Continuity: Pre fic, Chapters 2 & 4
Suho-Centric

#19:Ohana (Part 2)

Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.

Joonmyun was born in one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet—the Northern Circle. The temperature never went above freezing, houses were built on icy lakes and it snowed constantly. There was no wood, no stone, no actual running water. Buildings were made of ice, fires burned solely on animal fat and to drink water you first had to melt the snow.

It was in this environment that Joonmyun was found, alone and almost starved to death, when he was three years old. A fisherman had been coming home from his favorite fishing spot and spotted a set of tracks, which had appeared to be human but were too tiny to have belonged to anyone but a child. It was snowing already and there was a blizzard coming; the man knew that anyone left alone wouldn’t survive, so he followed the trail and found Joonmyun. According to stories Joonmyun heard growing up, he’d been walking around in circles calling for his mother.

Joonmyun doesn’t remember calling for anyone, but he does remember being alone. He also remembers that he had been terrified, hungry and cold. The hood of his fur-lined cloak wouldn’t stay up because of the wind, and he had snow down his back and on his neck, and he couldn’t even cry because his tears froze on his cheeks.

The fisherman rushed Joonmyun back to his village, and with the blizzard barreling down quickly they took shelter in the man’s shop. It was there that Joonmyun (supposedly) whispered his name to the man and then fell unconscious. Throughout the blizzard he kept Joonmyun wrapped up in blankets and by the fire, when he woke up the man fed him bites of soup and dried fish. Once the storm was over the man took Joonmyun around the village and asked everyone if they knew who he was, but none of them had seen Joonmyun before. They asked Joonmyun about his family, but he couldn’t answer them. He didn’t talk for almost six months after that, and the doctors said he was in a state of shock.

The fisherman took Joonmyun back to his house. He and his wife already had six children, three of whom were his wife’s sisters children—they adopted them after the woman died. Joonmyun was the third youngest, and he spent most of his time helping his adoptive mother care for her two babies. The older children left Joonmyun to his own devices in the beginning, mostly because they didn’t know what to do with him. He was supposedly an odd child, when he wasn’t playing with the babies he would sit by the door, staring at the floor. It was almost as though he was waiting for something.

Many times people tried to get him to talk about his past, but he never said anything. When asked, his face would go totally blank and he would cover his ears. After he finally started to talk, Joonmyun said that he couldn’t remember anything, all he remembered was being surrounded by snow and the fisherman. Really Joonmyun didn’t even remember that day too well. The fisherman said that he said his name was Joonmyun, but in all honesty he had no clue. It was a good name, so he didn’t complain.

Joonmyun liked his adoptive parents well enough, and he didn’t mind his older adoptive siblings. They were pretty fun to play with, and the girls liked him because he let them carry him around and play with his hair. The only problem was that sometimes when they were playing games like tag or follow the leader, Joonmyun would get left behind because he couldn’t run fast enough. The doctors who examined him said that he had been malnourished from a young age, and he would always be a little smaller and frailer then other kids his age. When he was three, four, five years old, he would often find himself tumbling to the ground, his legs just not long or strong enough to take him as fast as he wanted to go. Many times his adoptive mother would come out of the house to find Joonmyun alone in the snow, crying quietly because he’d been left behind. She’d carry him into the house and let him sit on her lap while she mended old clothes. When the older kids came back she always made them apologize for leaving him alone.

It was a while before anyone noticed Joonmyun’s mark. It wasn’t exactly like he was walking around half in the cold environment, plus it was on his back so even he didn’t see it. Joonmyun knew he could do things with water, but he never tried it in front of people. Finally, shortly after he turned five, the mark was discovered, and the matrons came to collect Joonmyun and take him to the Northern Sanctuary. The goodbye wasn’t too difficult, after all it wasn’t like he was leaving his family. Joonmyun liked these people well enough, but at the end of the day they were just strangers who had been taking care of him for a short time. It was like they all knew he wouldn’t be staying for too long.

Meeting Minseok had been a nerve wracking ordeal, because aside from his adoptive siblings he’d never met another child his age before. The town he’d been adopted into was full of babies and older children, and he couldn’t remember playing with anyone before age three. What was he supposed to do with Minseok?

Of course, he didn’t have to worry, Minseok loved him right from the start. Joonmyun was more than a little surprised when, upon their first meeting, Minseok nearly tackled him with a hug and cried into his shoulder, blubbering about how lonely he was. Within a few days, Joonmyun understood. The Sanctuary was unbearably lonely. It was huge, damp and even though there were adults all over the place, a child could go mad by himself. So when Minseok would sneakily grab hold of Joonmyun’s hand while they were walking or sitting in class, Joonmyun wouldn’t try to pull away. After a week he asked Minseok if he wanted to do outside and play, and that was when they discovered that they could make the best snowballs in the world. They quickly became best friends, the two oldest boys in a family of eight, and even though later Kris and Lu Han would push Joonmyun—then Suho—down a few spots, he never stopped feeling like he was the big brother. Minseok was like his crutch, no matter what he knew he could always lean on his best friend.

The only thing he never told Minseok about, not even when they were older, was his nightmares. That part of his life he saved for Kris.

It wasn’t even like Suho had planned to tell Kris, it just happened that one night Kris came to him when he’d had a nightmare, and Suho let him stay in his room. A few hours later Suho woke up crying and Kris saw him. Caught in his moment of weakness, Suho spilled the one secret he had.

“I think my mom died…and I think my village abandoned me.”

Suho buried his face in his hands and started to sob even harder. After a minute he felt the bed dip and Kris’ arms went around his shoulders.

“I thought you didn’t remember anything…” he murmured. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Suho dug his fingers into Kris’ nightshirt and forced himself to calm down enough to be understood.

“I don’t have clear pictures, but I remember a few things…I remember poking someone, I guess my mother, and yelling for her to wake up. Then there were a lot of people, one of them grabbed me and pulled me outside. It was snowing so hard I couldn’t see anything. I screamed for whoever it was to take me back and they hit me and told me to be quiet. I think we were on a wolf-sled, we traveled a long way and it was so cold…then I’m alone. And I turn around and around, I scream for my mother and I start to cry and it’s so cold and I’m so scared and lonely…”

Suho had started to shake and his teeth were chattering. It was dark in his room and he could barely see anything but a slit of moonlight through the curtains, and it was like being back out there in the snowstorm. Suho could feel the snow and ice stinging his face and the cold wind whipping his hair around, bowling him over and making him disoriented. Terrified, he hid his face in Kris’ shoulder and Kris held him tighter, gently his hair.

“You’re not there anymore,” Kris said softly but firmly. “You’re out of the storm, you’re out of the Northern Circle.”

Suho continued to cry, and he clutched Kris’ shirt tighter and whimpered, “I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to leave…why won’t she wake up?”

Kris pulled back and took Suho’s face in his hands, tilting his head back until they were eye to eye.

“Look at me,” he commanded. “Suho, it’s Kris. I’m your friend.”

Suho blinked and hiccupped. “Where…?”

“We’re at the Sanctuary. It’s okay now, I’m here for you.”

Suho grabbed Kris’ wrist and clung to him. “I don’t want to be alone,” he gasped. “Please don’t leave me alone…”

“I won’t,” Kris whispered. Suho hadn’t known it at the time, but Kris was crying too. “I’m right here, okay? I won’t leave you.”

Suho didn’t have any more nightmares that night. The next morning Suho barely remembered his break down, all he remembered was telling Kris about his past. Kris lied to the matrons and told them Suho wasn’t feeling well and asked that the two of them be left alone. They complied and the pair of them got out of lessons for the day. They spent the whole day curled up in Suho’s bed, hands clasped and foreheads pressed together. Around noon Suho finally spoke.

“I read one of the old Guardian’s diaries. She said her mother abandoned her in a forest because she thought her child was evil. I wonder if my village thought I was evil…maybe they thought I killed my mother and that’s why they abandoned me.”

Kris squeezed his hand. “You don’t believe that do you? That you were responsible?”

Suho shrugged. “I don’t remember anything…it might be true.”

“It’s not,” Kris hissed. “You can’t think like that! You were practically a baby Suho, what they did to you was awful. There’s no way a three year old could kill anyone!”

“Maybe not directly,” Suho mumbled, “But what if every time she looked at me she got depressed? What if the other villagers hated her because of me?”

Kris shook his head. “Were you hungry when you were taken away? Were you weak or dizzy?”

Suho was confused. “No…not really.”

“Then she fed you,” Kris said firmly. “And she stayed with you even when she was dying. She must have loved you Suho. If she didn’t why would she stay? Why would you want to stay with her?” Kris paused for a second and sighed. “I don’t know if I’m explaining it right…but when I left I didn’t beg to stay with my parents. I was sad to go, but it wasn’t because I wanted to stay with them. I guess I was just upset at how much I wanted to leave, you know?”

“I do know,” Suho whispered. “And actually you did explain it pretty well. I get it, and you’re right. She must have loved me.” He smiled even as he started to cry again.

“Are you going to be okay?” Kris asked.

Suho nodded and rubbed his eyes. “I will be. Even though she’s gone, it’s nice to believe that it wasn’t my fault, and even if it was she loved me anyway.”

Kris held out his arms and Suho wriggled closer, snuggling into his chest.

“Everyone loves you, Suho,” Kris muttered. “They can’t help it. You’re just amazing like that.”

Suho blushed and laughed, Kris laughing with him. After a moment Suho looked up shyly and tapped Kris’ arm.

“What’s up?” Kris asked.

“Even amazing people have nightmares sometimes…” Suho said.

Kris smiled and ruffled his hair. “And when they do that’s when they go to their friends. That’s what friends are for after all.”

It's a bit shorter than the other chapters but I kind of like where this ends and how it flows. So in the previous Chapter Xiumin was thinking about the family he could have had and how it compared to the one he had now. Here, Suho has a family and he's at the head of it, but he struggles with the knowledge that he might have ruined his previous family. The Ohana theme will probably stick around in the back stories of most of the characters, I can't believe I didn't think of this before >< Anyway I'm posting now because I'll be busy all weekend hanging out with my friends. Best part about Turkey day is that everyone comes home from school ^^