“Sweetie, come here.”

Shixun stared with agape, taking quick steps to her father as she held Baekhyun’s hand. The grown man was crouching on the ground with test tubes and test tubes of blue solution beside him. Right beside him, Boa still hurriedly mixed more concoctions, following some paper that had Shixun’s drawings on them. The lab was in total chaos, every research-scientist scrambled all around as they tried to find ways to stop the fire. It started with one explosion, and another—until Kris decided that they should stop boiling because somebody might’ve inserted a wrong substance into the flasks.

“Daddy, wh— what’s happening?” Shixun asked, her voice laced with anxiousness as her fingers trembled.

Kris merely smiled, not wanting to scare his daughter as he pulled her to sit on his lap. Another explosion went off, making Kris cover her daughter’s ears as she sunk deeper into his embrace. He caressed his daughter’s cheeks and held his grin, kissing her forehead when she wrapped her arms around him. “It’s okay baby, everything is going to be fine.”

Baekhyun swallowed as he too, settled down beside his mother’s feet, his hand slowly letting go of Shixun’s. He looked up to his mother with worry in his eyes. When the woman felt a tug on her pants, she briefly directed her glance to her son and smiled weakly, wiping away the blood that dripped down her nose. The heat in the lab was too unbearable and both Kris and she have been in there over the past 2 hours already.

“Boa, is it done?”

The woman gave a final stirring to the concoction and nodded once she met his eyes. She quickly brought the brew and knelt down beside Kris. Her eyes averted to his daughter, and Shixun returned a confused glance back at her. She didn’t understand yet, why Boa had a sympathetic look on her face.

She took Baekhyun into her arms, wiping the beads of perspiration on his forehead. Whispering softly and reassuringly into her son’s ears, she looked back up again to her superior.

“Kris… Do we really have to do this to her…?”

“We didn’t foresee that things could’ve gone to this extent Boa, and it’s a difficult choice I have to make.” Kris looked away, tightening his arms around his daughter. “You don’t have to follow suit, you still have a son—”

Boa rested her hand on his arm and smiled wistfully. She looked down to her young child, her eyes slowly b with tears when he returned her gaze with innocence in his brown orbs. “My son will still have your daughter. Besides, I started this with you. I’ll end this together with you too.”

Kris gave a firm nod, “Is this all of it?” When Boa hummed in respond, Kris turned to his daughter and picked up the flask and held a soft gaze.

“Xunnie-ah, listen to me carefully okay?”

The brunette on her bottom lip and nodded, eyes trained on Kris’ own hazel orbs.

“This, is an antidote. An antidote to this virus that I’ve created.”

Boa frowned, “But Kris—”

“—And, I’m gonna have to ask you for a huge favour.” Kris his lips when they quivered slightly. He couldn’t afford to falter in front of his daughter. “Can you drink this up for me sweetie?”

Shixun’s eyes widened. Her 11-year-old mind couldn’t comprehend the situation yet, and she could only avert her eyes from her father and to Boa.

“Once you drink this, I’m going to ask you to drink these with me and Ms. Boa okay?” His voice cracked, but he still held his soft smile as he jerked his chin towards the many blue solutions in the test tubes. There were about 7 to 9 racks that there, and Kris couldn’t let Shixun drink all of them alone even if the antidote was able to repel the effects of the virus.

He swallowed dryly as he caressed her hair. This was going to be the last time he’d ever have a chance to do it, and it pained him to think that his daughter might grow up hating him.

But without any questions, his daughter gave a small beam and took the flask from her father. “Okay daddy!”

Kris was surprise. He knew his daughter was always a strong child but he didn’t expect her to continue to be like this despite the situation that was occurring before them. He tried to maintain his composure but, his eyes became glassy when she finished the concoction without leaving a single drop of it.

“Shi— Shixun.”

“I know you won’t hurt me daddy,” the girl wiped at her lips, scrunching her nose a little. “Should we drink these next?”

Kris cupped his daughter’s cheeks and closed his eyes as he brought their foreheads together. He shouldn’t have agreed to start this. Even if it was personally requested by the King, he could’ve declined knowing that such major experiments would have a huge flaw if not a failure.

He needed his daughter to live, she would be the only one who knows how to save the next three generations to come.

Boa wiped at her son’s forehead, knowing that whatever she was going to do was going to hurt him and scar him forever. “Baby, can you do something for me?”

Baekhyun pulled his lips back and nodded vigorously. The boy was petrified and Boa could tell, his eyes were welling up with tears already when he sensed that something bad was going to happen.

“Go find help for us, okay?”

Without hesitation, the boy got on to his feet and was about to rush out when Boa pulled him into one last hug. She reached out for the key that hung around his neck and beamed when their eyes met.

“You remember what this opens, right baby?”

She kissed his forehead and cheeks, each kiss lasting longer than the previous one as she tried her best to stifle her emotions.

“Remember that I’ll always love you, Byun Baekhyun.”

“Yes Mom.”

As Boa watched her son’s figure fade into the smog, Kris down a test tube and groaned at bitterness of the liquid. His daughter followed suit and Boa too, knew they needed to speed things up. There wasn’t any other way, throwing the solutions out would pollute the air and make things more of a mess than they are now. More people could get sick and the researchers couldn’t bear the thought of them being able to live while knowing that this was all their fault.