Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Min Ho huddled in the dim corner of the warehouse, breathing in the musty scent of damp concrete and fungus that seemed to cling to his clothes these days. 

At fourteen, he was old enough to understand why they were hiding like rats in this forgotten place on the outskirts of Seoul, but young enough that the boredom gnawed at him almost as much as the worry. 

There was nothing to do here. No phone. No games. No school. He was inside all day, surrounded by the same four walls, the same dripping pipe somewhere in the dark, the same rats that kept on coming back, and his family. He missed his friends. He missed having something to think about that had nothing to do with the sickening question of how much longer they could keep running before they found them. 

His parents whispered across the room, their faces etched with lines that hadn't been there a year ago. Joon Ho, his older brother by five years, paced near the door, his shoulders tense, playing the protector yet again. Bianca, fifteen and sharp-tongued, sat cross-legged on a threadbare mat, fiddling with a makeshift radio that spat more static than music. 

And then there was Su-Jin, his little sister, all of seven years old, with her round cheeks streaked with tears. She clutched her "bracelet" in her small fists—it was a twisted loop of barbed wire she had scavenged from some fence, adorned with a handful of cheap charms: a tiny plastic heart, a rusted key, and a bead from their mother’s old necklace. The actual chain had snapped months ago during one of their hurried moves, but Su-Jin insisted it was still her favorite thing, so whenever it broke, she brought it straight to him.

"Oppa," she sniffled, thrusting it toward him. "It's broken again. The heart fell off."

Min Ho sighed, rolling his eyes inwardly.  

He wanted to tell her that it was just a scrap of wire that could prick her finger if she wasn’t careful, that the charms were faded and ugly, and that she shouldn’t have been this gutted every time it broke, but her lower lip trembled in that way it always did when she was truly upset, and he didn’t have the heart to say no.

He took it from her gently, his fingers working to reattach the charm with a bit of thread from his pocket.

"There, see? It’s good as new," he said, handing it back with a forced smile.

She beamed up at him and slipped it onto her wrist, and for a moment, Min Ho regretted being annoyed with her, and the worry inside him eased a little. It didn’t last long, however, because as soon as his parents' whispers grew louder, the sinking feeling deep in his stomach returned.

"They're getting bolder," his father said.  

His mother nodded, her eyes darting to Bianca. "Bianca's gift is small, thank God, but if they find out..." 

The radio crackled, its static smoothing into a clearer tune for a split second before Bianca smacked it and looked up at them, her face paler than usual. “I’m trying, okay? It only happens now when I’m scared. I’m getting better at controlling it.” 

Min Ho stayed quiet. He could have mentioned the handlamp that shorted out last week while she was nearby, but he knew better than to snitch on her. The last time he tried, she had wrapped her shadows around his ankles and hung him upside down for a full minute. His head had pounded for hours afterward. 

He didn’t want to get her in trouble for it anyway, as he could tell that her powers were truly bothering her. No wonder, because even though it was relatively harmless, even something as minor as that could get them all in serious trouble if the wrong person saw it. 

Bianca was the only mutant in their family. Her powers had started manifesting uncontrollably last year. In Korea, even whispers of mutants meant raids and disappearances, or in the most severe cases, executions. While some countries viewed mutants with suspicion or discrimination, Korea’s response was among the harshest. In America and parts of Europe, there were protests and registration laws, but rumors still spread of places where mutants could live openly, attend special schools, or even fight for their rights. Here, however, any hint of difference was enough to make a person vanish overnight.

The government had begun with segregation: first, they sent the children to separate schools, created restricted zones, and mandated registration for anyone suspected of carrying the so-called Western disease. Over time, as the number of registered mutants grew and people began to fear and actively campaign against them, specialized units tasked with locating and removing mutants under the banner of national security were formed. 

Instead of reinforcing the nation’s unity, it turned people against each other. One wrong word or strange incident was enough for names to vanish from records. Neighbors informed on families out of fear, and even doctors reported children for odd behavior, whether it was actually mutation-related or not. There were no second chances, and absolutely no mercy. 

Bianca's power made the whole family the targets. If someone was associated with a mutant and didn't turn them in, they were automatically charged as an accomplice, so they were forced to run and move from place to place. Mr. Moon's money bought them fake papers and a few nights in better spots—even a whispered contact promising a boat to Japan—but each time, it felt like the walls closed on them tighter. 

"The borders are locked down tighter than ever," his father continued, “but I think even if Japan is not possible now, we could try to head toward China.” 

His mother squeezed his father's hand, her own trembling. “That would be lovely. I heard that in America...” 

Their mother trailed off, glancing at Su-Jin, who was still happily twisting the bracelet on her wrist while humming an old lullaby. It was one their mother used to sing to them every night, back when things were still normal. These days, she barely spoke above a whisper anymore. 

The family fell into an uneasy silence after that. Su-Jin eventually crawled over and curled up against Min Ho’s side, resting her small head on his shoulder. She was still humming the lullaby under her breath, but softer now. 

“Oppa,” she whispered, inching a bit closer. “Tell me a story? The one about the magic fox who fixes everything broken.” 

Min Ho hesitated, then forced a small smile and rested his hand on her hair. “Yeah… okay, so once upon a time...” 

He started the story, the same one he had told her countless times before, but his mind wasn’t really on the story. He kept thinking about what his father had said—about the borders, about how even Japan might not be an option anymore. He wondered how long they could keep moving like this before someone eventually found them, how long before Bianca slipped up again, or before one of them got careless. 

The radio gave a faint pop of static from Bianca’s lap. For a brief second, the dim bulb overhead seemed to glow a little brighter than before. Min Ho glanced at it and then at Bianca, but she was already asleep, her head tilted against their mother’s shoulder. Her shadows often acted up when she wasn’t conscious. 

He met Joon Ho's gaze across the room. His older brother sat with his back against the wall, his eyes fixed on the cracked door, one hand resting near the small knife he always kept close. Joon Ho's life had changed the most as he went from being a known pop star to sleeping in abandoned warehouses and tents in the woods, but to Min Ho's surprise, he seemed to be handling it best. He wasn't mourning the old life as much as focusing on keeping everyone safe—unlike Min Ho, who wanted nothing more than to go back to his old school, to his old friends, and to his careless life. 

"Try to get some sleep," Joon Ho told him, a touch too firmly. 

Min Ho nodded without answering and pulled the thin blanket higher around himself and Su-Jin. He tried to doze off, but sleep stayed just out of reach, chased away by the drip of water somewhere deeper in the warehouse and the soft puff of his sister's breath against his neck. 

He looked over at Joon Ho. His brother was facing the door, but his expression had softened slightly, and Min Ho knew that he was still watching Min Ho out of the corner of his eye.  

“Yeah,” Min Ho muttered. He shifted so Su-Jin could settle more comfortably against him and pulled the thin blanket higher over both of them. “I will.” 

When sleep didn’t come easily, he liked to make up scenarios to entertain himself. 

His mind slipped into the sunlit field, the ball at his feet as he raced his best friend, Dae, toward the goal, the world simple and open and his again. The dream shattered when Su-Jin scooted closer in her sleep, her small body pressing against his side; the barbed-wire bracelet brushed his wrist, and he would swear it felt warm, almost pulsing, sending a faint tingle across his skin that raised every hair on his arm.  

The dream shattered, and he lay still in the dark, his heart thudding, but the strange warmth faded with the next drip of the pipe, and Su-Jin’s breathing stayed even against his neck. 

A few minutes later, the exhaustion finally won; his eyes closed as sleep pulled him under at last.  

💥🖤💥🖤💥  

They came in the dead of the night.  

At first, it was only a low rumble, coming from somewhere farther away. 

Min Ho stirred, still drowsy from sleep. At first, he told himself that the sound was just trucks on the highway as it often was, but as it grew closer and he could clearly make out the crunch of tires over the gravel lot that had been empty and silent since they had slipped inside three nights ago, his eyes immediately snapped open. His heart slammed against his ribs as he sat up and began to shake Su-Jin’s shoulder.

“Eomma,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “Appa—”  

His father was on his feet in an instant, moving toward the cracked window while his mother scooped Su-Jin into her arms. The little girl whimpered, clutching her bracelet as she buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. Joon Ho was already at the door with his knife in hand, pressing his body flat against the wall. Bianca sat rigid on the mat, her shadows curling at her fingertips before she closed her fists and forced them down.

Outside, the engines cut off, and several boots hit the gravel. A harsh, amplified voice shattered the silence: “Registered anomalies inside. Surrender for processing. Resistance will be met with force.”

Joon Ho’s face went pale in the weak light, and his lips formed the words they all feared. “They’re here.”  

There was no time to run or hide. The family scrambled in a blind panic as their father yanked Su-Jin from Min Ho’s arms and shoved Bianca and him behind a stack of old crates while their mother clutched the little girl close, whispering frantic prayers under her breath.

The old door buckled on its hinges, then exploded inward in slow motion, shards of rotten timber flying through the air as harsh flashlight beams sliced through the darkness, sweeping across the room in wide, searching arcs. The sudden glare stung Min Ho’s eyes, turning everything into stark shadows and painful white. 

"Mutant scum," a furious voice bellowed. "Hands up! Now!" 

More shouts followed. "On the ground! All of you!"  

"Where is the girl?" 

"Don't move or we'll shoot!"  

Chaos erupted, second by terrible second, and all Min Ho could do was to watch, completely frozen in fear.  

Their father lunged forward first, his arms spread wide like a living shield, his normally calm voice shaking with desperation. “Please—they’re just children! Take me instead, just leave them—” 

The first gunshot cracked like thunder, and his body jerked backward, his blood blooming dark across his shirt in a slow, spreading stain. He stumbled, his eyes wide with shock, and crumpled to the concrete floor with a heavy, wet sound that Min Ho would never forget. 

Joon Ho roared as he tackled the nearest soldier, his fists flying, but the man was ready. A burst of gunfire tore through the air—three shots, maybe four—each one landing with a sickening thud. Joon Ho’s body jerked mid-stride, and for one long, agonizing second, he stayed upright. His eyes locked onto Min Ho’s across the room, his mouth trying to form words that never came, and then he crumpled like a discarded rag, his blood pooling dark and fast beneath him. 

Their mother screamed as she yanked Su-Jin behind her, trying to shield the little girl with her own body, her arms wrapping tight around her daughter’s trembling frame. “Not my babies—please, not my babies!” 

Another shot rang out, and their mother’s body slumped forward, still trying to cover Su-Jin even in death, her hand reaching out toward Bianca. 

Min Ho’s ears rang with a high, endless whine that swallowed every other sound. Hot tears blurred his vision as he dragged himself forward on hands and knees through the spreading blood, the concrete rough and cold beneath him. His father’s body lay still only a few feet away, but all he could see was Su-Jin trapped beneath their mother’s limp form, her small hand reaching desperately toward him. 

“Oppa!” she sobbed, the word trembling out of her with confusion and terror. 

He crawled faster, stretching his arm as far as it would go until his fingertips almost brushed hers, and for one hopeful moment he thought he could pull her free, thought he could still fix this the way he had fixed her bracelet earlier that night. 

A broken sound tore from Bianca’s throat as she stared at their mother. “No… Mom…” 

Grief and fury twisted her face until she looked almost feral. Tears carved clean tracks through the dust and blood on her cheeks. She shoved Min Ho hard toward the crates, her voice shaking but fierce. “Stay down!” 

Before he could grab her wrist, before he could beg her not to, she stepped out from behind the crates and into the blinding beams of light with her hands raised in front of her. 

Her fingers trembled, but a faint darkness began to gather around them—shadows that weren’t quite right, pulling away from the walls and the corners of the warehouse, stretching and writhing like smoke. They moved slowly at first, crawling across the floor toward the soldiers’ boots, coiling weakly around their rifle barrels and legs. 

At first, it almost looked like it might work as one of the soldiers stumbled, cursing as a tendril of shadow wrapped around his ankle, and another shouted in panic. "She's doing it!" 

Bianca’s face distorted with effort as the shadows grew a little stronger, lashing out in thin, frantic whips, but they were too wild, too uncontrolled, and some twisted back on Bianca herself, curling around her arms and legs, and the soldiers didn’t hesitate. 

Three cracks split the air at once, and Bianca jerked violently with each impact, her body snapping backward like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Her eyes flew wide with shock and confusion as red bloomed across her chest and stomach, dark and spreading fast. The shadows around her dissolved instantly, melting back into the ordinary darkness as if they had never existed at all. 

She staggered one step, then another, before collapsing sideways onto the floor right beside Min Ho. In her last moments, her eyes found his, glassy and full of guilt and sorrow. Her lips moved, forming words that came out as little more than a wet whisper. 

“…sorry…”  

A guttural and broken scream tore out of Min Ho, a sound he didn’t even recognize as his own. He lunged past Bianca’s still form and reached for Su-Jin, his fingers closing around her small hand.  

When he pulled her free from beneath their mother’s body, blood was leaking from the corner of her mouth in a thin, dark trickle that stained her chin and soaked into her collar. For one frozen second, he thought it was their mother’s blood—until he saw the small, neat hole in the side of her chest, just below where their mother’s arm had tried to shield her. 

The realization hit him, and everything inside him went cold. 

“Su-Jin?” He pulled her into his lap, cradling her against his chest with shaking hands. “Su-Jin, no—no, look at me.” 

Her glassy eyes found him, and she tried to speak, but only more blood bubbled at her lips.  

“It’s okay,” Min Ho murmured, even as his voice shook. He pulled her fully into his lap and began rocking her the way he always had when nightmares woke her, one hand cradling the back of her head. “I’ve got you. Oppa’s here. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Su-Jin's small fingers curled once against his shirt, a faint, instinctive squeeze, before they stilled.  

He kept rocking her, the words fraying into broken whispers, until the bracelet slipped from her wrist and fell into the spreading blood. The tiny plastic heart landed in the red and stayed there, no longer shining. 

He couldn't look away from it, couldn't look at anything else.  

The sound of approaching footsteps cut through the ringing in his ears. They stopped right in front of him. 

He saw the boots first. Heavy black combat boots, the tread caked with dust from the gravel outside and now darkening as they stood in the spreading pool of his family's blood. The leather creaked softly as the soldier shifted his stance. 

Min Ho's eyes stayed down for a long moment. He didn't want to see the face of the man who had done this. He didn't want to see anything anymore, but his body moved anyway. 

Slowly, painfully, he lifted his head. His gaze rose past the blood-spattered pants, the utility belt, the armored vest, climbing until it reached the helmeted head and the cold eyes behind the visor. The soldier looked down at him without expression, as if Min Ho was just another piece of the job that needed finishing. 

The man raised his sidearm and pressed the muzzle firmly against Min Ho's forehead. The metal was still warm from previous shots. 

Min Ho didn't try to pull away or raise his hands to try to shield himself. The grief was a hollow ache in his chest, but beneath it, a strange clarity settled, filling him with a strange sense of calm.  

He had lost everything. His father, who had tried to shield them. Joon Ho, who had fought to the end. His mother, who was never going to sing again. Bianca, who had tried to save them. And Su-Jin… sweet Su-Jin. If this was the end, he was ready for it to stop. Ready to be free of the running, the hiding, the endless fear. Ready, if any mercy existed in the universe, to be with them again. 

He welcomed death.  

A deep hum filled his head, almost like the sound of standing too close to the old power lines back home. It overpowered everything, growing until even the soldiers’ commands disappeared beneath it. Maybe the shots had broken something inside his ears. It hurt a little, but at least he wasn’t going to hear the one that ended his life. 

At the thought, his shoulders relaxed slightly, his breathing evened out. He kept his eyes on the soldier’s, silently wishing—praying—that if the Moon family was to be erased that day, the weight of their deaths would haunt this man for whatever years he had left, and that the love they had for one another would guide them safely into whatever came after.  

A single tear rolled slowly down his cheek as the soldier’s finger tightened on the trigger. 

But the shot never came.  

The man’s face twisted with sudden, bewildered pain, and his free hand flew up to clutch at the center of his chest while a choking sound tore from his throat. The sidearm in his other hand wavered, then slipped from his grasp and clattered to the concrete. He staggered backward one step, then another, his body folding inward with a strange, reluctant slowness until his knees buckled beneath him and he dropped heavily onto his side. 

Min Ho remained perfectly still, the calm that had settled over him moments earlier now threaded with confusion as he watched the soldier. He had been ready for the bullet that would finally let everything end, and yet the man who had held death against his forehead now lay on the ground, his glassy eyes stared into nothing. 

The hum in his head swelled, growing heavier as the nearest soldier’s flashlight beam bent, the light stretching unnaturally in Min Ho’s direction. The man cursed and shook the torch as its bulb flared white-hot and burst. Another soldier’s rifle jerked in his hands, the barrel twisting with a high metallic whine. 

The other soldiers reacted in a sudden wave of sound. Their rifles that had been lowered in the confusion snapped back up, their muzzles swinging toward Min Ho, and almost at once, the warehouse filled with the overlapping cracks of gunfire. 

The muzzle flashes cut through the dim light in rapid, stuttering bursts, and the bullets streaked toward Min Ho, but they never reached him. 

The first rounds jerked to a halt in midair only inches from his body, as though they had slammed into something that wasn’t even there. They hung there for a suspended moment, trembling violently, before each one compressed inward with a series of metallic shrieks, folding into twisted, useless spheres that dropped harmlessly to the ground. 

The crumpled bullets had barely hit the floor when the soldiers began to falter.  

Their rifles jerked violently in their hands as the barrels twisted and warped with grotesque, high-pitched screeches of bending steel. The soldiers' flashlights blazed brighter than supernovas, the beams lashing and spiraling madly before detonating in blinding bursts of sparks and shattered glass, plunging the room into strobing darkness. 

Min Ho had no time to understand what was happening before a deep, groaning sound rolled through the structure above him and, with a splitting crash, the beams overhead gave way. 

The ceiling buckled with a thunderous crack, raining massive slabs of concrete and twisted metal in a violent avalanche of dust, everything spiraling toward the center in an unstoppable vortex of destruction.  

The men screamed, but their voices were lost beneath the collapse of walls and steel. One soldier was violently yanked upward, his body twisting as his rifle and gear were ripped away from him and hurled into the swirling chaos. Another was slammed into a collapsing pillar with a sickening crunch before being buried under broken concrete. 

Min Ho felt the air shift around him.  

His body was suddenly pulled upward, rising off the ground as an invisible force dragged him into the heart of the storm. He clutched Su-Jin tighter on instinct, but the violent pull was too strong. Her small body slipped from his arms, torn away by the same force that was lifting him. He reached for her desperately, his fingers brushing against her sleeve for a split second before she was wrenched away into the swirling vortex of dust and wreckage. 

“Su-Jin—!”  

His voice was lost in the thunder of destruction. He watched in horror as her small form was pulled into the maelstrom, spinning helplessly among the shattered concrete and twisted rebar. The low, relentless hum in his head had grown into a deafening roar, drowning out everything else as he was lifted higher, suspended in the center of the collapsing warehouse while everything around him was being torn apart. 

He was still reaching for her when the hum in his head turned into a violent, rattling vibration that shook through his bones and behind his eyes. 

A silvery-blue distortion flared at his palms, spreading rapidly up his arms and across his body. It moved in thick, curling ribbons, flowing and twisting, and the moment it expanded outward, the violent pull dragging him toward the center broke apart, and the wreckage that had been spiraling inward was flung away in every direction, smashing into the collapsing walls with a brutal force. 

Then, just as suddenly, Min Ho started falling.  

He dropped hard to the ground, though the impact felt strangely muted, as if something had caught him at the last second. For a brief moment, he lay there disoriented, the faint shimmer still clinging to his skin, but it only lasted for less than a heartbeat of time. 

Without warning, the pull returned, stronger than before. The remaining walls groaned and collapsed inward again, and the massive slabs of concrete and steel that had been hurled outward now reversed direction, hurtling toward him from all sides with terrifying speed. Min Ho’s eyes widened as the wreckage closed in around him. 

He was going to be crushed and had no time to brace himself.  

The wreckage slammed into him from all sides at once. Tons of concrete, twisted rebar, and shattered steel crashed down, burying him beneath an avalanche of debris. The world went dark as the weight pressed in from every direction, crushing the air from his lungs. He couldn’t move or breathe, and for a few terrible seconds, there was only the sound of shifting rubble and the crushing pressure closing in around him. 

Then, the heavy metal beams groaned and moved on their own, bending and locking into place above and around him. They formed a crude, uneven cage, holding back the worst of the falling debris and creating a small pocket of space just large enough for his body. Dust and smaller fragments still rained down, but the larger slabs were kept from crushing him completely. 

Min Ho didn’t understand what had happened. He didn’t even try to. He lay there in the cramped, dusty darkness, his body aching, and his mind hollow. The deafening hum in his head had finally gone quiet, leaving behind nothing but a deep, ringing silence. 

He was so unbearably tired.  

He had lost everything, and now even death had been taken from him. He closed his eyes, too exhausted to cry, too empty to feel anything but wish it would all just stop, that the weight above him would finish what it started, that he could finally rest. 

Let it finish me. Let me. Let me. Let me die.  

His fingers twitched.  

Something small and sharp pressed against his palm. Slowly, Min Ho opened his hand. His breath hitched when he saw what he was holding.  

He stared at Su-Jin's bracelet in the dim light filtering through the gaps in the metal beams.  

The twisted loop of barbed wire was still there, the cheap little charms tangled together in his grip. The tiny plastic heart was cracked, and the bead from their mother’s necklace was smeared with dust and dried blood. He must have grabbed it when she was torn from his arms. He didn’t even remember doing it. 

A broken sound tore from his throat as he curled his whole body around it, clutching it to his chest. His shoulders shook, but the tears wouldn’t come. He was too empty for that now. All he could do was hold the bracelet against his heart and whisper her name into the dark, over and over, until his voice gave out.  

💥🖤💥🖤💥  

He didn’t know how long he lay there. Time had stopped meaning anything. The only thing that existed was the cold metal pressing against his back and the light weight of Su-Jin’s bracelet clutched in his fist. 

After a while, he heard footsteps moving slowly through the wreckage above him. These were careful, almost hesitant, as if someone was picking their way across unstable ground. 

A dull flicker of hope stirred in his chest, the same kind that had been there since the warehouse first started coming down. Maybe it was more of them. Maybe they would find him and finish what the others had started. Part of him still wished they would. 

A girl’s voice reached him first, soft and careful, as if she were afraid of startling a wounded animal. “…Hello?” 

Min Ho didn’t lift his head. Perhaps it was just his mind playing tricks on him, or worse, a sick, twisted trick the soldiers had decided to play on him. Or—which for some reason seemed all the more likely—he was finally losing his mind. 

The footsteps stopped a few paces away, and the girl’s voice came again, closer now, gentle in a way that felt impossible after everything that had happened. "Hey… It's okay." 

Min Ho stayed curled tight, his eyes squeezed shut as he waited for the gunshot, but once again, nothing came to end it. 

Instead, he felt something shift above him. A heavy slab that had been hovering just out of reach began to rise slowly, as if it were lifted by invisible hands. Dust trickled down in thin streams, but none of it touched him. A faint warmth brushed over him, and when he finally forced his eyes open, he saw her.  

A girl stood at the edge of the rubble, surrounded by a soft golden glow. It clung to her skin and hair, pushing back the darkness and making her look almost unreal. Pale dawn spilled through the broken roof above her, but the light around her was different, warmer, brighter, pulsing gently from her body and casting faint shadows across the debris. 

Her eyes, locked onto him, glowed like the sun, molten gold and almost too bright to look at as she held the massive slab suspended above him. The moment her gaze met his, something in her expression softened. 

She didn’t look like a soldier. She looked… like she might actually be an angel.

Min Ho stared up at her through the haze of dust and exhaustion, his mind slow and hazy.

Perhaps he did die, he thought distantly, and this is what came after.

She looked like someone sent to take him somewhere the pain couldn’t reach him anymore, somewhere where his family might have been waiting for him. An angel of death. 

The girl crouched down carefully, keeping her distance, as if she knew he might bolt or break if she moved too fast. She spoke in Korean, the words halting and clumsy as she pieced them together. 

“You… okay? We… friends. Came to help.” Her accent was off, and the pronunciation was a little stiff, but he understood the meaning anyway. She tried again, but then switched to English, her voice softer and immediately more natural. “I know it hurts. I’ve seen… bad things too. You’re not alone anymore. My name is Kitty. We’re going to get you out of here, okay?” 

Kitty.  

Min Ho thought it was a rather silly name for an angel and realized that maybe she was just another hallucination his dying brain had cooked up while the soldier’s gun pressed against his forehead. He waited for her to fade, or for the pain in his chest to finally ease, but she stayed kneeling there in the ruins, her eyes never leaving his face. If she was indeed there to guide him to the afterlife, she was taking her time. 

Behind her, there was more movement. A bald, older man in a wheelchair rolled forward over the uneven wreckage as if the broken concrete was nothing but smooth marble, and beside him walked a woman with long, strikingly white hair. 

The angel glanced back at them, then turned to Min Ho again, holding out one hand slowly with her palm up.  

“Professor, his thoughts are a bit like… static,” she told one of them. Her eyes had faded back to a warm brown, though they remained gentle as they watched him. “But I’m pretty sure he understands English.”  

Min Ho stared at her lips while she talked, trying and failing to make sense of what she was saying.  

“Give him a moment, Katherine,” the man in the wheelchair told her, though Min Ho could barely hear him through the ringing in his ears. 

“He must be in shock,” the white-haired woman said.  

You are safe with us. There’s a place where you could live freely. 

Min Ho flinched so hard his back hit the twisted rebar behind him. The impact sent a fresh jolt of pain through his bruised ribs, but he barely registered it.  

He heard the man’s voice, but not through his ears. It came from somewhere inside his skull. 

“I’m sorry,” the Professor said. “I should have asked permission first, but I wasn’t sure you would understand me. I will not do that again unless you allow it.” 

Min Ho’s gaze snapped to the man, wild and uncomprehending. He tried to open his mouth, though he had no idea what he would say, but nothing came out. It felt like his whole body was numb and sore, and the more he tried, the louder the constant buzz in his ears got, but even through the haze, somehow his mind was finally capable of piecing the dots together. 

The man was talking to him in Min Ho’s head.  

The angel—Kitty, he had to remind himself—was inside his head as well.  

“My name is Professor Charles Xavier,” the man said, keeping his voice low, careful, and physical this time. “This is Ororo Munroe. She’s a teacher at my school. Katherine is one of my students.”  

Kitty’s mouth twitched faintly, though there was nothing close to a smile in it. “Yes, but everyone calls me Kitty. I know this is probably the worst introduction in the history of introductions, but I promise we are trying to help you.” 

He stared at the three strangers through the crooked bars of metal that had somehow kept him alive, and his mind circled uselessly around the same thought.  

He had heard the man’s name before, whispered between his parents in the dark when they thought the children were asleep. There were rumors of an American school where mutants walked in daylight, where no one came in the night to drag families away. He had thought they were stories, fairy tales for people who still had hope left to spend, but now the fairy tales were standing in front of him, and they were all mutants. 

A low sound came from the wreckage above him, followed by the crack of something giving way farther above them. Kitty’s head snapped up, and the golden light around her flared bright again as the slab over Min Ho’s body dipped an inch before steadying. Her mouth thinned into a line from concentration. 

Ororo moved before anyone else could speak. She stepped past Xavier’s chair and lifted one hand, her white hair stirring around her face though there was no natural wind down there. The dust hanging in the air suddenly pulled away from them in a spiral, rushing upward in a thin gray column. For the first time since Min Ho had opened his eyes, he could breathe without feeling like he was going to choke.  

“Katherine, hold that section,” Ororo said, her voice calm but firm. “Not the whole wall, just the beam above him.” 

“I know,” Kitty said through her teeth, though her hands were trembling. “I’ve got it.” 

“Charles, the road?”  

Xavier closed his eyes for a moment. Something passed over his face, too quick for Min Ho to understand, but it made his stomach twist all the same. “More vehicles are approaching from the north. Six minutes, perhaps less.” 

Ororo looked toward the opening where the door used to be. Outside, the pale dawn had disappeared behind a wall of thick, unnatural fog. It rolled over the gravel lot in heavy silver sheets, swallowing the black shapes of the soldiers’ trucks until the world beyond the warehouse disappeared completely. 

“It will slow them,” she said, “but it will not blind them forever. We have to move.”  

Min Ho’s mind still felt slow and far away, but now he understood enough. They were trying to get him out before the soldiers returned. He did not know why they cared, but he also didn’t have enough strength to question it. His fingers stayed locked around the bracelet, the barbed wire pressing new cuts into his palm. The small but sharp pain was the only thing that still felt truly real. 

Kitty kept her focus on the wreckage above him. The golden light around her flared brighter as she carefully lifted and shifted the remaining beams, moving them inch by inch so the rest of the structure wouldn’t collapse. Ororo stood ready beside her, her wind swirling gently around her hands to pull away loose dust and debris. 

When the last obstructing piece of metal finally lifted, air rushed into the narrow space. Kitty let out a deep breath and lowered her hands slightly, though the golden glow never faded completely. 

“I’ve got him,” she said.  

The invisible force that had been holding the debris now slipped beneath Min Ho’s body. It lifted him gently, carefully, pulling him free from the twisted cage of metal and concrete. He did not fight it. 

Kitty guided him out of the wreckage and lowered him slowly onto a clearer patch of concrete a short distance away. His feet touched the ground, but his legs buckled immediately. Before he could fall, Ororo stepped forward. 

She extended her hand toward him.  

Min Ho stared at it for a long moment. His body felt heavy and distant, and part of him wanted to stay exactly where he was, but after a few seconds, he slowly reached out and took her hand. His grip was weak, almost reluctant, but he held on. 

Ororo’s fingers closed gently but firmly around his. She supported most of his weight as she helped him stand, her other hand resting lightly between his shoulder blades to steady him. Min Ho swayed before finding his balance, though his legs still trembled. 

“Keep your head high,” Ororo whispered to him as they began to walk. “Do not look at the ground.”  

Min Ho tried to look at her when Ororo told him to, but his eyes kept drifting past her shoulder, toward the ruined center of the warehouse where the concrete had folded inward and swallowed everything. The place where his family had been was no longer a place at all, only a mountain of broken beams, cracked slabs, dust, and twisted metal. The whole building had come apart so completely that his mind could not fit it back into the shape it had been before. 

His knees shook violently, but Ororo tightened her hold before he could sink down. 

“Do not look,” she said again. It sounded like an order, but there was something protective in it.  

He understood her, but he looked anyway.  

It was only for a second, but it was long enough to see a smear of red beneath a slab of concrete. Long enough to recognize a torn piece of the blanket his mother had been holding. Long enough to notice the pale curve of a small hand buried in dust and debris. 

A sound ripped out of his throat that didn’t sound like him at all. He lunged toward the wreckage with what little strength he had left, his fingers clawing at the air as if he could still reach them, as if there was still time, as if this could be undone if he just moved fast enough. 

“No.” Ororo caught him around the shoulders and held him back. “No, child.”  

He fought her weakly, but he had nothing left to fight with. His body betrayed him after only a few seconds as his knees buckled again, and this time Ororo turned with the movement instead of resisting it, taking his weight against her side so he would not hit the ground. 

They are there, he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. They are there. They are there. They are there. 

“They’re there,” he forced out at last, though the words barely made it past his throat. 

Ororo’s hand tightened against his shoulder, not painfully, but firmly enough to keep him from throwing himself forward again. “I know.” 

He shook his head. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. If she knew, she would move. She would help him. She would understand that his mother was under there, that Bianca was under there, that Joon Ho and his father and Su-Jin were under there, and that leaving them beneath the ruins was wrong in a way so enormous his mind could not hold all of it at once. 

He tried to move again, but his body only gave a weak, useless jerk. 

“No,” he rasped. “No, no—”  

Ororo’s hold did not loosen. “You cannot.”  

Min Ho stared at her, his vision swimming in and out of focus. Her face was close enough that he could see how the dust coated her lashes and the small cuts along her cheek, but she still looked unreal to him. 

He tried to twist out of her grip again, but his body barely obeyed. Pain flared through his ribs, sharp enough to steal what little breath he had left, and his knees folded completely beneath him.  

Ororo caught him before he could hit the ground. She did it easily, one arm around his back and the other braced beneath his elbow, as if his whole body weighed nothing. He hated that he was too weak to even collapse on his own. 

Kitty stepped forward, her face pale beneath a layer of dust. Her eyes went to the wreckage, then back to him, and the golden light around her brightened.  

“I can try,” she said.  

Ororo’s head snapped toward her. “No.”  

“I can move some of it.”  

“You move that pile, the rest of the building comes down.”  

Kitty looked like she wanted to argue. Her hands stayed lifted, fingers trembling in the dusty air, and somewhere beneath the mountain of concrete and steel, something scraped. Min Ho’s whole body jerked toward the sound as if it had called his name.  

Xavier’s chair moved closer, his expression calm in the way people were calm only when panic would waste too much time.  

“Katherine,” he said, “if you disturb the lower structure, the rest will collapse. You cannot save them.” 

Kitty’s face twisted. “I know.”  

Min Ho barely heard them. His eyes were fixed on the rubble, on that place where the only people he had ever belonged to were buried. His mouth opened, but the words coming out were useless. 

“She’s seven.” Min Ho shook his head, his breath coming faster now, each inhale making his sides ache. “She’s seven. She gets scared in the dark. She doesn’t like being alone. I can’t leave her there.”  

There was something fierce and grieving in Ororo’s eyes that was almost unbearable to look at. 

“I know,” she said.  

“No, you don’t.” His voice cracked. “You don’t know anything.”  

“You are right,” Ororo agreed. “I do not know your sister. I do not know your mother, or your father, or the others you lost.” 

“Then let me go.”  

“I cannot.”  

“Let me go!” His voice tore out louder than he expected, and he tried to pull himself forward again, but Ororo held him where he was. “They’re my family!” 

Ororo lowered herself slightly, enough that her eyes were level with his. Around them, the wind circled low across the ground, pulling dust away from his face. 

“Listen to me,” she said. He shook his head, but she went on anyway. “Do you think they would want all of that to end here? With you lying down beside them because the men who murdered them are coming back? They would want you to survive.” 

Min Ho’s lower lip trembled. “Don’t say that.”  

“They would.”  

“You don’t know that!”  

“No,” Ororo said, and now her voice was quieter. She looked down at his fist, still closed around Su-Jin’s bracelet so tightly that blood had begun to slip between his fingers. Her face softened then, but only for a moment. “I do not know them, but I know love when I see what it leaves behind. They are gone because people filled with hate decided they did not deserve to live. I will not let them decide that for you, too.” 

The words struck him silent.  

Behind them, Kitty’s hands slowly lowered. Her face was wet, but she stayed quiet now, as if she understood this was not a place where she could help by speaking. 

Ororo leaned closer.  

“I know you don’t want to live right now,” Ororo told him, and there was no shock in her voice, no fear of the ugly truth, only certainty. “You feel like everything has been taken from you. Of course, you cannot choose survival. That’s why I am choosing it for you.” 

Min Ho stared at her.  

Ororo did not look away. “Until you can choose it yourself, I will choose it for you. I will carry you out of here. I will put you on that aircraft, and I will take you somewhere those men cannot reach you. If you want to hate me for every step, then hate me. You can do that alive.” 

A wrecked sound left him.  

A section of the remainder of the ceiling collapsed near the far wall, sending a wave of dust and broken stone rolling across the floor. Kitty threw up one hand and shoved the cloud aside before it could engulf them. Outside, a soldier shouted something through the fog, much closer than before.  

Xavier turned sharply toward the opening. “Now.”  

Ororo did not wait for Min Ho to answer.  

She bent, one arm sliding behind his back and the other beneath his knees. Panic flared through him again as his feet left the ground, and he made one weak attempt to push away from her, but it barely counted as a struggle. His hand slid uselessly against her shoulder, leaving a faint smear of blood on the fabric of her coat. 

“Put me down,” he whispered, but even he could hear that there was no force left in it. “Please.”  

“I cannot,” Ororo said.  

He tried to look back, but Ororo held him close enough that all he could see was the line of her shoulder, the white of her hair moving in the wind, and Xavier moving behind them, his chair gliding over the broken ground. 

Kitty walked ahead of them with both hands raised, her golden light flickering as she pushed aside loose beams and chunks of concrete that threatened to fall. 

As Ororo carried him into the pale morning light, he didn’t fight anymore.  

Behind them, another section collapsed with a deep, rolling crash that sent fresh dust billowing into the fog. Min Ho flinched at the sound. For one terrible second, he imagined Su-Jin’s small body beneath the rubble, imagined her reaching for him in the dark. 

They reached the black SUV parked between the trees. Ororo opened the back door with one hand and set him inside as gently as if he were made of glass. The seat was cold against his legs. Kitty climbed in beside him and pulled the door shut. 

Ororo got behind the wheel while Xavier took the passenger seat. The engine turned over, and they pulled away from the warehouse without anyone speaking. 

Min Ho sat hunched forward, staring at the floor between his feet, and tried not to think about how far they were already getting from his family. Eventually, the warehouse disappeared into the fog. 

For a long time, no one spoke, but after what felt like forever, Kitty shifted beside him.  

She spoke carefully, as if Min Ho was a wounded animal—and perhaps, he was. 

“What’s your name?”  

The question felt strange, even though it probably wasn’t, because it should have been easy. It was one of the first things he had ever learned to say. His mother had sung it into his hair when he was little. His father had used it when he was angry, when he was proud, when he was tired. Joon Ho and Bianca had come up with nicknames instead, some fond and some insulting. Su-Jin had never said it much at all. To her, he had always been Oppa. 

Now all of those voices were gone.  

“Min Ho,” he told her. “My name is Min Ho.”  

💥🖤💥🖤💥  

After that, they didn’t speak for the rest of the car ride, for which Min Ho was immensely grateful. 

Eventually, the trees opened into a stretch of uneven ground hidden between low hills. At first, Min Ho saw nothing except mist and the pale suggestion of dawn spreading over the horizon, but then the air ahead of them shimmered strangely, and something enormous appeared where there had been empty space. 

An aircraft covered in some kind of cloth waited for them there, nothing like Min Ho had ever seen. It looked like it belonged in one of those American movies Joon Ho used to sneak him into. 

Professor Xavier touched a hidden spot on the side, and a ramp lowered silently as lights flickered on inside. 

“This beauty is called the Blackbird,” Ororo explained, gently helping Min Ho up the ramp. “It will take us home.” 

Home?  

Min Ho didn’t have a home anymore. He couldn’t imagine calling any place home again.  

Kitty stayed close behind him, her golden glow now completely gone. She kept glancing at him as if she wanted to say something, but she didn’t, and he was grateful for that too. 

The Blackbird’s interior was nothing like any plane Min Ho had ever seen in movies or at airports. The walls curved smoothly in dark matte panels, broken only by narrow strips of soft blue lighting that ran along the ceiling. The seats weren’t the cramped rows he remembered from family trips; they lined the sides of the cabin with heavy straps and what looked like built-in restraints. The floor was some kind of dark composite material that muffled every step, and at the front, a wide cockpit area glowed with holographic displays and controls that moved on their own when Ororo touched them. 

It felt like stepping inside a living machine.  

Kitty guided him into one of the seats, buckled a strap across his chest, and sat down right beside him, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her shoulder. 

Professor Xavier wheeled to the front and locked his chair into place near the controls. Ororo took the pilot’s seat, her hands already moving across the panels as the aircraft rumbled to life beneath them, though every few seconds her gaze cut back to Min Ho. 

The ramp closed, and Min Ho felt a low vibration under his feet and in his ears. It sounded a lot like the noise from the warehouse, but Min Ho refused to let himself think about that. Instead, through the small window, he watched the city of Seoul spread out below like a toy model he used to play with when he was little. 

For a moment, he could almost pretend he was just on a trip, and that Joon Ho would lean over and point out their old apartment building. That Bianca would complain about the altitude messing with her hair. That Su-Jin would press her face to the glass and ask him to name all the tiny cars moving like ants on the highways. 

The lights of Seoul grew smaller, then disappeared entirely as they passed over the dark stretch of the Yellow Sea. Min Ho kept his eyes on the window long after there was nothing left to see. 

Kitty’s hand brushed his arm lightly.  

“It’s a long flight,” she said quietly, “but it’s much faster than normal planes. I think we should get to Westchester in about eight hours.” 

He stared at the dark curve of the cabin wall in front of him. Westchester. The name meant nothing. He didn’t know if it was a city or a building or just another place he would never be allowed to leave. 

A few minutes later, Xavier’s calm voice came from the front. “There’s a place waiting for you. It’s a school for children just like you. You have my word that there’s nothing but safety awaiting you from now on.” 

Min Ho didn’t answer. What was there to say? He didn’t even know where Westchester was. In England, perhaps? Or the United States? Kitty did sound American. And what did they mean by just like him? Were there more children whose families were murdered in front of them, as his was, and were left to tell the tale? In all the horror stories he had heard while they were on the run, raids never left survivors. He had survived by luck alone, but it felt more like punishment. 

Kitty shifted beside him, careful not to crowd him. She pulled a soft blanket from a compartment nearby and draped it gently over his shoulders. 

“Here,” she murmured. “You’re cold.”  

He wanted to thank her, but the words wouldn’t come. All he could do was clutch Su-Jin’s bracelet tighter until the rusted key and the bead from their mother’s old necklace dug into his skin. The small plastic heart was stained dark now, strangely warm in his palm, and for the first time since the soldier pointed his rifle at him, a single teardrop slipped down his cheek and disappeared into the blanket. 

The hum came back then, faint at first, low enough that Min Ho told himself it was only the aircraft. The engines vibrated through the floor beneath his feet, through the seat at his back, through his ribs, so of course it made sense that he could feel it in his chest too. Of course, it made sense that his hands had started tingling again. He had been buried under a collapsed building. He was hurt. He was tired. His body was probably doing strange things because bodies did strange things when they were broken.  

The overhead light above his seat brightened until it hurt to look at. Min Ho blinked hard and looked down at his lap, wondering why Ororo had suddenly decided to mess with the cabin lights. Maybe she was checking something on the controls. Or maybe the plane did that automatically at certain altitudes. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t important. 

The tingling in his fingers was getting harder to ignore. He pressed his thumb hard against the edge of Su-Jin’s bracelet until the pain in his palm sharpened and cut through the strange warmth spreading under his skin. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kitty sitting up straighter beside him. She glanced at the light, and without a word, she unbuckled her own strap and stood up, moving carefully so she wouldn’t jostle him. She reached into a small compartment near the seats and pulled out a bottle of water, twisting the cap off before holding it out to him with both hands.  

“Here,” she said gently. “Drink a little. It’ll help your throat… and maybe your head.”  

She sat back down, a little closer this time, and kept talking.  

“The school is really big, you know? Bigger than any house I’ve ever seen. There’s a lake behind it, and trees everywhere. It’s really beautiful. You’ll like the view, I think. Well, maybe not right away, but eventually. The lake is pretty even when it’s cold. I used to go there a lot when I first got there. Helped me think. Or… not think, depending on the day.” 

She gave him a small, slightly nervous smile and nudged the water bottle a little closer to his right hand. While the overhead light kept flickering, Kitty kept talking without missing a beat.

“I’m not sure if you remember, but… my name is Kitty. I can hear thoughts sometimes, and I can move things without touching them. Sounds weird, right? I used to be scared of it when it first started. Actually, I still freak out sometimes. Telepathy sounds cool in theory, but believe me, you don’t want to know what people are thinking half the time. Especially boys. It’s mostly just… loud. And gross. And loud again.” 

He kept his gaze on the floor and wondered how one person could say so many words without running out of air. The words kept coming, one after another, as if she were afraid of what would happen if she stopped. He just wanted her to be quiet. Or maybe he didn’t. He wasn’t sure anymore. 

His head hurt, but at least the tingling in his hands had started to fade, and the overhead light above his seat slowly dimmed back down to its normal soft blue. 

Eventually, because he started feeling a bit awkward, he accepted the water bottle and took a small sip. It was cool, and it eased the dryness in his throat. He didn’t realize how thirsty he actually was until he downed half of the bottle in one go. 

It felt... strange to be just sitting there. Surreal, even, but definitely not as surreal as the things the girl had just said. It took him another minute to process it all. 

Were they taking Min Ho to a mutant school?  

It occurred to him that perhaps they didn’t know that Min Ho wasn’t a mutant.  

He was just Min Ho, who was—before the horrors—a perfectly normal kid obsessed with skincare, who loved football and spending time with his best friend, Dae, and whose brother happened to be a pop star. His sister was a mutant, but Min Ho was as ordinary as it got. 

Was he supposed to say something, tell them they made a mistake? But what if they turned around then? What if they took him back to where they found him? Would they have let the soldiers finish what they started if they realized that he wasn’t one of them? 

He decided not to press the issue just yet. Perhaps if they took him to a foreign country and realized they had made a mistake, they would simply let him go. He didn’t know what he would do after that, but maybe it would still be better than staying in Korea, where they would probably come for him the moment they found out he had survived not only the raid but also the building’s collapse. 

The thought left him staring at the dark curve of the cabin wall, trying to picture a future that began on the streets of the United States. 

Beside him, Kitty shifted after several minutes of silence.  

“You should get some sleep,” she said. “Do you want a pillow?”  

Min Ho couldn’t imagine sleeping ever again.  

💥🖤💥🖤💥  

Hours slipped by in a kind of long, empty stretch where time felt meaningless. The clouds outside the small window never seemed to change, just endless white drifting past like the world had been erased. Min Ho stared at them until his eyes burned. 

Now and then, the hum in his head would stir again, and the overhead light above his seat would flicker, glowing a little warmer before settling back down. He just kept his eyes on the bracelet, on the tiny plastic heart that he liked to imagine still carried the faint smell of Su-Jin’s skin beneath the blood. 

Kitty had stayed beside him the whole time. She talked more about the school: about the gardens where flowers bloomed even in winter, about a boy who could talk to animals, and about a girl who could make fireworks with her hands. At times, it felt like she was never going to stop, but eventually her voice grew quieter, and her words came slower, until she leaned her head back against the seat and her eyes drifted shut. 

After that, Min Ho watched her sleep.  

He wanted to give her some privacy, but he couldn’t look away. She looked so peaceful, so ordinary, like any girl who might have sat next to him in class back in Seoul. Her eyelashes were dark against her cheeks, and for a moment the ache in his chest twisted again. 

She had a family somewhere, probably. People who loved her. People who were still alive. He clenched his jaw and looked down at the bracelet instead. 

He didn’t know how much time had passed after that. The aircraft droned on, carrying him farther from everything he had ever known, and he stayed awake through all of it, his eyes burning and his body heavy, refusing to let himself sleep. 

It took a while before Kitty stirred. She blinked slowly and sat up with a small stretch, her hair a little messy from sleep. She glanced at him first, as if she was making sure that he was still there, then looked out the window. 

“We’re almost there,” she said quietly, her voice a little rough from sleep.  

The aircraft began its descent, and Min Ho pressed closer to the glass. The world below came into view slowly, dark and unfamiliar beneath the deep blue wash of night. There were scattered lights below them, long roads cutting through black fields, trees gathered in thick, shadowed clusters, and the faint silver shape of a lake reflecting the moonlight. 

The school—which looked more like a mansion—was enormous. Not like the tall apartment buildings back in Seoul, but wide and grand, built of pale stone that gleamed faintly in what little moonlight there was, with tall windows glowing from within. The roof rose in elegant peaks with dark shingles, and ivy climbed parts of the walls in neat black patterns against the stone. The front doors looked heavy, flanked by broad stone steps, and the grounds stretched out around the school in shadowy layers of lawn, garden paths, and dark clusters of trees. 

It looked like something from a storybook, the kind Su-Jin would have begged him to read about at bedtime. Everything about it felt impossibly safe, like the kind of place that couldn’t possibly be real after the blood and the screams and the collapsing walls.  

The jet touched down smoothly on a hidden strip behind the trees, and when the ramp lowered, Professor Xavier wheeled forward first. 

“Welcome to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters,” he said gently. “This will be your home for as long as you need it.” 

Ororo stood and offered him a hand to help him down the ramp. “Before you settle in, there’s one thing we need to do. Our doctor, Dr. McCoy, will do a quick checkup just to make sure you’re not hurt anywhere we can’t see. It won’t take long, and then you can rest.” 

Min Ho stared at Ororo’s outstretched hand for a long moment before slowly reaching for it. His legs felt stiff beneath him as he stepped down the ramp, and almost immediately, his knees buckled. Ororo caught him, one hand firm beneath his elbow, while Kitty hovered at his other side. 

The night air hit his face as they moved down the ramp. It was cool and damp and smelled wrong in its flowery freshness. There was no smoke, no blood, and no dust clogging his throat. The difference was so awful that for a second he almost missed the warehouse, because at least there the world had still made sense. 

The ramp closed behind them with a quiet mechanical hiss, but Min Ho flinched anyway. 

Kitty’s eyes flicked toward him, then away again. She didn’t say anything this time, and he was grateful. 

They crossed the lawn toward a side entrance instead of the front doors. The grass was wet beneath his shoes, and each step felt harder than the previous one. The mansion grew larger as they approached, its windows glowing warm and gold, though most of the house seemed asleep. 

Professor Xavier led the way through a wide corridor lined with dark wood and framed pictures. Min Ho kept his eyes on the floor, the bracelet digging into his palm yet again, his breathing shallow even though he tried to keep it even. The hum in his head stirred again, and one of the lights in the hallway flickered once as they passed, glowing a little warmer before settling back to normal. 

They turned down another hallway and stopped in front of a wide door that slid open with a whoosh sound. The room beyond was bright, lined with white counters and strange machines on wheeled stands. Something moved behind one of the counters, large enough that Min Ho went still before he even understood what he was seeing. 

The man, or whatever he was, had blue fur covering his skin and face, like an actual storybook creature brought to life. He wore a white coat that looked a little too tight across his broad shoulders, and a pair of glasses sat on his nose. His eyes were yellow, and when he smiled, his teeth showed just a little too sharp, but the smile itself was friendly. 

“Hello there,” the man greeted them, his voice deep and rumbly but warm. “I’m Hank. Dr. McCoy, if we’re being formal, but Hank is just fine. You must be Min Ho. Come on in, young man. Let’s get you looked at.” 

Kitty gave Min Ho’s arm a small, reassuring squeeze before letting go.  

“He’s, um…” She paused, clearly searching for the least terrible way to explain why on earth his doctor was blue. “He’s great.” 

Dr. McCoy’s mouth twitched faintly. “A glowing recommendation.” 

Kitty looked embarrassed. “I panicked.”  

“So I gathered.”  

Min Ho let them guide him to a padded table, and he sat on the edge, his legs dangling. Hank moved carefully, his big furry hands surprisingly gentle as he checked the cuts on Min Ho’s palms and the dried blood under his nose. He listened to Min Ho’s chest with a cold metal disk on a tube, checked his ribs and his knees, then wheeled over a machine with a screen and wires. 

“I will run a quick scan,” Hank said softly. “It’s nothing scary, and you shouldn’t feel anything, but just in case, tell me if it’s too much.” 

Hank clipped the small sensor to Min Ho’s finger, and as the machine beside the bed beeped to life, several lines traced across the dark screen in green waves.  

For a few seconds, everything looked normal, but then the hum in Min Ho’s head stirred again, and the monitor dimmed with a warped little flicker, its glow thinning as the lines on the screen wavered and sank almost flat. The beeps slowed too, each one dragging a little longer than the last before the machine lurched back into a faster rhythm. 

The clip on his finger grew warm against his skin, almost uncomfortably so, and when Hank reached to adjust it, the plastic casing stuck for a brief second before releasing with a faint static crackle. 

Hank’s furry eyebrows rose. He leaned closer, adjusting his glasses, his yellow eyes lighting up with wonder. 

“Fascinating,” he murmured. “It’s like the equipment is… responding to you, like it’s… overcharging, almost. I’ve seen interference before, but—oh, this is quite different.” He chuckled softly and scribbled something on a pad. “You’re doing that without even trying, aren’t you? Remarkable.” 

Min Ho stared at the floor, his cheeks burning. He didn’t understand what Hank meant. He wasn’t doing anything.  

Kitty hovered nearby, her eyes flicking between Min Ho and the machine. Professor Xavier watched from the doorway, while Ororo stood beside him, her hand resting lightly on the back of his wheelchair. 

Hank stepped back after a moment, his big blue face kind. “A few scrapes and some bruising, but nothing that won’t heal with rest. You’re a tough one. We’ll figure the rest out together, Min Ho. For now, I’m going to give you something to help you sleep for the first couple of nights. Your body needs rest.” 

He helped Min Ho down from the table, his furry hand steady on his shoulder. 

One of the screens behind Hank flickered, the lines jumping wildly for a second before settling back down. Hank paused, tilting his head as he looked at the machine. His yellow eyes widened behind his glasses. 

“Well, this is certainly new,” he murmured, smiling a little. He shook his head, a small, rumbling chuckle coming out of him as he scribbled another note. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” 

He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a small white bottle.  

“Just take one pill before bed. They’ll keep the nightmares away for a little while, and right now, nightmares can be… dangerous when you don’t have control yet.” Hank’s voice stayed gentle, but there was a careful weight to the words that Min Ho didn’t quite understand. He pressed the bottle into Min Ho’s free hand. “Take it with water, and if you need anything at all, just call for any teacher, Kitty, or me. We’re right here.” 

Min Ho stared at the little bottle. He wanted to say he didn’t deserve to sleep, that he didn’t want to sleep, but the words stayed stuck behind the lump in his throat. 

Kitty stepped closer and touched his elbow lightly.  

“Come on,” she said quietly. “I’ll take you to your room. It’s not far.”  

Min Ho let her guide him out of the medical bay, his steps slow and dragging on the polished wooden floor. Ororo offered him a small smile as they walked past her, and she slipped a key into Kitty’s hands. 

“Your room is on the second floor,” Kitty told him as they climbed the wide staircase. “It’s simple, but it’s only yours for now. I think they let you adjust before you get a roommate. There’s a window that looks out over the gardens. The trees are really pretty at night.” She glanced sideways at him. “If the quiet gets too loud… I’m just down the hall. I think if you think loud enough, I will hear you.” She winced at that, rubbing at the back of her neck. “That… didn’t sound this creepy in my head. Sorry.” 

They stopped in front of a plain wooden door. Kitty pushed it open gently.  

The room inside was small and clean. It had a bed with soft-looking sheets, a desk by the window, and a dresser with a few folded clothes already waiting. It was smaller than his old bedroom, but after months of sleeping in abandoned places, it should have felt like a miracle. As he looked at the bed, though, all he could think about was that the last time he had slept, Su-Jin had been tucked against his side.

“There’s a bathroom over there, so you don’t have to share with the others, which, frankly, is freaking amazing. You can take a shower. You’ll find everything you need in there.” Kitty stepped back to give him some space. “I have a feeling you’ll sleep for a while as those pills are strong, but I’ll check on you in the morning, okay?” 

Min Ho stood in the doorway, the bottle of pills heavy in one hand, the bracelet even heavier in the other. He stared at the floor for a long moment, then slowly raised his head to meet Kitty’s eyes.

“Thank you.”  

Kitty paused in the hallway, her expression softening. She nodded slowly. “You’re welcome, Min Ho. Really. Get some rest.”  

She lingered for a moment longer, as if there was still something she wanted to say, but in the end, she only gave him a small smile before turning and walking down the hall. Min Ho listened to her footsteps fade until the corridor fell silent again. 

He was alone.  

For a while, he simply stood there, too tired to move. Eventually, his legs carried him toward the small bathroom Kitty had pointed out. The light flickered on automatically as he stepped inside. He placed the bottle of pills on the sink and lifted his eyes to the mirror. 

The boy staring back at him looked like a stranger. Dried blood streaked his cheeks, dust clung to his hair, and his eyes were too heavy, too old for someone who was only fourteen. He didn’t recognize the face in the glass. 

He turned the shower on. Steam quickly filled the small room as hot water poured from the showerhead. Min Ho stepped under the stream still fully clothed, letting the water soak through his ruined shirt and pants before he slowly peeled them off and let them fall in a wet heap at his feet. 

The heat stung his skin, but he didn’t move. He simply stood there, arms hanging at his sides, and watched as the water running down his body turned pink, then brown, carrying away the last traces of blood and dust. It circled the drain in thin, swirling streams until, finally, it ran clear. 

He kept staring long after the water had turned clean again. It felt wrong, as if the last proof that his family had ever existed was being washed away, as if none of it had been real. 

A sob rose in his throat, but he stayed under the water until his skin burned red, and the low hum in his head finally quieted. 

When he stepped out, he dried himself with the towel left on the rack and pulled on the soft clothes someone had placed on the counter. The shirt was a little too big, but it was warm. He picked up Su-Jin’s bracelet from the sink and carried it with him back into the bedroom. 

Min Ho stared at the bottle of pills for a long time. Hank had said they would keep the nightmares away. Part of him wanted the nightmares. He wanted to see them again, even if it hurt, because at least then they would still be with him. But he was so tired. The kind of tired that had sunk deep into his bones, heavy enough that he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stay upright. 

With slow, reluctant movements, he shook one small white pill into his palm. He swallowed it with the last of the water from the bottle Kitty had given him, then crawled beneath the covers. The sheets were cool and soft against his skin. He placed Su-Jin’s bracelet on the pillow beside his head, close enough that the wire and the little plastic heart brushed his cheek every time he breathed. 

He lay there in the quiet room, staring at the patch of moonlight spilling across the floor. The pill pulled at him gently, coaxing him downward into a darkness that felt safer than it should have. His eyes grew heavier, and for the first time since the gunshots, he let them close. 

The bracelet stayed pressed against his cheek, the only piece of it he had left, as sleep finally claimed him.