Juin leaned forward and asked with a serious expression, "How did I end up here? Is there anything wrong with me when I was a kid? Like, did anything unexplainable happen when I was young? And how about Ashton?" Director Wu thought for a while. She then stood up and went to the walls of cabinets next to the door and searched through the brown files with tabs on them. Since this orphanage had been here for quite some time, she had plenty of files on the kids who lived here before.
Even with digitalization, she still preferred to write things down in physical files. It helped her remember each and every one of them that used to be under her care.
As such, there were quite a lot of files.
After a while, she found the files that she was looking for and brought them back to the table.
Once she sat back down at her seat, she handed one of the files to Juin and said, "That"s your file."
Juin took a look at it before looking back at her. "I"ve... seen this before… There"s nothing much here."
Out of curiosity, he snuck in with Ashton once to take a look at their files, but there was nothing worthy of his attention here.
Director Wu raised a brow suspiciously, wondering when did Juin see his file. "Then that"s all I can tell you."
"No, there has to be more…" Juin said. "I know that this is just the black and white stuff. I need more details. It said I was a foundling, but where? And by who?"
Director Wu thought about it. Juin"s past was something that was kept out of his file, because she was afraid that he might break in here and read it before he was mature enough to understand. And it looked like she was right.
Looking at Juin, who still looked the same as 3 years ago even though he was already 16 years old, she could not help but sigh. Figuring that he was old enough to understand and accept the truth, she relented and said, "Someone reported child abuse, and when a policewoman went to the trailer home where you lived, she found two people, a man and a woman, dead from overdosed…
"They thought that they were your parents, but because of the bruises they found on your body, they felt that something might be wrong and they did a DNA test on you. It was found that they had no relations to you, so they might have taken you away from your birth parents or that they picked you up somewhere. Anyway, the state tried to locate your birth parents, but no one stepped forward to claim you. And not long after that, you were sent here."
Juin frowned as he looked at his file. He gently touched one of the photos in the file. It was a photo taken from when he was first admitted into this orphanage, and in the photo, he was looking straight at the cameraman, unafraid.
Juin could not even recognize the gaze of the baby in the photo; so sharp, so determined, so clear.
He was probably less than a year old then.
"What… What about Ashton?" Juin asked as he looked at the file in front of Director Wu that had the name "Ashton W" written on its tab.
Director Wu tapped the file in front of her with a complicated expression. "Ashton… was found in the back yard of this orphanage… above a tree."
They wrote in Ashton"s file, that he was found abandoned at the steps of the orphanage, but the truth was weirder.
Director Wu could still remember the scene even though more than 15 years had pa.s.sed. It would be impossible for her, or anyone else, to forget such an incredible scene.
She had been awoken by shoutings in the wee morning and went out to check. That was when she saw the old oak tree in the back yard. The branches that served as the kids" playthings seemed to have changed overnight.
The end of one of the branches formed into a circular, egg-like shape… sort of like a coc.o.o.n. A thick bed of green leaves grew inside… and the weirdest thing was that inside the coc.o.o.n and sleeping on the green leaves was a cherubic baby with the whitest hair that anyone had ever seen.
The baby was just sleeping quietly on the bed of leaves, without so much as a stir, even when Mr. Otto cut down the branch to take the baby out of the "coc.o.o.n".
Even though everyone felt that it was weird, they did not think too much into it. It wasn"t like they could think of a proper explanation for it.
Director Wu opened the file and looked at the baby photo of Ashton, and she remembered what it was like when she carried the baby out of the coc.o.o.n. The moment Ashton opened his eyes, his blue eyes were so bright that she thought they were glowing.
They were so beautiful that she, and the other adults, was entranced by those eyes, almost as if their souls were being trapped by them.
She then sighed softly and closed the file. "You used to cry nonstop, and we could never understand the scars that you would sometimes get on your body. I thought maybe one of the employees was abusing you, but when I took care of you myself, scars were still appearing on your body."
Director Wu continued to remark as she looked down at Ashton"s file, "But the moment Ashton arrived, you were… better. No more scars, and you grew healthier too. You stopped crying for no reason, and if we try to put you two in different rooms, you would start to cry your heads off."
"I did?" Juin asked, clearly had no clue of what happened in his babyhood. He was absolutely clear now that Ashton was the one who protected him. Otherwise, there was no explanation of why he got better with Ashton"s arrival.
Director Wu sighed. "As for Ashton… He"s very… mature, even as a baby. A little creepy, to be honest. He barely cried, except when we took you away. That"s when he would start screaming his head off…"
Truth be told, Director Wu was a little afraid of Ashton, which did not make sense since he was just a child back then. Back the mature gaze in Ashton"s eyes, as well as his behavior, made it hard for her to look at him like a little boy.
Lucifer was floating in midair while standing akimbo, and he suddenly said to Juin, "Ask her if there are any other weird things that happened with Ashton…"
Juin nodded.
"Director Wu," Juin asked, "have you ever noticed anything weird that happened with Ashton before? Maybe something that"s related to me?"
Director Wu thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. But right after, she suddenly frowned and said, "There"s one time… When you kids were 5 years old… There"s something."
She stood up and slowly walked to the arched window that overlooked the front yard, and a complicated expression appeared on her face as she tried to remember that incident from so long ago.
"Why? What happened?"
"Ashton was sick, so I made him stay at home from school. On that day, there was a party at your preschool…"
…
Flashback to roughly 10 years ago...
"Can"t... you just stay… home with me, Juin?" 5-year-old Ashton asked in between coughs. He was holding Juin"s hand as he looked at his best friend with pleading eyes.
Juin wavered. He really wanted to go since there would be cakes and cookies, but he did not want to leave Ashton alone. After a moment of hesitation, he looked up at Director Wu. "Can I stay at home?"
"No," Director Wu said sternly as she placed a hand on the top of Ashton"s head. "Ashton is sick, so the further you kids are from him, the better. It"s only a few hours anyway."
Ashton sighed and released Juin"s hand. He coughed into his shoulder and sniffled. He then pulled out a few strands of his hair. Invisible to the naked eye, the few strands of white hair glowed slightly for a few seconds.
"Turn around, Juin," Ashton said as he signaled Juin to turn.
Juin did as he was told, and when he glanced back at Ashton, he saw Ashton stuff the strands of hair into the left back pocket of his overalls.
"What"s that for?" Juin asked with an innocent smile. He wasn"t even grossed out or shocked by it since Ashton could do some weird stuff occasionally, but he was not supposed to tell anyone about it or Ashton would get mad.
Ashton patted Juin"s back pocket and smiled at him. "Protection… Remember, don"t leave the group and don"t go anywhere by yourself."