LuHan took a deep breath before he barged inside the private training room of Tao in his headquarter studio.

BLAM!

“HUANG ZI TAO!”

The loud voice of LuHan shouting the name of the Chinese maknae startled Tao who was practicing with his wushu stick in the training room. He was a bit startled with LuHan’s anger towards him; the older Chinese rarely gets angry in the years he knows him, but once you wrongly stepped on his wrong foot, he could be scarier than Kris.

“What is it, LuHan?” Tao kept his composure calm; pretended to be annoyed by the intrude.

“Stop this act right now, Huang Zi Tao. I have enough of it. I know you’re mad at me for bringing them here, but running away is not the answer. Do you think by avoiding, you can pretend that everything…”

“No, I don’t act, LuHan. This is me, LuHan. This is real me if you haven’t noticed; I’m not running away, but I am done with the past. So no matter what you wanted to say to me right now, it won’t have any effect on me.”

“That’s what I thought when Yi Fan brought them to me either. I was mad at Yi Fan for that, just like how you are to me. And don’t cut me.” LuHan prevented the younger from saying something. “If you really sure whatever I will say won’t have effect on you, then what are you afraid of?” LuHan challenged the younger man in front of him.

Seeing Tao was speechless, he drew a deep breath before continued, “Deep inside your heart, in that little corner of space of it, I won’t believe if you said there’s no more place of them, Tao. They’re part of your life, no, part of our life, no matter how hard you tried to erase them for your heart. They will always be there whether you want it or not, Tao.”

“NO! You’re wrong! I’m not that Tao anymore. The past had taught me the real world, LuHan. I was no longer that Tao you used to know. I wasn’t that childish Tao who cried at being left homeless and jobless! I wasn’t that Tao who bawled his eyes out being useless to help his brothers! I wasn’t that Tao that begged for just a chance! I wasn’t that Tao anymore!”

“Tao…” LuHan word was softened as he saw the holding back himself from tears Tao. He wanted to walk closer to the younger man and hugged him, but as he stepped one step forward, the younger would step backward. “Tao… I know, I know. But it’s already in the past, it’s already been five years. Although it’s not for them, at least you can do it for yourself, to free yourself from the guilt and sadness you built inside yourself; the wall you built from holding back your pain and anger. Just let it go, Tao, please…”

“Who are you? What have you done with LuHan I know?”

“I am LuHan. I just choose to free myself from the past. No, I’m in process of trying to free myself from the past. I’m tired of locking my anger and pain inside, Tao. Yi Fan is right, no matter how much I want to hate them for whatever happened to us in the past, we know clearly it wasn’t their faults, is it? We’re mad at them jus