Kris made his way to the ‘quiet room’ on his second day back to school and slumped into his seat, pulling out his tablet and powering it on. He wasn’t back in regular classes with his old classmates because he wasn’t going to stay, but he was still required to go to school. He spent his time working on whatever his teachers in Korea faxed to the Vancouver school - he finished everything the first day - and waiting for Umma to reply to his email. He hadn’t thought to email anyone else, just desperate to let her know that he wasn’t avoiding her.

He missed her more than anything.

Kris was sitting at his desk, reading a book on his tablet when a new email notification popped up. He tapped the screen immediately and the email sprang open, and Kris grinned. There were six video attachments, a list of emails for his friends and Lay, and a short message from Umma.

Kris,

Don’t worry about anything. Just do what you need to do, and I’ll see you soon.

-Umma

Kris immediately copied Lay’s email and opened a new email, pasting the address in and attaching a picture of him with Ace. He wanted to make sure his brother knew he appreciated the alpaca. He wrote a quick ‘miss you’ before shooting off the email, then going back for Tao’s email.

He flooded the email with cheesy selcas and emoticons, trying to convey everything he felt without having to use words. Kris wasn't always good with words, and Tao wasn't there to read his face and put words in his mouth. He added ‘love you, miss you’ to the bottom and then realized that was all he really needed to put in the email to start with. He sent it anyway.

Kris quickly flipped back to the email from Umma and started downloading the videos, deciding he would record himself tonight and send it back. In the meantime, he typed up another short email and sent it back to her.

‘Umma, please don’t ever get a cat.’ He thought for a moment before adding a frowning face with eyebrows, then sent the email. He couldn’t help the grin on his face when she replied almost immediately.

‘Are you allergic?’ She sent back. Kris started typing immediately.

‘No, they just like to bite my feet.’ He tapped his foot, hoping for at least one more reply before the day was done. There were only ten minutes left before Kathy was going to pick them up, and then he would be in a wifi dead zone for the rest of the night. Umma didn’t disappoint.

‘Too late, we adopted four kittens because we missed you too much~’ Kris actually laughed out loud, then shook his head and sighed. He kind of wanted to cry, but he suppressed the urge quickly and shot her a quick reply.

‘That’s okay. We can just put them in Lay’s room.’ He sighed a little bit as he sent the message, a longing for home settling heavier in his chest than he anticipated. He glanced at the time and then refreshed his emails, blinking in surprise when a new one popped up from Tao.

‘I love you too. Are you eating enough? Getting enough sleep?’

Kris didn’t even have a chance to respond to Tao before another email came in from Lay, and then one from Umma too. Kris closed his eyes for a moment before opening Tao’s. He read it over a few times, not really realizing he was tearing up as he opened the response email.

‘I just want to come home.’ Kris typed back, sending it back and then opening the email from Lay.

Lay’s email was filled with pictures of their friends and peppered in with smiley faces. He scrolled through every picture until he hit the last one - a snapshot of his empty bedroom, pillow still sunken in and his blanket still slightly bunched to the side. He could see the haphazard pile of books Umma had made him unpack just before he left sitting on the bedside table.

He kind of felt like his heart was shattering as he stared at the empty room, but it was comforting, too. It meant they were really waiting for him to come back.

The end of the day alarm signaled that Kris was out of time, even as another email came in from Tao. He wished he had time to read and answer them all, but he closed out of the email app and shut his tablet down, closing the protective case and tucking it away with his book. He had an appointment with a psychologist after school that he absolutely couldn’t miss. Not if he wanted everything to go on schedule. Going home for his sixteenth birthday sounded like the best gift in the world, to him - especially when he was so unused to missing people so deeply it ached.

Kris climbed less than gracefully into the passenger seat of Tony’s truck, pulling on his seatbelt and trying to avoid eye contact. Tony had always been Kris’ favorite, when given the choice between Kathy and her husband. Tony went to all the basketball games and helped Kris with his math whenever he got too overwhelmed. He’d always been pretty supportive of Kris’ decision not to take French, despite the general consensus that he was just being a spoiled brat. Tony understood a lot more than Kris ever expected him to, but that didn’t mean Kris wanted to talk to him about things that made him cry.

“I’m going to be down the hall, talking to Amber’s case worker.” Tony said when they finally pulled up. Kris nodded quietly, his eyes still a little red. He just wanted to curl up in the bed he was borrowing in Kathy and Tony’s home and cry, but he knew he had to do this. “If you’re done before I am, just wait for me in the waiting room.”

Kris nodded, still holding his backpack in his lap. He listened as Tony cut the engine before slipping out of the car, and he couldn’t exactly explain the heavy weight of the depression that was settling over him, but he told himself a few times that this feeling was temporary as he walked into the building. It didn’t really help, but he pretended it did. He was counting down, mentally, to how long it would be before he could see his family again. He even missed Jongin and Baekhyun, and they didn’t exactly spend a lot of time together.

“Go ahead in. I’ll see you after.” Tony said, and Kris glanced up at him before nodding and heading into the room. He wasn’t usually nervous about stuff like this. He wasn’t usually putting so much on the line, either.

Mark forced a smile when Kris walked through the door, but Kris felt like there was a stone in his gut, and he sat down right away. His heart had been beating a little off rhythm pretty much the whole ride in, and he knew he got palpitations when he was too stressed out, so he was trying to calm himself down. Mark must not have noticed the discomfort - Kris wasn’t surprised. Mark looked pretty caught up in his own stress. Getting kids adopted couldn’t have been easy.

“Do you remember when I said your biological parents wanted to meet you?” Mark asked suddenly. Kris’ head snapped up, and he looked at Mark for a long moment before looking around the room in something of a panic. Mark held up his hands, shaking his head. “They’re not here yet. Probably a few more days until they land. They were a little iffy on the specifics of their itinerary.”

“Do I have to?” Kris asked, and he hated that he sounded like a kid. He’d always been cool and calm about everything and he just wasn’t this time. “I just want to go home. They should have asked about me a long time ago if they actually cared. I just want to go home.”

“Kris..” Mark said, frowning suddenly. “I’m pretty sure they always cared.”

“If they cared, they shouldn’t have given me up in the first place.” Kris snapped. “I don’t want to meet them and their perfect family. I want to go back to my family.”

“It’s hard for Chinese parents to keep a sick child.” Mark said, sighing. “When you’re only allowed one child and there’s a high risk of the one you have not surviving-”

“I survived.” Kris said, his face scrunching a little. He was starting to feel the spiderweb wrapping around his ribs again. “I survived without them. I don’t need them checking up on me now, when they didn’t check up on any other place I lived up to now. It’s been sixteen years, and it’s just a heart murmur. I don’t need to be checked on.”

“You don’t really...keep up with world news, do you?” Mark finally asked.

“What are you talking about?” Kris asked, looking kind of frustrated. He didn’t realize he was rubbing his chest, right over his heart, until he realized Mark was staring.

“They don’t want to just meet you.” Mark said after a long moment. “The single child law was repealed, you know. They want to meet you so they can see if...you want to go home. With them.”

There was silence for a long moment as what Mark said sank in. They sat, staring at each other in the sudden quiet until Kris suddenly remembered how to breath, and then the whirlwind set in, and Lay wasn’t there to calm him down.

Kris could kind of vaguely hear Mark calling his name, and he tried to focus over the sound of his own gasping and his heart pounding, but it was louder than he’d heard in a long time. He shook his head a few times, but he couldn’t really tell if he was getting his point across or not because it was hard to focus past the darkening edges of his vision.

It had been a long time since he’d fainted because of a panic attack - so long he almost didn’t realize what was happening as everything faded out.

Written while half asleep, please forgive me ><