“I agree, it's up to him.", Chan said, sighing.
And they waited, they let him take his time and they never mentioned the appointment, instead waiting for Jisung to mention it. But despite his bad mood that showed something was wrong, he didn’t show anything and didn’t talk about the surgery.
Three weeks passed and Chan and Changbin went to the appointment with the surgeon without Jisung, the kid didn’t need to miss a school day for that. They listened to the man in front of them but refused the surgery. The surgeon got insistent but they knew where they stood. They weren’t about to push their son into a surgery he didn’t want. Needless to say that the man seemed pissed, not used to parents that would go against his opinion. He asked them to come back in 6 months and they agreed, just in case Jisung changed his mind.
His different looking legs weren’t a problem when Jisung was a little kid but now they are.
As a little kid, Jisung could (somewhat) run, climb, jump, walk only with his prosthetic leg. And he wishes now that it was still the case. Yet as he grew up, his legs worsened and lots of things changed.
As he grew up, he had new surgery every other year to lengthen his leg, straighten his bowed shin … make it look as "normal as possible". But honestly each new surgery was a hassle, his skin becoming a warfield, battles of stitches and bandages, metal rods piercing his skin like swords …
And even though overall living with his poor mobility wasn't much fun, he didn’t want another surgery, no matter if he was in pain most of the time, stumbling around more than walking, if he couldn’t play any sports at school and if it was just awful to have to be sitting in a car with the way knees bent at different length (if only there was just that), he just didn’t want it, he somewhat knew it wasn’t worth it.
Over time, on top of the surgeries, Jisung started having to use braces and special lifted shoes, they also had to reduce the size of his tibial prosthetic on the other leg to allow him to keep on walking but it was moving the problem, not fixing it.
Jisung grew insecure of the way he looked. He was small, or maybe he shouldn’t have been that small but they couldn’t fix his legs properly. He couldn’t wear any other pants nor any other pair of shoes he wanted, he was stuck with his ugly boots and with pants they had to cut so it would fit him and that his aunt Yebin fixed for him. He was thankful his aunt would still take time to fix clothes for him now that she was a stylist but at the same time it didn’t feel right.
He couldn’t say he resented his twin for growing tall but at the same time, he kinda did. When they were younger, Felix used to be smaller than him but now it wasn’t the case anymore no matter if Jisung had already hit puberty and Yongbokkie hadn’t yet. He felt like he was stuck being small. He was barely 20 cm taller than the Jeongin when he had no prosthetic and no platform shoe on, maybe the 7 years old was just extremely tall for his age but it made him feel bad. So bad that even at home he didn’t dare take off his prosthetic, he didn’t dare walk around barefoot with his smaller crutches like he used to do, it made him feel too small.
Plus, being 14 was just an awkward time of life, puberty was weird and he just wanted to feel attractive or at least to feel like he looked good. Instead he just felt weird and he felt like he was looking weird.
Jisung came to Chan and Changbin on a Friday evening about 2 weeks after their appointment with the surgeon, he asked them for …
"A wheelchair? Well as far as I know we already have one here."
"Well I want a custom one, only for me."
"Alright, sure, makes sense..", Changbin said.
"We'll ask your prosthetist about it.", Chan added.
"Well I, I kinda already found the one I want."
They truly hadn't thought that it would be what the boy would ask for but after all it made a lot of sense, over the past few years Jisung had moved from walking without crutches to having the crutches and his prosthetic leg on most of the time, even when they were at home. It probably wasn't that comfortable for him.
"Show us.", Chan said.
And the smile they saw on Jisung's face was the one they hadn't seen those last couple of weeks so they were happy that the boy had something he was happy about to show them.
The wheelchair he showed them had the features of a wheelchair for paraplegic people, it had a small backrest, light aluminum frame, no armrest and it was way thinner than the one they had Jisung use from time to time …
"Alright, alright, it looks very good."
"And it's a Korean facility that makes them, like you have to go there and they'll ask questions to make the wheelchair as custom as possible."
"Do you want me to make a call to have an appointment, Jisung-ie?", Chan asked.
"Yes please."
"I'll call them in the morning, alright?"
"Thank you Dad."
And that's how Jisung started a new year of his life being a wheelchair user. Of course he could stand up and live his life with his crutches when at home but outside he really didn't bother anymore.
The wheelchair helped him grow back some confidence. He knew he had a real problem with his leg and his height and he talked to his psychologist about it. The psy told him that if the wheelchair helped him then it was all good and that he didn’t have to worry about it. After all, having a hard time accepting one’s body was quite normal when hitting that time of life.
Jisung was much happier about life now that he didn’t have as much trouble getting around. Honestly, he had an easier time with about anything. Their home and school were incredibly well adapted to wheelchairs. Seungmin gave him a few tips and honestly it helped him quite a lot.
Also he got much closer to Seungmin, maybe because he started to play wheelchair softball with Seungmin’s team, just for fun but still. He wasn’t peculiarly good at it but since his brother’s team lacked a player, he’d joined in.
When he went to meet his surgeon, 6 months after his initial appointment, the man was mad to see him arrive in a wheelchair. Yet, he didn’t feel bad about it, he didn’t lie about his stump being sensitive as he’d done once, instead he was kinda proud, maybe a bit proud to piss an asshole off.
"Mr Bang, how come you let your kid be bound to a chair after we spent so much time doing surgeries on his legs to allow him to walk?", the man eventually ended up asking during the consultation.
“Because he feels better using one.”
"Well, you know doctor,”, Jisung started, “I’m more comfortable rolling myself around than hurting my wrists and elbows while using my crutches, trying to stand on a prosthetic leg and a heavy orthopedic shoe.”
“Maybe you could ditch the crutches with the surgery I’m planning.”
“No, you’re not planning anything, you can’t plan a surgery without the patient agreeing.”, Jisung said.
“There is no surgery planned yet.”, Chan agreed. “Also, just so you know, there is no such thing as being bound to a wheelchair, Jisung will walk when he'll decide he wants to and that day I'm gonna make sure he'll have what he needs to get around the way he decided to."
The doctor looked at him and shook his head slightly as he gave a closer look at Jisung knee flexibility.
"You know Doctor, I have another son at home that uses a wheelchair, an electric one, he has hemiplegia.”
“Hum?”
“You know hemiplegia means that he can walk, right?”
“Yes, most of the time hemiplegia is well compensated and therefore the patient can walk.”
“Well, technically, he can, only with a walker or with crutches because he has poor balance.”
“May I ask you why you’re telling me about him, Mr Bang?”
“See, my son can't get around without those aids but while holding onto them he can't communicate, he is deaf and he uses sign language. He can talk, he even likes to sing but he hates talking, he hates it because he used to be forced to otherwise he wouldn’t be taken care of. We had to find solutions, we started to learn sign language and he now has an electric wheelchair so he can sign with his free hand even when we’re moving around. It gives him the freedom to go around and just be a kid, have fun with his siblings … Wheelchairs are not evil and I sure hope you don't try to hold your patients from using them."
"I, I don't hold them from using them, it's just that with Jisung, we made so much progress, he could get around so well walking and then he started to use crutches and now that!"
"Well things change, I guess. Now do you mind listening to what Jisung has to say?"
And that day Jisung asked for his leg to be amputated.
He'd thought about it deeply, educated himself on it with his fathers, it had been a few months already since they’d started to talk about it together. It definitely wasn’t a temper tantrum kind of request. He’d lived with his prosthetic leg for as long as he could remember and he’d had so little problem with it over time, it was the total opposite of his actual leg that they insisted on butchering every few years.
He'd talked about it to his grandparents, his siblings, his psychologist, his prosthetist, honestly he'd talked about it with about anyone that would listen to him and they'd all found it great.
He just wanted to be able to get around like anyone else, his wheelchair was great and he knew he wouldn’t stop using it altogether, especially if he didn’t have feet at all to get up onto in the middle of the night. But he remembered how freely he used to get around when he was a kid and he kinda wanted that back.
"I am gonna say no to that.", the man told them no matter how well Jisung explained his reasons.
He then proceeded to explain why but Jisung wasn't listening much, he was just so disappointed. He’d prepared himself for so long, he’d rehearsed his request like a whole oral test. When they sat in the car, Jisung asked his Dad what the doctor had said.
They both concluded that it was more about the doctor than about his own comfort when Chan told him that the man had said "it would be a personal failure of mine to let Jisung have an amputation after all the surgeries we did to make him walk."
“What an asshole!”
“Language! But I must admit that he is.”
“Dad, do you think we could see another doctor?”
“Well, yes but he is deemed the best of South Korea, I’m not sure another doctor would go against his recommendations.”
Jisung hummed, he’d heard about that and it really sucked that that peculiar guy was “the best” when he was just so mean and selfish.
"Dad, do you think we could go to Australia?"
"Hum, yes, we'll go for Christmas like we do every other year."
"Do you think the doctor that amputated my leg is still working in Sydney?"
"Well I'm pretty sure yes, hum, why? I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're thinking about right now."
"Maybe we could go see her, maybe she'd accept to amputate my leg."
"Maybe, hum, you know what, just wait in the car Dalamjwi (Squirrel), I'm just gonna go get something.", the man said, rushing out of the car.
Jisung waited for twenty minutes but when his Dad came back he had what seemed to be a book in his hands.
"That's your medical report.", he simply sayed. "We're not gonna come see this doctor ever again.”
“Can we bring a little present to the physical therapy team, still?"
"We'll do, don't worry. It's not about them, it's Dr. Song."
"How did you get the record though?"
"I must admit that I kinda made a scene, I threatened to bring in my lawyer."
Changbin was awed when they told him what happened but seeing the smile Jisung had on his face when he recounted Chan's sayings, he understood that his husband had taken the right decision.
"So now, what do we do?"
"I think we're gonna go to Australia, if that asshole is the best surgeon here then we're gonna see elsewhere."
"I asked Dad if we could go see the surgeon that amputated my left leg.", Jisung added.
That year Jisung stopped school in early December to fly to Sydney with his Dad, his twin and Seungmin. They had an appointment with Doctor Sarah Jones the day after they landed. The doctor had already received the boy's record and they'd met by videocall twice but he had to be examined before she could agree to do anything.
The flight was probably the longest Jisung had ever done or at least that was the feeling. He was just so damn ready to arrive that it felt like an eternity.
When they finally arrived, Jisung hadn't slept even an hour, probably because he ate a whole pack of Kopiko candies and watched about 4 movies. He was literally buzzing with the amount of caffeine and excitement. But he was also extremely worried, worried about the appointment of course but also worried that the plane had messed up with his or Seungmin's wheelchair, it was actually their first time bringing in wheelchairs as they would usually use the old one that their grandparents kept home and that they had to take turns using. Thankfully no wheelchair was harmed on the flight and it honestly was already great.
His grandparents and uncle Lucas came to get them from the airport. Honestly Jisung was happy to finally see them, it had already been 2 years since they’d come to Sydney. Nana couldn’t stop smiling and Harabeoji had brought some food for them to eat in the car. Uncle Lucas was late as usual but he managed to arrive when they reached the parking lot.
"I’m so glad my babies are here.", Nana said when they got in the car.
"We are happy too, Eomma."
"Did you have a nice flight?", Harabeoji asked.
"It's weird to take the plane without Appa.", Felix said.
"But it was ok still, we watched movies.", Jisung added.
“You did, me, I slept.”,
The day passed by quickly, the boys enjoyed the pool all afternoon, until evening. Once the sun started to set, Chan forced the 3 of them out of the pool because he had to help Harabeaoji with the barbecue and they had to get showered before the guests a.k.a uncle Lucas and his very pregnant girlfriend arrived.
The evening went well but in the end the 3 teenagers were exhausted when their uncle left and they quickly got ready to go to bed. As usual the kids shared their aunt Hannah’s room while Chan used his and Lucas' old room. But with Jisung being antsy, Felix quickly kicked him out of bed and told him to go sleep with Seungmo. Which he did, until Seungmin started to kick him with his plastic sleeping braces as he turned in bed.
So he didn’t get much sleep until after the nth time he got kicked and decided to go sleep elsewhere. That's how he found himself in the middle of the night, exhausted and anxious about the appointment, crawling into his father's bed like he'd always done when those important surgery appointments happened.
"It's ok, go to sleep now, we need to get up early", Chan reassured him when he apologized for the 4th time about waking his Dad up at 3 A.M.
Jisung was the first appointment of the day so they didn't have to wait long, there was just him and his Dad in the waiting room when Dr. Jones called them in.
"Oh Peter you grew up so much.", Dr Jones said as she came out of her office. "I never thought we'd see each other again after you moved to South Korea with your fathers."
The woman had brown hair with gray strokes, she had green eyes and tanned skin. He'd seen her in pictures of him when he was just a baby, she already looked just like that back then.
"Do you know you're one of the patients I remember the most? You were so small when I did your amputation, you were probably my smallest surgical patient."
The appointment went smoothly, the doctor carefully examined the X Ray they'd done just a week ago.
"Well the bone structure looks pretty good to me, your previous surgery healed well. Let's move on to the table, I need to see your leg."
25 minutes later they had the answer they were waiting for. Jisung would have his surgery on the 23rd of December.
"Christmas gift?", he asked.
"Well yes it'll be a painful Christmas Present and you'll have to stay at the hospital for Christmas and the New Year, I'm sorry about that but that's the closest date I can give you. If everything goes well you'll have to stay here until the end of February and then you'll go home and do the rest of your Physical Therapy.
"Great.", Chan said.
"But I have to be honest with you Peter, it's gonna be painful but I know you're not scared of that, you've already had so many surgeries."
"I'm not scared."
"It's also gonna be hard to walk at first, you're gonna have to fight, you already have a prosthetic leg but it's gonna be totally different, you've always known this one, the other will be knew, it's gonna be an above the knee surgery, you'll need to get used to your new artificial knee."
"I wanna do it."
"I have no doubt. You're a fighter."
The rest of the family arrived on the evening of the 21st, they spent a day together and then came the surgery. And as sure as Jisung was about it and as usual as it was for him to go under for a procedure, it still felt extremely weird to think that when he’d wake up, his leg up to above his knee wouldn’t be anymore.
Jisung was exhausted for Christmas, he was barely awake, clouded by anesthesia but the first thing he tried to do was to pat his leg. He hadn’t seen it yet because of the bandages but he felt somewhat relieved when he couldn't see anything where his foot used to be. His family came to visit that day as yesterday they weren't allowed apart from his fathers. That night his Appa spent the night at the hospital with him. He must admit that he cried at some point and when his Appa asked him what was happening he smiled, he wasn't even sure why he was crying, he was relieved.
He discovered his leg a few days after, just before New Years Eve. It was bruised, swollen, red and blue some parts even getting yellowish, there was a big dark scar … but he was happy with it.
He had his first prosthetic fitting the 15th of January, his leg already started to look much better. Everything was going alright, for once, things looked great and he was getting better each day. His tibial prosthetic was modified to be higher and Jisung, who had never been that tall felt so much better.
He took his first new step on the 24th of January, it was just one step before he gave up from exhaustion but it was new and it was great. His fathers and his siblings were all here to see him take that step, it was their last day in Australia before going home.
It was Changbin that stayed with him this time. Chan had to go back to work so it was his Appa that stayed in Australia with him for the next month. It felt weird to have to stay at the hospital when he was in Australia, usually he'd be swimming in the pool and getting 4 homemade meals a day with Harabeoji and Nana around. But his days were filled with physical therapy, bed resting, little "walks" in the hospital and in the park outside of it.
Felix would send him the classes everyday and they'd be texting all the time, so much that Felix got his phone confiscated in class because he was texting his twin. Their fathers weren't happy about that but they let it be because they knew the bond that Felix and Peter had.
His recovery was going well but it took a little bit more time than it should have had at least to Jisung's taste. He was out of the hospital by the beginning of March. By then he had started to walk inside without crutches for short distances and outside with his crutches but he was doing great. Dr Jones kept congratulating him for his progress at each visit.
They left Australia the week after he was out of the hospital. It was the beginning of the holidays at home so he had all the time to work on his classes to catch up on what he'd missed, do his PT and to get better and walk better.
At the very beginning of the next school year, he arrived, walking on his 2 feet, without holding onto crutches for the first time in years. He was 11 when he started using his crutches because of his bad leg getting worse, now he is 15.
Before letting him go, Changbin called him to his car's window.
"Hey, Sungie, I'm proud of you.", Changbin told him as he dropped Felix, Hyunjin and him to school.
"Thank you Appa."
"I'm proud of the decision you took. Look at you walking to school!"
"Appa, you're gonna make me blush."
"You have your folding cane in your bag, right?"
"I do."
"Have a good day, then."
"You too Appa."
Changbin watched his son walk, realizing the kid had never been that tall and had never walked as smoothly as that despite still being a bit wobbly on his new feet. Who would have thought 1 and a half years ago that the Jisung that had just asked for a wheelchair would be walking anew.