“Did you think the world was going to end?” Umma asked, her tone as soft as her eyes. Kris huffed, but he didn’t fight being pulled into her arms.

“Maybe.” Kris mumbled, holding on tighter than he meant to. “It might.”

“Not today.” Umma said. She let go of him slowly, and it made Kris want to hold on tighter, but he knew it wasn’t the time. “The Li family has agreed to sign the adoption paperwork.”

“What?” Kris asked, turning his head slightly to look at them. Jiao didn’t look very happy.

“There are some conditions.” Umma warned him. “I think you should talk to them, and then we’ll go from there. Okay?”

“I…alone?” Kris sputtered. He looked kind of helpless, but Umma smiled reassuringly. “Okay.”

Umma smiled, gesturing to an empty table a little ways away from the one Mark and Luhan were still sitting at, and she ushered Kris toward it. There was a moment’s hesitation, but when his biological parents moved to sit with him and left Jiao with Kris’ family he felt a little better. Kris sat stiffly in one of the chairs, looking at the table and trying not to fidget. He listened to Jiao’s father clearing his throat, but he didn’t look up right away.

“Your…your mama loves you a lot.” He said softly. “Haerin? She’s got your best interests at heart.”

Kris his lips, not sure if that was supposed to be a joke about his heart condition or if it was just poor word choice. He figured they had more to say, though. Umma said they had conditions, and Kris wasn’t sure he was ready for whatever they were, but he knew he’d agree to just about anything if it meant he could stay living with Umma and Lay. If it meant he could keep his friends and Tao and stay in his school…he thought, maybe, he could agree to anything.

“I know.” Kris finally said, lifting his eyes to meet theirs. “She’s a really good mom.”

“Yeah…we know that now.” Jiao’s mother said. “That’s why we’re going to sign off on the adoption.”

“As long as I agree to your conditions.” Kris said, his tone a bit guarded.

“Yes.” She said, sighing a bit softly. “We’re not going to ask you to call us Mama or Baba. You can call us by our names. I’m Chunhua, his name is Bohai. But there are some things that do matter to us.”

“Like what?” Kris asked, settling a little more. Having names for them helped, somehow. It removed the uncomfortable connection.

“We want to have a relationship with you.” Bohai said. “Weekly emails. Two visits every year.”

“Visits?” Kris asked, his back tightening a bit. Chunhua held up her hands.

“We’ll come to Korea once a year, and you and your family can come to China once a year. Staying in hotels.” Chunhua explained. “We don’t want to invade your space. We just want to get to know you. And…of course, this is only mandatory until you reach legal adulthood.”

“Did you talk to Umma about this?” Kris asked suspiciously, watching them both nod quickly.

“Yes. We didn’t want to spring anything on you and upset you more. We hadn’t realized how severe the heart condition had become.” Chunhua said, her tones gentle. Kris sighed a bit, nodding.

“So…weekly emails and two visits every year?” Kris asked. “Is that everything?”

“No.” Bohai said. “We opened a college fund for you when you were two. So you have to use that money for college only. Nothing else.”

“A college fund? For a kid you thought was going to die?” Kris asked, his eyes narrowing. Chunhua held her hands up.

“The doctors told us you would be dead in a week.” She said. “We couldn’t watch you die, and we didn’t have the money for your surgery. They told us that if we put you up for adoption, someone with a lot of money would take you in and make you better. Then your fath- Bohai got a better job, and we were going to try to get you back, but I was pregnant again. And with the single child laws…”

“So once you were sure you couldn’t have me but you were sure I was going to live, you decided to start a college fund in the hopes that my sporadic education would be enough to get me into college in the first place?” Kris asked. Chunhua shrugged.

“It was the only thing we could think of to do for you.” She said. Kris slumped into his seat, looking back at Umma for a moment before looking back at the Li’s.

“If I get into college, I’ll let you know.” Kris said. “Is there anything else?”

“We want to take you shopping.” Bohai said. “Clothes. Electronics. Anything you need. Anything you want.”

“No.” Kris said, his expression confused. “That’s…I don’t need anything. Umma made sure I had everything I needed.”

“But what about things you want?” Chunhua asked. “This is one of our conditions. We just want to provide you with something that will help you when you go…back to Korea.”

“That’s not fair to my brother. And I don’t need anything.” Kris said, shaking his head. Bohai rolled his eyes.

“We can take YiXing along.” Bohai said. “We’ll get him the same things.”

“I…th…” Kris turned to look at Umma again, a little more panicked this time. “That’s up to Umma.”

“Then we’ll have her come over and discuss it with her now. That’s the last of our conditions anyway.” Chunhua said, waving to Umma. Kris swallowed hard, not liking the way this conversation was going already.

Umma took a seat beside Kris, her hand moving to rub between his shoulder blades. Kris flinched the tiniest bit, still entirely too tense, but he relaxed at the gentleness of her touch. Umma smiled softly at him, then looked at the Li’s and waited. Chunhua spoke up first, taking the pressure off of Kris.

“YiFan is concerned about the shopping trip. We think he would feel better if YiXing came along, and if we bought YiXing the same things we’re buying YiFan.” Chunhua explained. Umma’s mouth tightened a little bit – Kris knew, he was watching closely – but she nodded.

“That’s fine. As long as you don’t mind either myself or Luhan coming along.” Umma said. Kris blinked in confusion, looking up at Umma in surprise. “YiXing is good at keeping YiFan grounded, however YiXing needs someone to keep an eye on him. He gets distracted a little too easily sometimes, and I won’t be happy if one of my boys turns up missing.”

“That’s ri-” Bohai started to protest, but Chunhua spoke over him quickly.

“That’s perfectly fine.” She said, patting her husbands hand. Bohai looked more than a little offended, but he didn’t speak up again. “Other than that, we discussed the college fund, and we discussed the visitation and communication.”

“And, are you comfortable with all of that, YiFan?” Umma asked, looking at Kris with an expression that told him she could see right through him. Kris bit his lip.

“It’s not my favorite thing, but I can deal with it.” Kris said firmly. Umma nodded slowly, then looked back at the Li’s.

“We’ll write up a contract with Mark tomorrow.” Umma said, petting Kris’ hair absently. “We’ll go over it again before we sign it, and then you’ll sign the adoption papers. But for now…I think I need to get YiFan out of here so he can relax some. I think this has been a lot on him, and I don’t want to upset him anymore.”

***

“You’re kind of scary.” Kris mumbled, feeling kind of like a little kid. Umma laughed, looking to her left to where Kris and Lay were holding hands like they were afraid to let go.

“You don’t think I, as a single woman, managed to adopt one child and foster another without being a little intimidating, do you?” Umma asked. She was smiling, and Kris felt weirdly sheepish. “Now, what are we going to eat for dinner? There was no way we were going to eat in that restaurant with them.”

“We had noodles last night.” Luhan offered up. Umma hummed, nodding.

“Lay and I had sandwiches. Airplane food isn’t very good.” Umma said, sighing and looking at Luhan. “Let’s try something Italian.”

“There’s a good Italian place on Robson.” Kris said. Lay looked at him funny for a moment, but Umma smiled.

“Yeah? You up for translating?” She asked, waving down a cab. Kris laughed, looking more relaxed than he’d been since Luhan arrived.

“Yeah.” Kris said, throwing his arm around Lay’s shoulders and nodding.

Kris had to direct the cab driver to the right neighborhood before they could get to the street they needed, but once they got there Kris was actually excited. He wasn’t used to being someone who could provide anything of measurable worth to those around him. He was always the new kid, the one who didn’t know anything and had to be helped. He was happy to be able to help his family, instead of being a burden.

“Are you sure you can translate for all of us?” Umma asked, laughing as she stepped out of the cab. Kris nodded, leading them straight to the restaurant front doors.

“I got it.” Kris said, speaking English just because he could.

It was still the thing he was most confident on, and it showed through. A tiny smirk tilted his lips as he approached the host stand and requested a table for four. Lay stuck close to him the whole time, acting like he was afraid to let go. Kris himself was pretty afraid to let go of Lay, but he didn’t let himself act afraid. He had his family standing by his side, and that meant – at least as far as he was concerned – that he was in a good enough place.

When they sat down Kris had to translate the entire menu for them, describing the different noodles and the different sauces to them. Lay ended up just asking for whatever Kris liked the best, so Kris ordered both of his favorites for them to split, then ordered Umma and Luhan’s food for them.

“So.” Kris said about halfway through dinner. “This surgery…is it serious?”

“Any surgery is serious.” Umma said. Her tone was odd, and Kris scrunched his face up.

“How likely is it that I’m not waking up from this?” Kris asked instead, stuffing a piece of garlic bread into his mouth. Lay visibly flinched, and Umma looked kind of upset.

“You’re waking up. Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise.” Umma said softly. Kris chewed his lip for a moment before nodding.

“Okay.” He said softly, shrugging a bit. He was trying to act like he wasn’t worried about it, but he was honestly pretty afraid the more he thought about it. “But I definitely get to go home now, right?”

“Yes.” Umma said firmly. “You do. And we’re going to have a big birthday party for you.”

“Can’t we just do a sleepover?” Kris asked hopefully, and Umma laughed.

“Sure.” She said, nodding and taking a bite of her own food. “We’ll have everyone over. We’re celebrating your adoption, too, you know.”

“I know.” Kris said, smiling a little bit at his plate. “Can…can Tao sleep over when we get home?”

“Of course.” Umma said, smiling softly. “But I’d like to keep it as quiet as we can the first couple of days. Jet lag is a monster.”

“It’s okay. He’ll probably get bored waiting for us to wake up.” Kris said, nodding as he remembered his last flight into Korea. “Jet lag is miserable.”

“Can we go back to the hotel soon?” Lay asked suddenly. Kris looked at him, confusion on his expression, until he realized how tired Lay looked. “Speaking of jet lag, I mean.”

Umma chuckled, nodding easily. “Of course baby. Let me pay the bill and we can go.”