Chapter Text
Yo Han stood in the hallway breathing harshly after having fled from the interrogation room. From the corner of his eye, he saw a detective enter the room where his mother was still shouting to shut the boy back into the basement, to keep him away from all people.
The door closed and he couldn’t hear her words anymore. It was a relief.
He startled when he suddenly felt someone’s hands on his shoulder, and he looked up in the face of the older detective. He didn’t remember what the man said, too dazed from the confessions he had just heard. He felt himself being guided away, and he couldn’t help but be grateful for it, not wanting to stay near that door for a second longer.
After a few minutes he was seated in what looked to be the lunchroom for the detectives, a small kitchenette near them, and just some tables and chairs. There were two other people in there, but a quick look from the older detective and they scurried away.
The older detective took a seat himself, right next to Yo Han, turning towards him.
“I’m sorry for this kid,” he said, and at those words Yo Han broke down.
“She’s horrible,” he said, crying, “she isn’t my mother, but his. She locked up her own son when he was just a baby,”
Now the tears started, he couldn’t stop them anymore. The realisation that his whole life had been nothing but a lie. The woman who he should trust had betrayed not only him, but her real son as well. He hadn’t been the Head Hunter’s son and every time he came home to complain about children hurting him because of it, she said that it didn’t matter.
But she had locked the real son in the basement because she believed he had to be evil. It was mindboggling to realise what she had done. It was mindboggling that he still wanted her to hug him and tell him this was all an evil lie and make it better for him.
It took him an hour before he got himself under control, apologizing to the detective, who looked at his now carefully neutral gaze with worry.
“What’s going to happen to him now. And to me?” Yo Han asked, wanting to know which practical things he needed to pay attention to.
“We’ll have to check with social services,” the man said, “but you’re both almost of age,”
Yo Han nodded, realising that they would probably be left to fend for themselves. He left the detective station and walked back to Hong Ju’s place. He was glad that she was home, so he could tell her the story.
It didn’t make it better that someone else knew, but at least he wasn’t carrying that burden on his own anymore. He could feel her arms wrap around him in a comforting hug, and he pressed close to her, wanting a friendly touch.
In the end, she held him through the night, held him tightly and told him it would be okay, until he almost believed her.
“What are you going to do about him?” she asked eventually, and he looked up at her, almost not understanding the question in his own grief.
“He’s the Head Hunter’s son, and she wasn’t your mother,” she said, and he nodded, understanding why she was asking his intentions. Technically, he was the kidnapped one. Or abandoned. He wasn’t part of their family.
“I still feel responsible. I mean, it was his own mother that put him there, and then pretended I was her son. This situation is so fucked up. It’s hard to realise that I got the better end of the deal,” he said, “I want to help him,”
“That’s good. Then help him,” she said, and just like that he felt some purpose in his life again. Yes, he could stay here, crying and feeling pity with himself. But what good would that do. He and the boy, they were both in this together now. The victims of two delusional mothers.
Yo Han could barely imagine how it would be if the roles were reversed, if he was the one that would have been locked in the basement, away from the world. He shuddered at the thought. It was difficult to wrap one’s mind around the fact that the child had been locked his entire life away from other people. All in all, it was almost a miracle he was doing as well as he was.
Morning came, and like Hong Ju had proposed, he went to the hospital. Moo Chi wouldn’t be there because he still had to work, and he needed to take care of the boy, a mirror image of him in an alternative world.
Arriving at the hospital, he helped him with cleaning himself in the morning, making the nurse look at him in relief. Yo Han realised he was difficult for them to manage, but they weren’t aware of his history, not as much as he was at least.
He looked at the boy that morning in a different light, amazed by how much he had already learned from a routine. He still needed a bit of help with the shower, not liking to get dressed afterwards, but Yo Han insisted. Some parts of his skin still looked bruised and red and painful from where the dirt had formed rashes, but it was getting better.
Brushing his teeth wasn’t difficult, but he kept on sucking off the toothpaste and swallowing it, instead of rinsing it out.
“And that’s why you get a kiddie toothpaste,” Yo Han said, when he heard the boy swallow the foam once again. He looked at Yo Han with that expressionless look, and Yo Han grinned back.
“Let’s find you a name,” he said, grabbing the boy’s hand, and taking him to the bed. They sat next to each other, while he took out the book with names, he had borrowed from the maternity department. He read through them, one by one, in the hope that something would click, but the boy showed little reaction, idly playing with a thread that had come loose from the sheet.
“Ba Reum?” he asked, just when the food arrived, and he saw him sit upright, his full attention to the nourishment.
“Sung Ba Reum it is,” he said closing the book with a smile, and going back to help Ba Reum with the food.
Of course, they couldn’t keep on being stuck in their little world forever.
The news soon managed to leak out in the world, leaving shock and disbelief in its wake. The story came out almost in one go, telling about the deranged wife of the Head Hunter, who kidnapped a child while locking her own away in the basement.
There were no mentions of the psychopath gene, but the essence of the story got told. During the next few days, new articles came out concerning the subjects, psychological interview on long term effects on both him and Ba Reum.
Then the trial and the conviction to a psychological ward for his mother. No, not his mother, neither Ba Reum’s. He felt almost as if he betrayed Ba Reum and himself by still feeling affection for her. She had loved him, in some crazy and strange way she had loved him as if he was her real son.
But he couldn’t forgive her for what she had done. Another editorial about the case, and he groaned in frustration about not being able to read about anything else. Yo Han just threw the paper away, not caring what outsiders thought. It was just him and Ba Reum now. Moo Chi haven’t shown up anymore since his mother had confessed.
Ba Reum had been very agitated by that fact, often waiting by the door to see Moo Chi return. Yo Han tried to fill up the hole he had left, but he needed to go to school as well. Hong Ju came with him sometimes, and even though Ba Reum wasn’t really afraid of her, he was more at ease if Yo Han was near.
It had been a very difficult period for him afterward. Everyone now knew who he was, and everyone knew what happened. He could feel the stares when he went to school, and the whispers that followed him. He saw the kids that beat him up before for being the son of the head hunter, and they looked away in shame. But he held his head up high and ignored them. They didn’t matter.
It took two weeks before Moo Chi finally showed up again. He looked at Yo Han in shame, and apologized to Ba Reum, who followed him around like a lost duckling afterwards.
“Why didn’t you come anymore?” Yo Han asked accusingly. It was a stupid question he knew. Moo Chi was just the detective who had been on call with his phone call. In reality, he had no connection nor obligation to them, but he had been a rock at first, and Yo Han and Ba Reum had leaned on him when he had been there in the beginning. To have it suddenly disappear at such a difficult emotional moment had been though.
“I didn’t know he was the Head Hunter’s son,” Moo Chi said, and Yo Han flushed, angrily.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, and Moo Chi gestured for him to calm down. That he told him the story about how his parents had been killed by the man, and Yo Han felt ashamed to jump to anger immediately.
“But Ba Reum can’t help that,” he said, feeling small.
“Ba Reum?” Moo Chi asked, and Yo Han realised the man hadn’t been there when he had given him the name.
The days and weeks continued, now with both Yo Han and Moo Chi standing by Ba Reum’s side. He lived with Hong Ju now, staying the nights over at her place. The progress that Ba Reum made each day was remarkable, the doctors amazed at how well he adapted.
But the social worker lurked near, disturbing their newfound peace. Each day of progress Ba Reum made, and each day he was too young to be off age was a new threat to the balance they had found.
Both he and Ba Reum were minors, and the social worker had told him that the situation of him living with Hong Ju would soon have to come to a stop. Then he had asked where he and Ba Reum could go otherwise, and she had grimaced.
“Ba Reum won’t be allowed in a normal orphanage. We have received his reports and we are already searching for a closed centre,” she said, handing him over a list. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the psychiatric institution his mother was sentenced to was at the top of the list.
“So, you are going to lock him away again?” Yo Han had asked angrily, “a new prison to replace his old one?”
The woman had sourly looked at him, saying that they were just following procedures. Ba Reum was making distressing sounds from where he had been sitting in the room, not used to hearing Yo Han sound so angry. Moo Chi was trying to comfort Ba Reum, sitting next to him, while he had been pretending to not listen in to the conversation.
Three days later, Moo Chi arrived late in the hospital. Yo Han had his hands full with calming Ba Reum at this change in routine, but he relaxed as soon as the harried looking detective finally arrived in the hospital room.
“What’s with the paper shop?” Yo Han asked, seeing the small stack of paper in the man’s arms.
Moo Chi looked at it, and then at them, a grin on his face.
“Guess who your new foster father is,” he said with a grin, “for both of you,”
Yo Han looked in amazement while Moo Chi asked him to sign the small stacks of papers, all the while explaining how he had gotten it in order in such a small time, having to call in half a dozen of favours to get it all fixed correctly.
Another week and half later, and Ba Reum was released from the hospital. He still needed to have daily appointments with psychologists, logopaedists, kinesitherapies and other specialists. But for now, he was free from the little room.
It had taken some effort to get Ba Reum relaxed in the car, the fast-moving images through the window weird and foreign to him. But soon they arrived at Moo Chi’s tiny appartement.
The three men made the best they could, but it proved just a bit too small for them, and not soon after they moved to a bigger one. Ba Reum was just going along with the flow. He started to talk better, able to communicate some small likes and dislikes.
They let him choice his room first, clearly stating that he liked the one aimed to the back of the house, and not the street. He grew stronger and more confident than before, but often sought Yo Han and Moo Chi for help and guidance.
One of the more long-lasting effects from his long imprisonment was a difficult relationship with food and drink.
One night Yo Han heard a noise in the house and when he saw that no light was on, he feared a burglar. He snuck towards the sound of the noise, a baseball bat his hands and was surprised to find Ba Reum drinking water from the faucet in the dark. When he turned on the light, Ba Reum had looked so afraid for a second until his gaze slid back to the empty one.
“Sorry,” he said, a small shake to his voice. He shuffled his feet and pretended that he hadn’t been doing anything, a clear sign that he believed what he was doing had been against some unspoken rules.
“You’re thirsty?” Yo Han asked, and Ba Reum shrugged, not wanting to answer, even though he could express himself well enough by now.
Yo Han wanted to say something else, but Ba Reum didn’t stay to listen what else he had to say, but went to his bed. A moment later, Yo Han came in his bedroom, putting a drinking bottle on the nightstand, seeing the small snacks that were hidden away in the shelves.
He and Moo Chi regularly cleaned them out, taking out everything that was spoiled, and replacing it with longer lasting variants. They had discovered the hard way that Ba Reum didn’t react well when they were empty of food.
Every mealtime was still a bit difficult for Ba Reum. Yo Han could always see the effort it took him to not just hurriedly shove the food in his mouth, expecting it to be taken away immediately and not knowing when his next meal could be. After a few months there was a mild improvement in it, but the psychologist had told them it could be years before he got over it, if he ever got over it completely.
Living with Ba Reum, it was weird to realise how little he knew of the world. The first time there was a storm, Ba Reum had been frightened by the noises and flashing lightning. Screaming in fear and hiding in his closet.
It had taken Moo Chi several minutes before he had been able to get Ba Reum out, after reasoning didn’t work, he just pulled him out physically, the man still being a lightweight after years being half starved. In the end he had been put in between Yo Han and Moo Chi, the three of them in the bed, with the curtains of the window pulled open to watch the rain and the lightning, eventually falling asleep together.
Then there was Ba Reum’s tendency to walk around naked in the house, especially when it was warm. Hong Ju had gotten an eyeful a few times, but luckily, she didn’t seem to mind. When asked, he just said that the clothes felt constricted, and they learned to ignore the tendency a bit, making sure to buy him loose and soft clothing for when it was colder. They made a deal with Ba Reum to be dressed when they expected visitors, and he agreed. They soon discovered that he didn’t consider Hong Ju a visitor, but she just laughed it off.
Moo Chi’s brother was also a regular visitor, and Yo Han soon learned that it had been him that convinced Moo Chi to help them out in spite of who Ba Reum’s father was. Apparently, the man had spent the week and half he hadn’t been to Ba Reum drunk, and it had been a firm conversation with the priest that had managed to let him see the light.
The months continued, and with Moo Chi’s support and thanks to a scholarship, Yo Han eventually grew up to be a doctor, happy to graduate as one of the top students. Moo Chi had been proud of him, buying him a gift, and throwing a small party with an abundance of soju.
Ba Reum grimaced at the taste of the drink, but didn’t mind the snacks that littered the table, glad to be able to eat.
Afterwards, Yo Han had a gift for Ba Reum, even though he was quite sure that the man didn’t understand what it meant when he told him that he had registered them as brother’s, making the relationship they had official.
Then he and Hong Ju took it to a next step. When he found out that she and Moo Chi had almost dated at a certain time it made him feel a bit weird, and the detective always told her that she was robbing the cradle when she came over. Then he grinned when she punched him slightly in the shoulder.
With him as a doctor and she as a journalist they soon had a nice saving and were able to buy a nice house in a good neighbourhood.
It had been a lot of chances then, but in the end, they came to an arrangement that went with all of them.
Ba Reum lived half of the time with him and half of the time with Moo Chi. Luckily, Hong Ju didn’t mind that Ba Reum lived with them half of the time, she had even made sure that they had an extra spare room for him.
“Come on brother, let’s go see your room,” he said, when it was his turn to keep Ba Reum, the first time in their new house. Ba Reum, now a young man, just like him, followed him easily, understanding what he wanted, but still walking carefully but smoothly.
He understood most words by now, and could move easily, but was sometimes still unsure about going somewhere. The years of eating correctly had filled him out, but he still had a difficult relationship with food, trying to stash them in his room when no one saw. He was always afraid to be cut off from it again.
“It’s nice,” he said, his face a blank mask, but Yo Han knew he was pleased with the cosy room filled with soft carpets and soft colours.
“It is. You even got your own mini fridge,” he said showing it of proudly, “now let’s go down. Moo Chi’s coming with dinner soon,”
Ba Reum mouth curled up slightly at the mention of food, going downstairs as quickly as he dared to take the stairs.
Yo Han looked at him, smiling in affection at the man.
The circumstances they met had been far from ideal, and it taken a lot of work to get where they were now, but he had been glad they managed.
“Yo Han, come now,” Ba Reum said in a raised voice, “dinner,”
Yo Han smiled.
“I’m coming brother,”
The end