JunHong had looked at his Mother in shock when she said was sending him to Seoul. The kids were right. They had said that he was no good, that his Mother didn’t even want him. And he guesses that the fact that he put three or four kids in hospital doesn’t make her want him any more…

“JunHong…” his Mother was driving again, driving down the same road she had driven down in hope for help, but now her son was older, taller, and the reason she needed help was much more difficult to explain than last time. Since now she didn’t have any clue what to say was wrong with her ever growing son.

JunHong was sitting in the backseat, arms across his chest, a couple of manga books tossed to the side, half read, the other half not interesting him anymore. He wished he had something more to look at other than those ever changing yellow lights.

He closes his eyes, resting his head on the cold glass of the window. He has dreams, of memories. Nothing out of the ordinary, sometimes its simple conversations with the doctors. He knows they are memories, the way that he can only see his body, how he only knows so much, not what the other person is thinking or going to say. And he cannot, for the life of him, change the outcome in that one dream.

It scares him that the only dream, the only memory that likes replaying every night is the one where he wakes up on the operation table. The blue strings, covered in blood that gets endlessly get pulled out of him body. He can’t feel anything. He can see everything though. The way that they curl into a large pile on the operation table. The doctors talk around him and he can hear the tear of skin, but he can’t feel it. He knows that it is him but he can’t tell where his skin is being cut.

The doctors above him play with more strings, new wires, electrodes, memory chips. All these things that he has no name for. The colours are different to what has been pulled out. There is no blue, there is no red. They are black and white, yellow and green. Some are even orange and purple. But other than that, he has no idea what to call the colours.

JunHong shivers as he remembers watching them thread the wires through his body. He doesn’t recall the memory in real life. He just sees it as a dream. But he knows, like all his dreams, that this is a memory for him alone to remember.

When he awakens, he notices that the car has stopped. That his Mother has parked in some sort of suburb of Seoul. He has no idea if it’s fancy Gangnam or artsy Hongdae. He could even be in Myeongdong for he knows. The last time he was in Seoul he was kept in a state of the art facility not allowed to go outside by himself, in case he hurt someone he wasn’t allowed to.

His Mother opens his door suddenly, and he feels his body tip to the side as he nearly falls out of the car.

“Come on honey; come meet the boys you’re going to stay with.” She holds out her hand, smiling. She looks too happy to be losing a son in JunHong’s eyes. But behind his Mother’s, she is broken. Worse than heartbroken, that she can’t look after her son, which she had never been able to.

JunHong takes her hand, gripping as hard as he could without hurting her. He didn’t want her to have a broken hand on top of having a broken son.

“They are lovely. The eldest is one of the sons of the doctor who looked after you while you… you know…” she trails off, before taking a breath and starting again. “The other boy is his long time best friend.”

He nods, following her inside the house. It’s quite large so JunHong assumes that they own it. There is no way that two people could afford to rent such a large house. A two story house at that…

“YongGuk? HimChan?” his Mother calls from the front door, removing her shoes.

JunHong refuses to let go of her hand while he kicks off his own shoes.

Two guys, rush down the stairs, fixing their shirts and hair. Not that there was anything wrong with their hair. Or their shirts.

“Boys, this is my son, JunHong. I assume your father filled you in on the situation YongGuk?”

The boy with the over grown fringe nods, and when he speaks his voice is deep like thunder, “Yes Miss. He explained it all. You don’t have to worry; your son will be safe here in Seoul with HimChan and me.”

He smiles, a ridiculous gummy thing that shows off all his teeth.

The one called HimChan nodded in agreement, his glasses nearly falling off.

“Oh good. Shall I get his stuff while you get acquainted?” JunHong’s Mother asks, pulling her hand – with much force – from JunHong.

Without waiting for an answer she has disappeared outside.

“So…” HimChan mutters, shuffling his feet. “Your Mum seems nice…”

JunHong nods, looking down at the floor. “She is…”

“What did you do that she couldn’t handle?” YongGuk asks, putting an arm around JunHong’s shoulders, leading him into the lounge.

“I put some people in hospital…” JunHong doesn’t want to feel comfortable in the elder’s arms, but he does. He feels safe, in control of everything. Except his emotions. JunHong’s tears fall as soon as he sits on the couch next to YongGuk.

“It’s okay.” HimChan says, kneeling in front of him and YongGuk, “Your Mum loves you, if she didn’t she wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble to save your life, right?”

JunHong nods, more tears falling from his face.

“Okay boys…” JunHong’s Mother appears in the doorway, hoping for a quick, emotionless good bye from her son. That way it would be easier. But seeing JunHong cry, for the first time since his surgery, made her burst.

JunHong looked up to see his Mother on her knees, sobbing hard. HimChan was faster than he was, at his Mother’s side rubbing her shoulders and saying that she was doing the right thing.

Now JunHong understood. His Mother loved him. His Mother wasn’t a strong person, not like YongGuk seemed. She couldn’t control him as well as she had been hoping; she couldn’t comfort him like HimChan could. Right at this moment, JunHong understood that his Mother was choosing to give up her son in order for him to have a better life with people that could help him. Closer to the facility so that if anything went wrong… Anything at all, they could fix it. Shut it down.

JunHong ran to his Mother, cradling the small women in his arms, crying with her.

It seemed like forever that the two were crying, YongGuk and HimChan by their sides, hugging them both, rubbing soothing patterns into their backs and arms. Hoping to calm them before the dreaded separation. But by the time loomed, the two had run out of tears to cry when they had to say good bye.

HimChan was glad to have JunHong, glad to be able to look after him. But he felt sad that the only reason he was able to help someone was for them to go through something more painful than the surgery that they had gotten which put them in the situation in the first place.

YongGuk, being the empathetic that he is, felt the pain of losing a Mother at the same time that JunHong did. He was hurt nearly just as much as JunHong, even though he had only met this woman on few very short occasions.

JunHong could no longer cry. He could feel his heart in his throat and his eyes stung like there was no tomorrow. But he stood strong when his Mother waved goodbye. He knew that she loved him. That she cared for him. That if she didn’t she wouldn’t have done this for him. She wouldn’t have given him up.

JunHong turned to his new family, deciding that this would be the rest of forever.