Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, 10:37 a.m.

“Flight 365 from Incheon, South Korea has just landed,” a female voice echoed from the speakers placed at the upper corners of each floor of the building.

A married couple at their 40’s stood in the middle of the place with a man in black suit behind them. Their eyes wandered around the place, searching for the lovely face of their daughter.

“Do you see them?” the woman, who was clinging on to her beloved husband’s arm, asked.

“Mama! Papa!” they heard the familiar voice. They turned their heads to the direction where they heard the voice. They saw the child they had raised with love. She had grown so beautiful.

Their child was waving her hand at them while her other hand was holding on to a child. She ran to them, tagging the child along, as excitement rushed over her.

The old couple engulfed their daughter into a warm hug. It had been seven years since they had seen their daughter.

“How have you been?” Old Mrs Tan asked, starting a conversation. The little child named Yunjung could only do is stand in the middle of them as the adults spoke in Chinese. She could understand some but the other words were still incomprehensible.

“Is this Yunjung?” Old Mrs Tan asked as she looked at the little child. “This is Yunjung,” their daughter proudly introduced the product of love she made with her husband.

The child hid behind her mother as she heard her name. “Yunjung, say hi to grandma and grandpa,” she told her little child as she gave her a slight push, out from where her child was hiding. Yunjung looked back at her mother, sceptical about what she was about to do.

Her mother encouraged her with a nod and a soft smile.

“Wai po, Wai gong. Wo jiao Yunjung,” Yunjung was able to say the right words, as she bowed to her grandparents. The grandparents were astonished at how they had been greeted.

This was the first time Yunjung was officially meeting her mother’s parents. Seven years old and she was already learning a different language. Her mother had been constantly teaching her Chinese and her parents’ dialect so that she could communicate with her grandparents.

Yunjung’s mother is Chinese-Filipino while her father is a full blooded Korean. The two met during a conference and they fell in love.

Yunjung looked back at her mother, who was smiling at her, proud of what her daughter had accomplished. A smile tugged at the corner of the child’s lips. “Ah, my grandchild is so pretty,” the old man carried Yunjung into his arms.

He planted a kiss on the child’s forehead before saying, “I want you to see a lot of wonderful places here,”

“Come on. I’m sure you’re both hungry. I know a good place where we can eat,” Old Mrs Tan linked arms with her daughter and led them to the car as the man in the suit was trailing behind them with the suitcases.

Little Yunjung pointed to the Ferris wheel they passed as she was on her grandfather’s lap. “Do you want to ride that?” he asked. The little girl heartily nodded.

 

The cars were passing by nonstop, savouring the time they had to drive where they wanted to as the green light was still on. The people on the sidewalk were waiting for the red light to come out.

There were different kinds of people in the crowd. Some were tall, towering over the short ones. Others were wider than the others. They were all strangers to each other but each has a different story to tell, even the young boy in the midst of them. The young boy that dressed shabbily.

The young lad is named Wu Yi Fan. Life has played its game already in the beginning of his story. His mother took him in an amusement park. The child was so happy, so excited to take on rides with his mother. He was told to wait at a bench. The mother told him she would get ice cream for the both of them.

The lad patiently waited. He waited and waited. But his mother never came back.

He was too late to find out that he was already abandoned. Abandoned by the person who he never thought would betray him. He couldn’t find his way back. He tried and tried but he just could not find his way back home. The child could only cry as he spent many nights with only the moon to accompany him.

Now, the streets had slowly transformed from his battlefield to his playground for five years. Because in those five years, he had to learn, to adapt, and let his innocence slowly fade out of his hands just to survive.

Yi Fan ran towards the road with a wallet in his hand. “My wallet!” a lady in the crowd screamed. The crowd’s attention slowly turned from the lady to him, gasping. Crossing the street was suicide.

Yi Fan was playing tag with death as he crossed the street. Some guns screeched just as to stop and not hit the child running through. While the others outspeed the child, not bothering to stop.

One car stopped late and had almost hit him. The child fell on his bottom. “What happened?” Old Mrs Tan asked, as her window slid down and she looked out to see the cause. It was a child with worn out clothes.

The boy went back on his feet. Yunjung looked out the window. Pity had risen in Fei’s heart at the sight of the boy. Where was his mother? How could she let her own child do such thing? But the child had no mother. He proclaimed her dead after she left him.

The man in the suit had gone out to check on the boy, so did Fei. Yunjung’s eyes were on the boy. She watched him as he nodded, dusted his self and ran, even before the man in the suit and Fei could talk to him.

The car started again and the Tan family went on their way. “What was that?” Old Mrs Tan asked. “A thief,” the man in the suit answered.

“Parents these days. They let their own child do bad things,” Old Mrs Tan clucked her tongue and sighed.

 

Yi Fan ran. Sooner, a policeman came around and started chasing him. “You again?! You’re dead if I catch you!” he yelled. Yi fan displayed a smirk on his face. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” he told him.

And so the chase began, Yi Fan picked up his pace. This was his game to play for today. To play tag and hide-and-seek with greater things at risk when he gets caught is one of the things he does for the past years just to be able to play like a child.

He slid into an alley and the policeman followed. The policeman groaned in annoyance as he had reached yet another dead end. How could he lose the kid? More than that, how does the kid do it every time without fail? He stomped out of the alley with a bitter expression on his face. If he could have looked up, he would have seen the kid, mischievously smiling as he sat on the roof.

Still sitting on the roof, Yi Fan opened the wallet he had stolen from the lady. He smiled, satisfied, as he took little part of the money and placed it in his right pocket before keeping the wallet in his left pocket.


Yi Fan looked up and saw the sky was turning orange like blazes of fire smudged everywhere, as the sun was setting. He was walking on the street still searching for a perfect victim but decided to turn around, headed to the last place he goes for the day.

Many things could happen in an old abandoned building. Various things, sometimes unimaginable. But the boy called Yi Fan was not afraid. But a little something in him had changed because of this place.

“Hey, the prince is back!” a man, wearing leather jacket and sitting on a chair, opened his arms to welcome the boy. He stood up, leaving the line of children with the money they had earned for the day. Stolen might be the exact word.

Yi Fan took out his earnings, gaining wide-eyed expressions from the other kids. This was why he was the prince there. He made the man rich, therefore earning a little bit respect from him because of his skills. Life is about the choices we make. And Yi Fan had made a choice A choice to survive.

“You never fail to make me proud,” the man patted his back.

“Whatever,” Yi Fan spat, with a glazed expression. He left the room and halfway he met Lin. She’s the only person who he can trust. Why? Because she’s the only person with who saved him. Saved him before he turned into a person he could not imagine.

Just like any other child in the line awhile ago, he started out as weak. He would get beaten up because he refused to steal. When he needed help, Lin was there. She treated his wounds. She told him to be strong because this will soon pass. And so he did.

Lin is just past her twenties with her own reasons in her story on how she ended up in this building, in this hell.  She’s a runaway from home. Why? For the sole reason her life was hell with her mother and her stepfather. She found the building, another hellplace that made her life less hell-like.

“You hungry?” Lin asked with a smile. Yi Fan returned the smile with a nod. “Come, I cooked something just for us,” she said as she offered her hand. Yi Fan took it.

As Yi Fan and Lin enjoyed the simple dinner, Yunjung and the Tan family where enjoying the expensive dinner at a five-star restaurant. There were many people in the restaurant, all seemed to be enjoying their own meals. However, one was not. Yunjung was lonely. She never had any friends. No one likes to be her friend. And so the child sat there, amidst the laughter of her family, she secretly longed for a friend.

 

---

 

Hi. This chapter one. Please tell me what you think by commenting down below. For the subscribers, thank you.

I hope you keep supporting this fic :D

 

-Nielle