As my feelings started to overflow from all the holes in my face, I felt Minho’s arm wrap around my upper back. For what seemed like forever but was probably only a minute or two, I just cried. As soon as Jongin appeared in my head, I started seeing other faces of my family and even other friends I used to consider older brothers back in my past life. They all made me feel happy and ready to face the day even if I was feeling like death. They helped me become who I was and seeing them in front of my tightly closed eyes made me want to do anything to be with them once again…

“…I…” My voice cracked a lot but I pressed through it with tightened fists around my knees. “…I want to leave.”

Minho was silent for a moment. “…you want to leave my house?”

“I want to see my friends and family. I miss them so much…” My voice left at the last couple words and all I could do was try to catch up on my breathing.

“…so you want to die?” Minho asked very quietly.

More tears fell from my eyes and I buried my head inside my arms. “I…I want to see my family…”

Minho didn’t say anything else as I tried to pull myself together. After another minute or two, my fists gradually loosened and my breathing returned to normal.

“…Taemin…even if you die here…I don’t know if you can ever see your family and friends again.” Minho said. “We mentioned it before…at the facility.”

“It’s worth a try.” I sniffed and slowly lifted my head.

Minho’s arm slowly moved off from behind me. “W-what did you say?”

I turned to him. He was staring at me wide-eyed.

“They were my everything…I don’t have anything here…so even if I don’t know if I will actually see them or not when I die, I would be happy just to try.” I nodded to myself and started to stand up. My wrist was grabbed and I was suddenly pulled back down, hitting the floor hard.

“You really don’t think there’s anything here for you!?” Minho practically yelled at me, staring at me with furious eyes.

I leaned back, genuinely scared. It was the first time I’ve seen him so angry. “I-I—“

“Me team decided to bring you back for a reason, Taemin! We wanted to give the opportunity of life to an individual who practically handed the main ingredient gift-wrapped to us! You may not think much about what you did in your past life when you buried your hair in a pile of dirt in the forest, but to us it was a sign. We did what we did and succeeded in ways we never thought we would. You are the result of our success! Why can’t you understand that!?”

I stared at Minho in silence. His words echoed the words of the leader but they sounded a lot different coming from him. It sounded like he truly believed I was a miracle.

When I didn’t respond, he sighed a little and leaned back. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to raise my voice…but please believe my words.” He looked back at me. “The events that have happened all this week have been ground-breaking and fun at the same time. Especially for me. I feel like I made a really close friend when there hasn’t really been anyone else to fill that space.”

“…you don’t have any other friends?” I asked quietly.

He slowly looked down. “…friendships aren’t too common these days.”

I blinked. “But you have the team members at the facility.”

He shook his head. “They are just my co-workers. Our relationships are strictly business.”

“…so nobody really has friends in this time?”

Minho sighed a little and his gaze turned a bit dark. “Ever since one particular incident, friendships became pretty overrated and were only made if the person was going to deceive the other. It has a kind of negative connotation attached to it…but I don’t believe in it.” He looked back at me. “I like the ideology of the term back during your era, when friendships were considered labels of happiness and joy.”

I scoffed a little. “Not all friendships lasted during my time…some of them were like you described them.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

I nodded. “Yeah…but there were other legitimate friendships that lasted a long time.”

“Like you and your best friend?”

I looked down. “Yeah…”

We were both quiet for another moment until I heard Minho shifted a little.

“Taemin?”

I glanced at him and hummed quietly.

He kept his gaze on me but he seemed a little nervous all of a sudden. “…if we continue to be friends…will you answer me one thing?”

“…what is it?”

“…can you please be honest with me whenever you feel sad or angry or even happy? I want to know. I care about your well-being and your future. I definitely don’t want you to get terminated by the government…not because I’m afraid of losing a successful experiment…but because I’m afraid of losing a close friend.”

I stared at him in silence with my mouth hanging open a little. There was nothing but sincerity in his voice and eyes and it was making me tear up again.

“I’m serious.” He added. “…and even if the government rejects you…you can still live with me.”

“B-but what about your house?”

“I can find a new home.” Minho shrugged and smiled. “They’re not hard to find. And we can go far away from the city.”

I continued to stare at him with steadily growing tears in my eyes.

“…I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you’re okay here.” He held out his hand. “Because you’re my friend. Got it?”

The tears finally fell onto my cheeks and I let out a small sigh. I stared down at his hand for a long time before shakily raising my own to gently grasp his. He tightened his grip and smiled a little more. He must have felt me shaking because he pulled me a little closer and wrapped his arm around my upper back again, holding me close. This only made me cry harder.

The weekend went by way too quickly and Monday morning arrived so suddenly. I was woken up by rough shakes from Minho who was hissing my name repeatedly.

"Taemin! Hey, wake up!" The whisper in his voice had no inkling of sleep in it so I guessed he has been up for a while. lightly, I shifted a little and rolled onto my side.

"Why?" My voice was groggy and a little raspy from sleep.

"Taemin! My team and I received a letter back from the government! They want to see you in person!"

This made my entire body freeze and my eyes slowly open.

"This is such a rare thing for them to do but apparently our leader's report was interesting enough for them to want to see you!"

I slowly turned around and sat up. Minho held up the letter with a big grin on his face.

"...w-what am I supposed to say to them?" I asked quietly. "Are they expecting right answers or else?"

"...I'm not sure." Minho answered honestly.  "But the fact that they are interested to see you is a good thing. It means they want to see if you're human enough to live among us."

"...so my appearance is not enough." I sighed a little, feeling very nervous.

"They know you are the result of our cloning experiment, so it makes sense that they would want to know if your mind is the same as everyone else." Minho sat down next to me. "Don't worry too much. Once they see how you act, I think that should be enough for them to pardon your existence."

His words sounded sincere but a part of me still felt nervous. I never met with any kind of government before, even in my past life. I could only hope that this government could be open-minded and that I wouldn't screw up somehow.

"...so when do we go?" I looked at Minho.

"Well they asked for us to be at their office in about two hours, so let's get ready now." He stood up and pushed against my shoulder a little. "Come on, I'll make breakfast."

My eyes widened and my mouth dropped. "T-two hours?!"

"Yeah, why?"

"T-that's so soon!" I shrunk back a little.

"We'll make it in time!" He nodded and took my hand.

"That's not..." My voice faded away as he dragged me toward the main part of his house. As he moved around throwing stuff into another boiling pot, he kept talking to me and that made me relax a little. Soon I fully accepted the idea of meeting with the government and started to form a kind of dialogue in my head, even if it was going to disappear the instant I stepped into the building.

After two bowls of breakfast and about a half hour of walking, we reached the government facility and walked inside. I squirmed a bit in my heavy sweater and white face mask as Minho promptly gave his name to the government secretary. Soon after we sat down to wait, the other members of the Minho's team entered the building as well and immediately ran up to greet me warmly. They also asked a lot of questions to Minho, who replied to them with a lot of enthusiasm. I didn't hear a lot of what he said because my gaze was focused on the main door leading into the government room. I was waiting impatiently for it to open.

Then as if all the sounds in the room were cut off by a sword, the main government doors opened and one man stepped out to greet the team. Then his gaze fell on to me. "Is this him?"

The other scientists confirmed and the man nodded, looking me up and down. "Why don't you take all those clothes off. You must be hot."

I nodded quickly and did as he asked, brushing off the heavy sweater and removing the annoying face mask. Minho quickly took them from me as the man motioned for the doors.

"Please come with me. My men and I would just like to ask you some questions."

I glanced back at Minho for a second before nodding and following his motion. Minho managed to give me a confident smile and it made me feel only a little less nervous.