CH 1
Rebuilding A LifeThe sunlight filtering through the sterile white blinds did nothing to help the pounding headache in LuHan's skull, and the pressure of his fingers on his temples only numbed the pain a bit. He had asked the nurse several times for more painkiller but it seemed that she didn't believe the amount of discomfort he was in and continuously refused his requests. The steady beeping of the machines next to him only intensified the irritation, and just when LuHan thought things couldn't get worse, the door to his hospital room opened and his father walked in.
Senator Lu was dressed as usual in one of the smart black suits that LuHan had always hated, his fashionable grey hat sitting at an angle on his head of salt and pepper hair. His face was a full mask of serenity, but LuHan could see that his father was holding in carefully controlled anger; the stress was showing through the tenseness in the Senator's lips and the tightness of his eyes, eyes that were nearly identical to his son's. Those eyes refused to meet LuHan's own grey-brown orbs, though, and instead the Senator closed the door behind him, set his hat on the table, and moved to stand in front of the window, staring out into the city instead of looking at his only child.
The silence stretched for what felt like forever, the Senator's body tense with anger in every line as he studied the silhouette of the city. LuHan sat waiting, irritable and picking at a scab on his forearm, one that had surely been caused by the broken glass of his car. 'My car,' he thought mournfully, the thought of never driving his baby again shoving a metaphorical stake through his heart. His fingers raised once again to his temples to try and rub away his sorrow, but one that small action seemed to bring his father to life.
Senator Lu turned to face his son, pain and betrayal and something indistinguishable in his eyes. "What have you done?" He said quietly, the emotions in his eyes carrying into his voice, and LuHan paused as he tried to gauge what kind of answer his father wanted. 'Regret,' he decided, and began to smooth the feigned expression onto his face, but it was too late. His father turned his back on him before he could get the act fully on, the Senator's white hands reaching out to grasp the window sill. He leaned on it heavily as if for support, and for a brief moment concern over his father's health passed through LuHan's mind. He admittedly hadn't really been paying attention to his meddling parents these last ten or so years, but his eyes noted now the slump to his father's shoulders, the paleness to his skin that said he hadn't been sleeping well. As he considered asking after his health, though, the Senator spoke, soft and quiet.
"You... I have always known that you were a spoiled brat, and I should have done something about it years ago. Your mother pleaded that you would change, though, and I believed her, otherwise I would have taken your things, locked your bank account, done whatever I could to help you. She thought you would change, thought you would grow up," LuHan frowned and opened his mouth to argue that he had grown up, he was an adult, and to add in the snotty barb that his father couldn't freeze his accounts even if he wanted to, but Senator Lu continued on in that monotone, his voice quiet but driving deep into LuHan's conscious.
"I thought you would. But we were all wrong. You killed someone, did you know that?" He abruptly turned to face his son, eyes boring into him as if trying to see into his soul, trying to catch a glimpse of the sweet and tender LuHan he had known as a child. The one sitting on the hospital bed, though, gave a noncommittal shrug in response.
"Yeah, he pulled out in front of..."
"No, LuHan, you hit him. You were drunk and ran a red light and killed someone! Why does that not even phase you?!" The Senator's face drained of color as he regarded his son, aghast at the lack of compassion in his only child. "How do you not feel any remorse? How are you not sorry and begging for it to have been your life instead? I've raised a monster..."
"Dad, he should have seen me coming! I mean, my car," he flinched thinking about his precious baby, "My car wasn't exactly inconspicuous."
His father's sharp eyes hadn't noticed that LuHan had only shown a hint of sadness when he spoke of his car, and it suddenly seemed as if all life went out of the Senator; his shoulders slumped and the lines in his face softened as his eyes lost their spark of anger that they had held. "I don't know how I failed you, LuHan. I really don't. I guess I should have been more strict." His voice was mournful, his tone flat and broken as if he had just realized that his beloved young child had been replaced years ago by a spoiled and irresponsible young man.
The silence stretched between them as LuHan realized that nothing he said would change the facts, the tension in the air growing until his father moved to the window again, hands on the sill as if gripping for his own sanity. "The man you killed... he had just graduated college, LuHan. Something you never even bothered with. He was the oldest son of a widow, and the younger son was in the car with him. He... the younger one... the accident broke his hips and legs in several places, and it will be a few years before he'll be able to walk without crutches again. You have ruined a family's life, do you not understand that?"
His father turned to face him again, but this time with tears building in his eyes, and LuHan shifted uncomfortably as he thought of the ridiculousness of a grown man crying. "It wasn't my..." He began, and his father interrupted with a heavy sigh.
"Your fault. You've always said that, LuHan, your entire life. The toy broke, it wasn't your fault. The window broke, it
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