I was bouncing my leg as I sat in the yellow waiting room. It was warm, cosy, welcoming, everything a hospital waiting room was usually not.

"He will see you now."

It was a nurse who came and smiled warmly at me and my mother. I suddenly missed Nourah terribly.

Me and my mother had been on the ride for half a day to get to my family's home city. Our first stop had been the hospital. We had asked to be let in through a door directly to the oncology ward to diminish the risk of encountering a man. Not only was I going to see my father for the first time, but it was also encompassed by the fact that he was a man, and that I might panic.

"What happens to you", the psychiatrist that had seen me had explained. "Is that you get a fight or flight response. But you can't fight, and you can't flee. That causes anxiety. That's why you react the way you do. You get out in a situation you want to protect yourself from, without being able to." I had listened intently. Nobody had ever described anxiety that way for me, I was sure. "I think it's worth a shot, meeting your father. This time, you will be visiting him. Maybe, that's what you need to calm down. Try it. If you don't like it, we'll find another way together."

I swallowed, set my face. My mother took my hand and squeezed."

"Remember", she said. "Your father knows about your fear. He also knows your aware that it's irrational. He said yesterday when I spoke to him that even if you see him and are so frightened you just run away, at least he has seen your face."

I swallowed back my tears. Something told me that I was a person who couldn't really keep my emotions at bay. Together, I walked with my brother in the oncology ward to my father's room.

"He's alone in there. You want to go by yourself?" my mother asked.

"I... I think so?" I said.

"Then go. I believe in you."

I knocked carefully, and opened the door and stepped in. I did not look at the bed, just went in and closed the door behind me.

"Malcolm?" I didn't know what name I preferred; Malcolm or Izuna. Probably the one Tobirama is used to calling me. I had no idea where that thought came from. I didn't even have any memories of him. Even so, I knew it was important.

I turned round. "Father?"

"Please." The man in the bed looked older than my mother, with a kind, wrinkled face and black hair going grey. He was frightfully thin due to his cancer eating up all the energy he managed to consume through the tube going in through his nose and into his stomach. "Please. Call me dad."

It wasn't the fact that he was my father.

It wasn't the fact that I visited him and not the other way around.

It wasn't that I had my mother's support.

It was because he looked so incredibly fragile and helpless.

I felt a tug of panic in my heart, yes, but I could easily suppress it. Leave it, I told myself. Don't panic. Or you'll never be able to meet Tobirama.

"Hi, dad", I whispered.

"Come", he said. "Let me look at you. Your mother says you're the mirror image of me."

I walked to him, and his entire face lit up when he saw me.

"She was wrong", he said. "You're so much more handsome than I ever was."

He took my hand, put it to his cheek, and tears started to fall down his face. I started crying, too."

"Tell me, Malcolm", he said. "Do you have a girlfriend? Or maybe, you don't remember."

"I..." I snivelled. "I think I have a boyfriend?"

"I see", he said. "Have you met him since you came round?"

"No", I said. "Or, yes, but I went crazy."

"Do it again", my father said. "Meet him again. And if you're frightened then, meet him again. And again. And again." He patted my hand. "Is there something I have learned in my little life, it's that love is worth fighting for. Fight for it."

I could hardly breathe, I was crying so much, although silently.

"I will."

I did feel a deep connection with both my mother and my father. My favourite part, however, was meeting my big brother.

"He has his own place. Works as a psychologist. He was only three when you were taken away from us so he doesn't remember much of you, but he's talked about you ever since. Kept asking us questions about your personality as if you'd been a teenager when you were stolen." My mother smiled warmly. "'Did Malcolm fry his own French fries when he was ten, too?' he would ask, poor thing."

I was incredibly touched by this, but I was still incredibly nervous about meeting him; I had managed meeting my father, but he was sick in bed, hardly able to move. Madara would be something else entirely. But I had no time to collect myself, because as soon as my mother parked the car outside the large, white-and-green villa in the cup-de-sac where my parents lived, the door opened, and there stood my brother, tall and gangly with a heavy mane of long, black hair, thick, well-shaped eyebrows and a sharp jawline. He did have my nose; it was crooked just like mine and I suspected it was the first time in my life I could see beauty in it.

"Malcolm?" he mouthed as I stepped out of the car.

I took off and ran to him. He opened his arms and we collided so harshly, it hurt. My big brother cried and stroke my hair over and over, kissing me on top of it. We held each other for a long, long time.

Once inside, Madara wouldn't leave my side. He had cooked us a delicious dinner of homemade gnocchi with a tomato sauce, Parmesan and a side salad along with bread he'd baked, and he demanded to sit next to me as the three of us ate. Our shoulders touched the entire time. Once finished, he demanded I stayed in the kitchen as he made the dishes, and he stole glances at me from time to time, as if unable to believe he had a little brother, that I was finally here, after all of these years.

"When I was little, I always said I had a little brother. But nobody believed me. They thought you were my invisible friend." He smiled. "I won't lie. You were my invisible friend for a good year or so."

Madara told me he lived out of town with his boyfriend Hashirama. They'd been a couple for five years and were very happy together, Madara said. He would love to meet me and my boyfriend at some point. I looked down.

"I hope I'll stop being afraid of him now", I said.

"Do you remember anything?" Madara asked.

"No", I said. "Only the love."

"That's more than most remember", he said and came and hugged me close. I hugged him back. This is what have a family feels like, I thought. Even if I didn't remember being family-less, I knew this was a new feeling for me.

A week passed, and I just rested at home, enjoying having a family. Madara had taken a week of work to be with me. I slept in a guest room, and my mother told me that was the room they'd planned on making mine as I grew older. It felt oddly strange but also very safe to sleep there.

On the morning of the weekend after my full week, I woke up by my mother and brother singing.

"Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Malcolm. Happy birthday to you!"

They came in carrying a tray with a beautiful, green cake with candles and presents. I knew candles in cakes was a thing when it was your birthday, but had no idea there was a birthday song, making me believe I had never been sung to before, or sung to someone else for that matter.

"Is it my birthday?" I asked, massaging my eyes groggily.

"Yes!" my mother chirped as she lite a lamp on the bedside table. "Tenth of November. You knew that?" she asked.

"I had no idea", I whispered.

"The cake is Swedish princess cake", Madara said proudly. "Vanilla sponge, vanilla cream, whipped cream and raspberry jam covered in marzipan. I made the roses myself as well." On top of it we're two delicately made pink roses. "I hope you like marzipan", he said, suddenly worried.

I just stared. "When... When did you make this?" I asked.

"In the middle of the night." Madara smiled triumphantly. "You had no clue!"

Tears filled my eyes as they asked me to blow the candles and make a wish. I looked up.

"I think I might have everything I ever wished for", I said.

"There must be something?" Madara said, jumping up on the bed, putting an arm around me.

"Well..." I looked on the candles. There was twenty-seven of them. "There is one thing..."

"Don't tell us!" mum said. "That means bad luck!"

"Oh..." I said.

"Close your eyes", Madara whispered into my ear, putting his hands on my shoulders from where he sat squeezed up next to me. I did. "Now, think about that wish." I did. I  thought really hard to truly manifest that dream. "Blow."

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please...

I blew.