Baekhyun has never had what they called ‘Love’. Not even from his parents.

After finding out he was a natural deaf, his Dad sent him straight to the orphanage. They didn’t even go check up on him. Every month, Dad’s secretary would bring money there and ask his caretaker if his condition was good. The answer would always be “couldn’t be any better”, but all they cared was how many zeros was on the checks.

Baekhyun was completely isolated. No one was willing to play with a boy who never said a word or answered when they called. No one cared if Baekhyun was missing at lunch or dinner, no one cleaned his room - he would have to do everything on his own. But thanks to that, Baekhyun always found pieces of paper the other children tossed away, some filled with silly doodles that obviously their owner didn’t like enough to keep, others might be blank with just some lines drawn across the pages. Baekhyun would keep all the blank pages and add his lines to the pictures, making them his own artworks. He never showed them to anyone though.

Baekhyun kept all his pictures in a box under the bed. Sometimes when it rained outside, with lightning flashing, making frightening lines onto every windows and darkness wrapping up the whole town, he would sit alone on his own bed, take them out and scan through each and everyone of them, while the other children had gone to the biggest bedroom to sleep together for safety.

His roommates said he seemed to never be afraid of anything. But they all forgot - Baekhyun couldn’t hear the thunders. He never understood why everyone were scared of those flashy lights - and rains, oh the rains. Baekhyun always loved them. If the main door wasn’t locked, he would have probably been outside playing by then. He liked it when the little droplets of water fell down from heaven and danced on his skin, then later on slowly ran down his body and dissolved into the ground. The only thing that saddened him was he never got to hear that sound all the books always mentioned. He felt the dance, but he never heard the music.

Baekhyun used to wonder, again and again, what did sounds look like? Would they look red? Blue? Green? He wanted to ask, but no one understood what he needed to know. So he decided to go find the answer himself. But before he could get away from the orphanage, his Dad came to find him.

It was a sunny day - not a tiny string of cloud in the sky, not a slightest breeze of wind passing by. The whole land was sweltering. Baekhyun was going to leave that night - he couldn’t stand the heat outside at that moment, and besides, no one would care if he didn’t show up at dinner. But right when Baekhyun was about to zip his bag up, someone behind had taken it out of his hand.

Baekhyun turned around to see a face almost exactly like him - only much older - with brows knitted like two little worms wriggling against each other. In his much-bigger-than-Baekhyun’s hand was Baekhyun’s bag, the box looming inside. He looked at Baekhyun, then back at the bag, then back to Baekhyun again. He opened his mouth as if going to say something, but before the words left his mouth, he decided against it. Instead, he held out his hand, waiting for Baekhyun to shake it.

Baekhyun reached out and grabbed his box.

The man tried to grab it back, and the poor old box was teared up into two. Pictures were scattered to the floor, and before Baekhyun could climb down the bed, the man had picked them all up, rearranged a bit then put them into his bag. There’s this glimmer in his eyes that made Baekhyun scared - it looked like the man had turn into a demon - the one the books always described, with eyes as red as Hell’s fire, filled with greed and lust.

The man in suit was Baekhyun’s father. He only drove by the place and thought that he should go check his son that he had neglected all those years. Just to see if his money were used at the right place. On the right person. He might not need this son, but that didn’t mean he would want his money spent on someone else - it’s his after all, and it should be used on his purpose.

He was surprised to see Baekhyun packing his stuff - the orphanage didn’t say there were any picnics or outdoor activities. Was this brat trying to get away? Did he not know how much money I had spent on him? How dare he run away? Baekhyun’s father was mad. And the anger only rose up with every reactions Baekhyun did. But when the pictures fell out and came into his view, everything he saw before his eyes was money. Lots and lots of dollars and pounds and francs fills his mind, money is everywhere, everywhere. He picked each and every one of them, then carefully put them inside his son’s bag. Finally, finally he found it, his personal money-making tree!

Baekhyun was sent to the mansion. His father gave him every best materials to make art - finest papers, finest paints, finest everything. He told Baekhyun to “just keep doing what you did back there” then left to his company.

Baekhyun didn’t sketch anything for a week. This drove Baekhyun’s father crazy - he needed his son’s talent, he needed his artworks, he needed money. He locked Baekhyun in the room, only let the old nanny come in and gave him food at lunch and dinner. “If you want to leave this room, then draw,” those were his last words before he left.

And he drew.

Shadows were the only thing Baekhyun had drawn.

The first picture showed a flicker of light weakly shone in a corner, while all the shadows surrounded it, fighting each other for the best spot to swallow it later.

The second picture, the light was barely there, hopelessly trying to shine through layers and layers of long black shadows, silently calling for help.

The third one, light was buried under, all the shadows ripped it apart, bit by bit.

And the final picture were all black, one could only vaguely saw all the shadows lying on, this after that. It’s like they were trying to break free, to reach through the paper, to come and put their deathly kiss on every bright individuals out there.

Baekhyun thought, his father’s sound must be black, with a few drops of grey splattered here and there. Dark, scary, dirty and sometimes, dead.