There was no privacy. There was nothing he could hide from his parents, not even if he wanted to. Whenever he was found out, even if it wasn’t something big a matter, his parents came crashing down on him like waves of a tropical storm in the middle of the Atlantic. He never did anything wrong, really, it’s that his parents were overbearing and fools. They saw everything he did as a mistake, something to be considered worth punishment. Thus began the monitoring.

Now, Huang Zitao was a very good person. He was smart, beautiful, and a good friend to many people. But he had so many issues going on at home, he was often distant from those he loved. He never noticed the one little boy younger than him that looked up to him so much, he grew so far away from him, and it was all because of his parents. Zitao even had a boyfriend, the charming Wu Yifan, the one who his parents resented most. They didn’t know about his relationship, but they had their suspicions, which meant he and Zitao couldn’t speak often at all. And when they did, it was short and rushed.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Zitao screamed one night, slamming his door shut and shoving a chair underneath the doorknob. He had a shared room with his brother, but he wasn’t there at the moment. He wished there was a lock on the door, because if there was, he would have been able to lock them out for good. He didn’t have his phone; not like it would’ve mattered much, because his parents would lock it down and keep him from using it anyway.

All Zitao had was a bottle of pills and the will to take them all.

Something in the back of his mind told him not to do it, but he did. He downed a whole bottle of pills, that night falling asleep on his bed, basically dead to the world. His parents never noticed. He woke up the next day, horribly sick and dizzy, but his parents didn’t notice, or if they did, they didn’t care. He attempted suicide a few other times, losing his will to live plenty of times, until the day came when he went off to college.

He bought his own laptop, kept it away from his father, the man he hated most, and worked most of the time. He was exhausted, literally spent from rushing around all the time. Things were getting harder. He couldn’t talk to anyone, really, except for the few times he did with his close friends. Zitao ended up pushing a lot of people away, maybe not even realizing what happened, and it was getting harder to hide things from his parents.

One night, as he was sitting at the front steps of his work place, a man walking by caught his attention. There were bags under his eyes, but Zitao didn’t care, and apparently neither did the man. The man slowed in his walk, pulling the hood off of his head as he slowly approached Zitao.

“The name’s Hyunwoo, and you seem a little down, panda,” The man sat down next to him, leaning over and tapping his nose lightly. “Mind telling me your problems?”

Surprisingly, Zitao broke down right in front of that stranger, bursting into a fit of tears he had been so good at keeping to himself for so long. He never cried, but he felt some sort of overpowering relief in doing so, even if it was with a stranger. The Hyunwoo man just put an arm around Zitao’s shoulders, rubbing his shoulder lightly and quite soothingly before he pulled back to speak his wise words.

“They have no right to do that to you, Zitao. Can I call you Tao? It fits. Anyway, they’re wrong. The way they treat you is very, very wrong, and you don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve to hide from them, keeping your life a secret. It’s too much pressure on you. You’re losing sleep over it, I can tell, panda. You need to get out of that, Tao, because they’ll be the death of you,” Gently reaching up, Hyunwoo brushed a few stray tears from Zitao’s cheek. “Don’t let them push you around anymore, Tao. Stand up for yourself. Show the who you really are, and if they don’t accept it, then they don’t truly love you the way they should. They may say it’s to protect you, but that is no way to protect a child. But also, don’t let go of the friendships you never had time to analyze. Give people a chance. Let them in, if only for a little while.”

Hyunwoo stood up, sighing gently, and Zitao followed him with his eyes. “Now, Tao dear, I must go. Tell them how they’ve been making you feel, and if they don’t accept it, leave. Leave and show them what they’re missing out on. Go to Yifan.”

“Wait, who are you?” Zitao asked, his voice soft.

“I’m the tear collector.”

And then he was gone.

Zitao spoke up to his parents, eventually. Then he ran away to be with Yifan, just as Hyunwoo had told him. He and Yifan lived a happy life together, soon getting married, and honestly, Zitao had to admit... He never felt any better than he did when speaking up to his parents.

“Hey, Tao?” Yifan called lightly, pulling Zitao to him in a gentle hug.

Zitao offered a small smile, his eyes sparkling. “Yeah, Kris?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

⎛ end ⎠

♛ Author Note ♛

To those who know the backstory to this:

Please... Can we bring her attention to at least this chapter?

Please.

It would mean a lot to me if you did.