Love Bound

Chapter 25: Past

For someone who used to live in a peaceful life, the news about Cheng's life was quite heavy to comprehend but despite that Fanxing insisted that he wanted to know the truth so he asked Xiao Zhan more about it because he knew that the young teacher serve as Cheng's guardian. He heard that Cheng is living in Xiao Zhan's apartment and he was sure he knew the whole story.

Xiao Zhan and Fanxing sit down in a vacant table in the cafeteria and Xiao Zhan bought drinks for the two of them one cappuccino and one strawberry juice. "Did they do something to you? Milky and Choco?" he asked the younger guy.

"Nope." Fanxing shake his head. "They just wanted to get money from me in order to pay for the broken headphone." Fanxing replied hastily. "But I don't have enough cash with me so I told them I can withdraw some so that we can buy a new one but then that topic was opened and... I wanted to know the truth."

Xiao Zhan sighed, Fanxing's eyes was so determined to know the truth and he feel like he can't give him a lie as an answer. "Isn't it better if you don't know it?" Xiao Zhan asked. "Besides what can you benefit from knowing his past? As you heard, he has a tragic past, it's true."

"I want to know the past of my future partner." Fanxing replied to him. "With that, I can understand him more. Past is always connected to present, if past doesn't exist then there's no present happening right now." He added. "Choco and Milky said that everyone is misunderstanding Cheng's behavior, that he's not really a bully like everyone said. Actually, I've been wondering as well, everyone is scared of Cheng, saying that I should avoid him but I can't see the scary Cheng that everyone is talking about. When I first saw him, he saved an Omega from being rape, even he knew that her heat will affect him as well, he still save her without hesitation. I thought he's so cool and he's like a hero so I don't understand his behavior.. and how people see him."

Xiao Zhan smiled, Fanxing's natural curiosity was still with him even after years that they didn't saw each other. The two of them together felt so nostalgic, like they were in the past where he was still a small child and teaching him his assignments. But now, he was not a child anymore, he has in his teenage life where he was curious about everything and also started to opened about romance.

"You can say that it was defense mechanism." Xiao Zhan was finally convinced to tell the truth to Fanxing. "Cheng is putting a brave-bully image because he wanted to protect himself."

"What do you mean?"

"If everyone is scared of him then no one will look down on him." Xiao Zhan explained. "Two years ago, his father killed his mother and her secret lover. He caught them sleeping together and he got so mad that he killed them. The news spread like wildfire and everyone looked at Cheng as a son of a murderer." He paused for a moment. "He was bullied for it, he lost all his friends, thinking that he might do the same thing as his father did once he gets mad. As a friendly child from the very beginning, it was hard for him to adapt with the new treatment. He didn't do anything wrong but he felt like he also killed someone because of how he was treated."

"That's cruel, why did they treat him that way? He didn't do anything wrong."

"Who knows... people are just cruel by nature." Xiao Zhan shrugged. "There is a time when Cheng run away for a month and no one knows where he go. He came back after that and he change his perspective in life. Cheng didn't want to be look down to and so he started to act tough until everyone saw him like some sort of gangster and bully. He felt that it was better to be called that way than being addressed as a son of murderer. "He continued. "At first it was an act, a façade to cover his weak side until he gain popularity for fighting other gangs then he meet Choco and Milky who are known true bully in this school and then the rest is what you know."