(BACKSTORY)

(45) LUHAN

The early nights and cold air only meant one thing:

Winter was approaching, and quickly at that.

A certain young boy couldn’t help but sigh thinking about the freezing toes and relentless amount of white that would blanket over the city. He abhorred the thought of it. That time of the year where he lived was everything lacking of a ‘winter wonderland’ like in the fairy tales he’d heard about during story time.

He knew those stories were fake, too. Thinking realistically about how a rich prince would come to save the poor girl in distress just because she was pretty helpless, it could only be labeled as a fantasy since it was so unbelievable. If something like that could happen in real life, at least half of the girls in the room with him right now would be in the arms of some prince on a big white horse.

Looking at the kids in the room with him, he could only grimace at how they all played with one another without realizing that the horrid season of winter was coming. He’d eventually gone back to looking out the window because the outside world made more sense to him than the little monsters he’d been trapped indoors with. At least nature was predictable in, or it was in his eyes.

Heat waves and lots of sun meant it was summer, while snowfall covering every inch of the ground meant winter was making its way through the city. The abundance of bugs signaled for spring and looking outside now, the skies were dark with low clouds waiting to release the rain that's been building up for a week now. Fall was a time when it rained a lot, but sometimes on really hot days, would it be sunny as if it were summer again.

That rarely happened, but it was still much easier to decipher than the children in the room with him.

If he went sat down on the floor and played around with the leftover action figures, the other kids would get mad because they didn’t want to play with him, sending him off with shrill screams and hollers. At the same time, if the boy decided to keep his distance and do his own thing for the day, the other children would tell the teachers that he was ignoring them, which also wasn’t his fault. He’d never won a battle while being locked away in this place, especially since all of the adults really thought he was isolating himself on purpose to bully the other children. They would tell him that because he was more mature than the others, he’d need to set a good example so that they wouldn’t feel alone. To this, the boy could only scoff.

Being here in this place meant they were alone, without anyone to save them but themselves. They all lived in an orphanage after all.

The other kids didn’t understand this and relied only on the ladies that ran the place, further digging themselves into their own graves for not learning to be independent. He knew and prepared himself after living there for the majority of his life. Plus, he grew tired of having to watch over the younger and older kids when he was a fifteen year old boy that just wanted to be free from this wretched place. He needed to be eighteen to be released and more so now that he was older did he know he did not want to stay that long.

Puberty does not help in situations like these.

While pondering about what his future would be like as a runaway at the age of fifteen, the boy felt something dull smack against the side of his head. Being broken out of his train of thought, he looked up to find a girl staring down at him, ragged doll stuck between her dirty fingers as she stood with her arms on her hips.

“We’re playing prince and princesses and you need to play.” She ordered him, not waiting longer than a few seconds before she ended up trying to drag him towards the mess of toys.

He didn’t move though and sat on the old couch as he yanked his arm away from her, giving her a slight glare.

“Stop being mean or I’ll tell on you!” She cried out, “We need another princess and you’re prettier than the other boys.”

The boy’s expression darkened more as the girl in front of him didn’t get the hint and continued to try and drag him away. He let a hand hover above the girl before plopping his palm down atop the crown of her head, already feeling the oil get onto his fingers as he laced them through her hair. There was a sharp squeak and a loud thud before the room went quiet. The boy only had to wait a few more seconds before she let out a blood curdling scream.

He did technically pull her hair after all.

As she continued to cry, a few adults had come in to see what was wrong, locking eyes with the boy who’d committed the crime.

“Luhan!”

Luhan only shrugged before looking back out the window to find raindrops hitting the glass.

He didn’t know how long his lecture took and blocked out any discipline that the adults were trying to smack down on him. They never took it to a physical level and Luhan was already immune to any words they’d thrown his way, whether it being derogatory towards him or to his family. The people running the orphanage weren’t a nice group of people either, just people being forced to work here or they’d be out on the streets.

Family to him wasn’t a problem, especially since he didn’t remember much of them anyways. Sometimes at night, he’d have a dream about someone holding him like a baby and singing a sweet lullaby. It always lasted much too short for his liking, mostly because he’d be awaken by the sound of screams coming from the other kids or himself.

He’d wake up after having such a good dream covered in sweat and fear, bolting up in the middle of the night while the other kids slept and were quiet for once. The happy dream always ended with Luhan having what appeared to be a memory of arms grabbing him and taking him away from whoever was being nice to him.

And then there was the reality of being scolded for picking on the younger kids, which he wasn’t too happy to hear right now. He was hearing his name being called too much for today and wished they’d just stop so he could get some peace after successfully scaring the kids away for the rest of the day. All the pestering of ‘Han’ this and ‘Han’ that drove him up the wall and almost insane. His first name was Han and his last name was Lu, henceforth the name that was being screamed at him for all the wrong reasons.

“Luhan!” One of the caretakers hissed, “Keep it up with that and you’ll be kicked out for sure.”

Luhan merely shrugged and let his head loll back to looking out the window again, watching as the rain started to pour now. Mutters of the ‘demon child’ ran amuck after the adults realized that yelling at him wasn’t doing anything, and he resisted the urge to smile before they got the wrong idea, even if it was for all the right reasons.

If people thought he was bad now, they should’ve seen him when he was younger.

--

Breaking toys and busting holes in the walls, there wasn’t anything bad that Luhan hadn’t done around the orphanage as a kid. He’d used up all the ink in the pens to draw over every inhabitant of the place while making sure to sneak in an extra treat of bugs under their pillows in case anybody thought the tooth fairy came early, enjoying every second of their torture.

He thought it was their fault for taking him away from his family in the first place. The same arms that would drag him away from the warmth of his dreams would grab him and send him to time out in reality, and he automatically matched the two as people he would forever hate.

They loom over him like skyscrapers with dark eyes and an eerie style. Clad in multiple shades of black and leather, they take a few steps forward, and Luhan is afraid he's going to topple over by now.

Instead of demeaning and shameful remarks, he is surprised when he sees one of them smile.

The one with the dark black hair and cat-like smile crouched slightly, giving him a little look before ruffling up his hair. Luhan shudders.

"Wow," he snickers. "Just...wow."

The other crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow with a look of amusement on his face. "This takes me back," he mutters, but he is quiet quickly after he takes in his words.

He tries to ruffle Luhan’s hair too and finds himself quickly drawing his hand back to find blood seeping out from tiny scratch marks. Luhan is gone too, having run far away from the scene before he could even comprehend what had happened. The cat eyed boy is laughing as his friend begins to feel the ache stinging his skin while Luhan secretly watches from around the corner.

These two are suspicious and he doesn’t like it. Eventually the rest of the adults in the orphanage had figured out there were intruders in the house, but for some reason hadn’t done a thing to get rid of these mysterious people. The two men were actually welcomed inside. Nobody questioned their existence after being there for a couple hours. Luhan’s been in the orphanage for years now and yet he was treated more like a stranger than these two.

Luhan found it repulsive how the female staff swooned over the intruders while the men that worked here somehow found it possible to look up to them at the same time.

He continued to watch the pair from afar for the rest of the day. It wasn’t like there were many people concerned about his wellbeing anyways.

“Play with me!”

The voice buzzes by Luhan’s head in a manner only a fly would. Turning to look down, Luhan indeed finds a pest. She has long braids that hang loosely behind her shoulders, wisps of hair resting against the pieces of mismatched clothing she calls ‘an outfit fit for a princess’. Luhan doesn’t have time for her and pushes her aside before he could get upset, focusing back on his targets before coming to the shocking truth of their eyes glaring back at him instead. Now he was the one being watched.

Backing away a bit, Luhan finds his body toppling to the ground as his ankle catches on the edge of one of the old floorboards. He falls in one swoop and the ache in his bottom does nothing to distract him of the two men now hovering over him once again.

“Did you just push her?”

The cat eyed boy isn’t smiling anymore, he’s far from it now. Eyes glaring holes into Luhan’s skull as his aura almost seems to crush Luhan’s rational thinking.

As he continues to glare at Luhan, the other does the same, except he was trying his best not to look down at the little girl whose eyes were practically shining at his presence.

“You are… My prince!” She squealed, clinging to his leg like her life depended on it.

The man stumbles back and looks to the other for help, but his companion only laughed at his misfortune. His light chuckles turned into heavier wheezes once more children decide to use his friend as a playground, climbing up his legs and swinging around on his arms. He can handle five kids at max and after that, it’s a frenzy of just trying his best not to step on any of them.

Luhan looks at the sight of a fully grown man struggling against children that are barely over the age of ten. He feels a bit bad, almost. It was nice not being the only one getting in the orphanage.

A few minutes go by and the man is pretty much covered in children, if that’s possible. The sound of children screaming and yelling louder than normal was getting out of hand, and none of the good for nothing adults knew how to calm the situation. Luhan wouldn’t have done anything if it didn’t bother him, but it did. The sound of the children’s glass shattering squeals were making him grimace, already feeling the headache begin to form.

Heading out from his spot at the window, he slapped his hand against the wall of the walkway in order to grab everyone’s attention. The few kids that had bothered to stop and see what the noise was all stopped in fear of what Luhan would do. They waited for Luhan’s call and some even began to cry before Luhan jabbed his thumb backwards to signal for them to get the hell out.

This left a good handful of kids that hadn’t had enough common sense to see why all of the other children had left in such a hurry. There was the girl that Luhan has already pushed around today along with two other boys that were wrestling over who got to sit atop the tall man’s shoulders.

Dealing with the boys was easy and Luhan only had to yank their hair once before they let go and ran off to go and cry to one of the caretakers. All that was left was the girl. Taking a small step forward, Luhan bent down and began to wrap the girl’s braid around his fingers, imitating the way a snake would move as the strands brushed against the skin. She had snapped out of her fantasy with her ‘prince’ long enough to see Luhan holding onto her braid like a whip and had jumped off the man in an instant. Her glossy eyes stared up at Luhan anxiously as he merely swung the braid back and forth, looking right back at her with a bored expression.

With a single tug of his wrist, the girl had let out a panicked cry and with that, Luhan’s job was done. He let her be and went back to his place near the window, finding comfort in his special spot while the rain continued to splatter against the window.

--

He's called into the office much sooner than he thought, enjoying his time in the somewhat free space before it all gets taken away from him. Depending on who gave him the lecture would decide his fate of if he’d get a meal taken away or be let off just because he knows what he did was wrong. It was mostly the first option, but the second option always baffled him as much as the first one did.

It was because of the person behind the scott free punishment. A woman, to be exact. She’s known as the mother amongst all of the children because of her kind and caring nature. No matter how many things Luhan’s broken, stolen or defaced, she never scolded him once.

She would always call him into the office and sit him down on a chair right next to hers so that they sat side by side. Then she’d proceed to talk about feelings and what was on his mind. Luhan didn't like that. He’d rather not get to eat dinner than try to explain the urge behind yanking the hair of four different kids all at the same time.

This time she’s there too, but with a guest. The man that was mauled by ten year olds sat in the chair next to her, his body standing stiffly as he almost seemed to watch over her. Luhan had never felt any sort of real emotion from this man unless it was panic or curiosity. Now he was emanating a strong, intimidating aura that made Luhan feel smaller than ever, and not just because the man stood a good foot taller than him.

Like usual, the orphanage mother told Luhan to settle down and prepare to let out all of his inner emotions. He’s never fully done it before, let alone say anything really to her that didn’t sound like mumbling. Luhan’s never had to talk before and if he couldn’t find a good reason to, he believed that he didn’t have to. Having a third person here was already putting up a red flag saying that the session wouldn’t go by nicely.

A loud scream interrupts the meeting and Luhan finds himself bolting up from his chair and standing firmly facing the door where the noise came from. Since it sounded so close, the orphanage mother said she’d go out to check and told him she’d be right back after settling whoever got into a fight. She’d pulled the door with her on the way out, but hadn’t closed the door fully, leaving easy access to the cat eyed boy to make his appearance into her office with his signature mischievous smirk.

“Now that we’re alone… Let’s have a little chat.” He says, walking right past Luhan and sitting down into the orphanage mother’s seat.

Luhan doesn’t know why, but he feels like he should get out of there. The light breeze that was blowing around the room stopped completely, leaving the vicinity dry and stuffy.

“Why do you give mother such a hard time?” The other man asks, startling his cat eyed friend along with Luhan.

He didn’t know that the man and the orphanage mother had gotten so close in such a short amount of time. Squinting his eyes a bit, Luhan turns away while letting out a soft huff, shrugging his shoulders to end it there.

“Then why do you pull people’s hair? Is it a ?”

The cat eyed boy is nudged in the side by his friend while Luhan stares blankly up at them. They’re asking him questions he had no answers for, and even if he did, he had no way to communicate himself. Technically, he could. But being the way he is, he wouldn’t go out of his way to talk to these strangers.

“Do you… Hate living here?”

Luhan freezes at the question and finds himself unconsciously nodding his head once. It was a slow movement, and he wasn’t really sure if he had nodded or if the two men would misinterpret his reaction.

“Then shouldn’t you be nice so that they’ll let you go?”

Again, Luhan doesn’t fully understand why he answers these questions, but he does it anyways. His hands crumple into balled fists when remembering who ‘they’ were. The adults that worked as supervisors in the orphanage only thought that he was a pest and a nuisance, nothing more. If that’s how he was going to be treated then he didn’t mind returning the favor ten-fold. He did nothing wrong at first after all. Over time the older kids thought it would be funny to order him around because he was younger, and Luhan hated that. So he in his pride and shut himself out from everyone’s lives.  

It did him good when he was by himself, but it became increasingly hard with the orphanage mother constantly doting on him and the appearance of these two new people.

“It doesn’t matter how badly they treat you.”

Luhan feels his own body shudder as one of the guys sit down next to him, freezing like a rock as he continued to speak.

“It doesn’t matter because you get stronger in the end.” He says, bitter smile lacing his lips. “And who doesn’t want to be strong?”

“You need to be strong enough to protect those that you love.” The other man says, eyes trailing towards the door before drifting over to his friend.

They speak calmly as if they’d known Luhan for years now. The atmosphere was very tense, yet Luhan could feel himself becoming very lax as his mouth opened slightly.

“I… Have no one.” He whispers, lips pressing together tightly as if he’d regret saying it in the first place. “No one...”

“You do.”

Luhan feels a hand plop down onto his head before he can feel his hair being tousled around. He doesn’t reject the touch, and just sits there as a spark warms his stomach from the core. There is a slight doubt though as the man spoke, about him having someone to want to be strong for.

“No.”

“Yes.” The other boy stops him, “You won’t meet them now, but you will eventually.”

Luhan squints at the cat eyed boy for being so positive in such a mood dampening situation before realizing that he was falling right into these people’s plan. He stood up abruptly before marching to the door and yanking it open to leave. As he steps out of the room, he couldn’t help but feel a wave of cold air rush past him as he runs through the hall, far away from the office where those two men sat.

He thinks about what they said to him for the rest of the day. Luhan stares blankly outside at the rain falling down and continues to mull over their words. Would he meet someone he’d want to protect one day?

It constantly bothers him even through out dinner, and he doesn’t bother to eat his food, using his chopsticks to push around the rice as he thought about it more.

“I’m hungry!”

One of the kid’s shrill voices had snapped Luhan out of his train of thought long enough for him to realize that he was still supposed to be eating dinner now. Looking down at his plate, there was not a single grain of rice left and the child was grumbling about still being hungry. The orphanage was never the richest place, meaning that they never got a lot of food in the first place. It wasn’t abnormal for some kids to still be hungry, especially with the small portions and large amounts of kids.

The groans grew louder until Luhan couldn’t hear his own thoughts. He grew fed up with the constant complaints and stood up from his chair. The loud wood on wood noise startled everyone that had finished eating and Luhan realized