Vendetta

Chapter 16

Early the next morning, a few nurses entered their room and helped carefully lower them into wheelchairs despite their protests that they could walk just fine. Tension hung thick in the air as they were pushed down the hall to the conference room where they would soon meet their parents. Despite them all giving permission for their parents to visit, the thought of them walking through the door was nerve-wracking.

    The conference room was completely empty, the siblings being lined up with a nametag on their hospital gowns in the off chance that they were unrecognizable. Jeongin held his camera so tightly that his knuckles went white, all of his siblings displaying their stress in different ways. Most of them were either fidgeting with their hospital gowns or had their hands tightly clasped in their laps. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Hyunjin desperately trying to cover the worst of the circular burn scars that covered his arms.

    As time ticked by, Jeongin started to change his mind. It wasn't that he didn't want to meet his parents, but that he didn't want them to meet him. He was sure at least one of his siblings felt the same way. He wasn't the same boy he had been seventeen years ago when he was kidnapped. During those years, he had been raised by an unstable and neglectful family and soon by a sadistic killer. Jeongin had left with blood on his hands. Sometimes he could still hear Chan's screams echoing through his mind.

    What if they caught sight of him and decided to walk right out the door? He knew he looked like a disaster and his parents might not want to believe that was their kid. Or that their kid was now a murderer. With much effort, Jeongin pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind, waiting anxiously for the door to open. None of his siblings said a word, too caught up in their own thoughts and anxieties.

    "Try not to stress about this too much," a nurse suggested pleasantly. "Even if you don't remember them, they'll still love you unconditionally. That's what parents do."

    To his right, Jisung murmured, "What if they separate us?" A question that went unanswered by the nurse. Jeongin hadn't entertained that thought much until it was mentioned. The idea of him never seeing his siblings again felt like a fate worse than death. He needed them to get by. He couldn't afford to lose them after all they had been through together.

    "Mr. Yang, your parents will be a few minutes late but they're coming," the nurse whispered, giving Jeongin a reassuring smile. "However, Minho's parents are coming. They might want to speak with you."

    Not even a few minutes later, the door to the conference room burst open with what felt like a stampede of people piling in. Shrieks of overwhelming joy and mothers crying filled the air. Never did those noises sound so sweet. Jeongin felt tears welling in his own eyes as he saw his siblings being embraced by their true parents, holding onto them to make up for the years stolen from them. The years where they couldn't hold their own child close and guide them through the milestones of life.

    There was one family that stood by the door, their expressions lost and confused. Jeongin watched as their eyes scanned through the line twice as if hoping to find their son sitting in one of the wheelchairs. Their eyes lingered on Jeongin, but there was no hope in them. They knew the man sitting alone wasn't Minho, but they approached him anyway.

    "Nice to...nice to meet you, Mr and Mrs. Lee," Jeongin stammered, holding out his hand which trembled in front of him. As he stared into their red and puffy eyes, he wished that he could have magically erased all of their pain.

    Instead of shaking his hand, Mrs. Lee pulled Jeongin into a gentle, loving embrace. Jeongin returned the embrace, patting her back twice before pulling away. Both the parent's faces bore sorrowful smiles. They knew that their son wouldn't be there, and they cared enough to show up anyway, even if it was only for answers. They must have been told that Minho was no longer with them.

    "I know this must be insensitive to ask, but what kind of person was Minho?" Mr. Lee asked cautiously as if he feared Jeongin would have an adverse reaction to the question. Much to his surprise, Jeongin spoke without hesitation.

    "He felt almost like a father to me to be completely honest," Jeongin began, rotating between maintaining eye contact and glancing towards the door. "If any of us were hurt or feeling down, he would be the first one to comfort us. Though he sometimes hid his feelings for us under a few layers of sarcasm, he always made sure that we felt loved and cared for."

    Fresh tears streamed down Minho's parent's cheeks, not because of pain or sorrow, but because they now knew the kind of person their child had been. Though he had been gone for twenty years, they could now feel a connection to him as if he had never left. Feeling like it might help, Jeongin scrolled through the camera, finding one of the only photos Chan had taken that weren't gut-wrenching.   

    In the photo, Minho was around nineteen years old with a young and healthy glow to his complexion. It was a stark contrast to how he had looked before he passed. In the photo, he was kneeling down next to eighteen year old Changbin who appeared to be crying. Minho had a hand on his shoulder, a warm and comforting smile on his face with his lips slightly parted as if he had been caught mid-sentence.

    Mrs. Lee murmured something, both hands over her heart. As she tore her eyes away from the photo, she glanced at Jeongin and then down the line. Her melancholy expression abruptly turned downcast as she looked back at the man in front of her.

    "That photo wasn't recent, was it?" She asked quietly to which Jeongin responded with a shake of his head. "Can I see a recent picture, please? I need to know what they did to my son."

    "You really don't want to see. Trust me-"

    "Please. I need to know that he's not suffering anymore."   

    Unsure of what to do now that she was insisting, Jeongin showed her one of the last photos Chan had taken. Minho was sitting upright on the blood-stained mattress, his expression one of numb defeat. There wasn't even a shadow of the person he had been in the picture taken four years earlier. All that remained was a shell of a man who looked much older than he actually was, sitting helplessly as the monster behind the camera made him bend to their will.

    Minho's face was streaked with tears, his blind eye so clouded with cataracts that his entire eye appeared to be milky white, mixed with a few permanently blood-shot veins. His arms were wrapped around himself in a self-hug, blood dripping down his neck and pooling on the front of his shirt. Even though his pants covered his mangled leg, the odd angle it was bent at was still visible through the thin fabric.

    The parents let out a gut-wrenching cry of terror, looking at the pitiful mess of a human that their child had become. They averted their eyes from the photo, their expressions shifting through sheer terror, to rage, to an almost acceptance. The door creaked open behind them, signaling that it was time for them to hand him off.

    Minho's parents gave him one last hug before preparing to leave. "Thank you for staying by his side until the very end. Our door is always open if you need us for whatever reason."

    As they walked off, Jeongin saw his own parents in the doorway. There was no mistaking that they were his. All of his anxieties evaporated as he jumped out of his wheelchair and ran over to them, pulling them both into a tight embrace. If it were up to him, he would never let go. Words weren't needed. Everything spoke for itself.

    "Oh, Jeongin! Look at how much you've grown," his parents sobbed, running their fingers through his hair and cupping his face in their hands to make sure it wasn't all a cruel dream. "We never stopped looking for you, even when everyone else gave up. Even after all these years, we knew you had to be out there somewhere."

    "I love you," Jeongin sobbed, his face wet with tears of joy. He may not have been able to remember much about his parents, but he felt at home for the first time in his life. This is what family was supposed to feel like.

    Jeongin felt now that he could truly count his blessings. Everything he had gone through to reach this moment was well worth it. His only regret was that Minho hadn't been able to make it that far. Soon, everyone would be able to begin to heal from the terrors the Bang family had put them through. Though their lives would never be normal, they at least had each other. To him, that was the best thing he could ask for.

    Everything would be okay after all.