"He has been going out a lot now," Xifan half whispered to her husband as she stared at the retreating back of her beloved son from the window.

Haodong was fully aware of what his wife was saying. Ever since they gave Yixing the freedom to venture outside three weeks ago, he has been disappearing earlier and earlier. Today is only a prime example. His wife went to release Yixing from his bed; he came down to eat earlier, and out the door before Haodong even finished his cup of coffee.

"What do you think he is doing?" Xifan whispered again as if the walls could hear her. The look she gave Haodong was one of pure unadulterated worry.

He returned her look, thinking about the first day Yixing came home from his exploring. His wife sitting on the couch mumbling to herself quietly while rocking, when her eyes landed on him, he saw that same look…pure worry.

In his mind, whenever there was a danger to his family, it was his job to protect them, so when he heard his wife words of their only son liking to see his mother hurt; he immediately went to search for him.

He found the boy in a ball, shivering in his sleep on the cold floor of the cellar, his jeans still pooled around his ankles. Roughly grabbing the boy awake, he pulled his shoulders until he was upright on his knees. The sleepy shocked eyes of the pale boy locked onto his father when he heard his voice, "Your mother put you on your knees! You stay their till I say you can get off of them, do you understand!" he yelled into the boy’s face. His eyes growing bigger as his face contorted into a painful grimace did nothing to deter the man from his iron like hold around the boy’s arms.

"There is nothing but nature outside Xifan," haodong said, taking his mind from his thoughts and finally gathering his words to answer his wife, "No one lives within walking distance around here, and you know he is not going too far, he has been checking in every hour on time since his first day going out," he explained.

Crossing her arms, she shook her head slightly as if disagreeing. She started to walk in circles pacing back and forth, "He is so eager," she spoke to herself, "why is he so eager?"

~~~~~~

He grew improved at his method of getting to and from the willow tree in a timely fashion, not wanting to repeat what happened so many weeks ago.

He only ran when he was sure his parents could not see him.

The most rejuvenated he could ever feel, is when he ran arms wide with a huge sincere smile gracing his features.

Not only then though…Lian also made him feel rejuvenated.

She was always there under the willow tree, waiting for him…for him.

She never changed still the same bright smile and healthy glow. Still the same cheeriness and teasing words…still the same.

He reached the willow, walking towards it slowly. Sometimes Lian would be sleeping and he didn’t want to disturb her.

Today was no different; there she lay, beautiful and free.

He tipped toed closer before stooping down and removing his converse and socks, digging his toes into the cool grass. It was great work for him to do this, but persuasive talking from Lian had gotten him to this point.

The blades were soft, not dangerous; no wonder Lian was always barefoot.

He sat down in the grass eyes trained on her form. Nothing about her escaped his noticed and everything about her was daunting to him…how addicted he already felt.

"Is it a new habit of yours to stare at the sleeping?" she yawned out. He squinted his eyes at her as a smile played on his lips.

"I only ever see you sleeping, as you know, it is kind of impossible to see my parents sleeping or anyone else for that matter," he muttered the last part.

"Yeah maybe there’s something wrong with you," stretching she scooted closer to Yixing.

Her sudden nearness to him caused him to stiffen, "has anyone ever told you that you’re handsome?" she whispered, the feel of her breath like a gentle breeze on his cheeks.

His eyes trained down to his folded hands in his lap.

No…why would they, who would?

"Yixing, has mother ever told you that you’re handsome?" she tried again.

"Yes," he said clearly.

"Is she lying to you?"

"Why would she be lying? Can’t it be true?" he asked flinching at the closeness of her face.

"She can, but how will you ever know if no one else told you that you’re handsome?"

"You are someone else," he simply stated.

"I am," her teasing smile shown on her face as she poked him on his arm.

He pouted his lips at her teasing, something he should be used to by now.

"Yixing, when you go home, can you do me a favor?" she asked. He looked at her with raised eyebrows, "You are sweating; how about you change into a short sleeved shirt?"

"What?"

"Short sleeves, you do own a pair? Change into it," she stated.

"How is that doing you a favor?" he scoffed at her, "If my parents find out, I probably would not eat for three days and I would be locked in the cellar!"

"Then maybe you should hide the shirt, ask your mom for a bag of snacks and put the shirt in there," she shrugged as if this was everyday life for her.

"You are too sneaky and disobedient," he reprimanded.

"Me? I thought the person with the problems was you, remember?" she whispered.

He rose to his feet dusting off the back of his pants before he strolled forward, touching the hanging leaves of the willow tree. In all honesty, he wanted to wear a short sleeve shirt outside, but he felt he was already going too far taking off his shoes outside without his parent’s permission, he would at least ask.

"Do your parents ever fuss at you for the things you do?" he quietly inquired over his shoulder.

It was quiet for a second before her voice spoke, lower than usual, "my parents, they are too strict. They are always watching me it seems, I just want to experience other things but I don’t tell them that or I would get in trouble."

"So this is why you sneak? Do your parents even know you come here?" he turned to face her still sitting position.

She looked down away from his curious eyes, "do you remember when you came to visit me again the next day? How you were limping because your knees were in pain from your punishment?" Yixing shook his head, reflecting on the treatment, "If my parents were to find out I was here, they would do much worse to me. I see the way they are starting to look at me. It’s like they are always wondering where I am going, they haven’t asked me yet, but if they knew, they would hurt me even though they call themselves protecting me, it’s why you can’t tell anyone about me" her emotions were getting the best of her.

Yixing wanted to comfort the usually cheery girl, but found himself uncomfortable doing so, he had never touched a girl before nor was he interested in having his first time doing so being thrown back in his face because Lian didn’t like his touch.

No he kept his distance and gave her a pitiful stare.

"Are you not going to hug me?" she asked, stealing his very thoughts.

Opening and closing his mouth he wanted to speak an answer, but she caught him terribly off guard.

"Are you scared you won’t do it right?" she sniffled.

That was his exact problem. She knew him too well, since the first day it seemed he has been an open book for her to read.

"You still have twenty five minutes before you have to check in, hold me for five of those minutes? Please," she pouted, stretching her arms for him.

His feet carried him towards her faster than his brain even registered the movement. Before he knew it, the girl was wrapping her arms around his frame and burying her head into his neck.

Her touch felt, surreal.

Her fingers gripping the flesh on his waist felt as soft as grass wrapping around him.

Her breath on his neck, that was giving him consistent chills, felt like the cool morning air.

Even her breathing was so in sync with his.

Looking down at the teary girl, he felt like it could be him. They were so similar, yet she was far braver than he was, "tell me about your parents," he asked.

She sniffed again before raising her head slightly, her soft lips tickling his neck, doing nothing but reminding him that he was touching another person, a girl nonetheless, "my mother seems like she loves me, but in her eyes I can see that they are only empty. There is no life in them. And my father, he does whatever my mother tells him, it’s like he has no mind of his own! It is suffocating."

"Do you think they love you truly?" he asked her.

"It seems so, but…I don’t think so," she mumbled. Her grip tightened around him before letting him go. She sat up and looked into his face, "Yixing, I want to show you something when you get back ok?"

He shook his head in agreement while looking down at his watch.

It was time for him to check in.

~~~~~~

She watched him come through the door.

He seemed distracted as he always did and eager to leave again. She approached him, cupping his handsome face in her hands causing him to give her the small practiced smile that he usually gave when she did this, just enough for his dimple to show so she can caress it like an obsession.

"What did you do for the first hour?" she asked the same question she has been asking since the second week.

"I sat under the willow tree, it is where I go to think," he told her, not completely lying. It is the same answer he gave her every time she asked.

"Do you do anything else? It seems you are always under the willow tree," she smiled but it never reached her eyes.

Empty…

"It fascinates me, everything about it is graceful," he spoke.

She nodded her head while looking at Yixing. Something was not right to her, his need to be going didn’t seem right to her.

"Were you hot today?" she cooed.

"I was fine, can I leave?" he asked not noticing the look that came over her face.

"Why!" she yelled unexpectedly making him flinch and back away from her, his eyes growing bigger all the while.

"I, I’ll stay…if you want," he stuttered.

"No, no, go outside! You prefer to be there than with your own mother!" she spat.

He couldn’t tell where this was coming from, why she was yelling all of a sudden, but it put his nerves on edge and the last thing he wanted to happen was to be punished again.

He slide nervously toward the door as her stretched desperate eyes stayed trained on him the whole time. He could feel his fear of her coming up, tears meeting in the corner of his eyes. He needed to get outside into the fresh air, inside it felt suffocating; he needed a cool breeze to relax him or the arms of Lian, those felt nice.

"Are you leaving me?" his mother said with a deeper voice through clenched teeth. Yixing stopped moving just as his hand hit the door knob. He looked at his mother with pleading eyes, too afraid to say anything, "just go," she muttered.

He stood there still frozen, "Go!" she yelled causing him to jump and hurry out the door. He wanted to run, but that would only do him more harm if his mother saw his actions. So he settled with walking faster than normal, climbing up the hill speedily not looking back. By time he got to the willow tree his breathe was gone and his chest was aching.

Dropping his knees, he didn’t realize how scared he was of his mother. She has never done anything like that before, yelling for no reason. His heart bang recklessly against his rib cage as he bent over gripping at his chest, he wanted to scream, cry, or something. Anything other than his silent painful mewling he was doing with his eyes still as stretched and wide like saucers.

"Lian," he hoarsely whispered. She was not in sight when he came under the willow, "Lian," he said louder.

He heard the grass crunching as someone approached him.

"Yixing why are you in a ball?" her cheery voice asked, much different from the sound she had earlier, "did something happen? Did mother do something?" she asked.

He looked up at her with sad red eyes and a pained face, still obviously shaken up by his mother’s behavior. Lian’s own face, upon sight of his, contorted into a compassionate stare.

Gently gripping his shoulders she forced him upright, where he was kneeling on his legs underneath him. Her hands tracing his long neck up towards his face as she came closer to him on her knees. She pulled his face down until it was cradled in between her head and neck, then she wrapped her slim arms around the rest of his lean frame, holding him close.

"Why do they treat you this way? What did you do?" she gently spoke in his hair. His hold came around her waist, fingers tangling in her flower patterned white dress. He began to tear at her voice wondering why he even felt this way. "It is ok, Yixing, I know you did nothing wrong, you did nothing," she continued to comfort him.

Whatever she wanted to show him would have to wait. They spent the rest of their time that day, in each other’s embrace, talking about any and everything that bothered them. Every hour he checked in on time, his mother would just glance at him with pink eyes and wave him back outside as if he were not important and every time he would return to Lian and her open waiting arms.

It seemed that the longer he held her, the more a like they became. Nearly expressing all of the same sentiments on a subject, agreeing with each other’s every opinion. Though Yixing lacked knowledge of the outside world, he knew enough from listening to the news to have a knowledgeable conversation, in which Lian would reply with his exact thoughts.

Though they were each other’s only friends, they grew closer that day, than any other day could bring. Because of that, they made a resolution with each other, a resolution that both comforted and disturbed Yixing.

~~~~~~~

"Go wash up and come back down for dinner," Xifan told her son as he came through the door the last time that day.

Haodong was already sitting at the head of the table looking at his wife, the same as he did that morning. Something was bothering her, possibly the same thing.

"How was your day Xifan?" he asked.

She looked at him and scoffed, "as if you care," she stated.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he trained his eyes on her.

"I am here in this house all day, alone, with my husband at work and my son, out doing who knows what!" she harshly whispered leaning towards her husband threateningly.

"Is Yixing doing something he is not supposed to?" his voice changing to one of worry.

"How am I supposed to know when you are the one who gave him permission to go outside? I can’t see a thing he is doing!"

The steps on the stairs told them this conversation would be over until after Yixing was tucked into bed later that night.

"Come sit down son," Haodong pulled out his son’s chair, patting the seat.

He was nervous to be sitting at a table directly across from his mother, but his father seemed to sense that nothing was amiss. Cautiously he lowered himself into the chair already in his pajamas for the night, he had already taken his bath, even though he grew tired of having a shower but not being allowed to use it, in case he slipped and fell over hurting himself, so he was stuck running bath water every night before being able to eat.

He kept his head down through most of the dinner, especially since he could feel his mother’s heat ray vision frying the hair on his head, she was staring so hard.

The dinner was very uneventful, his father talking about work, and asking him if he saw anything new in nature today.

He answered with a no, he saw nothing new, but he certainly felt something new, the arms of a girl around his slender frame, and the breath of a woman tickling his neck that was not his mothers and the comfort of a whole body in his arms with that person trusting him enough to not hurt or damage them in anyway.

Yes what he discovered new in nature today, could very well be…want…

He wasn’t quite sure since he had never experienced any feelings outside of the norm to him.

He did know, that whatever was happening to his heart, something in his mind did not agree.

"I am proud of you son, go upstairs and brush your teeth, your mother will be up shortly," Haodong announced. The sound of his father’s voice snapped him from his thoughts.

Yixing followed his father’s wish and raised from his seat, bringing his dish near the sink, but never washing it, another thing he was not allowed to do, just in case he was to cut himself on an unseen utensil floating in the soapy water.

"What are you proud of?" Xifan whispered as her son went up the steps, "That boy is hiding something."

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

She kept her head down as if in thought before mumbling that she would not be tucking him in tonight and leaving off to her room.

Haodong sighed before going up the steps to find his son waiting by his bed for it to be unlocked so he could climb through the narrow door.

He walked towards the boy that was now taller than he was. What could he be hiding? There was nothing physically he could see happening. The only difference was his son’s eagerness to get out of the house.

He reached the bed, studying Yixing face that was hidden behind his growing fringe of hair.

Unlocking the bars and dropping them, Yixing crawled in and put himself under the covers while his father watched him, "You have a slight tan," his father smiled.

Yixing looked over to him, clearly seeing his face before the bars hindered his view. The clicking of the lock made his heart jump slightly before his dad said goodnight and turned off the lights, leaving him in complete darkness.

His eyes felt heavy almost immediately. They usually did after walking back and forth all day to check in with his mother. His mind floated off into oblivion slowly but surely.

"Why don’t we run away together?" Lian asked him breaking free from his hold.

Yixing looked at her skeptically.

"Don’t look at me like that, you are the one thinking it, I am just saying it out loud," she giggled.

"Where would we go?" he asked her.

"Anywhere away from our parents, don’t you feel in danger around mother?" she asked.

In truth he did feel in danger, but he couldn’t envision himself ever leaving her, or his father, it felt like they needed him.

"Don’t you want to protect me? Protect yourself?"

"I do, I do, it’s just, I can’t…live on my own, I don’t know how to take care of things," he said embarrassed.

"I am here, you won’t be alone, you have me," she smiled.

"I don’t want him going outside anymore!"

"How can I be sure? You seem too close…" he whispered.

"I don’t Haodong! I don’t! How can I be sure he’s safe? How do I know! Should I follow him?"

"Too close? I am only as close as you want me," she stopped smiling, looking at him with big innocent eyes.

"Has he done anything to hurt you?"

"Let me think about it, please Lian, let me think about it…"

"I will be waiting for you here," she ended.

"He leaves me here alone!" Xifan voice rang through muffled but clear. Yixing’s eyes popped open. Thinking about the dream he just had, while being distracted by the hysterics in his mother’s voice.

"Is that really hurting you?" his father’s voice could be heard.

"Yes! Haodong! I hate being here alone, Yixing is my baby and I can’t let him go out, he could get hurt, anything can happen to him! This is driving me crazy not knowing what he is doing! I just can’t anymore! I can’t!" she screeched.

Yixing flinched at every word he heard his mother speak, slowly rising up into a sitting position, but what made his heart clench was his father’s words afterwards.

"Then we won’t allow him out anymore, tomorrow I will tell him he can’t go out, ok?"

He looked down to his hands, he can’t go out?

How will he see Lian if he won’t be allowed out anymore?

"I will be waiting for you here,"

he heard her voice.

She wanted to run away tomorrow, how could he help her if he was not out there? She would wait for him all day and miss her chance to leave!

He pondered on it again and again before making his mind up. All he had to do was wait for his parents to fall asleep. He would finally climb over the bars on his bed, and he would leave, to go to her.

He would break a rule or three on his own for once. It is clear to him; he had to do this, for Lian.

He wants to protect her, he does…

So he will…

All at once, everything…is.

A/N: And that completes the second part! Can I give a shout out that there is only one more part left?

Continue to COMMENT and deal with this angst please! I am dealing badly with it, honestly.

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Thank you!!!

Until next time…