chapter 8

- Eleven Years Ago -

Henry walked into the orphanage, Donghae and the twins waiting for him in the foyer. Donghae was seated on a staircase leading up as he watched the twins play a game of twenty one with a pack of playing cards that Henry had brought over for them last time. He waved at Henry in greeting, before returning his gaze to the twins. Henry came to sit down beside him, now watching the twins with interest.

“Who’s winning?” he asked Donghae.

“Neither. They’ve both won three out of six already. This is the deciding round.” He suddenly turned to face Henry. “You’re late today. Did you get held back by your new family?”

Henry smiled as he shook his head. “Nah. I just got on the wrong bus. I mistook 143 for 142. How stupid was that?” He laughed loudly, throwing back his head.

Donghae nodded with a grin of his own. Suddenly, Chanyeol jumped to his feet, throwing his cards away as his hands went to his head in a Donghae of disbelief. “NOOOOO! I can’t believe I just lost to you, baekhyun! Argh! I demand a rematch! A rematch!!!!”

baekhyun stood up slowly, a smug smile on his face as he waved the winning cards before his hyung. “I won fair and square, Chanyeol. See? A seven, five and a nine. T-w-e-n-t-y-o-n-e.”

Chanyeol swatted the cards out of his brother’s hand. “Whatever.” He turned around to Donghae, glaring at him accusingly. “This is all because you didn’t play dealer.” He then suddenly noticed Henry’s presence and a smile lit his face as he forgot his foul mood. “Henry hyung! When did you get here?”

baekhyun came over to shove his brother’s head. “Long enough to see your tantrum, Chanyeol”

Henry couldn’t help but laugh. He missed hanging around with these guys after he was adopted over three months ago. Their silly antics and bickering was what always brightened his dreary days here at the orphanage, and he had made it a habit to come and visit them as often as possible. Although he loved the  family and his new little sister, seohyun, he still couldn’t forget his friends who had helped him through the toughest time of his life.

baekhyun suddenly came to sit on Henry’s other side, draping an arm around his shoulders as he avoided his brother’s glare. Chanyeol stuck out his tongue at his twin before he turned away and began picking up the mess of cards. “Hey, Henry hyung; it’s been only, what, three days and you miss us already? Doesn’t your new family worry about you coming over here so much?”

Henry smiled as he placed his arm around baekhyun’s shoulders. “Nah, they understand. How could I just leave you guys here all by yourselves? Donghae here isn’t assertive enough to keep you two devils in check!”

Donghae suddenly shoved Henry. “I’m right here, you know.” He tried to frown but he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face.

Chanyeol finally finished picking up the cards and came to lean against the staircase post on the bottom step, absently shuffling the cards. “You know, there’s a new girl here. She just came in two days ago.”

“Really?” asked Henry, mildly surprised. He wondered why Chanyeol had suddenly mentioned that.

“Oh, yeah…” The grin on baekhyun’s face suddenly disappeared as a solemn look came over his face. Henry glanced at Donghae to see that he, too, seemed troubled.

“What’s with the looks? Is she some sort of demon or something?” grinned Henry, half-jokingly. The smile soon left his face as he received a sarcastic look from his friends.

“No, she’s just… strange,” said baekhyun. “All she ever does is sit in the corner of the library, staring out the window. Some of the others have tried talking with her but she just… looks at them… coldly.”

The twins suddenly shuddered. Chanyeol came to sit on the step just below his brother. “I tried talking with her yesterday. I’ll never forget those eyes. So distant yet sad...”

“I overhead the Sisters talking about her earlier,” said Donghae suddenly. The twins snapped their heads up at him, suddenly attentive.

“What were they saying?” they asked in unison.

“Well…” Donghae glanced at Henry, unsure whether he should say what he had overheard but he saw that Henry was curious too. “I didn’t mean to listen in; I was just passing by, you know…”

“Hurry on with it, Donghae!” urged baekhyun. Henry gave him a little pinch. “Ow!”

“Thanks, Henry,” said Donghae as he glared at baekhyun. “Anyway, as I was saying… I wasn’t meant to hear this so don’t tell anyone else.” He paused, taking in a deep breath. “Apparently her mother was in jail for murdering her stepfather.”

The three of them stared at Donghae, wide-eyed with shock. Chanyeol suddenly whistled. “Then that kind of explains it.”

“But that wasn’t all they said,” continued Donghae. “At the first orphanage she was taken into, the other kids soon found out about her mother and began teasing her for it. She beat up three kids over the baekhyuner, all by herself.”

“Wow… that’s something,” commented Chanyeol again.

“The next orphanage she went to she set the girl’s dorm on fire. They say she did it because they wouldn’t let her go visit her mother. Luckily, though, no one was hurt.”

“That girl really has some issues going with her.” It was Chanyeol again.

“At the third orphanage, nothing happened for several months. It seemed like she had finally settled down somewhere, even though no one wanted to adopt her. Then two weeks ago, her mother was suddenly killed by another prisoner just because they ‘didn’t like her face’. She went crazy and began tearing up the place, saying that it was all her fault. And then she ended up here.”

The four of them fell into a solemn silence, no one having the heart to utter another word. Even Chanyeol was at a loss this time to comment. All of them had suffered the pain and sorrow that came from losing their parents, but they found their sorrows paled in comparison to the girl’s. Henry was the first to break the mournful silence.

“Do any of you know what her name is?” he asked.

Donghae was the one who replied. “Josephine Liu.”

Amber sat in the same corner, staring up into the blue sky outside. She spotted several birds soaring through the air, remembering the pigeon she had saved on the day her mother was arrested. Closing her eyes, she let the sun’s warmth consume her, releasing her mind from all thought. She allowed her spirit to float up towards the sky, joining the birds in their exhilarating freedom. Amber found herself doing this more often lately, a way for her to forget the aching pain of losing her mother. As her thoughts drifted to her mother she was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to cry. It was all her fault… everything was her fault… Her mother died because she was taking the blame for something she didn’t do. Amber was the one who had killed her stepfather; not her mother. That one thought had constantly returned to echo in her head, over and over for the past year. But Amber was powerless to do anything. She couldn’t go back to change the past. And that was what pained her most.

She opened her eyes now, turning to glance at her surroundings. The library was deserted, all the other children afraid to enter whenever she was in there. But that was the way she liked it. To be honest, she was tired of moving from one orphanage to the other. She was tired of life in general. Her mother had been the only reason she had put up with everything, but now she was gone. Amber didn’t know why she should even continue on living.

A hand suddenly waved before her face, startling her from her train of thought. She jumped slightly on the spot as she glanced at the perpetrator, who grinned back at her widely. He suddenly hopped up onto the wooden bench Amber was seated on, turning to stare out the window at the grounds of the orphanage.

“This spot has quite a nice view. I can see why everyone says you like sitting in here.” He continued to stare out the window, a small smile touching his lips.

Amber studied him out of the corner of her eye, her manner cold and aloof. She didn’t recognise this boy as one of the children who stayed here. His face was gentle looking, and his eyes seemed to stare off mysteriously. His small, button nose was pressed against the window glass, adding to the boyish aura she saw around him. For some reason, she didn’t feel annoyed at his presence and she returned to stare back up into the sky.

The boy felt her gaze leave him so he now turned to stare at Amber. “My name is Liu Xianhua Henry, but everyone just calls me Henry.” He studied her now, noting how thin she was, obviously not eating right. He began to feel worried for her, the sadness in her eyes only hinting at the surface of her misery.

Henry turned to stare back out the window, now looking into the sky where he saw the birds frolicking in mid-flight. “Birds are the luckiest creatures in the world, being able to fly anywhere. Don’t you think so, Josephine?”

Amber remained silent, unmoving. Henry wasn’t fazed by her lack of response.

“Everyone who comes here has their own problems to deal with. None of us have any relatives left to look after us. Each kid here has faced one sort of a tragedy or another, so we have to learn to stick together. Try talking with the others and maybe you’ll find that you’re really not the only person with a tragic past.”

‘Have the other kids killed like I have? Have the other kids been the cause of their parent’s death?’ Amber wanted to shout these things to Henry but she restrained herself, remaining silent.

“You know… my parents were murdered before my eyes three years ago during a home robbery. We were poor and didn’t have many valuables to begin with but the burglar panicked and used his crowbar to smash my father’s head. He died instantly and my mother ran in crying, hitting the man in a fit of despair. The guy swung his crowbar again, this time lodging the sharp end into my mother’s chest. And then he fled. I, meanwhile, was hiding in my room, watching my parents die before me in horror.” He suddenly shook his head as he let out a small bitter laugh, looking down into his lap. “It took me a long time to forgive myself for not doing anything to help them, to forget the sight of their dead bodies. Sometimes I thought, ‘If only I had…’ but I could never finish the sentence. What could an eleven year-old boy do in that kind of situation?

“I came here after that, probably in just as bad a state as you are in now. That was when I met Donghae, baekhyun and Chanyeol. You may have seen them around. You know; the korean twins and the boy who always hangs with them. At first I found them annoying, but they soon grew on me, becoming the best friends I ever had.”

Amber glanced at him from the corner of her eye, noting the warm smile on his face as he thought of his friends. She looked away, staring back out the window. “Touching story, xianhua,” she said suddenly.

Henry suddenly looked up at Amber, a big grin erupting on his face. “You talked!” It didn’t slip his notice that she had used his real name, rather than call him by his English one.

Amber took in a deep breath, her shoulders shuddering; the largest movement Henry had seen her do yet. “I’m not mute.” She turned to look at him and their eyes finally connected with one another. “You don’t live here,” she said, stating a fact.

“Yeah; I got adopted three months ago. The family I’m with is great. Mr seo  is the one who caught my parent’s murderer. I know it’s kind of stupid but I want to be a detective like him one day. I want to catch any other murderers out there and help rid the world of this evil. It’s childish, but it’s my dream.” Henry smiled dreamily, his eyes shining with his innocent vision.

Amber suddenly felt as if she was hit by a brick wall. She turned away, looking down at the wooden floor. “I guess it really is a bad thing to kill someone.” She hopped off the bench suddenly and silently walked away, leaving Henry to sit alone by the window, guilt eating away at his conscience. It had completely slipped his mind that her mother had been sent to jail because of murder.

tbc.

did this chapter come off as a suprise? They know each other already :)

Next chapter: Back to the present and Lee soo man's son's homecoming party, part 1.