The Hostages

Amber entered Mrs. Byun’s office, but was surprised to find the other seven abductees gathered there as well. “Did I get my appointment time wrong?” she asked.

“Not at all, Amber,” Mrs. Byun said pleasantly. She had soft black hair and a comforting expression on her face. “I thought a group session might be beneficial. We discussed it last time, remember?”

Amber recalled a vague memory of that conversation and shrugged. “Hey,” she said, nodding to the others. She sat in the empty chair between Taeyeon and D.O and folded her arms.

“Why are we doing this?” Mark asked.

“Two reasons,” Mrs. Byun replied. “First, because you went through this ordeal together. Only the eight of you truly understand what happened during those days, so now you must help each other heal.”

“And?”

“There are decisions to be made,” she answered, “decisions about your futures. Whether you choose to stay with SM, find another company or choose a different career altogether, you'll need to fully support one another. Unfortunately many will not understand and may try to tear you down, so unity is vital.”

“What about the CEO?” Wendy asked. “Is he going to resign?”

All of them looked at Mrs. Byun curiously and she sighed. “I have not received any official news yet,” she said, “but yes, I believe he is.”

Everyone took a moment to assimilate the magnitude of this news. “Good riddance,” Taemin said finally, and no one disagreed with him.

“Okay, so how do we do this?” Mark asked, gesturing at the circle. “Do we... take turns talking about what happened?”

Mrs. Byun shook her head. “I would like each of you to share one thing you're grateful for,” she said.

“What, like Thanksgiving?” Amber blurted out. “We're not kids, Mrs. Byun.”

“No,” she agreed, “but humor me anyway.”

“I'm on the end, so I'll go first,” Jeno volunteered. “I'm thankful that the bullet missed my heart.”

“We all are, believe you me,” Mark said emphatically.

“I'm thankful that I'll be off crutches in time for Christmas,” Chanyeol said.

“Good,” Mrs. Byun said approvingly. “D.O?”

“I'm thankful for our friends,” he said quietly. “They listened to their instincts instead of the people in charge, and all of us are alive because of that.”

All of them nodded at this. “I'm thankful for you, D.O,” Amber said, putting a hand on his arm. “You always gave us hope in the darkest moments, even when we all despaired. We wouldn't have survived without you.”

“Hear hear,” Chanyeol said, waving a crutch.

Everyone looked at Taemin expectantly, but he just shrunk down in his seat and stared at the floor.

“We can come back to you, Taemin,” Mrs. Byun said smoothly. “Wendy?”

“I'm thankful for warm hats,” Wendy said decidedly.

Everyone chuckled and she blushed. “It's cold out there!” she said defensively. “I'm not used to my scalp being frozen all the time.”

“I'm… I'm thankful for my family,” Mark said quietly. “They've always taken care of me, especially over the last few days. I wouldn't have come this far without them.”

Taeyeon smiled. “I'm thankful for Taemin,” she said in a clear voice.

Taemin looked up at her in confusion. “Me?” he stammered.

“When we were dragged into that little room, you did everything you could to protect me. Even this,” she said, gesturing to her injuries, “protected me. The doctors said that if you hadn't been so careful to avoid my organs, I probably would've died in that cell, so I just wanted to say… thank you.”

Taemin wiped tears away with his sleeve. “I - I don't know what to say,” he said hoarsely.

“Well done,” Mrs. Byun said softly. “You're already beginning to heal. I'm not saying you'll go back to the way you were, or that you'll forget. It's a part of you now, but whenever your mind takes you back to that cell, I want you to remember what was said today. Remember the courage, the hope, and the love you bore each other, and still bear now. Remember it as your triumph.”


******


“How are we supposed to have any good feelings about this?” Taemin wondered as they left Mrs. Byun's office.

“Apparently we already do,” D.O mused.

“Exactly,” Chanyeol agreed. “The important thing is that we're alive and together.”

“I'm still reeling from what she said about the CEO,” Mark said. “Is he really going to resign?”

“If she's telling us now, it's probably already happened,” Amber said, navigating D.O’s wheelchair around a corner. “Good thing, too. I didn't want to work for that lowlife for another second.”

“Does that mean you're leaving SM?” Jeno asked.

Amber shrugged. “We have until New Year's to decide,” she said evasively.

“But pretty much all of us have decided, right?” he pressed. No one responded and he nodded. “That's what I thought.”

“Shouldn't we talk about it as a group?” Wendy wondered.

“Do you think it'll change anyone's mind?” Taeyeon asked.

They made it to the doors and huddled together beside them.

“Mrs. Byun said that no matter what we decide, we should fully support each other,” Wendy whispered. “Talking about it will give us a chance to explain our reasons, whatever they are, to the people that are most likely to understand.”

“She's got a good point,” D.O said after a moment. “We may have to defend each other, and it'll be easier if we're prepared.”

“When should we…?” Jeno trailed off, letting the question hang in the air.

“The twenty-fourth,” Taemin said suddenly, “at the Christmas party. We can meet then and talk about it, and if any announcements need to be made…”

“It'll be a good time to make them,” D.O concluded. “Good idea, Taemin.”

Taemin cracked a smile for the first time in weeks and zipped up his hoodie. “Well then,” he said, “see you on Christmas Eve.”


******


D.O tried not to chew his nails as he watched the door. The party started twenty minutes ago. Where is everyone?

Almost every SM group had shown up, and many others had come to support them. Jeonghan from SEVENTEEN had somehow coaxed Wendy onto the dance floor, and he saw RapMon hug Chanyeol on his way back from the refreshments table.

“Is BTS here?” he asked as Chanyeol sat down.

“Yeah,” he said, handing him a glass of punch. He tugged at the heavy boot he wore around his leg and sighed miserably. “I've never seen so many groups at a company Christmas party.”

“That's because this isn't a normal Christmas,” Onew said from behind them. He leaned over and smiled at them. “All of you are incredibly valued,” he slurred, “not just by us, but by a ton of other people. They came for you.”

“Are you drunk?” Taemin asked, coming seemingly out of nowhere.

“Not yet,” he said, “but I've got all night.”

Taemin caught Jonghyun’s eye from across the room and beckoned him over.

“Having fun, are we?” Jonghyun asked, putting a hand on the leader’s shoulder.

“I love your shirt,” Onew gushed, poking him in the chest. Jonghyun guided him away and Taemin sighed. “I hope everyone isn't planning on celebrating that much,” he muttered.

“Is everyone else here?” D.O asked.

“I think so.”

D.O got up, still very stiffly, and headed over to a table in an unobtrusive corner. Chanyeol pulled a chair out for him just as the song ended and everyone applauded. “Are you nervous?” he whispered, “because I am.”

D.O was nervous, but he just smiled at him. “It'll be okay,” he promised.

Taemin came back with Wendy and Taeyeon and he pulled out chairs for both of them before sitting down. Mark and Jeno weren't far behind and sat beside D.O. Mark kept trying to help Jeno with his sling and Jeno kept batting him away. “You're worse than my mom,” he muttered.

“Hey, I'm the reason she let you come, remember?” Mark countered. “I promised I'd watch out for you.”

“More like smother me,” Jeno grumbled.

Amber slid into a seat beside Wendy and nodded at them bravely. “Are we ready to do this?”

“Do we just go around and say it?” Jeno asked.

“Let's write it down,” Taeyeon said suddenly. She grabbed a stack of cocktail napkins from the middle of the table and dug a pen out of her purse. “Everyone write down your decision and fold it up,” she said, passing the napkins around, “that way no one can be influenced by someone else's choice.”

Chanyeol produced another pen and they all took turns writing on their napkins until everyone was done. “Who wants to go first?” Wendy prodded. “D.O?”

D.O shook his head. “I'd like to go last, if that's okay,” he said quietly.

“Then I'll go,” Mark said decidedly. He opened his napkin and laid it on the table where everyone could see it. “I've decided to stay,” he announced. “I've worked really hard to get where I am, and despite what's happened, I can't leave NCT. They're my family,” he said, squeezing Jeno's hand briefly.

Jeno opened his napkin and laid it beside Mark's. “I'm staying too,” he said. “Mark's right. We've worked really hard, and we belong with NCT.”

Amber leaned forward and added her napkin. “I'm taking a sabbatical,” she said quietly. “I want to go home for a few months, to rest and pull myself back together. I can't…” her voice caught and she swallowed hard. “I can't just jump back in. Not like this.”

“But you'll come back?” Jeno asked.

“I think so,” she said, smiling at him. “I hope so.”

Wendy smoothed out her napkin on the table. “I'm staying, but I won't be performing until my hair grows back,” she said calmly. “I refuse to cover up what's happened to us and pretend it's nothing, so I'll spend some time writing and thinking.”

Taeyeon didn't speak for a while, her napkin clutched tightly in her fist. “I wanted to leave,” she said finally. “So many times I thought I would just rip up my contract and start over somewhere else, but…” she sighed and a tear rolled down her cheek. “I'm still their leader,” she said, nodding at her friends on the dance floor, “and I can't desert them. I refuse to let what that man did destroy the best part of my life. It would be like he won.”

Everyone nodded in agreement and she tossed her napkin onto the table. “So I'm staying,” she finished.

Taemin took her hand, then added his napkin to the pile. “I'm staying,” he said in a low voice. “All of us have been doing this long enough to understand how deep our ties are. We're not just idols; we're artists, and we owe it to ourselves to keep going.”

“I'll be taking a step back too,” Chanyeol said, laying his napkin down, “from everything. I'm not leaving,” he added quickly, “but I need some time, especially while my leg heals.”

D.O blinked in surprise. I was sure he would be eager to jump back in, he thought. I guess this was even harder on him than I realized.

“D.O?” Taeyeon said gently. “It's your turn.”

D.O stared at his napkin, thinking. “After the press conference,” he said quietly, “I realized that this is going to follow all of us forever. People will always want to know more about what happened, and we'll relive it through them. So my first instinct was to run.”

He heard Chanyeol inhale sharply and he refused to look at him as he continued. “Every time I would forget, even for a moment, my back would throb or I would hear gunshots on TV and immediately drop to the ground, terrified. I was afraid that all of this was some trick, or a hallucination that I'd wake up from and still be hanging from those chains.”

Everyone at the table had tears in their eyes as they listened to him, but D.O didn't shed any. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “I thought I was doomed to live this way forever,” he said, “until I heard what all of you said in the group session. It made me realize that we didn't lose ourselves after all, and that there's hope of peace and restoration someday.”

He unfolded his napkin and set it on top of the others. “So I decided to stay,” he whispered.

Chanyeol threw his arms around him and pulled him into a tear-soaked hug.

“Careful of his back!” Taeyeon called in alarm. Chanyeol let go immediately and D.O bit back a string of swear words. “Sorry,” Chanyeol sniffed, wiping his face roughly.

“So that's it, then,” Mark said. “All of us are staying, more or less.”

“I can't wait to tell Taeyong!” Jeno yelled, and before anyone could move he sprang out of his seat and took off across the dance floor. “Jeno!” Mark called, running after him, “slow down before you break your other arm!”

The others chuckled and Taemin got up too. “I should tell Onew and the others,” he said, buttoning his jacket.

Taeyeon glanced over to where Onew stood near the deejay, banging his head to the music enthusiastically. “If you tell him now, he might not remember tomorrow,” she quipped. She stood painfully and Taemin was quick to support her. “Do you need to go home?” he asked. “I can take you.”

“Stop babying me,” she said reprovingly. “I'm not spending Christmas in a dorm. You may, however, help me to the punch bowl.”

They left together and Wendy sighed. “How sweet,” she said, watching them disappear into the crowd. “He's been so protective of her.”

“There you are!” Jeonghan said, running over to her. “I think you promised me one more dance, remember?”

“Oh alright,” Wendy agreed. Jeonghan whispered something in her ear and she laughed as he pulled her away.

“Remind me to send that kid a card,” Amber said, getting up. “From what Luna told me, she's been pretty difficult to draw out over the last few days. Maybe they should ask Jeonghan to move into their dorm for a while.”

Chanyeol chuckled and D.O grabbed her hand as she passed by. “When do you leave?” he asked.

“First week of January,” she replied. “And D.O, I'm…” she paused for a moment and another tear fell as she struggled to speak. “I'm glad you're not leaving,” she managed.

“And I'm glad you're coming back,” he murmured. “Don't forget to text us, okay?”

She nodded and released his hand before walking away, hands in her pockets as she watched the dancing.

“And you?” D.O asked, turning back to Chanyeol. “When do you leave?”

“I'll go visit my family for a little while,” he answered, “but I'll be back in the dorm by February. I just… need time to get back into things, you know?”

“I know,” D.O said softly.

Chanyeol ran his fingers through his hair thoughtfully. “Suho's gonna be relieved,” he mused.

“Everyone will,” D.O replied. “Should we tell them now?”

“Nah,” Chanyeol said, “let's tell them tomorrow. It can be our Christmas gift to them.”

“Good, because I didn't have a chance to get presents,” D.O said. It took Chanyeol a second to realize he was teasing and he shoved him playfully. “We're gonna be okay, aren't we?” he asked.

“Yeah,” D.O said, giving a little smile, “we will.”

Notes