Find You [Monsta X AU]

iv.

His apartment felt bigger than usual, emptier too. Although he'd been living alone for a few years now, he'd never really felt the full weight of the place until today. Coming home to a dark, empty house...it just struck him differently, today.

He made dinner for one and just sat at the counter, thinking about the day's events. About people who could lock a child away for having a defect. He doubted the boy even knew that his family had been murdered, and Hyunwoo certainly didn't want to be the one to tell him. In situations like these, the child still tended to have an emotional bond to the abusers, so despite the objective wrongness of their treatment, it was likely that he'd still be upset.

The one benefit he could perceive was that the boy would hopefully be able to use the Yoo family's money to treat his disability. Cochlear implants were expensive, Hyunwoo figured, but if the boy could access the Yoo's financial assets, they would be a distinct possibility.

He wondered what it would be like for the boy to hear possibly the first sound of his life.

He wondered if there would come a day when he and the boy could have a conversation.

--

"Highly unlikely," Dr. Lee said dismissively, and Hyunwoo frowned, looking over at Hoseok.

Hyunwoo had arrived at work only to be intercepted by both of them. Jooheon was taking the boy around the building on a snack trip, which gave them a little time to talk in private.

"You don't think he'll be able to speak? Even if he gets hearing aids or implants?" Hyunwoo asked, feeling the bright sense of possibility deflate from within him.

"I don't mean that he won't be able to communicate in some sense," Dr. Lee said gingerly, taking in Hyunwoo's distress. "It's just that..." He looked over at Hoseok to continue.

"Minhyuk and I were discussing the boy's case," Hoseok said, making direct eye contact with Hyunwoo and smiling empathetically. "There's two main roadblocks. The first is that he was essentially isolated from language for the past thirteen years, so he is experiencing severe language delay. Most children develop the basics of language within the first five years of their lives. After that..." He shrugged a shoulder, his brow furrowing slightly. "There have been several cases of children in similar situations, the most famous one being the case of a girl known as Genie by the psychological community."

Hoseok paused before gesturing for Hyunwoo to sit down, and they each took a seat, Dr. Lee and Hoseok sitting across the table from Hyunwoo. "Genie was severely abused and neglected for the first thirteen years of her life, conditioned into silence," Hoseok continued, looking troubled. "Even though she picked up some vocabulary after being removed from that environment, she was never really able to grasp language structure. She could visually represent things, but she couldn't communicate like you and I are doing right now. And what little language ability she picked up regressed after a certain point. So, the first issue I see is that this boy has already aged out of the developmental period in which he should have acquired language skills."

"And the second issue?" Hyunwoo asked. Last night, it had felt like there were endless possibilities. The boy would receive some sort of aid to assist his hearing, and the world would suddenly be open to him. But that had clearly been naïve of Hyunwoo to believe. "His hearing, right?"

Dr. Lee nodded, taking over from Hoseok. "Correct. The two issues are similar in a way. There are many children who either possess congenital deafness or prelingual deafness who are able to make a great deal of progress with amplification technology, such as hearing aids, or cochlear implants. However, the longer a child has gone without hearing, and therefore the longer a child goes without exposure to language, the less effective these treatment options appear to be. Even if we provided amplification for his hearing, the sudden barrage of noise after thirteen years of silence would be overwhelming and unpleasant. He may not even know what to make of all the sounds he's hearing. And there's still not much evidence to indicate that it would be successful in helping him communicate because, as Hoseok said, he's already aged out of the formative stage necessary to build complex language skills."